This is my first Metroid game.

Samus movements are a bit clunky. First, I never became truly comfortable with the Spin Jump. I couldn't get used to the momentum of this move, and often ended up slipping off platforms.
Figuring out how to use the Wall Jump wasn't obvious at all. I had to train on a wall for a few minutes to get a good grip of it.
And worst of all, the Space Jump: Underwater, I was able to perform this move without any issue, but outside of that, I was never able to chain them consistently. The timing is just so weird and unintuitive, and that's the reason I had such a bad time in the last area, Ridley's Lair. You need to fly across rising lava as quickly as possible using this move, and that was terrible.

Also, this isn't the game's fault, but I don't vibe with the sci-fi/alien/futuristic setting... Different strokes, right?

There are some items that are fun to use. I liked being able to freeze the enemies to use them as platforms, thanks to the Ice Beam. Swinging myself around with the grapple beam was also kinda fun.

I didn't like the abundance of hidden paths. Having to stop constantly to use the X-Ray kinda ruins the pace of exploration. It's the biggest issue in the game for me.

I enjoyed the boss fights for the most part. They aren't too easy nor too hard. I do want to note that I was using save states. So whenever I died against a Boss, I could respawn in front of it and retry immediatly.
Crocomire was pretty cool, the fact that you need to push him into the lava rather than reducing his HP to 0. And the way he comes back as a skeleton to scare you one last time was neat.
Draygon was my favorite Boss in the game, and I also had a good time with Golden Torizo.

Using the Power Bomb in Maridia to break the glass tunnel was such an Eureka moment for me. I was stuck for so long, and it felt very satisfying to finally figure this out!

As I said earlier, I kind of had enough once I reached Ridley's Lair. I got stuck at the 2 Ridley's Guards.
I didn't have enough ammo to deal with them, and I was really fed up with this area, so I didn't have the courage to backtrack to gather HP & ammo. The lack of teleporters is definitely a deal-breaker.
So I stopped here and watched the rest of the game on YouTube.

Honestly, I had a good time in the first half of the game. Before I reached the last quarter of the game, I thought about giving it 3.5 stars, or even 4 stars. But it became really tedious near the end, hence my final rating.
I'm still happy I played such an iconic game, it was about time I played this series! I feel like I would have more fun with Metroid Dread tho?

----------Playtime & Completion----------

[Started on May 5th & stopped on May 7th 2024]
Playtime: 18 hours
I stopped at the 2 Ridley's Guards.

Every journey has a beginning. Whether it be a monumental journey that tells of some great hero setting out to accomplish some goal or to defeat a big bad guy, or rather it be something as simple as how one decided to go to the post office that day, there is always a beginning to every story, and that definitely rings true when it comes to video games. Some of us may have played thousands of games at this point in our lives, while others are merely starting to get into the hobby, but one thing that remains consistent between all of us is that we all had a first video game, the one that would introduce us to this vast, creative and limitless medium, one that either fully enraptured us to the point of seeking out what else you could find, or leaving a simple, yet enjoyable enough impression to where you wouldn’t mind trying anything else out in the future. So, I figured, for the 600th review that I am making on this website (I might be slightly insane), I figured it was about time that I covered the very first video game I ever played in my life, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.

I don’t remember the exact, precise details of how I ended up with this as the first game I would ever play, but I do have a bit of a brief summary based on what I do remember, which will do a good enough job at painting a picture. Back in 2003-2004, when I was around 3-4 years old as well, I was a dumbass little kid, not knowing what a video game even was, and most likely doing the things that most toddlers were doing back then, such as running around, yelling, eating weird stuff off the floor, and receiving plenty of injuries. One day, my Mom and Dad came home one day with a little present for me, which just so happened to be a gray Game Boy Advance SP, one that I still own even to this day, and one that I share a lot of fond memories with throughout my life. With this, I also managed to get two games, those being Pokemon Blue and Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi’s Island, and with all of these things in hand, I had… absolutely zero clue as to what I was supposed to do with it. After messing around with the things for a bit, most likely opening and closing them, chewing on the sides of them, and so on, I then found out I can shove that weird gray rectangle thing into the big gray brick, while also finding a power switch on the system, leading to it turning on, and from that moment on, I was never the same.

