The graphics in this game are pretty amazing, yes, you may argue it looks "ugly" but the 3D effect for the GBA is very convincing and works wonders for a Pinball game, making it so you can actually hit the ball forwards and up, and this game even incorporates hitting the ball in the air to hit things which is a great idea and great use of this tech! Secondly, the IDEA of the way the progression works is a solid one, it takes the "open world filled with non linear missions" type structure straight from Mario 64, dropping you into worlds and challenging you to go and grab stars to unlock doors a literal translation of Mario 64 to pinball, fantastic idea!

Everything begins to fall apart in the execution however. Every single board, and I mean every, single, board. Is just a square, with some blocks, and some enemies. Thats it. And rather than actually take advantage of the GBA's power we are still limited to 1 board at a time, with screen transitions like this is a GB Pinball game. Every single level just feels identical, and every identical level isn't even fun to begin with! They are simply tedious. There is no interesting puzzles or gimmicks, it is always as simple as, youre in a rectangle space, heres some shit, go smack the ball into the shit, get the star, move on. But do not be mistaken into thinking this tedium is easy, because these tiny spread-out objects move, and you must hit all the specific objects, as if you hit the OTHER specific objects on the board you will trigger the wrong thing and have to start over, and usually to start over you must purposely go BACK a board and make your way BACK up again by hitting MORE tedious objects in the correct way. Even the bosses in this game are tedious as all hell, especially the final boss which is an absolute nightmare due to the previously mentioned specification order of hitting blocks and the way you must climb your way back up the board again to retry. The amount of precision needed to do even the most basic action in this game just makes it feel borderline unplayable at times.

I don't really have much to say on the design of this one, it's just a brilliant translation of SOR2 to 8-bit consoles! The graphics are fantastic, some of the best I've seen for this level of hardware, especially for handhelds of the era. Comparing this game to really, any Gameboy games graphics in 1993 is just apples to oranges, but realistically that always tends to be the case for Game Gear VS Game Boy. The music is also stellar, again done by Yuzo Koshiro so not surprising, all the moves are brought over from SOR2 MD, its really as good as you can get, the only ONE minor issue is that rarely you can get stun-locked leading to a death, but it's not a common occurrence, and you get more than enough lives to comfortably complete the game without putting on too much of a sweat. Great game, great port.

It's bad.

The physics are nearly spot on. Unless you're some Sonic autist like me, you probably wouldn't even know it was any different from the classics. It's pretty much the one and only thing they really nailed in this game. Although most of that is due to it being carried over from the retro engine, which does include some jank (Insert clip of being crushed by a corner from the penultimate level here), but as I said, it is basically perfect in terms of what we would expect from Classic physics and controls.

The character's abilities are as you would expect, but Amy just sucks total ass. Wow, a double jump, how original! And she also has some scuffed version of a drop dash that basically does... nothing? It sucks. And the extra character, their ability is... a double jump? Again!? Brilliant. They just seem to be incapable of actually designing new characters for a classic setting. Both new movesets made are just generic, uninspired tripe that bring nothing new to the table, giving little incentive to play them above the pre-existing roster.

The emerald powers are fine. They are handed to you automatically in the "We designed this bit specifically for the power" moments, which is kind of dumb, and those moments always stick out like a sore thumb regardless of the pointer. The abilities are basically divided into 2 types: Traversal and Keys. The keys are just press the button to make the door open. For example, the time ability, which only exists to let you go through doors disguised as fast-moving objects. And Traversal, which just allows you to skip parts of the level or go to a designated area. They aren't really fun to use; they are convenient, allowing you to cheese platforming and get free hits on a boss. I mean, the first emerald power is literally just "Press the button for free damage on the boss." Like, sure, that's helpful, but it isn't really "fun," is it?

To even get those powers, however, you need to beat the special stages, and wow! They are a steaming pile of shit! The reticle on the Sonic Boom-esque tether is so infuriating to use. It grabs onto things from seemingly random angles and distances. And even then, it's not like these stages actually pose a challenge; they are mind-numbingly easy. If you can tolerate the annoyance of missing your grabs constantly for about 20 seconds, they all but play themselves.

