Today I've played and beaten Gargoyle's Quest: Ghosts 'n Goblins, which is a spinoff to the arcade hit Ghosts 'n Goblins from 1985. Gargoyle's Quest itself released on May 2, 1990 in Japan for the Game Boy. This game focuses on the character Firebrand, a gargoyle known from the arcade game for being the most annoying enemy of all.

This game is mostly a platformer but can also be put into the Action Adventure category. It's even called an RPG, though if it classifies as that is questionable. There are two gameplay elements in this game. The first is a top down view of Firebrand as he moves around the overworld, a la Final Fantasy, Crystalis and all the other JRPGs of the time. Similarly to those, there are towns and dungeons you can enter, where you can talk to a few people and buy items, and you can even be put into random battles whilst traveling the overworld.

The other element is the platforming / random battles. Platforming is pretty simple and the amount of different obstacles aren't that many. You can jump, levitate/fly for a few seconds, hang on to walls and shoot projectiles. There are wasps, flying spiders and several ground enemies to fight whilst platforming past obstacles like spikes that try to spike you, water that tries to drag you down, fire bursting from the ground vertically and more.

Whilst random battles usually take a very short amount of time, dungeons have pretty long platforming sections and a boss at the end of them.

The game took me 5 hours to beat using save states but would take more than twice that without any I would assume due to the lack of health that is available and the game throwing you back pretty far whenever you get a GAME OVER screen. It's a solid platformer. I wouldn't say it was very hard, I mean I beat it (!), but that's because I used save states. I used save states in the other games I've played as well but those still were too tough to beat. The issue here isn't the platforming that makes this very hard to beat, but rather that you don't have much health and therefore have to do a whole lot of travelling and random-battling before you can attempt a dungeon again.

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STORYTELLING
The game starts by telling us that the "Great Realm" was attacked by Destroyers several hundred years ago and won, however at the start of this game, a threat looms once again. This time, it's Firebrand who has to save the day against the Destroyers' king, who is called "Breager".

On your journey, Firebrand has to get stronger and stronger to face him. Many allies aid him in that regard and there are many powerful members of the Destroyers that he has to face before he can get his hands on King Breager.

That's pretty much it. You can talk to a bunch of NPCs, mostly in towns, and you have to talk to a lot of barons of a lot of towns you visit, who tell you to go to Point A to get Item B. To get Item B, you need Item A, which the barons give you. You get Item B, return it to the baron, get Item C and move on. Slowly but surely, you learn a bit more about the world and your identity and ultimately try to save the Realm by defeating King Breager.

You can say "Yes" or "No" a bunch of times when you talk to Barons and others who give you tasks. King Breager even asks you to join him, to which I said "No". I always said the one you are expected to say to make progress, but unfortunately didn't try to say "Yes" to Breager or "No" to the others to see what happens. I can't imagine that much does happen since it would make you unable to progress. If that's true, there are no decisions you can make in this game. There really isn't anything that would make me call it an RPG.

Overall, the story is there and it's OK, it fleshes out the Ghosts 'n Goblins lore a tiny bit.

GAMEPLAY
The overworld gameplay is OK but not where the fun in this game is in my opinion. When you make your way to a town to receive your quest, you are thrown into random battles after every few steps. These take place in very small areas and are not all too varied. There are 6-10 different one's I encountered over 50+ random battles. In one you have to kill 3 enemies, jump to the next platform and somehow find a way to land on the platform below to kill the final 2 enemies, since it's a tight platform and they walk around constantly. You do that until you realize that you have individual health for each battle, so you just say screw it and let them hit you once to be able to kill them quickly and win the battle.

Each battle gives you 1-4 vials, which is currency in this game and is used exclusively to purchase "Talismans of the Cyclone", which are extra continues.

You can collect vials and talismans from vases as well, plus some items are hidden in the game world, which you can figure out by talking to the correct townspeople. One for example tells you that "wings" that let you hover above ground for a longer duration are hidden in a tree near the palace. Go there and you'll find them.

Apart from that, you receive pretty much all other items from quest-givers before and/or after you complete their quests. They give you new weapons (there are 4 total and some bosses are resistant to a few), they boost your wing ability and that's pretty much about it.

In the second gameplay section, the dungeon/platforming section, you do what you do in a lot of other platformers. There are rarely points where you are overwhelmed by too many enemies or environmental obstacles, but sometimes the controls don't feel tight enough, especially when you have to try to stick to a wall that is between two water sprites, both of which hurt you if you touch them and give you 2 damage. At the start of the game, that is enough for an insta-kill. Plus, sometimes you have to stick to walls and jump up to try and destroy a wall that blocks your path. If the ceiling is right there as well, you can be stuck in this weird loop of trying to shoot your projectiles in the split-second you got to aim at the wall before you drop down again.

Controls are still tighter than in most games I've played from this year up to this point, so those are mostly minor annoyances.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. The sound design was mostly average, but sometimes a bit too in your face, especially when opening up the combat menu to change weapons. The music in this game was mostly average but there were some good tracks in here, however unlikely that I'll remember it as much as I will with other games I've played of this year so far.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Looks better than a lot of other Game Boy titles out there, but it's still a Game Boy game. There are no colors, which is OK, but worst of all assets are just reused all the time and the overworld / towns look almost identical throughout. I appreciate that the game has tried to mix some genres together during a time where releasing unfairly difficult, grab-the-players-coin arcade game type platformers seems to have been the norm, but it doesn't enhance the experience, rather the opposite I'd almost have to say.

ATMOSPHERE
Overall, the lore and world building, the soundtrack and the locations differing based on appearance and simply their placement in this world (Floating Continent, Flooded World etc.) made for a pretty atmospheric game.

CONTENT
Without save states, it'll take you closer to ten hours to finish this, but it can get annoying pretty fast. For a playthrough where you use save states, you are looking at closer to 4-5 and overall, I did appreciate the lack of filler in this game apart from random battles becoming repetitive at some point. Apart from the main missions and those battles however, there isn't much else here.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The game works the same pretty much throughout. You make your way to a town in the overworld. On your way there, a few random battles take place in small areas and they end when you kill the enemies.

Once you make it to a town, you are given a quest and go to the dungeon, where you have to do some platforming. You kill a boss, return to the quest-giver, go to a new town and so it goes. It's a fun little loop but the game doesn't try to mix it up.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION
As I mentioned before, I did appreciate the mix of genres, but those features typically found in RPGs (overworld with towns and dungeons to enter, leveling systems) are the opposite of fleshed out and didn't quite work. With a bit better execution and more technological possibilities this could work though.

REPLAYABILITY
There isn't much incentive to replay this game after a first playthrough.

PLAYABILITY
The game worked well overall but specific sections had very low FPS for some reason. I didn't have problems with the emulator with any other game and the FPS drops happened at the same few areas, which was noticeable, so I think it's worth mentioning, but I had no issues other than that.

OVERALL
An above-average platformer as an overall product, but I would put that on the platforming sections being fairer than others that I have played rather than the game having RPG / Action Adventure elements mixed in. Most of you will probably enjoy your time with this one, but I'd suggest the use of save states when playing. You won't need to use any guides however, and it won't take you too many afternoons to go through it either.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Charlie T. Aslan for GamePro Issue 13 (Aug 90): "Every once in a while, a game comes along that is so original and enjoyable it becomes an instant hit and remains a top-seller for years to come. Gargoyle's Quest [...] falls into this category." | Based on this review, the mix of genres was seen as a good thing, a reminder that MY reviews represent MY opinion and yours may vary
- ? for Nintendo Power Issue 12 (May-June 90): "The excitement of an action game and the depth of a [RPG] are combined in Gargoyle's Quest from Capcom."

I'm not a Formula One guy, but I did recognize some of the names of the other drivers, so I can start of by saying that those seem authentic as a whole. If you wanted to race against those F1 names from the early 90s, then well, this is one of a dozen options for you, and probably not the best one. Is it a good game regardless? Eh, it's OK.

This is the first in a series of F1 games I'll be playing as part of this challenge I'm doing. This means I don't have much to compare it to. This is also a sim racer, not an arcade one, so it's hard to compare to other racers of 1992 and others for the SNES in general, like F-Zero for example. But it can easily be compared in terms of graphics and music/sound, and in both these cateogries, F1 Pole Position is not good.

Graphically, there is little detail to environments and backgrounds, and the sprites of the cars don't look good either. Additionally, the sense of scale on the enemy cars is seemingly random. When they show up, they'll start small, then look gigantic all of a sudden, then look appropriate, then tiny, then gigantic, then appropriate in size again. It's odd.

There isn't much music here, just a few tunes to have you entertained when scrolling the menus. The sound of the engines is what you will hear mainly, and it sounds pretty bad.

What does this game offer in terms of content? Quite a few things actually. There are 16 maps total and a Grand Prix mode to go through them. You can also battle as many drivers individually as you want in singular races, and do practice runs. There is also a whole lot of customization you can do to one of many cars you can select. Choose if gear should be shifted manually or automatically, whether you need slick or rain tires, what kind of gear you want (short gear ratios mean faster accel but lower max speed and vice versa) and you can adjust your brake level from soft all the way to hard, among multiple other options. Pretty nice.

During races, there is additional strategy involved, as you need to watch 5 indicators. WIN shows if a wing is damaged, which would reduce speed. TIR is about wear on your tires. SUS is about your car suspension, which can reduce traction. BRA goes down the more you use your brakes and reduces effectiveness. GER reduces your control of the car, if your gear box gets damaged. You can reset these meters through pit stops. So careful driving and well-timed use of pit stops is pretty important to do well.

The controls are fine, you will have seen worse and better. The fact that this is a sim racer means the devs try to make controls more grounded, with which they've done an OK job. My biggest gripe was you hitting other cars or getting hit from the back yourself, which puts you, and only you, in a spinning animation, sometimes even leading you off-track. That seemed pretty annoying considering controls are not tight enough to avoid these most of the time.

All in all, I don't think many people are looking for sim racers of the early 90s to play, so this is skippable, but a serviceable game for its time. F1 fans will have had fun with it, but will be better served with later racing games than this.

(I played this as part of my challenge to go through notable video games in chronological order starting in 1990.)

As someone who just a couple months ago played through Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, which originally released for the MSX back in 1990, seeing this in the most recent Humble Choice Bundle (November 22) was the cherry on top of what I found to be a great group of games.