So yeah, obviously, I have a lot of nostalgia towards this game, and while those early experiences were with the GBA port of the game rather than the original, it was still pretty accurate to that of the original game, to the point where I fondly remember several memories of me playing it as a kid, including one instance where I got so angry when I lost to the second phase of the Baby Bowser fight. It was my first instance of rage… you love to see it. But anyways, you all obviously didn’t come here to listen to me babble on about the past. You all came here to hear my opinion of this game, and if you couldn’t tell already at this point, I do still hold a soft place for it in my heart, and I love it tremendously. I can’t say it is perfect by any means,as it does have problems I will get into, but it was still fantastic all the way through, not only as one of the first proper Yoshi games ever made that wasn’t a puzzle game or whatever else, but also as the game that would drag me into the world of video games as a whole.

The story is very simple, yet very charming at the same time, where one night, while a stork is delivering two baby brothers by the name of Mario and Luigi to their parents, he is attacked by an evil sorcerer named Kamek, who kidnaps Baby Luigi and causes Baby Mario to fall down into the depths of the island below. Down on said island, a green Yoshi is taking a nice, leisurely stroll, until he then finds Baby Mario falling right on his back, while also dropping the map that the stork was using to deliver the kids. After gathering with several other Yoshis on the island, they then deduce (somehow) what happened to Baby Luigi, so they all then set out, with Baby Mario alongside them, to go and rescue Baby Luigi from Kamek’s evil clutches, while he and his lackeys plot to take Baby Mario as well to succeed in their ultimate goal. It is somewhat of an odd story, considering how it de-ages the Mario bros. and shifts the focus onto the Yoshis, but it is one that you can easily get behind and want to see through, as you don’t wanna see Baby Luigi get hurt by Kamek……… he can hurt Baby Mario instead, considering how much you have to put up with him in this game.

The graphics are still absolutely amazing even to this day, being one of the best looking games from the SNES library, let alone the best looking platformer on the system, having a very unique art style and plenty of vibrant colors, wonderful character, enemy, and boss designs, as well as plenty of vibrant environments that you will travel through for your whole journey, the music is fantastic, having incredibly up-beat and iconic tunes like this one that will play throughout the game, mixed in with some more “menacing” tunes like this one, most of them being a joy to listen to even after all this time, and the gameplay/control is mostly stuff that we have seen before from the Mario franchise, but not only does it remain really fun to play, but there are several different gimmicks that are present in the game that you wouldn’t typically find in other games.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of one of many different colored Yoshis at a time, go through plenty different levels across many different standout locations amongst Yoshi’s Island, take out plenty of enemies either by jumping on them, swallowing them whole, or throwing others’ dead remains at them to drive the point home, protect Baby Mario at all times to not only prevent Kamek’s cronies from taking him, but also to make sure you won’t be listening to this sound for too long, gather plenty of different eggs to help you defend yourself, solve puzzles, and take down foes, while also gathering plenty of collectibles along the way, and take on some goofy, yet at-times threatening bosses, which range from being big, intimidating foes that can definitely give you a run for your money to……. this guy, who you defeat by just simply holding right…….. fucking flawless. Much of it is your standard platforming affair, even for those who are very familiar with Mario and his past adventures, but rest assured, despite the fact that it carries the name “Super Mario World” in its title, Yoshi’s Island manages to have plenty of unique elements that distinguish itself from Mario quite a bit, both in terms of its presentation and gameplay.

