Genuinely cute minigame disc. Includes letting you dress Yukino up like a nun, tsum-tsum looking mini mascots of the cast, and of course, the ever so famous Brown toilet minigame.

It's not much, just an extra content game riding off Persona 1's initial success, but it's still pretty cute, and gives information that used to be only available in the club book on the characters. The manual it comes with genuinely has some of my favorite official art ever... ever!! (That's two links and you better look at both!!)

The Digital Collection isn't too much to write home about, but it's fun, and doesn't sell itself as more than the minigame collection it knows it is.

3/5

A very beautiful and atmospheric experience. Japanese media has often had this interest in why we dream, and not necessarily trying to solve the exact why but more so just discussing the oddity that dreaming is, and how much the real world can affect our dreams. We've seen this with Kon's Perfect Blue/Paprika, the whole "Dream-Festival" that took over the second Mario Bros, and even Japan's revival of the Little Nemo in Slumberland series 70 years after it's popularity in the United States. It seems fitting for a Japanese game that started the craze of RPG Maker indie games to focus so heavily on viewing dreams within this new and blossoming media art form.

とても美しくて雰囲気のある体験です。日本のメディアは、なぜ夢を見るのかということに興味があります。必ずしも正確な「なぜ」を解決しようとしているわけではありません。それはむしろ、夢の奇妙さや、現実の世界が夢にどれだけ影響を与えるかについて論じることです。例としては「パーフェクトブルー」「パプリカ」「夢工場'87」などが挙げられます。日本では、オリジナルの出版から 70 年後にリトル・ニモを復活させました。つまり、日本のゲームが RPGツクール インディー ゲームの人気は始まりました。この新しい形式が夢の観念を探求するのは当然のこと開花しました。

Pictures of my adventure | 写真 :
1 2 3 4 5 6

Alright, let’s get this over with so I don’t have to spend any more time on this than I already have. This game sucks, but let's take a look at why:

First, let’s take a look at that long list of positives -

• UI is genuinely cute and looks very nice on the PS Vita

• Touko and Komaru are two female protagonists that have some fun banter and cute moments

• The final boss is fun in that you have to use all the moves you’ve learned and put yourself to the test in a satisfying way

Now let’s have a gander at those negatives:

• The camera sucked and made some bosses incredibly difficult

• The game is not so much action-adventure as it is my absolute least favorite formula of just run from point A to point B to see more cutscenes

• Touko is way too overpowered, making the game mind-numbingly boring, but as a game made for fans of the series’ visual novels and not so much action, I guess I can understand the lack of difficulty

• I was excited for the music as I loved it in the original Danganronpa, only for it to feel like they reused the same 3 songs over and over again here

• Bosses loudly repeat the same 2 lines over and over again, to the point I had to mute my Vita giving me a disadvantage on hearing non-verbal noise cues

• Has this kids vs adults theme, but oddly continuously calls Komaru and Toko adults even though they’re both underage and wear school uniforms to boot! It could have been a cool dilemma of adults vs kids and the teenage protagonists have this dilemma of figuring out in the chaos where they fit when they can socially fit both (and have a cool ‘growing up is scary, but it’s something we all go through’ lesson like in Persona 2), but no, they just straight assume they’re both adults with no further explanation, I’m guessing so the panty shots are more accepted. (Blah, turns out my memory is worse than I thought. Thank you to HaloBlues for the correction!)

• There’s just an open pedophile in the game that leads the adult group with no repercussions, in fact our protagonists even compliment him on it, when one of the little girl’s reasoning for killing adults was being sexually assaulted by them creating the most fucked-up messaging in a game I’ve ever played

• The girl who was sexually assaulted in turn tries to assault the protagonist with a… groping machine. Whole thing is played off for laughs, with additional panty shots of the literal elementary school aged girl during it. Touko then makes mentions of the little girl “taking your virginity” throughout the rest of the game

• The whole game is just shocking to be shocking with little thought put into what makes something funny or interesting, such as having to save on a children’s training potty, listening to a kid ramble on about ripping out and eating adult guts, and having to watch the children french-kiss each other

• Touko continuously brings up to Komaru that she thinks she has a sexual relationship with her own brother, which Komaru just giggles and waves off

• You get to watch the same scene of Togami getting whipped like 7 times, which wasn't even funny the first time they showed it, but my God, they’re gonna keep showing you it until you think it’s funny!!

• The ending sequence on whether or not you should break the controller was complete ass as the characters repeat the same lines of dialogue over and over to you. I immediately broke the controller and saw that was the wrong answer, so the constant moral dilemma of if I should break it or not was instantly gone, and actually very annoying as the next 15 minutes had me continuously choose on breaking the controller or not (it was 8 times, I counted) when I already knew the “right answer” was to not break it

There’s so much more I could go into, but I’ve wasted enough energy on this game. Similar to past Danganronpa games, Ultra Despair Girls tries to handle morals and messages way too advanced for its own good, instead creating something incredibly offensive and downright awful to watch. After finishing the game, I plan on selling it, as I have no reason to ever want to play it again, and the person who gifted it to me is no longer in my life.

I recommend Persona 2: Eternal Punishment if you want a story about the difficulties of growing up, and I recommend the Resident Evil series if you like the idea of hiding from and shooting enemies that are chasing after you.