Unmetal doesn't hide the inspiration it takes from that game, just look at the name of the game, but it also has references to other media, such as the TV shows "The A Team" and "MacGyver". As far as its presentation goes however, this game is all Metal Gear. The game tries to stand out by injecting a lot of humor into its storytelling. Does it work? Most of the time, it does.

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STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS
You play Jesse Fox, a simple man who gets arrested and put into a high-security prison for a crime he didn't commit. The story is told through narration by Jesse Fox, who is said to have escaped from imprisonment by the Soviets using a helicopter. He is shot down once he reaches Allied territory due to the fact that his helicopter belongs to the Soviets. He finds himself in an interrogation room and has to explain how he got into the situation he was in. And thus starts 8 hours of narrating the occurrences, which you as the player get to play through.

In the middle of your escape, you also uncover classified information about an "Operation Jerico" (sic), a terrorist plan involving nuclear warheads. You uncover more and more about it and have to aid a certain Colonel Harris in stopping certain disaster for all of humanity.

Now the important part to keep in mind about all of this is that every bit of storytelling is drenched in humor.

I'd say, in a positive way, that the game fails a lot, but it succeeds just as often. And that's where you will probably find out whether this game is for you or not. The game certainly won't hit everyone's humor, and definitely not on a regular basis. Yet, the gameplay is regularly interrupted by the narration by Jesse Fox, making it an essential part of the playthrough.

While the game is unapologetically Metal Gear, these two points is where it differentiates itself, for better and worse: A ridiculous storyline that is not to be taken too seriously, and a higher ratio of storytelling to gameplay.

Jesse Fox narrates the whole thing, and the way he remembers the events is not always going to be realistic. For example, every guard in the game is called "Mike", probably because Jesse is bad at remembering names.

Or for the boss fights, Jesse Fox has to fight a tank, a submarine and an octopus of sorts.

I thought this kind of exaggeration was fine and humorous, but some might of you will not be as lenient as me with the sort of edgy humor this game upholds for its entirety, though some of the repetitive jokes never landed at best and got slightly annoying at worst.

What the game does really well however is incorporate the player into its jokes. For example, on one level you need to pass through an area where fire comes up from the ground for a few seconds at a time. When you go through the area slowly but surely and reach the end, Jesse revels in his zen-like patience and great skill, only for the sergeant who interviews him to ask "couldn't you just have put on your thermal suit and run through the fire?". This is the player's fault for not figuring out, but makes Jesse look bad.

There are also a bunch of sections where the player can choose what kind of obstacles Jesse will face. Were there "no rats" or "a ton of rats" in the sewers? Does the octopus have 2, 4 or 6 tentacles? The answers don't always are what they seem to be and funny scenarios play out depending on what you choose.

The game is much more clever in its execution than I would have thought and despite its shortcomings as far as a lack of
a gripping storyline or a lack of interesting side characters goes, it does mix it up enough and is funny enough for me to have enjoyed it.

GAMEPLAY
In this pixelated 2D stealth game, you need to find a way to escape to freedom. This means using stealth, first off. This also means solving puzzles by using the correct items at the right places. If necessary, you need to combine the items in your inventory to create the correct one. For example, a circuit and an unencrypted radio make an encrypted radio.

And finally, this means getting into fist or gun fights, especially with bosses, of which there are plenty in the games 10 chapters.

The game does a good job of introducing new gameplay elements constantly, like different weapons, different gadgets, different means of traversal etc.

As far as stealth mechanics go, the game leaves a bit to be desired, as there aren't a lot of ways you can approach stealth. You mainly hide and try to stay out of the guards view, but really, the only way to do that is to simply stay behind a wall. Apart from coins there aren't any meaningful ways to distract enemies, there is no crouching, no moving stuff around to block enemy vision, no ability to turn off cameras and alarms (unless the story requires it) and no reliable way to hide after triggering an alarm. About a dozen enemies quickly circle you in, all doors get locked and 3 shots kill you, so your best chance is to find a wall that hides from all angles and then just beat up all enemies one by one as they approach your hiding spot.

So while it says "stealth" in the description, it does fall flat here.

On the other hand, you do have the puzzles, but you also are incentivized to explore the entire maps to find reusable equipment like medkits, and one time use gear to get past certain sections. You will for example need night vision goggles to enter a dark dungeon.

Then there is the combat, which the game mostly discourages because Jesse Fox doesn't kill, but it becomes useful against machines and bosses, as mentioned.

Boss fights themselves are aplenty and most of them are pretty simple to figure out, at least on Normal difficulty. Instead of their difficulty, it's the absurdity that these boss fights would exist within the framework of the story that Jesse Fox tells, that make them notable.

One boss fight is also just simply a dialogue where you have to choose the correct options. This one took a lot of trial and error and whether you're happy with the outcome (if it takes you 5 tries like it did for me) depends on your style of humor. If you enjoyed the humor up to this point, you should like the outcome though.

Overall, I'd say the gameplay is OK to solid. As I mentioned in the Storytelling part, there is a lot of back and forth between narrative and gameplay parts, so whether you enjoy your time here will depend on whether you like the humor just as much, if not more so. If you do, the gameplay does just enough to keep you invested.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
Voice acting is good, though most enemies have the same voice actor. I'm guessing for budgetary reasons? They've done a good job of making a joke out of it by calling all guards Mike.

I'm listening the OST right now and there are some good tracks in here. Some feel inspired by Metal Gear as well. It sounds like your typical stealth game soundtrack, though I feel like a bit more timid than it needs to be. Some of the tracks could have definitely been more aggressive to increase tension.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
As someone who played Metal Gear 2 from 1990 before this, I can obviously appreciate the jump in graphical quality where others would say that the game is a simple, pixelated 2D game. I'd say it looks relatively good graphically for the type of game it wants to be. Technological advancements obviously allow it to standout just in its color use compared to a game like Metal Gear 2. As far as creativity goes, I enjoyed how the devs decided to drop Jesse Fox into an empty level and then have Jesse talk all the details into existence. The level would be filled with everything Jesse would say.

ATMOSPHERE
This game feels like a less serious Metal Gear game, so mission accomplished in that regard. It doesn't stand out in this regard otherwise.

CONTENT
10 Chapters, 8-12 hours of gameplay for a single playthrough depending on difficulty, enough content to have you find new things in a second playthrough. There are a couple chapters that drag on, but all provide something new and aren't there for filler reasons. The length of the game is also very suitable for a game of its style, an hour or two could have easily been shaved off to make it a more tight experience.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The game mixes things up by having multiple boss fights in a single chapter, while foregoing any boss fight in others. All chapters introduce new gameplay features and stay fresh enough to warrant their place in the game. Some levels and sections do become annoying at certain points though.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Very clever with some of the jokes and how it incorporates the player, plus a "choose your own adventure" style of giving options that do actually alter the outlook of levels are the two things the game does that make me want to call it "innovative" the most. Other than that, a bunch of stuff you've seen before and done better.

REPLAYABILITY
Definitely worth a second playthrough if you enjoyed your time with it. The game lets you change levels at multiple stages and seeing what the other options do should make a second playthrough viable. You can change the difficulty and hunt some optional challenges the game offers as well. The narrative as a whole doesn't change however.

PLAYABILITY
It works well from start to finish.

OVERALL
I think you figured out where I stand on this game overall and to whom I'd recommend it. It has fine gameplay that was very fun at times, enjoyable enough for the most part and dragged on here and there. Whether you have the motivation to stick with it however will depend on how funny you find the game, or how much of its humor you can tolerate. There have been games that I have abandoned because the gameplay wasn't enough to keep me through bad humor in my opinion (Borderlands series) but this wasn't one of them.

I didn't laugh out loud a lot, but I did a few times, which is more than I can say for most games that incorporate jokes, and it got me exhaling out of my nose a few times. I'd say check out the Announcement Trailer and go from there. As long as the humor works for you, the rest of the game will as well.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis by LucasArts (Release Date: June 1, 1992) is among the most popular classic point and click adventures out there. Ask the majority of adventure game and Indiana Jones fans who have played this, and you will receive praise for the game and how true it stays to the Indiana Jones franchise. As someone who enjoys his fair share of adventure games but didn't grow up with the classic ones, and as someone who watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time a couple days ago in preparation of playing this game, I have mixed feelings.

While I invite you to read on to find out my thoughts, let me share some facts about the game that should entice you to play the game regardless, instead of reading my opinion as if it were the gospel. Indiana Jones received multiple "Best Adventure Game of the Year" awards in 1992. Granted, it wasn't the most packed year for the genre, but the game brought home some GOTY awards too. It sold over a million copies by 2009, which may not sound like a whole lot, but was one of the most successful graphic adventure games for LucasArts.

MobyGames has it at 8.2/10, reviews at the time had the game at roughly 9/10 on average so, needless to say, this was a critical success as well.

That said, here is my review on the game and on why I didn't gell with it quite like I would have liked.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 6/10

You play the eponymous Indiana Jones in 1939 and at the start of the game, look for some small statue in university archives for a visitor that goes by the name "Mr. Smith". When you deliver it to him, he steals the statue and the "bead" that was inside it. As he escapes through the window, you manage to pull out his jacket and inside find his ID. His real name is Klaus Kerner, a Nazi agent. Turns out, the Nazis are looking for the lost city of Atlantis and the power it bears.

A magazine article from the past that was also in the Nazi's jacket has a picture of Indiana Jones and also of a woman called Sophia Hapgood, who joined Jones on an expedition to Iceland, where she stole artifacts that Kerner is now after. This prompts Indy to find her, as he fears Kerner will go after her soon. When he arrives at her location, Kerner indeed already took off with some Atlantean artifacts she had in her office. The most important artifact, a necklace, is still on Sophia's person though, which has the spirit of the Atlantean king Nur-Ab-Sal within. The spirit then gives Sophia a message, telling her how to find the lost city of Atlantis.

So now you're off to find Atlantis, discover the hidden power and make sure the Nazis don't get their hands on it to use it for world domination.

Having watched Raiders of the Lost Ark only, this general plot idea seems immediately familiar. 1930's, long lost powerful treasure, Nazis, a woman by Indy's side with a medaillon to help find the way, a trip down the Mediterranean, it all follows that formula. If you want to please a fanbase, that's certainly the way to go.

