Zotol
"I just moved here, but Aoba sure is a great place." (Young Man)
Before starting this review, I need to say this kind of works as my combined thoughts on Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. My score is indicative of just this game, but I never felt like I wanted to make a review for both since the gameplay is practically identical and I'd just be repeating myself a lot.
Eternal Punishment has some seriously missed potential. There are some great ideas here that are tough to appreciate from the gameplay that is present.
Being that Eternal Punishment is a direct sequel to Innocent Sin, it reuses a ton of assets from the original game, with the major culprits being the dungeons and music. Logically, the reused dungeons make sense as they pertain to the story's happenings, but I think there comes a point where, in development, the creators should have asked themselves if that was truly an ideal way to entertain the player. I would have liked to see how the settings have changed atmospherically in the sequel, but all we got were map layout updates. I was also disappointed by the game's soundtrack this time around. Most songs are either remixed or just reused entirely. There's some new songs though, one of which is the Aoba Park theme which is a beautiful track, and this remix of the Mountain Trail theme, but I enjoyed Innocent Sin’s OST more since all the music was brand new.
It's clear the developers drew some inspiration from Phantasy Star when making this combat system. Combat revolving around auto-battling, a 5-character party, and most notably, fusion spells. Differing from PSIV, you're able to switch around turn orders mid-battle, which is a great addition for fusion spells considering PSIV had you making your characters defend to link the turns for people with varying speed stats. I honestly never really ended up using these in Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, as a lot just seemed worse than their non-chainable counterparts. An instance being when you use spells that target groups of enemies that share the same element, you can be prompted to turn it into a fusion spell that only attacks one enemy instead, which was inconvenient in standard battles with enemy groups. You can opt out of using the fusion spell before it happens in battle, which is another great addition, so it's not really an issue. The only time I ended up really using them was when combining two elements to do a bit more damage in boss fights. A major oversight, or intended mechanic, depending on who you ask, is the defend trick, where you cancel auto-battle and make everyone defend after their action. It's tedious to use in standard battles but proves extremely effective in boss battles due to you taking close to no damage. It really does make me believe it's an oversight, unless the developers thought it would be too useless to waste an extra turn defending. A cool aspect of the combat was the ability to have characters be able to switch their personae without wasting a turn, which led me to use it quite frequently. Turning anyone into a healer out of the blue was very helpful.
EP is known to be one of the harder entries in the SMT franchise, and I was well aware of this from friends. I know it sounds condescending, but I thought it was going to be a case of Persona 5 fans playing an older RPG, but Eternal Punishment is one of the harder RPG titles in the PS1 library, in my opinion. The difficulty was kind of mixed in its tedious structure along with its slow combat and frustrating encounter rate. By tedious structure, I am referring to demon fusion, which is done by gathering spell cards through demon negotiation. When fusing demons, there are different arcanas of cards they will give you pertaining to their arcana. Later on, demons will give you more and more per negotiation as the card requirements for fusions rise for higher-leveled personae. It's pretty easy to find a way to entertain them for cards, as there's multiple character combinations that work, but the strategy you want to go for is to form a contract with them, which usually has a very small amount or 1 specific character combo that raises their joy stat. The reason you want to do this is because after contract formation, when you entertain them for cards, they'll give you wild cards, which you can give to someone in the velvet room to change into any arcana you want. Considering there's over 20 card types in the game, this is the most convenient method of fusing personae. There’s different personae to fuse in each arcana of cards, which explains why you’d want the wild cards for complete freedom of your team's builds. It’s frustrating to find the joy-raising action to initiate these contracts, part of it being that they’re integral to the gameplay. There’s an art to demon negotiation; you’ll be able to tell what works sometimes from your characters' personalities meshing well with the demons, but it is by no means consistent. It’s something that’s fun at first but quickly becomes tedious when you're tasked with doing it more than a few times. It felt like I was just aimlessly trying anything that might work, which most times resulted in the demon getting mad and you having to enter a new encounter to try again. The salt on the wound is that making them mad will have them break your contract… Persona 2 is best played with a notebook nearby to write down the correct prompts for these demons. Even though the end result is a team with some killer personae, it's a goal that’s hard to work towards with all the tedium associated with it.
Now, the slow combat. Not only is the game some of the slowest combat on the system, but it is also grindy as all hell. Throughout the game, you’ll need to fuse new personae a lot to stay on top of the game's difficulty. To unlock the moves on each persona, you’ll have to use any of their moves to get them to slowly rank up to their max level of 8 and get each move associated with them. Why would you want to rank them up all the way? Because sometimes the personae will have an integral move like healing everyone, or attack moves which you'll need for them to be useful. This was by far the most annoying part of the game's combat. When I’d get to a skill-check boss fight, I’d have to back out and grind up new personas, which got really irritating. I honestly wouldn’t mind the idea of it if they’d rank up quicker, because later on it started to tread on multiple hours of grinding. You can get them to skip 2 ranks from finishing battles with fusion attacks from a lucky mutation, but I could never get this to happen, so take that as you will. Even though I have a lot of complaints about this game's systems, it’s still fun to make builds for your characters with persona fusion. You can add a stat boost card and a card to add a certain move during the fusion, which adds a good layer of customizability. There’s also a level-up bonus for each persona to add a point to a particular stat, which is something you need to think about so you can boost your character's strengths. It’s as fun as the rest of the series in that regard; there’s still a bunch of pondering time spent in the velvet room, but it’s hard to look past the requirements of doing so.
I will say, though, that Eternal Punishment has great boss fights; almost every boss in the game will make you switch up your strategy and punish you if you don't. For instance, there's one fight later on where the boss heals a set amount of HP passively every turn, so you'll need to utilize fusion spells to maximize damage while balancing out support for your party. They were always a challenge to look forward to, and I was always preemptively aware that there would be a challenge that I'd have to face when outside boss doors in dungeons, no matter how high level or good my personae were.
By far the most endearing aspect of Eternal Punishment is its cast of characters. It's really nice to see a game tackle aspects of adulthood in such a blunt way in a real-life setting. These characters are people that most can truly relate to. By the time they started revealing a lot about them near the end through flashbacks, I got a bit emotional. These characters have realistic internal conflicts, not some shit out of Persona 5. I do wish there was more of it throughout the game. It may be the absurd amount of time spent in dungeons, but it really feels like there were barely any cutscenes for these characters to develop. Of course, the ones we have are great, but I wanted more.
I'm being told I should have played the PSP releases of these games, but I always like playing original releases because I like to admire what games did at the time of their original release. Part of the reason P1 is so interesting to me is that it is an early 5th generation title, and it was up in the air what to make next since there wasn’t really a blueprint yet. I feel more in tune with the innovations associated with games when I play their original releases, since a lot feels lost to me when I look at HD re-releases. Just looking at the UI in these titles and how they tried to make P1 overly accessible with the fast movement and out-of-place soundtrack, which completely alters the heavy atmosphere the Revelations version has, it was evident enough that these were not the definitive ways for me to play these titles. For the P2 games, though, the redone soundtracks actually sound really nice, but the battle UI looks and plays awful. So, that's just in case anyone was wondering why I played these versions instead.
What can I take away from these games? I will never complain about lengthy combat animations again. Kidding, but not really... These games definitely got me more interested in trying out the classic SMT games, and newer SMT games, for that matter, and I liked P2’s structure as opposed to the later entries in the Persona series. If you like this game and feel like I’m missing something, feel free to let me know in the comments. I’m curious to know aspects of why people enjoy this game.
Side Note: Whenever I play SMT games, something befalls me every single time. When I was playing Nocturne, I was incapable of sleeping for a week for some reason? During Revelations, I got hacked on every single account I own from what I think to be my cookies getting logged, and yes, even my Backloggd was hacked. Can you believe the nerve of someone to hack a Backloggd account? Someone must really hate me. During this game, I got sick for the first time in like 2 years and feel like shit. I fear for my life next time I go back to this series. I'll end off this review by reminding everyone to use 2 Factor sign in for your accounts. Stay safe out there, fellas...
Before starting this review, I need to say this kind of works as my combined thoughts on Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment. My score is indicative of just this game, but I never felt like I wanted to make a review for both since the gameplay is practically identical and I'd just be repeating myself a lot.
Eternal Punishment has some seriously missed potential. There are some great ideas here that are tough to appreciate from the gameplay that is present.
Being that Eternal Punishment is a direct sequel to Innocent Sin, it reuses a ton of assets from the original game, with the major culprits being the dungeons and music. Logically, the reused dungeons make sense as they pertain to the story's happenings, but I think there comes a point where, in development, the creators should have asked themselves if that was truly an ideal way to entertain the player. I would have liked to see how the settings have changed atmospherically in the sequel, but all we got were map layout updates. I was also disappointed by the game's soundtrack this time around. Most songs are either remixed or just reused entirely. There's some new songs though, one of which is the Aoba Park theme which is a beautiful track, and this remix of the Mountain Trail theme, but I enjoyed Innocent Sin’s OST more since all the music was brand new.
It's clear the developers drew some inspiration from Phantasy Star when making this combat system. Combat revolving around auto-battling, a 5-character party, and most notably, fusion spells. Differing from PSIV, you're able to switch around turn orders mid-battle, which is a great addition for fusion spells considering PSIV had you making your characters defend to link the turns for people with varying speed stats. I honestly never really ended up using these in Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment, as a lot just seemed worse than their non-chainable counterparts. An instance being when you use spells that target groups of enemies that share the same element, you can be prompted to turn it into a fusion spell that only attacks one enemy instead, which was inconvenient in standard battles with enemy groups. You can opt out of using the fusion spell before it happens in battle, which is another great addition, so it's not really an issue. The only time I ended up really using them was when combining two elements to do a bit more damage in boss fights. A major oversight, or intended mechanic, depending on who you ask, is the defend trick, where you cancel auto-battle and make everyone defend after their action. It's tedious to use in standard battles but proves extremely effective in boss battles due to you taking close to no damage. It really does make me believe it's an oversight, unless the developers thought it would be too useless to waste an extra turn defending. A cool aspect of the combat was the ability to have characters be able to switch their personae without wasting a turn, which led me to use it quite frequently. Turning anyone into a healer out of the blue was very helpful.
