HOT DAMN THIS GAME IS GOOD
Between the music, fast-paced and unique combat, and the fact that it can run on my brick of a computer, this game is incredible.

While the plot may not have appealed to some people, it was ridiculous enough to keep me going.

Play it as soon as you can if you haven’t already!

In all honesty, as a sequel to Missing Link, I’m surprised this game isn’t talked about nearly as much as its predecessors or its successors. This game might as well be the next coming of christ as far as gameplay is concerned - next to missing link X is a massive improvement. There’s actual balance in the game, kinks that missing link had in its gameplay have been ironed out: chaos meter has been reworked into the tension system, instant kills have actually been balanced into the form you’re probably familiar with (they function the same in X as they do in XX and Xrd, sans Gold Instant Kill), the Guard Gauge makes its first appearance here, functioning essentially the same as it does in later versions of X and XX, and Roman Cancels make their first appearance here! The amount of influence X had on the series as a whole is undeniable, and turning the broken mess of Missing Link into this is a genuinely impressive feat and I’d say that this was the much needed sequel that Missing Link needed, and you can tell that Daisuke’s vision was definitely achieved in some regards at least when compared to its predecessor. Elements introduced in X would eventually be expanded upon in the XX series of games, but X provided the incredibly solid foundation for those games to work upon. The roster is also amazing, X adds such amazing characters to the roster - Venom, Jam, Johnny, Anji and Dizzy are all incredibly well designed characters with impressive variety between the five of them. Characters have also been reworked: practically every character gains new moves that are essential to how they function and existing moves have been reworked to fit the rebalanced game in place of their Missing Link incarnations.

How about the visual presentation? No longer confined to the visual and audio limitations of the PS1, Guilty Gear X is free to take full advantage of the hardware. The new spritework is amazing as all-hell (reused all the way up to AC+R!), with an insane amount of detail rendered in them along with exuding the character’s personality and style perfectly. Background stages are also beautiful in this one, reflecting the tone of the game and feel of the world of Guilty Gear perfectly. What about the UI? An element I am again surprised isn’t brought up at all is how spectacular the visual layout of this game is. It rocks so hard - the lowercase phrases scattered throughout the game combined with a robotic voice echo the heavy metal feel the game loves to flash are simply epic. Often undermined as low-quality or simply overshadowed by XX’s themes (practically every theme from X is reused in XX), X’s soundtrack is really damn good. Transitional tracks like Go! bang alongside new and reworked character themes, my favorite of which being May’s new theme Blue Water Blue Sky which might actually be my favorite Guilty Gear track in general? The Skid Row influence is insane and I love everything about it, I may actually prefer every track in X’s soundtrack to their XX counterparts. If you played this game on the Dreamcast, the sound quality was cut significantly. It’s got a charming feel to it and I wouldn’t actually say it detracts from the tracks that much, I’m mainly just a sucker for compressed audio.

At the end of the day, while certainly overshadowed by its sequels, GGX manages to serve as a competent base for the rest of the franchise to build upon. There are some flaws for sure (no story mode in the base game), but I’d certainly recommend it to any fan of the franchise to experience what is probably the most important game to the franchise in improving from its predecessors.

I love you Daisuke.

The Digital Foundry video made it sound like one of the overlooked early first-person shooters, which made me go "how have I never heard of this game before?" Of course the reality is not so simple.

Technically, calling it an FPS is correct, but in essence this has more in common with third-person shoot-em-ups like Panzer Dragoon, except instead of moving up and down, you move forward and backward. The amount of traversable space, however, is about the same. Every level is a boss fight, and you're always locked in a tiny room with the boss, who spawns minions. You literally run circles around the boss within that tiny room, trying to dodge projectiles. And while it's relatively easy in the beginning, later levels turn into a bullet hell.

The premise of the game is basically Blade Runner. You're tasked with taking down outlaw androids. Which sounds pretty cool, but it's not like there's much story here. You're just given briefings before every mission and then the final boss has a couple of lines of dialogue.

To me, as an experience, it is more enjoyable than something like Wolf3D, but largely incomparable. Wolfenstein is a game about exploring large maze-like dungeons, with lots of hitscan enemies and a generally more grounded tone (at least early on) that will take you several hours to complete (if you don't get lost in the mazes and go insane). Gun Buster, though unquestionably a very innovative game with amazing graphics for the time and generally an outstanding presentation, being an arcade game, isn't more than a fun little distraction. Something to play for an hour at most, when you're out with friends. It is filled with in-your-face spectacle and good at what it sets out to do. But I would hardly call this game some kind of an overlooked foundational masterpiece that deserves to be mentioned in the same category as Wolf3D or Ultima Underworld.

Dragon Quest is a game that is almost forty years old. I played a version of it that came out more than two decades ago. And while today it resembles more an ideal first project for a young kid given RPG Maker, Dragon Quest became one of the most pleasant gaming experience I had this year.

The game gives you a simple objective – slay the dragon lord – and then drops you into the world and lets you figure it out. And for how simple the premise is, for how simple fighting monsters is, for how simple exploring is, it all works in favor of the game itself. There was a joy in taking my knight as far as I possibly could into uncharted territory, to find a new town to visit or a section of the world with tougher monsters, sometimes both. And then to either come back to a nearby town with my findings, or push too far and be forced to recall back to the castle, or simply die and revive back to the King with half my gold gone – it helps to wander when the only penalty for screwing up is having to travel a bit more and/or losing resources that are easily replenished. In town, the goal was to upgrade my equipment the best I could and query the population for gossip: a girl in a cave, a secret buried beneath a tree, what golems are weak to. Taking notes, then venturing outward with this knowledge. Repeat until the dragon lord is defeated, with a few detours along the way to get to him.

Once again, it is a very simple game. But even multiple console generations later, it works because the simplicity of it all and the general lack of consequences let my curiosity take over to piece the entire quest together. Even if I am not a Japanese salary-man in the 80s, I can easily see how such a game could enchant a country this well, even decades after the fact. The enchantment still had its effect on me after all.

I recommend you play this game.