Through your journey, there are some small homages to the movie franchise, but from what I can tell, it doesn't appear to include any characters from the movies. The characters that are introduced here pretty much exclusively are "nuts" as Indy so lovingly puts it, reminding you of LucasArts witty humor rather than Indiana Jones more, mostly, grounded one. These characters talk funny, have seemingly lost their marbles or make some dumb suggestions (one character gives you a mask for free, but will later trade you something for it). Apart from them though, the presentation is generally much more serious than all LucasArts games I've been subjected to over the years. Personally, I'm more at home with the humorous point and click adventures, and this game felt like it couldn't decide between that and between the Indiana Jones 'feel'. Having the main character and Sophia take themselves more seriously most of the time than, say, Guybrush Threepwood, Manny from Grim Fandango or those three brains from Day of the Tentacle, is something I didn't particularly enjoy in the "talkie" version I played, because the lines coupled with the deadpan voice acting just didn't work for me, especially on Indy's part.

The plot itself works because it is more or less what you would expect from an Indiana Jones plot, but it's predictable and slow-paced due to both the nature of this being a puzzle game and puzzles being so heavy on backtracking and, especially in the latter half, on mazes.

One thing I did really like though is that you have multiple approaches you can take in this game. For example, in one part, you can manage to get through it by doing a dialogue 'puzzle' or, if you don't want to or fail that puzzle, you can do an object puzzle instead, both of which get the job done equally.

There is also a point where you can decide to bring Sophia with you for the rest of the game or go through it on your own. There are multiple path names for this choice you make. Bringing her along is the Team path, which has different puzzles and solutions, optional and non-optional dialogue that can provide somewhat entertaining banter from time to time and a "hint system" that allows you to ask her what the next course of action should be. I found this to be useless though, since she only states the obvious. Going solo is called the "Wits" path and while I didn't take it, it comes with many differences, such as different puzzles and different characters to meet as a result. There is also a "Fists Path" according to the game's wiki, but I personally did not figure out how to choose that option. Apparently, this leads to fewer puzzles and more action / fighting scenes.

Finally, this game has multiple good and bad endings, which I think is very nice. Overall though, due to the pacing, the one-dimensional characters and the flat voice acting for Indiana Jones in particular, I can't say I really enjoyed my time with this games story for most of its duration.

GAMEPLAY | 9/20

LucasArts point and click games almost all have the same "Verb Interface" that you use to 'Pick Up, 'Use' or 'Open' items, among several other options. You explore your surroundings to pick up items, to use them on other interactable items and to talk to people. There are puzzles in this game that need to be solved by using the items you find or by picking the right options in dialogue.

Games like this are hit and miss in terms of the puzzles that you need to solve. They don't shy away from having solutions be contrived from time to time, or for input to be needlessly specific at times. For example, at one point, you need to point a surveyor's instrument on a right and left side "horn". That horn has several points you can line the instrument up to. You'd think that the solution would trigger whether you place the line on the left, the right, the middle, the middle-left or middle-right of this relatively wide object. But no, you need to place it at the corner of it to trigger "this is the right side horn" line and solution instead of the "this is dirt" line. It's things like this that I will always find annoying about classic graphic adventures, but it's something I can deal with overall.

What made me resort to a guide to lead me to the finish line though was the overuse of mazes throughout the game's second half. The cave you explore in Crete is a labyrinth and Atlantis has multiple literal and non-literal labyrinth-like parts as well. Each include a bunch of puzzles that had me go mad at one point because it's constantly walking slowly from one point to another, picking up tons of items and having tons of options as to where to put them, and having to constantly backtrack back and forth. It was not fun at all and had me yawn uncontrollably, especially in Atlantis, which was supposed to be this mystical place that the game was leading up to.

There are also a few sections where you need to control things, like a hot air balloon or a submarine. Imagine Mass Effect's Mako controls but 90.000 times worse, especially on the submarine. Instead of having these epic Indiana Jones-like set pieces, all I had was fights with controls, which often just killed the mood for me.

I can't say this was a fun graphic adventure to play from a gameplay perspective (the basic gameplay loop of puzzle-solving itself is generally fun though), which is something I can only say about this LucasArts adventure so far. I played Secret of Monkey Island games, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle and Loom before this.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10

Voice acting exists in the talkie versions, which came out a year or so after the initial release. While the voice acting was not bad overall, I can't say I gelled with the voice acting done for Indiana Jones. For most side characters, voice acting certainly was a plus versus no voice acting at all.

The soundtrack consists of the main Indiana Jones theme of course, plus an assortment of tracks that fit the locations this game plays in or the events that occur rather well. I wouldn't say it's fantastic, just a good adventure game soundtrack.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10

The game has an art style befitting Indiana Jones, but what I liked the most about this game in terms of its graphical presentation is the animations. Sophia letting her hair down, Kerner brushing through his, the struggle between Kerner and Indiana Jones at the start of the game, it looks pretty clean and adds a lot of charm.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 8/10

This game could have used more disgusting caves, but overall, this certainly has Indiana Jones written all over it, from the graphics to the storyline. If you're a big Indiana Jones fan, you should definitely play this.

CONTENT | 5/10

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is 10 hours long, which is quite long for a LucasArts adventure game. Unfortunately, I found the second half dragged way too much, so I can't say I found all 10 hours to be a lot of fun.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10

I have a hard time deciding how to rate this. On the one hand, I enjoy the fact that there are three routes with their own, distinct puzzles. On the other, second half of the game, at least in the Team path, is just chock full of mazes that didn't accomplish anything but bring the yawns out of me. I didn't find it fun and actually quite bad to have the same style of levels multiple times in a row like that.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10

This is a graphic adventure in the same style as the others that LucasArts developed before it. The only innovation I've noticed here is 1) the control schemes for the hot air balloon and the submarine, which was terrible and 2) the addition of multiple paths and endings, which was a really nice addition.

REPLAYABILITY | 5/5

There are three routes to take and multiple endings, so this game has quite a bit of replayability for its time. These routes also come with their own unique puzzles of varying degrees of difficulty, which is very commendable, even if I personally didn't enjoy the game enough to care about replaying it.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Works well at all times. The beginning of the game had a weird issue for me though. You are supposed to find a small statue. While checking out the controls, I clicked both the left and right mouse button at the same time, which led to the whole introduction to be skipped. Indy had found the statue on his own and the game jumped to the scene where he gives it to "Mr. Smith". Weird.

OVERALL | 65/100

While the review has been more negative than I would have thought before starting this, I have to praise the game for the amount of freedom it offers the player in choosing which paths to take, and the difference that makes. The general gameplay loop of brainteasing puzzles is also enjoyable on some level still, but personally I didn't enjoy the level design in the second half and the tone of the game quite as much as I did previous LucasArts graphic adventures.

(This is the 71st game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Third attempt at getting out of the Prologue was successful. The first two tries ended because I got distracted by other games, not because I didn't think the game wasn't good.

Quite the opposite, actually. A long-running RPG series with deep world building and an increasingly convoluted, yet gripping narrative sounds awesome, so it was only a matter of time before I really got into this series. It only took me ...
nearly 6 years after acquiring it in a January 2017 Humble Bundle to beat it.

And I'm glad I did.

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STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 8/10
The main characters in this game (and the whole 3-game arc) are Estelle and Joshua Bright. At the start of the game, Joshua is brought home by Estelle's father, Cassius Bright, under unknown circumstances, at least as far as Estelle's perspective goes.

The game fast forwards 5 years, where both kids reach 16 years of age and ready themselves for their final exams to join the Bracer Guild, a combat and investigative specialist group that aids civilians in whatever they may need help with. Sometimes that's retrieving a lost item and sometimes it's killing a strong monster that blocks the road to the next city.

Estelle and Joshua's father is one of the strongest and revered members of the Bracer Guild and at the start of the game, receives a concerning message via letter that leads him to leave their home town, Rolent. Estelle and Joshua are left under the guide of their mentor, Sherazard Harvey, and are tasked with completing requests by civilians that are regularly left on the Guild Blackboard. As new bracers, they only receive "Junior Bracer" status until they can collect "recommendations" by all 5 major cities in the kingdom of Liberl, for which they will have to finish tasks of extraordinary difficulty.

As Estelle and Joshua work on these tasks, they slowly start to uncover that something a bit bigger is going on on a national scale that they might not quite be ready for, but eager to prove themselves, they go on a quest to solve these mysteries anyway.

Thus, you embark on a 35-70 hour journey, depending on how much you can engage in side activities, to take on those mentioned large-scale challenges but to also achieve Senior Bracer status. Along the way, they meet dozens of side characters with different, interesting personalities and their own, regional problems that require assistance. Every stop in a major city also leads Estelle and Joshua one step closer to solving the mystery, which turns out to bigger than they thought.

The game, and essentially the entire series, is well-known for taking its time with storytelling. That doesn't mean that the story is riddled with "filler content". Instead, the aim of the developers is to immerse you into this deep world that they've created, 10 years after a major war had occurred in these lands and at a time where tensions between the Kingdom of Liberl and the Erebonian Empire are still pretty high.

So the game takes the approach of really introducing you to all these cities and countries, to all the characters you meet and to technological advancements in this world, like the Orbal technology, on a very deep level, pretty much unlike almost any video games series you've seen.

I can happily say that this is worth it if you stick around, at least as it pertains to the first iteration in this long-lasting series. I'm not gonna lie, there are times where I started to get impatient, and I think this would apply to many players. I'd say this has rather to do with the fact that the game teases you on 46 occasions throughout your time playing time and opens up more and more questions as you go along whilst answering very few, and it does not mean that the dialogue and little stories in this game are not excellent, because they are.

But this game in particular often focuses on small-scale problems and stories, and reduces the big guns to teasing most of the time, which I'm told changes in future games. Heck, I can tell you right now, the ending to this game is fantastic and absolutely worth the pay-off. But just keep in mind that if you can't find joy in the smaller aspects of story telling that this game is filled with, then you might have a hard time sticking with this.

One final note I want to make here is about the characters. Many of them were unique and quirky in their own way and whilst every stereotype is filled here, it helps that the game gives each of these characters plenty of time and lines to really turn into their own. They all do a great job interacting with the two main characters, both of whom are excellently written as well.

