I'm gonna play this game so much my 9 month old baby is gonna think Bryan Fury is his uncle.

Review Chapter 1:
Baldy's Basics

Yes, I play as Bryan (and I am NOT good at taunt cancelling yet) but you play as Reina so stfu. I do have some legacy skill since I've played Bryan before; he really became my guy when his beautiful bald head graced the voice-synthesized schoolyards of Tekken Tag Tournament. But I'm only here writing because I just went on a truly legendary losing-streak, dwarfed only by that time I lost one trillion SF6 player matches in a row against (fellow-backloggder) Maradona.

I beat both campaigns of Tekken 8 (The Dark Awakens and Arcade Quest) two days ago, and I meant to review it then but I've been so busy getting demolished in ranked matches to remember. Okay and taking care of a baby. Conbaby plays Eddie Gordo so 1. Scrub 2. Has to wait for the DLC.

Review Chapter 2:
Devil Inside, the Devil Inside, Every Single One of Us, The Devil Inside

The Dark Awakens is one of the best fighting game campaigns ever. Mostly focusing on formerly-likable character Jin Kazama trying to forget about the story of Tekken 6. He's just like me fr. Tekken 8 goes the balls-to-the-wall anime approach, and as someone who has been playing these games casually since I was a wee babe, it's hype.

The dialogue is certainly expressive, with characters yelling or gruffly whispering platitudes non-stop, but it manages to ride that line between corny and cool quite well. No spoilers, but there's also more gameplay variety than I expected. The overall Jin focus keeps everything from going off the rails (in terms of story cohesion) and there are plenty of major moments with the rest of the cast. Most of them. The one big Netherrealm style plot convenience was Azucena's; they came up with a fun coffee heiress character but had no idea how to get her into the story.

Review Chapter 3:
Pokkén Tournament

Arcade Quest is a way stripped-down version of SF6 world tour, serving as a tutorial for the basics of Tekken. The plot is straightforward and the dialogue is skippable. It's an inoffensive little mode if not for the fact that you play as those ugly Xbox Live Mii knockoffs, but there’s an online lobby where you chat and run around. It’s kinda fun.

Review Chapter 4:
The AI Version of Myself is Better than Me at Tekken

The practice stuff in this game is crazy; I thought Street Fighter 6's training was bananas, but this is next-level. Aside from the normal suite of training-mode options, you can train an AI of yourself (or any other player) to fight against, and you can pause any of your replays and drop into it (as either fighter) to see what you (or your opponent) could have done better. The amount of options new and old are almost overwhelming, but you're gonna need to utilize at least some of them to get anywhere online.

Review Chapter 5:
Reina and Kazuya

As for the multiplayer, it's great. The netcode is way better than Tekken 7's- still not to SF6 levels but much appreciated. I haven't had any issues, but I do use a wired connection so your mileage may vary.

Playing Tekken online is like getting beaten-up in real life. "I almost had her." Reina and Kazuya seem like the Kens or Scorpions of this game right now, at least in the lower ranks. More Victors as I’ve gone higher. I've played a couple hundred matches and have not fought a single Raven, Lars, Lee, Jun, or Bryan in Ranked (I don't know if it tries to filter out mirror matches.) I don't think Reina and Kaz are overpowered or anything, but they're obviously popular. It doesn't have a huge impact on the enjoyment, as it's good practice. I say practice but it's just me losing ranked matches.

One week post-launch edit: Reina, Victor, King, Dragunov. Kazuya has faded into obscurity.

Review Chapter 6:
I'm Dragging this out to 8 Chapters

I know we're not very far past release, and some of that excitement is sure to wear off, but the amount of fun I'm having is undeniable.

Review Chapter 7:
Sight & Sound

This game looks stunning. Tekken 7 probably looked good too but I wouldn't know because the Xbox version looked like beer goggles.

The music for Tekken 8 is fine, but you can put any Tekken song from any Tekken game on any stage, as well as the different menus. One major omission is "Black Winter Night Sky", the Tekken 2 console opening cutscene song. Where is it Harada? Why is it never included in anything? It's not on iTunes with the rest of the soundtracks, best they've got are stinky cover versions.

