_Ryu
Truly the most winner game I've ever played
Parts of it dragged on and bored me to tears, but other parts also made me genuinely intrigued, especially the Kid routes, which were significantly better than the Takeshi ones. I was originally planning to give it a 3 star rating, but the final route was pretty great and wrapped everything up nicely, so I'll bump it to 3.5.
The allusions to mental illnesses were much more interesting than the game's attempt at deconstrucing VNs with all the meta stuff that takes over the second half, which is serviceable, I'd be lying if I said it was poorly done or anything, but maybe I've just grown numb to that kind of twist. The characters by themselves are likeable, but since the game doesn't really do much with them due to its shift in focus, I can't help but feel I would rather get to know them better over what I ended up getting.
There are mods that offer a more character-driven take on DDLC, like Blue Skies, Window to Your Heart and the upcoming Brand New Day, and to be honest I find a handful of those better than the original game, especially since they actually make the protagonist a better chaaracter too. It's interesting in a sense that I know why it ended up getting popular, but at the same time it does feel half-baked.
There are mods that offer a more character-driven take on DDLC, like Blue Skies, Window to Your Heart and the upcoming Brand New Day, and to be honest I find a handful of those better than the original game, especially since they actually make the protagonist a better chaaracter too. It's interesting in a sense that I know why it ended up getting popular, but at the same time it does feel half-baked.
2013
Part of me is soured over how much Rockstar whored this game out because of the online feature instead of making cool expansions like they did with previous games, but at the same time I just can't bring myself to hate it, some of the best missions in the series are in it, doing 100% completion was one of the most satisfying experiences I had with a video game. The story is probably the weakest part, though, the three main characters pretty much carry it on their backs, their individual character arcs are well done, but the villains are pretty uninteresting, especially since the game doesn't bother giving them much substance besides being smug pricks, and the last few missions (Big Score and Deathwish) feel rushed and somewhat anticlimactic.
I understand that GTA V has its flaws, but they didn't really hurt my experience with it all that much.
I understand that GTA V has its flaws, but they didn't really hurt my experience with it all that much.
2012
I really don't get it when people talk about Katawa Shoujo as if it was this absurdly depressing game that will leave you emotionally drained and sad when you finish it. Have we played the same thing? It's not even that I'm trying to say something like "oh its not even sad unlike my favorite obscure VN which is really much sadder than babbys first VN" like some pathetic elitist or anything. Like, because of what I heard, I just went into Katawa Shoujo expecting something that would break my fucking heart into pieces and give me the drive to finally end myself... Yeah, I wasn't doing too well back then. Anyway, what I ended up getting was probably the most uplifting game I've played in a long time.
Now, I ain't gonna be here saying Katawa Shoujo cured my depression or some stupid shit like that. However, it did contribute immensely to better thoughts at a time when I was at my lowest point as a shut-in with no future in sight. It would be easy to just take this game's concept and write some shitty overblown melodrama around it, but instead, you see that despite the hardships they go through, the characters in Katawa Shoujko still push forward and strive for what they want, they are defined by more than just their disabilities, and even the source of the drama in their specific routes usually don't have much to do with said disabilities.
What made this a deeply personal experience to me was exactly that, the game invites me to see beyond its concept, to see that its characters have relatable problems: Be it low self-esteem, social anxiety, issues with expressing your own feelings and understanding other people's, having a hard time adapting to your surroundings, being afraid of letting people get close to you and lose them in the future, etc. Through Katawa Shoujo, I got reminded that other people also have their sorrows and insecurities, and that letting mine keep me from moving forward will not do any good, it also helped me come to terms with the way I express my own feelings and have a better understanding of what it really means to love another person. Sometime afterwards, I ended up building the courage to get out of my room and have another try at life, things did improve, I got in and out of a few jobs, met some nice people out there and started to have an easier time opening up. Sure, I'm still not fully healed, there are still moments when I feel horrible and almost involuntarily distance myself from even the closest friends I have, I still get very anxious in social situations and some people still get frustrated dealing with me because I have a hard time expressing myself, but I can safely say that it's very unlikely that I will go back to how I was around late 2012 to 2014, and Katawa Shoujo is one of the reasons why. I just feel I walked out of this experience as a better person, and now I have things and people to live for.
