Finally reviewing this, because I just had to have it on disc. In my defense, the last TMNT beat-em-up I bought was the much maligned Turtles in Time: Rehselled, which was eventually delisted. Shredder's Revenge was also developed by Tribute games, which was founded by former members of Ubisoft who worked on Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game, another licensed beat-em-up that was delisted in 2014 and only made available again in 2021. I'm not taking my chances!
Shredder's Revenge is hands down the best Turtles game since The Hyperstone Heist. It definitely plays more on the side of Streets of Rage 4 than Turtles in Time, with a heavy focus on building and maintaining combos and making use of special moves to control mobs. And like Streets of Rage 4, it controls like butter. It's incredibly easy to keep combos going by chaining ground attacks into slides or arials, and the quick recovery move can be used to initiate a new combo, which stops the flow of combat from being ruined when you get suckerpunched. You also level up as you play the story mode, which further expands your moveset by allowing you to activate super moves for different actions, which expands what you're able to do in a very satisfying way.
Like most beat-em-ups, co-op is where Shredder's Revenge really shines. I had no trouble finding a game in arcade mode and experienced very few issues with latency. Thankfully, if you happen to have, say, a Raphael who has connected with a modem made out of four potatoes wired in parallel and keeps getting stuck walking to the far left of the screen, you can just kick them out of the game. I found that losing players in the middle of an arcade run is no big deal as new ones are always dropping in between levels. It's very easy to get a full group of seven, and the game is absolutely bonkers when you do. Everyone is popping off supers back-to-back, the screen becomes completely unreadable, it's probably not for everyone but I love it. It's the one arcade throwback game I've played with a "complete the game with 1 credit" trophy I was actually able to get because of it.
I love the aesthetics of this game a lot, too. It has a very soft look which suits the cartoon style it's emulating quite well, and the characters are super expressive. It's fun to see how some of the taunts and victory poses are pulled right from the show's opening, and all the little nods to the cartoon are a lot of fun. Foot soldiers are always goofing off in the background, emulating menial jobs like they're god damn Gremlins, or enjoying some ice cream while waiting to get punched directly in the face (I feel a little bad about that, actually.) TeeLopes soundtrack is incredible and probably on par with his work on Sonic Mania, and hearing the original voice actors return is just plain nice.
In fact, Shredder's Revenge lands for me in a very similar way to Sonic Mania. These are both series that have been starved for a good game in really any style for years, finally getting retro throwbacks that not only do service to the classic titles but suitably modernize them. They're both made by talented teams of people who are clearly passionate about what they're working on, and it shows from the second you start the game to the moment the credits finish rolling. I grew up with the classic Turtles beat-em-ups, and I feel Shredder's Revenge does right by them, so this one gets a big thumbs up from me.
Shredder's Revenge is hands down the best Turtles game since The Hyperstone Heist. It definitely plays more on the side of Streets of Rage 4 than Turtles in Time, with a heavy focus on building and maintaining combos and making use of special moves to control mobs. And like Streets of Rage 4, it controls like butter. It's incredibly easy to keep combos going by chaining ground attacks into slides or arials, and the quick recovery move can be used to initiate a new combo, which stops the flow of combat from being ruined when you get suckerpunched. You also level up as you play the story mode, which further expands your moveset by allowing you to activate super moves for different actions, which expands what you're able to do in a very satisfying way.
Like most beat-em-ups, co-op is where Shredder's Revenge really shines. I had no trouble finding a game in arcade mode and experienced very few issues with latency. Thankfully, if you happen to have, say, a Raphael who has connected with a modem made out of four potatoes wired in parallel and keeps getting stuck walking to the far left of the screen, you can just kick them out of the game. I found that losing players in the middle of an arcade run is no big deal as new ones are always dropping in between levels. It's very easy to get a full group of seven, and the game is absolutely bonkers when you do. Everyone is popping off supers back-to-back, the screen becomes completely unreadable, it's probably not for everyone but I love it. It's the one arcade throwback game I've played with a "complete the game with 1 credit" trophy I was actually able to get because of it.
I love the aesthetics of this game a lot, too. It has a very soft look which suits the cartoon style it's emulating quite well, and the characters are super expressive. It's fun to see how some of the taunts and victory poses are pulled right from the show's opening, and all the little nods to the cartoon are a lot of fun. Foot soldiers are always goofing off in the background, emulating menial jobs like they're god damn Gremlins, or enjoying some ice cream while waiting to get punched directly in the face (I feel a little bad about that, actually.) TeeLopes soundtrack is incredible and probably on par with his work on Sonic Mania, and hearing the original voice actors return is just plain nice.
In fact, Shredder's Revenge lands for me in a very similar way to Sonic Mania. These are both series that have been starved for a good game in really any style for years, finally getting retro throwbacks that not only do service to the classic titles but suitably modernize them. They're both made by talented teams of people who are clearly passionate about what they're working on, and it shows from the second you start the game to the moment the credits finish rolling. I grew up with the classic Turtles beat-em-ups, and I feel Shredder's Revenge does right by them, so this one gets a big thumbs up from me.
In my exhaustive review of Sonic Origins, I talked about fans outshining Sega with their own projects. However, I should clarify that I was talking about the community's work to improve established games through mods, in particular the Genesis originals by bringing them into 16:9 with QoL features that "modernize" the experience, something Sega bafflingly refused to do beyond the scope of mobile platforms.
Fan games are a different beast, though they're still driven by the same passion and dedication as projects like Sonic 3 AIR. Many are held back by inexperience, others by trying something experimental that just doesn't land, with few gems standing out among them. For as hit-or-miss as they may be, fan games are nonetheless evidence of the fandom's drive, something Sonic Team seems woefully lacking in. Corporate interference and burnout have colored the last 11 years of Sonic games, leaving the series creatively rudderless, and so often it seems the "freshest" interpretations of Sonic both as a character and a game have been coming from small, independently led projects.
Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit is an impressive effort, to be sure. One that is imperfect in many ways, arguably marred by shortcomings common in fan games, yet exuding charm and character that the series hasn't seen since 2017. This is no simple repaint, but a full-on reimagining of Sonic's fourth Game Gear outing, featuring complex level layouts that were impossible for the handheld, new gimmicks, set pieces, and boss encounters. I won't beat the "Sega, hire this man drum," something that's become so tired it's more a point of mockery now than an endorsement of quality, but it's quite clear that Triple Trouble 16-Bit comes from a place of reverence both for Sonic's Genesis outings and the less-beloved Game Gear titles.
Most of all, it seems like it's made by someone with a very competent understanding of the original games. Noah N. Copeland knows his Sonic, and it's clear from the first level that he has a good sense of how these games flow. Levels are well designed, providing just as many speedways as they do opportunities to platform, and are full of inventive gimmicks. Granted, a few in the later half of the game start to repeat a bit too much. It's obvious Copeland has some affinity for see-sawing slides as they show up two zones in a row. Still, Copeland has found a good balance between nudging Sonic's mechanics forward and keeping them rooted in tradition, and it is surprising how close it feels to the originals given it's not a ROM hack.
That said, while the physics are a close approximation of the Genesis games, they're noticeably off in some places. auto-scrolling sequences highlight this best, as Sonic's air-momentum and acceleration both feel unnatural and sluggish. There's also a lot of collision detection issues, primarily in the last level of the game, which I swear to god feels untested. Breaking this level up into separate routes connected by a hub feels like a callback to Titanic Monarch, which I already found to be the weakest level in Sonic Mania, but constantly dropping through floors and getting stuck in walls in the middle of long hazard-riddled raceways with checkpoints few and far between isn't a good time. It's a shame that Triple Trouble almost completely falls apart in its very last act.
Aesthetically, it's a great looking game, although some level assets and badnik designs feel at odds with others. There's a certain lack of cohesion that is characteristic of fan games, usually resulting from sourcing sprites from other games and mixing them all together. The only place where this practice is undeniably apparent is the snowboarding sequence in Robotnik Winter, which is straight up lifted from Mickey Mania's moose chase, and while I can't prove it, I'm convinced the background in Meta Junglira is at least heavily inspired by the temple level in Quack Shot. The soundtrack is fantastic, but for someone with an ear carefully trained to the Yamaha YM2612, it too seems a bit off. I'm not a music man, I have no rhythm and I attract no worms, so I can't articulate exactly how it's off, but my brain knows it is. Really, this is a nitpick given how good the music is overall, and I can't hate a Sonic game for reincorporating the cut Knuckles theme from Sonic 3. I just can't.
Making games is hard, especially when you don't have a corporate backed budget, and yet Triple Trouble 16-bit comes out swinging as one of the better Sonic games - unofficial or otherwise - of the last few years. Yes there's blemishes, there are issues uniquely characteristic of fan projects that it's unable to shake, but it's also so good that I feel it deserves to be evaluated critically. I could probably drop another 20 paragraphs about all the little things I liked and disliked, but I really think you should just check it out yourself.
