Wow, a mostly traditional 2D fighting Dragon Ball game with great art made by Arc System Works? Lightning doesn't strike twice, I better grab this now!

This game wins the award for "funniest retelling of the DBZ story". Three fights for the Saiyan Saga, four for Frieza, two for the entire Android Saga, and only one fight for the Buu Saga. Hours of the anime and many chapters of the manga reduced to single one-sentence textboxes, absolutely amazing. It was probably a time constraint thing, but I find that incredibly funny.

Admittedly, I didn't really play a whole lot of this game. It seems rather extensive, actually. Beating the DBZ recap unlocks other modes (one of them is apparently the real story of the game), and a bunch of "what if" stories from other characters' perspectives.

But... this game is just too boring for me to care. This is a button masher if there ever was one. Maybe later on you can employ actual strategy, but what I played you could get away with spamming and win easily, and I just couldn't care enough to push through to other modes. The game looks quite pleasant despite the 3DS's limited resolution, but if all a game has to offer to me is some nice spritework, I'm afraid I've no reason to stick around.

Not a final review but

oh my god this could be the best Picross game but it just had to have time gates. Do a few puzzles, forced to wait 30 minutes, etc. Like with Pokemon Picross on 3DS, it theoretically could be ignored by purchasing game currency from the eShop, but that's not an option anymore (it'd be the Japanese eShop, anyway). Such a shame. Guess I'll pick at this one over time.

update: it has forced mega picross so it's actually cringe

Excellence in aesthetics as usual, including the smooth music, but I can't say this is quite as charming as the dev's other ventures. In this one you pretty much put your cursor in the middle of the screen and left click sometimes - actually, I don't know if you even need to aim. I guess such gameplay is expected from a one-button game jam, but still.

I've also never played GoldenEye 007 so I don't really have nostalgia for it or anything, might get more out of it if you have experience with that game.

Didn't realize I never reviewed this game. Better late than never, though.

This game was my introduction to Siactro, a solo game developer who makes small, cheap platformers, most of which harken back to the N64 and SNES platforming classics. Some might call their games pandering or shallow, but I think there's a surprising amount of depth and love for the craft in them that leads me to holding them in high regard. Whether or not you liked Toree, I highly recommend Macbat 64, Super Kiwi 64, and Beeny, they're delightful little treats and offer more than you'd expect.

But those games aren't Toree. And, well, to be frank, Toree is my least favorite of Siactro's offerings (that I've played). All of their games are simple, but I find Toree to be too simple. Lacking, even. The same charm that the others have isn't nearly as strong here, and I never felt like I was having as much fun. Perhaps because this is a level-based 3D platformer rather than an explorative collectathon? Maybe this just isn't Siactro's area of expertise? I don't know. On top of that, this game also just forces a sort of horror element in it much less elegantly; the others have horror elements (not much, you won't be crapping your pants or anything), but it's presented in a very natural way that feels befitting of the retro callbacks, here it just feels amateurish. As my friend maradona puts it, it's like something MatPat would make a theory video on rather than something that could just... be.

Unfortunately for me, this is the one of Siactro's games that has kind of blown up. I blame AntDude (I mean... that's how I learned of it). A sequel, two games of 3-4 levels each, and another one-level entry. I'll admit that I haven't played them, so maybe they're a lot better and makes Toree a much more worthy leading series, but I wish it was Macbat or Kiwi instead. Not trying to come off mean at all, I'm glad this developer is getting more attention, and Toree 3D is still good I just don't think it's great like their other works.

Still, it's only a dollar. I doubt you'll regret trying it even if you don't end up caring for it. But I recommend Siactro's other games more! And try playing them more or less in order, there's merit to that.

It's Picross, so it has the sauce.

Look, there's only so many ways to talk about Picross. I mean, I've played probably three dozen nonogram games at this rate, and I keep finding out about more and more keep coming out, I only have so much to say.

This one has the benefit of having a story, established characters, and humor. I wasn't terribly interested in any of that because I mostly wanted to just play Picross, but the characters are decent for what it's worth, and I had some chuckles. I haven't played the main Khimera game yet - it's free and I have it downloaded so it's only a matter of time - but the characters felt comfortable enough in this game.

I have three complaints about this game, however. First, one that only applies to this game, then one that applies to most nonogram games, and third a unique issue with this game that might apply to others.

For the one that only affects this game, I feel like I'm rarely making an actual image by solving the puzzles. It's a little hard to explain, but in another Picross game, the picture that I made by solving the puzzle feels clear even before the tiles are colored in, but here, the pictures feel nonsensical and the colored-in image looks way different. It doesn't really matter since I'm not truly trying to figure out what I'm filling in until after I already solved it, but still, it feels like the solution comes out of nowhere.