This was possible because writers treat this subject in such a respectful and delicate manner that I can't help but feel their passion for this project. It's not a perfect game by any means, Hanako and Shizune's routes in particular have some noticeable flaws in their second halves, and you can make the argument that Emi's route is predictable, though I'm personally not too bothered by that. However, the stories, and their good endings especially, feel sincere and heartfelt, the way the characters feel like unique and nuanced people as opposed to full-on anime stereotypes also helped a lot. That along with the music and the way the backgrounds are taken from real places, it all evokes an eerily nostalgic and heartwarming atmosphere that I've yet to see another VN replicate, playing Katawa Shoujo just felt comforting all the way through.
Is this the best VN ever made? Probably not, even though I still do prefer it to most of the other ones I played, I do believe there must be better VNs I haven't got to try out yet. However, I cannot think of a better starting point for people who aren't much into the medium but have some interest in trying it out. Katawa Shoujo was made with all kinds of people in mind, and that's why it ended up having such a widespread appeal, with people still remembering it to this day and even media outlets who were initially skeptical about it ending up being pleasantly surprised. In my case, it just appeared in the right place, at the right time, and I could not be any more thankful for that.
Now, I ain't gonna be here saying Katawa Shoujo cured my depression or some stupid shit like that. However, it did contribute immensely to better thoughts at a time when I was at my lowest point as a shut-in with no future in sight. It would be easy to just take this game's concept and write some shitty overblown melodrama around it, but instead, you see that despite the hardships they go through, the characters in Katawa Shoujko still push forward and strive for what they want, they are defined by more than just their disabilities, and even the source of the drama in their specific routes usually don't have much to do with said disabilities.
What made this a deeply personal experience to me was exactly that, the game invites me to see beyond its concept, to see that its characters have relatable problems: Be it low self-esteem, social anxiety, issues with expressing your own feelings and understanding other people's, having a hard time adapting to your surroundings, being afraid of letting people get close to you and lose them in the future, etc. Through Katawa Shoujo, I got reminded that other people also have their sorrows and insecurities, and that letting mine keep me from moving forward will not do any good, it also helped me come to terms with the way I express my own feelings and have a better understanding of what it really means to love another person. Sometime afterwards, I ended up building the courage to get out of my room and have another try at life, things did improve, I got in and out of a few jobs, met some nice people out there and started to have an easier time opening up. Sure, I'm still not fully healed, there are still moments when I feel horrible and almost involuntarily distance myself from even the closest friends I have, I still get very anxious in social situations and some people still get frustrated dealing with me because I have a hard time expressing myself, but I can safely say that it's very unlikely that I will go back to how I was around late 2012 to 2014, and Katawa Shoujo is one of the reasons why. I just feel I walked out of this experience as a better person, and now I have things and people to live for.
This was possible because writers treat this subject in such a respectful and delicate manner that I can't help but feel their passion for this project. It's not a perfect game by any means, Hanako and Shizune's routes in particular have some noticeable flaws in their second halves, and you can make the argument that Emi's route is predictable, though I'm personally not too bothered by that. However, the stories, and their good endings especially, feel sincere and heartfelt, the way the characters feel like unique and nuanced people as opposed to full-on anime stereotypes also helped a lot. That along with the music and the way the backgrounds are taken from real places, it all evokes an eerily nostalgic and heartwarming atmosphere that I've yet to see another VN replicate, playing Katawa Shoujo just felt comforting all the way through.
Is this the best VN ever made? Probably not, even though I still do prefer it to most of the other ones I played, I do believe there must be better VNs I haven't got to try out yet. However, I cannot think of a better starting point for people who aren't much into the medium but have some interest in trying it out. Katawa Shoujo was made with all kinds of people in mind, and that's why it ended up having such a widespread appeal, with people still remembering it to this day and even media outlets who were initially skeptical about it ending up being pleasantly surprised. In my case, it just appeared in the right place, at the right time, and I could not be any more thankful for that.
2016
Well at least it's not as bad as X6 and X7
2001
Busco emprego
2005
I seriously have no idea why people like Sonic Rush, no matter how much I think about it or try playing it, I always get to the same conclusion: It's terrible in almost every relevant aspect of a Sonic game.