Fan games are a different beast, though they're still driven by the same passion and dedication as projects like Sonic 3 AIR. Many are held back by inexperience, others by trying something experimental that just doesn't land, with few gems standing out among them. For as hit-or-miss as they may be, fan games are nonetheless evidence of the fandom's drive, something Sonic Team seems woefully lacking in. Corporate interference and burnout have colored the last 11 years of Sonic games, leaving the series creatively rudderless, and so often it seems the "freshest" interpretations of Sonic both as a character and a game have been coming from small, independently led projects.
Sonic Triple Trouble 16-Bit is an impressive effort, to be sure. One that is imperfect in many ways, arguably marred by shortcomings common in fan games, yet exuding charm and character that the series hasn't seen since 2017. This is no simple repaint, but a full-on reimagining of Sonic's fourth Game Gear outing, featuring complex level layouts that were impossible for the handheld, new gimmicks, set pieces, and boss encounters. I won't beat the "Sega, hire this man drum," something that's become so tired it's more a point of mockery now than an endorsement of quality, but it's quite clear that Triple Trouble 16-Bit comes from a place of reverence both for Sonic's Genesis outings and the less-beloved Game Gear titles.
Most of all, it seems like it's made by someone with a very competent understanding of the original games. Noah N. Copeland knows his Sonic, and it's clear from the first level that he has a good sense of how these games flow. Levels are well designed, providing just as many speedways as they do opportunities to platform, and are full of inventive gimmicks. Granted, a few in the later half of the game start to repeat a bit too much. It's obvious Copeland has some affinity for see-sawing slides as they show up two zones in a row. Still, Copeland has found a good balance between nudging Sonic's mechanics forward and keeping them rooted in tradition, and it is surprising how close it feels to the originals given it's not a ROM hack.
That said, while the physics are a close approximation of the Genesis games, they're noticeably off in some places. auto-scrolling sequences highlight this best, as Sonic's air-momentum and acceleration both feel unnatural and sluggish. There's also a lot of collision detection issues, primarily in the last level of the game, which I swear to god feels untested. Breaking this level up into separate routes connected by a hub feels like a callback to Titanic Monarch, which I already found to be the weakest level in Sonic Mania, but constantly dropping through floors and getting stuck in walls in the middle of long hazard-riddled raceways with checkpoints few and far between isn't a good time. It's a shame that Triple Trouble almost completely falls apart in its very last act.
Aesthetically, it's a great looking game, although some level assets and badnik designs feel at odds with others. There's a certain lack of cohesion that is characteristic of fan games, usually resulting from sourcing sprites from other games and mixing them all together. The only place where this practice is undeniably apparent is the snowboarding sequence in Robotnik Winter, which is straight up lifted from Mickey Mania's moose chase, and while I can't prove it, I'm convinced the background in Meta Junglira is at least heavily inspired by the temple level in Quack Shot. The soundtrack is fantastic, but for someone with an ear carefully trained to the Yamaha YM2612, it too seems a bit off. I'm not a music man, I have no rhythm and I attract no worms, so I can't articulate exactly how it's off, but my brain knows it is. Really, this is a nitpick given how good the music is overall, and I can't hate a Sonic game for reincorporating the cut Knuckles theme from Sonic 3. I just can't.
Making games is hard, especially when you don't have a corporate backed budget, and yet Triple Trouble 16-bit comes out swinging as one of the better Sonic games - unofficial or otherwise - of the last few years. Yes there's blemishes, there are issues uniquely characteristic of fan projects that it's unable to shake, but it's also so good that I feel it deserves to be evaluated critically. I could probably drop another 20 paragraphs about all the little things I liked and disliked, but I really think you should just check it out yourself.
Final Fantasy Tactics was the previous holder of George's Favorite Final Fantasy of All Time until I played Final Fantasy IX, but being second best is still pretty good, and man, it was a hell of a run. Tactics is an excellent game, one that I think remains unrivaled by other tactical RPGs to this day. I've played some of the Ogre games and the Tactics' sequels, as well as stuff like The Banner Saga, and nothing quite compares.
I also play this game like a total psychopath, grinding random battles during the prologue chapter in order to make sure every member of my squad has at least one job mastered. I can usually do this by gaming just a couple of battles, inflicting grievous acts of harm on my own troops in order to build character. JP gains by a thousand cuts. By the time I'm on chapter 2 I've got a full fleet of chemists chucking elixirs and knights that can easily slay their enemies in a single blow, but instead break every piece of their armor systematically in order to cause the maximum amount of torment before death.
Perhaps somewhere along the way I've lost sight of the "tactical" part of Final Fantasy Tactics, opting to dominate through raw numbers, but I don't care. I'm still having a good time. At least until I get to Wiegraf. Easily one of the most sadistic moments in gaming, pitting you one-on-one against a foe who can easily put you into a corner where two strikes will kill you, and who doesn't afford you enough distance to break out of a cycle of perpetual healing. I've always trained Ramza as a ninja to compensate, since their two-strike ability definitely gives him an edge, with auto-potion as a passive ability for extra protection. However, if you don't already have knowledge of the Wiegraf fight then it's entirely possible to softlock yourself here, as this battle comes right off the heels of another. If you save inbetween (as the game gives you the option to do), there's no way to go back to the world map to grind experience. You're just dead in the water. It's a little funny then that you unlock Cid not too long after this fight, because even if you aren't rolling with an over-leveled party, this guy kinda breaks the whole game in your favor. Tactics is not balanced by any metric, and this unevenness is probably its greatest weakness.
There's a bunch of named characters you can unlock through sidequests, and I always do these once they're available, even if I might not use them in battle (except for Cloud.) Maybe that has something to do with me wanting to wring as much as I can out of Final Fantasy Tactics, but I also genuinely love the character interactions in this game. The story is one of the more complicated narratives in a Final Fantasy, with enough intrigue and back-stabbing to make your head spin. The climax, Ramza's fate, and the post-credit scene have stuck with me in particular. It also seems like it was localized by someone who has suffered multiple traumatic brain injuries, so it might take a few passes before you pick up on everything. That is if you don't play War of the Lions, the PSP remake, which features a new translation along with other improvements. This is probably the best version of the game to play, but for some reason Square refuses to make it available on modern consoles (and given the quality of some of their modern ports, maybe that's for the best.)
Despite a few shortcomings, I'm still rating Tactics pretty highly, because I can't deny how much fun I have with it. Mixing and matching job abilities to create the ultimate hybrid class, sending troops out on treasure hunts and recon missions, pouring over team formations tailored to specific encounters, all of it just sucks me in. The characters, lore, and world of Ivalice are just the icing on top. If you enjoy tactical RPGs or Final Fantasy and have yet to play Tactics then obviously I think you should check it out, but I would also suggest spending a little extra time getting a PSP emulator up and running so you can play War of the Lions.
I also play this game like a total psychopath, grinding random battles during the prologue chapter in order to make sure every member of my squad has at least one job mastered. I can usually do this by gaming just a couple of battles, inflicting grievous acts of harm on my own troops in order to build character. JP gains by a thousand cuts. By the time I'm on chapter 2 I've got a full fleet of chemists chucking elixirs and knights that can easily slay their enemies in a single blow, but instead break every piece of their armor systematically in order to cause the maximum amount of torment before death.
Perhaps somewhere along the way I've lost sight of the "tactical" part of Final Fantasy Tactics, opting to dominate through raw numbers, but I don't care. I'm still having a good time. At least until I get to Wiegraf. Easily one of the most sadistic moments in gaming, pitting you one-on-one against a foe who can easily put you into a corner where two strikes will kill you, and who doesn't afford you enough distance to break out of a cycle of perpetual healing. I've always trained Ramza as a ninja to compensate, since their two-strike ability definitely gives him an edge, with auto-potion as a passive ability for extra protection. However, if you don't already have knowledge of the Wiegraf fight then it's entirely possible to softlock yourself here, as this battle comes right off the heels of another. If you save inbetween (as the game gives you the option to do), there's no way to go back to the world map to grind experience. You're just dead in the water. It's a little funny then that you unlock Cid not too long after this fight, because even if you aren't rolling with an over-leveled party, this guy kinda breaks the whole game in your favor. Tactics is not balanced by any metric, and this unevenness is probably its greatest weakness.
There's a bunch of named characters you can unlock through sidequests, and I always do these once they're available, even if I might not use them in battle (except for Cloud.) Maybe that has something to do with me wanting to wring as much as I can out of Final Fantasy Tactics, but I also genuinely love the character interactions in this game. The story is one of the more complicated narratives in a Final Fantasy, with enough intrigue and back-stabbing to make your head spin. The climax, Ramza's fate, and the post-credit scene have stuck with me in particular. It also seems like it was localized by someone who has suffered multiple traumatic brain injuries, so it might take a few passes before you pick up on everything. That is if you don't play War of the Lions, the PSP remake, which features a new translation along with other improvements. This is probably the best version of the game to play, but for some reason Square refuses to make it available on modern consoles (and given the quality of some of their modern ports, maybe that's for the best.)