Review Chapter 8:
Tekken Ball

TEKKEN BALL BABY! WE'RE SO BACK! GON DLC WHEN?? TEKKEN BALLLLLLLLL!!!! PS TEKKEN BALLIN!!!! Tekken Ball Tekken Ball gonna go play some Tekken Ball to the beach music from Tekken 4

"Review Epilogue" DLC coming soon

There’s not much room for prickly games in the modern gaming landscape, because abrasions hemorrhage cash. Companies and consumers hold fast to the familiar, but I have little sympathy for those who hide away in aesthetic bunkers.

Games like this are an all-out assault on the foxholes of the picky children.

An ugliness pervades Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, but it was an intentional aesthetic decision, and one that has imbued it with a specific kind of timelessness not enjoyed by its contemporaries. There’s reason to believe a remaster would potentially ruin the alchemy behind its very being.

This game’s not about redemption. It’s not about friendship. It’s not about a higher purpose. It’s about shaky, noisy, low bitrate dv footage of two fully naked men covered in bleeding cuts massacring their way through the bootleg dvd stores of Shanghai.

Kane & Lynch 2 is a laser-focused four-hour experience, but you’ll probably make a decision on its merits within the first four seconds of gameplay. I was all in. It’s divisive, and while disliking it is understandable, dismissing it is wholly undeserved. After all these years I still haven’t played anything like it.

Anyway what do you think the chances are of us getting a Kane & Lynch 3?

Edit: I did not intend for this review to denigrate or delegitimize people who dislike this game. I don’t feel like I should delete the review, but I don’t want people to get the impression that disliking this game means you just “don’t get it” or something, or that I am extra enlightened because I fell in love with the blurry Michael Mann game.

I stand by my subjective belief that this game is a phenomenal work of art, but it is a flawed game. Every game is flawed, and people can rightly criticize those flaws. For me, the pros outweigh the cons. For others, they don’t. Is it just offensive? Is it all style, no substance? I’d like to think it’s something more than that; a commentary of sorts. A strange one that has a little bit of its cake and eats it, too, but in a way I think actually works.

This review is not a reappraisal because I have always liked this game; I didn’t ‘come around’ on it. That said, not everyone who hated it at the time (or now) is some kind of backwards puritan, and it’s wrong and in bad faith to assume that. But dawg you know a game is divisive when the review distribution is almost a flat line. Anyway this game doesn’t need to be a battleground and I’m sorry, I think I made it worse. Let’s just go back to loving Ecco the Dolphin, as we all do without question.

I can look past the game crashing on me. I can look past it running at 30fps. I can look past the camera controls not working and feeling floaty. I can look past the fact that the game only has a few enemy types and even less dead body models. I can look past the fact that the enemy AI is so bad that the game plays itself. I can look past the fact that the textures almost never loaded in properly. I can even look past the fact that the character designs are straight outta Fortnite. I can look past the cringe millenial-core dialogue. I can look past that the required online connectivity made it so a server failure on their end kicked me out of the game within 15 minutes of me starting it.


But the one thing I can’t look past is… actually you know what? I can’t look past that stuff. I didn’t have a single second of fun with this game and it didn’t touch me on any emotional level other than true boredom.

It's no secret that Mortal Kombat: Deception's Konquest Mode is one of my favorite parts of any fighting game. If you didn’t know that, you should have, but now it certainly isn't a secret.

From Shenmue to Hybrid Heaven, the illusive 1v1 fighting game/RPG is something I've been chasing for a while, and the day has finally arrived that I can say hello to the official ambassador for my beloved micro-genre. But it seemed unfortunate that such a Concept™, a Conmancept if you will, had to get its defining moment in a franchise I usually avoid. Street Fighter V didn't even launch with an arcade mode.

World Tour got me in the door, but the surprise of Street Fighter 6 is how it now has me hooked on Street Fighter gameplay. I know, truly shocking that someone who enjoys oft-derided Mortal Kombat games would see the light after experiencing kino.

My esteemed and beautiful backloggd family, I've even been playing a fighting game... online. Normally this bald boy can't make it through a single online match in MK or Tekken without ending up drenched in sweat, but starting out as such a noobie in SF I felt less pressure and therefore less critical of myself. I've spent way more time in the Battle Hub than I anticipated. The Conman has even played the daunting ranked matches (I'm only currently Bronze with Guile but I started at Iron and this is basically the first SF I've ever gotten into). I've played loads of the practice modes and combo trials, and I'm just having a blast learning and slowly getting better at the game.