The level design is lackluster; it ranges from OK to annoying. It never gets downright atrocious, but it's just generic and incredibly repetitive. They love reusing the same boring sections on loop, especially if it includes a slow, annoying gimmick. And all the level gimmicks are a snooze. For example, the rotating sections in the final level are easy, slow, and sleep-inducing, as are the anti-gravity sections in the exact same level! They exist to ground you to a halt.

But even when the levels are OK, I still don't want to play them because I know at the end is lurking a god-awful, sluggish boss. I must congratulate this game for having by far the worst bosses in the entire franchise. Every single one is simply "Wait through this painfully long attack phase, then get one free hit in, repeat." This would be bad enough in any game, but a SONIC game? At the end of EVERY level? It's painful. Usually, the boss fights drag on longer than the entire level, for crying out loud. You may only progress through the boss when it very specifically decides, so even with emerald powers, they still drag on for an eternity. When you hit a boss, it flashes white, indicating its invincibility frames, like the classics, but even after this flashing ends, you STILL can't actually hit the boss again until it miraculously decides you can again, even if you very clearly get hits off on them. Every encounter is basically like watching a very long and boring QTE that is identical every single time. The final boss is so long and boring, and the issue is not "Oh, you just think it's hard, git gud!" No, it's that it's BORING; you sit through minutes upon minutes of slog in the first phase, then finally get to the second, make one tiny slip up and boom, you're right back to sitting doing nothing for minutes again. It's atrocious. And I was thinking the final boss would be the worst example of this, but actually, no! There are 2 more secret final bosses which are somehow EVEN WORSE! Bravo!

The graphics are as generic and soulless as can be. All the badniks look like bootleg McDonald's toys, and the stages lack any real flair or distinct theming. When this game was announced, they declared no zones would be reused! All original! So instead of reused cool zones, we instead get a grab bag of insanely generic-looking levels. The animations for most characters are decent enough, although some are quite drab in contrast, specifically the unlockable character.

The music is the definition of mediocrity. It has a few select tracks that are decent, but for every one of those, we have a complete stinker. How they even managed to do this with such a talented group of composers is beyond me! It's definitely their worst work for probably every single one of them.

And one of the worst parts of this entire package is the sound design, and I'm not usually privy to this due to my lack of knowledge on the subject, but here, dear God. Firstly, this game has NO identity; almost all jingles and sounds are stolen from Mania/Gens/Colours. And those that aren't are stock sounds played 10x louder than they should be. It's terrible!

The story makes basically no sense and is a waste of time. Nothing happens. And the newly introduced/reintroduced characters Fang and Trip do basically nothing. A huge shame considering both of these characters have really cool designs and personalities. I mean you take Fang, bring him back, have him do nothing, then give him arguably the worst boss in the series' history (twice). Fantastic.

There is also, of course, the Battle Mode, which is terrible! For one, it doesn't even work half the time. Usually, the servers are down, and when they are up, they insist on matching you with only ONE person and a bunch of CPUs. And even when you play with friends, you get 0 options, so hope you like playing random shitty game modes on loop on random maps rather than just letting you choose. It also has some arduous ranking system that has about 100 noob tier ranks that nobody is ever going to bother grinding up anyway since they don't even display anywhere! What is the point?! This mode is presumably where the endless grind element is meant to come in, as during your playthrough you'll obtain Medals to buy robot parts, and these medals make up the main reward for doing anything in the game, which is dumb considering 99% of players aren't going to give a shit about these collectibles. And to make matters worse, even if you do care about them, all the things you can buy with them (cosmetics for your battle mode robot) are ludicrously overpriced to incentivize grinding/playing on loop. This system, I can only presume, is made this way to justify the $60 price tag since many people, and individuals in the industry, view the length of a game as equal to its value. So this game is very clearly geared toward long play sessions. It is most certainly not made to be picked up and beaten like the previous titles. This also explains the pointless hub world, insanely drawn-out boss fights, and mandatory forced replays of the game alongside this grindfest of a medal system. Not that this game is even worth $60 regardless of ignoring the length mindset, but that mindset is what leads to games such as this purposely going out of their way to waste your time since, well, you paid a high price so you expect a long game, right? There is a difference between a game that is endlessly replayable being worth a lot and a game that simply doesn't respect my time or patience as it tries to eke out another hour of playtime to justify a price tag.

