It's one of those games that doesn’t do anything particularly well.

As far as being a Soulslike goes, it simply doesn’t have strong enough level design to justify its existence within the genre. This issue plagues the majority of Soulslikes, and is why I can count on one hand how many good ones there are.

The combat doesn’t feel good, with wonky input buffers, a negative edge style parry, and piss-poor animations that load the enemy model in its finishing location before the animation has completed, resulting in the possibility of getting stuck on air while dodging.

The progression systems don’t exist other than a skill tree that does the beautiful thing where abilities that should be baked into the player’s skillset are carved out and locked behind the skill tree to justify its existence.

Most of the gear is useless, primarily due to the outrageous stat requirements. I nearly finished the game putting points exclusively into the attack stat and still couldn’t use most of the attack buffing stowaways.

There’s only one weapon with two move sets, one of which, the default, is pretty bad, and the other uses consumable resources and is merely passable.

And even with all of these issues, the game is piss easy. I get it that not all Soulslikes need to be butthole-clenching difficult, but man, you need to have some friction.

What almost filtered me was the constant barrage of annoying dialogue and puns whenever characters interacted. When you’re in a continuous yapping contest, and your opponent is Another Crab’s Treasure…

The aesthetic is hard to criticize because I doubt this game had a large budget, even for an indie title, but it isn’t exactly a looker.

I think there were a few neat ideas in this, like the use of shells as consumable armor, but there are just as many baffling balance issues that undermine what the game does well, such as most of the stats not mattering. Why would you ever want to invest skill points into resistance or umami? They’re completely useless.

It might sound like I hate this game, but it’s honestly pretty inoffensive even with all of its faults and does have a bit of charm that breaks through the cringe-worthy dialog at times (like a moment in the game where you inspect executed crab soldiers that are crucified outside the castle and their crimes are possessing seaweed)

Oh well, another milquetoast Soulslike experience to add to the ever-growing pile. At least it’s better than Lies of P or Stellar Blade.

I was going to knock this up to 2.5/5 because it has a Mr. Krabs skin but knocked that half star back off because it has an Among Us shell.

I did not expect to enjoy this game a lot as it's very simple as it is the first of the series and with replayability with the different classes. The turn base combat is as simple as it gets and it comes to be the beginning of what the series would turn to today of innovating on new ideas. That being said despite the game being (mostly) easy the game has its annoyances with random encounters which I now remember how annoying they can be sometimes. Dungeons are short but they have a lot of dead ends if you don't know where you are going which results in it feeling longer than it should combined with the random encounters. The plot is very silly with the villains end goal which really comes to show how the series' various convoluted plots were ingrained in the series beginnings

Stray if it was good. This is what happens when you actually stick to a vision instead of blowing your entire budget on Sonymaxxing.

It's a delightful mixture of Untitled Goose Game and Goat Simulator–with a little Breath of the Wild for good measure–wrapped into a delightfully dense, vertical, but manageable open world.

While the controls are a bit janky, it's hard to complain when the game purposefully lacks friction and instead gets by on the strengths of its exploration, tone, and quest design.

Super cute, sometimes funny, and usually pretty wholesome chungus. But this is definitely a game by people who actually understand cats. I remember soyfacing extremely hard when I came across a cucumber, and the cat jumped 16 feet into the air.

It's concise, confident, and a great way to spend an afternoon.

I Am... All Of Me.

Shadow the Hedgehog has been my favorite Sonic character ever since Sonic Adventure 2, so naturally I was looking forward to trying out the one game, where he plays the main role - despite the overall divisive reception of Shadow 2005.

That being said, you know you're in for a ride when the very first level already leaves a sour taste in your mouth. Have you ever wondered how Shadow would control like if he was constantly ice-skating? Probably not, but Shadow 2005 takes that question off your mind by providing you with physics that feel floaty and entirely different from the previous 3D games. Even with those complaints in the beginnning, everything was still tolerable enough for me to keep my motivation to a certain point, but while playing through Iron Jungle, it dawned on me that this game was infamous for a reason. The cherry on top was the Egg Breaker boss afterwards though, who should have been named Camera Breaker, cause that's all he does while Shadow is running little laps around the base in the center of the arena ad infinitum. No offense to Lava Shelter though, it was the final level on the route I played and I actually enjoyed it a good amount after the mess that the previous stage was.

