This is frog-themed Vampire Survivors essentially, which is a game formula I'm fine with, but just find kinda boring, so that's why the rating is a little low. Froguelike is a silly game with frogs. It's zany with some cute frog-themed ideas to play off the similar Vampire Survivors mechanics. While Froguelike is definitely more challenging, which I personally like, it unfortunately is noticeably less pretty graphically.

Normally, I wouldn't compare two games made by different people so intensely, but they're so similar to one another it's hard to not constantly think about Vampire Survivors while playing it. It's still super charming & cute looking and is a fun game to play, don't get me wrong. My love for froggies is what pushed me to want to try it out, and I'm very satisfied at the cute little frog elements spread throughout the whole thing ^^

Froguelike is definitely something I see myself playing a bunch when I'm looking to waste a little time on my computer (b ᵔ▽ᵔ)b

2/5

Yet another banger by Nazca, and I had a hard time deciding if I like Metal Slug X or Metal Slug 3 more... but after a bit of thought, I think I decided I like X over 3 simply because I ended up liking the bosses more. 3 is pretty similar to X in how you play and that you play with the same cast of characters... it even has the same select screen! But I love how they drew the characters there, so I'm not complaining ♡(>ᴗ•)

The biggest differences that popped out to me were definitely the bigger variety in just... everything! There's so many more enemy types, diverting paths, more vehicles to play around in, gun types... you can even turn into a zombie and spray this awesome giant blood spray that knocks out most enemies on screen! I loved the last mission too, and how long and thematic it was. I'm sad I couldn't finish the game as my favorite character, Fio, though! But it's whatever, I love Tarma, too. I could understand the last mission being annoying to some, since there's no way you'd know it'd be that long, and every quarter is oh so precious, agh! But I played through... other means... so that wasn't an issue for me.

Overall, if someone told me Metal Slug 3 is the definite best of the original series, I wouldn't think anything odd about it, in fact I would probably even agree with them! But man, I just REALLY loved the bosses in X over 3, and especially loved the twist at the end that 3 seems to start with instead. Metal Slug is just such a fun series to play with friends, and I'm so glad my pal @handsomezack invited me to play 1, X, and 3 with him! I can't wait to force him to play it over & over with me until we're both sick ( ˘⌣˘)🕹️(˘⌣˘ )

4.5/5

REALLY fun FPS that my awesome friend @10reviews got me into! Duke Nukem 3D has everything I love in a FPS: a fun variety of weapons, an awesome array of levels, and super cool enemies to blow the heads off of. Best of all, the protagonist himself is really stupid + funny, and his weird quips he lets out are amusing, but done infrequently enough that it doesn't get annoying. There's not much to say about Duke Nukem 3D at this point that I'm sure others have already said much better than I can, especially people who are bigger fans of FPSs - but what I can say is I had a really great time playing it, to the point that I think it's currently my favorite FPS... either that or Half-Life 1. Both are just so good but in different ways!

If you're looking for a raunchy boomer shooter, I can't recommend Duke Nukem 3D enough!

4/5

Metal Slug X improved Metal Slug in ways I didn't even know I wanted, and I'm so happy for it! After playing it, I can confidently say that this is probably my favorite arcade game... for now... ヽ(´ー` )┌

This is another game that me and my retro buddy @handsomezack played together, and had an insanely awesome time doing co-op! Metal Slug X was able to play with and have fun with different aspects that are missed in the original Metal Slug, even small things like having the choice between two female characters and now having different environmental themes for the levels really added to the enjoyment for me. I was already impressed with the enemy and boss designs from the original game, but Metal Slug X even improved upon that! Now there's bosses that attack you from underneath, above, chase you, force you to climb, have multiple forms... the list goes on! The designs are even more gorgeous than its 1996 predecessor, and the story on top of it all is really fun to unravel. I loved how the final boss involved you and your enemies working together and seeing there's more serious issues than needing to fight each other! I just wish it didn't involve having to work side-by-side with a group that's clearly based off the Nazis, but at the end of the day, they're just a fictional "bad guy" group probably inspired by all the American films that have the Nazis as the big bad guy group, so I won't it too seriously.

My only real complaint again is the 4-way gun control over the 8-way diagonal directions, but still, that's just me nitpicking, as the controls felt significantly better overall from the original Metal Slug! All in all, I had a great time playing this game with my friend, and I'm so happy he decided to show me it! I can't wait to play Metal Slug 3!

