It's Tetris Attack but because I'm so bad at it, I have the added shame of losing to Team Rocket.
I'm sure there still exists some embarrassing forum posts of me proclaiming Halo: Combat Evolved to be the greatest game ever made. I was young and easily impressed, though in my defense Halo felt like massive leap forward for console shooters at the time. Despite the very strong impression it left, I never got as deep into the Halo franchise as my friends did. Sure I played 2 and 3, but I didn't touch a Halo game again until Reach released for the PC version of The Master Chief Collection.
In a lot of ways, going back to Halo now feels like revisiting a childhood home. The halls and rooms may feel familiar, but age warps our perception of the past, making the experience just as alien as it is nostalgic. Was this room always so small, isn't the carpet different...? Did they really copy and paste this much geometry, was the assault rifle always trash?
Escaping the siege on the Pillar of Autumn, touching down on Halo for the first time, finding Keyes' horribly mutated and inhuman form; story beats and set pieces that take me back bookended by deeply flawed gameplay and poor level layouts that I apparently gave a huge pass in the early 2000s. The initial joys of pistol-whipping Grunts in the head and hearing the crunch of their skulls caving quickly dissipates when you remember how atrocious the AR is at anything further than mid-range. Excitement building as I remember how good the final escape sequence is in The Maw turns to foreboding as I get the Warthog stuck in a hallway like I'm god damn Austin Powers.
At its absolute worst, however, Halo is a sequence of repeating hallways that become disorientingly samey with combat encounters that rarely present a challenge any more complex than "we put a hell of a lot of dudes in this room." It starts to drag, but then you reach 343 Guilty Spark. The introduction to the Flood is one of the highlights of the entire game. Yet again you're infiltrating a Forerunner facility, and yet again you're probably expecting a series of rote firefights. But, things are different this time. The first few Covenant you encounter are fleeing for their lives, the rest are dead. You quickly come to accept that there is nothing here for you to point your gun at, just halls lined with corpses and painted in blood, and as you descend further into the facility, you start to feel as if you're delivering yourself to something horrible, incomprehensible.
Unfortunately, Halo wastes its greatest twist by making the Flood no damn fun to fight, and from this point on the rest of the game amounts to trudging your way backwards through several levels with the only real variation being that you now get to fight zombies. The Library catches a lot of shit, and rightfully so, but to be completely honest I don't think that level does anything that isn't emblematic of Halo's many flaws so much as it brings them to a scale that is impossible for even the most ardent defenders of the game to ignore. Thankfully, the final two levels (Keyes and The Maw) bring things back around again. Sure, they're just reusing large portions of levels you already played, but I am a sucker for stories that end where they began, and seeing the Covenant so overwhelmed with the havoc they've unleashed that neither side is at all concerned with you creates an excellent sense of urgency. This is no longer a battle between humanity and the Covenant, but rather the Covenant and the Flood. Your side already lost, and that occasional feeling of isolation you've felt during your journey has now become pure dread. You aren't just alone, you're the only one left. There's nothing to save here.
The parts of Halo that hold up for me are those more emotional elements. The story beats, the tension, the atmosphere. I still really like how the Forerunner facilities have this architecture that somewhat betrays the utilitarian nature of the instillation, they're both sterile yet somehow religious. Martin O'Donnell's score is as energetic and quiet as it needs to be, punctuating the action (or lack thereof) perfectly.
The Anniversary Edition features all new graphics, but I played with those off 90% of the time, only turning them on to find skulls and terminals that are only present in that version of the game. It impressive to me that you can hot swap between both versions with just the touch of a button, and that it only takes a few seconds to do so. The few bits I've seen of the updated graphics are.... I don't know, it's alright I guess. Not really a fan, I think Halo loses some of its visual personality despite obviously having more graphical fidelity in Anniversary mode.
My girlfriend and I played through all of Halo in co-op when it first came out, and while fooling around together after beating it I started humming the main theme. "Dun-dun-dun-dunnnnn, dun-dun-dah-dunnnnn..." She broke up with me. Greatest game of all time.
In a lot of ways, going back to Halo now feels like revisiting a childhood home. The halls and rooms may feel familiar, but age warps our perception of the past, making the experience just as alien as it is nostalgic. Was this room always so small, isn't the carpet different...? Did they really copy and paste this much geometry, was the assault rifle always trash?
Escaping the siege on the Pillar of Autumn, touching down on Halo for the first time, finding Keyes' horribly mutated and inhuman form; story beats and set pieces that take me back bookended by deeply flawed gameplay and poor level layouts that I apparently gave a huge pass in the early 2000s. The initial joys of pistol-whipping Grunts in the head and hearing the crunch of their skulls caving quickly dissipates when you remember how atrocious the AR is at anything further than mid-range. Excitement building as I remember how good the final escape sequence is in The Maw turns to foreboding as I get the Warthog stuck in a hallway like I'm god damn Austin Powers.
At its absolute worst, however, Halo is a sequence of repeating hallways that become disorientingly samey with combat encounters that rarely present a challenge any more complex than "we put a hell of a lot of dudes in this room." It starts to drag, but then you reach 343 Guilty Spark. The introduction to the Flood is one of the highlights of the entire game. Yet again you're infiltrating a Forerunner facility, and yet again you're probably expecting a series of rote firefights. But, things are different this time. The first few Covenant you encounter are fleeing for their lives, the rest are dead. You quickly come to accept that there is nothing here for you to point your gun at, just halls lined with corpses and painted in blood, and as you descend further into the facility, you start to feel as if you're delivering yourself to something horrible, incomprehensible.
Unfortunately, Halo wastes its greatest twist by making the Flood no damn fun to fight, and from this point on the rest of the game amounts to trudging your way backwards through several levels with the only real variation being that you now get to fight zombies. The Library catches a lot of shit, and rightfully so, but to be completely honest I don't think that level does anything that isn't emblematic of Halo's many flaws so much as it brings them to a scale that is impossible for even the most ardent defenders of the game to ignore. Thankfully, the final two levels (Keyes and The Maw) bring things back around again. Sure, they're just reusing large portions of levels you already played, but I am a sucker for stories that end where they began, and seeing the Covenant so overwhelmed with the havoc they've unleashed that neither side is at all concerned with you creates an excellent sense of urgency. This is no longer a battle between humanity and the Covenant, but rather the Covenant and the Flood. Your side already lost, and that occasional feeling of isolation you've felt during your journey has now become pure dread. You aren't just alone, you're the only one left. There's nothing to save here.
The parts of Halo that hold up for me are those more emotional elements. The story beats, the tension, the atmosphere. I still really like how the Forerunner facilities have this architecture that somewhat betrays the utilitarian nature of the instillation, they're both sterile yet somehow religious. Martin O'Donnell's score is as energetic and quiet as it needs to be, punctuating the action (or lack thereof) perfectly.
The Anniversary Edition features all new graphics, but I played with those off 90% of the time, only turning them on to find skulls and terminals that are only present in that version of the game. It impressive to me that you can hot swap between both versions with just the touch of a button, and that it only takes a few seconds to do so. The few bits I've seen of the updated graphics are.... I don't know, it's alright I guess. Not really a fan, I think Halo loses some of its visual personality despite obviously having more graphical fidelity in Anniversary mode.
My girlfriend and I played through all of Halo in co-op when it first came out, and while fooling around together after beating it I started humming the main theme. "Dun-dun-dun-dunnnnn, dun-dun-dah-dunnnnn..." She broke up with me. Greatest game of all time.
Hey, remember when The Wind Waker came out and a bunch of people got real weird and shitty about its art style? Well guess what, Nintendo made a Zelda game for ADULTS! That's right, NO KIDS ALLOWED, this isn't your baby sister's Zelda. Swords will BLEED!
Even at the time, Twilight Princess struck me as Nintendo bending the knee to fans who were upset that they never got to see the grim gritty Zelda Spaceworld 2000 demo fully realized as a proper entry in the series, a rare moment of the company acquiescing to fans. While The Wind Waker has been met with significant positivity on reappraisal (due in large part to the HD remake on the Wii U), at the time there was a very vocal contingent of Nintendo fans frothing at the mouth about how childish it looked. The aesthetic appeal of a game is largely subjective, but looking back at the "Celda" controversy, I think a significant amount of the blowback was borne from some weird mob mentality that meant it was never going to get a fair shake at the time.
"Celda" exhausted me. I had friends who bought into it, I read about it in magazines... It seemed like everyone disapproved of the game, and if I played it then they'd disapprove of me too. By the time Twilight Princess came out, I was completely uninterested in the series. Link is a wolf and travels around with a little gremlin? That's neat, I guess. I'm too busy over here getting all 326 routes of Shadow the Hedgehog knocked out because I'm a real gamer, so enjoy your RPG, nerds.