A lot of elements in this game have been done to death over and over again in many other games, such as going from left to right to the end of the level, defeating enemies, getting coins, and so on, but one of the ways that makes this feel much different than that of a typical Mario game is how you are playing as Yoshi the entire time. Naturally, he does not go about his business the same way Mario does, being able to swallow enemies and throw them around as eggs, and as such, this changes up how the game expects you to approach many situations, and it is great because of it. There are many instances in this game that can’t be cleared through just by running and jumping, but instead, you may need to figure out a different way to defeat an enemy or solve a puzzle using your flutter jump or your eggs, and while some of it can get tedious at times, most of it is incredibly solid, still feeling natural and just as fun even after all of these years.

Not to mention, there are plenty of things that this game has that expands upon elements seen in previous Mario games, all to its benefit. There are many different bonus games that can be accessed throughout the game, each granting you the chance of getting a GARGANTUAN amount of lives to use for the future, right alongside several items as well, which you can use at any time while in a level. Most of these items aren’t really all that useful, just being a means of helping you get to 100%, and the bonus games themselves aren’t anything too useful after beating them once or twice, but they can still be pretty helpful whenever you get the chance to participate in any of them, and in some instances, they can definitely get you out of a bind that you are in. Aside from that though, there are also the powerups in this game, which, rather than being the traditional ones we see all the time in typical Mario games, are instead a bunch of different transformations that Yoshi can take on for a brief period of time. You can become a helicopter, a submarine, a robot mole, and there’s even a powerup that allows you to play as Baby Mario by himself, running around and going up walls, because who gives a fuck about logic! Granted, not all of these powerups are fun to use, with some like that robot mole I mentioned earlier having some pretty awkward handling at times, but they are a nice change of pace whenever they pop up, and it is always really neat seeing just what kinds of things that they are willing to transform Yoshi into next.

So yeah, the game does have a lot going for it in the gameplay department, being very fun even all the way to now, but a lot of the reason why this game does hold up also has something to do with its presentation. The game was made with the Super FX chip, one that was able to do a whole lot more then what games like Star Fox could, and when you play the game for yourself, you can really see it working perfectly in harmony. Sprites will frequently change sizes to fit the situations, enemies will jump from the background to the foreground, there are 3D objects that can be interacted with, and the way that some enemies and sprites move around looks much more impressive then any other game from the SNES at that point. Hell, even just by watching the intro sequence, you can see just what kind of stuff this game was capable of, and while it does look a little rough nowadays, I can imagine this kind of thing blowing peoples’ minds back in the day, and it has aged pretty wonderfully overtime. Not to mention, the general art style of the game is perfect in every way, making everything look so vibrant, lively, and adorable, to the point where I want to live on this island and never come back to civilization.

However, with all of that out of the way, I can’t let my nostalgia goggles blind me for too long, because I am well aware that this game is not perfect, despite it being very, VERY close to that point. While most of the game is extremely fun to play, great to look at/listen to, and has plenty of charming elements that makes it a must-play for any Nintendo fan, there has always been one element of the game that I never really liked, and that is going for 100%. For those that aren’t aware, in order to 100% Yoshi’s Island, you have to collect plenty of items in every single level, such as 30 stars to max out your life, all of the red coins, and the five smiley flowers for the chance at a bonus game at the end of the level. That doesn’t sound that bad, but trust me, completing these tasks is MUCH easier said than done, not only because of how hard it can be in plenty of places, but also because of how tedious it is. Getting a lot of these collectibles can be quite a gamble, especially in plenty of areas where you have to have perfect precision when it comes to throwing your eggs, or even in life-or-death situations where you can’t screw up, or else you would have to die or start the level over again.

