The internet-raised are only beginning to translate the world we inhabited into art. It's a task that requires starting from nowhere, as the things felt were wholly new and differed by niche and micro-era in ways that are difficult to even communicate. I imagine this'll be a project that lasts as long as we're alive, and it's fascinating seeing the beautiful early attempts we've had since Christine Love really kicked it all off.

-

"in the teenage mind, age is like a medal"

"i wish i could be comforted by honesty again"

"i think of people as places

and i guess i just couldn't stay"

The core of rail shooter gameplay works near perfectly, but good lord this is difficult. There's almost 0 room for fucking up your reloads even in the first chapter, and when I realized the first boss didn't have a checkpoint I gave up. Maybe worth a shot another time since it is quite solid and has that wonderful PSX horror vibe, but I just don't have the drive to trudge through this again and again. Even though I didn't make it all that far, I already found myself exhausted with the early parts which have nothing to offer after your first time through them.

Those fucking rats, though.

Perfectly takes the charm, flair, and design ethos of Generation 3 and updates it to the more refined (if still bloated) mechanics of Generation 6. Polished as all hell and if it wasn't for a few jokes that go a little too further than Pokemon normally would, you could convince me this was an official game. The humor is a huge part of the experience here, and it's usually on point...there are a couple jokes that seem a bit mean-spirited, but it's consistently clever and even gets me laughing just seeing what Pokemon NPCs throw out. There's so much to find, so much to collect, so much to do! Honestly this is a must-play for any Pokemon fan.

Oh, and the enemy team are a bunch of anprims and I kinda wanted to befriend them. Poor slightly misguided sweethearts.

YO ADRIAN, I DID IIIITTT

As a kid I desperately wanted to be good at this game but could never get past Bald Bull 1. Today I beat Tyson in one of those anticlimaxes where you do it on your first try of the day before your head's even really in it. I thought the fight was over and I was just warming up, but ended up fulfilling a childhood dream.

Tyson is such an anti-boss, punishing you for using the pattern recognition skills that defined the rest of the game. His utter disregard for the rules of his own game make him stand larger-than-life in our memories, and while that could definitely be considered asshole design...Super Macho Man works just as well as the proper final boss, with the dream fight just being a bonus. Maybe that's just how I justify it to myself, but regardless the result is endlessly satisfying. God bless this game.

I actually had a pretty hard time with this one. Your Mario muscle memory built up over a lifetime really works against you here, and you'll find yourself overcorrecting your stops and sliding off platforms backwards, landing right next to enemies instead of on their heads (sprites are WAY bigger than the actual hitboxes), and generally trying to play this faster than it's really built for.

But I dunno, it's still a good time and an incredibly fleshed out experience for a Game Boy launch title.