What makes a game "retro"? Some people consider it's time, but that would mean that The Last of Us is retro, and that's just silly. No no, to me it all boils down to design and technology. Basically, if you release this game as is today, would anyone notice its age? And in DKCR's case, it screams "I AM A WII GAME!"

I've played it on Dolphin and mapped the waggle to a simple button press, but even then it never feels truly gracious. There is a strange weight and momentum to your rolling, doing a roll jump constantly overshoots my target. Bouncing off of enemy heads also never ever felt comfortable to me, in every 2D platformer I can think of, you just hold the button, but here you have to press it right before you hit the enemy. I never liked to control DK very much, even in the SNES - I always spend most of my time with Diddy, but here it's not an option, and I consider that a downgrade.

But even beyond the unnecessary motion controls, this game's level design has a lot of stop-and-go. You blow on shit, pound on crap, wait for the auto-scroller, wait for the moving platform, the further I got into the game, the worse the flow got. I don't recall the last game that lost as much steam as DKCR did for me.

Difficulty felt overtuned too, it's like Retro heard that DKC had a reputation for being a bit challenging, and felt like they had something to prove. Countless design choices and enemy placements that only felt were there to make things harder for no reason, and without any elegance, the SNES games were never this brutal. The game is also extremely stingy with the Diddy barrels.

And sheesh, I almost forgot to talk about the bosses... I consider the whole 2D platformer genre to be pretty mediocre about bosses, but DKCR fails to even hit that low bar. This is probably the worst collection of bosses I've ever faced in a platformer; they're boring, irritating, just waste your time a lot, or all of the above. There was only ONE boss that I actually enjoyed, that being the minecart boss.

I'm saying a lot of negative things, but I did do 100%, collecting every KONG letter, and beating all the secret levels, so I did enjoy the game. But it feels off. Not sure why include the puzzle pieces if they don't do anything though?

And I may think the game is a bit dated mechanically and design-wise, but presentation-wise, this is absolutely timeless. Visuals are very good (it looks particularly fantastic upscaled in 1080p) and take full advantage of being a 3D game, with tons of dynamic stuff happening during the levels, and the sound design is also very appealing. Definitely one of the best-looking games of that generation.

Pros: Incredible 3D experience, the sprite-work and animation, how graphics are layered and stacked on the 2D plane, is really a sight to behold in stereoscopic 3D.

But that's just what jumps out at ya first, dig in and you've got a pretty solid 2D platformer adventure game! Levels are more exploratory focused where you need to find a key hidden in each stage in order to open the exit gate that leads to an elevator at the end of the level. Wario's got his signature shoulder barge and ground pound attacks after you get a number of power-ups, which, by the way are pretty excellent here. Unlike Mario games, these power-ups have a neat mix-n-match system, the bull horns gives you a stronger charge and a ground pound, the gator lets you breathe fire, and the eagle lets you glide, but then there's the ultimate combo that gives you a dragon that lets you glide, breath fireballs, and a ground pound. It's pretty satisfying! Another signature element of the game are the separate planes you can jump between, the foreground and background, which to my knowledge, this was the first game to really achieve that style of gameplay, prior to Donkey Kong Country Returns, the Paper Mario games, Kirby on 3DS, and Mario Wonder... And you know what? It may have done them even BETTER! And that's saying a lot coming from me, I don't even like Wario that much, heck, I'm not even a fan of the other Wario Land titles... But this one impresses! Those foreground/background interactions are probably the most impressive during boss fights! The boss battles are a huge spectacle, and make great use of the 3D planes, with the final boss having you jump between foreground and background in a very effective and satisfying way. Great boss fights!

Cons: Great boss fights... except, the power-up system in this game is maybe a bit too punishing for my tastes, as one hit sends Wario, no matter how many power-ups you have, right back to tiny form, where then one more hit after that is death. Get a gameover, and the hidden treasures you've collected on the stage, will be kicked off of your inventory, making it so you have to retrieve them all over again... And backtracking in this game is a pain in the butt, I'll tell ya, there's no traditional worldmap here. But back to the bosses, they're fun and creative fights, but in order to discover how to defeat them, it takes some experimentation, and because of how the power-up system works when you get hit, that experimentation is far too punishing, making deaths during boss fights a pretty likely scenario, which, eh... Frustrating.

