So, this game is definitely the toughest Castlevania I've beaten so far. It wouldn't have been so bad but there were a few bosses and stage screens that had me fuming. It was skill issue mostly though and I got through it and had some good fun. I definitely relied pretty heavily on that one save-state though, I won't lie.

I need to preface this section with the following: I went into this game just expecting it to have eight-way whipping because "SCIV did, so why wouldn't a game that came out after it?" I know that it was, truthfully, a foolish assumption to have and it's really kind of warped my experience with Bloodlines, and probably for the worse.

I originally started as John Morris, but after clearing the first stage I realized that I didn't like the way he played nor the way whip upgrades felt. It was pretty off-putting at first having just come from SCIV. I even contemplated just dropping the game in fact. But I gave Eric a chance and I'm glad I did. His spear was really cool, and since it was a spear and not a whip, the lack of eight direction attacking didn't bug me nearly as much. It may sound odd putting it like that, but in my brain it just made sense. Eric's upgraded spear being able to do multiple hits if you hold the attack button for an extra second when attacking was REALLY damned cool, and so was his ability to do a Final Fantasy Dragoon leap.

Gameplay aside, this game looks AMAZING. The visuals were just chef's kiss and the stage designs & layouts were also pretty cool. The music absolutely fucking rules and appropriately sounds so quintessentially Sega Genesis; I loved it.

Fuck the Palace of Versailles

(Played in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection on Nintendo Switch)

After getting some good time in with Xrd Rev 2 after its Rollback update, I am no longer willing to overlook the flaws of this game. The honeymoon period finally ended after about 50-ish hours of this game. I spent a lot of time off from it, and then would plink in a few hours here and there over time. And during the last few sessions I had playing it, I found myself considerably less-enamoured with it (but still having fun with the fellas). And even though multiple updates have fixed 99% of the connection issues and they added personal lobby customization (which I do like), and some other smaller fixes, the faults that remain stick out so sorely to me now.

Primarily, I really dislike is how soulless the presentation is (except the music) in comparison to Xrd Rev 2 and past games; it really has lost some of that charm. What with the hyper-utilitarian HUD that has ZERO style (which I never cared for but had shrugged off at the time), the way colors are kind of washed out in most stages (and in the entire Story Mode for some reason), the lack of smoothness in the Story Mode animation (it was a lot livelier in general in -SIGN- and Revelator), and how utterly lifeless a lot of the stages feel. And the Habbo Hotel looking ass lobby system still rubs me the wrong way, but I never liked it to begin with either. Also still not a huge fan of the simplification of everyones' movesets either, but again, that was one of those things I'd kinda just brushed off before. The new characters' designs (and redesigns of returning characters) are all still quite good though, and I'm looking forward to seeing who else gets added for the rest of Season Pass 2.

I am 100% guilty (heh) of letting myself get swept up in the hype of this game back then, overlooking things or outright ignoring other problems I had with it for the sake of "HOLY SHIT A NEW GUILTY GEAR."

I still absolutely adore the soundtrack though; banger after banger after banger on that one. I still listen to most of the songs from the base game on a regular basis (as well as some of the ones from SP1 like "Drift," one of the best songs in the game).

I can't deal with this game anymore. I've tried so many times over the years to like it. Each time I'd pick it up and put it back down, disappointed. The previous two attempts were mainly due to the FOV being so god awful. So this time around, I had Flawless Widescreen to try to make things more palatable. And it did! So it's too bad the game still has it's own issues.

What broke me this time was the burning house segment in Chapter 6; it was one of the most unfun things I've ever played in a videogame. I finished it (after multiple infuriating attempts), but I just do not want to play anymore. Because I already know there's going to be at least one more (if not multiple) section like this later in the game again.

It's in these kinds of sections where the game sucks so hard. It sucked earlier when Kidman was trapped in that tank, it sucked at that part in Chapter 6, and I am comfortably certain in saying the inevitable similar segments later in the game also suck that hard.

Meanwhile, the game excels so much more during the stealth sections; I loved sneaking around & scrounging for resources while avoiding enemies and strategically taking them out. I enjoyed the chase sequences and the boss fights I'd played too.