1/5

Based on my first playthrough back in 2020 I'll say that I had some issues with this game's writing (if you even followed me on twitter this is a charitable way of phrasing this) in the second half just kind of falling apart and the combat being pretty slow at times but also I did cry at the end so it did something right with having some good characters

Not my favorite PS1 FF (currently) but a great FF still

I intend on revisiting it sometime soon cause I really wouldn't be surprised if I ended up liking it more now as someone who has at least in some ways changed (as a person and video game enjoyer) since that first playthrough

My wife and I picked this up at a convention for $3 because why the hell not, it looked really funny. Her streams are based around a Playboy bunny-like aesthetic too, so I thought I could try it out for her and see if it'd be appropriate for Twitch and if she could stream it.

I think I ended up playing the boringest "naughty" game of my entire life. The game is like Sims, with you playing Hugh Hefner, as you're supposed to create 12 Playboy magazines for each month of the year, finishing the game by picking which one you think was your best. Yeah, I didn't make it that far, because on the third month the game glitched and no longer offered me the option to ask my staff to take centerfold photos, making completing a magazine impossible, which made completing the GAME impossible.

I was honestly kind of glad to have a reason to not finish the game because this thing is complete ass. There's NO music, even during the parties. All you hear is that glorious Simlish and complete emptiness. I thought there was an issue with me not placing music speakers in the right areas, but nope, even after doing that and seeing them very visibly pumping out silly music notes, there was still no music. The "gameplay" entirely consists of starting a party, networking so you can get a celebrity for the cover, a model for the centerfold, and an article + an essay. It's just talking to confirm those aspects, and then rinse as repeat. It's hideously boring. The only kind of fun part is photographing the cover/centerfold which is like only 5% of the entire game. Sometimes the female characters take their tops off which was funny... for 10 seconds, only to again be sent back to Boring Land. The X button is used as your action button, or if there's nothing to interact with, it just throws a party, which is totally not confusing/annoying to constantly deal with.

This game sucks, and my wife watched me play the whole 1.5 hours that I did before deciding she didn't want to bore her audience by playing this lmao. Definitely one of those games that relies on people buying it for the sex appeal aspect, with not much else to rely on. Gotta thank them for having the game break 25% of the way through, so I didn't have to deal with it anymore!

0.5/5 as even $3 was too much money for this mess.

"Well, just as I was working on FFVII, Mario 64 was released. The fully three-dimensional spaces and the freedom you had to run around them had a big impact on me. When I told my colleagues I wanted to make a game like that, they said 'but Mario's already a world-famous character. It would be impossible to start from scratch with an all-new character.' "
-Tetsuya Nomura
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150725233103/http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/0)

-----------------------------
Intro
-----------------------------

Kingdom Hearts is one of the main reasons I got into JRPGs, I vividly remember getting into
the series with Chain of Memories on the Game Boy Advance and essentially
most of my childhood was me just playing that and Square Enix JRPGs on the DS (spoiler: Dragon Quest IX was the best one).

Front-loading with nostalgia here because I just want to juxtapose that with
where I am now where I can't help but think about that Tetsuya Nomura quote
about Mario 64 now that I'm sitting here playing through (and finishing) the first game after
all these years (I got Re:Coded when it dropped so I guess technically
I "played" this before lol) even though the only Kingdom Hearts game I've technically finished before
was Terra's route in Birth By Sleep back in 2015 funny enough (if finishing a route in a game even counts as finishing a game).
It's interesting coming back to a game series that is so open with just being a(n overly self indulgent) metaphor for
growing up while also very literally being on that threshold line of "I am young and there's time" and "Wow I'm old oh god".

-----------------------------
Gameplay - "Final Fantasy Limit Breaks with subpar stereotypical-licensed-game-type gameplay"
-----------------------------

Anyways Mario 64, wow they should have played that game more and took some notes on it while developing this one cause it's just so hard for
me to sit down and chill in a game that basically has painted rooms that have puzzle switches and
enemies dumped in to be honest. Kingdom Hearts kind of had to start somewhere and the idea of even making an action-RPG during the early 2000's is a position I could not even imagine being in. That being said,
there are so many moments where the game really does not care to even work on the core
RPG combat because there is so much padding with the level design and gummi ship segments.

Starting off with the world design I'll focus on the progression aspect of it and I'm just gonna be honest with you
there are Lego games that kind of beat this in my opinion. It's one thing to have puzzles/mini-games
when they add variety but it's another to basically make me run around and do chores all day because you just couldn't think of ways
to keep the core appeal of this game going and this becomes apparent towards the end when there's a lot of fighting
(to where it was a bit of a slog honestly). Right from the starting point on Destiny Island it is shown that finding items/people/places
is the main way of progressing the story which feels good in certain instances but to me there were just too many moments where it felt
detached from everything and was just busywork such as Deep Jungle where you are essentially just walking towards whatever area
has a key moment in the story so you can keep.

Going into the combat, one major issue I have with the combat actually is the level design that is used with it, it's at best just a plain arena
to keep fighting Heartless in and at its lowest it is just absolutely unfun and makes the aspect of this still being a bit
in the early full-3D era of gaming a bit obvious. A lot of areas in the game are just filled with obstacles but at times
you might have to deal with traversing levels in an area and the tendancy of the combat to prioritize locking onto a specific
enemy which can throw you frame of positioning in the environment completely off. It's one thing to make it a challenge to climb a tower
but if I can't do any of the sick anime combos without falling all the way back to the base level I'm going to just do my best to
either keep spamming magic or have to wait to get the enemies to be in a better spot. Another really bad aspect
of the level design comes when you have to fight and are either flying/swimming (in this playthrough I skipped the world that The
Little Mermaid takes place in but there's a small swimming level at the end still), from all technical aspects these levels suck out any sort of
fun from the combat. If Kingdom Hearts is a 3D action rpg that has so many abilities that rely on context with just you pressing the X
button, then why would they take away the most interesting input of aerial vs ground combat? It's a baffling decision that
just does not feel fun at all and while it doesn't take up most of the levels here, it was absolutely a slog to go through.