I finally decided to sit down and play it, and opted for the Gamecube version since I'd rather bore a hole in my skull than play with the Wii's motion controls. I didn't really have any expectations going in, I've never felt particularly strongly about Twilight Princess one way or the other, and now that I'm on the other side of it... it's pretty good! Doesn't break even my top five Zelda games, but I enjoyed myself.
Twilight Princess has some of the best 3D dungeons in the entire series. They're perfectly paced, intuitive enough that you'll never quite feel lost yet satisfied all the same when you solve a puzzle, and reward you with some of the most fun tools Link has earned across the entire franchise. That said, the hookshot does get a bit too much play, and other items like the excellent spinning top are underutilized. Combat is also expanded upon from the previous three games, allowing Link to approach encounters with a lot more versatility. Over the course of the game you'll learn a variety of moves that let Link circle around, flip over, and parry his foes. The further you progress, the more necessary it becomes to learn these skills, keeping combat both challenging and fun through the entire journey. However, Z-targeting (I guess L-Targeting on the Gamecube) feels a lot more wonky here. Especially when you're in the middle of a large mob, it's a lot more difficult than it ought to be singling out a specific target, which can result in some cheap hits that break the flow of combat.
The central gimmick in this game is of course Wolf Link, and it might just be one of the most underwhelming gimmicks in the series. As a wolf, Link can pick up and track scents, dig his way under obstacles, or call upon Midna to help him vault to higher places. Vaulting is contextual and cannot be used on-demand, and tracking and digging are very rote actions that are never employed in interesting ways. During the early parts of the game, you're trapped in Link's wolf form until you collect 16 tears of light, and there is similarly little variation in completing this task each time you're presented with it. Run around, kill some spiders, collect the tears. It's a time sink, pure and simple. After you break the curse later in the game, you're able to transform into a wolf at will, but the game still fails to do anything interesting with the form.
This tedium extends to Hyrule Field and the various subquests Link takes on between dungeons. Twilight Princess follows the typical Zelda gameplay loop of returning to the overworld with new tools in hand, opening up previously inaccessible pathways, and taking on quests either to provide small bonuses like pieces of heart or to progress the story. However, many of these quests are just kinda dull and one-note, and the overworld fails to make use of Link's tools in a way that feels as engaging as the dungeons you find them in. I usually like to hunt for every piece of heart in Zelda games, but as my time in Hyrule dragged on and on, I found myself far more compelled to hurry my way through it just to get back into a dungeon. As a consequence, this is the first Zelda in a long time that I didn't get 100% completion in, and I'm fine with that.
The one thing that does keep the overworld somewhat compelling are the characters you encounter. They're your typical Zelda weirdos, and while none of them quite come close to the absolute freaks of nature you meet in Termina, they're still a lot of fun to talk to. I also like how many characters look as if they've had pieces of their skull shaved away. Absolutely grotesque, more of that please. I also can't get over how expressive everyone is, there's some incredible facial animation work in this game, especially for Midna, which is appropriate given she's the character you spend most of your 40+ hour quest with. The story itself is also quite good for what it is, though it hardly breaks the mold. In fact, a lot of it reminds me of Ocarina, which seems to be Nintendo's intent given how much of Twilight Princess is decidedly reminiscent of that game.
Nearly two decades removed from "Celda" being a thing people said unironically, Twilight Princess is a pretty good game with some spectacular highs and tedious lows. A real middle-of-the-road adventure that is pleasing enough to spend 40 hours of my time on, even if it falls short of The Wind Waker on my list of favorite Zelda games. I bet I would absolutely hate it if I played it with motion controls, but who knows, maybe I'll check it out sometime when I'm willing to stomach Twilight Princess' overly long intro again. Might make for a fun second quest, best case.
Even at the time, Twilight Princess struck me as Nintendo bending the knee to fans who were upset that they never got to see the grim gritty Zelda Spaceworld 2000 demo fully realized as a proper entry in the series, a rare moment of the company acquiescing to fans. While The Wind Waker has been met with significant positivity on reappraisal (due in large part to the HD remake on the Wii U), at the time there was a very vocal contingent of Nintendo fans frothing at the mouth about how childish it looked. The aesthetic appeal of a game is largely subjective, but looking back at the "Celda" controversy, I think a significant amount of the blowback was borne from some weird mob mentality that meant it was never going to get a fair shake at the time.
"Celda" exhausted me. I had friends who bought into it, I read about it in magazines... It seemed like everyone disapproved of the game, and if I played it then they'd disapprove of me too. By the time Twilight Princess came out, I was completely uninterested in the series. Link is a wolf and travels around with a little gremlin? That's neat, I guess. I'm too busy over here getting all 326 routes of Shadow the Hedgehog knocked out because I'm a real gamer, so enjoy your RPG, nerds.
I finally decided to sit down and play it, and opted for the Gamecube version since I'd rather bore a hole in my skull than play with the Wii's motion controls. I didn't really have any expectations going in, I've never felt particularly strongly about Twilight Princess one way or the other, and now that I'm on the other side of it... it's pretty good! Doesn't break even my top five Zelda games, but I enjoyed myself.
Twilight Princess has some of the best 3D dungeons in the entire series. They're perfectly paced, intuitive enough that you'll never quite feel lost yet satisfied all the same when you solve a puzzle, and reward you with some of the most fun tools Link has earned across the entire franchise. That said, the hookshot does get a bit too much play, and other items like the excellent spinning top are underutilized. Combat is also expanded upon from the previous three games, allowing Link to approach encounters with a lot more versatility. Over the course of the game you'll learn a variety of moves that let Link circle around, flip over, and parry his foes. The further you progress, the more necessary it becomes to learn these skills, keeping combat both challenging and fun through the entire journey. However, Z-targeting (I guess L-Targeting on the Gamecube) feels a lot more wonky here. Especially when you're in the middle of a large mob, it's a lot more difficult than it ought to be singling out a specific target, which can result in some cheap hits that break the flow of combat.
The central gimmick in this game is of course Wolf Link, and it might just be one of the most underwhelming gimmicks in the series. As a wolf, Link can pick up and track scents, dig his way under obstacles, or call upon Midna to help him vault to higher places. Vaulting is contextual and cannot be used on-demand, and tracking and digging are very rote actions that are never employed in interesting ways. During the early parts of the game, you're trapped in Link's wolf form until you collect 16 tears of light, and there is similarly little variation in completing this task each time you're presented with it. Run around, kill some spiders, collect the tears. It's a time sink, pure and simple. After you break the curse later in the game, you're able to transform into a wolf at will, but the game still fails to do anything interesting with the form.
This tedium extends to Hyrule Field and the various subquests Link takes on between dungeons. Twilight Princess follows the typical Zelda gameplay loop of returning to the overworld with new tools in hand, opening up previously inaccessible pathways, and taking on quests either to provide small bonuses like pieces of heart or to progress the story. However, many of these quests are just kinda dull and one-note, and the overworld fails to make use of Link's tools in a way that feels as engaging as the dungeons you find them in. I usually like to hunt for every piece of heart in Zelda games, but as my time in Hyrule dragged on and on, I found myself far more compelled to hurry my way through it just to get back into a dungeon. As a consequence, this is the first Zelda in a long time that I didn't get 100% completion in, and I'm fine with that.
The one thing that does keep the overworld somewhat compelling are the characters you encounter. They're your typical Zelda weirdos, and while none of them quite come close to the absolute freaks of nature you meet in Termina, they're still a lot of fun to talk to. I also like how many characters look as if they've had pieces of their skull shaved away. Absolutely grotesque, more of that please. I also can't get over how expressive everyone is, there's some incredible facial animation work in this game, especially for Midna, which is appropriate given she's the character you spend most of your 40+ hour quest with. The story itself is also quite good for what it is, though it hardly breaks the mold. In fact, a lot of it reminds me of Ocarina, which seems to be Nintendo's intent given how much of Twilight Princess is decidedly reminiscent of that game.
Nearly two decades removed from "Celda" being a thing people said unironically, Twilight Princess is a pretty good game with some spectacular highs and tedious lows. A real middle-of-the-road adventure that is pleasing enough to spend 40 hours of my time on, even if it falls short of The Wind Waker on my list of favorite Zelda games. I bet I would absolutely hate it if I played it with motion controls, but who knows, maybe I'll check it out sometime when I'm willing to stomach Twilight Princess' overly long intro again. Might make for a fun second quest, best case.
1999
Pokemon Snap exists in the same bubble as Pokemon Stadium, both being from a very early period in the franchise where seeing your favorite Pokemon in 3D was still novel. Whereas Stadium largely depicted Pokemon from the narrow viewpoint of battling, Snap lets you see them in their natural habitat, just being Pokemon. You can observe them forging for food, chasing prey, bathing... yeah and then you can take pictures of them... yeeeah...
Uh, I mean, it's all strictly for scientific purposes! Everything is on the up-and-up in Professor Oak's lab, yes sir.