One character that is especially intriguing is Olivier. He has had one of the worst introductions I've had the displeasure of experiencing (making constant sexual remarks at two strangers, who, let me remind you, are just 16!) but has redeemed himself on each separate occasion that he appeared. There is a certain mystery and especially unpredictability to him that allows each of his appearances to go in any which direction, and I think that's a good thing to have for a game/series like this.

But if we wanted to talk about the game's sometimes weird sexual outbursts, I think it's also worth mentioning that Sherazard's special attack is called "Sadist Whip", and the game zooms into her chest before she stars whipping the enemy endlessly.

GAMEPLAY | 14/20
This is a turn-based JRPG with combat that takes place on a grid. One thing worth mentioning right off the bat is that the game does not require grinding, I'd say it almost actively discourages it even. This, I think, is extremely important if you create an RPG that is this long and asks you to stay very patient for a long time to get some big main story payoffs. There is also a Turbo Mode you can activate by holding ALT, which I think should be a feature in every turn-based RPG because it allows you to skip some of those Magic Attacks with long animations. You will shave hours and hours off your playtime by using this feature.

The combat overall is OK to solid. Each character icon is displayed on the top left to show you the attack order, and sometimes, certain rows have bonuses to them, for example a critical attack or health regeneration. There are certain things you can do to knock enemy's off their row if you want the Critical Bonus yourself, but this is one of the areas where the combat unfortunately is reliant on RNG a bit. Same goes with what attacks the enemy does, whether the harder enemies spawn a foe or heal themselves are all factors that play out differently if you battle them again and again.

But I'd say that overall, a good strategy is rewarded and you get enough battle-mates throughout the game that you pretty much have to mix things up in that regard as well, which I think is always a plus.

Some characters have Ranged attacks, some are better used for healing, some for tanking damage, so pretty much the usual assortment of fighters. What the game allows you to do however is to add and subtract certain abilities from all characters through a unique feature called "Orbments". These are placed into Orbment slots, devices that basically allow you to cast Magic (Arts). They also can improve basic stats of the character, and you open more and more slots as you go. There are Healing, Attack, Defense, Earth, Experience Gain and pretty much any other orbments that you can think of. You can add and remove them as you like and as I said, customize your battles this way. Pretty good stuff.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
The English version released 7 years after the game originally came out and only has voice acting during battles. There are mods out there however that allow you to add in the Japanese voice acting, which is very good.

The soundtrack of this game has a few highlights, like the final dungeon music, and overall fits the mostly light tones of the game very well. There are also your typical sad song, suspense song and confession song that you will hear constantly throughout your playthrough. I'd say it's a good but not great soundtrack.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The game looks solid graphically but really shines in attention to detail. The cities all look unique and interesting, have their own themes and definitely had me excited to go visit them as a Chapter was nearing its end.

Roads outside of cities and dungeons on the other hand almost all looked the same, and not that detailed, but that's not entirely out of the ordinary for mid-2000s JRPGs.

ATMOSPHERE | 9/10
Each city has its own musical and visual theme, each city has its own dozens of own characters with their own stories and problems, their own homes, their own jobs and ambitions and the game constantly connects places to people, people to places and people to other people that you really feel like you're in a world with a proper history.

CONTENT | 8/10
There is a lot of content here, up to 70-80 hours depending on how often you use Turbo Mode, how many optional dialogue options you pursue with random NPCs, how many of the optional tasks you complete and which difficulty you play. It took me about 42 hours after I did all side activities in the first 3 cities and talked to many NPCs over that time. For the final 2 chapters, I mostly mainlined the story. I figured out Turbo Mode about 1/3 of the way through and it definitely sped up my time through the combat which obviously got a bit repetitive against the easier enemies that would run into you on roads. I'd say the majority of the game was of high quality, and whether you enjoy the content will depend on how OK you are with a 50/50 story/gameplay split.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
The game is pretty formulaic in that you visit a place, work there until you gain the recommendation you're after and move on to the next. This is not to its detriment but takes away some of the surprise factor of "holy shit, where am I?", especially when many dungeons do look pretty similar.

That said, the game gets a big plus in my book for not requiring you to grind at all and it always offers you enough items and material to face the challenges each Chapter has in store, whichever difficulty you end up playing. The 50/50 story/gameplay split also meshes well here.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
The game does not try to innovate a whole lot. On a surface level, this is run-of-the-mill JRPG design, and that's more than fine for an introduction to the series. It will make it harder for some to get into the series however.

What the game does specialize in is world building and dialogue. It does a great job of having its dialogue actually feel "realistic", at least as far as a video game story goes. Especially Estelle is written in this ditzy, clumsy way that is more endearing than being a typical video-game "comical relief dumby" (looking at you here Dorothy). There are also orbments that allow you to customize your characters and a constant mix of which characters travel with you, which necessitates change in strategy, especially on higher difficulties.

REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
There aren't really many secrets to uncover here apart from somewhat hidden chests, but these do include some great items that allow you to mix up your battle strategies. The secrets are usually in form of "hidden dialogue" by going to an Inn for example, and finding one of your friends having a drink on their own. You can then engage them and have a pretty lengthy, optional conversation with them. This is the kind of stuff that lets me know that the devs really care about building deep characters and worlds.

But the story plays out the same every time and the game is pretty long without enough variety to present replay value if you've already been pretty thorough on your first playthrough.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5
It works well from start to finish.

OVERALL | 78/100
As I reached the final hours of this game, I thought this was a good introductory game that doesn't surprise you much in terms of its narrative than it does with its depth. And I was fine with that. So I thought I'd beat this and return to the series some time before Summer 2023, so about half a year after this review is posted. But those final hours were so intense and exciting way beyond what I was expecting, that I definitely want to get back to this series sooner than later.

20 or so hours of dialogue only and 1.5 million total characters (dialogue) does take its toll though, so I do think it's worth it to keep a few week/month break in between these games. But if you really want to feel engrossed in a world and are a fan of turn-based JRPGs, Trails in the Sky is absolutely worth the recommendation.

(This is the 26th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Quick word on the challenge I'm doing. This will be needless for those of you who are looking for a review of the game, but it's still something I'd like to mention quickly for those following along (those +-0 of you).

The Sega Genesis obviously launched in Aug 1989 in NA already, so it's not like Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is the first 16 bit game to come out since I started this, nor is it even the first Sega Genesis game I've played. So far I've played Batman and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the system.

But we're now in November 1990, and this game actually released on the same date as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, which would be November 21st, 1990. That console, as is well-known, is the best-selling 16-bit home console, so that's why we're starting to really get into 16-bit territory here, and I am incredibly excited to try out a bunch of classics for the first time from an era many still call the best for console games - if not games in general.

Is this game, developed and published by Sega for the Sega Genesis, the highlight of the era already? Some say it's right up there with Super Mario World as one of the best platformers of this time (SMW also released on November 21, 1990) but to spoiler my conclusion a little bit, I don't really think it's close. This game is fun but has plenty of flaws, so let's get into it.
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STORYTELLING
The story is explained at the beginning and in the manual. Minnie is kidnapped by the evil witch Mizrabel (great name btw), because she is jealous of Minnie's beauty. So Mickie makes his way to the Castle of Illusion to save Minnie. An old man there tells him that he needs seven gems of the rainbow to rescue her. Why? Who knows.

There will be an epilogue as well but no other form of storytelling in between from what I can tell, so nothing worth talking about here.

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is very simple and basic. You move from side to side in this 2D platformer and can either jump on enemies or shoot projectiles (often fruit) at them. If you jump on them, it catapults you up and enables you to reach otherwise unreachable platforms. That's definitely the most unique part about this game's gameplay.

Levels are heavy on platforming and the likelihood that you will fall to your death increases with each level you pass. One cave level where the next platform was so easily miss able if you jump a milli-second too early was especially frustrating.

The game starts you off with three health, 3 lives per continue and 2 continues. Your i-frames after taking a hit only last a second or so, so it's very easy to die within seconds. Since hit frames are sometimes too big, enemies sometimes just pop out of the ground with almost no forewarning and a jump on the enemy's head doesn't get recognized properly (you get damage for missing it), you often lose health unfairly. This is precisely where any comparison to a game like Super Mario World is just not reasonable. I'm playing Super Mario World as we speak and the difference in quality is so high that it actually surprised me quite a lot to see people actually comparing the two.

I've also encountered a bug where I somehow jumped over a tree during a boss fight and couldn't go back to the other direction, meaning that I was stuck.

Gems are acquired by beating bosses after the end of each level, which aren't too difficult, but I failed the second one twice because my jumps on his head just didn't register for some reason. I decided to abandon the game some time after the third boss because while I was doing platforming on tiny tiny platforms, I realized the game didn't immediately register that you let go of the forward button, which made me slip off the platform and fall to my demise.

Apart from these issues it's not a very difficult game, but there is also nothing really exciting about it. There is plenty of stuff you can argue for here apart from its gameplay, and I'll likely agree with you, but I must say that this was not that fun to play.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Sound design was mostly pretty good and I liked how a lot of actions actually got a sound to accompany them, like even jumping or throwing stuff, which doesn't happen in a lot of platformers I've played recently. The music was fine overall but I can't say I liked it that much. My favorite track definitely was the one used for the boss fights but the soundtrack just didn't get me into a playful/whimsical kinda mood like I would have expected.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Lots and lots of colorful, bright worlds are present in this game, with plenty of variety between them. To mention something a little more lowkey, I liked how the clouds outside kept moving even if you were standing still and how much detail was put into the horizon, even if it's not something a player will really focus on a lot.

But simply graphically, this is definitely one of the best one's you will find from this entire year.

ATMOSPHERE
I didn't always feel like the music used for a particular level necessarily fit the mood, but overall the colorful levels and their overall designs managed to do a solid enough job of putting me in the mood of playing a Mickey Mouse platform adventure. If someone is reading this: Sometimes I feel silly seriously critiquing a game like this, at the end of the day it's a game for children that isn't meant to be taken apart this way. Right? I don't know, I'm definitely going to be glad when a lot more mature games start coming up on the playlist.