Speaking of padding, the gummi ship segments are neat and add some variety, but I'm really not gonna pretend like it went above "wow that's neat I guess" levels of enjoyment.
Like, I guess someone working on this game thought the segments were fun but they can drag on in my opinion as they are basically plain bread Star Fox 64 with an incredibly
low-poly look that absolutely feels like this was some small side game just to add something to do. I would say that it at least builds on the core action gameplay of
"attack and dodge" but still which could be used to justify the swimming/flying segments for the combat but still I can't say it beats just fighting with
actual variety.

Nowadays the Kingdom Hearts series is known for being an action-RPG series
that streamlines combat for a great anime/Final Fantasy-esc presentation and that was definitely the foundation set here. Besides
having "techs" - a sort of parry that you do when an enemy is attacking by hitting them at them at the right time -
you are essentially just running around and putting as much damage as you can into the enemy as possible when the opening shows up.
It's not bad, it's not insanely good (besides a certain second-to-last final boss that was fun), but hey it's alright.
It's not really too surprising that some of my favorite fights in this game are you just fighting some regular guy
(whether they be a Final Fantasy character, literally Sora, or someone with grey hair) when you take
all these elements together. If you boil down what you do in this game, it's pressing down one button but the
context of the enemies/levels in this game can add some variety to where you can utilize the movement or magic/items.

I'm not gonna pretend like I've played as many action games as I have JRPGs, but I think just based off of my experience with
Devil May Cry 1+3, No More Heroes, a bit of Yakuza 0, Metal Gear Rising, and Resident Evil 4 I think my standard for 3D
action games really is set by the question of "can I have a fun time by fighting guys in an empty room with some vague sort of progression" and this game
to me feels like it is on the lower end of that spectrum, especially with how the ending gauntlet leads into being
something like a Bloody Palace in DMC3.

This is really the kind of video game that would be ABSOLUTELY adored by people who
have nostalgia for it (or are here to poke fun at the premise in general really) in my opinion,
as there are some different gameplay flavors but none of them
really outshine the core action-RPG combat and just feel like small things to do in a game
to pass the time.

-----------------------------
Story - "A childhood rival anime battle between The Heart and Darkness (with a milligram of Star Wars), and whatever we found in the Disney vault clearance bin at Target"
-----------------------------

A lot is put into the presentation and I think the main rule here with the story is "coolness over logic". There's a very evident
rival story going on here with Sora and Riku but if you even remotely think about 1 or 3 details in the story it absolutely
makes no sense but also, this is literally a Disney game (but then again Kingdom Hearts means something completely different now
than it did back in 2002) so who cares that much really. I really don't think it's the worst thing ever to just have a silly dumb anime story though, but I will say
so far I just absolutely prefer games like KH: Chain of Memories and 358/2 Days when it comes to having a story that I actually enjoy
with each step along the way because those games actually bother to have intrigue/characterization over "SOMETHING IS HAPPENING" or "this is how the world works"
every time a character opens their mouth or just following the basic hero's journey guideline you'd see in a high school english class.
I think what really adds to the awkwardness here are the cutscenes and voice acting which can be awkward at times but is charming in its own Kingdom Hearts way (I'm certain if you are
on this website I don't need to show an example of what I'm talking about) which, none of the handheld games I grew up with really had voice acting
so that might just say something a bit but I do have a bit of fondness for how overdramatic the acting can get at times.

Square has kind of always had a deep love for Star Wars (or the tropes it uses) whether it was Golbez in FFIV, Biggs and Wedge, Empires, etc.
and Kingdom Hearts absolutely follows down that pathway in my opinion with "light" and "darkness" essentially being something like "The Force" but
a lot more in your face and constant throughout the world and less uh, interesting. I would also say the game goes on over and over about
"light" and "darkness" a lot but if you really think about how (most of) the Disney properties featured here have villains who are just evil
for the sake of being selfish or evil it really isn't that bad just you know, very simple and too straightforward.

Concerning the Disney worlds, I just do not care for any of the Disney worlds here
and I have always felt like they don't add too much to the story really. I like how in this game there are small moments of building on
the dynamic of the main cast like in the Tarzan world you have Sora and Donald still not getting along, Sora being put in his place
a bit and understanding he still has a lot of room to grow while also proving himself in the Colosseum world thing, and heck
Alice in Wonderland is about as perfect of a starting option of a world as you can get as Sora loses his home and faces a bizarre reality.
Sometimes it works with small moments, but in the long run it drags because you can tell part of each world is just summarizing what their specific movie/show/whatever
has going on to catch up people who haven't seen them and already we're working with a plot that really is kind of just basic. I will say
that it's just so obvious A Nightmare Before Christmas has the best world just for the mere fact that it actually pokes a bit of fun
at the main premise of the game, lovingly puts detail into the world, etc. Overall though, this playthrough didn't entirely change my
stance on the Disney worlds really, they just aren't that good and I think show a lack of creativity in the crossover aspect by being
literal stories crossing into the main story rather than taking risks like with Mickey/Donald/Goofy where they are entirely different
characters that have a base in their original incarnations when it comes to their personality. A good example of this also is with some Final Fantasy characters,
I think it's really cool having Squall/Leon be a sort of older brother figure for Sora (sort of almost like he's Laguna a bit but still the same old Squall)
and there are details of his character that REALLY reflect how he was in FFVIII but also he's still different that the character he was in that game
because this is a different series.