EP is known to be one of the harder entries in the SMT franchise, and I was well aware of this from friends. I know it sounds condescending, but I thought it was going to be a case of Persona 5 fans playing an older RPG, but Eternal Punishment is one of the harder RPG titles in the PS1 library, in my opinion. The difficulty was kind of mixed in its tedious structure along with its slow combat and frustrating encounter rate. By tedious structure, I am referring to demon fusion, which is done by gathering spell cards through demon negotiation. When fusing demons, there are different arcanas of cards they will give you pertaining to their arcana. Later on, demons will give you more and more per negotiation as the card requirements for fusions rise for higher-leveled personae. It's pretty easy to find a way to entertain them for cards, as there's multiple character combinations that work, but the strategy you want to go for is to form a contract with them, which usually has a very small amount or 1 specific character combo that raises their joy stat. The reason you want to do this is because after contract formation, when you entertain them for cards, they'll give you wild cards, which you can give to someone in the velvet room to change into any arcana you want. Considering there's over 20 card types in the game, this is the most convenient method of fusing personae. There’s different personae to fuse in each arcana of cards, which explains why you’d want the wild cards for complete freedom of your team's builds. It’s frustrating to find the joy-raising action to initiate these contracts, part of it being that they’re integral to the gameplay. There’s an art to demon negotiation; you’ll be able to tell what works sometimes from your characters' personalities meshing well with the demons, but it is by no means consistent. It’s something that’s fun at first but quickly becomes tedious when you're tasked with doing it more than a few times. It felt like I was just aimlessly trying anything that might work, which most times resulted in the demon getting mad and you having to enter a new encounter to try again. The salt on the wound is that making them mad will have them break your contract… Persona 2 is best played with a notebook nearby to write down the correct prompts for these demons. Even though the end result is a team with some killer personae, it's a goal that’s hard to work towards with all the tedium associated with it.
Now, the slow combat. Not only is the game some of the slowest combat on the system, but it is also grindy as all hell. Throughout the game, you’ll need to fuse new personae a lot to stay on top of the game's difficulty. To unlock the moves on each persona, you’ll have to use any of their moves to get them to slowly rank up to their max level of 8 and get each move associated with them. Why would you want to rank them up all the way? Because sometimes the personae will have an integral move like healing everyone, or attack moves which you'll need for them to be useful. This was by far the most annoying part of the game's combat. When I’d get to a skill-check boss fight, I’d have to back out and grind up new personas, which got really irritating. I honestly wouldn’t mind the idea of it if they’d rank up quicker, because later on it started to tread on multiple hours of grinding. You can get them to skip 2 ranks from finishing battles with fusion attacks from a lucky mutation, but I could never get this to happen, so take that as you will. Even though I have a lot of complaints about this game's systems, it’s still fun to make builds for your characters with persona fusion. You can add a stat boost card and a card to add a certain move during the fusion, which adds a good layer of customizability. There’s also a level-up bonus for each persona to add a point to a particular stat, which is something you need to think about so you can boost your character's strengths. It’s as fun as the rest of the series in that regard; there’s still a bunch of pondering time spent in the velvet room, but it’s hard to look past the requirements of doing so.
I will say, though, that Eternal Punishment has great boss fights; almost every boss in the game will make you switch up your strategy and punish you if you don't. For instance, there's one fight later on where the boss heals a set amount of HP passively every turn, so you'll need to utilize fusion spells to maximize damage while balancing out support for your party. They were always a challenge to look forward to, and I was always preemptively aware that there would be a challenge that I'd have to face when outside boss doors in dungeons, no matter how high level or good my personae were.
By far the most endearing aspect of Eternal Punishment is its cast of characters. It's really nice to see a game tackle aspects of adulthood in such a blunt way in a real-life setting. These characters are people that most can truly relate to. By the time they started revealing a lot about them near the end through flashbacks, I got a bit emotional. These characters have realistic internal conflicts, not some shit out of Persona 5. I do wish there was more of it throughout the game. It may be the absurd amount of time spent in dungeons, but it really feels like there were barely any cutscenes for these characters to develop. Of course, the ones we have are great, but I wanted more.
I'm being told I should have played the PSP releases of these games, but I always like playing original releases because I like to admire what games did at the time of their original release. Part of the reason P1 is so interesting to me is that it is an early 5th generation title, and it was up in the air what to make next since there wasn’t really a blueprint yet. I feel more in tune with the innovations associated with games when I play their original releases, since a lot feels lost to me when I look at HD re-releases. Just looking at the UI in these titles and how they tried to make P1 overly accessible with the fast movement and out-of-place soundtrack, which completely alters the heavy atmosphere the Revelations version has, it was evident enough that these were not the definitive ways for me to play these titles. For the P2 games, though, the redone soundtracks actually sound really nice, but the battle UI looks and plays awful. So, that's just in case anyone was wondering why I played these versions instead.
What can I take away from these games? I will never complain about lengthy combat animations again. Kidding, but not really... These games definitely got me more interested in trying out the classic SMT games, and newer SMT games, for that matter, and I liked P2’s structure as opposed to the later entries in the Persona series. If you like this game and feel like I’m missing something, feel free to let me know in the comments. I’m curious to know aspects of why people enjoy this game.
Side Note: Whenever I play SMT games, something befalls me every single time. When I was playing Nocturne, I was incapable of sleeping for a week for some reason? During Revelations, I got hacked on every single account I own from what I think to be my cookies getting logged, and yes, even my Backloggd was hacked. Can you believe the nerve of someone to hack a Backloggd account? Someone must really hate me. During this game, I got sick for the first time in like 2 years and feel like shit. I fear for my life next time I go back to this series. I'll end off this review by reminding everyone to use 2 Factor sign in for your accounts. Stay safe out there, fellas...
1995
I’ve known about this game for a minute and just avoided it because of the cover art. It didn't really look like my kind of game. What reminded me of this game's existence was seeing a tweet around a week ago that Wild Woody was added to an NSFW kart racing game. I had to do a double take, but it was actually real. I shouldn’t be surprised considering the name of the game, but, like, wow. I consider myself to be a fan of the Sega CD, so I did want to give this game a try.
The controls are some of the worst I’ve seen in the medium. When jumping, Woody stutters when rising and falling, so it ends up feeling like you’re rubber banding in an online game. Woody’s main form of attacking is jumping on enemies, which will play out an animation where he sinks into the enemy while erasing them from the level. There’s been times where I would try jumping on enemies upwards of 5 times in a row and it would still not register! He’s also got this sketch ability where you’ll have to press the pause button, flip through the sketch book to find the ability you want to use, and activate it, which plays out an animation. Admittedly, a cool idea, but badly integrated since you can only use 2 of these before having to get a powerup later in the level. For the most part, these are useless in the sense that they obstruct the flow of the game and are never good enough to where you’d even think of using them instead of just damage boosting through whatever enemy is in front of you. Abilities are mostly some awkward projectile or something that transforms you into something for more jump height and movement speed, all controlling as bad if not worse than your standard form. For example, there’s ones that turn you into a kangaroo and hobby horse.
This game is not good in the level design department either. Wild Woody has the design philosophies of Sonic CD with these large, incoherent mazes I’ve gotten lost in for some embarrassingly long times. Also cluttered with enemy placements that, at times, make taking damage feel unavoidable. It’s so bad you’re better off just damage boosting through everything since you’ll probably take more damage trying to avoid them. The enemies also really like throwing unfair projectiles, which you can’t even avoid at times. It’s evident this game was a rush job, and the stage design really makes that show. I get the vibe that they made the levels and didn’t even try playing through the game because a ton of stages have platforming segments that are way too awkward to perform consistently. In the Mount Olympus stage, there is a part where you literally have to take a leap of faith and hope you land on a small platform instead of falling below the area and having to climb back up again. I haven’t mentioned yet that Woody has an ability where he can erase areas of the map to find secrets and progress through the stage. That’s fine; at the start of the game, they highlight these areas to let you know you can erase them, but past level 1, they never mark them again. So, there are areas I’ve gotten trapped in where you just have to waste time guessing where the erasable floor or wall is. Funnily enough, they also increase the time to do so in later stages if it wasn’t already cryptic enough, because then you’ll have to wait longer to erase things with no prior indication.
First impressions of the music from stage 1 sound bad initially, but make more sense since Ron Thal who did the music, said that he made the soundtrack start off silly and progressively get more intense throughout. So even though the first song sounds like a prog rock cover of a nursery rhyme, it does start to pick up the pace with the later stages. My favorite songs are the space stage theme and this song that went unused due to a presumed programming bug. It's a bit goofy, but the high-tempo drums and the piano make for a pretty kickass boss theme, so it’s sad this song didn’t make it in.
How was this released?! Ristar literally came out earlier in the year, and this was supposed to be the swan-song for the Sega CD? How unfortunate… It’s a shame because I think this game had the potential to be pretty cool. I also think it's hilarious that the platforming mascot shit got so out of hand that they made one for a fucking pencil… At least the soundtrack is good.
The controls are some of the worst I’ve seen in the medium. When jumping, Woody stutters when rising and falling, so it ends up feeling like you’re rubber banding in an online game. Woody’s main form of attacking is jumping on enemies, which will play out an animation where he sinks into the enemy while erasing them from the level. There’s been times where I would try jumping on enemies upwards of 5 times in a row and it would still not register! He’s also got this sketch ability where you’ll have to press the pause button, flip through the sketch book to find the ability you want to use, and activate it, which plays out an animation. Admittedly, a cool idea, but badly integrated since you can only use 2 of these before having to get a powerup later in the level. For the most part, these are useless in the sense that they obstruct the flow of the game and are never good enough to where you’d even think of using them instead of just damage boosting through whatever enemy is in front of you. Abilities are mostly some awkward projectile or something that transforms you into something for more jump height and movement speed, all controlling as bad if not worse than your standard form. For example, there’s ones that turn you into a kangaroo and hobby horse.
This game is not good in the level design department either. Wild Woody has the design philosophies of Sonic CD with these large, incoherent mazes I’ve gotten lost in for some embarrassingly long times. Also cluttered with enemy placements that, at times, make taking damage feel unavoidable. It’s so bad you’re better off just damage boosting through everything since you’ll probably take more damage trying to avoid them. The enemies also really like throwing unfair projectiles, which you can’t even avoid at times. It’s evident this game was a rush job, and the stage design really makes that show. I get the vibe that they made the levels and didn’t even try playing through the game because a ton of stages have platforming segments that are way too awkward to perform consistently. In the Mount Olympus stage, there is a part where you literally have to take a leap of faith and hope you land on a small platform instead of falling below the area and having to climb back up again. I haven’t mentioned yet that Woody has an ability where he can erase areas of the map to find secrets and progress through the stage. That’s fine; at the start of the game, they highlight these areas to let you know you can erase them, but past level 1, they never mark them again. So, there are areas I’ve gotten trapped in where you just have to waste time guessing where the erasable floor or wall is. Funnily enough, they also increase the time to do so in later stages if it wasn’t already cryptic enough, because then you’ll have to wait longer to erase things with no prior indication.
First impressions of the music from stage 1 sound bad initially, but make more sense since Ron Thal who did the music, said that he made the soundtrack start off silly and progressively get more intense throughout. So even though the first song sounds like a prog rock cover of a nursery rhyme, it does start to pick up the pace with the later stages. My favorite songs are the space stage theme and this song that went unused due to a presumed programming bug. It's a bit goofy, but the high-tempo drums and the piano make for a pretty kickass boss theme, so it’s sad this song didn’t make it in.