What it means to me: As stated previously, I'm not a fan of the Wario Land games, I've dipped my toes in most of the games in the series, at least the one across the Game Boy family of systems, and they just never did it for me. The game feel, the level design, the quirky "transform instead of dying" mechanic the series developed... I didn't gel with it. But, Virtual Boy Wario Land was before all that, and was more like Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land where it was a bit more Mario-like with its power-up and level system, but more polished here, and it absolutely is more polished! The level design, collision, gamefeel, sprites and animation, even the sound design, it's excellent! Certainly the best game on Virtual Boy, or at the very least, the game that the developers gave the most damn about! I don't have to like Wario to admit that this game is pretty good!

You know those video game picture frames you see in stores?
This game is like a playable one of those, it's really neat when things line up just right. It's a shame the Virtual Boy hurt your eyes and forced you to play in this super awkward way. Thankfully we're in the year 2024 where you can mod your 3DS to play Virtual Boy games in a way that doesn't hurt your eyes while retaining the intended 3D effects. Still docking points because that is not the state the game was released in, but it fixes a lot of the issues of every single VB title.

It's Wario Land! It plays closer to Wario Land 1 than 2 , with a focus on exploration and puzzles with a few hat power-ups. The artwork on display is really well done and you'll have to use your noggin a few times to find all the hidden treasures.

The gimmick here is foreground/background, much like the far later released Kirby's Triple Deluxe. But in this game, it's much quicker to switch sides and it factors into some of the puzzles and boss fights in creative ways. Scrolling between one side and the next is satisfying as well.

My main gripe with the game is like in Wario Land 1, Tiny Wario is absolutely useless and not fun to control at all, so you just pray to god you find a power-up so you can get back to actually playing the game. In addition, if you somehow manage a Game Over, you will lose the most recent Treasure you found, forcing you to backtrack to that level and grab it again if you want 100% completion.

Is this the best game on the Virtual Boy? I dunno, it's the first one I've played, and even then the Virtual Boy doesn't exactly have a lot of competition, but it's a pretty safe "Yeah probably" until I play more, and is at the very least a recommendation.

Wife’s Reaction:
“Stop asking me about Dead Cells. You’ve talked about playing it hundreds of times. I. DID. NOT. SEE. YOU. PLAY. THIS. GAME.”

Greatest Thing Since Sliced Head:
Roguelikes aren’t my jam. I’ve said it often, but I’m starting to think that I was wrong. Or it’s just that I love Dead Cells and its fast gameplay and sharp controls. Whenever I play all I am thinking is, “this is awesome and I just want to play more.”

The grandaddy of rail shooters is back! His breath stinks, he's got no budget and he can't stop posting on Facebook.

While Yu Suzuki may never slide into my DMs, he certainly slid into the inbox of Queen-inspired Dutch musician Valensia. (Like for real, Yu Suzuki asked him if he'd like to soundtrack his new game over Facebook). Game is filled with over-indulgent rock opera nonsense and I can't help but love that nonsense. Whether or not it is quality music, I cannot say, but it's certainly memorable.

From a gameplay standpoint, Air Twister is by-the-books railshooting. Nothing that will particularly rock your world, but a steady and sure throwback to a niche genre. It's greatest success within this genre is ensuring its levels and worlds are bizarre and exciting. Rail shooters are often journeys through strange worlds, a visual treat of vistas, badlands and starry skies. With Air Twister, you will not be able to predict what happens next, each new level a surreal space concluding with some of the most freakish boss monsters I've seen in a long time. Game is a psychadelic trip, but from someone who smokes weed yet hasn't taken mushrooms.

Double-down on this with a progression system that reveals the games bizarrely deep lore and story (the skeleton dragons you fight in Level 2 are a father and his twin children. obviously), and you have a game that is certianly filled with a lot of reverence and passion. In spite of this passion, the game can feel a bit unfinished. A fast-forward button persists in cutscenes, some stages appear twice and as brilliant as that soundtrack is, songs get repeated, are sometimes in sync with the level and the whole thing can start to grate after repeated play sessions.