To me the worst part of the story is the last section around/after the climax, it's awkwardly put together and feels
like it was sort of an attempt to at least give the players the chance to do endgame content and maybe flesh some characters out a
tiny bit more but also it's just weird to sit around the same spot when we already know what we need to do to stop the main threat.
I did enjoy the ending and thought it was great, but it was just very obvious that towards the end the idea of having any sort
of pacing for a story was thrown out the window for just enemies showing up and more things to fight.

Overall, Sora's journey is fairly simple (lol) but I think it was at least pretty neat, he's just a kid facing literal
Disney villains (and one anime nihilist) and obviously they set up something for a sequel if this did well, but I really don't think "light" and "darkness"
are too complex here besides very much being literal symbolic devices that just show up a bunch.

-----------------------------
Conclusion
-----------------------------

If the PS1 FF games were an investment on 3D tech to make battles flashy (even with the continued FFIV ATB system), cutscenes that hit harder, and music to be more involved with the scenario then Kingdom Hearts
builds on that lineage with fun button mashing anime action, voice acted scenes with big dramatic moments with rivals/villains, and music that weaves
in and out of the state of the game to where battles blend with traversal. I will be honest I started writing this review with the Nomura quote about Mario 64 to show how Kingdom Hearts
was absolutely the complete opposite of that with almost no sort of exploration in a 3D space besides basic set pieces, but I'd say honestly while that's a criticism I have
with this game there's at least a bit of freedom in expression in combat that works with the 3D space. Instead of Square's RPG mechanics and action being limited to separate states in a game system,
they blend in as one in a space with the player having options to express said action and that's at least an obvious goal this game had that I think it accomplished pretty well even if it is hidden
behind boxes of lazy/mediocre game design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqTd7YZ8cu4

Mercenary Force is fucking awesome, and easily has got to be one of the best forgotten gems for the Game Boy, though while reading about it online, it seems a lot of people in the West understandably picked it up thinking it was a fire fighting game from the cover, only to discover it's a hori shmup, a fairly challenging one at that! Nonetheless, the game was a massive flop outside of Japan.

The basic premise of the game is that you hire four mercenaries to march through six different stages based in Medieval Japan. You have five options to choose from: a servant, a samurai, a ninja, a monk, and a mystic, each with their own unique bullet-fighting skills, health bars, and special attacks.

There are a lot of aspects that makes Mercenary Force so special. Money plays an important part in the game, with each mercenary costing a different amount to hire, buying healing items from stores, as well as being able to buy new members after each stage to replace those that didn’t make it. But! You need to balance your budget! You start with ¥5000, but quickly find it’s not too much to play with when hiring mercenaries can range from costing ¥500 to ¥1200. Killed enemies drop coins worth ¥10 each, so you also need to balance your initial mercenary purchases against what you might eventually need to spend. Coins will disappear after a while though, so there's this nice dynamic of needing to get close to enemies before you kill them, but still needing to avoid taking damage. You can stay safe at the back of the screen, but at risk that you’ll miss out on grabbing the coins.

The mercenaries themselves are like weapon modules for a ship, but made up of four independent sections. You’re able to change the formation of the group, allowing you to choose more defensive or offensive strategies. Some formations can cause massive enemy damage but make you a bigger target, while others shrink your overall size but require you to get creative on how to hit enemies.

Everything is based around Medieval Japan, with the bosses often being based around different Japanese mythological monsters. I have to give big kudos to them for not removing this aspect when so many other games from the time were quick to do so. There’s an oni level, Kasa-obake boss, and of course, the constant temples and Eastern religious references, my favorite being the daibutsu that allows you to revive a party member if you’re lucky!

There’s three endings, based on if you have the right mercenary at the end for the True Ending, skip too many sections with the monk's special attack for the “Bad” Ending, or just finish it regularly for the Normal Ending. Like most shmups, Mercenary Force starts fairly difficult but becomes very doable once you learn the enemy patterns, making replays to get all the endings short and enjoyable!

My only critique is that there’s no undo button if you accidentally add an unintended mercenary to the lineup, resulting in wasting money or even messing up a really good run! It bothered me enough that something so simple wasn’t included, that I’m going to have to dock half a star. Overall though, Mercenary Force is an awesome Game Boy game, and I can’t recommend it to retro handheld fans enough!

4.5/5

Bully is a game that really surprised me. I really admire how Rockstar was able to create a pretty unique spin on a formula quickly gaining traction in early 2000s gaming, rather than just slapping a school uniform on top of it and calling it a day.

There are so many aspects of this game that are so well thought out:
- The varied minigame aspect with classes, and the in game rewards that going to class gives you, while not completely stunting you if you decide to skip.
- Small school things implemented into the gameplay like how you use the controller to open lockers, bikes/skateboards/buses in exchange for cars in quick travel, and forced stealth aspects (being able to be bad as a kid involves A LOT more sneaking than for adults lol).
- Popularly stereotyped high-school cliques, with unique challenges based on their individual aspects: having to get a video game high score for access to the nerd base, beating the preps in their country club sports for their respect, etc.

The humor is very 2000s Rockstar, with many of the jokes still able to stick the land, while others are just straight up uncomfortable. I think the biggest thing I couldn't stand was all the vomit and piss in the game, but again, it's a 2000's Rockstar game, I knew what I was walking into. The greasers were the only clique in the game that had me scratching my head on why the hell they added them, but the game itself even pokes fun at the choice with comments like, "Do those guys know it's not the 50's anymore," towards it. I personally think a group like "The Emos" would have been more fun to have, but that might have been just a bit too underground for Rockstar to pick up on yet.