That’s not even bringing up the fact that, once you do 100% the main levels in a world, you then unlock an extra stage to play for that world, and these stages can be quite the pain in the dino-ass if you aren’t prepared for them. This can be seen even as early as the first world’s extra stage, where for most of the stage, you are riding along the back of Poochy, Yoshi’s dog companion who is also be goodest good boy of them all, while going across a lot of precarious lava and tight jumps, while also having a very small platform to go back to every time you land. All of this and more awaits you when you decide to go for 100%, and while I myself usually tend to 100% the games that I play, I just simply don’t like doing that with Yoshi games. I dunno, maybe it’s because of how it was a series I grew up with, and is near and dear to my heart, but I have always found this games to be a “chill” series, one that I could just play, run straight through a lot of the time, not having to worry about much else, and I don’t think I will ever change my mind on that stance. To be fair though, I am not saying that going for 100% in this game is a bad thing at all, because it is still perfectly doable, and quite the challenge, if you so wish to go for it, but it is just something I don’t think I will ever be likely to do that much whenever I go back to one of these games. Not to mention, the last time I did 100% percent a Yoshi game was with Crafted World, and, ah hah……………… NEVER AGAIN.

Overall, despite me not really getting into the whole idea of 100% this game at many given times, I am eternally grateful that this managed to be the first video game I ever played in my life, as not only is it a wonderful place to start for anybody, but it is also a fantastic game in many ways, having a wonderful art style, fantastic music, addicting and satisfying gameplay, and a sense of identity that the series would carry on its shoulders all the way to this day, which is all for the best in my opinion. I would definitely recommend it for those who have never played any Yoshi game before, as well as those who are just big fans of Yoshi in general, because if you somehow haven’t gotten the chance to play this for yourself, then you are clearly missing out, because it truly is one of the finest platformers from the 16-bit era. happy sigh..... man, it feels great to finally get to this game, after I had been planning it for so long. Although, now that I am done with all my gushing, I don’t have any funny gag to end the review on. Uh… obligatory Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy reference. There ya go, is that good enough? Have I won the Yoshi’s Island internet prize, and will people like me now?

Game #578

999 seems to often be recommended as some kind of entrypoint into visual novels and maybe point and click, as a mix of both, somewhat similar to Ace Attorney. Hell, it has ladder jokes so you can see the common points.

It’s also an escape game… game. You are locked in places and you’ve got to figure out where to go. The game alternates between these escape puzzles and story sections where the party will progress inside the boat, looking for an exit.


The atmosphere is spot-on

You are locked inside a big boat and it’s gonna sink. The environments are modelized in very basic 3D but this works in the game’s favour because the poor 3D models make everything feel cold, alien and eerie. Similarly, the sound design is really nice. The sounds of the interface also have that eerie feel and the soundtrack manages to convey tension throughout the game.

The story perfectly captivates the vibe of being locked inside a mysterious location which you get to know through your progress in the game and your multiple runs, revisiting locations as the game centres around a few spots. It will introduce future locations early on too so you can get used to it: see that door? It’s locked, but now you know there’s a mysterious door with a mysterious symbol on it.


The puzzles are satisfying but not exceptional

999 is a hybrid between two genres and I don’t think it excels at puzzles. However, they are decent and provide a good amount of fun. I think that a lot of the puzzles are too linear and the solution comes up way too naturally: you usually can only do one thing at the beginning and you’ll easily know what to do next, until the end of the puzzle. For example, you do not get to pick up a lot of items that you’ll use later, especially because of the game’s nature where every puzzle is isolated instead of being a whole

You don’t get to visit the ship yourself but through the story, this is a pretty heavy limit and I think it does not play in the game’s favour as I would actually have loved having the freedom to do so. Linearity aside, it’s just too easy to guess what to do and the characters also give a lot of hints. Honestly, I think most hints sounded silly because the puzzles are simple enough yet you have to read all these talks where the characters are trying to figure out the solution but where at the same time the writing is trying to hide the actual answer.