This has gotta be, without a doubt, the best entry point to Street Fighter. The single player RPG campaign allows you to get to grips with the mechanics (I chose classic controls) and introduces you to the world and characters, allowing you to familiarize yourself with them and pick a main. Guile actually controls the least like the characters I'm used to in games because charge attacks are simply not part of my muscle memory, but something about him stuck and I'm in. What's even crazier is that retroactively this game has helped me break down my barrier to the other SF games: Street Fighter Alpha 2 is fire, which I discovered because it’s available to play periodically in the Battle Hub.

This is a content-rich and beginner friendly experience and I highly recommend it. For the first time ever I'm seriously doubting that the new Mortal Kombat and Tekken are going to live up to a freaking Street Fighter game in terms of personal appeal to me, a guy who hasn't even played 3rd Strike. While still based and Conmanpilled, World Tour feels slightly underdeveloped in a few areas such as the generic story, lack of environment/enemy variety, and artificial difficulty, so it can and should be expanded upon in future entries. Every fighting game should straight-up copy this. NRS, stop whatever you're doing and make Konquest 2. I saw the Krypt from 11, you know you want to.

I'm such a sucker I even went to Chipotle to get fighter points, but they didn’t just give me a tier-skip or whatever, it was enough points to get the entire fighter pass. Completing said fighter pass got me enough to get the subsequent pass. The passes also all include a retro Capcom game.

“In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words ‘Here begins a new life.’”
-Starship Voyager Emergency Medical Hologram, 2375 (paraphrased from Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova, 1294)

Is Devil May Cry the only game to combine innovative, balls-to-the-wall character action with laborious underwater first-person-shooting and a weak StarFox 3D shmup section? I’d be surprised if it wasn’t. I appreciate them cooking, but they took almost every ingredient off the shelf.

Despite my aforementioned gripes and repeated bosses (Nightmare is not fun to fight,) this is a soulful game if ever there was one: It opens on the hardest cutscene ever and never lets up. The menus are on crack, the combat is intensely satisfying, and the atmosphere is off the charts. The levels are short enough that they don’t overstay their welcome, and the challenge more than makes up for the overall length. It’s even worth a go for the Neil Breen style dialogue.

Where have you been all my life? I’m so in.

I love ‘bad’ media. I love watching crappy movies, playing janky games, and embarrassing YouTube videos. I think there’s a bunch of people out there who feel the same way, I mean… my reviews usually get a few likes. Got me!

Usually when people say they love ‘bad’ media, the media tends to live in the popular ‘so bad it’s good’ realm, and by that I mean ‘so bad it’s funny and entertaining to experience’ not ‘so bad it’s aspirational’. I think art is subjective, and there’s an experiential aspect as well as those theoretical and critical, which all get thrown into the big soup of my reviews, star ratings, and opinions. My perception of a game’s quality and entertainment value both go into my star ratings and reviews.

This is probably why I don’t have a rating scale in my bio, because I figure you know what 1-5 rating scale is AND you can read. I don’t always write succinctly, but I’d hope that people don’t read my reviews, look at the star rating, and go “I wonder what he meant by that.”

So let’s get this out of the way: this game sucks. I actually had a great time playing it in the early hours (hence the non half-star), laughing at the performance issues, convoluted story, and bafflingly bland game design. It wore off. This game truly becomes a massive slog during Silver’s campaign, and the overall repetition of content makes the playthrough pretty arduous.

But! And I think this is important if you want a peek into my sick and twisted Shadow-esque world- I do not regret playing this. I have rarely regretted spending time with a bad piece of media. Experiencing any art, no matter how boring, bland, and mediocre that may be, is not something I see as a default negative. On a low level it serves as a way to appreciate the things I love by contrast, but it’s also an education, another thing to store in my mind, another thing to know. I’m not without some discretion, as I try to actively pick things I think will give me something to take away, but I’ve got a bit of a masochistic streak which has inadvertently led me to a greater appreciation of all art and of life in general.

So my big takeaways from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) are that A. I stand by my reviews of the Sonic Adventure games, and B. This is even worse than I remember it being. I’ve always had a weird soft spot for Sonic 06, and I still have one, it’s just smaller now.

Everything to do with Silver is terrible. The reliance on physics objects in his moveset, the story, and even the boss fights against him are low-points for the game and the franchise. It has nothing I want from a Sonic game, and here’s I guess another thing (a point C if you’re somehow following this) I got out of Sonic the Hedgehog: I mostly just want to play as Sonic or a Sonic-like character in these games. I’m okay with the occasional gimmick to spice things up, like cars or planes, but I want to move fast and I want to zip around collecting rings or spinning into enemies.