Despite a few shortcomings, I'm still rating Tactics pretty highly, because I can't deny how much fun I have with it. Mixing and matching job abilities to create the ultimate hybrid class, sending troops out on treasure hunts and recon missions, pouring over team formations tailored to specific encounters, all of it just sucks me in. The characters, lore, and world of Ivalice are just the icing on top. If you enjoy tactical RPGs or Final Fantasy and have yet to play Tactics then obviously I think you should check it out, but I would also suggest spending a little extra time getting a PSP emulator up and running so you can play War of the Lions.
A particularly bizarre playground rumor I encountered back in 93 was that you could unlock the first level of Dr.Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine if you destroyed every badnik in Sonic the Hedgehog 3. If I had to guess, the origin of this rumor probably had something to do with Mean Bean being advertised on the back of Sonic 3's manual. Kids are dumb. I'm still dumb, but back then I was dog dumb, so every time I rented Sonic 3 I made sure I was absolutely thorough when it came to destroying badniks, despite the fact I could just rent Mean Bean Machine instead.
Eventually I wised up. I don't think anyone back then really had any concept of what Puyo Pop was, and up to that point the only puzzle game I ever played was Tetris on the Game Boy. Mean Bean Machine stomped my ass, but after a couple of rentals I was able to acclimate to the gameplay and reliably get to Coconuts. This is about the point in the game where the AI starts to actively compete against you rather than lazily fill its well with garbage while you learn the ins and outs of stackingpuyos beans. I was only able to get past Coconuts a few times, usually through dumb luck, leaving much of the rest of the game a mystery to me. At least until I found a password to send me right to Dr.Robotnik, who proceeded to savage me so ruthlessly I decided to put the game down.
I've picked Mean Bean up again in the years since and have found it to still be pretty brutal. A few levels in, the AI will open every game by slamming beans down with a level of precision that makes it clear the AI knows what beans are coming several drops in advance, allowing them to build combos that will suffocate your well early. Basic movement is a bit sluggish, and beans connect pretty quickly, making the window to spin a piece before it fuses together incredibly tight. This makes play at the top of the well very difficult, and failure quickly cascades into unwinnable scenarios. I'm sure there's harder Puyo games out there, but the poor controls and relentless nature of the AI makes Mean Bean a real bastard of a game.
Recently I've fallen quite ill. I've developed a disease of the mind where I'm compelled to buy physical copies of every single Sonic the Hedgehog game I can find, and of course I'm starting with the Genesis titles. Mean Bean set me back 45 dollars, and that was actually a deal. I was fairly confident I would put it in, game over to Coconuts half a dozen times, go "well that wasn't worth the money," and put the game back on my shelf where it would sit undisturbed for years.
But something weird happened. I put the cart in, started it up, and suddenly everything just clicked. I was stacking beans in all the right places, and while I still game overed a few times, it never took me more than a couple attempts to beat one of Dr.Robotnik's minions. I finally got to the man himself, and after nearly 30 years of trying and failing, I finally saw the credits roll.
"Let's try normal level!"
No thank you.
Eventually I wised up. I don't think anyone back then really had any concept of what Puyo Pop was, and up to that point the only puzzle game I ever played was Tetris on the Game Boy. Mean Bean Machine stomped my ass, but after a couple of rentals I was able to acclimate to the gameplay and reliably get to Coconuts. This is about the point in the game where the AI starts to actively compete against you rather than lazily fill its well with garbage while you learn the ins and outs of stacking
I've picked Mean Bean up again in the years since and have found it to still be pretty brutal. A few levels in, the AI will open every game by slamming beans down with a level of precision that makes it clear the AI knows what beans are coming several drops in advance, allowing them to build combos that will suffocate your well early. Basic movement is a bit sluggish, and beans connect pretty quickly, making the window to spin a piece before it fuses together incredibly tight. This makes play at the top of the well very difficult, and failure quickly cascades into unwinnable scenarios. I'm sure there's harder Puyo games out there, but the poor controls and relentless nature of the AI makes Mean Bean a real bastard of a game.
Recently I've fallen quite ill. I've developed a disease of the mind where I'm compelled to buy physical copies of every single Sonic the Hedgehog game I can find, and of course I'm starting with the Genesis titles. Mean Bean set me back 45 dollars, and that was actually a deal. I was fairly confident I would put it in, game over to Coconuts half a dozen times, go "well that wasn't worth the money," and put the game back on my shelf where it would sit undisturbed for years.
But something weird happened. I put the cart in, started it up, and suddenly everything just clicked. I was stacking beans in all the right places, and while I still game overed a few times, it never took me more than a couple attempts to beat one of Dr.Robotnik's minions. I finally got to the man himself, and after nearly 30 years of trying and failing, I finally saw the credits roll.
"Let's try normal level!"
No thank you.
2020
Part of what makes the Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 remakes so good is their reverence for the games on which they're based. Both firmly root you in very familiar locations, with puzzles, enemies, and plot beats being expanded in ways that don't feel inauthentic to the original games. For whatever reason, Capcom decided to deviate heavily with Resident Evil 3, making it barely recognizable as Nemesis. Character relationships are heavily altered, iconic locations are dropped entirely, and Nemesis heself is downright neutered.
This becomes apparent from the start as Raccoon City's opening streets are radically scaled down, becoming more confined and less interesting to explore. You spend very little time here compared to the original, and the few key locations that do carry over are gone in a flash. Take the opening sequence in the warehouse, where Dario Rosso locks himself in a shipping container hoping to just wait out the zombie apocalypse. In the original game there's a whole second floor to explore, and you're able to return later once you've acquired the lockpick, which actually provides some closure to Dario's little substory. In the remake, you just run in here real quick, Dario tells you to get bent, and you leave. You're in there for all of a minute, you never hear from Dario again, and as far as I'm aware you're not able to go back. Locations like the restaurant feel microscopic compared to the original, lacking its basement level or really serving as anything other than a space between two doors that connect different streets. Gone are places like the pharmaceutical company office, and really much of uptown in general. It's just... not here.
Nemesis gets done the most dirty, though. In the original, he occasionally shows up to cut off your route, forcing you to think on your toes and adapt. You could try to take him on, but that meant wasting precious ammunition only to buy yourself a brief respite. No, your best option was to avoid him entirely, and that meant learning the map and taking advantage of its many twisting roads and alleyways. Raccoon City was the culmination of Resident Evil's non-linear design, with Nemesis almost serving as a point of confidence. When you finally lost him, he would actually stay away for a decent amount of time, allowing tension to build as it becomes more probable he'll burst through the next door or swing around the next corner.
In the remake, he shows up after a scripted event and is just kinda always there. You basically endure one long segment where he's constantly on your ass, and this is because the Raccoon City streets are much more linear, with far fewer places to juke or outrun him. Whereas evasion was your best COA (course of action) in Nemesis, in RE3 you actually should just dump ammo into him. Or toss a single grenade, because uh, that's all it takes. He's such a non-threat here, utterly lacking in the qualities that made him frightening, and then after the opening hour of the game he kinda just stops showing up outside of scripted encounters. Mr.X was so well utilized in the RE2 remake, how could they fuck up my boy like this?
Still, I don't think Resident Evil 3 is a bad game, it's just disappointing. In some ways I think it suffers from releasing too soon after Resident Evil 2. It feels like they were in a crunch to get this one out, and as a result you'll often see people saying it feels more like DLC for that game. In that way, it also benefits from some of RE2's strengths. The controls feel great, puzzles are well designed, and it looks purdy. Mostly...
I should note that I played this on the Playstation 5, which has a free upgrade available similar to Resident Evil 2. I decided to play the game with ray tracing enabled, but about halfway through the game all the textures got screwed up. Everything had lines running through it, giving even metalic surfaces a sort of woodgrain texture. A lot of textures also looked blurry as hell. Like, Playstation 2 blurry. I have no idea what caused this, but restarting the game and switching to performance mode did not fix it. Since this game takes like, 3 hours to beat on a blind run, I did not find it worthwhile to reinstall.
You can at least find Resident Evil 3 for a fair price now days. I think initial opinions were a lot more harsh when this game came out because it cost 60 whole American dollars, which is frankly ridiculous for what you get. It's too short, lacking in interesting side features, and fails to properly remake the original game in the way that its predecessors did, opting instead to be more of a departure in ways that are frequently a detriment.
This becomes apparent from the start as Raccoon City's opening streets are radically scaled down, becoming more confined and less interesting to explore. You spend very little time here compared to the original, and the few key locations that do carry over are gone in a flash. Take the opening sequence in the warehouse, where Dario Rosso locks himself in a shipping container hoping to just wait out the zombie apocalypse. In the original game there's a whole second floor to explore, and you're able to return later once you've acquired the lockpick, which actually provides some closure to Dario's little substory. In the remake, you just run in here real quick, Dario tells you to get bent, and you leave. You're in there for all of a minute, you never hear from Dario again, and as far as I'm aware you're not able to go back. Locations like the restaurant feel microscopic compared to the original, lacking its basement level or really serving as anything other than a space between two doors that connect different streets. Gone are places like the pharmaceutical company office, and really much of uptown in general. It's just... not here.