A story too constrained into a single ending:

A lot of visual novels have multiple paths you can take yet ultimately a single “true” one. 999 is no exception and it comes with the flaws of the genre. The alternative possibilities in this story do not offer much and the main use is to have the player experience multiple attempts at solving the story. This ends up quite repetitive because the information you acquire through the alternative routes is eventually used in the true ending and thus had to be explained again, in a clumsy and redundant manner mostly (although there is a neat gimmick about it too).

Another problem 999 has is that it somewhat lacks a story for a good portion of the game. Because of the way the plot is designed, there aren’t many secrets to be revealed or progress to be made that wouldn’t give away the entire plot. Thus, the plot is heavily concentrated into the true ending of the game. This route is actually quite long and took me about a third of my entire playtime of the game, compared to other ending branches which would be maybe 30 minutes long.

Because the story is so concentrated, the feeling of progress is lessened and the incentives to move forward are limited. There are only little details that matter in most routes and nothing big to retain from them. You do one route, reach a dead end with no explanation of why you failed and you just got to try another path. Thankfully, the PC port has a flowchart allowing you to go back to any point in the story instead of restarting everything, this makes it very convenient to play through the entire content and I am not convinced at all by those who criticise this system.

The reason why I believe the flowchart is essential is that there’s no impact to the choices you make and your progress is up to luck. Almost all of your choices are about which door to go through and you wouldn’t know what happen ahead of time. The other choices are choices that appear pretty inconsequential yet they are required to reach two of the endings. I thought they were really bad. At one point, a character asks a maths question and I had to answer wrong to unlock a certain path: there’s no way I would guess it without indications.

That aside, I did actually enjoy the story and I think they were some very touching moments.


Pseudoscience and fun facts, I say no:

One last thing I strongly dislike about this game is how pedantic it can get. To explain this, I will try to make up a situation that didn’t happen in the game but in a way that would happen in the game:

The group finds a nuclear bomb with a timer counting down. They panic but one character manages to keep their calm and starts explaining, “this is a nuclear bomb, do you know how nuclear science has allowed us to make a nuclear bomb? It was discovered by…”. After a lengthy explanation of how nuclear bombs work, another character will reveal their expertise in this science and start adding some precisions, “hey, this is actually a 1 megaton bomb, the radius of explosion would be around 10 km. If this exploded, we’re all dead!”. After this, we finally get to see the characters do something and how it’s gonna matter in the plot.

Quite a lot of the time, the story is interrupted by this kind of needless jargon you would hear from a high schooler trying to tell you cool science facts, if not pseudoscience. Yeah, the game also has a lot of pseudoscience and because of the way it was introduced I really wasn’t convinced. Not only is the introduction improper but the fact that all of the characters turn into some weirdos with random fun fact encyclopaedias in their head is just absurd to me.


Overall I did enjoy the game and appreciated it. It’s not the VN nor puzzle game I liked the most but I still think it has its merits.

Is this an early 2010s Flash game? You guys remember Flash right, not like I'm a generation apart from the average BL user. As the first review for the game, I have a big responsibility as the game's salesman, even though I grabbed it for free. Special announcement for our colorblind friends: cease & desist!! This game is all about da colors, and as Hector Salamanca said: I need to see your balls! POC balls. I am also the game's only player as of writing this review, so nobody is gonna understand anything or verify my claims, but I'll behave. The first lie is no sign of human life in the game, clearly contrasting with the cover art shown here. You remember old arcade games doing that? Do people love humans or something. Maybe if I were one it'd click.

I feel like a hacker playing this, turning the wheels to the rhythm of my heartbeat trying to get into mainframe. Ayo tho the game has no theme at all, it quite frankly... looks like turd, and we ran out of lore 5 minutes ago. It's a gameplay comes first ahh typa deal, the basic system is good but short of great, great at being short. I'll stop teasing you, it's a collection of levels (visually the same) taking place inside the Super Mario Brothers pipes, Yoshi keeps producing eggs into the fucking pipes, I never liked that dino honestly and that gringo said that balls will go in any empty holes it comes across and you huh spin the thing and throw the balls where it belongs, which is another spinny thingy, well you get the gist of it, combine 4 of the same colors in one spin thingy spinny and it explodes 🤯🤯 of happiness. Pat yourself on the back.