Sonic: what I want, still not that great though because this is the game it’s in.
Shadow: like Sonic but with a twist, refreshing to do as the final campaign.
Knuckles/Rouge: harmless but trivial.
Blaze: like Sonic/Shadow but slightly worse.
Tails: Not all that fun, but flying can be novel for a second.
Amy: sucks but the section is mercifully short
Omega: Almost forgot about it, needed a UI element for locking-on
Silver: Tedium incarnate. Borders on being torturous.

Also this review is getting long in the tooth, but I have to mention Soleanna as it’s one of the emptiest and worst hub areas ever (I love hub areas so hey, this having a hub at all is a little bit of a positive), but it’s ALSO even worse when you’re playing as Silver. Soleanna is huge and he’s slow. It doesn’t even have a Chao garden! The nerve.

A human woman kisses Sonic in one of the game’s final fantasy cutscenes and it’s a highlight for sure. Worth playing just for that. Wait, I could’ve just watched a let’s play or rewatched the cutscenes online? You’re telling me this now? Just kidding I was always going to replay this.

“Lara Croft is a major babe…“
-Roger Ebert

I love tank controls. Every movement and every jump in this game has to be deliberate or else Lara Croft will fall 200 ft and crumple on the ground. Moved slightly to the left? Dead. Mistimed the jump? Dead. Nothing against the Tomb Raider reboot, but I think you lose the inherent thrill of danger when everything is so choreographed.

So I played through this with tank controls, obviously (after trying the modern controls for approx. three seconds), but I also played through mostly in the classic graphics style. I think the aesthetic changes in the remaster are more faithful than say, Halo:CE Remastered, but I’ll always be a classic graphics soldier (even if I also own the trilogy on original hardware).

Reminds me of the time when I was a baby and my dad and uncle were playing through the PS1 version, when my uncle accidentally saved over their last level save file when starting a new game. Horrifying! I have a baby now too, and I think he’s at about the age I was when my Dad played through it. Weird, but cool.

Speaking of the last level, I’ve always loved that you spend most of the game raiding tombs, but then it’s suddenly Turok 2 at the end. I personally think the Egypt section is the best in the game, but I’ve always loved an Egypt level. One of my favorite generic gaming aesthetics.

I recommend trying this game, but if you do, I suggest not using the modern controls, because they suck. Also quit being a baby and just use the tank controls, unless it’s for accessibility reasons, in which case good luck bc the modern controls feel busted. Just kidding do whatever you want. The modern controls do suck though.

I love this game. Not as much as Tekken 8 but it’s pretty dang good!

I have limited experience with text-based games in general, and more than a touch of ADHD, so anything I say about Mémoire 0079 needs to be viewed through that lens. Now I’ll show you how inexperienced I am by attempting to describe this game (no spoilers, I hope):

So, first off it’s a Mech story. Off to a good start. The game plays essentially like a more interactive wikipedia article, with hot-links, music, visual aids, and excerpts from (fictional) interviews, tv, and so on. The general form puts it outside my normal gaming wheelhouse, but I’m open to new experiences, and the retro-computer aesthetic certainly helped ease me in. The game is thankfully also color-coded and generally easy to follow for dumb dumbs like myself who have mashed A to blow through the dialogue in Street Fighter 6’s world tour mode.

So I fought myself a little bit to pay attention and had to shake off the idea that there might be an exam at the end, but don’t let that fool you: I do know how to read and have sometimes even read books. I bery smart. In some ways this is better than a book because not only does it have pictures but music and moments of mandatory pacing. It was worth it.

The story itself is a pretty solid attempt at fictitious events grounded by emotional reality, with plenty of (quite surprisingly) in-depth background information. There was a moment as I entered- I guess you’d call it the game’s second half(?) where you get to learn about the central events from a different angle. This made me audibly go “oooh”. I guess it’s presented up-front but I’d been reading long enough that I had forgotten about the initial menu. There’s also a few moments of levity I didn’t see coming but very much appreciated. The thumbs up/down Siskel & Ebert deal was pretty good, as was a humorous but unfortunately realistic quote by some kind of ‘Director of Marketing.’