The level design here is downright repetitive, mediocre at best and frustrating at worst. When a stage isn't on autopilot it just throws you into a bottomless pit out of nowhere, or throw in precision platforming sections that don't complement the loose controls, positioned over bottomless pits, of course, or maybe you'll get thrown into those dull "combat" sections where you have to kill all enemies in the room to proceed, none of which present any real challenge. People always complain when the 3D games do that shit, so why is it okay when this one does the exact same thing?
And Jesus fucking Christ the bosses are unironically the worst fights in the entire series. I know Sonic games were never known for having great bosses, but for the most part they didn't stand out in a negative way either. Not in Sonic Rush, though, because every boss fight in this shit drags on for what seems to be an eternity, even the first boss takes roughly 2 minutes to beat, they always repeat the same long attack patterns and you're forced to just dodge and wait until they finally reveal their weak point so you can finally hit it, now repeat that for seven more times. They're not challenging, I didn't have a hard time beating them, they were just boring and repetitive, much like the regular stages.
Sonic Rush epitomizes everything that's wrong with 2D Sonic games made by Dimps, it might not be the worst of the bunch, after all we still have Sonic 4 Episode I, but it's like they took the worst aspects of Sonic Advance 2 and 3, then proceeded to take the worst aspects of Heroes and made an entire game out of that. I hardly see what's the difference between this and something like Sonic Forces, which is rightfully criticized for having shallow style-over-substance level design and platforming sections that don't complement the character's movements. Did I play the same game I always see other people raving about? Because it definitely doesn't feel like I did.
The level design here is downright repetitive, mediocre at best and frustrating at worst. When a stage isn't on autopilot it just throws you into a bottomless pit out of nowhere, or throw in precision platforming sections that don't complement the loose controls, positioned over bottomless pits, of course, or maybe you'll get thrown into those dull "combat" sections where you have to kill all enemies in the room to proceed, none of which present any real challenge. People always complain when the 3D games do that shit, so why is it okay when this one does the exact same thing?
And Jesus fucking Christ the bosses are unironically the worst fights in the entire series. I know Sonic games were never known for having great bosses, but for the most part they didn't stand out in a negative way either. Not in Sonic Rush, though, because every boss fight in this shit drags on for what seems to be an eternity, even the first boss takes roughly 2 minutes to beat, they always repeat the same long attack patterns and you're forced to just dodge and wait until they finally reveal their weak point so you can finally hit it, now repeat that for seven more times. They're not challenging, I didn't have a hard time beating them, they were just boring and repetitive, much like the regular stages.
Sonic Rush epitomizes everything that's wrong with 2D Sonic games made by Dimps, it might not be the worst of the bunch, after all we still have Sonic 4 Episode I, but it's like they took the worst aspects of Sonic Advance 2 and 3, then proceeded to take the worst aspects of Heroes and made an entire game out of that. I hardly see what's the difference between this and something like Sonic Forces, which is rightfully criticized for having shallow style-over-substance level design and platforming sections that don't complement the character's movements. Did I play the same game I always see other people raving about? Because it definitely doesn't feel like I did.
This review contains spoilers
WARNING: This review contains some spoilers and was written assuming the reader already watched the Angel Beats anime and knows what it's all about.
Angel Beats is a series I love, it means a lot to me, but at the same time it also makes me incredibly frustrated, because it absolutely could have been peak fiction if the project was handled well. The anime suffered from pacing issues due to having too much shit to cram in just 13 episodes, but since it was commercially successful, Key decided to capitalize on it by releasing a visual novel. It was announced that it would be an episodic game, with 1st Beat being the basis for subsequent volumes adding more content until it becomes a complete game by the time volume 6 drops. Fuck yeah, I'm finally gonna see the thematically rich concept of Angel Beats having its full potential explored, I can't wait for this to be fully released!
But then, God said "No" and things went south after the release of 1st Beat.
Turns out the Angel Beats VN is one of the main examples I use to elaborate on why I hate the idea of episodic releases, and much prefer games being complete from the get-go. There's no guarantee that an episodic game will reach its end, it may never get past episode 1, or even a later episode if something wrong ends up happening, be it sales not being as strong as expected, or in Angel Beats' case, the creator having to be hospitalized because of health issues. By the time Jun Maeda's heart condition got better, a handful of years have already passed and we had no news of Angel Beats since then, but at this point we all accepted that it was silently canceled and Key, the company that created the series, just moved on to other projects.