While doing all this makes a nice dance, it doesn't make you feel like the belle of the balls. It works enough for how simple it is, but clearly more could have been done. It controls like a mobile game despite swearing off that platform, so who knows what's happening behind the curtains. I think a collab is needed to breathe new life into this. Fortnite did it, no excuses. Deadass I think this game barely afforded one restaurant meal to the dev 💀 he doesnt want to see any colors for the rest of his life I bet. Btw the colors are the traditional red, blue, green, but there is a kinda beige kinda brownish kinda yellowish one. I seldom see this one. A rare species sighting indeed this oughta be the game's true catch after all.

Gotta go fast!

After Sonic Adventure has served as my personal gateway into the series and Sonic Adventure 2 gave me an even better experience, I can proudly call myself a fan of the series now. A fan who only played 3D Sonic. That being said, Sonic Origins opened up a whole new dimension to me: 2D Sonic!

Here's a quick rundown of the zones: Green Hill was surprisingly the least engaging zone for me, but I can appreciate it for how iconic it is and being a good introduction with a timeless theme. I didn't have an issue with Marble Zone's methodical approach for the most part, although some of the random pop-up spikes felt a little cheap. Spring Yard is fine, but gets repetitive after a while. Now, Labyrinth Zone seems to be pretty universally hated, but I didn't find myself having much of an issue with it and thought it was rather refreshing after going through Spring Yard, the underwater sections were cool. Star Light Zone had cool catapults and Scrap Brain was... rather hard compared to the rest of the game - but that makes sense, it's the last level for a reason! The final fight itself though was a bit underwhelming and the ending was cheap.

But in the end, I enjoyed my time with the Blue Blur's debut game, even if most of the level design goes against the whole "gotta go fast" motif, which apparently is a dealbreaker for many. And while 2D Sonic is fun, I'd be lying if I told you I didn't miss the homing attack from Adventure at first.

So far in this series, we have had a trilogy of frustrating, yet wonderful games on the NES (all the problems with Simon’s Quest aside), and two handheld titles that weren’t quite perfect, with Castlevania: The Adventure in particular being extremely flawed, but for what they were, they were pretty effective as the first handheld titles for the series. Oh yeah, and there was also that one arcade title as well, but shhhhh, we don’t talk about that game in this household. Now, after this slew of titles, it was about time that this series was brought to the next generation of systems, with Masahiro Ueno being up to the task, not only deciding to make the game less frustrating in comparison to previous games, but also making a game that would be a remake of sorts of the original Castlevania. So, after two years of development, Super Castlevania IV was released to the public, and has since been praised and enjoyed for many decades to come.

This is considered to be one of, if not THE best, game in the entire Castlevania series, and when you play it, you can definitely see why. I myself wouldn’t consider it the best game in the series, as there would be several games made later down the road that I would say I enjoyed a lot more then this game, but don’t think that I am saying this game is bad, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. In my opinion, this is what I would consider the PERFECT rendition of the original Castlevania, and it is executed flawlessly in practically everything that it sets out to do. Yeah, it is kind of a step back when compared to Castlevania III and the features that game introduced (which is understandable, but still), and some of the bosses can be a huge pain in the ass, but none of those things ruined my experience with what is the perfect way the Castlevania series could have entered the 16-bit era.

The story is… basically the exact same as the original Castlevania, which is completely fine, as you really don’t need a big story to get you into the action, the graphics are absolutely fantastic, not only having the perfect look for these gothic environments, but also having fantastic atmosphere, which can even be seen as early on as the intro cutscene and the title screen, the music is GODLY, with plenty of original tracks along with remixes of classic themes, and there are some real head-bangers to be heard from this, the control is… I’m not ready to gush about them just yet, we will get to them eventually, and the gameplay is a pretty good evolution of the classic formula, while keeping things mostly familiar for those who are coming from the previous games in the series.