Pokemon Stadium easily makes my list of games best enjoyed during the Summer. It's barely a game at all, it's almost entirely vibes, the sort of thing you play when it's sweltering out, AC on full blast and sitting in front of a buzzing CRT. Every level is on rails, and your only task is to take pictures of as many Pokemon as you can, with each snapshot rated on certain criteria like how close to the center of the frame the Pokemon is, or whether or not the pose you got from them was unique. The only other things you do is throw fruit at and gas Pokemon. Again, it's for scientific purposes.
Whereas Stadium presented a narrow part of the Game Boy games on a larger scale, Snap gave us something that players had yet to really see outside of the anime. It was a lot of fun just seeing these little bastards interact, or pelting them in the face with apples and watching them go all googly-eyed from blunt force trauma. Different events would play out depending on whether you could coral a Pokemon to a certain location, triggering evolutions or changing your route through a level, even unlocking new levels or causing legendary Pokemon to appear in the process. It gave you a good reason to go back through each of the courses over and over again, just to see what new things you could trigger on each run.
While it's still perfectly enjoyable today, I think some of that charm might be lost on people who experienced Pokemon well after the fact. A lot of the novelty of Snap was due to the core series being on a handheld that was extremely rudimentary compared to its console contemporary, which itself could still only do so much. Of course, being able to save the photos you took and taking the cart to a Blockbuster to then print them out is another element of this game that's kind of lost to time. Snap absolutely holds up, but it was incredibly special in the moment.
I also really love the presentation. The music is very cheerful, and the whole game has a very carefree attitude. Even when Oak is laying waste to your photos and asking if you've even heard of the rule of thirds, you never feel like the game is asking anything more of you than to just have fun. Did find it a little weird when Oak asked me to do surveillance on his wife, though.
Uh, I mean, it's all strictly for scientific purposes! Everything is on the up-and-up in Professor Oak's lab, yes sir.
Pokemon Stadium easily makes my list of games best enjoyed during the Summer. It's barely a game at all, it's almost entirely vibes, the sort of thing you play when it's sweltering out, AC on full blast and sitting in front of a buzzing CRT. Every level is on rails, and your only task is to take pictures of as many Pokemon as you can, with each snapshot rated on certain criteria like how close to the center of the frame the Pokemon is, or whether or not the pose you got from them was unique. The only other things you do is throw fruit at and gas Pokemon. Again, it's for scientific purposes.
Whereas Stadium presented a narrow part of the Game Boy games on a larger scale, Snap gave us something that players had yet to really see outside of the anime. It was a lot of fun just seeing these little bastards interact, or pelting them in the face with apples and watching them go all googly-eyed from blunt force trauma. Different events would play out depending on whether you could coral a Pokemon to a certain location, triggering evolutions or changing your route through a level, even unlocking new levels or causing legendary Pokemon to appear in the process. It gave you a good reason to go back through each of the courses over and over again, just to see what new things you could trigger on each run.
While it's still perfectly enjoyable today, I think some of that charm might be lost on people who experienced Pokemon well after the fact. A lot of the novelty of Snap was due to the core series being on a handheld that was extremely rudimentary compared to its console contemporary, which itself could still only do so much. Of course, being able to save the photos you took and taking the cart to a Blockbuster to then print them out is another element of this game that's kind of lost to time. Snap absolutely holds up, but it was incredibly special in the moment.
I also really love the presentation. The music is very cheerful, and the whole game has a very carefree attitude. Even when Oak is laying waste to your photos and asking if you've even heard of the rule of thirds, you never feel like the game is asking anything more of you than to just have fun. Did find it a little weird when Oak asked me to do surveillance on his wife, though.
1999
Oh bananas...
It was Christmas 1999 when I got my Nintnedo 64, the second home console I ever owned. I was no stranger to the system, in fact I was the last person on my block to get one, but my mom was up to her eyeballs in student loan debt while trying to raise two kids, we weren't exactly a household that could afford to keep current on technology. My ceaseless begging finally wore her down, and she pinched every penny should could just to make me happy. Jungle green with a copy of Donkey Kong 64 and a (MANDATORY) expansion pak. I was thrilled, to say the least.
I got the console all set up on the living room TV, my mom watching as I powered it on and the DK Rap started up... "C'mon Cranky, kick it to the fridge!" I felt fucking mortified. The only other time I was so embarrassed about a piece of media that I didn't even want my own mother to know I was experiencing it was when she rented me Batman & Robin. But, alright, whatever. It's just a corny intro song, and I'm like, 12. Big deal.
Then Candy Kong came on the screen. God damnit. Son of a bitch.
Because money was so tight, Donkey Kong 64 was one of only two N64 games I actually owned at the time the console was being actively supported (the other being Pokemon Stadium.) That meant I played a whole lot of Donkey Kong, and I didn't even particularly enjoy it. I still played plenty of other games for the system, mostly on rental, at my friend's house, or when visiting my grandpa, but the few games I actually owned and could experience at my own leisure were of course the ones that got the most play. Obviously I've kept the cart with me all these years, as well as my jungle green N64, cherishing them as reminders of what my mom had to sacrifice so her spoiled brat of a son could enjoy his stupid monkey game, but it had been about twenty years since I played this game last. Who knows, maybe I'd like it more?
Not really, but I did do a couple things to make this playthrough more tolerable than the last: not going for 100% completion and listening to a whole lot of Art Bell in the background while I played. Fungi Forest is infinitely more enjoyable when you only need to go there for two or three golden bananas, and listening to Art talk about Mel's Hole provides enough of a distraction to keep yourself grounded. That's especially important, as attentively playing this game will activate you, give you the mind of a killer.
Rare reached their apotheosis with collectathons in DK64, and not only is there just too damn much stuff to collect, it's all strewn about haphazardly. Levels are designed in completely illogical ways, so much so that even one of them (Frantic Factory) is straight-up non-euclidean. There's no flow to them, you're never able to fall into a satisfying rhythm, some would say they have no style, no grace. In the middle of an area designed for Chunky Kong you might have like, five red bananas in a corner that only Diddy can pick up, so you have to run all the way to a hotswap barrel and go back as Diddy so you won't forget about them later, then run back and swap over to Chunky again so you can finish what you were doing. It's inconvenient, but take that one example and blow it up over the course of the entire game with all its different collectables (the keys, the coins, the golden bananas, the regular bananas...) and you have a mess. Buried beneath all the slop is a game that could've been more focused, allowing players to swap characters on the fly, with far fewer tools and pads and switches and gates to manage, making for a much more streamlined experience. In the late 90s, Rare was simply incapable of making such a game, evidently knowing only how to pile more crap on.
The nicest thing I can say about Donkey Kong 64 is that only 100 of the 201 golden bananas are required to beat the game. I have not factored in how many keys and coins you need, I refuse to do the monkey math on that. When you're gunning for the credits and nothing but, it's a much more enjoyable experience because you can cherry pick what parts you actually want to play. You don't have to do the slide races if you don't want to, nobody is forcing you to play all of Donkey Kong 64. Not really much of a compliment though when the most positive quality of a game is being able to play less of it. But as I was cruising through Creepy Castle, Art Bell keeping me calm and collected, I thought "this isn't so bad. I'll be done soon and then I can play a good video game."
Caller: "Art, why don't you have somebody-- I know you're connected with somebody that's got radar available. Radar would be the way to go to find out the depth."
Art: "How about a cop's radar?"
Caller: "I'm not sure they'll return an echo off of that. It's possible."
Mel: "It'd tell you how fast the hole is going, wouldn't it?"
If you're from a younger generation that didn't grow up with this game - a Zoomer or whatever future generation finds this review in like 2040 - and your familiarity with DK64 is the elements that have been memed to death, like the DK Rap, or Grant Kirkhope's "oh-kay" and "ohh ba-na-na," then heed my warning: None of those things are good enough to justify experiencing this game first-hand, they can all be enjoyed in a vacuum. This is my "just say no to drugs" speech. You might think Lanky Kong is a funny looking freak, but he's not worth experiencing 20 hours at minimum of one of the worst games from a major Nintendo partner ever released for any of their consoles. Oh sure, you might think it's funny every now and then when you see something you recognize, but I guarantee you that most of your time is going to be spent running around looking for five different colors of bananas feeling like you've just had your entire frontal lobe removed. Drooling all over yourself mumbling about Banana Faries... is that how you want your family to find you?
I'd like to take a copy of this game and throw it down Mel's hole. Maybe it'll come back as something better... Or maybe something worse.
It was Christmas 1999 when I got my Nintnedo 64, the second home console I ever owned. I was no stranger to the system, in fact I was the last person on my block to get one, but my mom was up to her eyeballs in student loan debt while trying to raise two kids, we weren't exactly a household that could afford to keep current on technology. My ceaseless begging finally wore her down, and she pinched every penny should could just to make me happy. Jungle green with a copy of Donkey Kong 64 and a (MANDATORY) expansion pak. I was thrilled, to say the least.