Despite that, a full translation for 1st Beat ended up seeing the light of the day last year, and as the biggest Angel Beats fan on the internet, it was my duty to play the shit out of 1st Beat and see how it improves on the anime's obviously flawed narrative. Basically, the game covers episodes 1 to 10 of the anime, which means it will go only as far as that episode focused on Yui, who happens to be one of the three possible character routes you can take in this game, the other two being Iwasawa and, surprisingly, Matsushita Godan. I chose Yui as my first route because it seemed like a closer experience to the anime, and she was a character I didn't care much for in the anime, she was annoying, louder than necessary and her "romance" with Hinata felt half-baked. As good as the last scene with Yui was in the anime, it didn't feel earned because she was little more than a background character who provided some comic relief.
So, how does 1st Beat improve Yui as a character? Well, she's still annoying and yells a lot, but that's to be expected. Her story is greatly expanded upon, however, even from the beginning where she is shown to be a Girl DeMo fangirl and was inspired by them to play guitar, only for Iwasawa to disappear during a story event, much like in the anime. Following Yui's route, we see more of how she felt about this, the sadness of losing her idol and how Iwasawa herself also admired Yui for how much effort she puts on her little street performances around the school, reminding her of her previous life. It's when Otonashi talks about what Iwasawa said that Yui ends up finding the motivation to step in and become the new singer for Girl DeMo. Otonashi's relationship with Yui is more linked with how his relationship with his sister was back when he was alive, and depending on your choices, this might even be the reason why Otonashi recovers memories of that part of his life, as opposed to being hypnotized by Naoi like it was in the anime.
Yui and Hinata also get more screen time and their relationship is more fleshed out, though I wasn't a big fan of how they mostly left this to the end where the POV shifts and now you see past events from Hinata's point of view, but it's still interesting, the fact that Yui was interested in baseball is what drew them close in the first place, he started teaching her to play baseball way before Otonashi did near the end of her route, and despite Yui being bad at baseball, they ended up getting closer, but never admitting they had romantic feelings for one-another. That is, until we get to see a bit of Hinata's past life outside of what the baseball episode showed, and after reflecting on that, he decides to confess his feelings to Yui, leading to a much more satisfying version of that same scene from the anime.
This is basically how 1st Beat rolls, it follows the story of the anime closely, but expands on a lot of elements from it, even the tiniest detail about the afterlife school is explained and there are a lot more character interactions and moments in between the main events of the anime, and there are so many choices and ways to explore the game that it can get a bit overwhelming for a first time player. Right in the first chapter of the game, which covers episode 1 of the anime, you can straight up refuse to join the SSS and get one of the bad endings, but if you choose to join, Otonashi will mention that he forgot his name, and each of the members suggest a nickname for him, and you can pick any you like or just focus more on remembering your name, and depending on which one you picked, the game will actually remember that choice and parts of it will change because of that. Not only that, but the choice system allows you to determine how Otonashi's relationship with a lot of other characters throughout the story will be like, just by how frequently you chose to interact with a specific character who's at a specific location on the map, as well as the dialogue options you chose. Hinata can be either an absolute bro in Otonashi's eyes, a weird guy who's a bit too interested in getting close and might just be gay, or you can make Otonashi literally have a gay crush on Hinata instead!
Granted, not every character has their relationship with Otonashi as well-developed, especially since this isn't a complete game, but you can definitely see how it would develop with certain choices. For example, you can choose to try and save Fujimaki during the water trap in the Guild, and if you did so, he remembers that and treats Otonashi to lunch to thank him. But of course, certain choices lead to certain paths and alternate endings, so you may keep that in mind if you want to follow a specific route, 1st Beat is definitely a game you'll want to look up a guide if you don't want to experiment with the choices and would rather just get to the routes already. Still, it is really impressive how even the choices that seem inconsequential still have some impact, like when you pick Lolicon as Otonashi's provisory nickname and this leads to Yui initially being afraid of him since she's technically a loli, and you can play around further with this by making certain choices that can make Otonashi seem like a lolicon, they wouldn't be there if you haven't made the previous lolicon-related choices.