The second complaint is something I see it practically every nonogram game that isn't Jupiter's Picross games. It's... very hard to describe with and without a visual aid and would only bother Picross vets like myself, but still. There are times where the game will tell you what specific number you filled in without the player being able to know what they filled in with just the information in that line. That probably doesn't make sense so let me use an example.

Let's say you're doing a 15x15 puzzle and the line you're looking at has the numbers 1 1 2 1. Now let's say you put a tile in the third spot on that line because you know thanks to other lines that that tile can be filled in, and then you put an x on both sides of that tile. It's the third tile of line so you know that it has to be one of the first two "1s" of the line, it cannot be the two, and that's why you put the x around it. However, given the space on the right side of the filled-in tile, you are not yet sure if this tile is the first "1" or the second "1". Yet this game, and other games like it, already knows if it's the first or second "1" and it'll darken it out. So if it's the second "1" it'll darken out the second number in the sequence (1 1 2 1). You, the player, have no way of actually knowing it was the second "1" given the information you already have, but the game acts as if you do, which gives you more help than you should presently have available.

I don't know if that makes sense at all. As I said, it's hard in just words, but it's a persistent issue in these games, Jupiter seems to be the only developer to get it right. Another thing Jupiter gets right that other devs don't is its hint system. By default in Jupiter's Picross games, they'll have an option turned on where the game will highlight rows/columns where you have more possible moves to make with the information you currently have. I always turn this option off because I don't want the extra help, but it's a great feature for new players - I probably wouldn't have gotten into Picross without it. Other nonogram games don't tend to have this feature. This one... does in a limited and confusing capacity.

Let's say you are looking at a line with the numbers 1 5 2. Now lets say you've filled in the line like so (dots are a tile filled in, underscores are unfilled tiles): . _ _ . . . _ . _ _ . .
Apologies if this doesn't make sense visually, I don't know how else to put it. But anyway, looking at this information, you have the "1" and the "2" filled out already, and even though you don't have it filled in yet, you know you must fill in the seventh tile in that sequence in order to finish the "5". In Picross, this would be represented by the row turning blue; the "1" and "2" would be darkened out, but the "5" will be blue, the game's way in telling you there's a move you can do. In Khimera, instead of turning the line a different color, the game will un-darken the two numbers you already figured out, so now the whole number sequence (1 5 2) are lit up again despite the fact you've done nothing wrong. This is confusing because the game does this if you've fucked up or if there's a number to finish filling in, which makes it confusing. Why not just have different colors to highlight the rows and columns when there's new information for that line?

Well, this is definitely my most incomprehensible review, and awfully negative for a five-star game. Look, I just kinda give all nonogram games five stars, it would have to be a truly bad nonogram game for me to rate it lower. In reality, I think Picross truly is the peak of nonogram games, and pretty much all others have issues that Jupiter's games simply don't. At the end of the day, though, they're still Picross and I love this shit.

After the disappointment of a sequel Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 2 was, I needed something to cleanse the palette, so I went with something I had prior experience with and knew was good - Naruto: Clash of Ninja 2. I grew up playing the first two Clash of Ninja games, at first as frequent rentals, and then I later owned one of them (I think it was the first one but I don’t remember for sure), so I already knew I was going to be into this one, especially because I already enjoyed the first one in my recent replay despite its brevity and lack of general content.

Clash of Ninja 2 is an improvement in almost every way. A story mode that’s over double the length and lets you play as different characters than just Naruto, a new kind of battle, more stages, and many more characters.

Before hopping into the positives, I wanna mention the only thing that got worse between games, even if it’s not a big deal: cutscene presentations. The first game had cutscenes where portraits of the characters would be talking to each other, turning, moving around, and making dynamic facial expression while the story progressed. It’s still mostly the same, but instead of the characters’ entire upper halves being shown, instead it’s just headshots. It’s a small change that doesn’t really matter (especially if you’re familiar with the series - just skip the cutscenes), but it oversimplified the already simple cutscenes of the first game, and I’m not really sure why.

Speaking of the story, it simply goes from the Land of Waves arc through the Chunin Exams arc, so basically the only first two arcs, though the Chunin Exams is a pretty long one. There’s no frills - if anything, it leaves things out, so there’s not much point talking about it. If you’ve not watched or read Naruto, this likely won’t impress you, but if you’re familiar, it’s a fun review. Because the Chunin Exams arc is so much longer than Land of Waves, this story mode is easily the meatier experience of the two games, it would have been twice the length only doing the latter story.