4.5/5

Played with my friend @handsomezack, who I believe has played the game before, just never with a second player. Holy motherfucking fun, Batman. If I never played Metal Slug X, this might be in my top favorite arcade games ever. Absolutely gorgeous graphics, amazingly fun weapon variety, and great controls, but my absolute most favorite thing about Metal Slug was its bosses. Holy shit, its like fighting everything I've ever dreamed about; they got everything perfect and then some. Giant metal robots, larger than life, showing off their impeccable detail, all while conveniently being vulnerable to my awesome weapons! I never felt so powerful! ψ( ` ∇ ´ )ψ

I think my only complaint is the way the gun controls, and how you can't do any diagonal shots, just the basic NSEW directions. Shooting downwards is a bit awkward too, needing to jump to do it, but really it's not that bad, just me nitpicking and trying to think of things that annoyed me when playing. I guess Contra spoiled me with its diagonal shooting LOL.

Extremely fun arcade game that I'm so glad I got to experience before the end of the year!

4/5

At best: a recreation of F-Zero that fundamentally does not care about the delicate setup of the animations and controls found in the SNES original but at least has some interesting bits of detail with the presentation

At worst: being bored and sticking your finger into a fan just to see what happens

Nintendo add White Land II or you’re a bunch of cowards I wanna see 70+ people falling into a pit

It’s no secret that a lot of people consider the SNES to be the video game console to highlight the pivotal design shift from video games being toy-like (with only hints of niche-influenced games) to a box of endless possibilities, but I don’t think F-Zero gets enough credit for being a part of that.

While a lot of people I know irl find F-Zero to be “a boring video game after one hour”, I think it’s a game less about just silly futuristic racing and moreso converting (what very much is) basic 2D sprite representation into intense corner-cutting racing that you’d expect from an anime like Speed Racer.

What makes F-Zero appealing and a true showcase for how interesting games as a medium can be found in its trick of getting you to believe in the physics it’s simulating in racing, whether it’s avoiding your car crashing or watching as you cause a pileup of drivers when you make a bad turn.

Retrospective review:

Months later and it’s like “oh yeah I finished that new Zelda that was giant with cool new mechanics” and I’m struggling to gather anything interesting that stuck out to me outside of the Master Sword reveal and that Nausicaa Valley of the Wind is just a damn good movie man (I gotta rewatch it and if you like any Zelda game, especially this one, watch it).

Like many new games I’ve played, it’s a world to do things in but the experience of being in the world is the result of a formula architected, and small dots of interesting individual choices that shine from inside said architecture attempting to break through. I think for most people the dots are more like a pointillism painting but for me it’s like poking holes in a plastic bag really.

https://youtu.be/ses2n0o5Oqw?feature=shared

It’s very strange but this game’s title rings in my head a lot and I think the fact I can say that and enjoy it as a dumb action game says enough really.

The phase “no more heroes” is about as direct and profound as this game gets, a bold outer layer of brutality and violence with humor that sticks in your mind and blatant/joyful stupidity even in the grind and down-to-the-wire side missions. The hidden meaning is found from an analysis of what it is against and why it is stated but also you really could just say “no more heroes” in a bold dumb casual way because hey it’s just a statement, we don’t need heroes and the guy saying it probably isn’t a hero.

You shake the (Wii) remote to jerk off your cool beam katana in this game also btw just in case it sounds like I’m turning this in late for English class

Somehow this game is simultaneously the most heartfelt and heartless Kingdom Hearts game you could really play.

On one hand there’s a cohesive narrative, plot, and cast that feel tangible and fun to experience (almost sort of feeling a bit like they just borrowed stuff from the new Persona games ngl) but also very much grounded in the reality that the DS basically was the “iPhone” before the iPhone made people think for some reason it could replace consoles like the 3DS or PSVita even if it’s part of the “PS2 games on DS” trilogy the developer was secretly making (see FSR and KH: recoded)

P R E C I O U S T H I N G

I've already expressed my love for Jet Set Radio's unique style and gameplay in my review for Jet Set Radio Future, wherein I tied that game's counter-culture edge and major theme of self-expression to the key tenants of hip hop: MCing, rapping, break dancing, graffiti, and knowledge. There is, however, an unspoken sixth pillar of hip hop culture that is known to few yet is every bit as institutional as the rest - big fat asses. "Let me see you shake that ass, ass, ass, ass." Not even Percy Bysshe Shelley himself could write something so radical yet soulful.