A huge disappointment, even if you can cope and find enjoyment from the pure mediocrity that is this game's aesthetics and level design, the bosses take away any remaining joy that could have been had. Unfortunately, a big miss. 4/10

It's the first Final Fantasy game with a REAL story, with actual characters with believable relationships. Still nothing truly mindblowing, but it's good, especially for the era in which it was released. Once again the characters have their own unique moves which help you connect further to them, and unlike FF2, these moves are actually useful and makes you appreciate the characters more. The one MAJOR flaw with this game's story is that it cannot commit to anything, every single plot twist or event in this game is a fakeout, near every single character in this game dies, only for a "SIKE! They're actually totally fine!" for no reason. One of my favourite points in the plot was Kains betrayal, which is not only then repeated but "oh uh he was just under mind control the whole time!" which they then use this "mind control" shtick multiple times over. Its just bad, and also totally unnecessary, it only diminishes its great moments while adding nothing, most of the fakeout deaths only come back to say Hi for a few seconds then cease to be relevant for the rest of the game, so why even bother ruining their death?

This game also introduces the active time battle system, which is huge! And greatly improves the gameplay, the entire battle system even beyond this is much speedier than before with improved UI and damage indicators to help the game flow much better. And if you're a little baby and cant manage the time battle system, there always the option to slow it down or have it wait for you, but its not necessary and much more fun to fight in real-time. The enemies are also greatly improved, with bosses that actually serve as a unique challenge, and not like FF3, where some bosses where more like puzzles, with a few clear solutions, which has its upsides, but here the battles actually feel like battles, with bosses having multiple forms and unique techniques for you to fight against. Due to these unique encounters it allows for challenging boss encounters without the need to simply grind, although if you want to grind (for some reason) there are quite a few collectibles for you to go grind for.

The soundtrack of this game is brilliant, definitely the best so far, especially all the battle tracks, perhaps some of THE best final fantasy battle themes in the franchise.


In conclusion, Final Fantasy IV represents a turning point in the franchise's history, setting the stage for what followed. With its engaging story and memorable characters, it introduced a more character-driven storytelling style. The active time battle system injected new life into gameplay, making battles quicker and more exciting. The improved user interface and challenging boss battles made the game a satisfying experience. The soundtrack is a standout. Despite its quirks, Final Fantasy IV is a classic and a great starting point for those exploring the world of Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy III takes all the elements from Final Fantasy I left behind in II and makes them BETTER while taking some of the few elements that did work from II and adding them to the mix.

The story is more akin to Final Fantasy I, and you once again create your own protagonists. The story is, OK, nothing really that amazing, but nothing terrible. The NPCs actually have character now, and the story actually is somewhat engaging. Rather than forcing you to lump around dead weight with a rotating fourth story-related party member like Final Fantasy II, characters now "Join your party" by simply following you around, allowing you to talk to them, which is neat.

The world itself also feels incredibly large, as you realise midway through that you've only been exploring a fraction of the map filled with hidden areas and details opened up to you as you gain more modes of transport. My main gripe with the overworld is why exactly they thought it was a good idea to have half of it just be empty sea that all looks exactly the same, its insanely hard to navigate due to this and just frustrating as you aimlessly fly over the blank void of water.

The EXP system is returned as it was in Final Fantasy I, with the rather groundbreaking addition of the job system. Now any character at any time can fulfil any role and switch between them at a moment's notice. You need to gain points in order to switch, which is kind of a meaningless system as you almost always have enough points, and if you don't you just have to effortlessly grind for them (This system was removed in the remakes). Each job has a unique action and playstyle giving a large variety of options for forming your party, adding replayability. The game has moments that are like puzzles where you must choose the correct job types in order to progress, however, you can also solve these problems by simply using specific spells or actions. More jobs unlock as you progress, further encouraging you to switch it up as you go. The only issue with this is the final jobs you unlock are leagues above any other jobs you had for the whole game, I feel these jobs should have been a post-game reward or something akin, rather than being practically handed to you at the end game. This makes the battles in this game fun and engaging, and the levels of the enemies are never too high or too low for it to become annoying or monotonous. The final dungeon is an exception to this, with a huge spike in difficulty, forcing you to fight waves of over-levelled enemies with no save points for a long stretch of time.