The ending for Bully was really fun, with all the cliques in complete chaos. My only nitpicky complaint would be not seeing Gary for a fairly long time (think he's last seen with the greasers at the half-way mark), only for him to reappear as the ultimate villain, because I mean, did you expect the kid that dressed as a Nazi for Halloween to NOT be? His final boss battle is great though, building up the suspense and drama of FINALLY being able to beat up the kid that acts like all the worst people on online forums, and man, it feels fucking AMAZING when you finally do beat the snot out of him.

I had a lot of fun with Bully, and could see it being a game I try and 100% at some point! Some of the humor and relatability is a bit of a miss for me, but that's just something to expect not being the target audience for the game. Even then, I really enjoyed it, and think it works great as an example of some of the PS2's best of the bests.

4/5

AEW Fight Forever has been one of my most anticipated games for quite some time and I'm glad to say that it was worth the wait. I don't know where all of these graphics dorks came from over the past few years that prioritise graphics over gameplay but ignore them and try this for yourself. For me this is the best wrestling gameplay since Fire Pro World released in 2017 and has been an absolute blast for the first 30 or so hours that I've put into this game. The art style also looks really cool in game and makes some of the not so good models look solid. What Yuke's really nailed is making each wrestler feel different from one another, something most wrestling games fail to do. There aren't that many match types to choose from here but the ones that are there are an absolute blast, with the Lights Out and Barbed Wire Deathmatch being the standouts. The amount of weapons available in the Lights Out match is utterly insane and I love that they gave this aspect of gameplay a lot of attention, I mean we finally got thumbtacks in a wrestling game for the first time in god knows how long. There are some weird omissions when it comes to match types, mainly the Steel Cage, which I'd hope is first priority for new match types in the future updates. There is also a lot of minigames to be found here which I didn't know I needed until I played them and I'm surprisingly looking forward to playing more as they are released in the DLC packs.

As for game modes there's just the one here, Road To Elite. This story mode is pretty fun, with 4 chapters each containing 3 different storylines with the outcomes depending on weather you win or lose. It's a pretty short mode that you can finish in about 2 hours which is fine but I'm hoping they release new variations of this mode with new storylines similar to Fire Pro with their Championship Road to keep the mode fresh. Jumping to my first negative and it's to do with winning championships as it's never mentioned again and doesn't play any role in the story going forward which is disappointing and was something I also complained about in WWE 2K22. There's also one particular match in here against Death Triangle that is one of the worst matches in the history of wrestling games, I seriously don’t know who thought that would be fun.

The Creation suite has been a big talking point since the games release and despite not expecting much from this area of the game, I was still let down by just how limited it is. This is something that is easily updateable and I would hope that's a main area of focus as there's really not a lot to go on. Despite CAW lacking, I actually think they did a good job with Arena and Entrance. Not having the ability to add logos is the real bummer but the stuff that is present does a decent enough job and I honestly don't know if there's anything wrong with create an entrance, it seems perfect to me with a plethora of music, titantrons, stage props, pyro, effects, even hand gestures, this aspect of the creation suite is stacked.

Overall this game is a big ball of potential and it all comes down to how Yuke's handle this game going forward. Here's a quick list of things I'd like to see through updates and DLC;
- Match Types (Steel Cage, Coffin Match, Dog Collar etc.)
- Port the Match Types from RTE to Exhibition (Multi Man variations,
Handicap, Gauntlet)
- Creation Suite (Hairstyles, Face and Body types, Body morphing, Clothing etc.)
- New Game Modes and RTE storylines
- Tweak pinfalls slightly
- NJPW & ROH DLC with Arenas, Wrestlers, Titles and RTE storylines
- Update the Young Bucks Theme
- New Titles (International, Updated Women's)
- New Attires weekly in the shop

Currently this game is really good and the gameplay is top tier, with a few updates and DLC of wrestlers to beef up this roster and we could be looking at an all-time great but again, this all comes down to Yuke's. We already know of the Stadium Stampede match coming to multiplayer which will add a lot of shelf life to the game and potentially attract a whole new audience. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this game is at in a few months' time so my rating will likely change depending on if this game gets the love it deserves or not.

Sidenote: I managed to be the 13th player in the world to get the platinum trophy and the 7th fastest achiever which is a huge accomplishment for me as a trophy hunter.

Not that I've played a lot of video games that have detective stories that have 0% of gameplay that consist of assaulting evil dudes who are not trying to hug you, but this game genuinely feels like a REAL mystery of unraveling crime even without any sort of literal way to interact with the narrative.

What this means is that you are absolutely supposed to pay attention while being forced to feel alienated/confused the whole time, something the game does incredibly well to an extreme benefit and disadvantage to itself. There are times where you are just reading and times where you are just solving some puzzle for some reason (even with the game poking fun sort of at the adventure game aspect of that). The mere fact I finished this game initially and had so many questions/misunderstandings but I can go back and slowly shift the pieces in my mind to where I feel like I have a mental cork-board with 30 photographs and string is enough to make this game enjoyable to me, but obviously that's less gameplay design and more narrative design if anything.

Putting my point into the pavement:
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I just don't get why No More Heroes really needed to keep going (besides for ATM-related reasons). I love hanging out with Travis Touchdown (hell TSA to me was a good NMH sequel and that game is literally just about hanging out at times), but I didn't just love the first No More Heroes because of how wild the world was, it was because of how the game started off wild and ended on a raw note. There were moments where I saw a way for this game to keep the spark going but Travis Strikes Again really felt like it did so much of that heavy lifting for this title but even with that game I felt some skepticism about where the series could go.