The routes for Iwasawa and Matsushita are the ones with more content original to 1st Beat, as Iwasawa disappears early in the anime and Matsushita doesn't have that much screen time. I'm not going to spoil much of them here, but Iwasawa's route was my favorite in the game because it expands on what's an already good character in the anime and it's nice to see how things go if she's saved from disappearing when she was supposed to, had some really cool deviations form the anime's story. However, Matsushita's route had a rather confusing end, despite his backstory being interesting, I'm not sure I understood how he ended up moving on and disappearing in the end. There are some choices that tease future content as well, like when you make choices that have Otonashi getting closer to Angel/Kanade as opposed to other characters, a bit of her background in the afterlife is revealed, or a potential gay romance between Otonashi and Hinata in his future route. Seriously, I wonder how huge the finished Angel Beats VN would be like, because despite being incomplete, 1st Beat is so packed with content that it has enough time to rival the lengths of some longer VNs out there, it took me roughly 40 hours to see everything this game has to offer and get every achievement. Also, if you get specific achievements, you unlock Next Beat, which is basically the start of the anime's episode 11 with the Shadows and all, but after Otonashi gets everyone to trust Kanade, it ends with a cliffhanger where they start to fight the Shadows, with a "TO BE CONTINUED" screen.
To be continued? Heh, yeah sure... Fuck you, Key!
Anyway, if you like Angel Beats and want more content out of it, then you definitely should play 1st Beat. Despite it only being the first part of a bigger VN that never was, it still functions as a complement to the anime and has what's possibly the best choice system I've ever seen in a VN, it's so great that I beat 100% of it just because of how fun it was to experiment with the choices and how Otonashi develops as a character through them, or how even the main routes can change depending of some alternate choices you made. Jesus, writing this just made me sadder that we'll never see a fully realized Angel Beats visual novel.
Fuck you again, Key!
Angel Beats is a series I love, it means a lot to me, but at the same time it also makes me incredibly frustrated, because it absolutely could have been peak fiction if the project was handled well. The anime suffered from pacing issues due to having too much shit to cram in just 13 episodes, but since it was commercially successful, Key decided to capitalize on it by releasing a visual novel. It was announced that it would be an episodic game, with 1st Beat being the basis for subsequent volumes adding more content until it becomes a complete game by the time volume 6 drops. Fuck yeah, I'm finally gonna see the thematically rich concept of Angel Beats having its full potential explored, I can't wait for this to be fully released!
But then, God said "No" and things went south after the release of 1st Beat.
Turns out the Angel Beats VN is one of the main examples I use to elaborate on why I hate the idea of episodic releases, and much prefer games being complete from the get-go. There's no guarantee that an episodic game will reach its end, it may never get past episode 1, or even a later episode if something wrong ends up happening, be it sales not being as strong as expected, or in Angel Beats' case, the creator having to be hospitalized because of health issues. By the time Jun Maeda's heart condition got better, a handful of years have already passed and we had no news of Angel Beats since then, but at this point we all accepted that it was silently canceled and Key, the company that created the series, just moved on to other projects.
Despite that, a full translation for 1st Beat ended up seeing the light of the day last year, and as the biggest Angel Beats fan on the internet, it was my duty to play the shit out of 1st Beat and see how it improves on the anime's obviously flawed narrative. Basically, the game covers episodes 1 to 10 of the anime, which means it will go only as far as that episode focused on Yui, who happens to be one of the three possible character routes you can take in this game, the other two being Iwasawa and, surprisingly, Matsushita Godan. I chose Yui as my first route because it seemed like a closer experience to the anime, and she was a character I didn't care much for in the anime, she was annoying, louder than necessary and her "romance" with Hinata felt half-baked. As good as the last scene with Yui was in the anime, it didn't feel earned because she was little more than a background character who provided some comic relief.