Air Twister is a labour of love. Yet, not the kind of serene romantic love you'd usually think of. This game is a big sloppy kiss from your smelly grandad, and you should be thankful for his love.

One of my clearest, earliest memories was playing the Metaknight game around its release before my family made a cross-country move in 1996. It's interesting to see this came out in September of that year, so I can almost pin the month we moved despite forgetting otherwise.

Modern Kirby feels a bit perfunctory to me, drawn out. I like how short and sweet each game in Super Star is, the different textures they give while borrowing from the same mechanical set.

My favorite is Great Cave Offensive... just a cute adventure into some really bizarre spaces (the caves leading to the castle, which connects to outer space, and this fantasy-feeling kingdom is a poetically beautiful set of levels). That the game lets you openly explore them, letting the spaces breathe, no map to guide you, feels pretty miraculous.

That and the game is full of genius music! The goa trance-inspired Cocoa Cave is a favorite.

It's a shame Sonic Dream Team is exclusive to Apple Arcade because I think it may be the best 3D Sonic since, like, Unleashed! Dropped seemingly out of nowhere with a different team backing it, it'd be understandable to be skeptical of its approach. Even though Apple Arcade doesn't allow for microtransactions, that doesn't stop some games from incorporating ill-fitting "long-term engagement" mechanics that can drag down an otherwise clean experience. Air Twister is good, but I don't know if anyone's wanting to play it for 100 hours! Despite the format, Dream Team feels far more like a console Sonic game than it does a mobile one, only more polished, concise, and focused on what it wants to be.

Ostensibly, you could lump this game in with the "Boost Games" of the series and that would make perfect sense. You do a lot of boosting, after all. But I think that'd be selling it short. You see, what makes Dream Team cool is that it understands that Sonic isn't actually about going fast 100% of the time and never has been! Dream Team isn't a slow game and much of the level design still does consist of straight corridors to pass through, but anyone familiar with the series will immediately notice that the boost feels slower, your max speed without it even moreso, and that your boost gauge is pretty small as well. This might seem ridiculous, but it's actually a very smart decision that turns Dream Team into a more exploratory game, giving it a more distinct identity that even channels a tiny bit of that Adventure magic.

Dream Team is structured a lot like Sonic Colors, or so I hear since I haven't played that one yet. You get one juicy main mission and several smaller missions in each level in a zone. The main mission has all the trappings you'd expect, including various collectables, new interactions with the environment, and branching paths that you can experiment with on subsequent runs. The level design is overall on the simple side, resulting in quite an easy game that finishes up right as it runs out of tricks, but I found that there was a lot to appreciate despite that. I think my biggest gripe with modern Sonic game design is how inefficient it is. Each level probably took weeks of hard work and skill to craft, but then you blast through them in a minute (because they're under the impression that speed is all people want from Sonic) and never think about them again unless you're a completionist or a speedrunner. It just feels bad and wasteful to have so much detail and care put into them only for it to be over so quickly, you know?

That's why Dream Team's approach is so refreshing. Sure, the levels still aren't gigantic, but you have actual incentive to stop and look around now. There are a lot of pretty details stuffed into the level design, whether that be background elements, some of the best visuals I've seen in a mobile game, or clever platform arrangements designed to teach players valuable lessons, and the number of branching paths and rail-heavy design probably allows for some neat timesavers on subsequent runs, so you can still get some of those speedrun thrills anyway. Some levels have you searching around for keys in a way that's reminiscent of emerald hunting in Adventure 1+2 (albeit much simpler). The collectibles are very well hidden and encourage you to make use of different characters, which in turn allows for an even greater appreciation of the level designers' craft. The sub-missions do a great job of tipping the player off to these things since they take place in bite-sized chunks of the main levels. If you play through a level first as, say, Sonic, then when a mission makes you play as Knuckles instead, you'll get to see an entirely new path with new challenges. Instead of rail grinding, maybe you're climbing on a moving wall and dodging hazards, or if you're playing as Tails, maybe you get to do a prolonged flight sequence where precision suddenly matters a whole lot. Amy, Cream, and Rouge are here, too, and it's great to have such a big roster in a modern Sonic game, but they're identical to Sonic/Tails/Knuckles in functionality, which is unfortunate. Cheese can't even be used as a weapon like in Sonic Advance 2, which kills a lot of the fun of Cream's return for me. It's not as robust as the Adventure games (I really miss finding permanent upgrades), but it's a step back towards that direction, and at this point, even a slight whiff of Adventure is enough to give me the vapors.