The dungeons themselves are also well-designed, they are fun to explore and don't have any of the annoying bullshit from Final Fantasy II's dungeon design. Once again the exception to this is the final dungeon which is far too long and filled with dead ends. The finale is definitely the worst part of Final Fantasy III, even the final boss is terrible it just spams ONE OP attack at you over and over, no strategy, just grind.

The soundtrack is good, and brings back a few staples from Final Fantasy I skipped over in II, and creates new traditions from the tracks from II.

Final Fantasy III is a great improvement to Final Fantasy I, it's one of those "true sequels" after a bumpy middle child. Definitely the best Famicom Final Fantasy, and perhaps the best JRPG on the Famicom period. The remakes for Final Fantasy III are about the same as the original as far as I can tell, and I find the 3D visuals of the DS and PSP version really ugly, but thats just me.

For this new version of Sonic World I recall the devs wanting to aim more for Quality over Quantity, removing most of the characters and stages to refine the select few they kept. I feel this was probably the best decision for this fan project. But even with that said, do not be mistaken, this fan game has a TON of unique characters and stages, far more than any other fangame or any other GAME in general really, previously it more felt there were heaps of honestly very weak content that largely overshadowed the quality within, whereas now the actual meat of this game is all your left with (Which is a good thing).

The gameplay has this free and loose feel to it, which compliments its open levels. The homing attack/air dash that most characters come equipped with, for example, is very lenient and lasts for what feels like forever in terms of its reach, which allows you to be a lot quicker and more reckless with your control/movements, and most moves in the game follow this type of philosophy, allowing for you to be fast and free with your movements, without careening of the side of the level to your death all the time, which is an issue I have in games like Sonic Heroes, which also have fast movement options.

The character selection is great, each one has a totally unique moveset, yet somehow fits into the uniform style of the game making everyone viable. It's more akin to the classic Sonic titles, whereas Sonic/Tails/Knuckles in Sonic 3 for example, all have unique moves, but maintain the same capability to blast through any level and with the mission structure of this game. The best part about the range of characters is that each character CAN excel in all mission types, but each in their own unique way, for example, you could still use a speed type character in a killing enemies mission, by blitzing all of the enemies with a homing attack chain, or you could beat them all up in a more traditional way with a power type character.

The level variety is also pretty great, pulling from a range of Sonic titles, and each level has 5 distinct missions, and even better, a lot of the missions are unique spins of the level theme, rather than a simple challenge. This can range from a second act to the level, or a totally different stage based around beating enemies. Each first act contains 5 Red Rings to find, which I found were hidden pretty reasonably, and once those are found you unlock a final Encore mission to the level, revamping the level theme into something totally different, with some pretty deep cut theme pulls, from Sonic Shuffle to Sonic R.

The game's graphical style is, amateurish. Nothing terrible but nothing great, the lighting is lacking and the textures are OK. The animation on the characters however has been entirely revamped and looks spectacular.

The seemingly "big new addition" to this release is "The Island" which is an "open world" area for you to explore, with some bonus challenge acts to unlock. But the island is more or less barren and looks really terrible compared to all the other levels in the game. The challenge acts also aren't tracked and seem quite redundant when we already have 5 missions per act, these random extra challenges just seem tacked on, and would've made more sense just having them with the other missions, not to mention these ones aren't tracked and don't unlock a thing.

Now, the bugs. This game for me was quite unstable. Every time I boot up a level I'm faced with a long load time, and a 50/50 that the game will crash and if it does load a 50/50 the music won't play until I reboot the whole game. I also had random moments of immense lag and slow down if I spent too long in a level / restarted too many times. In normal gameplay, this lag doesn't come up, but if you're doing a hard mission or something, the lag after being there for to long doesn't exactly make it easier. These load time issues and crashing issues put me off even really bothering investing much time into the Chao garden in this game, which did intrigue me at first, but I can't be bothered to sit through long load times just to crash a 100 times to keep visiting my Chao.

But even despite these issues, I have now %100 this game, all S ranks, even finished all the stupid island stuff. So is it worth playing? Definitely! And on top of all the great content left behind after the cleanup in this version, most if not all of the old, not so A tier content can be readded through the use of mods!

Another game based around "alternate endings" where, in reality, the endings are just fail conditions/deaths.