Enough talk about the gameplay, as the unique way of storytelling is also a key aspect of Shadow 2005. There are unironically 326 possible routes to play and they even have their own unique names - but it doesn't change the fact that the storytelling is nonsensical in many cases. So basically there's an alignment system in the levels, which you can advance through completing certain objectives towards your alignment. If you want to be evil, do Black Doom's requests. If you want to remain neutral, just run through the level and get the Chaos Emerald. This way of storytelling is actually an interesting concept for a game like Shadow the Hedgehog, as he is this morally ambiguous character, who can be easily interpreted as a player for both sides. Depending on which objectives you complete, the selection of levels across the stage flowchart changes accordingly and I'm sure the idea is that you don't have to play the same levels twice. Quite ironic, considering you have to play through Westopolis at least ten times in order to see the true ending, all while doing the same, repetitive tasks. Considering the amount of "kill [x] amount of enemy" challenges present, it would have been nice if you weren't required to kill every single enemy in the stage. You missed one? Good luck backtracking and finding them, cause the game surely won't tell you where to search. I couldn't really bring myself to do those challenges, so I went for a run that's mostly on the neutral side, but even that required me to play arduous levels like Iron Jungle to the end. Playing it several times would not be something on my priority list, so I only played a single route and called it quits for now.

Sorry for the amount of unorganized rambling in the second half. I still had my fair share of fun with Shadow the Hedgehog, even if some of it comes from a "so bad it's good again" perspective, cause there's something about it that sticks with me here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Either way, if I have to give the game some credit where it's due, it's for the soundtrack - the remix for Eggman's theme and the title theme "I Am... All Of Me" are both bangers.

I know this game is in early access, but it’s nearly complete, and I don’t think its most significant issues will be resolved via player feedback and updates.

It feels like a massive step back from the first game in every metric.

The combat feels sluggish and less responsive, and none of the weapons are enjoyable. Hades I had this rapid ebb and flow to its combat that II lacks. You’re mostly just stunlocking enemies with larger health pools instead of zipping around frantically.

The biomes are less attractive, and some are straight up not enjoyable.

The new progression systems feel poorly thought out and are mainly added to differentiate itself from the first game.

None of the characters are endearing, and many come off like Battleborne versions of the Hades I cast. This was especially jarring because everyone in Hades I—as well as its world and narrative—was immediately captivating.

I think much of this stems from this template getting everything squeezed out of it in the first game. I know why they made a sequel, but I wish Supergiant hadn’t.

It's like one big escape room. Some really good mysteries and flipping of the script, but also it does get really repetitive after a while, especially if you miss something crucial.

Additionally, as will probably come to light with future comments, it has one pretty obvious fatal flaw - there is no back button. And it's pretty near inexcusable. I gave it a pass for the first few hours, because I thought it was going to use this lack of back button in gameplay, but it really doesn't. There is no reason not to have a back button, especially since so many of these pieces of media take so long to access with the lack of one.

Anyway, the central mystery is pretty entertaining, and I always adore a game that requires you to have a notepad nearby. It communicates a lot of its puzzles very cleanly, but some of them seem to just be "oh, okay, this number goes here too", without too much of a reason why they should be linked, other than "well, you haven't used it yet, so you might as well try to put it there".

Again, I do think this is a great game (3.5/5 for me), but there are quite a few flaws holding back what would otherwise be an incredibly innovative staple of the puzzle genre.

Just because my above comment seems more negative than my overall opinion of it might be - it's a very interesting game. Check it out if you like escape rooms, and if you don't mind backtracking and an annoying lack of back button. If you crave what is overall quite a high level of quality escape room puzzles, with a central mystery that is dark and surreal, then this is the game for you.

I definitely was thrilled by it to start off with, but there were just too many hitches that by the end, it far outstayed its welcome. BUT I still enjoyed it a lot and may have binged it over an entire weekend, but there were plenty of times I was just throwing my hands up into the air in disbelief.

Play it if you like escape rooms and don't mind the possibility of getting stuck, or some light flow issues.