How was this released?! Ristar literally came out earlier in the year, and this was supposed to be the swan-song for the Sega CD? How unfortunate… It’s a shame because I think this game had the potential to be pretty cool. I also think it's hilarious that the platforming mascot shit got so out of hand that they made one for a fucking pencil… At least the soundtrack is good.
1995
Front Mission seemed kind of daunting at first to me, as I’ve never really played anything like it with the customizable mechs. What really intrigued me about playing Front Mission was the talent of Amano and Shimomura behind it. There’s digitized portraits of Amano’s character designs in-game, and his timeless art is the kind of stuff I’ll never get sick of looking at. It started to make more sense as I played it, and honestly, it wasn't as confusing as I had thought.
Front Mission is a strategy RPG where you customize mecha for your units to use in battle. When changing the equipment for your mechs though, they didn’t take the easy route with spritework. There are different battle sprites, field sprites, and giant sprites in the setup menu that all change depending on the pieces of equipment you pick. There’s a ton of equipment too, with there being body armor, legs, guns, and even backpacks too, so to see this much work put into something like this is astounding. It really helps sell the game's whole gimmick of building mechs and really makes some builds feel unique. Might I add that you can even paint the mechs different colors for free? This actually helped a ton because I usually have a hard time differentiating troops in these games, so I knew who was who with the allocated colors.
Much of the time will be spent sitting in the menu and customizing your mechs. Admittedly, buying parts is slow, but it’s fun thinking about which builds to go for. There’s a weight limit for mechs, so you kind of need to balance out your builds and not have too much stuff on them as you mix and match a variety of parts from shops, which all raise certain stats. Another aspect of the builds is your character stats. There’s some sort of hidden leveling system for weapon proficiency, so you’ll usually want to stick to one type of weapon for each character. You have the “Fight” stat, which is for gauntlets; the “Short” stat for 1 tile range weaponry; and “Long” for missiles and other long range guns. Certain equipment will work better for short-range or long-range people, so that’s why there’s a lot to think about in the parts shop.
The combat revolves around this body part system, where each mech has separate health bars for their leg parts, both individual hands and the body. Destroying the legs will lower their tile movement; destroying either hand will make whatever weapon the mech is equipped with unusable; and destroying their body will immobilize them completely. You also can’t control what parts you shoot unless someone has a skill that lets them, so it kind of makes a lot of battles very RNG-reliant. I also really like the combat animations. It’s pretty satisfying seeing your mech fire off a multi-hit machine gun as the game lags with the debris flying everywhere…
Front Mission has some awkward balancing as well. The start of the game provides you with some pretty unremarkable equipment, and leveling up units is tricky since they don’t do very much damage. This made the game very hard at the beginning, and I was getting my ass kicked at a certain skill check. At around a third through the game, the characters start to get stronger, unlock their skills, and eventually become some of the most broken units in RPG history (probably). This means you don’t even have to be strategizing anymore. There is benefit at the start of the game from having a balanced team, but in the latter half, the short-range units are so busted that it doesn’t even matter if you have any other differently classed units. Hell, I’m sure you could solo most maps with just one of them!
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Front Mission. The story is very ahead of its time and probably my favorite aspect of the game, which is rare for me since I’m more of a gameplay-oriented person. It’s a pretty easy game and not that hard to get into, despite how complicated it may seem. If all still goes south, there’s an arena you can grind at in case you get stuck too.
Front Mission is a strategy RPG where you customize mecha for your units to use in battle. When changing the equipment for your mechs though, they didn’t take the easy route with spritework. There are different battle sprites, field sprites, and giant sprites in the setup menu that all change depending on the pieces of equipment you pick. There’s a ton of equipment too, with there being body armor, legs, guns, and even backpacks too, so to see this much work put into something like this is astounding. It really helps sell the game's whole gimmick of building mechs and really makes some builds feel unique. Might I add that you can even paint the mechs different colors for free? This actually helped a ton because I usually have a hard time differentiating troops in these games, so I knew who was who with the allocated colors.
Much of the time will be spent sitting in the menu and customizing your mechs. Admittedly, buying parts is slow, but it’s fun thinking about which builds to go for. There’s a weight limit for mechs, so you kind of need to balance out your builds and not have too much stuff on them as you mix and match a variety of parts from shops, which all raise certain stats. Another aspect of the builds is your character stats. There’s some sort of hidden leveling system for weapon proficiency, so you’ll usually want to stick to one type of weapon for each character. You have the “Fight” stat, which is for gauntlets; the “Short” stat for 1 tile range weaponry; and “Long” for missiles and other long range guns. Certain equipment will work better for short-range or long-range people, so that’s why there’s a lot to think about in the parts shop.
The combat revolves around this body part system, where each mech has separate health bars for their leg parts, both individual hands and the body. Destroying the legs will lower their tile movement; destroying either hand will make whatever weapon the mech is equipped with unusable; and destroying their body will immobilize them completely. You also can’t control what parts you shoot unless someone has a skill that lets them, so it kind of makes a lot of battles very RNG-reliant. I also really like the combat animations. It’s pretty satisfying seeing your mech fire off a multi-hit machine gun as the game lags with the debris flying everywhere…
Front Mission has some awkward balancing as well. The start of the game provides you with some pretty unremarkable equipment, and leveling up units is tricky since they don’t do very much damage. This made the game very hard at the beginning, and I was getting my ass kicked at a certain skill check. At around a third through the game, the characters start to get stronger, unlock their skills, and eventually become some of the most broken units in RPG history (probably). This means you don’t even have to be strategizing anymore. There is benefit at the start of the game from having a balanced team, but in the latter half, the short-range units are so busted that it doesn’t even matter if you have any other differently classed units. Hell, I’m sure you could solo most maps with just one of them!
Overall, I enjoyed my time with Front Mission. The story is very ahead of its time and probably my favorite aspect of the game, which is rare for me since I’m more of a gameplay-oriented person. It’s a pretty easy game and not that hard to get into, despite how complicated it may seem. If all still goes south, there’s an arena you can grind at in case you get stuck too.
We’ve been starving for a new 2D Mario game for a minute now. I’ll save you all from me bitching about NSMB, as I’m pretty sure everyone is aware of those games at this point. I was ecstatic to see this revealed at the Nintendo Direct it was presented in with its profound new artstyle, but I started to get weary of the footage from the trailers as to if it was going to suffer the same design problems as the NSMB games did with its spacious stages to account for multiplayer.
Levels are very spacious, and Mario Wonder is definitely best played with others because of this. They’re not as broad as something like NSMB Wii, but a lot of sections don’t have much going on in them. It’s a good medium, though, as I get that it’s hard to make levels that work well for 4 players and 1 player at the same time. There’s no player collision in this game either, which makes multiplayer pretty hassle-free. I played through the game by myself and tried multiplayer for a bit, and even though multiplayer is more fun, it was still great to focus on getting 100% as a single player experience. You honestly miss out on a lot if you don’t 100% this game; there’s secret exits, flower coins (which are this game's star coins), and stuff like reaching the top of the flagpole even counts for 100%, and a lot of stages will use their gimmick at the end accustomed around reaching it, kind of as a level design progression to see if you’ve mastered the stage. Stuff like this is why I really appreciate Mario Wonder’s game design, and it’s clear there was a lot of work put in to make these stages all feel unique.
The double-edged sword of why I really like and don’t like Mario Wonder, though, is its badges. Kind of being a bit of a reference to Paper Mario, this game has a bunch of badges that will grant your character a unique ability, some much better than others. The first one you get is a Parachute Cap, which lets you hover and can also be used to float back onto walls as an infinite wall climb, making a later badge basically useless. A lot of these badges, most notably the boosting spin jump badge, can be used to cheese a lot of the game's secrets and ignore a lot of the game's level design. There’s also stages designed around the badges, and a few are honestly some of my favorites in the game. Stages designed around these new mechanics usually have two per badge, the first of which is a tutorial of sorts and the second to see if you’ve mastered it. One of my favorites was the second wall climb jump stage, which is basically Getting Over It if it were a Mario stage. These stages had me thinking, “Why hadn’t they integrated some of these new mechanics into the movesets?”. A perfect one to have added to the moveset would have been the Dolphin Kick, which would have actually made the water levels fun for once, offering a new, faster-paced movement style.
Other additions to Mario Wonder are its three new power-ups and the Wonder Flowers. The new power-ups are all really fun, my favorite being the elephant, since I kind of like having a strong melee attack in platformers. It kind of goes against Mario’s whole gimmick of stomping on enemies heads, but it is a power-up, and you can lose it, so I was trying to keep it as best as I could. Then there’s the Wonder Flowers, which I can only imagine are a direct response to complaints about NSMB being really boring. Every main stage has one, which will either enable some new visuals or change the way the game plays. These are honestly really hit-or-miss, as a lot of them are really boring. Some of the more fun ones are when they’ll change your character into an enemy, sometimes as a sort of debuff that you’ll have to work around, changing the way you approach the stage. From the top of my head, I think my favorite one was where you have to walk on the wall in the background. Outside of these Wonder Flowers, a lot of the stages already have their own unique gimmick, so it wasn’t like these were entirely necessary, but I enjoyed their addition.
Mario Wonder was very refreshing nonetheless, and I’m glad I gave it a shot. I loved getting all the secrets and using the new badge abilities. I can only hope we get new 2D Mario games in the near future, as this was a huge step in the right direction. It’s cool to see Nintendo actually listen to fans on this one, and we got one of the more creative Mario experiences out of it.
Levels are very spacious, and Mario Wonder is definitely best played with others because of this. They’re not as broad as something like NSMB Wii, but a lot of sections don’t have much going on in them. It’s a good medium, though, as I get that it’s hard to make levels that work well for 4 players and 1 player at the same time. There’s no player collision in this game either, which makes multiplayer pretty hassle-free. I played through the game by myself and tried multiplayer for a bit, and even though multiplayer is more fun, it was still great to focus on getting 100% as a single player experience. You honestly miss out on a lot if you don’t 100% this game; there’s secret exits, flower coins (which are this game's star coins), and stuff like reaching the top of the flagpole even counts for 100%, and a lot of stages will use their gimmick at the end accustomed around reaching it, kind of as a level design progression to see if you’ve mastered the stage. Stuff like this is why I really appreciate Mario Wonder’s game design, and it’s clear there was a lot of work put in to make these stages all feel unique.
The double-edged sword of why I really like and don’t like Mario Wonder, though, is its badges. Kind of being a bit of a reference to Paper Mario, this game has a bunch of badges that will grant your character a unique ability, some much better than others. The first one you get is a Parachute Cap, which lets you hover and can also be used to float back onto walls as an infinite wall climb, making a later badge basically useless. A lot of these badges, most notably the boosting spin jump badge, can be used to cheese a lot of the game's secrets and ignore a lot of the game's level design. There’s also stages designed around the badges, and a few are honestly some of my favorites in the game. Stages designed around these new mechanics usually have two per badge, the first of which is a tutorial of sorts and the second to see if you’ve mastered it. One of my favorites was the second wall climb jump stage, which is basically Getting Over It if it were a Mario stage. These stages had me thinking, “Why hadn’t they integrated some of these new mechanics into the movesets?”. A perfect one to have added to the moveset would have been the Dolphin Kick, which would have actually made the water levels fun for once, offering a new, faster-paced movement style.