The game is your typical 2D Castlevania title, where you travel through many different side-scrolling levels, whipping many different gothic monsters along the way, gathering hearts, sub-weapons, and items to help you deal with the many baddies seen throughout, and taking on many larger-then life bosses, with the bosses themselves having great variety, either being classic monsters we have seen before, or new types of monsters with their own gimmick. Yeah, the game sticks closely to the original formula from the original Castlevania, which is kind of a letdown, again, considering what Castlevania III brought to the table, but what makes up for this is how the game manages to take this formula and perfect it.

Playing through the game overall does feel a lot less frustrating then that of the original game, with there not being too many instances of cheap damage or deaths that you will encounter. Now don’t get me wrong, this game is still pretty damn hard (after all, it wouldn’t be a Castlevania game if it was easy), but a lot of the hardships you will encounter can be taken care of pretty easily, and you will feel responsible for the damage you take and deaths you suffer… well, most of the time anyway. There will be several bosses, especially towards the end, where you will have quite a difficult time with them, as they are relentless, but thankfully, with the help of the unlimited continues, they shouldn’t take too long for you to take down once you learn their patterns.

One of the defining features of this game, and one of the reasons that I absolutely adore it, is with the control. This game has the BEST control scheme out of any of the classic Castlevania games, and I wish the future games would’ve stuck to, but hey, at least we have it here. For all of the previous game, while the control was enough to get a hang of, it was still pretty limited, with a very stiff movement and being unable to change your jump in midair. Thankfully now, despite still have a somewhat stiff movement, you can change your direction in midair while jumping, as well as do things like jump onto stairs to help you get through places faster. It may not sound like much, but it does help out a lot, making the pacing much faster, and giving you an edge up over the enemies. And speaking of getting an edge up over the enemies, this also goes into your whip, which is the best that it has been and will ever be in any of these games. Not only does it still pack a punch and have a great length, especially with the powerups, but you can also whip it in 8 different directions, as well as being able to… flail it around like an idiot, for some reason. I don’t need to explain to you how helpful this maneuverability and attack range is, allowing me to get plenty of hits and kills in on enemies that, if the attacking was the same as the original game, I would never be able to do easily without some damage.

Overall, despite some slight hiccups to be found here and there, this is definitely the best entry in the Castlevania series so far, and one of the best in the entire series. If you were a fan of the original trilogy of games, or you want to experience the series but don’t know where to start, then I would highly recommend it, as I guarantee that you will have at least some fun with it. I can’t even think of an ending joke this time around, the game is just too good. Go play it. NOW.

Game #254

It's fine.

When folks decry Super for being a blasphemous take on the tried-and-true formula of Classicvania with it's eight-directional whipping, they're absolutely justified in their thought. It takes away the strategical element that made us love the thinking person's aspect behind the careful movement. An entire sub-system becomes a complete afterthought, with them only being convenient at hyper-specific instances rather than something that was there to truly compliment our whipping prowess to help with entire courses and encounters. Taking a death becomes less threatening as losing a sub-weapon essentially turns into a very minor slap on the wrist at worst, as an empty sub-weapon box may as well had been what it felt like the entire time we had been playing.

It's an ordeal that can't be simply ignored in a self-imposed challenge like the charged mega buster in every NES era Mega Man past the third game, and you're left with Simon being able to skillfully twirl his whip better than any other Belmont before or after him. Perhaps Simon was always meant to be presented as the most headstrong and bullish of the family? Characterization through mechanics? It remains to be seen if that was the intent, or if it was supposed to be an "evolution". An evolution that no doubt would've made this entry an even bigger target of contempt, especially if the stage design would continue to fail to compliment the new system beyond smattering a few bats flying down from odd angles, and if we could still easily thwart Axe Armors from below the floor they're standing on. Luckily for all of us however, this would be the only time such a new take would be used, and instead of being a deplorable turning point for the series, it is in fact unique and now it's own experience.