I hate that I don't like this game; it has such strong art direction and sound design that is 100% my kind of shit. I enjoyed most of the game up to that point in Chapter 6. But despite the obvious similarities, this is NOT Resident Evil 4; those really huge, forced combat section just do not work for this game. And the stamina meter can go to hell, there's NO good reason for it to exist. It's just there, being awful, and costing way too much brain juice to upgrade for such little payoff.

This was my first time playing a Prime game, and it was a blast! The exploration was pretty dang fun in 3D, and most of the time combat was pretty great. I used the newer dual-stick control scheme and it felt so nice to play. The game has such a strong atmosphere that I just couldn't get enough of. Although I will say, the game was also quite irritating at a few points: namely the Thermal Visor sections.

The Thermal Visor in this particular version of Prime is, for some god-forsaken reason, needlessly fuzzy and difficult to perceive enemies and obstacles, meanwhile in the original game it still has visual clarity. I don't know WHY the devs decided to make this actively worse, but it really hurts these sections of the game.

Aside from the bit with the Thermal Visor, the only other issues I had were 1) that the Omega Pirate fight was REALLY just unfun for me and 2) that it would've been nice if there were just a couple of extra Save Rooms sprinkled around as well.

Otherwise, I had an absolutely wonderful time with this game. I really hope they give this treatment to Metroid Prime 2 & 3 on Switch as well (but please for the love of god fix the Thermal Visor).

I had this at some point when I was a teenager and it faded from memory. But I decided to pick it up again recently on a whim and I'm really glad I did! It's genuinely a ton of fun to play. I love how the Chronicle mode drip-feeds you all the game mechanics and ways to play while you're getting a crash-course on all the story of the first four games. The cutscenes in Chronicle mode range from fully-animated to 3D character models just standing or posed in place and "talking" without even their mouths moving. The inconsistency is a bit jarring at time, but the fully-animated cutscenes look fantastic. Unfortunately, the Tag battles are fucking dreadful, and sometimes you're forced to do them in Chronicle mode. But after finishing Chronicle mode, it's easy to ignore the existence of Tag battles thanks to the Arcade and Survival modes. I had a blast playing as Tina, Leifang, and Kasumi. If you have a 3DS and enjoy fighting games at all, you really owe it to yourself to give this one a shot!

Enjoying this so much has me really wanting to go back and play some of the older DOA titles as well.

Pretty dang fun! I hate that I put this game off for so long because it was pretty stupendous. The Typhon are super cool enemies and Mimics had me haphazardly whacking objects in rooms for almost the entire play time. I also really appreciate that you can fulfil requirements for the two endings and not have to actually commit to one of them until the VERY end, making it quite simple to see both endings. I saved everyone I could and it turned out I didn't miss anyone! It felt pretty nice. I also basically ignored Typhon powers during my playthrough. I did pick up the Telepath lvl.1 power, but I barely even used that. I also really enjoyed rummaging around and reading notes, listening to audio logs, and all that stuff. The setting is really immersive and well-crafted! I never got tired of sneaking up on Typhon's and blasting them into smithereens with the shotgun. The only enemies I really hated were the Cystoids (and by extension, Weavers). Also the VERY, very ending (post-credits) I will not spoil, but I absolutely was not a fan of it.

If I do another playthrough in the future, I'll have to go all-in on Typhon powers instead though because some of them seem pretty cool.

Not gonna sugar coat it, this REALLY kind of sucks. This is kind of harsh judgement I guess considering it's from such an early era of 3D fighting game history, but damn does it sure does show its age.

The Danger Zone system that's in all the stages is kind interesting but man does it really bites when the CPU is styling on you when you're struggling to get even a 2 or 3 hit combo out. I also just outright don't understand what I do wrong sometimes; such as my 6H (forward Hold) getting counter-Held by the CPU. How the hell does that even work? And even with the manual to look at the moves list, the input timing for some of them felt super scuffed. This game, just in general, is also quite difficult. The character designs area also quite plain too, even for the era.