The core of the Dream Team experience is extremely focused and polished, but as you look at the more fringe and inconsistent elements of the game, you do begin to see some room for improvement. The boss fights are conceptually really solid and always a spectacle, but they're very easy to beat and don't offer any kind of incentive to replay them, which feels like a bit of a waste. I really enjoyed seeing how different each one was (though I do wonder if making the final boss into a prolonged level instead of a fight was the right choice...) and it's easy to imagine ways to spice them up, so having them be such a miniscule part of the experience is surprising. The collectibles are inherently fun to collect because the act of playing the game is fun, but I do wish the rewards were more interesting. A majority of the missions need to be completed just to reach the end of the game, but the rewards for the entirely optional blue rings are just Smash Bros-style trophies without the cute descriptions and history lessons those had. I agree with the idea of the journey being more important than the destination, especially since the plot here isn't particularly notable, but it'd be nice if they greased my palms a little bit, you know?

Sonic Dream Team is still a quick playthrough like most modern Sonic games, but it manages to feel a lot more substantial and confident than some of the recent ones have. It avoids rehashing the same 2D era levels for tired "nostalgia" ploys (Scrambled Shores rules because it's not just Green Hill Zone for once), it isn't afraid to try new things here and there, and it doesn't hesitate to make Sonic's ensemble cast have a meaningful presence, all of which is immensely appreciated as a long-time Sonic enjoyer. I've been very pleased with the direction of the series in recent years, between Frontiers placing Sonic in a wholly new context and The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog realizing that there's a lot of value in these characters and leveraging that, and Dream Team continues this positive trend by finally trying a different approach to 3D Sonic level design while still using a familiar foundation. I really hope Sega Hardlight gets another shot at something like this on a larger scale platform because I think they could make some of the best games the series has ever seen if they're given the chance to improve upon this idea. Hopefully, this game gets ported/expanded upon for modern platforms so that others can see how Sonic can be and should be so much more than just going fast.

At this point in time, Bubble Bobble had already made a name for itself as a simple, yet addictive and consistently great series of arcade platformers, ones that you and a buddy could easily pick up and enjoy for a good couple of hours, even if it can get repetitive at times. Of course though, like with any major video game franchise, the series would have plenty of spin-off and side games that would be released over the years, with some of these games, like the Rainbow Islands series, continuing the same platforming gimmicks that Bubble Bobble would introduce, while also shaking them up in new, interesting ways. But of course, the series wouldn’t be limited to just platformers, as there would be another game made right alongside the mainline games that would take on the puzzle genre, spawning its own successful series that would get plenty of sequels for years to come, and that game in question would be Puzzle Bobble………………. no, I am not calling it Bust-A-Move, I REFUSE to call it that.

While I am somewhat familiar with the mainline Bubble Bobble games, I had never played any of the Puzzle Bobble games before now, primarily just because I wasn’t interested. Like with most puzzle games out there, if it wasn’t something like Bejewled or Dr. Mario, it just didn’t interest me as a kid, and I figured that Puzzle Bobble would just fall right alongside those other games as just being another series of generic puzzle games. But hey, since I have been trying out more puzzle games recently, I figured I would go ahead and give the first game a shot, and I am glad that I did, because it’s actually really goddamn good! It is pretty simple, all things considered, and it probably doesn’t offer as much as later games in the series, but for what we got here, it’s still fun, addicting, and pleasant enough to make me wanna check out the sequels at some point.