CONTENT
There is some fine content here for platformer enthusiasts. This game should take about 3 hours for your average gamer and lead you through a variety of different worlds. But the game overall has pretty basic gameplay and plenty of frustration to come with it, even if there certainly is much worse out there in that regard.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Mostly the levels are designed pretty much as you would expect. The difficulty is definitely lower than for many comparable platformers. Most of the time you just go into a specific direction and are offered with very little choice in how to deal with the dangers. Move, kill or avoid, beware of gravity, find the exit at the end of the screen.

Some levels also include underwater sections, and these just frankly sucked. A piranha would usually wait for you in there and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to move past it without taking damage.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION
The worlds are definitely lookers here, and there even is one part where you have to trigger a button to flip the level over. Your character can then still walk upside down, while all others fall down. Nothing major but a nice changeup. Other than that, this is a pretty basic licensed platformer, though it does look pretty good graphically for its time.

REPLAYABILITY
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there also are some secrets to discover, which might warrant a second playthrough for you.

PLAYABILITY
The game works well at pretty much all times, but I did encounter one bug and I disliked how letting go of the forward button would only register like a second later.

OVERALL
The game looks great for a 1990 game, and certainly it was a big deal when it released. You'll be hard-pressed to find a review below 9/10 back in the day. But in today's day and age, we have a game that simply shows its flaws and can't wow in the same way with its strengths. And turns out, its flaws, at least to me, are worse than in many other games I've played from this year recently. And if we just compare to Super Mario World, we can also see that a big difference in quality exists on pretty much every level. Castle of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse is fine and should probably be played if you're looking to go through gaming history like I am, even if in a much more condensed way. Why? Because the ratings tell me you shouldn't look into my thoughts too deeply. But at the same time, I've played too many comparable games to really feel bad about standing where I do on this game.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- J. M. for VGCE, Issue 24 (Jan 91): "Castle of Illusion is, quite plainly, one of the most fabulous run-and-jump games ever created."
- Sushi-X, Issue 17 (Dec 90): "Music... a 10+!"

Bought the DLC after 100%ing Cuphead. The creativity on display for Cuphead and its DLC is just off the charts. I'm so glad that this visual style exists in video game form. Oh, and the game behind it is also extremely challenging and fun.

StudioMDHR could have given us DLC that only included the 6 or 7 bosses that are in this 8€ package and could have called it a day. It would have been a lot of fun either way. But no, apart from the - once again - such unique bosses in terms of presentations and attack patterns, this DLC also gives you access to a whole new playable character (Ms Chalice) and her own skill set. New super arts, a different parry style, ability to dodge and jump twice and the ability to do a lower dodge to gain a second of invincibility.

On top of that, there is a secret boss fight AND a really worthwile arena with 5 additional "boss fights" where attacks are disabled and you can only win by parrying. Then there is the final gauntlet level for this mode where you have to defeat all of them back to back, as well as an optional relic that you can get in a cursed form (if equipped, you start fights at 1 HP and your attack is randomized every time you start shooting) and turn into a divine form by beating a certain number of bosses with it equipped, and ultimately, this DLC will provide you up to 10 hours of challenging and really fun content.

I've played for more or less 20 hours of this now after seeing it recommended everywhere for like a million times in the past two years. It's a very relaxing game like advertised. Or incredibly stressful, depending on what kind of thoughts enter your mind when you can play a game without having to think about what you're doing all that much.

The premise is very relaxing though. Clean up dirty environments. Very fun to see the end result when you're done, and there is lots of content for it to not get repetitive. Mod support would have been nice, but looks like that's not coming for this game.

Super Star Wars is a run and gun developed by Sculptured Software and Lucas Arts for the SNES and released n November 1, 1992. It is based on the first ever Star Wars movie 'Star Wars' or 'Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope' as it's called now. There are over a dozen stages that take you through many familiar locations from the movie and (partly altered) scenes from the movie are used for cutscenes and overall storytelling.

I had not watched the first Star Wars movie before playing this, ever, so it was nice to get some motivation to finally do so. My conclusion: It's very good. The movie, not the game. The game itself is OK, not bad but not as good as I had hoped it would be.

Let's get this out of the way first. This is definitely on the upper half of licensed games in terms of quality. Whether it is in 2D platforming sequences, the vehicle stages (which tbh weren't that fun) or the trench run finale, all sections of this game are of high production quality relative to the majority of video games of its time. Animation work is also pretty solid, my favorite part being Luke Skywalker's hair flying in the wind as you run forward. Sprite work is good here too, though almost all enemies you face in this game are not from the actual movie.

In general, the game takes liberties in how it uses the movie framework. C3PO runs to Luke and tells him that R2D2 has been kidnapped, so you step into your landspeeder and destroy dozens of enemies on your to finding him. When did that happen in the movie? Or the bar fight scene, which is pretty much just Obi Wan and Han Solo shooting one guy each, but has you run through the bar with either Chewbacca or Luke and shooting another few dozen enemies. Or the 10+ boss fights, out of which I believe only the final one is actually somewhat part of the movie. As you do your trench run, Darth Vader's TIE Advanced appears in front of you, though is disposed of within seconds. This is all not a big deal, but worth noting.

One pretty poor design choice in my opinion that was made here is that enemies infinitely respawn for some reason. This was odd from the get-go, as you start the first level on a desert setting and run through sand dunes to get to the finish line and are constantly bombarded with enemies from all sides. Kill an enemy that is about 5 feet in front of you, and by the time you get to his position, he will have been replaced by a clone already. You're also constantly subjected to attacks and projectiles from all angles, and here is the second weird part about the game's design. Almost all enemies you kill drop a heart, which regenerates a little bit of your health. You might think that's excessive. On Easy mode, it kind of is. But you're also constantly hit and lose health, so it's kind of necessary to get this many healing items. How about you don't have enemies constantly respawn and rebalance things that way?

It doesn't help that projectiles are almost impossible to dodge because your character takes way too long to jump once you press the button, so you almost always get hit in your legs unless you know an attack is about to be made.

Again, to counteract this, you constantly get health refills and have a lot of health in general. You also get "Health Laser" power-ups, which extend your health bar, but only for the stage that you are on. Other power ups include a Darth Vader mask which gives you "2x points", a thermal detonator, a timer that adds to your overall time, a boost to your blaster and extra lives.

Most boss fights are pretty similar in how you approach them. You simply button mash and try avoid as many hits as possible with the limitations the controls set on you, and what happens in the end is that you simply try to deal more damage than you take to outpace the boss. Most boss fights are trivial, if you simply could actually dodge whenever you would press the jump button. Instead, you watch as slow projectiles hit your even slower character.

Overall, this was enjoyable enough thanks to its visual and auditory presentation. The characters you know, the orchestral sounds you're familiar with and the locations you revisit make for an experience that Star Wars fans at the time will have undoubtedly enjoyed, and it plays differently to most games, which I appreciate, but I can't say it was a good is at it could have been.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10

- Story is of the first Star Wars movie with liberties taken here and there
- Story told after each stage and using images from the movie
- Overall, story takes a backseat to the gameplay though

GAMEPLAY | 11/20

- Controls have their highs and lows
- Varied levels, though landspeeder parts not that fun
- Platforming and Run and gunning enjoyable enough
- Many boss fights

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10

- Voice acting limited to Obi Wan saying "Use the force, Luke"
- Sound design is really good, utilizing all the sounds you'll recognize from the movie
- Soundtrack faithful to the movie, so if you like that, you will like their SNES versions too

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10

- Locations you visit are from the movie, look great
- Animation and sprite work is on a good level
- Nice special effects
- If you like the Star Wart art design, you'll enjoy this from a visual standpoint

ATMOSPHERE | 8/10

- Sounds, looks and plays like a Star Wars movie, putting you in the role of your favorite characters, letting you drive a landspeeder, wield a light saber and fly an X-Wing
- All faithfully created

CONTENT | 6/10

- Over a dozen stages with bosses at the end of each
- Landspeeder levels not that fun, boss fights feel similar after a while
- Three difficulty modes, but plenty of unfair deaths on Easy due to slow jumps/dodges, don't want to know how Hard feels like

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10

- Varied levels
- Poor choice to have enemies keep respawning
- Sometimes you can't see where you are jumping and fall to your death

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10

- Overall a successful recreation of the first movie
- Pretty fun to wield a lightsaber

REPLAYABILITY | 3/5

- You can play some levels with different characters, but for the most part, they play the same
- You can play on three difficulty levels and try to beat your high score

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

- Worked well at all times

OVERALL | 67/100

(This is the 76th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

(This is the 24th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

I've never been a skater, which I think is pretty important as a disclaimer before I review Skate or Die 2: The Search for Double Trouble, which released in September 1990 in the US only (according to Google results) and was developed/published by Electronic Arts for the NES.

This is a sequel, obviously, and I did not play the first game before playing this, which would introduce you to some of the characters here. It tells its own story though, so playing the first is by no means necessary.

In this game, you ride a skateboard from side to side and can also shoot with a paintball gun. That will be necessary as there are plenty of enemies who shoot you back or simply run into you.

While I dive into a bit more detail below, let me tell you that I would have probably been less forgiving of the game's rougher parts, of which there are plenty. As it stands, some potentially more low key presentation of skater-life has definitely flown over my head and I will simply judge how I experienced it. If you're all about the skater lifestyle, I'd keep this in mind when reading the review.

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STORYTELLING
The part that positively surprised me the most, the storytelling in this game - or at least the attempt - is definitely above average compared to all other games of this year I've played so far. The game starts by introducing you to the cast with pictures and lines of text. There is you (the hero), CJ (your girlfriend), Rodney (who sells skateboards) and Lester (who teaches you tricks), among others. There is also an antagonist, Icepick, who even has a catchphrase (he calls you a Poseur a lot).

But even more admirable is that there are several cutscenes in the game, one playing at the start and end of the game and one after each level is complete. They actually tell a full story with ups and downs, there is a little bit of character development present and there is the antagonist, Icepick, who gets in your way a few times and practically asks for a beating. Some of the scenes I did find to be humorous and I learned a new insult in "Poseur". Granted, the game never got me to laugh out loud and it never even was "exhale out of my nose" like funny, but it helped set the tone. And having a story unfold definitely provided some extra motivation. I have to say though that I wouldn't have beat this game if it weren't for the short length of the game overall and the fact that I used a guide. The story itself definitely wasn't nearly enough motivation for that, but it helped a little bit.