It's certainly neat to go back to this and see how the series started, but I could never recommend spending more than two hours with this.

Right out the gate, DOA2 absolutely crushes its predecessor. It's much smoother and considerably more fun to play. It looks, sounds, and feels so much better than the first game ever could. I also really appreciate this is where they updated and generally solidified all character designs; because they ALL look so much better from the first game's (overall) very bland designs.

The general gameplay feels SO much more balanced. Using holds feel so smooth now; you don't need to worry about "offensive hold" or "defensive hold" anymore. Being able to just press Hold and 7, 4, or 1 (numpad rotation) depending on the High, Mid, or Low hits felts super natural. Throws are also a lot smoother and the input-timing on some combo throws isn't nearly as whack anymore.

The difficulty too, also feels overwhelmingly more fair. Though every once and a while, it still felt like the CPU would randomly decide you've had enough fun and just obliterate you in back-to-back-to-back rounds out of nowhere. I mostly felt this happening in Time Attack than anywhere else though (but it was still fun). The Survival Mode took me a bit to get used to and it's still not my favorite, but I appreciate that it lets just jump right into the action and just keep going until you can't anymore. I also appreciate we get actual tid-bits of story that doesn't just exist inside the manual; I like how the in-engine cutscenes play out during Story Mode and I kind of wish there were more scenes like the Kasumi vs Ryu bit where there's a small fight before the actual fight starts.

Overall, this is a pretty fantastic entry. I had a pretty fun time with this despite some quibbles. Once again as well, Tina and Kasumi (with a bit of Leifang) ended up being my mains. I could honestly see myself putting more time into this entry to unlock more costumes and Tengu, but for now, there's other DOA titles to play.

Far from perfect, but it's still quite fun to play casually alone or with a friend in casual matches. I had a lot of fun playing as Cammy/Zangief, Cammy/Kuma and Lili/Zangief tag-teams. I also really liked having Tekken characters in the SFIV visual style as well, they all look pretty great! Their moves being translated to 2D felt a little funky but I think it worked out pretty well.

Despite all that though, all I have are really have are gripes:
- Limited Specials & Supers: EVERY character only gets one super attack and I swear some of them lost a special or two as well. Everyone's command lists are super short, and it's probably due to the following:

- Absurd Roster Size: Proof that there really can be "too much of a good thing." There's a total of FIFTY-FIVE characters! I think it would've been much better if they'd just picked maybe 12 or 13 characters from each side instead of...well THIS. Also I think they should've made Mega Man cartoony like they did PAC-MAN and Kuro & Toro instead of trying to make a joke out of his inclusion because "silly old American Mega Man box arts."

- Custom Color Editor: I liked the idea but the execution was awful being a touch-only screen for some fucking reason on top of the fact that many colors had to be bought (though I didn't buy any)

- Gem System: Kinda sucked. I don't hate the idea on paper, but again, it was executed pretty horribly. Never mind the fact that there are DLC/Paid Gems that are legitimately better than most of what you get in-game.

- Touch Screen-Only Menus: I will NEVER understand why SOME menus are touch-screen only and some aren't! This is so stupid and irritating. Make them all touch or make them all go by D-Pad + Face Buttons. It was really annoying to be arrowing through the main menu and then have to switch to tapping on small text lines/boxes.

Despite all my gripes, I'll still probably hop into this again every so often to play casually with a friend or just to mess around with more tag-team matchups.

So much soul here. I ADORE the music and visual style, as well as the gameplay with it's timed attack combo presses and mixing & matching Normal, Heavy, and Extra attacks or pelting enemies with Techniques. I made a FOnewearl and had a blast with her.

I played through up to the Cave boss and I don't think I can progress anymore alone, at least it doesn't FEEL like I can. My damage output + capping out on Monofluid plus some Difluid I found; I just can't seem to finish the boss off; it took so long just to break its skull mask. It's quite lonely playing it Offline too, to the point that it's begun to actively bum me out.

I just know I would've loved the hell out of this game as a kid if I'd ever known what a Dreamcast was at the time, but I'm gonna have to move along.