The graphics are great, having that cute-sy feel that a Bubble Bobble game should have, while also having simple, yet engaging enough visuals for the main puzzle element that keeps your eyes glued to the screen, the music is good, being cheerful and energetic enough to where you will remember it after playing the game, but as is tradition with these games, it is pretty much the only track that plays for the entire game, and it can get pretty repetitive after a while, and the control/gameplay is pretty basic once you figure it all out (which won’t take long for you to do at all), but it manages to keep you hooked long enough to where you wanna see just how far you can get before your sanity won’t let you anymore.

The game is a typical arcade puzzle game, where you take control of Bub, go through a set of 32 very similar levels filled with plenty of multi-colored bubble, shoot your own set of multi-colored bubbles at them to link them together in plenty of places, match three or more to have them pop to give yourself more points and clear them all out, and panic frequently when the bubbles are pushed towards the bottom of the screen, making it easier for you to fuck up and lose. It is a very simple game, and upon going into it, you can easily assess what you are meant to do and how to do it, but not only does the game switch up the bubble formations to trick you up as you keep going, it also makes this simple concept that much more fun to take on and try to get a high score in.

Back when I reviewed Puyo Puyo, I mentioned how, when it comes to any successful puzzle game series, having a formula that works right from the get-go with the first entry is essential, otherwise you are just going to have a bunch of mediocre, or just plain bad, games that I don’t wanna play or even look at. Thankfully though, when it comes to Puzzle Bobble, this just may be my favorite set-up for a traditional puzzle game that I have seen yet. It isn’t perfect by any means, but it does provide that sense of satisfaction a puzzle game should give off, it isn’t too challenging to where you feel like you can’t properly succeed, and unlike with Puyo Puyo, I am smart enough to actually figure this one out! And let me tell ya, the feeling that you get whenever you manage to shoot a bubble at a series of bubbles along the top of the column that manages to drop them all down to where you instantly win………… it may actually feel better than sex, it is so great. Not to mention, there is a 2-player vs. mode, so if you have been looking for a simple enough puzzle game to play with your friends, then look no further than this.

Now, with all that being said, I can’t say that this game is perfect by any means, as it does have several issues that hold it back in certain different ways. In terms of the game itself, there isn’t really much I can say that I don’t like about it, except for the fact that it does have a certain luck factor to it that can make it frustrating at points. There were plenty of times where the bubbles would be close to reaching the bottom of the screen, and I couldn’t clear them out in time simply due to the fact that the game wouldn’t give me the right color of bubble that I needed at that time, and I would have to keep building up on the column I had until it ultimately crashed and burned. Of course, that is to be expected from a game like this, but it still worth pointing out regardless. Outside of the game though, the only real other complaint I could have about it is that, most likely, it is just outdated at this point. There have been plenty of sequels to this game, each one I imagine expanding upon the gameplay and visuals in ways that make it much better to play and enjoy, so there isn’t much this game has going for it in comparison to its sequels, other then that it is the first one. That doesn’t make the game bad, mind you, but it just makes it less desirable over the other games.

Overall, despite some luck that could screw you over and being outdated in comparison to other games, the original Puzzle Bobble was a really fun time, being one of the best old-school puzzle games that I have ever played, and I am now really looking forward to trying out some of the other games in the series at some point in the future. I would recommend it for those who are big fans of old-school puzzle games in general, as well as those who enjoy some of the later titles in the series, because while this may not be as good as those other titles, it still manages to stand on its own and be enjoyable to this very day. And people were saying that Tetris was the biggest, baddest puzzle game out there, but does that game have tiny, adorable dragons shooting bubbles from their mouths? I don’t think so!

Game #516

Something this singularly focused and confident in what it’s setting out to achieve goes beyond a breath of fresh air and into the realm of interactive mouthwash. Nearly everything about Penny’s game encourages you to stay on the move at all times – it’s present in how the secret areas’ entryways outright throw you in or out, its main enemy type’s mode of attack being chasing you, her bouncy bunny-like outfit and the combo system rewarding you for every trick you pull, and it knows what a joy it is to do so to the point that its main collectibles reward with you with progressively zanier layouts to test your mastery of it in.