More of what you love (Gameplay):
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The gameplay here is simple yet addicting with the same sort of frantic pacing of the first game that I felt where I'm just running around and trying to clear up as many enemies as I can, it's satisfying just to see Travis suplex and drop kick a bunch of dudes and really this is enough to just say "this game is pretty alright" to most people who are here because it's a new No More Heroes game. I can't really say anything too flattering about the other aspects outside of the fighting here honestly (even as someone who has written cheesy as hell reviews for games like "The Silver Case" and "25th Ward: The Silver Case").

Idk (Presentation):
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I'm gonna be crazy here and mention something that I don't ever want to do in most of my other reviews but wow this game somehow looks worse than the first game when just looking at the basic presentation of when you're playing the game. On a positive note, I find it interesting how a bit of Killer7 is here (that TSA had as well) with the enemy designs, mixed-media animation/format, and even going back to the combat I'd say it even has more weird one-off guys that shake up what you're doing, and I hope this is something Grasshopper Manufacturer brings to their other games.

Robin Atkin Downes is so good at just putting a lot of passion into his acting as Travis here and I'd say the voice acting in general in this series is still great.

One-Sided (Story):
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Travis Touchdown is a 39-year-old man in this game when in the first game he was 29 and entering the “Garden of Maddness” where at the end of that journey, it was laid out that violence would be consistent in his life if he stayed in that “paradise”. Part of the story in this game feels like it really was going to dive more into Travis being older and how things are changing because (spoiler for being alive) time changes people which to me is something TSA actually played into at times.

While I believe this game isn’t a complete failure, I just don’t see anything new here that wasn’t already in the first game or TSA, it’s more twists on the foundation that was made but if the narrative is just going to talk at me the whole time and not let me feel it out, then what is the point. The story here has some nice moments but the fact it couldn’t do anything productive with Bad Man, Shinobu, Bad Girl, etc. besides having cameos that were on par with what you’d get in a Marvel movie just shows how messed up the priorities were here.
I’m a mega fan of Grasshopper Manufacturer but I just find it hard to sit around and think this is anything but middling and too self-indulgent. I’ve read an interview somewhere where Goichi Suda mentioned how if a character from The Silver Case named Sumio Kodai was alive he would be 40-50 and he wanted to continue his story because that passage in time is incredibly interesting ESPECIALLY for that character. The fact that Travis Touchdown barely gets any sort of moment of realization, reflection, or anything new here is enough to go back to my core statement, why did we need another No More Heroes especially after Travis Strikes Again? This game had to answer that question, and it was ignored.

No More (Conclusion)
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I’ve met so many great people who love the series and the characters, I absolutely get the appeal of seeing more of them but at the end of the day I’d rather see how a fan interprets a character than to have to see said character idle around in a story just so the word “new” can be slapped on to ship out copies. I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds for Grasshopper Manufacturer, but I want to see them challenge themselves, to push their style and structure and get more people to understand why fans like me adore their games rather than idling and taking the easiest route to appeal to them until they leave.

Recommended by XenonNV as part of this list.

Partway through OMORI it dawned on me that there's a timeline where this game managed to release when I was in high school and I would've 100% made it a core facet of my personality for years.

OMORI is more likely than not the game that comes to everyone's mind when they think of the quintessential "Quirky Depression Earthbirth RPG", the hypothetical dead horse that encapsulates a lot of people's gripes with the modern indie scene and all it's eccentricities, and, to concede to that stereotyped image somewhat, it's for the most part true. OMORI is part lighthearted and surreal RPG about the titular main character and his adventures in the wonderfully quirky dream world of Headspace, and part mental health story about Omori's real-life counterpart Sunny and his struggles in the mundane reality of Faraway Town with his own mental health and relationships. The primary issue with OMORI however is not really with it's oft-maligned aesthetic or subject matter, but rather the fact that it's a complete tonal mess.

Headspace, as a dream world inside of Sunny's head, is obviously allowed to be a little surreal, as it's where most of the game's Earthbound DNA is apparent, from it's cutesy enemies to it's fun cast of eccentric NPCs and elevated sense of reality where anything goes. It's where 90% of OMORI takes place and is, for the most part, incredibly charming and fun. The tonal issues start to become apparent though when the Headspace sections lead into the Faraway Town segments, where, despite supposedly taking place in reality, still have a little too much whimsy and Earthbound-esque atmosphere. There's still wacky NPCs to talk to and goofy part-time jobs to have, which, while still enjoyable, isn't enough of a contrast to Headspace and doesn't mesh well with the relatively grounded and serious interpersonal drama between the core cast that revolves around grief and loss. It results in OMORI feeling like two disparate Quirky Earthbound-likes being duct-taped together without any real cohesiveness between the two halves, and only causes more issues down the line when the plot in Faraway town starts to actually go somewhere.

Headspace initially starts off as a low-stakes kid's adventure, which is perfectly fine for the Prologue, where it uses that initial impression to disarm the player when they first enter Faraway Town in the real world, but as is soon made apparent, Headspace is pure fluff, a complete nothing-burger that only really serves to pad out the runtime. Compared to the snappy pace and relative brevity of Faraway Town, Headspace tends to drag on for hours at a time with absolutely jack-shit happening, both literally and thematically. The various sprite animations, fancy textbox effects and UI is very charming and appealing at first, but the frequent use of them & their annoying length results in a start-and-stop gameplay flow that delights in wasting your time, and it's an issue that only gets worse as the game goes on, where long stretches of overly-goofy filler plot happen without anything substantive to bite into, that do nothing but pad out the runtime so the game can hit an arbitrary length quota. In addition to this, the idea of Headspace reflecting Sunny's inner thoughts is frankly underutilized, when that connection to the main character's subconscious could've been used to give the lengthy Headspace segments some more weighty thematic story relevance beyond simple visual callbacks to Faraway Town.