This game has the grace to allow you to skip previously done segments when retrying, but the progression is pretty painful and uneventful. The first part is a good buildup, but the second half... oh god... FIND THE NUMBERS TO OPEN THE KEYDOOR. Riveting... I honestly thought the keydoor was some kind of gag you could easily skip with an interesting puzzle/solution, especially due to the joke "check" button, but no, you seriously have to scrape as much as you can out of these two, rather baron tiny rooms to get all the numbers. And then thats it, the game ends. "Are you disappointed?" Yes.

PS. Despite this game being about toilets, you cannot shit and you cannot flush the toilet. Practically unplayable.

Very ambitious, some great IDEAS, but these ideas in execution are incredibly boring or outright terrible.

They clearly wanted to focus more on the characters in this game, giving you specific characters rather than creating your own, and the story is much more serious, the game even begins with your party losing and being disbanded. The story is more engaging than Final Fantasy I and has more of an overarching narrative, to push that idea of the characters, you also get new party members swapping in and out, which helps you connect to them further. It also has a keyword system, which is a cool IDEA, but in reality its basically the equivalent of having a key, and everytime you talk to somebody you just have to try every word until something happens, and its not like they say anything interesting for any "wrong" words, they either give you the next objective or simply say nothing.
Despite the focus on character in this game compared to the previous entry, they all suck! I couldn't tell you one thing about really ANY character in this game despite its efforts for me to care about them.

The levelling system is entirely rewritten, as now you can gain exp for every single attribute your character does, based on how much they do specific things. Great IDEA, but in execution it is insanely annoying to actually level these things up, you tend to just have to attack yourself over and over rather than grinding enemies. You will either be totally defenseless and get sweeped by everything, or you will sweep everything, for the whole game, which makes the entire gameplay/combat portions of the game boring. The weapon proficiency system is also a waste of time as most weapons just arent worth using so youre better off sticking with whatever your character has to start with. The levelling system also makes armour a waste of time, as you WANT to take more damage so that you may increase your defence/hp stats, its counter-intuitive and stupid. Levelling spells is ALSO a nightmare as you have to cast spells about 100 times to level it up a single time, every single time! It's insanely tedious, and not fun. The previously mentioned swapping party member, is also completely useless, as they are almost ALWAYS wayyyy weaker than your party, just being fauder in every single fight.

But while youre not in combat, you get to explore the dungeons of Final Fantasy II, and they are absolute garbage too! Pick a path dungeon design galore, and for some backwards reason every single dungeon is filled with these "trap rooms" which have insane encounter rates and are just purely random, and you must check all of them as SOME are treasure rooms, its just bullshit and only exists to waste your time.

Theres no other way of putting it, this game, is bad. Much worse than Final Fantasy I, even the remakes don't save it. If you want to play the Final Fantasy series, feel free to skip this entry!

God of War is babies first hack and slash. The combat is very accessible and quite repetitive, however thats not to say its bad; the magic weapons add some much needed variety and even if its rather basic, the combo variety is serviceable. The dodging is also quite satisfying and responsive, helping the combat gameplay loop remain engaging even when fighting repeat enemies on loop.

The upgrade system is fine enough, although its a bit annoying having to wait almost a minute at a time to dump all the points into an item; but at the same time, it makes it feel way more impactful watching all those points drain away. The way that health/magic upgrades are designed so that there are more chests than you actually need, swapping them out for red orbs upon maximising health/magic, is incredibly convenient and I wish more games worked this way. You still get the satisfaction of being rewarded for exploring and finding secrets, but you don't get the frustration of missing that ONE chest once you arrive at the finale.

The combat is spliced between platform/puzzle elements. The platforming is well paced and fun, with exception to the climbing sections; these sections are agonisingly slow and boring. The same can be said for the block pushing segments in this game, the way the shove mechanic works is incredibly annoying, the indicator for when you can release the charge is just not clear enough, and leads to you frequently tapping the block an inch rather than actually shoving it over and over.

The graphics are pretty stellar for 2005, accompanied by excellent cutscenes and an engaging story. The soundtrack is awesome too, mixed with ambient tracks and intense combat tracks. The way the narrative and gameplay loop is maintained through one long journey is awesome, and the lack of loading screens and segmentation between areas makes the game quite captivating.

Oh yeah and theres so many BOOBS in this game!!!