Other additions to Mario Wonder are its three new power-ups and the Wonder Flowers. The new power-ups are all really fun, my favorite being the elephant, since I kind of like having a strong melee attack in platformers. It kind of goes against Mario’s whole gimmick of stomping on enemies heads, but it is a power-up, and you can lose it, so I was trying to keep it as best as I could. Then there’s the Wonder Flowers, which I can only imagine are a direct response to complaints about NSMB being really boring. Every main stage has one, which will either enable some new visuals or change the way the game plays. These are honestly really hit-or-miss, as a lot of them are really boring. Some of the more fun ones are when they’ll change your character into an enemy, sometimes as a sort of debuff that you’ll have to work around, changing the way you approach the stage. From the top of my head, I think my favorite one was where you have to walk on the wall in the background. Outside of these Wonder Flowers, a lot of the stages already have their own unique gimmick, so it wasn’t like these were entirely necessary, but I enjoyed their addition.
Mario Wonder was very refreshing nonetheless, and I’m glad I gave it a shot. I loved getting all the secrets and using the new badge abilities. I can only hope we get new 2D Mario games in the near future, as this was a huge step in the right direction. It’s cool to see Nintendo actually listen to fans on this one, and we got one of the more creative Mario experiences out of it.
1996
Revelations: Persona was the first Shin Megami Tensei game released in the West. No, Jack Bros. does not count. Sorry guys. I had thought this was the only game with the weird “Revelations” surname, but I recently found out a GBC port of the first Last Bible game was released in the west as “Revelations: The Demon Slayer." It's kind of weird to think that there’s an alternate timeline where SMT3 would’ve been called “Revelations: Nocturne” or something like that.
This game has a notoriously bad localization job, and I’m sure most have at least seen some things about it. The game's script was altered to take place in America instead of Japan, and Atlus tried to make it seem that way, but it's pretty easy to see through since the characters are clearly wearing Japanese school uniforms and the song playing in the pharmacy has Japanese lyrics. Character names were also changed to sound more standard. Nanjo’s name was changed to Nate, and Maki’s name was changed to Mary, to name a few. Character designs were also changed, most notably Mark being changed into a racist stereotype. It also seems that anyone who had black hair had their hair color altered to blonde or something. Why is this? No idea. And I thought Working Designs was shit at localizing.
Well, firstly, about the gameplay, Persona 1 struggles with its balancing. Most enemies will barely do any damage to you, let alone even hit you. Paired with how slow this game is, it tends to get pretty dull at times. Most of the boss fights are also complete pushovers that never challenge your wits. The only time I was really strategizing and switching personas was the final boss, which can be RNG-reliant, is held at the end of the final dungeon, and can take 2-4 hours to get through with no save in between! Nonetheless, it still serves to make you use everything you can at the end.
About the personas, though, unlike later entries in the series, this game actually lets you equip 3 personas for each character. It requires a lot more planning than just fusing for the main character, as you’ll need to have personas that are better suited to the whole party’s traits. Mark should get personas with high strength, Mary/Maki should get dexterity/agility, stuff like that. You’ll also have to level up the personas by using their moves in battles in order to unlock their full moveset. So, I was switching them around and getting all their moves, which at times can prove very useful. At the start of the game, I had gotten a persona with a Heal All move that only cost 7 MP, and that carried my ass through the entire game and helped tremendously on the final boss. It’s super fun fusing in this game and getting oddball broken shit when it feels like you’re not even supposed to a lot of the time. It never really breaks the game, though, since traditionally with Megaten games, a lot of enemies are going to repel certain attacks, so you’ll not be able to really use the same move the whole time.
There’s also this kind of cool SRPG formation mechanic in the game too. You’ll have to move your party of 5 around on this formation grid to best suit their strengths. If they’re in areas in the back, they’ll take less physical damage but will also not be able to reach enemies with their physical attacks. One of my characters, Brad/Brown, had good reach with his spear, so he was able to be placed in the middle and still attack most of the enemies with his physical attacks. You also don’t want them all to be placed too close to each other, since there’s area magic in this game that extends to other party members when hitting someone. Truthfully, it’s not super important, and you can kind of use one formation the whole game and it’ll work fine. I only found myself really using this mechanic on the final boss for the most part.
My favorite aspect of Persona 1 is how it absolutely nails its atmosphere, mostly due to how outstanding this game's soundtrack is. There are these really creepy songs that fit super well when dungeon crawling, and then some of my favorites in this game are these ethereal and relaxing tracks that play during cutscenes or downtime. There’s barely any misses, and it definitely became one of my new favorite OSTs.
Also adding to this game's atmosphere is its first-person dungeon crawling. Many would call it dated; I would call it a different perspective. Honestly, design-wise, it's kind of boring. Most RPGs would have treasure at the end of dead ends, but Persona 1 doesn’t. Instead, you’ll rarely find these rooms with a few treasure chests in them, which, for the most part, have nothing useful in them. I would have really liked to see more of these rooms, as they really would have given me more of a reason to fill out the map. Thankfully, this game has a map that fills out as you progress in dungeons, so you’ll not need graph paper or anything like that! Accompanying this map is a mini map at the top right of the screen that will show you pieces of the map that you haven’t been to yet from the radius of your character. I didn’t realize until my friend pointed it out, but I was literally just staring at the mini map because it just shows you the dead ends so you can completely avoid getting lost. It’s a huge quality of life thing, but a little bit too much in my opinion, and it made the dungeons effortless since combat is also very easy.
Besides the gameplay aspect, I think the dungeons are really cool. They all have their own designs and music, and strangely enough, they have different walking sound effects to accompany the different terrain. I really like when you’re walking around the school and it plays these recorded sounds of someone walking on the tile. It's kind of a weird thing to point out, but it really just added a level of immersion for me. There’s also surprisingly great sound design in this game, too. In combat, there’s so much reverb and punch to attacks, and that makes them feel effective.
When going into different areas in the overworld, the characters in your party will all be present, and you will be able to speak to all of them. When different story events are taking place, they will all have unique dialogue for all the areas in the game, that being stuff like the clinic or shops. This was a level of care that I was surprised to see, and it helped me get attached to the cast of characters. I really wish more games would do stuff like this.
Lastly, I love the UI in this game. In the menu, there’s this blue and orange grid, and on top of that, your options are all allocated to an orb on what looks like a solar system. Then, in combat, your options are these metallic-looking boxes that, when highlighted, glow orange. It looks a lot cooler than I made it sound though, I promise. I didn’t really know where to throw this in either, but in battle, there’s multiple of these psychedelic moving backgrounds that look like they're straight out of Earthbound and look really sick.
Persona 1 does a great job at using all the PS1’s new bells and whistles. It excels in so many departments and looks great in both its 2D and 3D sections. There’s so much effort in areas that didn’t even need them, and it works great as a horror RPG of sorts. It’s tough to recommend this game though, since it’s honestly pretty inaccessible. But, if you can look past how dated and slow the game is, it is one that will not be forgotten.
This game has a notoriously bad localization job, and I’m sure most have at least seen some things about it. The game's script was altered to take place in America instead of Japan, and Atlus tried to make it seem that way, but it's pretty easy to see through since the characters are clearly wearing Japanese school uniforms and the song playing in the pharmacy has Japanese lyrics. Character names were also changed to sound more standard. Nanjo’s name was changed to Nate, and Maki’s name was changed to Mary, to name a few. Character designs were also changed, most notably Mark being changed into a racist stereotype. It also seems that anyone who had black hair had their hair color altered to blonde or something. Why is this? No idea. And I thought Working Designs was shit at localizing.
Well, firstly, about the gameplay, Persona 1 struggles with its balancing. Most enemies will barely do any damage to you, let alone even hit you. Paired with how slow this game is, it tends to get pretty dull at times. Most of the boss fights are also complete pushovers that never challenge your wits. The only time I was really strategizing and switching personas was the final boss, which can be RNG-reliant, is held at the end of the final dungeon, and can take 2-4 hours to get through with no save in between! Nonetheless, it still serves to make you use everything you can at the end.
About the personas, though, unlike later entries in the series, this game actually lets you equip 3 personas for each character. It requires a lot more planning than just fusing for the main character, as you’ll need to have personas that are better suited to the whole party’s traits. Mark should get personas with high strength, Mary/Maki should get dexterity/agility, stuff like that. You’ll also have to level up the personas by using their moves in battles in order to unlock their full moveset. So, I was switching them around and getting all their moves, which at times can prove very useful. At the start of the game, I had gotten a persona with a Heal All move that only cost 7 MP, and that carried my ass through the entire game and helped tremendously on the final boss. It’s super fun fusing in this game and getting oddball broken shit when it feels like you’re not even supposed to a lot of the time. It never really breaks the game, though, since traditionally with Megaten games, a lot of enemies are going to repel certain attacks, so you’ll not be able to really use the same move the whole time.
There’s also this kind of cool SRPG formation mechanic in the game too. You’ll have to move your party of 5 around on this formation grid to best suit their strengths. If they’re in areas in the back, they’ll take less physical damage but will also not be able to reach enemies with their physical attacks. One of my characters, Brad/Brown, had good reach with his spear, so he was able to be placed in the middle and still attack most of the enemies with his physical attacks. You also don’t want them all to be placed too close to each other, since there’s area magic in this game that extends to other party members when hitting someone. Truthfully, it’s not super important, and you can kind of use one formation the whole game and it’ll work fine. I only found myself really using this mechanic on the final boss for the most part.
My favorite aspect of Persona 1 is how it absolutely nails its atmosphere, mostly due to how outstanding this game's soundtrack is. There are these really creepy songs that fit super well when dungeon crawling, and then some of my favorites in this game are these ethereal and relaxing tracks that play during cutscenes or downtime. There’s barely any misses, and it definitely became one of my new favorite OSTs.
Also adding to this game's atmosphere is its first-person dungeon crawling. Many would call it dated; I would call it a different perspective. Honestly, design-wise, it's kind of boring. Most RPGs would have treasure at the end of dead ends, but Persona 1 doesn’t. Instead, you’ll rarely find these rooms with a few treasure chests in them, which, for the most part, have nothing useful in them. I would have really liked to see more of these rooms, as they really would have given me more of a reason to fill out the map. Thankfully, this game has a map that fills out as you progress in dungeons, so you’ll not need graph paper or anything like that! Accompanying this map is a mini map at the top right of the screen that will show you pieces of the map that you haven’t been to yet from the radius of your character. I didn’t realize until my friend pointed it out, but I was literally just staring at the mini map because it just shows you the dead ends so you can completely avoid getting lost. It’s a huge quality of life thing, but a little bit too much in my opinion, and it made the dungeons effortless since combat is also very easy.