Despite the long stretches of nothing filler that feel like having a sugar crash, when OMORI wants to get serious, it can actually deliver more often than not. The subtle underlying horror of Headspace is pretty effective when it wants to be, and the drama of Faraway Town, while coming across like an afterschool PSA more often than not, is actually quite engaging and emotionally competent, but because OMORI is trying to maintain it's pastel Sanrio Lo-Fi Kawaii Future Bass Tumblr aesthetic at all times, this results in even the serious moments lacking punch because of the fact it's edges have been sanded down as smooth as possible for the sake of palatability. This is made most apparent with it's final plot twist at the very end of the game, which, without going into spoilers, is an insanely dark and out-of-left-field bout of tonal whiplash that is not only a massive misstep in the solid framework of the game's plot up until then, but is scrapping against the game's Instagram Self-Care™ Awareness Post-ass final message of overcoming depression and self-doubt by not being afraid to rely on your friends for help. It's way too big of an elephant to ignore and not something you can just drop in the player's lap and treat with the same levity with which the more mundane mental health struggles are in the plot. It's the most frustrating aspect of OMORI by far because I can see how it could work! It's not even presented badly in-game (in fact, the reveal is one of my favorite moment of the game bar none), but it's consistent adherence to the vibe initially established by Headspace ends up dragging what should be a master-class twist down hard.

OMORI is a frustrating, mixed bag of a game I want to like more than I do. It's playing all the right notes, and even manages to tug at my worn-out heartstrings with a surprising frequency, and I can see the appeal behind it; how it's managed to gather such a devoted fanbase that was emotionally wrecked by OMORI's style and presentation. However, it's too bloated, too messy and too toothless to make the landing it desperately wants to make. The video game equivalent of eating raw sugar by the handful.

Picture this scenario in your head, if you would. It is late 1991, and you are an average kid living an average life. You hear about this video game console known as the Sega Genesis, and you see this new game that had come out a while back for the system known as Sonic the Hedgehog. You are blown away by it, not just by the graphics and the gameplay, but also just how fast it was going compared to other games at the time, and you are sold on it. So, for Christmas, you ask for both a Sega Genesis and a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, and you have a great feeling that you will be getting those things for the holiday. The day finally comes, you open up your presents with glee, and you feel… slightly thrown off. Instead of getting a Sega Genesis and a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog, you got a Sega Master System and a copy of… Sonic the Hedgehog. Eh, close enough, right?

So yeah, sometime after the original Sonic the Hedgehog, they made a separate companion game for both the Sega Master System and the Game Gear, and it was developed by a company called Ancient, with this being their first game they developed (always a good sign). Obviously, the Sega Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog would be both better, quality-wise, and more well remembered then this game, but as a companion game, Sonic the Hedgehog for the Master System is… pretty alright. It is obviously inferior to the original game, and there are questionable design choices present everywhere you look, but for an 8-bit Sonic game, it does its job well enough.

The story is the exact same as the original, so no need to comment on that, the graphics are pretty good for the Master System, and they fit well enough with the Sonic style, the music is actually pretty great, which I really wasn’t expecting for this game, the control is around the same level as the original game, although you obviously can’t go as fast as the original, and the gameplay is your typical Sonic affair, which is pretty fun at points, while serviceable for the rest of the time.

The game is still your average 2D platformer, where you run through many different side-scrolling stages, defeating enemies and collecting rings along the way, finding alternate paths with optional goodies (and by that, I mean six of them), and fight bosses at the end of each zone. It all functions pretty much exactly like the original game, but of course, it is held back by the system’s limitations, making it more platform-oriented overall, which works for the game that we have here. There are also several new stages to be seen, along with repeats from the original game (even though I didn’t wanna see them again), which provides enough variety throughout the game.

Just like with the original game as well, you can also collect the six Chaos Emeralds in order to get a different ending, adding a bit of replayability to the game, but unlike the original, you don’t get them by going into special stages. Instead, they are located in several of the levels, and you simply just have to find them and collect them. It may not be as exciting or involved as with the original, but it is way more convenient and less annoying then the special stages from the original game. And speaking of which, Special Stages also make a return in this game, but instead of them being used to collect Chaos Emeralds, they are meant to get extra lives and continues, which is very helpful, and a nice change of pace compared to the rest of the game.

Now, with all of that said, there are plenty of problems with the game, although most of them are pretty circumstantial. For the problems present throughout the whole game, first off, whenever you get hit in the game, you lose all of your rings rather than being able to collect some of them back, which does suck, and in terms of the boss fights, most of them are simple enough, but you are given no rings when fighting them, making them much more annoying than they need to be. And speaking of more annoying then it needs to be, guess which level is back in this game? LABYRINTH ZONE, and it is just as god-awful as it was in the original game. Seriously, I hope the guy who created this level feels happy with himself, making a lot of kids in the 90s suffer because of it.

Aside from that, there are a lot of little problems present in the game, such as auto-scrolling levels (you know, in a game about GOING FAST(sometimes)), one of the Chaos Emeralds being placed in a bed of spikes, and there being leaps of faith that happen sometimes throughout the game, which can lead to several unwanted deaths. A lot of these problems all boil down to poor level design, and making the game needlessly difficult, but not by much at all, in reality. The game overall, I would say, is easier then the original Sonic (with an exception here or there), and it doesn’t last too long at all, so for being a short and somewhat easy game, I would say it is pretty alright, and I am glad that I finally chose to play it after all this time.