The first notable thing about the game is that is that it has co-op, which is an immediate plus, and the fair difficulty of the game makes it fun to play with basically anybody you know. The levels have enough challenge within them to be fun even if you're a novice platformer fan, it's no Castlevania or anything, but it's also not just mindless walking. The punishment for messing up, or even getting a Game Over, are so non-consequential to a casual, that anybody can complete it since you can eventually just brute force your way through most obstacles if you so choose. But doesn't that take away all the fun and challenge if everything can become menial if I so choose? Well, if you do choose to push your way through obstacles and just die over and over, then you won't rack up any meaningful points, and without points, you won't be getting many lives, so you'll be seeing that game over screen a lot more often. Brute forcing your way through every obstacle is an option, perhaps for that co-op buddy who sucks or the small child playing this Mickey Mouse game, but it's not optimal in any way. It also has its fair share of collectables and hidden items that can improve your health and score. The game doesn't overstay its welcome, it's short and sweet, perfect for a quick co-op run.

The main gimmick of the game is the costumes/transformations, which are, OK. I'm not in love with them, they are kind of bland and unresponsive at times, and some of them, like the hook, feel like they should just be a part of the default move set, albeit with some different animation/action. But speaking of animation, this game looks great, can't really say the same for the music however, quite mediocre in that department.

In conclusion, a fun game, and an interesting way of designing a game for casuals, while not alienating people more familiar with the genre, making a great game for co-op.

This game feels like a big step back from Daggerfall. I think perhaps I'm just not a fan of the premise of this game, as much of the things I take issue with are, TECHNICALLY an improvement (?) or at least seem to be what the designers did intend to do. For example, the graphics are "Better" as they use images more often than pixel art, however, the low res images and models look so ugly in my opinion. The music is also much more atmospheric, which I suppose is "better" but to me, it is so much more boring and drab compared to the great soundtracks of Arena and Daggerfall.

The world itself is also not a "World" it is simply a building, a very boring building in my opinion with giant open rooms... that are empty a lot of the time, the plot of this game is different to the previous entries as it is stationary, we aren't trecking Tamriel or exploring Iliac Bay, we are instead stuck in a dark gloomy building. Perhaps to some this is an interesting spice up to the series, a more dark, atmospheric setting, but to me, drab, boring and painful to sit through.

The game just overall feels a lot more aimless than Daggerfall or Arena, which is saying a lot considering Daggerfall was an entirely open-ended non-linear adventure, but here you are just placed in a building with no clue where to go or what's going on, and this is by design, the plot is that your player character is mislead into this building and has no idea what's going on.

The mechanics themselves also take a hit, gone are the vastly superior mapping from Daggerfall, and gone are the bare minimum basics of Elder Scrolls, the rest system. The rest system in Arena is tedious, but viable, which was then greatly improved in Daggerfall, so of course, Battlespire chooses to remove it entirely. It does have the grace of giving gradual regen, which is a good addition, but now instead of simply skipping ahead time, your only option is to not rest at all, or to just, wait. Even the character creation and levelling is somehow worse, as youre now given a ton of "points" rather than simply lowering stat numbers, but you must divy up these "points" between every single part of your character. Once again this is an ""Improvement"" as you can dedicate these points to whatever you want, however it just over complicates things as it is pointless to give these points to certain aspects that you can level manually, whilst other things these points can improve are exclusive to this system. Its just a mess, a mess that did not need to be made as it was better as it was previously.

A good addition to this game is the dialogue options with enemies, you can now talk and interact with almost every enemy with branching options for you to choose. This is far better than the NPCs of Arena and Daggerfall, as they mainly exist to either just give you a quest or tell you a location of something, whereas here you can actually have conversations, and all the dialogue is voice-acted to boot. This is one of the few things that is a direct upgrade and is an evolution of the Elder Scrolls formula, rather than a reduction.

I will note that I did not complete this game, nor even play it for a substantial while, so perhaps the game vastly improves going forward. But for the brief time I did have with it, it was a boring slog, so I quit before I lost all will to live. Perhaps if the premise intrigues you of the switch up to the setting/structure this may be of interest to you, but for me, this game is a miss.

The long-awaited indie gem Pizza Tower has finally been released after years of Demos, and I am pleased to say that it not only met my expectations (Which were extremely high) but exceeded them!