Besides the gameplay aspect, I think the dungeons are really cool. They all have their own designs and music, and strangely enough, they have different walking sound effects to accompany the different terrain. I really like when you’re walking around the school and it plays these recorded sounds of someone walking on the tile. It's kind of a weird thing to point out, but it really just added a level of immersion for me. There’s also surprisingly great sound design in this game, too. In combat, there’s so much reverb and punch to attacks, and that makes them feel effective.
When going into different areas in the overworld, the characters in your party will all be present, and you will be able to speak to all of them. When different story events are taking place, they will all have unique dialogue for all the areas in the game, that being stuff like the clinic or shops. This was a level of care that I was surprised to see, and it helped me get attached to the cast of characters. I really wish more games would do stuff like this.
Lastly, I love the UI in this game. In the menu, there’s this blue and orange grid, and on top of that, your options are all allocated to an orb on what looks like a solar system. Then, in combat, your options are these metallic-looking boxes that, when highlighted, glow orange. It looks a lot cooler than I made it sound though, I promise. I didn’t really know where to throw this in either, but in battle, there’s multiple of these psychedelic moving backgrounds that look like they're straight out of Earthbound and look really sick.
Persona 1 does a great job at using all the PS1’s new bells and whistles. It excels in so many departments and looks great in both its 2D and 3D sections. There’s so much effort in areas that didn’t even need them, and it works great as a horror RPG of sorts. It’s tough to recommend this game though, since it’s honestly pretty inaccessible. But, if you can look past how dated and slow the game is, it is one that will not be forgotten.
1995
A Gunstar Heroes inspired game by the creators of Wild Arms? I was excited about trying this game out, but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind.
As an early full 2D game for the PS1, it understandably wasn’t of high import, as this was only released outside of Japan in the PAL region. We didn’t get it in the States, probably due to Sony Computer Entertainment America being anal about 2D games. We almost didn’t even get any Mega Man games on the PS1 because of this. The only reason Mega Man 8 was able to be released in America is because Sony didn’t want the Saturn to have an exclusive title, as if they even needed to compete with it at all. So, yeah, something like this coming to America? No chance. Nonetheless, this is still a laughable localization. I was shocked to see that the entire credits was left untranslated. Did they think nobody would beat the game or something? I’m left wondering how it was even allowed to be released like that; I’ve never seen that before. Other than that, there was a difficulty change made to the European version where instead of the Japanese version's infinite continue amount, this game limits it to 9, which does make it much more difficult. It took a lot of grinding, as this game is pretty tough.
You have 4 guns: a normal shot, a wide shot, a homing shot, and a flame shot, which is for high damage output. The cool thing about this game is that you’re able to switch between any of them on the fly, which is fun to swap them in the levels and boss fights to suit what's going on. There’s also a lock button so you can aim in place, and a grappling hook, so you’re able to vault onto platforms above. The cool thing about the grappling hook is that you’re immune for a period of time when using it which is fun to plan out. The bosses are great too; they’re really hard, and it’s fun to learn their patterns. The final boss is a great test for all you’ve learned playing the game. You will be dying a lot though, so beware.
Rapid Reload lets you pick from two characters, and they are Axel Sonics and Ruka Hetfield. Their only gameplay difference is their weapons, which all have the same attributes (normal, homing, etc.) but are all different variations. Ruka, for some reason, is balanced horribly. Her guns barely do any damage, and there are a ton of instances where I’m certain it’s impossible to not take damage due to her not having enough coverage for what’s on the screen. Everything I praised about the gameplay basically gets thrown out the window while playing as Ruka. This is easily the worst part about this game, and it was infuriating when attempting to beat the game as her, but I was able to, and it took a lot of practice. Axel, though, is far stronger, as he does much more damage and has a lock-on homing laser, which makes a lot of the game's levels and bosses an absolute joke.
I don’t really think anything else is super remarkable about the game though. The music is serviceable. I like some songs, but a lot of them are pretty boring. The graphics are also pretty standard. I mean, again, a super early PS1 game, but it’s very bland. The boss sprites do look pretty cool, though, along with the character portraits shown after stage completion.
If you play this game, just play as Axel, and save yourself from raging. If you’re a completionist, I’m sorry for what you’ll have to go through. If you don’t mind playing the game in Japanese, just play Gunners Heaven. You have infinite continues and 60 FPS, so that’s definitely a more desirable version. Or you could just play Gunstar Heroes.
As an early full 2D game for the PS1, it understandably wasn’t of high import, as this was only released outside of Japan in the PAL region. We didn’t get it in the States, probably due to Sony Computer Entertainment America being anal about 2D games. We almost didn’t even get any Mega Man games on the PS1 because of this. The only reason Mega Man 8 was able to be released in America is because Sony didn’t want the Saturn to have an exclusive title, as if they even needed to compete with it at all. So, yeah, something like this coming to America? No chance. Nonetheless, this is still a laughable localization. I was shocked to see that the entire credits was left untranslated. Did they think nobody would beat the game or something? I’m left wondering how it was even allowed to be released like that; I’ve never seen that before. Other than that, there was a difficulty change made to the European version where instead of the Japanese version's infinite continue amount, this game limits it to 9, which does make it much more difficult. It took a lot of grinding, as this game is pretty tough.
You have 4 guns: a normal shot, a wide shot, a homing shot, and a flame shot, which is for high damage output. The cool thing about this game is that you’re able to switch between any of them on the fly, which is fun to swap them in the levels and boss fights to suit what's going on. There’s also a lock button so you can aim in place, and a grappling hook, so you’re able to vault onto platforms above. The cool thing about the grappling hook is that you’re immune for a period of time when using it which is fun to plan out. The bosses are great too; they’re really hard, and it’s fun to learn their patterns. The final boss is a great test for all you’ve learned playing the game. You will be dying a lot though, so beware.
Rapid Reload lets you pick from two characters, and they are Axel Sonics and Ruka Hetfield. Their only gameplay difference is their weapons, which all have the same attributes (normal, homing, etc.) but are all different variations. Ruka, for some reason, is balanced horribly. Her guns barely do any damage, and there are a ton of instances where I’m certain it’s impossible to not take damage due to her not having enough coverage for what’s on the screen. Everything I praised about the gameplay basically gets thrown out the window while playing as Ruka. This is easily the worst part about this game, and it was infuriating when attempting to beat the game as her, but I was able to, and it took a lot of practice. Axel, though, is far stronger, as he does much more damage and has a lock-on homing laser, which makes a lot of the game's levels and bosses an absolute joke.
I don’t really think anything else is super remarkable about the game though. The music is serviceable. I like some songs, but a lot of them are pretty boring. The graphics are also pretty standard. I mean, again, a super early PS1 game, but it’s very bland. The boss sprites do look pretty cool, though, along with the character portraits shown after stage completion.
If you play this game, just play as Axel, and save yourself from raging. If you’re a completionist, I’m sorry for what you’ll have to go through. If you don’t mind playing the game in Japanese, just play Gunners Heaven. You have infinite continues and 60 FPS, so that’s definitely a more desirable version. Or you could just play Gunstar Heroes.
2010
We all know the DS was a very popular handheld, and there’s a decent chunk of RPGs released for the thing. So, which are the very best? In my humble opinion, Radiant Historia and the Dragon Quest 5 remake. I’m not talking about Dragon Quest today, but this. Developed by a team of staff from the Shin Megami Tensei series and the PS2 RPG Radiata Stories, we were treated to Radiant Historia. I always thought that was interesting.
Radiant Historia's story sees two kingdoms in a dying world where they are fighting for resources, and it’s your job to see what you can do about it. It’s simple but executed very well, with great character writing and some well-executed twists later on. Unfortunately, the time travel addition to this game feels like it’s tacked on. Most people would think it would be in the style of Chrono Trigger, where you’re able to go between various time periods and exploring their worlds, but this game basically lets you make a decision of which you have 2 options at the start of the game, and you’ll have to jump back and forth between both timelines to unlock access to a roadblock in the other. It’s kind of annoying to be restricted from one of the timelines, as it is just a pace killer to have to go back to the other one. It is also barely utilized in the story, which makes me think it just didn’t need to be there. I never understood why people would recommend or compare this game to Chrono Trigger since both games are vastly different and only have the time travel system as a similarity, which is super unnecessary in this game!
The combat has enemies on a 3x3 grid, and you’re inclined to use attacks that pair the enemies' placements together in order to attack them all at once. You also have the ability to swap turns with an enemy in order to pair your party's actions together to unleash devastating combos, and let me tell you, this is seriously dopamine-enriching stuff. This game also has surprisingly well-tuned balancing. At no point in the game do I recall ever thinking a section was too easy or unfairly difficult. It was always providing a consistent challenge throughout the game, which made playing it very engaging. You’re still able to grind for EXP and over-level yourself if you get stuck, but it isn’t necessary at all.
Yoko Shimamura composed the soundtrack for this game, and it’s incredible. If you like Kingdom Hearts’ soundtrack, then you’ll be happy to know that the battle themes in Radiant Historia sound just like those. Unfortunately, there aren't many tracks in the game, and it can get repetitive to hear the same 10 or so songs over and over again. Radiant Historia’s music blends perfectly with the game's atmosphere, always feeling in place. The final boss theme is definitely one of my favorite songs from her.
There’s always talk about which version of this game to play, and if you want my honest opinion, I probably prefer how the original DS release looks. I haven’t played the 3DS version yet, but the biggest change is how all the characters were redesigned in a new art style that feels more in line with what was popular at the time with its almost generic-looking portraits. It’s by no means bad, but I much prefer this game's art, which seemed to also be more popular at the time of its release with a more detailed and mature look. If you play the 3DS version, you’ll get the soundtrack without the DS bitcrush and added voice acting. Of course, we’re all going to seek different things in the games we play, so that’s up to you to decide, but I’m definitely for the DS version.
I can’t recommend Radiant Historia enough. It’s clear there was a lot of work put into this game, which seems to be absent from a lot of handheld releases at the time. This game feels like the level of quality a console RPG would have, obviously not graphically, but just the time and effort being put in to make this game not feel like a side project. If you haven’t already, this is a must-play for the system.
Radiant Historia's story sees two kingdoms in a dying world where they are fighting for resources, and it’s your job to see what you can do about it. It’s simple but executed very well, with great character writing and some well-executed twists later on. Unfortunately, the time travel addition to this game feels like it’s tacked on. Most people would think it would be in the style of Chrono Trigger, where you’re able to go between various time periods and exploring their worlds, but this game basically lets you make a decision of which you have 2 options at the start of the game, and you’ll have to jump back and forth between both timelines to unlock access to a roadblock in the other. It’s kind of annoying to be restricted from one of the timelines, as it is just a pace killer to have to go back to the other one. It is also barely utilized in the story, which makes me think it just didn’t need to be there. I never understood why people would recommend or compare this game to Chrono Trigger since both games are vastly different and only have the time travel system as a similarity, which is super unnecessary in this game!