GAMEPLAY
There are 4 levels in this game. In the first, you skate on a street and can finish it by finding and killing an old woman. Yes, really. During this level, you can collect food items like tacos, but also CDs, which you use as currency. The currency is useful for whenever you find Rodney and Lester during the levels, as they give you new skateboards or teach you new skills. During this level, you go into a bunch of areas, where you either find enemies or items, until you find the old woman somewhere and kill her to finish the level. Enemies run into you (like dogs) or shoot at you. You can dodge them by placing yourself above or below the projectile (still am not used to that) and you can defeat dogs and such by jumping on top of them.

In the next level, you are in a shopping mall and have to go to a bunch of stores and deliver something, as you get a job as a delivery person to collect some money as part of the story. This is literally the same thing over and over again until you lose your mind or the level ends, whichever comes first. During your run, you are attacked of course and this is where I started using a guide because I was losing my mind.

This is also where I should mention that the game controls like ass. The worst part about it is that once you stand still. Turning around and starting up your skateboard again literally takes 5 seconds every time. This makes the game an incredible slog. It doesn't help that it's really hard to figure out where exactly you are supposed to stand to dodge stuff, because it's projected so poorly (check graphics/art design for my thoughts).

The third level then has you collect 16 (?) blueprint parts on a beach, which, again, is very repetitive. Oh and by the way, both this level and the last have timers, which makes it worse.

The final level is probably the worst level I have played out of all games in 1990. You have to find the building permit somewhere and fight the final boss, but you have to go through a maze of about 7 billion screens that you can easily get lost in. Plus there are enemies everywhere. Again, I used a guide to get through it and just have another "YES" under "Beaten?" on my spreadsheet, but I otherwise recommend to not even force yourself through this. It's so bad and not fun at all.

Finally, let me mention that you use a paintball gun to shoot, but can also throw firecrackers and eggs at enemies.

Overall, gameplay sucks and the awful controls are only the second worst part behind the mission objectives.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
There actually are some digitized lines in this game, which, hey, fair enough. I've only played three other games with voice acting so far and one of them was Loom, and the version of the game with voice acting wasn't even available in 1990 (the others: Michael Jackson's Moonwalker where the single line that was said was "Michael", and Elivra: Mistress of the Dark, where Elvira just said some gibberish that didn't align with the dialogue). So props to EA for including a few lines like "Major Bummer, dude" in this game.

Sound design was meh but turned into horrifying after the final level with all those elevators. Music was alright but can't say I liked the soundtrack that much.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
While it doesn't look to bad graphically, I do have a few complaints. Namely it's the issues I've had with the perception of depth in this game. It's a 2D game, sure, but platforms that are supposed to be higher don't really feel that way, it just seems like you're moving wider rather than higher up. Also, to avoid crashing into others, you can't stand right in front of them, you have to move aside. Unfortunately, it is incredibly hard to tell when you actually are in collision course with someone. And sometimes others will walk/skate below your position and your entire sprite will still show up on top of them as if you were the one in a lower position.

Finally, as mentioned plenty of times, it's just important to understand that over half of the story will take place in that god awful warehouse, so it matters much less to me if the beach level actually looks pretty good, since that part is over relatively quickly.

ATMOSPHERE
For the most part the game sets fitting atmosphere but it's hard for me to praise it anymore than that when over half the game takes place in a warehouse with the same rooms over and over and over again, just with a different color filter plastered on top.

CONTENT
Again, over half the story mode takes place in the same place and is incredibly boring. Overall, the story takes about 2-3 hours (longer if you don't use any guide, but not in a good way). There also is a freestyle mode where you can do some tricks, which is a welcome addition but not that much fun.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
The first level is actually well designed all things considered. You have no time limit, you can get acquainted with the controls, collect some stuff, go into garages and manholes to do things, find a couple guys who give you items/upgrades and then finish the level whenever you are ready to. Then you get a bunch of levels that have time limits and are incredibly repetitive, before you find yourself in the worst level of all, the warehouse level, which is simply there to push the playing time of this game.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Skate around a level and do a bunch of optional stuff and stumble upon a few guys who are willing to trade you skateboards and tricks. You almost think that you're playing a sandbox game in those levels, though on a much, much smaller scale than you're accustomed to when hearing "sandbox". Still, that's probably what I enjoyed the most about the game. Other than that, the game certainly is unique in that it's a skateboarding game, but mostly in a negative way.

REPLAYABILITY
I didn't get all moves and skateboards, which is something you can try to achieve in a subsequent playthrough. Other than that, there is no reason to replay this, and after that final level, it's unlikely that you will want to.

PLAYABILITY
The game works well at all times.

OVERALL
In general, this is not a good game. If you play this today, you will probably not even care enough to finish it as a non-skater. If you are part of the skater-life, you'll probably at least appreciate the game, but it will still take a lot of determination to finish this without using a guide. It just has too many holes in gameplay and level design.

WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Slo Mo for GamePro, Issue 13 (Aug 90): "You don't have to be a die-hard side-walk surfer to get into S or D 2" | I respectfully disagree
- Howard H. Wen for VGCE, Issue 20 (Sep 90): "Skate or Die 2 doesn't take itself too seriously but rather does what's fun. And after all, that's what video gaming is all about, right?"

Played this about 3 or 4 months ago, thought I'd drop this review from somewhere else here now :)

I gave Yakuza Kiwami a 10/10 when I beat it in late 2018 or early 2019. Probably would change that to a 9/10 now, but the gist of it is, I loved the game. I love games that have a good story and are more on the grounded side (though I don't at all mind the occasional supernatural JRPG story, I mean Persona games are among my favorite ever). I also like it when games are funny. But I like it the most when these two parts are strung together by fun gameplay mechanics.

There aren't many games that work really well in all three aspects (GTA games would probably be the closest, but the story in those isn't as noteworthy as the very memorable characters are). So for someone always interested in games that combine those three aspects, it probably doesn't get much better than Yakuza games, so I always facepalm when I think about how long it takes for me to play through this series.

For those of you who still do not know what Yakuza games are about, it's about Kazuma Kiryu and his life in the Japanese mafia (the Yakuza). The game usually has serious and badass story bits including politics, betrayal, drama and scenes that will simply make a grown man cry. Meanwhile, there are also tons of side characters and especially side stories that can be found in the world that usually include some ridiculous requests and hilariously weird things happening in them. Somehow, these games manage to mix the serious in with the ridiculous very well, especially since the player himself can mostly decide how much of the ridiculous he wants to experience. These side stories and silly mini games can almost entirely be ignored if one wants to, to me they are what make these games that much more special.

Yakuza 0 itself is a prequel to Yakuza Kiwami, so we experience Kazuma Kiryu's first footsteps as a Yakuza. In addition, Kiryu's rival Goro Majima, who plays a role in the other games as well, is featured as a playable protagonist in Yakuza 0 too, so you play through both Kiryu's and Majima's story.

I really don't want to say much else about the story. Just know this. Shit gets real. I don't think you can create a prequel much better than this one, excluding you, Vince Gilligan. Despite many events being pre-determined through the story of Yakuza 1, the story had me on the edge of my seat, especially for the entire second half of it. I was hyped, sad, excited, happy, shocked throughout this game in a way that only my favorite games have ever made me feel. I'm talking The Witcher 3, RDR2, The Last of Us, Persona 3/4 and God of War. As far as I'm concerned, that's the GOAT list right there and Yakuza 0 fits right in.

If you've never played any games in this series, I have a hard time choosing which starting point to recommend. Yakuza 1 (Yakuza Kiwami) introduces you to the characters and will create intrigue as to what happened to them before. However, starting with Yakuza 0 and finding out about the battles all of them faced before will surely make the events of Yakuza 1 feel more impactful. But just like with Better Call Saul, maybe the impact of the prequel itself will just be slightly lower if you didn't know about the characters through the original game/series before.

While I can't figure this one out, I do know that I CAN recommend the entire series either way. I have yet to play Yakuza 2 myself, but I can't imagine being disappointed by that game either. The series follows a winning formula and everything I've witnessed in Yakuza 0 makes me trust in the writers ability to create thrilling scripts and stories.

PS: Yakuza 1 is relatively "short" at 20-30 hours depending on how much side content you choose to do, while Yakuza 0's main story itself is already going to take you 30+ hours, never mind the side content that you shouldn't miss. So if I were you, I'd probably start with Yakuza 1.

To conclude this, Yakuza 0 is a masterpiece worthy of 10/10, 5 stars and 90+/100.

(This is the 44th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

The SNES just keeps delivering. Here, we have a game I heard way less about than the other SNES titles I have played already. This game is called The Legend of the Mystical Ninja and is part of the Ganbare Goemon series. The game released in Japan on July 19, 1991 and is the first game of the series to release in the West (in 1992). It doesn't move the needle necessarily in its gameplay, however in its presentation and in its content, where many other games would have to be described as lackadaisical copy-cats, The Legend of the Mystical Ninja proves to be an exciting game that tries and succeeds in offering a lot of fun activities outside of its core gameplay loop.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 4/10

You are Kid Ying (or Goemon originally), and if you play this in two-player coop, the other player would be Dr. Yang (or Ebisumaru originally). You are two ninjas who go on a heroic adventure, which has the ultimate goal of finding and freeing Princess Yuki. On your journey, you will meet many characters, both named and simple NPCs, who will each at least have one line of dialogue, typical of most action adventures of this time. Some more important characters have a bit more to say, and in addition, the end of each level comes with a quick recap of what just happened and where Kid Ying and Dr. Yang are going to next. It's simple. It gets the job done.

GAMEPLAY | 15/20

I played this on my own, so I'm going to describe this through the perspective of Kid Ying. He has multiple weapons he can upgrade towards, starting with a pipe-type of weapon, which can ultimately transform into a yo-yo with much larger reach. An upgrade is made with each time you collect a cat item. Your main combat ability is to press Attack and swing the melee weapon. Most enemies die to one hit and that's what you do for the entire game combat-wise. There are also multiple types of Judo attacks you can learn in Dojo's. These are special abilities that usually don't last long and can only be used in the zone/level you acquire them, like riding a Tiger, flying yourself or shooting lightning that kills everyone on screen. It's a simple but neat mechanic.