Perhaps the biggest pill to swallow for some is the graphical style, and yes, it's not for everyone, but I personally adore it. The rough cartoon-style designs are accompanied by hilarious off-model expressions, with brilliantly done animation to boot. Every inch of this game's art is filled to the brim with personality from its enemies and bosses to its blocks and walls, it's really a treat, and a unique look for sure. To accompany the looks, it's also equipped with a truly excellent soundtrack. Lots of notes taken from the Sonic series, Hideki Naganuma (JSR/Rush) and most prominently from Wario Land 4, utilising samples from these and instruments from the GBA to create something that, while obviously inspired, stands alone as its own brilliantly creative and banging OST. Every level has a unique track, and multiple different remixes for each track sprinkled throughout. Some tracks are more chilled back and relaxed, notably the secret stages, but when this game wants to get your heart pumpin' and your blood rushing, it really holds nothing back! Not a single song, jingle or sound is a miss in this game.


Pizza Tower won't be winning any awards for its story, but it serves its purpose, and the world and characters bring enough personality to the table for this not to be a problem. Pizza face bad and has a giga weapon at the top of the tower so go stop him!!!!


But of course, the most prestigious aspect of this game that truly puts it above any other. The gameplay, and wow, the game design in this game truly just blows me away. The oft-brought-up idea among sonic fans, usually around defending Sonic The Hedgehog 1, is the idea that Speed, is not simply something granted to the player, its the idea of being rewarded with speed and momentum for skilful play that makes such a great experience; and Pizza Tower takes this idea and PERFECTs it. On a good run, you can blast your way through the level, getting every point possible and every secret without taking a second to slow down even once, but that is no easy feat. yet still not an impossible one! Its intensely challenging, but never unfair. The fun of this game is truly felt when replaying the levels, going for that perfect run, as the levels are designed in a way where it really isn't out of your reach to do so, the speed-based movement options just flow so well with the intricately designed levels to all add up to a fantastic time! Conversely, the bosses are fast-paced challenging bouts with creative attack patterns and foes to tackle, giving further justification and use for parry mechanic. And hey, even if this intense reaction-based gameplay isn't for you, you are more than welcome to take a more tactful stroll through each stage, focusing on searching out for those secrets!


In conclusion, this game is really something special. It takes ideas from games such as Wario Land 4, Super Metroid and Sonic The Hedgehog, and manages to make a product better than the sum of its parts. Definitely worth a play, and if you do give it a try, make sure to go for those S and P ranks, it really makes the game that much better.

The movement options in Sunset Overdrive are some of the best I've ever seen. Just moving around the open world feels fantastic, and the way your moveset gradually expands as you play is expertly done, making the wealth of movement options not seem overwhelming.

The weapon system is incredibly similar to that of Ratchet & Clank. The combat is never unfair, yet always challenging enough to be engaging and fun. Combining the awesome and unique weapon variety with the fantastic movement creates a fantastic game feel.

The games upgrade system is somewhat flawed unfortunately, it relies heavily on an amp/overcharge system which is mainly serviced by a skill tree (Yuck). I never really cared to manage these amps to closely nor pay much attention to my style gauge as the benefits just aren't that game-changing, or at least don't convey much power visually. This somewhat lacking system, fortunately, does not take anything AWAY from the game, it just lacks to really add anything meaningful in my opinion. The style gauge is a great idea to encourage combos and fluid movement, but, thankfully, you don't really even need the extra encouragement to play "correctly" as moving around the environment and racking up combos is prebuilt into the game's design, as if you just sit still and shoot, you will soon get beaten.

I also didn't particularly feel much encouragement or reason to invest in buying any more weapons, other than sheer intrigue. Especially considering some weapons are just direct upgrades to others, I think perhaps it would've been better if when reaching their final level, the weapons simply upgraded themselves similar to Ratchet & Clank, having a smaller weapon roster, each with a unique transformation. But, its not as if I'm saying all the weapons in the game are necessarily redundant, I just didn't really feel any need to actually purchase/use any of them, so maybe some more incentive or ease of unlocking could have been implemented. The challenge side missions which give you the weapons for a brief time did a decent job and intrigued me to go and actually buy them, and some Main Missions give you weapons also to somewhat mitigate this issue.