Oh, and a quick shoutout to the music, particularly the track that emulated a kitschy television program. It’s high quality and used in just the right quantity. The digital art on display was expectedly helpful for visualization, but was in a style I thought was unique and a bit unorthodox considering the story material. I liked it. Good job everyone.

Anyway this game took more of my time than I guess I’d anticipated, but not in a bad way. Great work! Well, for a game made by backloggders. Needed a grappling hook. 0/10

“Conman,” you ask, “is Quake II (2023) the complete package? I heard it includes Original Recipe™ Quake II, Quake II 64, and a few other sub campaigns including a brand new one by the supposed Indiana Jones devs. I also heard that multiplayer, achievements, numerous QoL additions, playable demos of prerelease builds of Quake II, concept art, models, and multiplayer support are all included! Is this true?”

Yes my child, Nightdive is at it again. “But why only 4 stars, great sage? I hypothetically care about star ratings or whatever. You’re very handsome by the way.”

Well, my delicious snap pea, the game in question is Quake II.

I like Quake II. I think it’s a good shooter, and I’ve had a bit of a soft spot for it since I first played it within Quake 4. Yeah. Anyway, unfortunately, kiddo, I can’t say I like it as much as Quake. I guess I could, but it would be a lie, baby. I won’t lie to you. I’m tired here’s a list.

Weapons: Nice selection overall. I’m not a fan of guns sharing an ammo pool but that happens in lots of games like this. Railgun absolutely clears.
Enemies: feels like there’s only three kinds and they range from okay to kind of annoying to fight.
Music: Big Bumpin’
Level design: I could have used a few more level gimmicks. I’m serious, the waterway level was cool. Overall I didn’t hate any of the levels though, and that means a lot in a game like this. Good job Quakers.
Story:
Aesthetics: Cohesive, but if they ever do a modern reboot of Quake they should reboot Quake. The overall aesthetic here is maybe even more varied than the first game, but is generic by comparison.

Did I forget anything? Oh yeah I actually don’t love that you store items in an inventory. I barely ever used the items. Didn’t really need to, and I played on Hard and found most of the secrets in the game. I did so because I liked playing it despite the aforementioned issues. Four bags of popcorn and one soda.

“Conman, my king, I agree and/or disagree with this review” sick you’re my new best friend we should be friends in real life.

One of the most serene experiences I’ve ever had in any videogame.

Surreal and upsetting but calming and peaceful; I don’t know if this will sound dumb, but something that I can tie this feeling to is the part of Half-Life 2 where you walk along the bottom of a large bridge over the ocean. That level has always been a sort of cozy dream space for me. That’s one of my favorite sections in any game, and Ico was just that the entire time. Major Boss Baby vibes.

Did not enjoy the combat.

(Played on original hardware on a CRT. Which, man, that was the right choice. Game looked stunning.)

Conman's Last Hunt
Entry 6

More like Sinister Sucks!

There's some masochistic part of me (non-sexual?) which adores playing through garbage like Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six. It's an awkward side-scroller with a tenuous grasp on the power-set of Spider-Man as well as controls and general level design. I still don't hate it, because it's an unintentionally hilarious little game with a squat Spidey obliterating vagrants, tripping over rats, and stumbling through visually illegible battles with the Sinister Six. Even the music is lovably terrible.

I might be certifiably crazy for this, but I actually thought the simplistic 2600 game was better, especially considering the difference in technological limitations.

I’m not a climber. I’m not even a hiker, really, which makes living in Utah less appealing for me than it is for others. But in college, in an effort to step outside my comfort zone, I joined a group of my roommates and their friends on a “hike” of Angel’s Landing in Zion national park (aka Honest Hearts).

For some reason my little sister also tagged along, and neither of us knew what we were getting into: it starts like a hike but at the end you have to climb chains on cliff faces! You could easily fall off and die, and people have. But I think I was wearing jeans, so that might clue you into my level of preparation.

You don’t hit the stretch with chains unless you decide to go to the very tip top, and there’s a large flat area where many people quit. Several of our group, even some of the athletic ones (they apparently did outdoor things for fun. Outside where it’s sweaty and dangerous. Let’s just say I doubt they’ll be playing Jusant any time soon) got scared and didn’t go to the top. I figured if I had to be there anyway I’d give it a go.