Any Nintendo fan, if you were to bring up the topic, would most likely talk your ear off about how great or bad Nintendo’s lineup of consoles has been from the NES all the way up to now, with the possibility that you may even get some people who will go out of their way to defend some of their more apparent blunders like the Wii U (it’s me, I’m one of those people). However, if there is one universal fact that most fans of Nintendo can agree on is that, out of all their consoles, the Virtual Boy was the absolute worst one of the bunch. For those that somehow don’t know, this was the placeholder console that was released in-between the SNES and the N64 around the mid-90s, and as you could probably tell by the name, this was meant to be a… ahem, REVOLUTIONARY system! It was gonna implement 3D and VR technology into console games, bringing capabilities that consoles like the SNES and Genesis could only DREAM of pulling off……………. or at least, it was, if it didn’t immediately crash and burn right out the starting gate.

Most of the games that were released for the thing barely took advantage of these capabilities whatsoever, which makes one question why you would even play these games in the first place, and given the fact that every single one of these games could only be played with this garbage red and black color scheme that would do a real number on your eyes, it becomes all too clear as to why this thing only lasted a year before being thrown away by Nintendo themselves. But hey, I will give the system credit, as not everything that it did was completely awful. For one thing, it gave everybody a clear idea on not how to make a video game system, and we did end up getting one or two decent games from the machine, such as with what I would consider the best game ever to be released on the platform, Virtual Boy Wario Land.

It only made sense that we were gonna be seeing more Wario Land games soon after the original game, considering how successful it was, but I never would’ve guessed that the next game in the series would be made exclusively for the Virtual Boy. Granted, that doesn’t make me wanna play it any less, but it definitely makes it hard to recommend to anyone given that fact alone, hence why I never played the game for the longest time until earlier this year when I decided to check it out. It wasn’t that hard for me to get into it, but HOO BOY, you think that staring at the red and black graphics were bad, then you should try what I did, and stare at a bunch of purple, blue, and red graphics that clash horribly with each other for hours at a time, so that was a lot of fun to go through. But anyway, obvious flaws aside, I actually ended up having a lot of fun with the game, and I would say it is really good. I wouldn’t say it is better then the original Wario Land, nor anywhere near as good as future games in the series, but it still manages to be a pretty solid platformer, and definitely the best game that was ever released on the Virtual Boy.

The story is pretty basic for a Mario spin-off like this, where while Wario is chilling inside of a cave in the Awazon region (yes, you read that correctly), he is disturbed by a gang of evil baddies who go on and take all of the treasure of the land for themselves, with Wario giving chase towards them, only to end up getting thrown down through the floor, so it is up to him to fight his way back up, get many treasures along the way, and maybe take down some bad guys as well. Again, pretty standard stuff going on here, but it is still charming and simple enough to where you can easily get invested in Wario’s plight, because not only can most of us relate to wanting to get millions of dollars through any means necessary, but you do wanna see him beat the fuck out of these creatures as well.

The graphics are… well, take a wild guess how they are, but even if we ignore the obvious elephant in the room, we got some really great sprite work going on here, with all the different levels, characters, enemies and so on looking pretty damn great, which makes the game that little more appealing to look at, the music is really good, having plenty of great tracks to hear in there such as this one, but I dunno, something about it doesn’t quite come close to what we had in the original game for me, and the gameplay/control is pretty standard for a Wario game, having everything that you would expect, with a few more bells and whistles attached as well, making for a pretty entertaining time all throughout.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Wario once again, go through a set of fourteen different levels that’ll lead you all the way up through this tower, defeat plenty of enemies using your natural brute strength or whatever tools you have at your disposal, gather several different powerups, rare treasures, and LOTS of coins throughout your journey to get as rich as ever and for extra bonuses, and take on several bosses that can actually prove to be quite a challenge, not just because some of their gimmicks can take some time to getting used to, but you will also need to fight to see whatever is happening because of the goddamn screen. Once again, we have all heard this song and dance before, usually without any graphical nonsense holding it back, but it manages to make up for it in plenty of different ways, such as its overall tight design, its infectious energy, and having plenty of genuinely fun platforming challenges to see throughout.

If you had played the original Wario Land, then you pretty much know almost everything to expect out of this game: you run around, you bash these tiny fuckers around to take their money, you find MANY riches hiding around every corner, and you even find plenty of secret treasures along the way, which can change up the type of ending you get. That is pretty cool and all, with all of these elements blending together in beautiful, red-painted harmony, being very fun to play through, exploring around to get all of the treasures, solving the puzzles, finding these different hats that can help you out, even to the point of completely cheesing levels at some points, and even playing the minigames for the chance of getting more coins and extra lives. Most of it sticks pretty closely to the original game, but there is one thing that definitely does set it apart from that other game: the 3D aspect.