I got the console all set up on the living room TV, my mom watching as I powered it on and the DK Rap started up... "C'mon Cranky, kick it to the fridge!" I felt fucking mortified. The only other time I was so embarrassed about a piece of media that I didn't even want my own mother to know I was experiencing it was when she rented me Batman & Robin. But, alright, whatever. It's just a corny intro song, and I'm like, 12. Big deal.
Then Candy Kong came on the screen. God damnit. Son of a bitch.
Because money was so tight, Donkey Kong 64 was one of only two N64 games I actually owned at the time the console was being actively supported (the other being Pokemon Stadium.) That meant I played a whole lot of Donkey Kong, and I didn't even particularly enjoy it. I still played plenty of other games for the system, mostly on rental, at my friend's house, or when visiting my grandpa, but the few games I actually owned and could experience at my own leisure were of course the ones that got the most play. Obviously I've kept the cart with me all these years, as well as my jungle green N64, cherishing them as reminders of what my mom had to sacrifice so her spoiled brat of a son could enjoy his stupid monkey game, but it had been about twenty years since I played this game last. Who knows, maybe I'd like it more?
Not really, but I did do a couple things to make this playthrough more tolerable than the last: not going for 100% completion and listening to a whole lot of Art Bell in the background while I played. Fungi Forest is infinitely more enjoyable when you only need to go there for two or three golden bananas, and listening to Art talk about Mel's Hole provides enough of a distraction to keep yourself grounded. That's especially important, as attentively playing this game will activate you, give you the mind of a killer.
Rare reached their apotheosis with collectathons in DK64, and not only is there just too damn much stuff to collect, it's all strewn about haphazardly. Levels are designed in completely illogical ways, so much so that even one of them (Frantic Factory) is straight-up non-euclidean. There's no flow to them, you're never able to fall into a satisfying rhythm, some would say they have no style, no grace. In the middle of an area designed for Chunky Kong you might have like, five red bananas in a corner that only Diddy can pick up, so you have to run all the way to a hotswap barrel and go back as Diddy so you won't forget about them later, then run back and swap over to Chunky again so you can finish what you were doing. It's inconvenient, but take that one example and blow it up over the course of the entire game with all its different collectables (the keys, the coins, the golden bananas, the regular bananas...) and you have a mess. Buried beneath all the slop is a game that could've been more focused, allowing players to swap characters on the fly, with far fewer tools and pads and switches and gates to manage, making for a much more streamlined experience. In the late 90s, Rare was simply incapable of making such a game, evidently knowing only how to pile more crap on.
The nicest thing I can say about Donkey Kong 64 is that only 100 of the 201 golden bananas are required to beat the game. I have not factored in how many keys and coins you need, I refuse to do the monkey math on that. When you're gunning for the credits and nothing but, it's a much more enjoyable experience because you can cherry pick what parts you actually want to play. You don't have to do the slide races if you don't want to, nobody is forcing you to play all of Donkey Kong 64. Not really much of a compliment though when the most positive quality of a game is being able to play less of it. But as I was cruising through Creepy Castle, Art Bell keeping me calm and collected, I thought "this isn't so bad. I'll be done soon and then I can play a good video game."
Caller: "Art, why don't you have somebody-- I know you're connected with somebody that's got radar available. Radar would be the way to go to find out the depth."
Art: "How about a cop's radar?"
Caller: "I'm not sure they'll return an echo off of that. It's possible."
Mel: "It'd tell you how fast the hole is going, wouldn't it?"
If you're from a younger generation that didn't grow up with this game - a Zoomer or whatever future generation finds this review in like 2040 - and your familiarity with DK64 is the elements that have been memed to death, like the DK Rap, or Grant Kirkhope's "oh-kay" and "ohh ba-na-na," then heed my warning: None of those things are good enough to justify experiencing this game first-hand, they can all be enjoyed in a vacuum. This is my "just say no to drugs" speech. You might think Lanky Kong is a funny looking freak, but he's not worth experiencing 20 hours at minimum of one of the worst games from a major Nintendo partner ever released for any of their consoles. Oh sure, you might think it's funny every now and then when you see something you recognize, but I guarantee you that most of your time is going to be spent running around looking for five different colors of bananas feeling like you've just had your entire frontal lobe removed. Drooling all over yourself mumbling about Banana Faries... is that how you want your family to find you?
I'd like to take a copy of this game and throw it down Mel's hole. Maybe it'll come back as something better... Or maybe something worse.
1992
Let's talk about sports.
I'm pretty sure Sports Talk Baseball and Road Rash 2 were both carts I got from my dad when he left his Sega Genesis with me. There was a good stretch where those were the only two games I had besides Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and between them Sports Talk got the most play. Why, you may ask? Oh, I'm sorry, I don't strike you as someone who's into sports?
You'd be correct. I played this so much because if you hit a homerun then you get to see a little picture of Sonic on the score board, and nothing made my adolescent mind more stupid than seeing a picture of Sonic.
As far as 16-bit baseball games go, Sports Talk is pretty alright mmmaybe(??), I don't know. It's not like I've played very many baseball games to compare it to, 16-bit or otherwise. The main gimmick here is that every game has commentary. Back in 92, having your games actually talk was incredibly novel, especially for a sports game that would otherwise be very dry. The voice samples are of course compressed, though they're also a lot cleaner than I'd expect from something like this, and there's quite a bit of soundbites crammed into the cart.
I bought this almost CIB for around ten bucks, it's missing a little leaflet that has a bunch of player stats on it. Stats are pretty important for these kinds of games, especially ones based on real players from real teams, but I never paid any attention to that shit. I throw the ball, I hit the ball. Sometimes I even catch the ball. I replayed this for the first time in nearly 30 years and shut it off the second I got a homerun. I saw Sonic. End of game.
I'm pretty sure Sports Talk Baseball and Road Rash 2 were both carts I got from my dad when he left his Sega Genesis with me. There was a good stretch where those were the only two games I had besides Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and between them Sports Talk got the most play. Why, you may ask? Oh, I'm sorry, I don't strike you as someone who's into sports?
You'd be correct. I played this so much because if you hit a homerun then you get to see a little picture of Sonic on the score board, and nothing made my adolescent mind more stupid than seeing a picture of Sonic.
As far as 16-bit baseball games go, Sports Talk is pretty alright mmmaybe(??), I don't know. It's not like I've played very many baseball games to compare it to, 16-bit or otherwise. The main gimmick here is that every game has commentary. Back in 92, having your games actually talk was incredibly novel, especially for a sports game that would otherwise be very dry. The voice samples are of course compressed, though they're also a lot cleaner than I'd expect from something like this, and there's quite a bit of soundbites crammed into the cart.
I bought this almost CIB for around ten bucks, it's missing a little leaflet that has a bunch of player stats on it. Stats are pretty important for these kinds of games, especially ones based on real players from real teams, but I never paid any attention to that shit. I throw the ball, I hit the ball. Sometimes I even catch the ball. I replayed this for the first time in nearly 30 years and shut it off the second I got a homerun. I saw Sonic. End of game.
Soma Cruz, Soma Cruz, que um dia...
I'm evidently hellbent on burning any good will I've built on this site, so now's as good a time as any to talk about Aria of Sorrow, a game I don't like very much... Sorry!
I've actually been dreading reviewing this, because I think my issues with Aria are too nebulous to really put into words. You ever sit down with a game, open a book, or watch a movie that you know you don't like but you cannot define what it is in any certain terms that puts you off of it? That's Aria for me. I can say things like "well the castle design isn't great, I don't like how it's laid out," or "I think the Tactical Soul system is too grindy and I'd prefer normal subweapons," but like... ok, why?
I've talked before about how I think Aria is the worst of the GBA trilogy, I've given it a mediocre score, but I'm not sure I can provide a deep dive into how exactly this game lost me. I just see it and I think "nope, I don't want any more of that thank you." Or more accurately I think "why can't I like you?" Perhaps this is just a consequence of trying to review games I played two years ago, sometimes my memories of them get a bit scattered but my feelings remain mostly unchanged. I like to think that when I give a review that runs contrary to popular opinion I at least back them up well enough with specific points that explain why I feel differently, but there's some weird crap going on with May through June 2020 where some games fell flat and I can't explain why. Maybe I was just forcing myself to play stuff, maybe these games were never going to get a fair shake.
Anyway, I do know that I just don't find Aria's castle layout to be fun to navigate. The Tactical Soul system did feel too grindy to me, but I also liked collecting cards in Circle of the Moon so... go figure. There's a larger emphasis on story and character growth in Aria and I just think most of it isn't good, I don't find any of the characters particularly likeable and I never found myself able to get invested in the narrative. Once again I am going to complain as well about the god awful sounds the Game Boy Advance makes whenever you try to enjoy a game, and the graphics in Aria are even more washed out and garish than Harmony. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make a stronger case for not enjoying these elements other than to tell you I didn't enjoy them.