It was extremely scary for me. I’m sure some would say it’s not that bad, and that it’s a baby’s first hike situation, but to me it was one of the most dangerous things I’d ever done. This may sound silly but I legitimately thought “What if I let my little (adult) sister come on this hike with me and she fell to her death?” Well, my sister and I got a picture at the top, so I basically never need to do that again.

So Conman, what’s with the long anecdote replete with filler words your 7th grade English teacher said were off-limits?

This game reminded me of that memory, and it’s a happy one. It made me reminisce, bringing back feelings of climbing something so tall for so long that it felt like the top was running away from me. A time I felt a little braver. Forget the text log story, forget the textureless indie art style, forget the mid cave chapter… this game made me feel good. Criticism? What’s that? All I know is gut-level emotional reaction.

Oh, I also adore the gameplay.

I’ve loved the ‘triggers as hands’ climbing mechanic since I first played Grow Up, but there it’s just one of many disparate mechanics. In Jusant that mechanic is the game; this is a focused and effortlessly intuitive climbing experience with none of the drawbacks of actually going climbing, such as having to talk to people who rock climb.

Wait, also the rope - my beloved. Oh they also took the vine-growing mechanic from Grow Home/Grow Up which totally worked. And in Star Trek V, Captain Kirk free solos El Capitán. Well, he falls off and Spock catches him with his rocket boots. Ok ok alright

As soon as people throw around 'greatest of all time' I start to get suspicious, but I can't deny that 3rd Strike is the fighting game I've been playing before, between, and after the many fighting games I've reviewed recently.

The most satisfying parry this side of Sekiro, the most interesting gameplay this side of Garou, and the most fluid animations this side of... also Garou. As an apparent Guile main I immediately tried Remy and went "nope", so I had to pick someone else, and after trying everyone I landed on Dudley, who might be my pick for the most fun-to-play character in the genre.

A good fighting game is one you can suck at and still enjoy, and this is that game. I suck at 3rd Strike, but I want to keep playing it. I also want Dudley to come to Street Fighter 6.

Edit: ED?????????

🚨 New Conmancore game alert 🚨

A mad combination of Tomb Raider, Metroid Prime, Ocarina of Time, Silent Hill, Quake, and Donkey Kong 64. Do you enjoy every single one of those games? Welcome to Deadside. If not, you might want to steer clear of the Shadow Man.

Shadow Man is the voodoo-themed comic-adaptation 3D metroidvania collect-a-thon from hell, dripping with atmosphere and filled with random bullcrap to find and gather up (not nearly as many as DK64 but you do need to return to levels multiple times, even if you don’t want to 100% the game like I did). I got lost a couple times, and I can see some taking issue with its labyrinthine level-design, its wealth of collectibles, its relative lack of enemy variety, and I suppose the all-dark-all-the-time environments, but I thought this game was a constant vibe machine.

I loved exploring and backtracking through the underworld to discover new areas, climbing through the game’s temples and discovering secrets and upgrades. The liveside (real world) levels were especially atmospheric, taking you from sticky Louisiana bayous to even stickier London subways and New York apartments. Each one is inspired by real serial killers like Jack the Ripper or films like Silence of the Lambs, and the game is filled to burst with interesting background details and environmental storytelling.

I’m shocked I had never heard of the game (or comic) before, because it aligns almost perfectly with what I enjoy about my favorite fifth-generation titles. Some of the collectibles are called Dark Souls…

Shadow Man is even bald. Bald, I tell you! Representation win. Truly a Conman certified classic.

“Nintendo trynna copy that shit. They know they can’t compete if they don’t got Final Fantasy. I don’t even care if any other systems get Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy sucks ass now.”

-Chad Warden

Because they hate me, Square and Nintendo got together in the ‘90s to make a Mario RPG game, thereby forcing me to suffer through Smash Bros requests for Geno for almost my entire life. Having played this remake, yeah it’s weird he didn’t eventually get on the roster, but his exclusion is still not the crime against humanity people act like it is.

That aside, this game was real good. Goated beginner RPG. I’m sure the original is great. Intuitive, witty, varied, and packed tightly; Super Mario RPG is here for a good time, not a long time.

I am confused about one aspect, though: why are there characters in this? Mario ‘characters’ should adhere to a very strict “goomba with a mustache” creativity limit, lest they irreparably damage the brand. Bold of them to assume my brain can handle encountering unique personalities and designs. Making basic household items like hammers into enemies is a step in the right direction, although if it were up to me I’d get rid of any anthropomorphization. Too confusing. 0/10