Given how this game was released on Virtual Boy, it definitely needed some sort of 3D or “VR” gimmick to make it stand out, and the way that this game does this is by introducing backgrounds, which you can jump to and from whenever you please using these arrow pads that you will find throughout many of the levels. It’s a very simple idea by today’s standards, but it is fun to explore both parts of each level to see what each might be hiding, encouraging even more exploration to see how you can go to and from that background, along with finding all of those hidden goodies. Not only that, but the game does also make sure to challenge you with this gimmick as well, with there being plenty of obstacles that can either sway to and from the background, or even send you to and from it as well whenever you aren’t quick on your feet. Hell, there are even plenty of enemies and bosses that take full advantage of this, leading you to pay close attention to who is gonna do what next, and what you should do from there, making for some somewhat tricky, yet still fun enemy encounters.

Unfortunately though, despite all of the good that is being done with this game, there are definitely some things that hold it back from being as good as the original Wario Land. For one thing, like I mentioned earlier, this game sticks WAY too closely to its roots, not introducing that many new gameplay mechanics, gimmicks, or enhancements on previous formulas whatsoever, with the only exception to this being with the 3D aspect, which can only really get you so far at the end of the day. Not to mention, the game is also pretty short, even shorter than the original game, where four of the 14 stages that I previously mentioned are just boss fights, and it doesn’t take too much time to clear out the other stages either, making the journey over much sooner then you would hope it would be.

And finally, the one last issue I have with it that probably triumphs over everything else…….. the fact that it was released on Virtual Boy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that the game is any worse for being exclusive to the VB even to this day, but for a system that primarily advertised itself on being a 3D VR headset in the 90s, having a 2D platformer on it with VERY SLIGHT 3D elements just seems very… out of place. You could’ve probably made this game for the SNES, changed up the 3D element in some way, and ended up with a much more successful and widely beloved product at the end of the day, and yet, here we are. Not to mention, again, given how the game is always constantly black, red, or whatever color your emulator decides to be, it makes me never want to go back to play this again, and instead just watch it on YouTube instead, which is a huge shame, especially considering how wonderful this game really is beyond all that.

Overall, despite a lack of major change, its short length, and the platform it was released on, VB Wario Land is definitely a hidden gem from Nintendo’s library, and a pretty good followup to the original Wario Land as a whole, having very tight and fun platforming challenges to take on, lots of money for you to find in many different places with the powerups, and fun fights all throughout that, when you beat them, makes you feel like you really conquered something……. even if the something in question is the VB’s graphics. I would definitely recommend it for those who are big fans of the Wario Land games, as well as those who are just THAT curious enough to see what kind of titles the Virtual Boy has to offer, because, in my own personal opinion, there is no better option you can choose from other then this one. Not really sure what kind of joke I could end on with this review, so rather then trying to make one, I’m just gonna show you all what the final boss is like here, because he is absolutely terrifying. I would say that he probably scared a lot of kids back in the day, but in order to do that, that would imply that people actually bought this game and a Virtual Boy back in the day, and uh, ha ha………….. that didn’t happen.

Game #588

Punch out feels like an impossible game if you think about it.

It's the NES port of an arcade title that had to be drastically changed to its bones, so much so that the cardridges at the time had to receive extra space,

It starred one of the most influencal boxers ever, while still be able to portray its playstyle and personality despite the limitations of the NES.

It was able to take what where basically kinda racist caricatures like Glass Joe or Pitson Hondo and able to give them so much charm that are remembered to this day by thousands of people.

And it was able to take a game about boxing and make it so much more: each match and rematch feels like a monster hunter fight, where little mac goes against giants that can crush him in 2 hits.... but it is also a ryhthm game where you gotta tap and dodge to the bit, a series of puzzles where you gotta understand the way to open the enemy, and an endurance atch, both intimidating but addicting and thrilling..... it's sometimes also a propaganda where Doc Louis screams ad a dying Mac to join the nintendo fan club while he gets murdered by mr. Sandman.

Recently replayed on the NSO, and how much it is able to do I feel makes it stand up even to this day. An absolute classic that is still remembered and beloved form more than one reason.