All zones are interspersed with tons, and I mean TONS, of mini games to partake in. There is dice rolling, a memory game, a paint game, whack-a-mole, a lottery game, damn arcade games like Gradius, a quiz show and a lot more. These require you to pay a pretty big amount of money to play, and the goal usually is to do well enough to try and come out of it with more money than you put in. I can't say I wasn't vary of how this would introduce kids to gambling at a very young age. Some levels require you to buy items for up to $1000, whilst each enemy you kill would only give you $10. So to pass the grind, the fastest way to make money would be to try to double your money with dice rolling for example. Luckily for me, a loss isn't a big deal, because thanks to the power of emulation, I can rewind and try again, but for all the kids playing back in the day, this actually adds more stakes to the gambling by locking progress behind money, so I can't say I was a fan of all of these mini games. Notwithstanding that, most levels have no money requirements and you can kill a few enemies and play a bunch of different mini games to break up the monotony, which overall is a major plus here.

Finally, the absolute highlight here for me is the variety you find in the boss fights. Just do yourself the favor and go take a look at them. The amount of creativity put on display here with the technological availabilities at the time is just insane. The graphical presentation of the bosses just puts the icing on the cake. The only bad part here is that some bosses are very difficult, and unfairly so in my opinion, which is definitely a shame, but it doesn't take away from the fact that these boss fights have been among the most pleasant I've experienced since starting this challenge.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10

There is no voice acting. The soundtrack here is truly wonderful, it has a great theme befitting a "ninja hero" adventure with lots of great tracks.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10

This is one of the first SNES games ever and the game certainly takes advantage of the 16-bit capabilities of the console by creating this colorful world that at times does lack in diversity, but makes up for it through attention to detail in many areas like the circus one. You'll find lots of environmental pieces to appreciate here, like in the bark of the trees or the water, which looks excellent for a game of this time. And as mentioned previously, the graphical presentation for the boss fights is top notch, and the same goes for the enemy design in general.

ATMOSPHERE | 7/10

The music, the art style and graphical presentation overall certainly makes for a great overall game from an atmospheric standpoint, however it does feel odd to have all these mini games present for the main character in an environment where he fights dozens of hostiles.

CONTENT | 8/10

Lots and lots of side content here to get distracted by. Minus points for not offering the same diversity in the main gameplay and for making certain levels too grinding or gambling focused.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10

You find yourself in many different zones, each with a few map slides that you can walk through and fight enemies or play mini games in. In most, you are free to choose whether you want to grind for money, play those games or move on to the platforming type area with the boss at the end. You reach these areas by finding a bear guarding the entrance to them. Before you enter, he warns you that you are about to approach a "dangerous area".

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10

I haven't seen any other game that offers this many mini games next to its main content, and that's certainly a unique concept. Apart from this, the game plays like a basic adventure/platformer, which is not a bad thing.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any other motivation given to play this game again. You could certainly go back and play some of the mini games you missed the first time through or use more of the Judo attacks.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

The game worked well at all times.

OVERALL | 71/100

Definitely one of the few games in this challenge so far where I would recommend to go back and play it, though I wouldn't say it's a recommendation to all gamers like with Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and Super Mario World, but rather a recommendation to those who enjoy retro games, as I'm sure plenty of retro gamers actually missed out on playing this game, which to me is pretty underrated due to what it has on offer here.

It's always a good feeling, when you come back to a game that you've figuratively shelved years and years ago, only to realize that it is actually a very fun game. That's how I most recently felt with Guacamelee!, a Metroidvania melee-platformer game by Drinkbox Studioes (devs of Nobody Saves the World). I beat it in 6 hours on Normal difficulty with some exploration, though there are parts that will add significant play time to your total and actually affect the ending.

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STORY(TELLING)/CHARACTERS | 5/10
The story of this game is not the highlight here, but I'd be lying if I said that it didn't enhance the overall experience somewhat. There is a great Mexican theme here that keeps the game in a fun, charming sort of mood pretty much throughout, even if some of the story points can actually get a bit dark.

You play Juan Aguacate, a farmer-turned-luchador at the start of the game when an evil skeleton called Carlos Calaca destroys your village, Pueblucho, and kidnaps your childhood love interest, who turns out to be "the president's daughter".

This all happens on the "Dia de los muertos" (Day of the Dead). To turn into a luchador, you are killed and get a luchador mask from someone else, after which you are brought back to life. Carlos Calaca has a few main partners who stand in your way as you try to find and fight him. Since he did kill you effortlessly during your first encounter, this is all OK, because you're going to want to increase your abilities before facing him once more.

His main partners or followers rather, all have their own back story and their motivations for following him. It's not much, but it's always nice to learn a bit more about the bosses you will be facing. The back story of Carlos Calaca is more interesting, though told very quickly. In general, story parts are few and far between. Most of the dialogue is limited to talking to a chicken, who teaches you combos, talking to half old-man half goat, who teaches you new abilities, and talking to side quest givers.

The theme of it all definitely gives positive vibes here overall, but again, it's not a big part of this game. A lot of stuff remains unexplained or brushed off to "the world is magical, that's why it works".

GAMEPLAY | 15/20
This is one of the few Metroidvanias I've beaten. I've played many more however, and this is definitely the game I'd recommend to newcomers to the genre the most. Metroidvania-type features are in many types of games, like the idea of finding things that are interactable, but not having the necessary abilities to interact with them until later. This blocking of exploration until later is not a key component of those games though like it is in Metroidvanias.

Even amongst Metroidvanias, this is of course handled differently, but for beginners, Guacamelee handles it best. Instead of making you make both a mental and physical note whenever you find something that you're going to want to remember for later, Guacamelee offers waypoints at all times, so that you don't really ever have to worry about where to go next. Backtracking is included here still, but at least it's not a long session of going through every corner to see if you find the right path forward or something new to interact with.

The combat in this game is melee-focused and apart from the boss fights, which are unfortunately very few, fighting in this game doesn't ask much of you. On Normal difficulty, you can take plenty of hits and have enough time and ability to dodge most attacks pretty easily. Even if you die, you instantly spawn at the last checkpoint with no loading time, and those checkpoints are usually right next to the place you died.

One thing this game does really well is combine combat and traversal elements. You learn how to do uppercuts, headbutts, frog slams and more, which you can both use to fight and create new combos, but also to break colored blocks blocking your path forward. A very resourceful way of doing things, and pretty fun.

So yes, the other big part of this game next to the combat is traversal. You'll be platforming a lot and challenges will be gravity, thorned vines and, later on, much more complicated things that I don't want to spoil. What's important to know is that if you die to gravity, you instantly respawn where you were the last time before you fell, so frustration is kept to a minimum here. It does get frustrating sometimes anyway, but it's not that bad at all. The main issue I had was that, as you learned more and more abilities and had to use almost all of them to go past specific sections, my brain pretty much refused to think that fast, so it took me more tries sometimes than I care to admit.

But the mix of platforming and combat is pretty good and while it does get slightly repetitive at times due to a lack of other gameplay systems (and variety in attack patterns is mostly kept for the boss fights, which are good), it's a game that, purely for its gameplay, I can very much recommend.

Finally, there is a good bit of exploration to be done. I'm on a 2nd playthrough on Hard difficulty and the amount of secret areas I'm discovering now is crazy. Obviously I will have to relearn the abilities to enter them later, but at least know I know what I'm looking for. And you're going to want to explore these places for multiple reasons. You'll get more money for upgrades (of which there really aren't that many though), you'll find upgrade parts for more health and special attacks, and most importantly, you will full secret worlds that you're going to want to complete before you take on the final boss. I didn't and it's not necessary, but I'd recommend it.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 7/10
No voice acting. I understand that for budgetary reasons, but some of the characters definitely deserved one. Sound design is good. In general, your auditory experience will be very much inspired by the Mexican theme. The soundtrack gives off that vibe right off the bat, with a great (great!) track for the first area you find yourself in, Pueblucho. I played this for the first time years ago and that track immediately sounded familiar when I got back.

In general, the OST is good, but there could have been a bit more variety/quantity overall.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The graphical quality of this game is not the impressive part. It's the attention to detail and the art design. Its great use of color complements the vibe this game constantly gives out and the intricate details in pretty much all the locations available in this game are definitely the highlights.

ATMOSPHERE | 8/10
The game has the Mexican culture thing going on and it sticks with it throughout. The soundtrack, the visuals, the colors and everything else combines to make for one cohesive and enjoyable experience from an "atmosphere" standpoint.

CONTENT | 8/10
The game took me 6 hours to beat. For 12.50€ at full price, this is OK, and on a discount, it's definitely more than enough to have a couple fun afternoons playing this game. However, there are two good things and one bad thing I want to talk about here. First, the good. The game has no game over screens, it doesn't send you back for minutes after a 5-second struggle with a boss that goes sour only to pad its playtime and there is no incessant backtracking involved unless you're a completionist. So a 6 hour playthrough here is much more focused one and with less of the filler and annoying parts of other, similar games. Second, there are multiple secret worlds that I didn't discover myself, so one can easily spend 10+ hours on this game if you were to finish those up. You will get rewarded with a different ending later on.

The bad thing here is that, whether you play for 6 or 10 hours, there is plenty of repetitive stuff going on the further you go into it due to the limited variety in enemies. Especially those secret worlds will not introduce you to too many new ones, and as far as challenge goes, the game pretty much keeps throwing more and more enemies at you the farther you go, instead of making their attack patterns more varied.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10
The game has two types of content mainly, which would be melee combat and platforming. This mix stays how it is throughout, and it's a good and fun mix. Later sections and the secret worlds have more of a focus on arenas with increasing amounts of the same enemies you've faced all game. This is the substitute for a more varied challenge, so not always so great, but since the combat in itself is pretty enjoyable, if also repetitive, it's not that big of a deal.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
As I mentioned, I think this is THE game for Metroidvania newcomers. You never are really lost, even if traversal sometimes can get a bit difficult due to the platforming challenges. There is a charming theme throughout. You are introduced to a bunch of typical Metroidvania-mechanics that aren't too advanced to ever get complicated.

And to top it off, the game does a great job to combine combat and traversal mechanics, which, among with its theme, I think is the most positively unique part to this game.

But other than that, yeah, the game doesn't move the needle a whole lot of course, but it doesn't need to.