Nemesis gets done the most dirty, though. In the original, he occasionally shows up to cut off your route, forcing you to think on your toes and adapt. You could try to take him on, but that meant wasting precious ammunition only to buy yourself a brief respite. No, your best option was to avoid him entirely, and that meant learning the map and taking advantage of its many twisting roads and alleyways. Raccoon City was the culmination of Resident Evil's non-linear design, with Nemesis almost serving as a point of confidence. When you finally lost him, he would actually stay away for a decent amount of time, allowing tension to build as it becomes more probable he'll burst through the next door or swing around the next corner.
In the remake, he shows up after a scripted event and is just kinda always there. You basically endure one long segment where he's constantly on your ass, and this is because the Raccoon City streets are much more linear, with far fewer places to juke or outrun him. Whereas evasion was your best COA (course of action) in Nemesis, in RE3 you actually should just dump ammo into him. Or toss a single grenade, because uh, that's all it takes. He's such a non-threat here, utterly lacking in the qualities that made him frightening, and then after the opening hour of the game he kinda just stops showing up outside of scripted encounters. Mr.X was so well utilized in the RE2 remake, how could they fuck up my boy like this?
Still, I don't think Resident Evil 3 is a bad game, it's just disappointing. In some ways I think it suffers from releasing too soon after Resident Evil 2. It feels like they were in a crunch to get this one out, and as a result you'll often see people saying it feels more like DLC for that game. In that way, it also benefits from some of RE2's strengths. The controls feel great, puzzles are well designed, and it looks purdy. Mostly...
I should note that I played this on the Playstation 5, which has a free upgrade available similar to Resident Evil 2. I decided to play the game with ray tracing enabled, but about halfway through the game all the textures got screwed up. Everything had lines running through it, giving even metalic surfaces a sort of woodgrain texture. A lot of textures also looked blurry as hell. Like, Playstation 2 blurry. I have no idea what caused this, but restarting the game and switching to performance mode did not fix it. Since this game takes like, 3 hours to beat on a blind run, I did not find it worthwhile to reinstall.
You can at least find Resident Evil 3 for a fair price now days. I think initial opinions were a lot more harsh when this game came out because it cost 60 whole American dollars, which is frankly ridiculous for what you get. It's too short, lacking in interesting side features, and fails to properly remake the original game in the way that its predecessors did, opting instead to be more of a departure in ways that are frequently a detriment.
I've somehow managed to make it twenty whole years not really knowing what Eternal Darkness is beyond the basics: a survival horror game with "sanity effects" that kick in the more spooked your character is, though even then I had no concept of what those could be outside of tilting the screen at a dutch angle (which is a fancy way of saying "sideways.") As a result of being kept in the dark (har) for so long about the specific ways the sanity effects prey on the player, I actually got spooked a couple times, though in ways that were perhaps made more unique to the time and setting I experienced them in.
The first was when the game simulated a CRT shutting off. This tricked me only for a moment, but in that flash I thought "oh no, it took me forever to find this CRT, I can't go hunting for another one." A half second later I realized the set was still humming and all was well, but the thought of my TV breaking and having to scour the Facebook marketplace for a replacement put the fear of God in me.
A short while later I wrapped up the game's second chapter when it transitioned to a screen thanking me for playing the demo of Eternal Darkness and to look forward to the full game. Anxiety crept over me as I was tricked into thinking I just wasted two hours playing an extended demo and would have to repeat all of that. After all, I'm playing this on a modded Wii and it's not like I've never accidentally downloaded an ISO of a demo version of a game before (in fact I did that with Rogue Squadron III while gathering games to put on the system.) Had I experienced this back in 2002 I wouldn't have doubted myself for a second, I'd have a genuine disc and box assuring me that I did in fact have the full game, but in 2022 Eternal Darkness' little demo and CRT fake outs take on new life.
I also found the game's structure to be really interesting. Rather than controlling one character in a confined location, you're treated to 11 survival horror vignettes, with protagonist Alex Roivas' investigation into her grandfather's death serving as a framing device. Each chapter features a different character, and each character shares the same dungeon with at least two others. It's fun to see how these locations slowly open up over time, becoming more involved and deadly the closer you get to the modern day. Spells introduce another unique twist on the standard survival horror formula, requiring you to enchant items with the right elements both to solve puzzles and get an edge on enemies, all while preserving your sanity.
A consequence of this segmented design is that progression feels pretty linear. Each chapter has a well telegraphed route through it with not much room for experimentation, and puzzles aren't always given enough room to unfold. Later chapters also start to drag as there's a whole lot of running back and forth to ferry items over great distances. While this is a staple of survival horror games, Eternal Darkness' linear design means running down straight hallways with little deviation, and after a while it starts to feel like it's just wasting your time. This is especially bad during a late game segment where you're tasked with activating a teleportation device. You have to jump through a portal and activate a rune, then survive a short combat encounter before dragging your ass back to the teleporter. You repeat this nine times, and a couple chapters later you get to do the whole process over again. It sucks.
Combat is also a bit wonky, requiring you to hold the right trigger and move the analog stick to select body parts to target. Removing specific body parts will disable enemies in unique ways, with different enemies having different body parts you need to prioritize. This is a really interesting system on paper, but in practice it just feels off. You could excuse this by saying it's similar to tank controls, it's not meant to feel good because that's what builds tension. I've made this argument for poor design choices in survival horror games before, but even I know that after a while the excuse stretches thin and is just used to mask things that are shitty without being purposefully so. In this case, I think it's just another example of the Gamecube's clown controller making things feel like crap, and jankiness that's more generally characteristic of this era of games.
My gripes aside, I think Eternal Darkness holds up. I was surprised by the way the game was able to get to me, and I think its structure is pretty unique. Reminds me a little of Clock Tower 3, and I think more survival horror games should be like Clock Tower 3. Just a shame what happened to Silicon Knights, virtually blowing their own legs off at the kneecaps trying to go after Epic Games like that. But, hey, at least you can get Too Human for free now! You can't beat free...
The first was when the game simulated a CRT shutting off. This tricked me only for a moment, but in that flash I thought "oh no, it took me forever to find this CRT, I can't go hunting for another one." A half second later I realized the set was still humming and all was well, but the thought of my TV breaking and having to scour the Facebook marketplace for a replacement put the fear of God in me.
A short while later I wrapped up the game's second chapter when it transitioned to a screen thanking me for playing the demo of Eternal Darkness and to look forward to the full game. Anxiety crept over me as I was tricked into thinking I just wasted two hours playing an extended demo and would have to repeat all of that. After all, I'm playing this on a modded Wii and it's not like I've never accidentally downloaded an ISO of a demo version of a game before (in fact I did that with Rogue Squadron III while gathering games to put on the system.) Had I experienced this back in 2002 I wouldn't have doubted myself for a second, I'd have a genuine disc and box assuring me that I did in fact have the full game, but in 2022 Eternal Darkness' little demo and CRT fake outs take on new life.
I also found the game's structure to be really interesting. Rather than controlling one character in a confined location, you're treated to 11 survival horror vignettes, with protagonist Alex Roivas' investigation into her grandfather's death serving as a framing device. Each chapter features a different character, and each character shares the same dungeon with at least two others. It's fun to see how these locations slowly open up over time, becoming more involved and deadly the closer you get to the modern day. Spells introduce another unique twist on the standard survival horror formula, requiring you to enchant items with the right elements both to solve puzzles and get an edge on enemies, all while preserving your sanity.
A consequence of this segmented design is that progression feels pretty linear. Each chapter has a well telegraphed route through it with not much room for experimentation, and puzzles aren't always given enough room to unfold. Later chapters also start to drag as there's a whole lot of running back and forth to ferry items over great distances. While this is a staple of survival horror games, Eternal Darkness' linear design means running down straight hallways with little deviation, and after a while it starts to feel like it's just wasting your time. This is especially bad during a late game segment where you're tasked with activating a teleportation device. You have to jump through a portal and activate a rune, then survive a short combat encounter before dragging your ass back to the teleporter. You repeat this nine times, and a couple chapters later you get to do the whole process over again. It sucks.
Combat is also a bit wonky, requiring you to hold the right trigger and move the analog stick to select body parts to target. Removing specific body parts will disable enemies in unique ways, with different enemies having different body parts you need to prioritize. This is a really interesting system on paper, but in practice it just feels off. You could excuse this by saying it's similar to tank controls, it's not meant to feel good because that's what builds tension. I've made this argument for poor design choices in survival horror games before, but even I know that after a while the excuse stretches thin and is just used to mask things that are shitty without being purposefully so. In this case, I think it's just another example of the Gamecube's clown controller making things feel like crap, and jankiness that's more generally characteristic of this era of games.
My gripes aside, I think Eternal Darkness holds up. I was surprised by the way the game was able to get to me, and I think its structure is pretty unique. Reminds me a little of Clock Tower 3, and I think more survival horror games should be like Clock Tower 3. Just a shame what happened to Silicon Knights, virtually blowing their own legs off at the kneecaps trying to go after Epic Games like that. But, hey, at least you can get Too Human for free now! You can't beat free...