The combat has enemies on a 3x3 grid, and you’re inclined to use attacks that pair the enemies' placements together in order to attack them all at once. You also have the ability to swap turns with an enemy in order to pair your party's actions together to unleash devastating combos, and let me tell you, this is seriously dopamine-enriching stuff. This game also has surprisingly well-tuned balancing. At no point in the game do I recall ever thinking a section was too easy or unfairly difficult. It was always providing a consistent challenge throughout the game, which made playing it very engaging. You’re still able to grind for EXP and over-level yourself if you get stuck, but it isn’t necessary at all.
Yoko Shimamura composed the soundtrack for this game, and it’s incredible. If you like Kingdom Hearts’ soundtrack, then you’ll be happy to know that the battle themes in Radiant Historia sound just like those. Unfortunately, there aren't many tracks in the game, and it can get repetitive to hear the same 10 or so songs over and over again. Radiant Historia’s music blends perfectly with the game's atmosphere, always feeling in place. The final boss theme is definitely one of my favorite songs from her.
There’s always talk about which version of this game to play, and if you want my honest opinion, I probably prefer how the original DS release looks. I haven’t played the 3DS version yet, but the biggest change is how all the characters were redesigned in a new art style that feels more in line with what was popular at the time with its almost generic-looking portraits. It’s by no means bad, but I much prefer this game's art, which seemed to also be more popular at the time of its release with a more detailed and mature look. If you play the 3DS version, you’ll get the soundtrack without the DS bitcrush and added voice acting. Of course, we’re all going to seek different things in the games we play, so that’s up to you to decide, but I’m definitely for the DS version.
I can’t recommend Radiant Historia enough. It’s clear there was a lot of work put into this game, which seems to be absent from a lot of handheld releases at the time. This game feels like the level of quality a console RPG would have, obviously not graphically, but just the time and effort being put in to make this game not feel like a side project. If you haven’t already, this is a must-play for the system.
2008
I try to play some DS RPGs from time to time. I’m a fan of how most use PS1-era graphics, and it can feel like extras from that generation at times. So, when I stumbled across this one and saw who composed the soundtrack, that immediately piqued my interest, and I tried it the following day. I wasn’t familiar with the development team Imageepoch, but then I found out they were the people who made that anime game with the drawn characters in 3D space. Ok, onto the review.
Sands of Destruction uses sprites on 3D areas just like many 5th-gen RPGs, and it looks good enough. There aren't really many memorable areas, but they do at least look like there was effort put into them. It doesn’t help that this game uses one of those point-A to point-B world map layouts, which, in my opinion, absolutely kills RPG world building. It makes the progression simpler, but it just looks bland. The soundtrack for this game is pretty good though! It’s composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, who composed the soundtracks for Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, and many others. It's not as good as those game's soundtracks, but it’s still great. It sounds a lot like Xenogears, but it’s the same person, so… no surprise.
The story is also really bland, mostly due to the lack of original ideas. It’s the same tired theme of humans and beasts hating each other, and this game gives barely any background on the situation. Also not helping are the characters, which aren’t awful, but they certainly aren’t good. They dump all their backstories quickly at once near the end of the game, and they don’t really get any time to be fleshed out. There’s also voice acting in a lot of the cutscenes, and to be honest, it’s alright. The main character's voice actor sounds like he barely gives a shit when anything serious is happening, but other than that, I don’t think I’m dissatisfied with a 2008 DS game's voice acting.
This game's difficulty was apparently altered during its localization, and I don’t know if that means harder or easier because I genuinely cannot find any information on it. Whether it was either of those, this game is laughably easy to the point where it’s mind-numbing. I’m talking one-shot every enemy for most of the game easy. Hell, at one point in the game, I was able to one-shot a boss. Yes, I’m serious. Although the game is very easy, I can at least respect that it doesn’t hold your hand constantly. Most DS games will not be shy about over-explaining literally everything, but this game feels like it carries more game design philosophies from previous console generations than its own.
The combat system is flawed, but it has some good ideas that are unfortunately laid to waste due to the game's laughably easy difficulty. I have to explain it since that ties into why the game is easy. It’s a little tricky to explain, but it’s not as complicated as it may seem. So, each character has blunt attacks and flurry attacks. Blunt attacks are one-hit strong attacks, which aren’t even remotely useful as they barely do any damage, and flurry attacks are multi-hit attacks, which I can only assume were meant to be weaker even though they do much more damage than the blunt attacks due to the large amount of hits that do a ton of damage. Your characters have 3 of each, and you can combo all 3 blunt/flurry attacks if you have enough battle points. Time to explain those too! Characters will start with 2 battle points, or it may go up or down 1 due to character morale, which, to my knowledge, is random when starting a battle. These basically act as character actions and let you attack, use magic, and whatnot. If you get a crit or surpass an interval of 10 on your combo meter, you get an extra battle point; this will be important in a second. Regarding the combat system, there’s also customization points, and in case anybody was wondering, yes, they do use an acronym for it in-game. You get these after battles and can use them to level up moves for your characters. Upon leveling up your flurry move 7 times, you have the option to chain it to your other flurry moves, which will make it so every time you use a flurry move, it will use the next flurry advancement in the combo without using another battle point. This will make it so that with most characters, you’ll be able to reach 10 hits in one turn, which grants another turn in battle, effectively creating an infinite attack loop until you max out at 7 battle points, which forces you to use a special attack, special magic, or defend. Special attacks in this game are extremely weak and never worth using, just like the blunt attacks. The game's balancing is super disjointed, and the combat system is not fleshed out properly. I like the idea of gaining turns for combos and using those turns to use magic, buff, or defend, but there’s no point when you’re not being challenged. I was just doing the exact same thing every battle, and that, paired with this game's large encounter rate, which made me very over-leveled, made it feel like a giant drag.
This game has some missed potential, but I can’t lie to myself; I had no fun playing this game. If you want a good DS RPG to play, just go play Radiant Historia. That’s not a perfect game either, but it’s much better than this.
Sands of Destruction uses sprites on 3D areas just like many 5th-gen RPGs, and it looks good enough. There aren't really many memorable areas, but they do at least look like there was effort put into them. It doesn’t help that this game uses one of those point-A to point-B world map layouts, which, in my opinion, absolutely kills RPG world building. It makes the progression simpler, but it just looks bland. The soundtrack for this game is pretty good though! It’s composed by Yasunori Mitsuda, who composed the soundtracks for Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, and many others. It's not as good as those game's soundtracks, but it’s still great. It sounds a lot like Xenogears, but it’s the same person, so… no surprise.
The story is also really bland, mostly due to the lack of original ideas. It’s the same tired theme of humans and beasts hating each other, and this game gives barely any background on the situation. Also not helping are the characters, which aren’t awful, but they certainly aren’t good. They dump all their backstories quickly at once near the end of the game, and they don’t really get any time to be fleshed out. There’s also voice acting in a lot of the cutscenes, and to be honest, it’s alright. The main character's voice actor sounds like he barely gives a shit when anything serious is happening, but other than that, I don’t think I’m dissatisfied with a 2008 DS game's voice acting.
This game's difficulty was apparently altered during its localization, and I don’t know if that means harder or easier because I genuinely cannot find any information on it. Whether it was either of those, this game is laughably easy to the point where it’s mind-numbing. I’m talking one-shot every enemy for most of the game easy. Hell, at one point in the game, I was able to one-shot a boss. Yes, I’m serious. Although the game is very easy, I can at least respect that it doesn’t hold your hand constantly. Most DS games will not be shy about over-explaining literally everything, but this game feels like it carries more game design philosophies from previous console generations than its own.
The combat system is flawed, but it has some good ideas that are unfortunately laid to waste due to the game's laughably easy difficulty. I have to explain it since that ties into why the game is easy. It’s a little tricky to explain, but it’s not as complicated as it may seem. So, each character has blunt attacks and flurry attacks. Blunt attacks are one-hit strong attacks, which aren’t even remotely useful as they barely do any damage, and flurry attacks are multi-hit attacks, which I can only assume were meant to be weaker even though they do much more damage than the blunt attacks due to the large amount of hits that do a ton of damage. Your characters have 3 of each, and you can combo all 3 blunt/flurry attacks if you have enough battle points. Time to explain those too! Characters will start with 2 battle points, or it may go up or down 1 due to character morale, which, to my knowledge, is random when starting a battle. These basically act as character actions and let you attack, use magic, and whatnot. If you get a crit or surpass an interval of 10 on your combo meter, you get an extra battle point; this will be important in a second. Regarding the combat system, there’s also customization points, and in case anybody was wondering, yes, they do use an acronym for it in-game. You get these after battles and can use them to level up moves for your characters. Upon leveling up your flurry move 7 times, you have the option to chain it to your other flurry moves, which will make it so every time you use a flurry move, it will use the next flurry advancement in the combo without using another battle point. This will make it so that with most characters, you’ll be able to reach 10 hits in one turn, which grants another turn in battle, effectively creating an infinite attack loop until you max out at 7 battle points, which forces you to use a special attack, special magic, or defend. Special attacks in this game are extremely weak and never worth using, just like the blunt attacks. The game's balancing is super disjointed, and the combat system is not fleshed out properly. I like the idea of gaining turns for combos and using those turns to use magic, buff, or defend, but there’s no point when you’re not being challenged. I was just doing the exact same thing every battle, and that, paired with this game's large encounter rate, which made me very over-leveled, made it feel like a giant drag.
This game has some missed potential, but I can’t lie to myself; I had no fun playing this game. If you want a good DS RPG to play, just go play Radiant Historia. That’s not a perfect game either, but it’s much better than this.
1998
I haven't played many SRPGs... When I was a kid I managed to do the worst possible run of FE7 anyone has ever seen. I got stuck on chapter 18 or something and was forever saddened that I had wasted hours dedicated to an unsalvageable run. Ever since then I've shuttered at the idea of playing SRPGs with railroading progression. History has changed though, as I have finally done what I have been scared to do my entire life and finished a playthrough of an SPRG.
The story is nothing special, but it's executed very well. It's an RPG war plot where you have to build a team to go fight the evil empire. Nothing crazy there of course, although the characters were definitely the driving force for me to care about it. They're tropey, but it's satisfying to see their developments play out. They feel like they're all great friends too; kind of gave me some Lunar vibes as far as that goes. Working Designs did good with the localization this time too. I think they added more life into a would-be dull story. Their signature "humor" is present here while they still know how to have their serious moments in the story too. They got a few laughs out of me this time around, but it was equally paired with some cringey moments as well. I have Working Designs Stockholm syndrome though, so I'm biased. There's also different story routes you can take with exclusive characters, maps, and so on. I eventually want to go back for a replay to see the other content since it seems interesting.