Overall, while it doesn’t even hold a candle to the Sega Genesis game, Sonic 1 on the Master System is still an alright companion piece for those who probably weren’t fortunate enough to get a Genesis back in the day, and I would recommend it for big fans of the classic Sonic games. For those who aren’t that much into Sonic… you can just skip this one. I mean, after all, this is gonna be a one time thing, and there aren’t gonna be anymore weird companion games made like this… right?

Game #227

I want to start this review out that the second I started playing this game, I got so obsessed that I finished it in about 2 days. I played it so much on the TV in the bedroom that my wife started mumbling "Jet Grind Radiooooooooo" in her sleep (okay, it was only once but it was funny as fuck).

There's a lot to say about Jet Set Radio, or well, Jet Grind Radio, as that's what I played. Overall, I would say that I really enjoyed it, but thinking it through I understand the complaints people have with it. I will say though that many things people complain about are just aspects of older games that kind of aged out of what we see in modern gaming. The Dreamcast is not the most old-school gaming console, but it's definitely at that awkward stage of having more retro gameplay mixed with more modern graphics, resulting in attracting a lot more modern gamers who in turn get turned off by the gameplay.

Jet Set's gameplay focuses on being difficult, much like retro games. In order to ensure the player doesn't finish the game in 2 hours (or need to rent it for longer than one weekend from the store), they make sure the game has a certain difficulty you need to practice to achieve. While annoying for some, I find it incredibly satisfying how retro games always start with you being terrible at the game until you essentially are forced to "get good". Seeing something that used to be a struggle for you turning to a total walk in the park is so deliciously satisfying, especially with the how cool the grinding and spray-painting combo result looks in Jet Set Radio. But anyways, lets get down to business on rating this game.

Control/Gameplay: 2/5
Yeah, it's not great, but it's not as horrible as people make it out to be. The biggest issue is that the Dreamcast controller only has one analog stick, resulting in the camera control AND the spray paint mechanic being on the same left back trigger. I didn't have too many issues with this except for Tag & Die, which for some reason LOVED to just change my camera angle instead of spraying the wall murals when I rail grinded past. While I eventually got used to the controls and actually got pretty good at them, it still never felt good. I would be doing what I was supposed to with little to no issue, but it still didn't feel good, always like I was fighting against the analog stick, never the smooth gliding sensation you wish for. The boost from the back right trigger also never made me feel like I was going much faster, mostly needing to rely on jumping to gain speed. Overall, controls aren't terrible, but they're definitely something to get used to, and in the end when you do have the controls mastered, it still doesn't feel that great.

Story: 3/5
Jet Set tells it story through comic book panel cutscenes in between its three chapters. There's also a radio show host narrator who fills stuff in between missions too. Both are fun, and help keep up the energy that the game wants to have throughout the game. But what even is the story? I don't really remember it that well. To be fair, who plays Jet Set Radio because of that amazing story everyone talks about? Yeah, that's what I thought. It's a rebels vs cops story, that turns into a rebels vs "the man" story. I think there's something involving a record being stolen, too? Fairly basic, kind of what you expect from looking at the cover of the game. Though the final boss was so insane and out of nowhere, I couldn't help but fall in love with it.

I would argue that the game gives you WAY too many playable characters to choose from, but the fact that each character is so uniquely cool in their own style (minus Mew just being a blue Gum) makes it worth it. The fact they all play pretty differently is nice too. In the end, who cares about a large cast when every character they give me is even cooler than the last. The only character design I dislike is believe it or not the protagonist, Beat. He looks cool enough on the cover, but holy shit he looks like SUCH a nerd in the game, I couldn't take him seriously. His redesign for Future is way better looking. More variety on the female characters would have been cool, but whatever, not that big of a complaint from me.

Graphics/Visuals: 5/5
Easy 5/5 - everyone knows that stylized games are the sexiest games, and holy shit Jet Set did not disappoint. I'm sure it's the reason why anyone gives a shit about the game today (cause its definitely not the gameplay lol) because not only is the game insanely cool, colorful, and attention grabbing, but it's unlike anything we've really seen before with video games, mixing it's art design with comic books and graffiti art. It's fucking awesome, with each stage never boring me and not one character coming off as uninspired and bland. I want to take this game and shove it into every modern AAA game to show them that you CAN have color and still make your game cool as fuck.

There's also this "make your own graffiti" section that's super fun to fuck around with. Of course, I made mine hot pink with the Japanese word for dyke smack in the center, which worked best with the gold rhino statues, giving them little lesbian shirts.

Soundtrack: 5/5
Another banger, and another reason for why Jet Set got its cool reputation. The music is hip, and INSANELY good, especially for a sort of arcade style game like this. You need good music to keep people motivated, at the risk that unfitting music can get people to stop playing the game entirely. I can make a joke here that I hope the music creator isn't being annoying on twitter right now, but that's so overdone I'm just going to post some of my favorite songs from the game instead: 1 2 3

Overall, I give Jet Grind Radio on the Sega Dreamcast a 4/5, based on the stuff I talked about above (well, it rounded out to 3.75/5, but I'll round up). I got to give credit when credit is due, and that's the fact that the most impressive thing about the game somehow took the geekiest most uncool sport ever (rollerblading) and convinced people it is actually super awesome and rebellious.

Thanks for the play, Sega.