1998
I mentioned in my review for Castle of Illusion that I had previously worked a graveyard shift before my job changed operating hours, forcing me to return to days after about seven years of being a purely nocturnal creature. This was absolute hell on my body, and for a period of time I started frequently having myoclonic jerks that impeded my ability to sleep. There were stretches of time where I would maybe get three hours of rest over as many days, it got so bad that my resting heart rate was reaching dangerous levels and I had to be given prescription sedatives in order to rest. I thought I was dying, though a prolonged lack of sleep can cause you to enter a delusional and paranoid state. Much of my life during this period can only be remembered in the same way you would a fever dream.
Anyway, it was during this health crises that I started playing Bomberman Hero. I remember waking up on the couch after getting maybe an hour of sleep (if I was lucky) and turning on the N64 to make more progress. It's a good game, there's no doubt about that, but it's been so colored by the issues I was having at the time that I always feel a little bit of anxiety creeping in when I think about it. I also started watching Star Trek Voyager at night to try to fall asleep, because that show is boring as shit. In my addled state of mind, I started seeing Neelix pop up in Bomberman Hero. At one point the two were blending together so much I thought there was a plot point where Bomberman mind-melded with a serial killer and was taking on some of their traits.
A lack of sleep over a long enough period of time can cause you to hear and see things that aren't really there. I know Bomberman Hero is just a game, but it's also like... a sleep paralysis demon? It has all these distinguishable and well defined features, you know what you're experiencing, but it's just off enough that you question whether any of it is real. Like, yes, sure, the bits where I started to think Bomberman was Tuvok is obviously just a byproduct of me getting about 40 minutes of rest between watching Voyager and playing Bomberman while benzos were rushing through my veins, but I've also come to doubt the experience of playing it as a whole. Is there an ice level in this? Yeah, probably, I mean that sounds right, but can I really trust my own memories on this?
I think Bomberman Hero marks the closest I've ever gotten to full blown psychosis. 3.5 out of 5.
Anyway, it was during this health crises that I started playing Bomberman Hero. I remember waking up on the couch after getting maybe an hour of sleep (if I was lucky) and turning on the N64 to make more progress. It's a good game, there's no doubt about that, but it's been so colored by the issues I was having at the time that I always feel a little bit of anxiety creeping in when I think about it. I also started watching Star Trek Voyager at night to try to fall asleep, because that show is boring as shit. In my addled state of mind, I started seeing Neelix pop up in Bomberman Hero. At one point the two were blending together so much I thought there was a plot point where Bomberman mind-melded with a serial killer and was taking on some of their traits.
A lack of sleep over a long enough period of time can cause you to hear and see things that aren't really there. I know Bomberman Hero is just a game, but it's also like... a sleep paralysis demon? It has all these distinguishable and well defined features, you know what you're experiencing, but it's just off enough that you question whether any of it is real. Like, yes, sure, the bits where I started to think Bomberman was Tuvok is obviously just a byproduct of me getting about 40 minutes of rest between watching Voyager and playing Bomberman while benzos were rushing through my veins, but I've also come to doubt the experience of playing it as a whole. Is there an ice level in this? Yeah, probably, I mean that sounds right, but can I really trust my own memories on this?
I think Bomberman Hero marks the closest I've ever gotten to full blown psychosis. 3.5 out of 5.
1994
I think my problem with Mega Man games is their identity isn't super distinguishable between titles, so at some point everything kind of blends together and I start having trouble telling games apart. I'd chalk this up to a case of my old man brains degenerating as I enter senility, but me and the other guys at the home frequently try to remember which robot masters showed up in which game, so I don't think it's just me. Was Junk Man in 3? No... no I think it was four. That's the one with Centaur Man, right?
Anyway, the Mega Man X series is similar to me in this regard, although it at least has a more clear delineation between each console generation the series persisted through. I can easily tell X3 apart from X4, for example, but the first three games on the SNES get a little fuzzy for me. This is all one long preamble to me saying I remember liking X2 a lot more than X1 but damned if I can articulate why, at least on a level-to-level basis.
What I do remember quite clearly about X2 is that it's a more dynamic game. I think X1 was a bit slow, faster than anything in the core Mega Man series but bogged down a bit by its design ethos and style. X2 is able to push further into its own direction, helping to establish the *X series as being the more "radical" and "x-treme" younger brother. As such, I just find it a lot more engaging and fun to play.
It also has Overdrive Ostrich. Right...? Or was he in X3? I think Chill Penguin was in X2 and I'm pretty sure Bubble Crab was in X1*. Oh god, I think I forgot to take my pills again...
Anyway, the Mega Man X series is similar to me in this regard, although it at least has a more clear delineation between each console generation the series persisted through. I can easily tell X3 apart from X4, for example, but the first three games on the SNES get a little fuzzy for me. This is all one long preamble to me saying I remember liking X2 a lot more than X1 but damned if I can articulate why, at least on a level-to-level basis.
What I do remember quite clearly about X2 is that it's a more dynamic game. I think X1 was a bit slow, faster than anything in the core Mega Man series but bogged down a bit by its design ethos and style. X2 is able to push further into its own direction, helping to establish the *X series as being the more "radical" and "x-treme" younger brother. As such, I just find it a lot more engaging and fun to play.
It also has Overdrive Ostrich. Right...? Or was he in X3? I think Chill Penguin was in X2 and I'm pretty sure Bubble Crab was in X1*. Oh god, I think I forgot to take my pills again...
2001
This is definitely one of those games where I don't think I have anything too insightful to say that hasn't already been commented on a million times before, nor do I feel too strongly about it in general. I think it's interesting from the perspective of being a game almost entirely built around giving the guys at Rare a platformer to express their very unique sense of humor without a filter. Some of the parody set pieces that emerge out of this are a lot of fun, if incredibly dated, and the very last thing you could ever say about Conker's Bad Fur Day is that it takes itself seriously.
I think it's a lot less interesting mechanically, however. The platforming in the early game feels solid enough, but a lot of the more gimmicky segments (which feel more plentiful in Conker's back half) really drag and feel a bit shoddy. It's Rare, so of course experimentation results in as many failures as successes. Big shock, there's a few gimmicks that control like total dogshit in a Rare game. Nothing new there!
I'm sure there's people out there with very insightful things to say about this one, about how much nostalgia for the media it lampoons plays a factor in being able to enjoy it today, or what it meant to have a game like this release on a Nintendo console (especially in 2001) from a company that was so closely tied to their image at the time. There's a lot to be said about how the media we consume as children influences our perception of media as adults, but that won't be me because I'm tired of talking about Rare and I want to go to bed.
I think it's a lot less interesting mechanically, however. The platforming in the early game feels solid enough, but a lot of the more gimmicky segments (which feel more plentiful in Conker's back half) really drag and feel a bit shoddy. It's Rare, so of course experimentation results in as many failures as successes. Big shock, there's a few gimmicks that control like total dogshit in a Rare game. Nothing new there!
I'm sure there's people out there with very insightful things to say about this one, about how much nostalgia for the media it lampoons plays a factor in being able to enjoy it today, or what it meant to have a game like this release on a Nintendo console (especially in 2001) from a company that was so closely tied to their image at the time. There's a lot to be said about how the media we consume as children influences our perception of media as adults, but that won't be me because I'm tired of talking about Rare and I want to go to bed.
1997
When it came to competitive multiplayer, my friends and I kept Bomberman 64 in rotation just as much as Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64. I never actually knew anyone who owned it, but it always seemed like someone had the good sense to rent it whenever we had a sleep over. As such, I think I'll always have a special place in my heart for this game, and I even like it more than its sequel Bomberman Hero, even though I think there's a solid argument for that being the better game.
But I still find Bomberman 64's single player mode to be impressive. The level design is pretty solid and you're often dropped into environments where it's just fun as hell blowing everything up. The game's aesthetic perfectly captures this sort of breezy Spring feeling to me, where everything is bright and cheerful and chill at the same time, it's nice. It's comforting. I like causing harm to others by throwing high yield explosives directly at their face, I think it's relaxing.
Late game levels do get a little irritating, though, especially if you're going for all the gold cards like I did. I mean, I didn't have to do that, and my recommendation would also be that you shouldn't, but even without trying to be a completionist about it, the final few levels resulted in some cheap deaths amid puzzles that felt like they were designed to waste my time. Not a great note to go out on, but Bomberman 64 is still a solid little game that I love to death, plus it got me into bomb making and it's always nice when one hobby acts as a gateway to another.
But I still find Bomberman 64's single player mode to be impressive. The level design is pretty solid and you're often dropped into environments where it's just fun as hell blowing everything up. The game's aesthetic perfectly captures this sort of breezy Spring feeling to me, where everything is bright and cheerful and chill at the same time, it's nice. It's comforting. I like causing harm to others by throwing high yield explosives directly at their face, I think it's relaxing.
Late game levels do get a little irritating, though, especially if you're going for all the gold cards like I did. I mean, I didn't have to do that, and my recommendation would also be that you shouldn't, but even without trying to be a completionist about it, the final few levels resulted in some cheap deaths amid puzzles that felt like they were designed to waste my time. Not a great note to go out on, but Bomberman 64 is still a solid little game that I love to death, plus it got me into bomb making and it's always nice when one hobby acts as a gateway to another.