I got a Retropie a few years ago and decided to throw together a list of 250 retro games I wanted to play, mostly ones that passed me by or that I played before and never finished. I've been retroactively reviewing each game in order of completion, and you can track those reviews here if you'd like. In the case of the GBA Castlevanias, this was my first time playing each of them. While I think that, for the most part, these are decent Castlevanias to have on the go, they also represent a part of the franchise that I simply don't have a strong affinity for. I probably won't play any of them again, I just don't feel strongly enough to put them in the same annual rotation as Super Castlevania IV, Rondo of Blood, or Symphony of the Night.
I'm evidently hellbent on burning any good will I've built on this site, so now's as good a time as any to talk about Aria of Sorrow, a game I don't like very much... Sorry!
I've actually been dreading reviewing this, because I think my issues with Aria are too nebulous to really put into words. You ever sit down with a game, open a book, or watch a movie that you know you don't like but you cannot define what it is in any certain terms that puts you off of it? That's Aria for me. I can say things like "well the castle design isn't great, I don't like how it's laid out," or "I think the Tactical Soul system is too grindy and I'd prefer normal subweapons," but like... ok, why?
I've talked before about how I think Aria is the worst of the GBA trilogy, I've given it a mediocre score, but I'm not sure I can provide a deep dive into how exactly this game lost me. I just see it and I think "nope, I don't want any more of that thank you." Or more accurately I think "why can't I like you?" Perhaps this is just a consequence of trying to review games I played two years ago, sometimes my memories of them get a bit scattered but my feelings remain mostly unchanged. I like to think that when I give a review that runs contrary to popular opinion I at least back them up well enough with specific points that explain why I feel differently, but there's some weird crap going on with May through June 2020 where some games fell flat and I can't explain why. Maybe I was just forcing myself to play stuff, maybe these games were never going to get a fair shake.
Anyway, I do know that I just don't find Aria's castle layout to be fun to navigate. The Tactical Soul system did feel too grindy to me, but I also liked collecting cards in Circle of the Moon so... go figure. There's a larger emphasis on story and character growth in Aria and I just think most of it isn't good, I don't find any of the characters particularly likeable and I never found myself able to get invested in the narrative. Once again I am going to complain as well about the god awful sounds the Game Boy Advance makes whenever you try to enjoy a game, and the graphics in Aria are even more washed out and garish than Harmony. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make a stronger case for not enjoying these elements other than to tell you I didn't enjoy them.
I got a Retropie a few years ago and decided to throw together a list of 250 retro games I wanted to play, mostly ones that passed me by or that I played before and never finished. I've been retroactively reviewing each game in order of completion, and you can track those reviews here if you'd like. In the case of the GBA Castlevanias, this was my first time playing each of them. While I think that, for the most part, these are decent Castlevanias to have on the go, they also represent a part of the franchise that I simply don't have a strong affinity for. I probably won't play any of them again, I just don't feel strongly enough to put them in the same annual rotation as Super Castlevania IV, Rondo of Blood, or Symphony of the Night.
Harmony of Dissonance is very characteristic of other games I played around mid-2020 in that few of them really failed to land with me, but I think they're perfectly fine games that don't do anything egregiously wrong. I just felt like I was playing this one to have something to do.
I think the conventional ranking of GBA Castlevanias is that each one was better than the last, but as we've previously established, I'm a psychopath and I rank them in reverse. That said, perhaps we can all share some common ground here in thinking Harmony sits in the middle, as inoffensive as it is unoriginal, just doing the Symphony of the Night thing as well enough as you'd hope on a system as small as the GBA. It's not breaking new ground, but it's competent.
I think my two biggest complaints are aesthetic and a consequence of the system it's on. The sound is atrocious, but I've also yet to play a single GBA game I didn't find grating to listen to. The sprite work largely seems to be a reaction to Circle of the Moon, which at times was very hard to read given its darker color pallet and the lack of proper backlighting on the GBA. The solution was to brighten everything up, give Harmony a more vibrant pallet, and slap a blue outline around Juste so you never lose track of where he's at. On the GBA this looks more or less fine, and it certainly helps with the game's playability if you're on a model that lacks screen illumination, but if you're playing it on a TV like I did, it just looks kinda garish. I have a hard time knocking the game too much for this because I totally understand why they needed to do it, and it's hardly Harmony's fault that I chose not to play it on the hardware it was intended for.
Harmony is a decent game. It's good. I liked it. I also just don't feel very passionate about it at all. It's one of those games you play and go "yeah I had fun with that!" but will probably never revisit.
I think the conventional ranking of GBA Castlevanias is that each one was better than the last, but as we've previously established, I'm a psychopath and I rank them in reverse. That said, perhaps we can all share some common ground here in thinking Harmony sits in the middle, as inoffensive as it is unoriginal, just doing the Symphony of the Night thing as well enough as you'd hope on a system as small as the GBA. It's not breaking new ground, but it's competent.
I think my two biggest complaints are aesthetic and a consequence of the system it's on. The sound is atrocious, but I've also yet to play a single GBA game I didn't find grating to listen to. The sprite work largely seems to be a reaction to Circle of the Moon, which at times was very hard to read given its darker color pallet and the lack of proper backlighting on the GBA. The solution was to brighten everything up, give Harmony a more vibrant pallet, and slap a blue outline around Juste so you never lose track of where he's at. On the GBA this looks more or less fine, and it certainly helps with the game's playability if you're on a model that lacks screen illumination, but if you're playing it on a TV like I did, it just looks kinda garish. I have a hard time knocking the game too much for this because I totally understand why they needed to do it, and it's hardly Harmony's fault that I chose not to play it on the hardware it was intended for.
Harmony is a decent game. It's good. I liked it. I also just don't feel very passionate about it at all. It's one of those games you play and go "yeah I had fun with that!" but will probably never revisit.
Apparently I am a contrarian dipshit, and my feelings about Thousand Year Door will not rehabilitate that image. I know people really love this game, it's considered one of the strongest titles on the Gamecube and the best entry in the Paper Mario series, but man, I'm just not feeling it.
My thoughts on it aren't particularly complex, I don't have a lengthy teardown of precisely why the game didn't resonate with me, it just didn't. It's overly long with too much backtracking, dungeon gimmicks generally disinterested me, I couldn't get into the story, and aesthetically I think the leap in fidelity hurts more than it helps.
It's still a fine game. I don't hate it. I think the wrestling section is incredibly funny and well executed, definitely a highlight and probably the closest I got to really feeling as invested in the game as everyone else seems to be, but it just failed to rope me in otherwise. A real shame given how much I liked Paper Mario.
(11/8/22) Editing this into the review: I think my complaint about the aesthetic could be elaborated on a bit more: The original Paper Mario is very blocky as a consequence of being a Nintendo 64 game, and the very rudimentary shapes and hard edges that comprise geometry helps sell the papercraft aesthetic. The Thousand Year Door I think loses some of this with the bump in polygons. It's not bad by any means but between the two games I've played I definitely prefer the look of the original.
My thoughts on it aren't particularly complex, I don't have a lengthy teardown of precisely why the game didn't resonate with me, it just didn't. It's overly long with too much backtracking, dungeon gimmicks generally disinterested me, I couldn't get into the story, and aesthetically I think the leap in fidelity hurts more than it helps.
It's still a fine game. I don't hate it. I think the wrestling section is incredibly funny and well executed, definitely a highlight and probably the closest I got to really feeling as invested in the game as everyone else seems to be, but it just failed to rope me in otherwise. A real shame given how much I liked Paper Mario.
(11/8/22) Editing this into the review: I think my complaint about the aesthetic could be elaborated on a bit more: The original Paper Mario is very blocky as a consequence of being a Nintendo 64 game, and the very rudimentary shapes and hard edges that comprise geometry helps sell the papercraft aesthetic. The Thousand Year Door I think loses some of this with the bump in polygons. It's not bad by any means but between the two games I've played I definitely prefer the look of the original.
1995
I think this is the one with Launch Octopus? No, wait, that's X2, this is the one with Wire Sponge... Right?
I think Mega Man X3 is better than X1 but not quite as good as X2, but honestly given how much these games blur together for me that assessment might probably change on a replay. I'm grasping at vague feelings about these games I knocked out in single sittings two years ago, and also I like Streets of Rage 3, so my opinion on third entries in a series is already pretty suspect.
You can play as Zero though, which is probably the strongest element of the game, and it features my favorite Robot Master from the *X* series, Wheel Gator.
I think Mega Man X3 is better than X1 but not quite as good as X2, but honestly given how much these games blur together for me that assessment might probably change on a replay. I'm grasping at vague feelings about these games I knocked out in single sittings two years ago, and also I like Streets of Rage 3, so my opinion on third entries in a series is already pretty suspect.