The Tower Defense missions and trap system was quite underwhelming for me, they feel quite mindless and chaotic. I suppose you could argue that the chaos of the waves is the appeal, but while it is entertaining to watch a bunch of enemies get blown up, its rather boring standing around waiting to just spam attack on tons of enemies, and the traps, I hardly even noticed or cared they even existed. They aren't "Bad" but they certainly weren't something I was looking forward to revisit.

A similar thing can be said about the brief flying segments, they're similar to the ship levels from Ratchet & Clank, but much slower and more boring. Nothing awful, but certainly nothing to be excited about.

The submissions are usually very good, although the "Find X item 3 times" submissions are a real drag. You are often tasked with finding some (Usually rather small) items within a circled area. These missions drag the gameplay to a halt and have you slowly searching an area to find this one specific thing, unless you get lucky and find it instantly, these missions are painful. Sometimes they are gracious enough to highlight the items with big blue glowing effects and a pulsating noise, other times, they just don't.

The animation for the cutscenes is fantastic. I struggle to think of many games nearly as expressive as Sunset Overdrive, in every aspect. The art design is spot on, with great stylisation not only in its cutscenes but also its world design, taking the somewhat generic "post-apocalyptic" city theming, and making a beautiful colourful world to style off buildings and hop across boats inside of. The design of interactive objects in the world is also spectacular, the collectables are integrated naturally into the world yet still clear to see, and objects you can grind and bounce upon are always made clear through colour/shape whilst still blending into the world. The overall art design of this game is second to none.

The writing is also top-notch, it takes a playful approach to the fourth wall but somehow succeeds in doing it in a way that isn't cringe-inducing / annoying. My only disappointment was the ending, it's quite abrupt, feeling like any other mission, especially considering other more climactic encounters throughout the game. Although this issue is somewhat remedied by the DLC, which has a much better Final Boss, even with that, the plot feels unresolved and isn't much of a satisfying "ending".

Aside from my few gripes, however, Sunset Overdrive is an excellent game which I would highly recommend to all.

To my surprise, Final Fantasy 1 still holds up quite well to this day.

The plot is very basic, collect the 4 magic crystals to return peace to the world, however, the story is told through you going to wherever you want in the world, helping towns people with their own issues, which then ties back around to the main narrative, its decent.

The combat window looks great for an NES RPG, most RPGs of this era are front facing, but here you get to see your entire party and their actions and conditions, it even has a little window at the top to demonstrate what environment you're in, its cool. The combat itself is also surprisingly good, a "complaint" that I believe is "fixed" in some modifications and re-releases, is that if you choose to attack an enemy twice in one turn, and then the enemy dies on the first attack, you then simply miss rather than auto-aiming to the next enemy, which can be annoying, but it forces you to strategise and plan out every single encounter more, you cannot simply spam A through encounters unless you want to waste your time. The magic system is also different than what you may expect, rather than Mana there is simply levels of spells, and each level of spell may be used X amount of times until you rest, with X increasing as you level up. I struggle to say its "better" than a mana system, but its fine, and isnt a hindrance at all.

The Job/Class system in this game is also decent, a side quest even allows you to upgrade your class, which changes your appearence to the giga chad version of your character, it kind of looks funny, but it really helps sell the idea of the journey that you and your party has gone through. It is rather stupid that you cant tell which classes can or cannot equip each item until you try it, but I suppose this stuff would be contained within the manual.

However with that said, this game is not manual reliant at all, there is no stupid and or convoluted nonsense in this game, despite you having tons and tons of options of what order to tackle events, you are clearly directed as to what you need to do and when at all times, you are given an open world to explore, but not a world easy to get lost in, and alongside that, very little grind is necessary in this game. There is a bit of a difficulty spike at the very beginning and at the mid section of the game, but aside from this, you will not need to spend much time grinding at all, unless you suck or want to buy some specific item early on.

The game is somewhat buggy, with lots of items/spells not doing as they are intended, but non of the bugs are truly game breaking, just disappointing when things dont actually work as you would expect sometimes.

In conclusion, this game really holds up well, some re releases of this game update the graphics, fix the bugs, etc. Unlike some other games from this era, I would still recommend this game, simply perhaps just one of the modern ports.