2002
The history of Star Fox Adventures is well documented, especially considering a mostly playable build of Dinosaur Planet is easily accessible now, but to sum it up: Miyamoto took a look at this little action RPG Rare was making and suggested the lead character should be Fox McCloud. When the guy who told you to give DK a coconut gun has an opinion on what you should do with your game, you god damn listen, and so Rare threw out a bunch of key characters and changed plot points to accommodate the Star Fox crew. Ask some people and they'll tell you this is where everything went south, that Dinosaur Planet would have been a great game if not for all the Star Fox baggage.
To be fair, I kind of get this point. I think a lot of games with notoriously bad reputations made over one or two egregious flaws are dog piled on unnecessarily and are worthy of a reevaluation. Games like Dark Souls 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog have changed a lot in the public eye as people have come around on them years later. They were always great games, though. Classics, in fact. People just wouldn't give them a fair shot at the time. Star Fox Adventures is now 20 years old, so I knew exactly what it was going in, and considering I never played it back in the day, I figured I'd have a well-informed perspective that would allow me to see the game for exactly what it is and evaluate it accordingly.
This game sucks so much, holy shit.
I figured calling it a "Zelda clone" would actually be reductive, but honestly that's precisely what it is, and it is so in the most derogatory sense possible. Star Fox Adventures is to Ocarina of Time what Hydlide is to The Legend of Zelda. The puzzles in this game are so braindead easy that they just start to get dull and drag the game down, making it feel far longer than its length. You'll need to use spells Fox gains throughout the story in order to solve most of these, but they are often finicky and feel awful to use. You're also given some assistance from Prince Tricky, who I want to hold under water until the life leaves his eyes. A lot of Tricky's abilities could have been consolidated into Fox's moveset, allowing Rare to simplify the menu and streamline puzzles, but I guess they felt it was important to not have Fox experience the adventure alone and wanted to give him a sort of Navi equivalent. Developing a rare form of tinnitus where "hey, listen!" reverberates in my skull until I'm driven to madness would be preferable to Prince "I'm hungryyy" Tricky.
To be honest, for as lackluster and boring as a lot of this game is, it was probably a 2.5 for me until I got to Dragon Rock, a late game dungeon that makes frequent use of an early game ability: the Fire Shooter. This ability is exactly what it says on the tin, you activate it and can aim your staff around to shoot little fire balls. The problem is that the game forces your reticle back to the center of the screen if you're not forcing the analog stick where you want it, meaning you're constantly fighting against the controller to line up your shots. This thing swings around wildly at the slightest input, too, so it's also easy to overshoot your targets. The vast majority of Dragon Rock's puzzles are based around this one skill, with many of them being timer based as well. I know third person aiming in video games was in an altogether different place than it is now, but it's astonishing to me this made it into the finished product. Maybe they didn't have time to fix it because they were too busy figuring out how the hell to fit Andross into this thing, I don't know!
Dungeons are broken up with short flying segments modeled after Star Fox 64, but it's clear that Rare had neither the passion nor skill to create a proper Star Fox game. They just feel lazily thrown together with all the elements you'd expect from a typical Star Fox level, but without any of the nuance or design sense. Similar to how Star Fox Adventures feels like a flat version of Zelda, so too does it feel like a flat version of Star Fox. Completely uninspired from top to bottom.
The story is of course the most involved narrative in any Star Fox game to this point, but it's also very clear what parts were in the original Dinosaur Planet and what parts were shoehorned in at the request of Miyamoto. Even the way Fox is written feels distinctly out of character for him, and it's not like there was a whole lot of content out there to properly define who he was prior to that point. I haven't played Dinosaur Planet so I suppose I can't say with any authority, but Fox is written in such a way that it wouldn't surprise me if they simply swapped the lead character's model, rewrote maybe 10% of his lines to reference his crew, and called it a day.
General Scales and Krystal also seem like casualties of Rare retooling the game. Scales is the main antagonist, but he very rarely shows up and a lot of his evil deeds are told to you by other characters. In fact, he doesn't even get a boss fight at the end of the game, being done away with unceremoniously in order to move you right along into a battle with Andross. Krystal is also a total non-character, which I found a little more surprising given people's uh... fascination with her. She shows up in the prologue and is then reduced to a damsel in distress for the rest of the game. You're never given any context about who she is or why she's important, she's just a piece of meat stuck in a crystal, and to punctuate this point the first time Fox sees her you're treated to music that sounds like it's ripped straight from a 1970s adult film. It's ridiculous. When this theme shows up again during the end credits I laughed until it hurt.
Star Fox Adventures is rarely bad in a way that's actually interesting, and frankly I think it's irresponsible to not put an FDA warning on the box about its sedative nature. Sure, it suffers from the needless inclusion of Fox McCloud and his idiot friends, but it was never a good game to begin with. It controls poorly, puzzles are either uninteresting or just plain unfun, and the only real identity its able to create is owed entirely to the elements that were never meant to be there to begin with. I think a lot of games with notoriously bad reputations made over one or two egregious flaws are worthy of a reevaluation, and my evaluation is this game sucks ass.
To be fair, I kind of get this point. I think a lot of games with notoriously bad reputations made over one or two egregious flaws are dog piled on unnecessarily and are worthy of a reevaluation. Games like Dark Souls 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog have changed a lot in the public eye as people have come around on them years later. They were always great games, though. Classics, in fact. People just wouldn't give them a fair shot at the time. Star Fox Adventures is now 20 years old, so I knew exactly what it was going in, and considering I never played it back in the day, I figured I'd have a well-informed perspective that would allow me to see the game for exactly what it is and evaluate it accordingly.
This game sucks so much, holy shit.
I figured calling it a "Zelda clone" would actually be reductive, but honestly that's precisely what it is, and it is so in the most derogatory sense possible. Star Fox Adventures is to Ocarina of Time what Hydlide is to The Legend of Zelda. The puzzles in this game are so braindead easy that they just start to get dull and drag the game down, making it feel far longer than its length. You'll need to use spells Fox gains throughout the story in order to solve most of these, but they are often finicky and feel awful to use. You're also given some assistance from Prince Tricky, who I want to hold under water until the life leaves his eyes. A lot of Tricky's abilities could have been consolidated into Fox's moveset, allowing Rare to simplify the menu and streamline puzzles, but I guess they felt it was important to not have Fox experience the adventure alone and wanted to give him a sort of Navi equivalent. Developing a rare form of tinnitus where "hey, listen!" reverberates in my skull until I'm driven to madness would be preferable to Prince "I'm hungryyy" Tricky.
To be honest, for as lackluster and boring as a lot of this game is, it was probably a 2.5 for me until I got to Dragon Rock, a late game dungeon that makes frequent use of an early game ability: the Fire Shooter. This ability is exactly what it says on the tin, you activate it and can aim your staff around to shoot little fire balls. The problem is that the game forces your reticle back to the center of the screen if you're not forcing the analog stick where you want it, meaning you're constantly fighting against the controller to line up your shots. This thing swings around wildly at the slightest input, too, so it's also easy to overshoot your targets. The vast majority of Dragon Rock's puzzles are based around this one skill, with many of them being timer based as well. I know third person aiming in video games was in an altogether different place than it is now, but it's astonishing to me this made it into the finished product. Maybe they didn't have time to fix it because they were too busy figuring out how the hell to fit Andross into this thing, I don't know!
Dungeons are broken up with short flying segments modeled after Star Fox 64, but it's clear that Rare had neither the passion nor skill to create a proper Star Fox game. They just feel lazily thrown together with all the elements you'd expect from a typical Star Fox level, but without any of the nuance or design sense. Similar to how Star Fox Adventures feels like a flat version of Zelda, so too does it feel like a flat version of Star Fox. Completely uninspired from top to bottom.
The story is of course the most involved narrative in any Star Fox game to this point, but it's also very clear what parts were in the original Dinosaur Planet and what parts were shoehorned in at the request of Miyamoto. Even the way Fox is written feels distinctly out of character for him, and it's not like there was a whole lot of content out there to properly define who he was prior to that point. I haven't played Dinosaur Planet so I suppose I can't say with any authority, but Fox is written in such a way that it wouldn't surprise me if they simply swapped the lead character's model, rewrote maybe 10% of his lines to reference his crew, and called it a day.
General Scales and Krystal also seem like casualties of Rare retooling the game. Scales is the main antagonist, but he very rarely shows up and a lot of his evil deeds are told to you by other characters. In fact, he doesn't even get a boss fight at the end of the game, being done away with unceremoniously in order to move you right along into a battle with Andross. Krystal is also a total non-character, which I found a little more surprising given people's uh... fascination with her. She shows up in the prologue and is then reduced to a damsel in distress for the rest of the game. You're never given any context about who she is or why she's important, she's just a piece of meat stuck in a crystal, and to punctuate this point the first time Fox sees her you're treated to music that sounds like it's ripped straight from a 1970s adult film. It's ridiculous. When this theme shows up again during the end credits I laughed until it hurt.