You can play as Zero though, which is probably the strongest element of the game, and it features my favorite Robot Master from the *X* series, Wheel Gator.
1999
"Let's get sweaty."
Shenmue is a game about revenge, about losing yourself to grief and shutting out those around you who care about you most. It's also a game about Fantasy Zone and Hang On and feeding cats. A bizarre mix of heavy themes counterbalanced by pissing your time playing darts. I think the perfect example of this dichotomy during my playthrough was towards the end of Ryo's adventure. I finished up one of my last shifts as a forklift operator and had a few hours to kill, so I took my earnings and spent hours collecting Sonic the Hedgehog gacha toys. By the time I got home my girlfriend was kidnapped by a biker gang. Sorry, Nozomi. I guess I was just a little too busy...
Shenmue's gameplay loop revolves around a calendar system, where each hour in the day takes about four real-time minutes to elapse. You'll spend much of your time asking questions around town, gathering clues about your father's murder, and tracking the whereabouts of his killer, Lan Di. When not actively working the investigation, Ryo has to pass time by engaging in small side activities or staring at his watch in the middle of the rain for several hours until it's finally time to go to bed.
The first half of the game balances story beats and free time pretty well, allowing you to move through the game at your own pace. However, by about the point you need to get a ticket to Hong Kong, story progression slows to a crawl. You'll start hitting events where you get only a small amount of story content, often being told to come back the next day for more. Guess you have 12 hours to kill (48 real world minutes for those that don't want to do the math), so you're gonna have to fill some time. Unfortunately, a lot of Shenmue's side activities just don't hold up, and there's not enough of it to make what is otherwise a 20 hour long game feel any less interminable than simply waiting out the clock. I could go play a very bad video game approximation of darts or, like, I can go into the other room and watch videos of cats eating corn. Which do you think I'm going to do? If anything, Shenmue is a great game to play if you need to catch up on some reading.
Occasionally you'll be thrown into an action sequence, which usually plays out through a quick time event (which was novel for 1999) or free combat, which feels like it was designed by someone who played about an hour of Virtua Fighter once while drunk and had to code it from memory. Most fights involve multiple opponents, and the way Ryo prioritizes who to swing at feels at odds with your inputs. Enemies also love to position themselves in front of the camera, which makes it difficult to keep track of Ryo, and I found some of the combo inputs to be very finicky to pull off when you're actually in a fight.
By the time you hit the third act, the game seems almost self-aware about how monotonous it is and tells you to get a damn job. Ryo is a forklift operator now, and when you're not moving boxes around between warehouses in a minigame that seems designed to test basic neurological function, you get to RACE FORKLIFTS! Forklift races, guys! Hey girls and gamers, do you like racing forklifts? I don't!! The only reason people remember this as fondly as they do is because it's the one shining ray of absurdity cutting through this boringass game. The whole rest of this third act not spent on doing menial work and racing forklifts keeps you trapped on the docks, limiting the amount of activities you can engage in to pass time. Shenmue depressingly transitions from a game that lets you freely explore the story and Ryo's personal life at your own pace to one that rigidly locks you in to set activities at set times.
And then it just... kinda ends. See, Shenmue is just a prologue. An extremely long prologue, but a prologue nonetheless. You don't fight Lan Di at the end, there's no real resolution, just a lot of setup for what's to come. Shenmue closes with Ryo saying goodbye to his family and friends, setting out to China determined to see revenge through to its ugly conclusion. Despite a few moments of regret and introspection, he doesn't really grow because his adventure is just beginning. The game explicitly tells you as much right before the credits role, making it all the more apparent that - at least in theory - you just played the first part of a very long story that will probably get exciting later. Maybe. If you all buy Shemue II it might happen! Oh... oh wait, no... oh crap. Those are the sales figures, huh? Well shiiiiit.
Despite all my criticisms, I feel that every part of this review ought to come with the biggest, fattest asterisk: this was all impressive as hell in 1999. There was nothing else out there like Shenmue, and you could tell Yu Suzuki and his team at AM2 had total confidence in the Dreamcast hardware and their engine. Being able to open every single dresser drawer in your house or hold up a (at that time) highly detailed render of an orange and just look at it was unprecedented. In a lot of ways Shenmue was a proof of concept for extremely minor gameplay elements that we take for granted today. What's even more wild is that Shenmue was originally envisioned as a Sega Saturn game, and there's even footage of an early Saturn build. This game is nothing if not ambitious, and though Yu Suzuki was ultimately unable to fully realize his vision for Shenmue, its legacy is carried on today by the extremely successful Yakuza series, though I'd personally argue its most accurate imitator is Deadly Premonition given how well (intentionally or otherwise) that game manages to capture some of Shenmue's more archaic elements.
However, all that ambition and influence doesn't change the fact that Shenmue does not hold up. It is perhaps the most "of its time" game, whose most brilliant qualities can only be appreciated by considering the time and place that it came out. I expect I'll get raked over the coals for this one given how passionate Shenmue fans are, but I want to stress that I understand how important this game is and what it means to people, and finding it wholly unenjoyable in 2022 shouldn't take away from that. Clearly. If you still want to come after me then I will be forced to botch a Swallow Flip, allowing you to mercilessly beat me until I cry.
I don't want to end this review without mentioning Giant Bomb's Endurance Run for Shenmue, which is an excellent alternative to actually playing this game. In all honesty, watching three grown men become absolutely broken by the experience is way more enjoyable than picking up a controller and trying to play it for yourself.
Shenmue is a game about revenge, about losing yourself to grief and shutting out those around you who care about you most. It's also a game about Fantasy Zone and Hang On and feeding cats. A bizarre mix of heavy themes counterbalanced by pissing your time playing darts. I think the perfect example of this dichotomy during my playthrough was towards the end of Ryo's adventure. I finished up one of my last shifts as a forklift operator and had a few hours to kill, so I took my earnings and spent hours collecting Sonic the Hedgehog gacha toys. By the time I got home my girlfriend was kidnapped by a biker gang. Sorry, Nozomi. I guess I was just a little too busy...
Shenmue's gameplay loop revolves around a calendar system, where each hour in the day takes about four real-time minutes to elapse. You'll spend much of your time asking questions around town, gathering clues about your father's murder, and tracking the whereabouts of his killer, Lan Di. When not actively working the investigation, Ryo has to pass time by engaging in small side activities or staring at his watch in the middle of the rain for several hours until it's finally time to go to bed.
The first half of the game balances story beats and free time pretty well, allowing you to move through the game at your own pace. However, by about the point you need to get a ticket to Hong Kong, story progression slows to a crawl. You'll start hitting events where you get only a small amount of story content, often being told to come back the next day for more. Guess you have 12 hours to kill (48 real world minutes for those that don't want to do the math), so you're gonna have to fill some time. Unfortunately, a lot of Shenmue's side activities just don't hold up, and there's not enough of it to make what is otherwise a 20 hour long game feel any less interminable than simply waiting out the clock. I could go play a very bad video game approximation of darts or, like, I can go into the other room and watch videos of cats eating corn. Which do you think I'm going to do? If anything, Shenmue is a great game to play if you need to catch up on some reading.
Occasionally you'll be thrown into an action sequence, which usually plays out through a quick time event (which was novel for 1999) or free combat, which feels like it was designed by someone who played about an hour of Virtua Fighter once while drunk and had to code it from memory. Most fights involve multiple opponents, and the way Ryo prioritizes who to swing at feels at odds with your inputs. Enemies also love to position themselves in front of the camera, which makes it difficult to keep track of Ryo, and I found some of the combo inputs to be very finicky to pull off when you're actually in a fight.
By the time you hit the third act, the game seems almost self-aware about how monotonous it is and tells you to get a damn job. Ryo is a forklift operator now, and when you're not moving boxes around between warehouses in a minigame that seems designed to test basic neurological function, you get to RACE FORKLIFTS! Forklift races, guys! Hey girls and gamers, do you like racing forklifts? I don't!! The only reason people remember this as fondly as they do is because it's the one shining ray of absurdity cutting through this boringass game. The whole rest of this third act not spent on doing menial work and racing forklifts keeps you trapped on the docks, limiting the amount of activities you can engage in to pass time. Shenmue depressingly transitions from a game that lets you freely explore the story and Ryo's personal life at your own pace to one that rigidly locks you in to set activities at set times.
And then it just... kinda ends. See, Shenmue is just a prologue. An extremely long prologue, but a prologue nonetheless. You don't fight Lan Di at the end, there's no real resolution, just a lot of setup for what's to come. Shenmue closes with Ryo saying goodbye to his family and friends, setting out to China determined to see revenge through to its ugly conclusion. Despite a few moments of regret and introspection, he doesn't really grow because his adventure is just beginning. The game explicitly tells you as much right before the credits role, making it all the more apparent that - at least in theory - you just played the first part of a very long story that will probably get exciting later. Maybe. If you all buy Shemue II it might happen! Oh... oh wait, no... oh crap. Those are the sales figures, huh? Well shiiiiit.
