PaRappa the Rapper 2 is one of those sequels that takes everything that was good about the previous games, and just makes it better!

The presentation has seen a boost thanks to the PlayStation 2's power, with more detailed environments, and slight shading on the 2D characters, which is nice to see.
The songs are also really well made, and are probably my favourite in the series, just because I was groovin' to most of them.

And they fixed the biggest issue that I had previously, the timings are now not nearly as weird as before. I was also able to improvise more on the fly now, compared to before, and get away with it, which made the gameplay feel more interesting.
I know the improv. mechanic was in previous games as well, but this time, because of the looser timings, I was able to pull it off better.
There is even a bonus game that you play a few times during the game's story, just to add more variety, and I appreciate it.

The story also is a bit more "epic" than last time, as the gang has to fight off a noodle invasion, and there's an actual antagonist now, which is interesting.

Even Lammy shows up a bit here and there in the story, and it's cool seeing PaRappa and Lammy interact, even for how small those interactions are.

Overall, PaRappa the Rapper 2 is an improvement over what came previously, and it's just a really fun rhythm game! Go check it out if you're curious.

I am very enthusiastic about Godhand, a game that never quite got it's time in the sun but left an impression on anyone that played it.

There is a genre of action games that blends very elements of fighting games and sports games into it's presentation. I seen the roots of it in super smash bros melee but also Godhand. As of late I see this in games such as vanquish, doom eternal and even calisto protocol(the illfated horror brawler game from late 2022). For those games I would refer to them as Trick shooters. There is a fluidity of movement, a flow, a sort of comboed movement that at times needs to be practiced and improved upon iteratively. In a way it's more like tony hawk pro skater than an action game.

Godhand I believe to be a kind of precursor game to this phenomenon, a trick brawler. Released towards the end of ps2's lifecycle around the same time as DMC3. Godhand is very much an oddity in the history of video games. It's an old school brawler set in a 3d environment. It does not have a block button, it has a dodge button and you can flick it very fast and it looks hilarious. You have a wheel of special moves you can use, one of which is spanking your opponents. It's set in the old west, it has a surf rock soundtrack. You can juggle opponents, it's ridiculously difficult. It might be one of the funniest games I have ever played, it's dialogue is like camp kung fu b movie. It's intentionally bad, "you need to feed your brain, not your ass" he says to the fat demon named "Elvis". What makes me liken this game to doom eternal and the like is the fluidity of the game. You do so many things so fast and when you master it, you feel like a God. You combo a guy, see some other guys come at you, dodge everything they do. Hit them with a baseball bat, throw the baseball bat at some other guys approaching. Launching lunge kick into another guy. Kick some guy off the ledge. And all of this can happen in seconds.

I know it might not be for everyone, but this definately feels like a game for me. It's everything I love in a game, it's silly, it's got a high skill cap, performing it feels amazing, there is room for learning and creativity. God bless clover/platinum games, those guys get it.

i've been thinking about my relationship with art, and my thoughts at the moment are that what i want in a piece is to feel something. it's not only about being entertaining, it's about catharsis. it's about feeling extremely happy or deeply miserable. it's about having the teeth grinding, the foot tapping, the head scratched. it's about going insane over the details. i want to feel alive. maybe it's a sick thought. maybe i should just live my own life, but i can guarantee, i've been living my own life a lot! much more than i would like to, sometimes.

all the games i've finished this year so far (very few) were a good time, some of them were amazing, really thought-provoking like anodyne 2, but none of them hit me like a truck. until GOD HAND.

GOD HAND makes you feel extremely happy, deeply miserable, with your teeth grinding, your foot tapping, your head scratching... pretty much at the same time! it's commonly known as a very difficult game and it's not an impossible one, but it does require you full commitment. starting with learning the controls: when action games were about swords and guns, with fast-paced movement, GOD HAND was about throwing punches while moving in tank controls. it's all about positioning, a 1v1 it's already a difficult task, but a 2v1? a 4v1? does not help when your crowd control movements are slow as hell! but don't be confused: GOD HAND is not a slow game! actually, if you can't keep up, you will pretty much ended up cooked lol, you have to adapt to the rhythm of the fight. it's all about learning and once you learn, it's about going wild.

and it's not a flashy game. you throw punches. real punches. punches that hit, than you can feel when it hits. GOD HAND it's a dudes rock game but every single dude is rocking on you (in a not-homosexual-way (unfortunately)), and you got rock on them instead. GOD HAND it's a videogame that loves action games. it's a videogame that recognizes the masculine archetypes about the action genre in overall media and at the same time it honors it and it also makes fun of it. GOD HAND is very "manly"! i mean, having blackjack and poker and dogs races as a way to make money makes me think that shinji mikami and the team are either the funniest guys ever or the most heteronormative of all time! and it's very funny either way.

what really matters is that GOD HAND is a videogame that made me feel everything, and in a year that is definitely NOT being my year, with a lot of work and study and personal problems as well, making me sometimes lost my interest in my favorite hobby, it reminds me how great videogames can be and how i can always just punch a son of a bitch when it needs to. you better watch out mf!!!