Star Fox Adventures is rarely bad in a way that's actually interesting, and frankly I think it's irresponsible to not put an FDA warning on the box about its sedative nature. Sure, it suffers from the needless inclusion of Fox McCloud and his idiot friends, but it was never a good game to begin with. It controls poorly, puzzles are either uninteresting or just plain unfun, and the only real identity its able to create is owed entirely to the elements that were never meant to be there to begin with. I think a lot of games with notoriously bad reputations made over one or two egregious flaws are worthy of a reevaluation, and my evaluation is this game sucks ass.
The first time I ever got hyped up for a new release was when Pokemon Gold/Silver was announced. The wait for this game was agonizing, and I passed the time by absorbing as much Pokemon related media I could. I replayed Red and Blue to death, went hunting for Missingno and screwed up my saves in the process (which only meant getting to play the games AGAIN!), I recorded the show religiously, played the board game, and begged my mom to get me every one of those stupid gold cards at Burger King. A friend of mine at the time was fortunate enough to have both a computer and an internet connection, and while staying the night I got online and printed out a full Pokedex, wasting 150 sheets of paper and an untold amount of his parent's toner. I was fully swept up in the Pokemon craze.
Looking back, I think it would have been good to learn a lesson about buying into hype at a young age, but Gold and Silver not only lived up to my expectations, they exceeded them. It is then a little odd that I never played Pokemon Cristal, Gen 2's "enhanced edition." I suppose even back then owning three copies of the same game was a bit gauche, or maybe my parents finally put their foot down on all this Pokemon crap, I don't really remember.
In any case, I figured the best way to revisit Gen 2 was to pick up Cristal and finally give it a shot. And you know what? Holds up better than I thought! It certainly helps that Game Freak went all out with the second generation. It feels like a solid step forward for the franchise, introducing a slew of new features that would go on to become series staples. Breeding Pokemon, hatching eggs, held items, the day/night cycle, and "shiny Pokemon" were all new here, and while none of these mechanics are particularly deep on their own, the abundance of new features gave players plenty to chew on. I'm also a pretty big fan of the new Pokemon introduced in this generation. The franchise's art style has changed considerably over time, but the new monsters in Gold and Silver blend in perfectly with the original cast. I think I might actually like Tyhplosion more than Charizard, and Smeargle is easily in my top 5 favorite Pokemon designs. Just look at that little freak. What are you even painting, you idiot?
What blew my mind the most of all was clearing the Elite 4 and finding out I was only halfway through the game. Almost all of Kanto from Red and Blue is present and explorable as "post game" content, allowing you to earn the original eight badges and take on Red as the game's final challenge. I don't think any other Pokemon game has ever rivaled Gen 2's scope, and it's really impressive just how much content they managed to cram onto a Game Boy cart. Upon revisiting this generation, Jhoto does seem smaller than I remember, and the game sends you flying through those first eight gyms. It's easier to understand now how they got away with it, but it's still pretty damn impressive regardless.
Unfortunately, Cristal and Gen 2 doesn't break free from some of Pokemon's more fundamental problems, namely it's dull battle system. As much as I want to like this game, I need to take a dangerous amount of No-Doz to slog through some of this crap. The first eight gyms differentiate themselves from Kanto's by relying on elements not repeated in those gyms, which does present a more interesting challenge in the early game, but upon revisiting Kanto the gyms become far easier to take on. It's a nice victory lap of sorts but given how hard it is to get invested in Pokemon battles, I found myself disengaging this time around. I'm also just not a fan of roaming legendaries. It's the one feature from this generation that can eat me. I get what they were going for but finding one of these assholes and having them run immediately is a lot more irritating than fun.
A 3 out of 5 is probably as good as a mainline Pokemon game is ever going to get from me. You can feel Game Freak's excitement and ambition in almost every part of Gen 2. They had some fresh ideas, most of them good ones, and really set out to make the best possible Pokemon game they could on the Game Boy. It's sad that the company quickly devolved into a perpetual Pokemon content machine thereafter, with attempts to branch out into new IPs often being met with failure. I think the writing was always on the wall, however, as everything outside of the mainline series even pre-2000 was focused on producing as much content as possible regardless of quality. More products = more money, that's just how the machine works. But, hey, that doesn't take away from the fact that every time I turn on Gold, Silver, or even Cristal I'm able to go back in time to a moment where Game Freak was just as passionate about Pokemon as I was.
Looking back, I think it would have been good to learn a lesson about buying into hype at a young age, but Gold and Silver not only lived up to my expectations, they exceeded them. It is then a little odd that I never played Pokemon Cristal, Gen 2's "enhanced edition." I suppose even back then owning three copies of the same game was a bit gauche, or maybe my parents finally put their foot down on all this Pokemon crap, I don't really remember.
In any case, I figured the best way to revisit Gen 2 was to pick up Cristal and finally give it a shot. And you know what? Holds up better than I thought! It certainly helps that Game Freak went all out with the second generation. It feels like a solid step forward for the franchise, introducing a slew of new features that would go on to become series staples. Breeding Pokemon, hatching eggs, held items, the day/night cycle, and "shiny Pokemon" were all new here, and while none of these mechanics are particularly deep on their own, the abundance of new features gave players plenty to chew on. I'm also a pretty big fan of the new Pokemon introduced in this generation. The franchise's art style has changed considerably over time, but the new monsters in Gold and Silver blend in perfectly with the original cast. I think I might actually like Tyhplosion more than Charizard, and Smeargle is easily in my top 5 favorite Pokemon designs. Just look at that little freak. What are you even painting, you idiot?
What blew my mind the most of all was clearing the Elite 4 and finding out I was only halfway through the game. Almost all of Kanto from Red and Blue is present and explorable as "post game" content, allowing you to earn the original eight badges and take on Red as the game's final challenge. I don't think any other Pokemon game has ever rivaled Gen 2's scope, and it's really impressive just how much content they managed to cram onto a Game Boy cart. Upon revisiting this generation, Jhoto does seem smaller than I remember, and the game sends you flying through those first eight gyms. It's easier to understand now how they got away with it, but it's still pretty damn impressive regardless.
Unfortunately, Cristal and Gen 2 doesn't break free from some of Pokemon's more fundamental problems, namely it's dull battle system. As much as I want to like this game, I need to take a dangerous amount of No-Doz to slog through some of this crap. The first eight gyms differentiate themselves from Kanto's by relying on elements not repeated in those gyms, which does present a more interesting challenge in the early game, but upon revisiting Kanto the gyms become far easier to take on. It's a nice victory lap of sorts but given how hard it is to get invested in Pokemon battles, I found myself disengaging this time around. I'm also just not a fan of roaming legendaries. It's the one feature from this generation that can eat me. I get what they were going for but finding one of these assholes and having them run immediately is a lot more irritating than fun.
A 3 out of 5 is probably as good as a mainline Pokemon game is ever going to get from me. You can feel Game Freak's excitement and ambition in almost every part of Gen 2. They had some fresh ideas, most of them good ones, and really set out to make the best possible Pokemon game they could on the Game Boy. It's sad that the company quickly devolved into a perpetual Pokemon content machine thereafter, with attempts to branch out into new IPs often being met with failure. I think the writing was always on the wall, however, as everything outside of the mainline series even pre-2000 was focused on producing as much content as possible regardless of quality. More products = more money, that's just how the machine works. But, hey, that doesn't take away from the fact that every time I turn on Gold, Silver, or even Cristal I'm able to go back in time to a moment where Game Freak was just as passionate about Pokemon as I was.
Man, March 2020 sucked. I had been working overnight for years before my job unceremoniously rolled back operating hours, forcing me to move back to days and lose a 20% pay differential. I couldn't just leave and find a new job either, as the COVID-19 pandemic was already impacting the job market - hell, by this point it was a nightmare just finding non-perishable food items. I was tired, hungry, stressed, and broke.
But working days meant I could do something I hadn't done since I was a child: play video games while the sun comes up. This was something I used to do while waiting for infomercials to transition into the morning cartoon blocks as a kid, and it had long since represented a weird sort of ideal where the only thing I had to worry about was whether I'd turn the TV on and see a PSA about spousal abuse before I could get my Genesis started. Being able to do this again was therapeutic, it gave me something small to look forward to each morning when I otherwise wanted to shut down.
Castle of Illusion was the first game I played on this new schedule, and I think it was the absolute best place to start. It's incredibly simplistic as far as mascot platformers go, owed to the fact that it was designed for an audience whose skills were still soft, but that also makes it the perfect game wake up to when you're 32 and running on 3 hours of sleep. As far as early Sega Genesis games go, it also feels remarkably good to play. Other games like Altered Beast or Revenge of Shinobi had a certain off feeling in the way they controlled, but Castle of Illusion feels excellent. Mickey's weight feels natural, bouncing on enemies is satisfying, and levels are well designed and fun to explore. It also looks pretty damn good for that era, too. At the time, the level of detail and animation quality was a point of pride both for Disney and Sega, and it was used to market the Genesis heavily, especially towards a younger demo. Of course, Genesis games would look far better in the years following its release, but for the time that this came out, it was one of the better looking games on the system.