Despite all my criticisms, I feel that every part of this review ought to come with the biggest, fattest asterisk: this was all impressive as hell in 1999. There was nothing else out there like Shenmue, and you could tell Yu Suzuki and his team at AM2 had total confidence in the Dreamcast hardware and their engine. Being able to open every single dresser drawer in your house or hold up a (at that time) highly detailed render of an orange and just look at it was unprecedented. In a lot of ways Shenmue was a proof of concept for extremely minor gameplay elements that we take for granted today. What's even more wild is that Shenmue was originally envisioned as a Sega Saturn game, and there's even footage of an early Saturn build. This game is nothing if not ambitious, and though Yu Suzuki was ultimately unable to fully realize his vision for Shenmue, its legacy is carried on today by the extremely successful Yakuza series, though I'd personally argue its most accurate imitator is Deadly Premonition given how well (intentionally or otherwise) that game manages to capture some of Shenmue's more archaic elements.
However, all that ambition and influence doesn't change the fact that Shenmue does not hold up. It is perhaps the most "of its time" game, whose most brilliant qualities can only be appreciated by considering the time and place that it came out. I expect I'll get raked over the coals for this one given how passionate Shenmue fans are, but I want to stress that I understand how important this game is and what it means to people, and finding it wholly unenjoyable in 2022 shouldn't take away from that. Clearly. If you still want to come after me then I will be forced to botch a Swallow Flip, allowing you to mercilessly beat me until I cry.
I don't want to end this review without mentioning Giant Bomb's Endurance Run for Shenmue, which is an excellent alternative to actually playing this game. In all honesty, watching three grown men become absolutely broken by the experience is way more enjoyable than picking up a controller and trying to play it for yourself.
2000
The cool thing about renting cartridge games as a kid was that all your save data was locked to whatever cart you happened to pick up. Odds are you wouldn't grab the same one again, and if you did then you had even worse odds that the five or so people that rented it in the interim wouldn't have nuked your save. This was only really a problem in longer games like RPGs, which required more time to beat than a weekend would afford. I'm not sure how many times I've started Paper Mario, but it's a lot. I rented this game frequently just to play the first five or so hours, but I didn't really mind because, well, it's just really damn good.
A few years ago I accepted something that altered the very course of my entire life: I'm not going to retire. Once this truth is revealed to you, it allows you to do horrible things with what cash you have on hand, like buying Nintendo 64 games. I might work until I die and I'll never own a home, but at least I haveGlover Paper Mario!
Those opening few hours are indicative of the game as a whole, as Paper Mario never really misses a step. It's charming from the second you turn the power on to the moment you cut it off. Aesthetically, the paper style the game centers itself around holds up perfectly, arguably better than The Thousand Year Door which loses a bit of its adherence to the arts-and-crafts theming. There's something about the Nintendo 64 that makes it more suitable to this aesthetic than the Gamecube as well, I think because a lot of Paper Mario's contemporaries on the console were blocky blurry messes. By comparison, Paper Mario looks pretty sharp, and it even holds up better than other N64 games when being run through a Retrotink.
Combat is very similar to Super Mario RPG, which makes sense considering this game is a spiritual successor. However, everything about Mario RPG's combat is blown up here. Timed button presses are made even more crucial to pulling off successful attacks, and enemies require thoughtful approaches to dispatch. Partner characters all feel unique and well-defined, giving them clear advantages and disadvantages in battle and utility when traversing the overworld. This is all to say that I found combat a lot more engaging in Paper Mario, though it does wear thin towards the end of the game. Each fight may be its own little puzzle, but the solutions to that puzzle are often rudimentary, and what little challenge there is dissipates rather than builds the further you progress.
Even if you weren't some little freak who replayed the first five hours of this game over and over again as a child, I think Paper Mario remains one of the most unique experiences on the Nintendo 64 and one that everyone should check out. If you can get your hands on a cart and play it on a CRT, then I think that's where it shines the most, but it does look a damn sight better than most Nintendo 64 games when run through a decent upscaler. I think it's also available through the Switch's online N64 catalog, which is probably the easiest way to play it today considering how much loose carts go for. Fun fact: I paid about 20 dollars for mine just before the pandemic hit. It now sells for around 60-70$. Invest in a 401k? Please. Game stocks are only going up!
A few years ago I accepted something that altered the very course of my entire life: I'm not going to retire. Once this truth is revealed to you, it allows you to do horrible things with what cash you have on hand, like buying Nintendo 64 games. I might work until I die and I'll never own a home, but at least I have
Those opening few hours are indicative of the game as a whole, as Paper Mario never really misses a step. It's charming from the second you turn the power on to the moment you cut it off. Aesthetically, the paper style the game centers itself around holds up perfectly, arguably better than The Thousand Year Door which loses a bit of its adherence to the arts-and-crafts theming. There's something about the Nintendo 64 that makes it more suitable to this aesthetic than the Gamecube as well, I think because a lot of Paper Mario's contemporaries on the console were blocky blurry messes. By comparison, Paper Mario looks pretty sharp, and it even holds up better than other N64 games when being run through a Retrotink.
Combat is very similar to Super Mario RPG, which makes sense considering this game is a spiritual successor. However, everything about Mario RPG's combat is blown up here. Timed button presses are made even more crucial to pulling off successful attacks, and enemies require thoughtful approaches to dispatch. Partner characters all feel unique and well-defined, giving them clear advantages and disadvantages in battle and utility when traversing the overworld. This is all to say that I found combat a lot more engaging in Paper Mario, though it does wear thin towards the end of the game. Each fight may be its own little puzzle, but the solutions to that puzzle are often rudimentary, and what little challenge there is dissipates rather than builds the further you progress.
Even if you weren't some little freak who replayed the first five hours of this game over and over again as a child, I think Paper Mario remains one of the most unique experiences on the Nintendo 64 and one that everyone should check out. If you can get your hands on a cart and play it on a CRT, then I think that's where it shines the most, but it does look a damn sight better than most Nintendo 64 games when run through a decent upscaler. I think it's also available through the Switch's online N64 catalog, which is probably the easiest way to play it today considering how much loose carts go for. Fun fact: I paid about 20 dollars for mine just before the pandemic hit. It now sells for around 60-70$. Invest in a 401k? Please. Game stocks are only going up!
1998
Nothing is more frightening than a 50-turn game of Mario Party on Eternal Star with three so-called "hard" AI opponents. I hope you enjoy them constantly stealing your stars then throwing them away by intentionally visiting Bowser, because whoever built their AI was a god damn psychopath.
Mario Party is one of the few CIB Nintendo 64 games I own, and I got it at a pretty reasonable price. Still, I paid real money for it, more than any reasonable person should for Mario Party, and as always, if I bought it I gotta... I gotta finish it... I picked up a cheap bottle of whiskey (because there's no way I'm playing this game sober) and spent the last week getting hammered and tearing the flesh off my palm.
Right off the bat, Mario Party's greatest sin is its difficulty balancing, or lack thereof. It's similar in some ways to Mario Kart's rubber-banding, and I think borne from a similar design philosophy that if the player is winning for too long they'll get bored and turn the game off. I think most developers would look at that problem and probably think of some way to make winning just as engaging as clambering your way back to the top, but not Nintendo. Why craft a carefully balanced experience when you can just have the AI crack the player in the kneecaps with a pipe and rob them blind? In a way, Mario Party is reflective of Nintendo as a company. Oh, you're having fun? You're enjoying your video game? Not so fast, buddy!
The infuriating part is I can see how you could tweak the game as-is to make it feel less unfair. Just get rid of Chance Time spaces or have only one of them to reduce the frequency they're landed on and make it so you can't interact with Boo unless you land on the space directly in front of him. I don't even mind the bonus stars for minigame performance since those still seem to reward you for playing well, it's the ease of stealing stars and the computer's blatant cheating that make the game agonizing.
Well, that and the minigames. There's 50 total in the first Mario Party, which seems like a lot, 50 is a big number, but good luck not rerolling the same ones over and over again. Even at the bare minimum of 20 turns I have to play Shy Guys Says like, three times. Also, 50 minigames and not a single one of them is good. Incredible odds. Even setting aside how many require you to roll the analog stick around, none of them are particularly interesting or fun to play. Oh, it's the ice slide from Mario 64, but it feels worse. Oh, one player gets coins showered on them and occasionally one might roll off for you to catch, like a dog begging for scraps at the table. I'm ashamed to say the minigames were the main draw for me as a kid, but I think that was true of everyone else I knew. Nobody showed up to a Mario Party for the board game aspect, and if they did then I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that kid like, tortures animals or something.