The gameplay here is pretty exactly the same as last time. In fact, I really don’t think anything has changed, just that more characters were added. You won’t hear me complaining about that, though, because I felt the first game’s gameplay was great as it was. It’s not gonna be as deep as actual fighting games, and I’ve heard other people refer to this as a “button masher” in fact, but I kind of resent that notion. There are legitimate combos and strategies at play here. You can get away with mashing in some cases, but if you actually take some time to learn the game and characters, you’ll have a much better time.

This game includes quite a few more characters, and most of them I found to be quite fun. The first game had 9 unique characters with one unlockable clone. This game has 20 unique fighters, two unlockable forms, and what’s pretty much an Echo fighter; two characters are pretty much just joke characters, but they’re treated just the same as the main cast. A whole lot more to work with, and with the variety of playable characters and opponents, I felt much more compelled to do as much as possible. I played the one player arcade mode with every character I unlocked, and even gave a whack at the Time Attack and Survival modes. Hell, I wanted to continue until I had unlocked everything because there really is so much more to unlock. The problem is that it just becomes really grindy. To unlock everything, you need in game money. To get in game money, you need to grind out battles. Obviously they don’t expect you to sit there all day and raise up money, but that’s my only real option. I decided to throw in the towel when the next character I needed to unlock cost $15,000 and I knew there were still two others that cost way way more - $50,000 and $100,000. Geez! - and you just simply do not raise money fast enough for me to want to do that. On top of that, I still had seven stages to buy, and more story mode chapters! And a bunch of less-important stuff.

Speaking of, you’re able to buy extra chapters for the story mode after beating the main mode. I only bought one of them. It was pretty basic, and they don’t seem all too crazy, but it’s neat that it’s there.

Man, I wish I kept track of memory cards as a kid. Maybe one day I would have unlocked everything, but as an adult now, there’s simply too much without a fast enough way to unlock it all. Yeah, I could probably cheat it, but I also don’t care enough.

In the end, I highly recommend this game to Naruto fans, or to people who like simple fighting games. I like this one a lot.



I didn’t really give too much time to each character besides Naruto himself, but I’d probably say my main is Shikamaru. Oh, and I don’t really know where to put these, so I’ll toss them here, here are some small details I really liked:
-You can play as Kankuro’s puppet, Karasu (or “Crow” as the game titles him), by itself in this game. But Kankuro is still controlling him, you can see the chakra connective lines the whole time, and Kankuro hangs out in the backgrounds of stages.
-All characters simply block attacks when holding away with the exception of Shikamaru. He’s unique in that he’ll do dodging animations; though it’s functionally the same as a block.
-Akamaru is one of the two joke characters of the game, being just a puppy. When you use the substitution jutsu with him to get out of a combo, instead of a log appearing in his place, a bone will show up, it’s a cute detail.

This is possibly my favorite Zelda randomizer. It might not have as many features as its 3D contemporaries, but the way the world opens up as you collect items feels the most natural out of all randomizers I've played, and it's satisfying be able to see the results of all the Kinstone fusions without needing to go through the trouble of it yourself. A must play for Minish Cap fans.

I will also say that I've not played nor watched this one in some time, so it's quite possible that its gotten even better.

I am unmatched in finding felines, catching cats, purloining pusses, kidnapping kitties, proclaiming pets, taking toms, and checks thesaurus making way with moggies! I'm the cat's meow at this, and you'll hear no hissy fit from me nor mewlings of mad ravings!

anyway, this was one of the more entrancing jpegs i've stared at for a few minutes, but i just spammed hints at the end cause i didn't care too much about finding these jolly cats on my own. If you also just saw these 100 cat games and were curious, don't even bother, it's just click on a still picture for a few minutes, there are better hidden object games (though few with as many meows).

Much like its Majora's Mask counterpart, I quite wanted an OoT3D randomizer because I prefer the 3DS version over the original, and I felt like the quality of life improvements of the remake could make the randomizer more fun. However, also like the Majora's Mask 3D randomizer, this just doesn't have as many features as the N64's rando, which makes it a kind of hard sell for me. The lack of being able to randomize freestanding rupees and pots makes this less likely for me to come back to, unless I just feel like playing on my 3DS.

I'm not sure if this mod is being actively worked on or not as the last major update was in January of 2022 and I haven't been active on their Discord, but if it is then I hope they eventually can roll out the features I crave. It's hard to top OoT randomizer from the sheer support that one has had, but if any mod can do it, it's the rando for the remake.