As far as the Illusion series goes, I've already professed my preference (and love) for World of Illusion, but Castle is still a very solid game that I think holds up better than many of the other early releases on the Genesis. There's a remake of this as well, and while I don't like it as much, it's also pretty good and well worth playing if you enjoy the original. That said, I wonder whether this game is engaging enough to entertain most people nowadays, and I think a lot of my appreciation for it is both due to playing it as a kid and having it become imprinted as a sort of "comfort game" as an adult, especially given the context I played it in.
But working days meant I could do something I hadn't done since I was a child: play video games while the sun comes up. This was something I used to do while waiting for infomercials to transition into the morning cartoon blocks as a kid, and it had long since represented a weird sort of ideal where the only thing I had to worry about was whether I'd turn the TV on and see a PSA about spousal abuse before I could get my Genesis started. Being able to do this again was therapeutic, it gave me something small to look forward to each morning when I otherwise wanted to shut down.
Castle of Illusion was the first game I played on this new schedule, and I think it was the absolute best place to start. It's incredibly simplistic as far as mascot platformers go, owed to the fact that it was designed for an audience whose skills were still soft, but that also makes it the perfect game wake up to when you're 32 and running on 3 hours of sleep. As far as early Sega Genesis games go, it also feels remarkably good to play. Other games like Altered Beast or Revenge of Shinobi had a certain off feeling in the way they controlled, but Castle of Illusion feels excellent. Mickey's weight feels natural, bouncing on enemies is satisfying, and levels are well designed and fun to explore. It also looks pretty damn good for that era, too. At the time, the level of detail and animation quality was a point of pride both for Disney and Sega, and it was used to market the Genesis heavily, especially towards a younger demo. Of course, Genesis games would look far better in the years following its release, but for the time that this came out, it was one of the better looking games on the system.
As far as the Illusion series goes, I've already professed my preference (and love) for World of Illusion, but Castle is still a very solid game that I think holds up better than many of the other early releases on the Genesis. There's a remake of this as well, and while I don't like it as much, it's also pretty good and well worth playing if you enjoy the original. That said, I wonder whether this game is engaging enough to entertain most people nowadays, and I think a lot of my appreciation for it is both due to playing it as a kid and having it become imprinted as a sort of "comfort game" as an adult, especially given the context I played it in.
1994
I've been dreading this one. It's not that I want to be a contrarian for the sake of it or anything like that, but Earthbound did not land for me the way it seems to with everyone else. I think a lot of that has to do with absorbing so much of this game via osmosis before I actually sat down to play it. Most of its gags, twists, and story beats were all thoroughly laid out to me long before I slapped the ROM onto my Retropie. So much of this game was known to me it was like I already played it, the only thing missing was actually pushing buttons on a controller, and by that point it felt like a formality.
Of course, this doesn't mean I think Earthbound is a bad game or anything like that. It's still fun, I really like its oddball sense of humor, and visually it's got a style that I think has yet to be properly matched by its many, many modern imitators. It's just that when you've seen a quintillion videos about Giygas it loses a little bit of its edge. Also, combat can feel kinda slow, definitely not my favorite JRPG battle system on the SNES, but I also understand that fighting is really ancillary to the true heart of the game: its story.
So, yeah, not much to say about this one. I never played it as a kid, in fact I don't think I was even aware of it until I saw Nes in Super Smash Bros., so I have no personal connection or nostalgia for this one. I played it because everyone hypes it up as one of the best games ever made, and I knew I wasn't going to share that opinion going in given how spoiled I already was. At that same time, this is probably the game I wish I could have a blind playthrough of. I bet if you have no idea what the hell Earthbound is, it would be an incredible experience, but in 2022 there's kids coming right out of the womb saying "Did you know Giygas was conceived due to a traumatic experience Shigesato Itoi had as a child, after walking into the wrong theater and witnessing a scene from The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty?"
I worry about the younger generation sometimes...
Of course, this doesn't mean I think Earthbound is a bad game or anything like that. It's still fun, I really like its oddball sense of humor, and visually it's got a style that I think has yet to be properly matched by its many, many modern imitators. It's just that when you've seen a quintillion videos about Giygas it loses a little bit of its edge. Also, combat can feel kinda slow, definitely not my favorite JRPG battle system on the SNES, but I also understand that fighting is really ancillary to the true heart of the game: its story.
So, yeah, not much to say about this one. I never played it as a kid, in fact I don't think I was even aware of it until I saw Nes in Super Smash Bros., so I have no personal connection or nostalgia for this one. I played it because everyone hypes it up as one of the best games ever made, and I knew I wasn't going to share that opinion going in given how spoiled I already was. At that same time, this is probably the game I wish I could have a blind playthrough of. I bet if you have no idea what the hell Earthbound is, it would be an incredible experience, but in 2022 there's kids coming right out of the womb saying "Did you know Giygas was conceived due to a traumatic experience Shigesato Itoi had as a child, after walking into the wrong theater and witnessing a scene from The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty?"
I worry about the younger generation sometimes...
1994
Finally, I get to talk about a good video game.
Contra: Hard Corps lives up to its name. It's tough as hell and leans heavily into a 90's "hardcore" attitude that drives the pace and action of the entire game. Some of the most insane, colorful, and explosive set pieces on the Genesis are all crammed into this one little cart. You start the game plowing through enemies in an armored vehicle, which you then fly out the front window of with barely a second of respite before you need to mow down swarms of attacking bad guys, only to wrap up the game climbing to the top of an out-of-control rocket containing a grotesque alien who is actively breaking through the hull to attack you. That's assuming you stick to the main story path and get the true ending. There's an impressive amount of alternate exits and routes you can take, with a number of different endings to earn along the way. In a way, it's like a prototypical Shadow the Hedgehog, although that game doesn't let you travel back in time and marry a monkey. A rare knock against Shadow the Hedgehog, but if any game were to one-up it, it's Contra: Hard Corps.
As is the case with most Contra games, Hard Corps is best enjoyed with a friend, and each character provides enough of a difference in terms of their movement and weapon options that everyone will find one that suits them best. Personally, I really like Brownie. He's a tiny robot, which means he has the smallest hitbox, and I'm 5'6" so it's good to have representation in video games. That said, Hard Corps is good enough that if you want to play it solo, you'll still have a great time. Either way, just be prepared to die a lot. Hard Corps is absolutely brutal, but learning the game and overcoming it feels satisfying in a way that's unparalleled on the Genesis. It also throws you back in the action so fast that a game over only feels like a mere hiccup, and if you find yourself becoming frustrated with one particular route it's not asking too much to simply switch onto another.
The soundtrack is also completely off the wall. Every track is about as frenetic as it can possibly be. Hiroshi Kobayashi and his team knew their way around the YM2612, playing to its strengths, particularly in its ability to produce an incredibly grungy sound. Needless to say, it's well-suited to the action and aesthetic style of Hard Corps.
Everything about Hard Corps adds up into the best possible experience you could have with a Contra game, and it might just be one of the best run-and-guns on the Genesis to boot.
Contra: Hard Corps lives up to its name. It's tough as hell and leans heavily into a 90's "hardcore" attitude that drives the pace and action of the entire game. Some of the most insane, colorful, and explosive set pieces on the Genesis are all crammed into this one little cart. You start the game plowing through enemies in an armored vehicle, which you then fly out the front window of with barely a second of respite before you need to mow down swarms of attacking bad guys, only to wrap up the game climbing to the top of an out-of-control rocket containing a grotesque alien who is actively breaking through the hull to attack you. That's assuming you stick to the main story path and get the true ending. There's an impressive amount of alternate exits and routes you can take, with a number of different endings to earn along the way. In a way, it's like a prototypical Shadow the Hedgehog, although that game doesn't let you travel back in time and marry a monkey. A rare knock against Shadow the Hedgehog, but if any game were to one-up it, it's Contra: Hard Corps.
As is the case with most Contra games, Hard Corps is best enjoyed with a friend, and each character provides enough of a difference in terms of their movement and weapon options that everyone will find one that suits them best. Personally, I really like Brownie. He's a tiny robot, which means he has the smallest hitbox, and I'm 5'6" so it's good to have representation in video games. That said, Hard Corps is good enough that if you want to play it solo, you'll still have a great time. Either way, just be prepared to die a lot. Hard Corps is absolutely brutal, but learning the game and overcoming it feels satisfying in a way that's unparalleled on the Genesis. It also throws you back in the action so fast that a game over only feels like a mere hiccup, and if you find yourself becoming frustrated with one particular route it's not asking too much to simply switch onto another.
The soundtrack is also completely off the wall. Every track is about as frenetic as it can possibly be. Hiroshi Kobayashi and his team knew their way around the YM2612, playing to its strengths, particularly in its ability to produce an incredibly grungy sound. Needless to say, it's well-suited to the action and aesthetic style of Hard Corps.
Everything about Hard Corps adds up into the best possible experience you could have with a Contra game, and it might just be one of the best run-and-guns on the Genesis to boot.