It all hinges on building and maintaining momentum, so it’s just as well that her toolkit feeds into both so intuitively. Comparisons to different platformers in this respect are easy – I got enough mileage out of her drop dash equivalent that I occasionally forgot she also has a spin dash one – but viewing this game through the lens of others is selling it short when her yo-yo swing’s the type of thing which makes returning to them initially feel weird for the lack of it. It’s so malleable it’s unreal: an on-demand boost whose strength’s proportional to her speed going into it, contextualised into her design, which can mantle up ledges or grab special items or correct jumps, all dependent on the angle at which you let go and the nearby geometry. Rarely will any two attempts at the same section of a level pan out the same way because of it alone, and that’s without delving into how fluidly almost all of her other manoeuvres interweave with it and what a complementary fit they are for stages so littered with half-pipes and slopes. By no means am I a capital P Penny gamer as of yet, but hopefully this shows what I mean to some degree.

I say “almost” for the same reason as the “nearly” at the start, because although it’s a resounding success at funnelling you into a flow state the vast majority of the time, one or two common interactions stand out as uncharacteristically finicky. The window for maintaining a combo when transitioning from a yo-yo swing into spinning on top of screws feels excessively strict, slightly marring how much I’m predisposed to love any control scheme which even vaguely reminds me of Ape Escape, while obstacles which require Penny to come to a stop (like tree catapults or giant drawers) seem incongruent with how you otherwise pretty much always want to be moving. I’m hesitant to criticise these aspects too much because all manner of unconventional games, not just skill-intensive ones like Penny’s, suffer too often from players’ tendencies to blame them for their own lack of willingness to meet them on their own terms, and knowing that levels can be beat in a single combo makes me think the relative discomfort of these moments is my own fault. Occasional collision issues and/or clipping through terrain are more unambiguously annoying, but in any case, stuff like this is only so conspicuous because everything else about how it plays is so bang on.

That’s similarly true of its levels themselves. While it’s a bit of a pity that the amount of levels per area vary so steeply – Industria and Tideswell, my two favourites in part for the Dynamite-Headdy-if-he-real visuals and being yet further evidence for why Tee Lopes should be made to compose every game ever, only have two levels each – any pacing issues this could’ve potentially resulted in are offset by what a smooth difficulty curve they result in when taken wholistically. The progression from early hazards like water, which can be manipulated to the player’s advantage via the point bonuses it offers by riding on top of it with enough speed, to the absolutely no-touchy electrical discharges powered by breakable lightbulbs in later areas creates this lovely feeling of the game taking its gloves off just as you’ve become acclimatised enough with its systems to no longer need the help. I initially found it frustrating that hazards like the latter hurt Penny if her yo-yo collides with them, but after sitting on it, I can now see that it’s just another example of what a unique platformer this is – substantially extending her hurtbox whenever you perform a trick causes you to really consider when and where to do so in a way that many others don’t really demand of you.

It's evocative of a larger point, which is that Penny’s Big Breakaway is the type of game we could all do with more of. It’s one that’s not afraid to be so out-there in both mechanics and visual design to the point of potentially being offputting for some. It’s one which tangibly takes enough inspiration from the like of Sonic or Mario Odyssey to feel immediately familiar on some level, yet also puts equally as much of its own spin on areas in which it shares common ground with bigger names to the extent that you can’t treat it like them. It’s one that’s in general so unabashedly itself that you can’t not respect it regardless of whether or not it’s to your personal taste, but if you’re at all into the kind of game which gives out as much as you put in and only becomes better as you yourself do, there’s too much on offer here executed to too high of a standard for it not to be.

To extend to it the highest praise in a more succinct way: in art direction, ethos and gameplay philosophy, this is essentially a fully 3D Mega Drive game. Breakaway indeed.

If you just want to finish this game, you can just rush towards the end without a care in the world, since you have unlimited continues, and just respawn on the spot. The rating system will tell you that you suck though.

This rating system is what makes this game brutal, if you decide that you want to A-rank or, God forbid, Star-rank it, which requires doing it very fast, getting as many points as possible, and not getting hit once.

Super appealing art style too. Very easy game to pick-up-and-play, and it's cool that it's as hard as you want it to be - you can change the strength of Strider's blade to a ridiculous level, just by changing a simple in-game option. Plus, when you finish the game, you unlock Strider Hien, who's incredibly satisfying to use.