I'm surprised how many people are rating this game so highly, a lot of them saying things like "man, the first Mario Party is so brutal, it just goes in on you with nothing but contempt!" Hey, fair enough, but I've never been viciously kicked in the balls and said "I value and respect your savagery. More please!" Instead, I just puke and lay down for a while. Just like when I play Mario Party.
Mario Party is one of the few CIB Nintendo 64 games I own, and I got it at a pretty reasonable price. Still, I paid real money for it, more than any reasonable person should for Mario Party, and as always, if I bought it I gotta... I gotta finish it... I picked up a cheap bottle of whiskey (because there's no way I'm playing this game sober) and spent the last week getting hammered and tearing the flesh off my palm.
Right off the bat, Mario Party's greatest sin is its difficulty balancing, or lack thereof. It's similar in some ways to Mario Kart's rubber-banding, and I think borne from a similar design philosophy that if the player is winning for too long they'll get bored and turn the game off. I think most developers would look at that problem and probably think of some way to make winning just as engaging as clambering your way back to the top, but not Nintendo. Why craft a carefully balanced experience when you can just have the AI crack the player in the kneecaps with a pipe and rob them blind? In a way, Mario Party is reflective of Nintendo as a company. Oh, you're having fun? You're enjoying your video game? Not so fast, buddy!
The infuriating part is I can see how you could tweak the game as-is to make it feel less unfair. Just get rid of Chance Time spaces or have only one of them to reduce the frequency they're landed on and make it so you can't interact with Boo unless you land on the space directly in front of him. I don't even mind the bonus stars for minigame performance since those still seem to reward you for playing well, it's the ease of stealing stars and the computer's blatant cheating that make the game agonizing.
Well, that and the minigames. There's 50 total in the first Mario Party, which seems like a lot, 50 is a big number, but good luck not rerolling the same ones over and over again. Even at the bare minimum of 20 turns I have to play Shy Guys Says like, three times. Also, 50 minigames and not a single one of them is good. Incredible odds. Even setting aside how many require you to roll the analog stick around, none of them are particularly interesting or fun to play. Oh, it's the ice slide from Mario 64, but it feels worse. Oh, one player gets coins showered on them and occasionally one might roll off for you to catch, like a dog begging for scraps at the table. I'm ashamed to say the minigames were the main draw for me as a kid, but I think that was true of everyone else I knew. Nobody showed up to a Mario Party for the board game aspect, and if they did then I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that kid like, tortures animals or something.
I'm surprised how many people are rating this game so highly, a lot of them saying things like "man, the first Mario Party is so brutal, it just goes in on you with nothing but contempt!" Hey, fair enough, but I've never been viciously kicked in the balls and said "I value and respect your savagery. More please!" Instead, I just puke and lay down for a while. Just like when I play Mario Party.
The flavor text for Devil May Cry 5 on the PS5 reads, in all caps: "DEVIL MAY CRY IS BACK, BABY!!" which is probably the most accurate summation anyone can give this thing. It's more Devil May Cry, and the first in the series since everyone's favorite punching bag DmC got knocked right off the chain and exploded into a cloud of acrid dust.
I probably shouldn't need to explain what Devil May Cry is. It's the grandfather of the character-action genre, and although the series took an 11 year hiatus, its legacy has been kept alive thanks to games like Vanquished and Bayonetta. Even if you've never played a Devil May Cry game, you probably know exactly what to expect from it: over-the-top combo driven action, ridiculous movesets, and extremely campy stories.
Where Devil May Cry 5 sets itself apart is in its maturity. That isn't to say DMC has become more grounded or less wacky or anything like that, but rather that Devil May Cry 5 feels like a suitable evolution of a series that has been around since the Playsation 2. It's so affirmed in its identity and design that there's scarcely a single area where it falters. The most experimental thing 5 does is give you three characters to play as, each with their own playstyles that aren't so radically different that they require a complete readjustment. If you've played the last four Devil May Cry games (and by that I mean 1, 3, and 4. I think we can all agree 2 doesn't exist) and spend any amount of time in 5 it will quickly become apparent that the team behind this game knew exactly what made Devil May Cry work. So much so that Devil May Cry 5 is hands down my favorite entry in the series.
Of course this is another RE Engine game, so I do have to bring up how good it looks. Ray tracing makes the early levels stand out even more, though DMC5 still looks gorgeous in performance mode. Most importantly, it runs at a stable 30/60 depending on which mode you're in. I think a solid framerate is every bit as important to a character-action game as it is to a fighting game or Souls title. If you're bouncing between 40-50fps then the action is just going to be nauseating. Thankfully I didn't encounter any weird texture issues like I had in Resident Evil 3, and even if you forgo fidelity for performance, DMC5 still looks great.
The only thing I need from a new Devil May Cry is that it's a god damn Devil May Cry, and that's exactly what DMC5 is. It doesn't fuck with the formula or the characters, but rather pushes them ahead with a certain self-assuredness that speaks to the confidence and experience of the team behind it. Also, it has Devil Trigger, the best song in the whole series. I had a friend who wasn't into Devil May Cry listen to it once. He told me he hated it, said it was "cringe." You know, we're all like, god's creatures or whatever, but god also made dung beetles. Insects that literally roll big balls of shit around. Food for thought.
I probably shouldn't need to explain what Devil May Cry is. It's the grandfather of the character-action genre, and although the series took an 11 year hiatus, its legacy has been kept alive thanks to games like Vanquished and Bayonetta. Even if you've never played a Devil May Cry game, you probably know exactly what to expect from it: over-the-top combo driven action, ridiculous movesets, and extremely campy stories.
Where Devil May Cry 5 sets itself apart is in its maturity. That isn't to say DMC has become more grounded or less wacky or anything like that, but rather that Devil May Cry 5 feels like a suitable evolution of a series that has been around since the Playsation 2. It's so affirmed in its identity and design that there's scarcely a single area where it falters. The most experimental thing 5 does is give you three characters to play as, each with their own playstyles that aren't so radically different that they require a complete readjustment. If you've played the last four Devil May Cry games (and by that I mean 1, 3, and 4. I think we can all agree 2 doesn't exist) and spend any amount of time in 5 it will quickly become apparent that the team behind this game knew exactly what made Devil May Cry work. So much so that Devil May Cry 5 is hands down my favorite entry in the series.
Of course this is another RE Engine game, so I do have to bring up how good it looks. Ray tracing makes the early levels stand out even more, though DMC5 still looks gorgeous in performance mode. Most importantly, it runs at a stable 30/60 depending on which mode you're in. I think a solid framerate is every bit as important to a character-action game as it is to a fighting game or Souls title. If you're bouncing between 40-50fps then the action is just going to be nauseating. Thankfully I didn't encounter any weird texture issues like I had in Resident Evil 3, and even if you forgo fidelity for performance, DMC5 still looks great.
The only thing I need from a new Devil May Cry is that it's a god damn Devil May Cry, and that's exactly what DMC5 is. It doesn't fuck with the formula or the characters, but rather pushes them ahead with a certain self-assuredness that speaks to the confidence and experience of the team behind it. Also, it has Devil Trigger, the best song in the whole series. I had a friend who wasn't into Devil May Cry listen to it once. He told me he hated it, said it was "cringe." You know, we're all like, god's creatures or whatever, but god also made dung beetles. Insects that literally roll big balls of shit around. Food for thought.
2004
I've been trying to get to this review, but every time I start it, I think about eating handfuls of delicious Pikmin and I get too distracted. I like to imagine myself lying flat on my belly with my mouth open, hundreds of Pikmin lined up and marching right down my gullet. As you can imagine, it's hard to write a review with such decadent fantasies dancing through my mind.
If I could, I would shrink myself down to Pikmin size, and like Captain Olimar, I would gain their trust. There are so many Pikmin that they would never notice one or two of their own missing. Rather than satiate myself on many Pikmin, I can gorge myself on one. A plump Pikmin roasting over an open fire, filling my nose with such smells, my ears with the gentle crackles and pops of its searing flesh... Ah, a delight for the senses.
By the time my many crimes are exposed it will be too late. My belly will have popped, come undone like some flimsy seam on an old overworn shirt, and they will have to roll my bloated form into the autopsy room. "Cause of death: overconsumption of Pikmin," they'll note. "At least the bastard died with a smile."
If I could, I would shrink myself down to Pikmin size, and like Captain Olimar, I would gain their trust. There are so many Pikmin that they would never notice one or two of their own missing. Rather than satiate myself on many Pikmin, I can gorge myself on one. A plump Pikmin roasting over an open fire, filling my nose with such smells, my ears with the gentle crackles and pops of its searing flesh... Ah, a delight for the senses.
By the time my many crimes are exposed it will be too late. My belly will have popped, come undone like some flimsy seam on an old overworn shirt, and they will have to roll my bloated form into the autopsy room. "Cause of death: overconsumption of Pikmin," they'll note. "At least the bastard died with a smile."