The gameplay is different from the SRPGs I've played. You characters pilot "All Terrain Armored Combatants" also known as "Mechs!" Upon entering battles it loads in a new environment as you watch the 3D mech battles play out. They look cool, however I usually like turning this stuff off as I have difficulty remembering my strategies when I have to pause and watch what are essentially cutscenes in-between my movements. One of the most notable things to me at least is that there's very limited ways to heal your team, so you'll have to minimize taking damage in any way you can. I know that's like a "no shit" for video games, but.. yeah. The way you do this is by flanking the enemy from behind so they're not able to counter-attack you and so you do more damage. You're also able to pick a direction upon moving so you can hopefully prevent getting flanked yourself. I was happy to find out upon playing that this game does not have perma-death. If a unit dies they'll just be out of the game until the next chapter. There's no way to bring them back in the current battle, but at least I didn't have to reset constantly when I got RNG fucked a few times. When leveling up you're also able to distribute a few stats to your character. This is a cool layer of customizability since you can dump a bunch of points into a stat that a character is currently struggling with. There's also special moves characters can learn when they reach enough points in certain stats. I wish that was touched on better since I had no idea when I was playing, so just keep that in mind I guess... or don't. There's a bunch of nuances to the combat but I'll let y'all figure out the rest for yourselves. It's fun stuff.
When I was forced to manage EXP better, it did make the experience very engaging. I basically completed the game in a day since I was having so much fun with it. I don't think this game is very beginner friendly though. I was definitely getting my ass beat at the end and thought I wouldn't even be able to finish it. Luckily, from some God-given miracle, I was able to pull through. Vanguard Bandits is definitely worth giving a go despite the challenge. I might just be ass at video games, but even so... put on your thinking cap when you're playing this one.
The story is nothing special, but it's executed very well. It's an RPG war plot where you have to build a team to go fight the evil empire. Nothing crazy there of course, although the characters were definitely the driving force for me to care about it. They're tropey, but it's satisfying to see their developments play out. They feel like they're all great friends too; kind of gave me some Lunar vibes as far as that goes. Working Designs did good with the localization this time too. I think they added more life into a would-be dull story. Their signature "humor" is present here while they still know how to have their serious moments in the story too. They got a few laughs out of me this time around, but it was equally paired with some cringey moments as well. I have Working Designs Stockholm syndrome though, so I'm biased. There's also different story routes you can take with exclusive characters, maps, and so on. I eventually want to go back for a replay to see the other content since it seems interesting.
The gameplay is different from the SRPGs I've played. You characters pilot "All Terrain Armored Combatants" also known as "Mechs!" Upon entering battles it loads in a new environment as you watch the 3D mech battles play out. They look cool, however I usually like turning this stuff off as I have difficulty remembering my strategies when I have to pause and watch what are essentially cutscenes in-between my movements. One of the most notable things to me at least is that there's very limited ways to heal your team, so you'll have to minimize taking damage in any way you can. I know that's like a "no shit" for video games, but.. yeah. The way you do this is by flanking the enemy from behind so they're not able to counter-attack you and so you do more damage. You're also able to pick a direction upon moving so you can hopefully prevent getting flanked yourself. I was happy to find out upon playing that this game does not have perma-death. If a unit dies they'll just be out of the game until the next chapter. There's no way to bring them back in the current battle, but at least I didn't have to reset constantly when I got RNG fucked a few times. When leveling up you're also able to distribute a few stats to your character. This is a cool layer of customizability since you can dump a bunch of points into a stat that a character is currently struggling with. There's also special moves characters can learn when they reach enough points in certain stats. I wish that was touched on better since I had no idea when I was playing, so just keep that in mind I guess... or don't. There's a bunch of nuances to the combat but I'll let y'all figure out the rest for yourselves. It's fun stuff.
When I was forced to manage EXP better, it did make the experience very engaging. I basically completed the game in a day since I was having so much fun with it. I don't think this game is very beginner friendly though. I was definitely getting my ass beat at the end and thought I wouldn't even be able to finish it. Luckily, from some God-given miracle, I was able to pull through. Vanguard Bandits is definitely worth giving a go despite the challenge. I might just be ass at video games, but even so... put on your thinking cap when you're playing this one.
1995
Playing through the Quintet Trilogy (and Actraiser) had me kind of burnt out by the time I reached Terranigma. I was thinking I would've had to sit through another dated Action RPG, but to my surprise, it was one of the best games I've ever played.
Environments that would normally be boring in other games look gorgeous here. Whether it's a desert area, a forest area, or whatever else, there's always so much detail in the world. A big reason the game's graphics are so appealing to me is that the color usage is great. There's a lot of darker colors used, which creates very moody environments, as opposed to something like Secret of Mana, which can look very saturated and one-note. This game also has incredible world-building. It was always interesting to see the sub-plots of the areas you go to and the stories that play out. There's even a side quest where you can help build a rural town and watch it grow. A bunch of the game is like this too, which is why Terranigma is so great.
The gameplay is pretty fun, too. It's standard Action RPG stuff; there's your melee attack, magic, and a block. There are a few combos you can do, like a flurry attack and a running dive attack, which spice up the combat a bit and make weak enemies pretty quick to blaze through. My only grievance is that the game is very easy. There's a very good combo that proves useful the whole game and makes fights really simple. It's also very easy to grind levels, which may be a good thing depending on the person.
I like to view Terranigma as some sort of Chrono Trigger-esque achievement of the Action RPG genre. It feels like the culmination of all Quintet had learned contributing to the genre and offers one of the most refined experiences you'll be able to get from said genre. HD-2D PLEASE!
Environments that would normally be boring in other games look gorgeous here. Whether it's a desert area, a forest area, or whatever else, there's always so much detail in the world. A big reason the game's graphics are so appealing to me is that the color usage is great. There's a lot of darker colors used, which creates very moody environments, as opposed to something like Secret of Mana, which can look very saturated and one-note. This game also has incredible world-building. It was always interesting to see the sub-plots of the areas you go to and the stories that play out. There's even a side quest where you can help build a rural town and watch it grow. A bunch of the game is like this too, which is why Terranigma is so great.
The gameplay is pretty fun, too. It's standard Action RPG stuff; there's your melee attack, magic, and a block. There are a few combos you can do, like a flurry attack and a running dive attack, which spice up the combat a bit and make weak enemies pretty quick to blaze through. My only grievance is that the game is very easy. There's a very good combo that proves useful the whole game and makes fights really simple. It's also very easy to grind levels, which may be a good thing depending on the person.
I like to view Terranigma as some sort of Chrono Trigger-esque achievement of the Action RPG genre. It feels like the culmination of all Quintet had learned contributing to the genre and offers one of the most refined experiences you'll be able to get from said genre. HD-2D PLEASE!
1993
Mega Man X was the most badass shit to me as a kid. An anime art style, a more mature story, and an excessive usage of electric guitars in the soundtrack. They seriously could have toned it down a notch, but I ate that shit up still... This has always been one of my lesser played entries in the series. I've had some issues in the past, and even now upon replaying.
I have to complain about the dash boots on Chill Penguin stage just like everyone else on planet earth and get it out of the way. It's the same energy as "mm2 is not the best mega man game because of wily 4 boss", but it's always been a damper on replays for killing creativity on routing. Since it's such an integral part of X's moveset, I always get it first. Think not being able to run in Mario World, it's that slow.
I think this is some of the most boring level design in the franchise. I feel like Capcom was trying to ease classic series fans into this new fast-paced series, but the level design took a hit in favor of being extremely basic and not ever really taking advantage of X's new abilities. The stages are littered with enemies that take way too many hits to kill and wind up leaving me barely doing any platforming and just spamming the buster shot. The bosses are alright though. They're pushovers with their weakness but they're pretty fun to fight with the standard buster shot and have good patterns that make use of the new dash move. Random, but fuck that stupid platforming segment in sigma stage 1 with the static background which makes it difficult to see the depth of the moving platforms.
This game is also too damn easy. Upgrades make X very powerful and to the point where you'll basically never have to worry about your health when playing levels. The amount of damage you take is so minimal and it's easier to just use the invincibility frames to dash past any enemies in the game instead of fighting them. To be fair though, I probably should try playing this without upgrades for more of a challenge.
What this games level design does right though was the addition of permanent upgrades for X. Ah, RPG elements, my favorite. Hidden about in the stages are armor, health upgrades, stuff like that. These were super fun to find when I had played this as a kid, and they are for the most part hidden well and require knowledge of the games mechanics. It's less fun now since I know where every upgrade is. I miss the childlike wonder of discovering the upgrades in all the games.
I always viewed the success and critical acclaim of Mega Man X as a movie-like experience. I believe people enjoy this game as a one-time playthrough where it will give you a quick and digestible story, and never challenge you enough throughout the game so that first-time players will be able to get through without trying too hard.
I have to complain about the dash boots on Chill Penguin stage just like everyone else on planet earth and get it out of the way. It's the same energy as "mm2 is not the best mega man game because of wily 4 boss", but it's always been a damper on replays for killing creativity on routing. Since it's such an integral part of X's moveset, I always get it first. Think not being able to run in Mario World, it's that slow.
I think this is some of the most boring level design in the franchise. I feel like Capcom was trying to ease classic series fans into this new fast-paced series, but the level design took a hit in favor of being extremely basic and not ever really taking advantage of X's new abilities. The stages are littered with enemies that take way too many hits to kill and wind up leaving me barely doing any platforming and just spamming the buster shot. The bosses are alright though. They're pushovers with their weakness but they're pretty fun to fight with the standard buster shot and have good patterns that make use of the new dash move. Random, but fuck that stupid platforming segment in sigma stage 1 with the static background which makes it difficult to see the depth of the moving platforms.
This game is also too damn easy. Upgrades make X very powerful and to the point where you'll basically never have to worry about your health when playing levels. The amount of damage you take is so minimal and it's easier to just use the invincibility frames to dash past any enemies in the game instead of fighting them. To be fair though, I probably should try playing this without upgrades for more of a challenge.
What this games level design does right though was the addition of permanent upgrades for X. Ah, RPG elements, my favorite. Hidden about in the stages are armor, health upgrades, stuff like that. These were super fun to find when I had played this as a kid, and they are for the most part hidden well and require knowledge of the games mechanics. It's less fun now since I know where every upgrade is. I miss the childlike wonder of discovering the upgrades in all the games.
I always viewed the success and critical acclaim of Mega Man X as a movie-like experience. I believe people enjoy this game as a one-time playthrough where it will give you a quick and digestible story, and never challenge you enough throughout the game so that first-time players will be able to get through without trying too hard.
1990
Mario World is remembered a tad too fondly. It's a landmark in game history for paving the way for what was to come. but it doesn't hold up at all. It's definitely something I'm surprised to no longer enjoy after growing up with it.