It's not worth trying to side-step the comparisons to Jet Set Radio given how proudly Bomb Rush Cyberfunk wears its inspirations, and really, some of Bomb Rush's best and worst qualities can be attributed either to what it takes or what it decides to leave behind. The most obvious point of comparison is its graphics, which perfectly captures the same blocky cel-shaded style of its Dreamcast and Xbox forbearers. There's been a number of would-be imitators over the year, but Team Reptile is so clued into what makes this style work. Not just in their use of color and lighting, or in the low-poly nature of the character models, but even right down to the disparate clash of high- and low-quality textures. It all feels so authentic that you might mistake Bomb Rush for a legitimate long-lost Jet Set Radio Future 2 at a glance.

There are some excellent character designs here as well, some of which, like Solace and The Franks, would feel perfectly at home in a Jet Set Radio game, while others like Bel and Red are striking enough to give Bomb Rush something unique to hang its hat on. I really love Vinyl's design, specifically. After playing a couple chapters, I hopped on a call with Larry Davis and speculated that she'd join your crew because her design screams "playable character," or as I put it "Damn, girl, you got a playable character body."

However, Bomb Rush's design is at times faithful to a fault. Poor draw distancing seems a stylistic choice here where it was a compromise JSR had to make given the limitations of early 2000s hardware and its rendering power. Bomb Rush also features larger, more open spaces, and not being able to assess points of interest from a distance harms level readability. It can also make some locations feel uninhabited until you're close enough for NPCs to pop in, like in the very spacious Brink Terminal or Mataan - obvious stand-ins for Shibuya Terminal and Pharaoh Park.

But one area where Bomb Rush actually differentiates itself from Jet Set Radio is in its story - which there is a surprising amount of. You start the game as Faux, a renown "writer" who agrees to help the Bomb Rush crew go "all city..." Or that's the deal until his head gets cut off. It's fine, though. Tryce - Bomb Rush's leader - quickly slaps a robot head onto Faux's body. Problem solved! This eventually turns out to be a sort of Reverse DIO situation, and where the story goes with it is actually pretty interesting. I actually found myself really getting into the story in a way I did not in Jet Set Radio, which itself is framed more as a documentary, simply narrating beats in a struggle between Tokyo-to's gangs and the Rokaku group, as if retelling a story rather than actively building one.

The only thing it's lacking is a true Professor K figure to tie everything together, a weird omission considering Bomb Rush's slavish faithfulness. It is also somewhat lacking in the same rebellious spirit as JSR by making the conflict between the various gangs and individual writers seeking "all city" status the focus. You aren't doing battle with a greedy corporation, and although you fight the police at numerous points throughout the story, their presence feels in service of the inter-gang struggle Red and the Bomb Rush crew find themselves caught in, always present yet somewhat out of focus. It's fine to go for something different, of course, but given how difficult it is to untangle Bomb Rush from Jet Set Radio, it's hard to feel like it's lacking a key piece of that game's spirit.

Hey, speaking of the cops, they're no damn fun to fight! Terrible, I know!

Combat plays out by mashing the same buttons you use to initiate tricks and visually resembles some strange cross between break-dancing and karate - it's like something Zach from Power Rangers would cook up. It's silly and fun to watch, but in practice it's pretty dull and too frequent, resulting in fits of starts and stops between skating and clunky combat. At several points in the story, even completing one tag will alert the police, triggering an intro cutscene followed by constant hounding from goons, attack helicopters, and turrets that try to tie you down. Though this system does feel better in-hand than Jet Set Radio Future's own dire combat, you could cut its frequency down by half and it would still feel like too much.

Dying in combat is also the only real fail-state that the game has. Missions play out in a fairly rigid structure: paint tags until the rival gang notices you, complete their challenges and build rep, fight the police, then go head-to-head in a point challenge under the dutiful watch of the Old Heads to claim your rival's territory. These challenges are all pretty easy, and even by the late game some of them feel like tutorials. The tagging system is very lenient too, the only way you can fail is by getting up and leaving the room to go get a sandwich. That said, I do think the combo system for tagging is novel and an engaging way to access your full library of tags without resorting to presets or pure randomization, and the tight structure of the game never feels stale thanks to the quality of Bomb Rush's level design. I only wish it was more challenging, but outside of combat the difficulty feels pretty stagnant.