REPLAYABILITY | 4/5
You're unlikely to finish everything that is worth finishing by the end of your first playthrough. Plus, you will probably underutilize some abilities, miss out on some costumes you can unlock, and once you're on your second playthrough, you will keep finding these small little areas that you can only enter when you unlock those late-game abilities. So to put it short, a second playthrough will definitely be worth it, unless you use a guide to find everything on your first run.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5
It works well from start to finish.

OVERALL | 73/100
I'm going to give it 8/10 because my rating system has a 73/100 actually as much more positive than Metacritic/Opencritic would see it. This is a very fun Metroidvania and a short, focused game that you can bang out in two afternoons and still have some fond memories of later down the line.

If you're new to the genre and want to check out an easy to get into Metroidvania, I think you found it with Guacamelee!.

It's not that common for me to have played and finished three games in a series, so it felt extra special to hit that milestone with the Yakuza series. Yakuza Kiwami 2, a remake to Yakuza 2 released in 2017, is exactly what you would expect if you have played the first game or the prequel, so my recommendation to you starts and ends there. Did you enjoy the previous ones? Buy it. Did you not enjoy them? Don't buy it. As a fan of these two other games, I've had my expectations met, though Yakuza Kiwami 2 does not top Yakuza 0 for me due to some issues I had with its story and its combat.

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STORY(TELLING)/CHARACTERS | 8/10
Yakuza Kiwami 2's story builds on the ending of Yakuza Kiwami directly. I'm not gonna go into it too deeply in case you haven't played Yakuza Kiwami, so let's instead go over whether I liked it more than the first game's. And the answer is: Yes.

I wouldn't say I liked it a lot more though. The main story has its usual strengths. Kazuma Kiryu as the main character is great. Ryuji Goda as the main antagonist is also great. In between, the game brings some familiar faces back but the majority of the cast is actually made of people that weren't in Yakuza Kiwami, so it took a while to get to familiarize myself with them. There are police officers, detectives, the Omi Alliance main players and more, including Kiryu's main 'partner' throughout this, Kaoru Sayama, a police officer who puts Kiryu in "protective custody" to learn more about her past, as she had learned that her parents were killed "because of the Tojo Clan". I thought her story was really interesting and fleshed out, with some pretty depressing moments throughout. She and Ryuji Goda definitely were the best parts about this game's story.

Ryuji Goda is an Omi Alliance patriarch who is not at all a fan of the rival Tojo Clan. So he obviously instantly objects when Kazuma Kiryu comes to their headquarters to ask for an alliance. Again, no spoilers, but things happen from there and Ryuji Goda and Kazuma Kiryu don't get along that well.

Ryuji's motivations are well explained and the game dives deeper into his emotions than you would expect for a game to do of its villain, and that's exactly what I loved here. Unfortunately, Ryuji Goda didn't appear as often as I would have liked.

Same, unfortunately, goes for a bunch of side characters, especially from the Omi Alliance side and a foreign group that Ryuji works with to fight the Tojo Clan. A major story point that I won't go into further.

During the first few chapters of this game, you assume that you will learn more about these guys as the game goes along, but it's unfortunate that this doesn't really happen at the end. I'm not sure what the reason for that is, whether the game just introduced too many characters in one game and couldn't find the time for them all or the story couldn't be extended for budgetary reasons. The game's story is "only" 18 hours or so long on its own, so it's not nearly as long as the story of 0. But whatever the reason is, the game's ending didn't feel quite as impactful as a result.

The game's ending in general is just bat shit crazy on another level and while I obviously very much enjoy the Yakuza silliness, otherwise I wouldn't be playing them, I think they may have gone a step too far without giving good enough of an explanation.

Apart from the main story, there is also obviously a bunch of side missions (sub stories), of which there are 76. These are funny and silly and very enjoyable as per usual and remain the unique factor about these Yakuza games. A major contrast to the main story, and some of them also are among my favorites for the series. The baby one especially is worth a look on YouTube.

Finally, the game also has a few chapters included in "Majima's story". Three chapters in fact, and they take us through what happened shortly before the start of the main story and why Majima, in the main story, works in his own Construction Firm all of a sudden. Plus, there is a very nice surprise for fans of Yakuza 0.

But overall, I just want to add that the game had plenty of highlight scenes that are extremely memorable, none more so than the bridge scene in Sotenbori when he is smoking in the rain and ... well, play it to find out.

GAMEPLAY | 16/20
Gameplay is pretty much the same as in the first two games. This game is a Brawler, so you do a lot of brawling. The two main differences here compared to Yakuza Kiwami would be that, instead of having four styles, you now have one. And instead of upgrading combat skills with experience points and open world gameplay stuff with Completion Points, you now collect points for four different colors. You use those colors to unlock everything. You gain them by consuming items as well, and a Hunger Meter fills up when you eat or drink, which increases your point gain after fights. I wouldn't say I preferred this over what we had in Kiwami or 0, but it's different and not bad or anything, so I did like it.

But yeah, other than that, you're still punching and kicking, grabbing and throwing and using Heat moves to brutally annihilate your foes.

HOWEVER: The game uses a different engine compared to the other two games, and this is notable for two reasons. First, it makes combat kind of more floaty. It doesn't really feel as brutal as the other two games in how the kicks and punches hit. Second, the new engine comes with a whole lot of ragdollin'. Throw an enemy into a bike, and he will suddenly fly a few meters up into the air like if shot out of a cannon. Or have an enemy take you down with a pistol shot or something and often you will do the same.

I don't know, this just felt kind of out of place for a game like this and I can't say I really liked it. It always remained a slight distraction but I did get used to it at the end.

Apart from combat, you still explore Kamurocho (and Sotenbori), you still play a bunch of mini games and you do a bunch of sub stories.

For mini games, the most notable thing here is the return of the Cabaret Club mini game from Yakuza 0, where you run your own cabaret club. It's incredibly addicting and comes with so many features, that it could almost be its own game. You compete in four different leagues and have to do 3 minute "runs" where you try to collect as much money as possible. Collect a certain amount, and you will be able to challenge the League Champion to a Title Match.

You have to partner with shops and keep playing more and more to grow your fan base (and income), plus your hostesses gain experience as well while you're doing so, further increasing revenue. You scout for new hostesses with different skills, you can actually dress up your best hostesses to change around their stats, and after a while, you actually unlock 10-15 minute long dates with them where you learn more about them and, if you reply well, increase their level a bunch. To beat this mini game, you'll easily put a dozen+ hours into it if you want to.

Definitely surpasses Gwent as my favorite mini game ever.

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10
Voice acting, as per usual in this series, is class. I still would like to actually have everything main story related be voice acted, but the most important scenes are, so it's fine. Whenever drama increases, the best of the voice actors comes to show, and the impact they're leaving is definitely felt a lot, especially for Ryuji Goda's character, who has a fantastic voice actor.

I enjoyed the soundtrack here as well, it was used nicely throughout and especially the Outlaw's Lullaby Battle Theme in Sotenbori is top class. Really liked the song choice for the bridge scene in Sotenbori I mentioned above.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10
The world needs more modern, realistic, grounded games. Not because the other games aren't great, they are, but I feel it's a style of game that has become almost forgotten over the past decade apart from the Yakuza series and a few select games that fit this style here and there, like Mafia 3 and the Definitive Edition and RDR2. Anyway, while Yakuza's combat may not fit my description, the design of Kamurocho and Sotenbori certainly does. The graphics are even better in Kiwami 2 than in the other two games chronologically before it, and it's genuinely been a treat to look at throughout. If I have any complaint it's that the faces of some characters looked a bit too dated compared to the rest of this game, like Kaoru Sayama's.

ATMOSPHERE | 9/10
Just like with the graphics, the atmosphere in this game is fantastic and I love to see a modern and grounded world like this. Yakuza's atmosphere would of course also not be what it is without its unique mix of serious main story and silly sub stories, and this game nails that once again.

CONTENT | 9/10
As per usual, there is a ton of quality main and side content here that will entertain for 20-40 hours depending on how much of the side stuff you wish to do. The only issue I have here is that some of the main story stuff unfortunately feels a little bit like filler to me.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10
The filler I mentioned for the main story is something I do kind of have an issue with here as well. There are multiple parts where you have to go to a guy to go to a guy to go to a guy and I just don't really see the point in that, especially when it's done more than once. There are also many times where you are tasked to "go waste some time until you get a call" and sometimes this leads you to some forgettable side-but-main story sequence that I'd personally like to keep separate.

Other than that, the design in this game is the same as with the other two games, and it's a fun gameplay loop here too.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 7/10
The concept of this series remains unique and will do so for all entries I presume. The Remake is really well done and I'm really glad they did it, because I wouldn't have gotten into this series without one.

REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Plenty of replayability due to its plethora of side content, but not necessarily replayable for its main content, as its pretty linear and for good reason obviously.

PLAYABILITY | 5/5
It works well from start to finish.

OVERALL | 83/100
Another great entry into the Yakuza series. The main story has a lot of depth and, while not everything works in the end, it created multiple emotional and dramatic scenes that I loved. The side content is fantastic as usual and especially the Cabaret Club sim adds a whole extra game to the package. I would say it's better than Yakuza Kiwami 1, which is how it should be for a sequel, but I'd place it behind 0, which in my opinion had a better overall plot, a big advantage by giving you Majima as an additional protagonist, and slightly more satisfying combat.

Spaceship combat sims are games that I did not grow up with and that are not really for me. Since I wouldn't do their legacy any justice by rating them as someone who is not in the game's target group, I'll just give quick random thoughts on games like this but otherwise leave them without a rating, in case you were following my challenge to go through as many games as possible starting chronologically in 1990. This would be game 21.

Controls felt pretty complicated and it didn't really feel enjoyable to play with a mouse + keyboard and at the low framerate that was offered, which I don't think was unusual for space combat sims. I'm not sure if people played this with a joystick back in the day or it didn't simply bother them, but I would have been overwhelmed even if the game played at double digits, so this only exacerbated my problems.

That said, I did get through two missions before calling it a day. The vet who accompanied me somehow died after the first mission and while I still have no idea why (she just said "my ancestors await me" as I was trying to figure out how to dock), I could tell that the interaction between the player and other characters - in addition to the neat cinematic story telling - was a big deal. If I had grown up with this genre, I can imagine my experience with this game being positive. That said, the missions already felt repetitive very early on and I can imagine that this is a common complaint about this game, and not a surprising one due to the game's age.