I get this is a preference thing, but Mario controls horribly in my opinion. To me, every level genuinely feels like an ice level. I think this is due to you not really being able to stop Mario by pressing back on the d-pad. This applies in the air too, when you're trying to position yourself to stomp on enemies heads in, you know, a precision platformer. When in the air he'll fly the other way too quickly when I'm just trying to get him to stop moving forward. It was something I still have not been able to get used to.
The graphics are very bland. I get it's an early title on the system, but the backgrounds and color usage are so monotone. Every level looks the exact same, and it's honestly tiring to look at the same exact set pieces throughout the entire game. Why not add something other than a purple coral squiggle in the background of the water stages? Even SMB3 makes better use of colors and aesthetics than Mario World, by all accounts.
The lack of power-ups in this game is kind of annoying. We went from having 4 in SMB3 to a meager 2 in this game. There's Yoshi, which kind of counts, but you can't bring him into the castle stages. But we only have the fire flower and cape. The cape is really good and kind of makes the flower undesirable due to how much worse it is. The Cape also has a flying mechanic where, if you build up enough speed, you can jump into the air and fly with proper timing. You can use this to skip a chunk of levels, which seems odd. I get rewarding players for mastering the game, but skipping the whole level?
The level design is also all over the place. Stage layouts are extremely repetitive and get old quickly. The level layouts seem like they were randomly constructed with no real progression. It's confusing and at times, deceiving. I vividly remember the optional fortress leading to Star Road, which you can access from a secret exit in the Forest of Secrets, having these crushers come down from the ceiling. There are crevices in the floor, and you'd think to stay in them and duck to avoid the crushers, but instead you'll get crushed in the screens auto-scroll or have a spinning blade creep above you when trying to jump out. Also, Fortress 7 has the snake block trail with no checkpoint and a strict time limit as you wait for a Kamak to hopefully break open the blocks for you. The special stages are complete messes too. They're not actually hard because they just prey on artificial trial and error. Tubular is a great example because you need to repeatedly get P Balloon powerups to last until the end of the stage but you won't know which question blocks hold the item until you trial and error your way through. These are cherry-picked examples, but the entire game lacks craft for its level design, sometimes less evil than the times I mentioned.
The one redeemable quality I find about this game is the secret exits. This was a really cool idea that rewards exploration and is made better with the World Map that lets you trek back to any levels you completed. I liked the option of stopping your main quest to look for secrets or continue on.
I get this is a preference thing, but Mario controls horribly in my opinion. To me, every level genuinely feels like an ice level. I think this is due to you not really being able to stop Mario by pressing back on the d-pad. This applies in the air too, when you're trying to position yourself to stomp on enemies heads in, you know, a precision platformer. When in the air he'll fly the other way too quickly when I'm just trying to get him to stop moving forward. It was something I still have not been able to get used to.
The graphics are very bland. I get it's an early title on the system, but the backgrounds and color usage are so monotone. Every level looks the exact same, and it's honestly tiring to look at the same exact set pieces throughout the entire game. Why not add something other than a purple coral squiggle in the background of the water stages? Even SMB3 makes better use of colors and aesthetics than Mario World, by all accounts.
The lack of power-ups in this game is kind of annoying. We went from having 4 in SMB3 to a meager 2 in this game. There's Yoshi, which kind of counts, but you can't bring him into the castle stages. But we only have the fire flower and cape. The cape is really good and kind of makes the flower undesirable due to how much worse it is. The Cape also has a flying mechanic where, if you build up enough speed, you can jump into the air and fly with proper timing. You can use this to skip a chunk of levels, which seems odd. I get rewarding players for mastering the game, but skipping the whole level?
The level design is also all over the place. Stage layouts are extremely repetitive and get old quickly. The level layouts seem like they were randomly constructed with no real progression. It's confusing and at times, deceiving. I vividly remember the optional fortress leading to Star Road, which you can access from a secret exit in the Forest of Secrets, having these crushers come down from the ceiling. There are crevices in the floor, and you'd think to stay in them and duck to avoid the crushers, but instead you'll get crushed in the screens auto-scroll or have a spinning blade creep above you when trying to jump out. Also, Fortress 7 has the snake block trail with no checkpoint and a strict time limit as you wait for a Kamak to hopefully break open the blocks for you. The special stages are complete messes too. They're not actually hard because they just prey on artificial trial and error. Tubular is a great example because you need to repeatedly get P Balloon powerups to last until the end of the stage but you won't know which question blocks hold the item until you trial and error your way through. These are cherry-picked examples, but the entire game lacks craft for its level design, sometimes less evil than the times I mentioned.
The one redeemable quality I find about this game is the secret exits. This was a really cool idea that rewards exploration and is made better with the World Map that lets you trek back to any levels you completed. I liked the option of stopping your main quest to look for secrets or continue on.
1995
Comix Zone is a half hour long game that purposefully sets up traps that you can't see coming/react to in time so that you have to keep replaying until you get it right. Conceptually, it's great, with the comic book inspired graphics. Definitely one of the best looking Genesis titles.
This game is known for its difficulty, but it honestly isn't very hard. Once you grind out the game enough and find the best paths to take, there is no challenge left. If I ever replay it, I will struggle minimally since I know all that traps that lie ahead. It was definitely designed this way because of how short the game is, and probably to counter the rental market at the time.
This game is known for its difficulty, but it honestly isn't very hard. Once you grind out the game enough and find the best paths to take, there is no challenge left. If I ever replay it, I will struggle minimally since I know all that traps that lie ahead. It was definitely designed this way because of how short the game is, and probably to counter the rental market at the time.
Lufia II was one of the later games released on the SNES. Despite the release date, it's graphically unimpressive and looks worse than a lot of SNES RPGs released the same year. It doesn't try to be a Chrono Trigger or an FF6, and it doesn't need to be.
The highlight of this game, especially for me, is its dungeons and puzzles. They're basically just better Zelda dungeons, to be honest. You're given tools throughout the game, and the game design will make great use of them throughout the whole journey. There are also a ton of branching pathways with treasure chests, which, for the most part, have very useful items for your party. I can't stress enough how incredible the head-scratchers are in this game, though. I've yet to find an RPG that even holds a torch to this game in that regard.
This game has an interesting equipment system. Not only do I have to decide which equipment has the best stat allocations for the characters, but there is an IP system in which some equipment pieces will have a special move that you can pick from when your IP meter is charged from taking damage in battle. There are many variables for equipment to take into account in the form of rings and rocks, which all raise different stats and have their own special move most of the time. This game also has shops to learn magic instead of getting spells from leveling up. I like this because I have to choose which character most needs certain spells to not waste all my money. In addition to party members, there is a new type of member called capsule monsters. There are 7 to collect in the game, and you can evolve all of them by feeding them equipment, items, or whatever they desire in the form of a menu telling you what to feed them. This was fun, as they could all help out a bit in their respective manners.
My only complaint about Lufia II is that the characters and story are really boring. The pacing is bad later on in the story, as it starts to get really repetitive and the characters are not interesting at all. They don't get any development for the most part, instead substituting for bad humor in the cutscenes. The gameplay more than makes up for it though!
My favorite SNES game, without a doubt. It's a shame that this series kind of gets neglected now, only getting a mid remake on the DS in 2010. The series as a whole isn't very good, to be honest, with this being the only one worth playing, and it is very much worth playing.
The highlight of this game, especially for me, is its dungeons and puzzles. They're basically just better Zelda dungeons, to be honest. You're given tools throughout the game, and the game design will make great use of them throughout the whole journey. There are also a ton of branching pathways with treasure chests, which, for the most part, have very useful items for your party. I can't stress enough how incredible the head-scratchers are in this game, though. I've yet to find an RPG that even holds a torch to this game in that regard.
This game has an interesting equipment system. Not only do I have to decide which equipment has the best stat allocations for the characters, but there is an IP system in which some equipment pieces will have a special move that you can pick from when your IP meter is charged from taking damage in battle. There are many variables for equipment to take into account in the form of rings and rocks, which all raise different stats and have their own special move most of the time. This game also has shops to learn magic instead of getting spells from leveling up. I like this because I have to choose which character most needs certain spells to not waste all my money. In addition to party members, there is a new type of member called capsule monsters. There are 7 to collect in the game, and you can evolve all of them by feeding them equipment, items, or whatever they desire in the form of a menu telling you what to feed them. This was fun, as they could all help out a bit in their respective manners.
My only complaint about Lufia II is that the characters and story are really boring. The pacing is bad later on in the story, as it starts to get really repetitive and the characters are not interesting at all. They don't get any development for the most part, instead substituting for bad humor in the cutscenes. The gameplay more than makes up for it though!
My favorite SNES game, without a doubt. It's a shame that this series kind of gets neglected now, only getting a mid remake on the DS in 2010. The series as a whole isn't very good, to be honest, with this being the only one worth playing, and it is very much worth playing.
2012
This system clearly was not designed for a game like this, but they still tried to make it work, and it just doesn't.
The game has on-rail shooter levels and on ground levels. The on-rail shooter levels are fine since you just need to move and shoot, but the on ground levels are where this game falls flat. There's various different control methods but the one I found the most comfortable (it's not) was the stylus circle pad hybrid where you control the camera with the stylus, move with the stick, and attack with the L button. The game expects too much from the player with how limited these control schemes are. I would play a single stage a day and get hand cramps immediately, until I just decided to rush through the rest in one day because I was sick of playing it.
The best thing about this game though is its equivalent of tiktok subway surfers family guy clips on the bottom screen when Palutena and Pit are conversing with various other characters chiming in while you are playing the game. If not for this I would not have finished the game. The voicework is good and the dialogue is usually pretty funny. A lot of the humor is just them making references to old Nintendo games. It should be cringe in theory but it's charming, I'd say.
I would actually like to see this game ported with a proper control scheme to the Switch. I'd probably have a lot more fun with it if I was able to properly appreciate its game design.
The game has on-rail shooter levels and on ground levels. The on-rail shooter levels are fine since you just need to move and shoot, but the on ground levels are where this game falls flat. There's various different control methods but the one I found the most comfortable (it's not) was the stylus circle pad hybrid where you control the camera with the stylus, move with the stick, and attack with the L button. The game expects too much from the player with how limited these control schemes are. I would play a single stage a day and get hand cramps immediately, until I just decided to rush through the rest in one day because I was sick of playing it.
The best thing about this game though is its equivalent of tiktok subway surfers family guy clips on the bottom screen when Palutena and Pit are conversing with various other characters chiming in while you are playing the game. If not for this I would not have finished the game. The voicework is good and the dialogue is usually pretty funny. A lot of the humor is just them making references to old Nintendo games. It should be cringe in theory but it's charming, I'd say.
I would actually like to see this game ported with a proper control scheme to the Switch. I'd probably have a lot more fun with it if I was able to properly appreciate its game design.