The JSR games weren't perfect, either. There's plenty of faults in Future's performance and level design, and the original Jet Set Radio had its own issues with difficulty and structure. Being flawed but funky just means Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is following in its grandfather's footsteps, and I think it does such a fine job at capturing what made those games special that it feels like a worthy successor.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get my hair done, get my nails done, get my hair done, get my nails done, get my hair done get my na

I was fully prepared to be a hater. Most times when people are like "they haven't made one of these games in forever so we're gonna make our own!" they kinda wind up falling completely flat on their face. Like the fanbase's idea of what makes a game special is so warped and different from what I would consider the actual game's strength. And no shade to Team Reptile, I love Lethal League, but going from a 2D pong game to a big open world 3D action/sports game seemed significantly harder to pull off.

But they did it! And they didn't just try to be Jet Set! And honestly, even though it's Jet Set aesthetically through and through, I think it's more akin gameplay wise to something like THUG! And I'm all for it!

The game oozes style, both visually and musically. Characters are animated, colors and bright, music is boppin. I have no notes honestly for what was done aesthetically. Like genuinely, the soundtrack speaks for itself. If I tried listing every song I loved I would just be copy-pasting the whole track listing. Actually no notes. Gameplay-wise, the zones are all varied and lively. New Amsterdam feels bustling with tons to do and explore. Mataan was my personal favorite zone, giving me big PSO Pioneer 2 vibes. Finding all of the nooks and crannies and getting to all the unlocks and bomb spots is a blast and I plan to go back and 100% everything. I especially love that all of the tags have artists directly credited in game. Graffiti is art!!

Game isn't perfect, though, and honestly, if I didn't prefer style over substance I think I would've been more severe in my criticism. The cutscenes are.... off. I don't know how else to describe it. They're janky and don't really flow and the music isn't really synched up as much as there's just music playing during them. They seem silent too, with little voice acting aside from grunts and barks, and now that I'm thinking about it, little to no sound effects? That might be the biggest issue. Actions in cutscenes feel like they lack weight. Camera cuts can be weird at points, but, again, small team going to a much more complex game than they've previously made so honestly I gave that a pass. It can be very jarring though.

My other biggest complaint is with combat in all forms. Cops in Jet Set Radio were invincible. You could spray them to get them off your tail long enough to bomb a spot that you needed or you could opt to just get to a location where they couldn't follow to shake them for a bit longer. Sure, some of the vehicles you could spray to put out of commission, but outside of the final boss, you could also just let them exist and avoid them. I like this use of cops more because it adds a lot to the routing you're doing mid-stage about how you can swerve and avoid and evade to get to where you need. (Maybe this was different in Future, I know Bomb Rush is more based on that than the original, but with Future being trapped on the original Xbox I haven't played it since I got rid of mine in, what, 17-ish years?) Obviously with Jet Set Radio being stage based however, that methodology wouldn't work for Bomb Rush, and for the normal cops, I didn't have a problem with them. I did as I would do in Jet Set and just skate and climb around them, doing a sick combo wallriding past where they could hit me and I felt cool. My issues arise with the multiple sections of forced combat. Beat up these cops, beat up these snipers, beat up this tank-bot, etc. I just don't think the game feels good when it comes to combat. It just feels like button mashing hoping you'll hit your enemy that you can't lock on to so when you do a sweep and they go flying you spend like 20 seconds trying to find them. It just isn't fun and not what the game excels at and I wish I wasn't forced to partake in a system that feels half-baked. The final boss was frustrating as well because for some reason they put you in a forced camera section? I don't understand the reasoning for this when you still have to swap between rails and are forced into freefall to land onto said rails that I struggled to land on because the camera it was locked to had NO sense of depth. Like I guess it was to try and show the scale of the boss? But the encounter would've been more enjoyable and just as awe-inspiring had I just been able to control the camera normally. Honestly, I probably would've even liked the fight. Instead the end of the game just leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

So even though I did find myself frequently going "this sucks" or "why did they do it like this" I still can't help but love the game. The parts they nailed, they NAILED. This game lives and dies by how hard it vibes, and it VIBES. If you look at any of my old reviews you'll see that strong style will ALWAYS trump substance for me and brother, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk IS style.