So, how does 1st Beat improve Yui as a character? Well, she's still annoying and yells a lot, but that's to be expected. Her story is greatly expanded upon, however, even from the beginning where she is shown to be a Girl DeMo fangirl and was inspired by them to play guitar, only for Iwasawa to disappear during a story event, much like in the anime. Following Yui's route, we see more of how she felt about this, the sadness of losing her idol and how Iwasawa herself also admired Yui for how much effort she puts on her little street performances around the school, reminding her of her previous life. It's when Otonashi talks about what Iwasawa said that Yui ends up finding the motivation to step in and become the new singer for Girl DeMo. Otonashi's relationship with Yui is more linked with how his relationship with his sister was back when he was alive, and depending on your choices, this might even be the reason why Otonashi recovers memories of that part of his life, as opposed to being hypnotized by Naoi like it was in the anime.
Yui and Hinata also get more screen time and their relationship is more fleshed out, though I wasn't a big fan of how they mostly left this to the end where the POV shifts and now you see past events from Hinata's point of view, but it's still interesting, the fact that Yui was interested in baseball is what drew them close in the first place, he started teaching her to play baseball way before Otonashi did near the end of her route, and despite Yui being bad at baseball, they ended up getting closer, but never admitting they had romantic feelings for one-another. That is, until we get to see a bit of Hinata's past life outside of what the baseball episode showed, and after reflecting on that, he decides to confess his feelings to Yui, leading to a much more satisfying version of that same scene from the anime.
This is basically how 1st Beat rolls, it follows the story of the anime closely, but expands on a lot of elements from it, even the tiniest detail about the afterlife school is explained and there are a lot more character interactions and moments in between the main events of the anime, and there are so many choices and ways to explore the game that it can get a bit overwhelming for a first time player. Right in the first chapter of the game, which covers episode 1 of the anime, you can straight up refuse to join the SSS and get one of the bad endings, but if you choose to join, Otonashi will mention that he forgot his name, and each of the members suggest a nickname for him, and you can pick any you like or just focus more on remembering your name, and depending on which one you picked, the game will actually remember that choice and parts of it will change because of that. Not only that, but the choice system allows you to determine how Otonashi's relationship with a lot of other characters throughout the story will be like, just by how frequently you chose to interact with a specific character who's at a specific location on the map, as well as the dialogue options you chose. Hinata can be either an absolute bro in Otonashi's eyes, a weird guy who's a bit too interested in getting close and might just be gay, or you can make Otonashi literally have a gay crush on Hinata instead!
Granted, not every character has their relationship with Otonashi as well-developed, especially since this isn't a complete game, but you can definitely see how it would develop with certain choices. For example, you can choose to try and save Fujimaki during the water trap in the Guild, and if you did so, he remembers that and treats Otonashi to lunch to thank him. But of course, certain choices lead to certain paths and alternate endings, so you may keep that in mind if you want to follow a specific route, 1st Beat is definitely a game you'll want to look up a guide if you don't want to experiment with the choices and would rather just get to the routes already. Still, it is really impressive how even the choices that seem inconsequential still have some impact, like when you pick Lolicon as Otonashi's provisory nickname and this leads to Yui initially being afraid of him since she's technically a loli, and you can play around further with this by making certain choices that can make Otonashi seem like a lolicon, they wouldn't be there if you haven't made the previous lolicon-related choices.
The routes for Iwasawa and Matsushita are the ones with more content original to 1st Beat, as Iwasawa disappears early in the anime and Matsushita doesn't have that much screen time. I'm not going to spoil much of them here, but Iwasawa's route was my favorite in the game because it expands on what's an already good character in the anime and it's nice to see how things go if she's saved from disappearing when she was supposed to, had some really cool deviations form the anime's story. However, Matsushita's route had a rather confusing end, despite his backstory being interesting, I'm not sure I understood how he ended up moving on and disappearing in the end. There are some choices that tease future content as well, like when you make choices that have Otonashi getting closer to Angel/Kanade as opposed to other characters, a bit of her background in the afterlife is revealed, or a potential gay romance between Otonashi and Hinata in his future route. Seriously, I wonder how huge the finished Angel Beats VN would be like, because despite being incomplete, 1st Beat is so packed with content that it has enough time to rival the lengths of some longer VNs out there, it took me roughly 40 hours to see everything this game has to offer and get every achievement. Also, if you get specific achievements, you unlock Next Beat, which is basically the start of the anime's episode 11 with the Shadows and all, but after Otonashi gets everyone to trust Kanade, it ends with a cliffhanger where they start to fight the Shadows, with a "TO BE CONTINUED" screen.