A retelling of the original that shows Simon's entire journey from beyond Devil's Castle, braving the horrors that crept from the onset of the horrid manifestation of Dracula's power within what was once a peaceful forest accompanied by strings of a violin within a purple and grey console. A walk through the caves with beautiful woodwind arrangements, and mesmerizing illusions brought upon by the seventh mode conjured by unknown forces presumably under the control of the dark lord himself. The approach to familiar scenery from the beginning of our original story of the legendary quest partnered by intimidating percussion for nightmares to come. We make our way through the retold portions of Simon's tale, and upon completion hear echoes of our past one last time before we must move on to beginnings of a new generation. The slow haunting keys of an organ cue the entry of Dracula to the main stage. Simon's Theme of which signaled the entrance of the hero at the very start, returns once again at the final moment the Count is nearing his defeat to build the audience's tension to the epic conclusion of the adventure. The orchestra plays to the agonizing death of the villain, and rings in daylight's victory over the darkness.

The fabled saga, retold and reimagined with added flare of chilling drama and suspense. Not to replace the original, but to remember it through a more cinematic lens. Forever immortal.

My best experience with Castlevania yet…

For me (non fan-boy), it improves on everything from the NES games.

I love the multidirectional whip and the fact that jumping is now more precise with trajectory changes. These improvements take away some of the difficulty.

It looks fantastic for the time. Colours, backgrounds, and levels all shine.

And goes without saying the music and sound is on point.

The final 2 bosses gave me a hard time. If you’ve not got the exact weapon you need and you’re not on the right part of the screen at the exact right time they will punish you.

Enjoying the series so far!

Rollerdrome pulls back its systems and complexity to instead focus on movement and fluidity. The quarter pipes are your canvas to shoot the shit out of your enemies in increasingly badass ways in increasingly efficient runs. Rollerdrome sacrifices variety to instead put together a highly distilled and intentional experience where each level becomes an expression of the player's speed and pathing. The emphasis on constantly funneling the player back into the action by surrounding the maps in half pipes forces them to strategize around how to kill as many House Players as possible while maximizing ammo regeneration and their combo. By letting the game take over in aiming and movement, the player's priority then becomes planning and execution. There is a learning curve to this lack of control, but it rewards the player for experimenting and giving every challenge a solid attempt.

On a narrative level, this game is pretty light, but succeeds in creating a story that ultimately serves as solid context for why this sport exists. The lore reasoning for why things like ammo regenerate while doing tricks or who the House Players are serves to tie the whole package together. Despite this lack of emphasis, the developers at Roll7 smartly chose to make the story scraps serve an in-game purpose. Furthermore, the visual direction borrows the best part of 1970s sci-fi design language: contrast. Everything is perfectly readable and clear without resorting to a bloated interface or obvious signposting. Rollerdrome's strongest factor in visuals and narrative is how every color choice, readable document and narrative element serve a purpose. Rollerdrome puts all of its emphasis on gameplay without sacrificing cohesion or clarity.

I don't think a game's camera placement has infuriated me as much as this game. This is a 3D platformer. A fixed isometric camera does not work. I can't count the number of times I have died because its impossible to know where Mario is landing. How did anyone think this is a good idea? The fixed camera is so uncomfortable. It genuinely ruins the levels for me, which are actually really well designed. I don't have the patience to unlock the secret worlds in this game specifically cause the camera makes me want to pull my hair. Also the Cat Suit is not fun to use in my opinion, I much prefer the Tanooki or Fire Flower power up. This game is heavily carried by its level design, I was unsure whether to give it a 2.5 or 3 because of the stupid camera placement, but the levels (and music) saved this game.