To be continued? Heh, yeah sure... Fuck you, Key!
Anyway, if you like Angel Beats and want more content out of it, then you definitely should play 1st Beat. Despite it only being the first part of a bigger VN that never was, it still functions as a complement to the anime and has what's possibly the best choice system I've ever seen in a VN, it's so great that I beat 100% of it just because of how fun it was to experiment with the choices and how Otonashi develops as a character through them, or how even the main routes can change depending of some alternate choices you made. Jesus, writing this just made me sadder that we'll never see a fully realized Angel Beats visual novel.
Fuck you again, Key!
To be fair, the original game was nearly flawless and the only things you could really do to improve on it would be giving me the dash as a default move from the very beginning and have something new that the leg armor parts could do in its place, and making the head part more useful, because aside from collecting another part, it's pretty much worthless. Does Maverick Hunter X do that? Nah, it's pretty much the original game with a little more story, which is appreciated, anime cutscenes, and a new coat of paint that looks pretty good for a PSP game. I don't get why they changed the armor capsule locations, though, it didn't really add anything substantial to the experience, but it was a harmless change, so whatever.
But that's just one part of this version, there is some really cool extra content like a prequel OVA that is unlocked after you beat it for the first time, and a new mode where you play as Vile in an obviously non-canon retelling of the story from his perspective. What sets him apart from X is the fact that Vile (unfortunately) can't dash, but he has many different upgrades you can play with and picking up which ones will be the most useful is the key to conquering the stages, which are harder then the ones from X's campaign.
There is one fatal flaw that makes Maverick Hunter X worse than the original, though, it's the fact that they fucked up the dash jump. I thought it was a problem with the emulator, but then I looked this up online and people who played it on an actual PSP also had the same issue, sometimes the dash jump just won't work and you'll do a regular jump instead. On the ground, it's easy to circumvent this by just pressing and holding the dash button for a split second before pressing the jump button. Dash-jumping from walls, though? Yeah, now you're at the mercy of X only dash-jumping when he feels like it, which ends up making some of the bosses harder than they should have been.
At the end of the day, a worse Megaman X is still Megaman X, and this is worth checking out for the extra content. It's just a shame that it doesn't do much to improve on the original game, and it's an even bigger shame that it wasn't successful enough to kickstart an entirely new series covering the first game all the way to X6. Imagine a timeline where X6's cool ideas and premise are actually put to good use instead of the shitbag of a game we ended up getting, we really do live in the worst timeline.
But that's just one part of this version, there is some really cool extra content like a prequel OVA that is unlocked after you beat it for the first time, and a new mode where you play as Vile in an obviously non-canon retelling of the story from his perspective. What sets him apart from X is the fact that Vile (unfortunately) can't dash, but he has many different upgrades you can play with and picking up which ones will be the most useful is the key to conquering the stages, which are harder then the ones from X's campaign.
There is one fatal flaw that makes Maverick Hunter X worse than the original, though, it's the fact that they fucked up the dash jump. I thought it was a problem with the emulator, but then I looked this up online and people who played it on an actual PSP also had the same issue, sometimes the dash jump just won't work and you'll do a regular jump instead. On the ground, it's easy to circumvent this by just pressing and holding the dash button for a split second before pressing the jump button. Dash-jumping from walls, though? Yeah, now you're at the mercy of X only dash-jumping when he feels like it, which ends up making some of the bosses harder than they should have been.
At the end of the day, a worse Megaman X is still Megaman X, and this is worth checking out for the extra content. It's just a shame that it doesn't do much to improve on the original game, and it's an even bigger shame that it wasn't successful enough to kickstart an entirely new series covering the first game all the way to X6. Imagine a timeline where X6's cool ideas and premise are actually put to good use instead of the shitbag of a game we ended up getting, we really do live in the worst timeline.
2014
Funny for the first 10 minutes or so.
It's like Resident Evil 4, but hornier
1993
US soundtrack is better and I'm tired of pretending it's not
1998
Deserves a 0.5 bump for being a game that got me with an unintentional jump-scare.
2004
Most based and redpilled game I played in a while.