While not the longest of games in the series, and they would ultimately pale in comparison to what would come later, the arcade Punch-Out and Super Punch-Out were still pretty good games, ones that still hold up almost 40 years after they released, still having a lot of personality and charm to it. With that being said though, these two games would end up being outshined greatly when Nintendo decided to take the series to the NES. And not only that, but they would also be doing so with the face of the, at the time, undisputed champion of the ring, Mike Tyson. This would occur when the at the time president of Nintendo of America saw him in action, and made a deal to use his likeness in the game… for three years, until then replacing him with a different character who nobody cares about for future releases of the game. That kinda sucks, but hey, that’s just business after all. Can’t do anything about it.

This is the very first game in the Punch-Out series that I have played, and the one that I spent the most time playing overall. There was something about it that seemed so charming and fun, despite it being a boxing game, that I had a great time playing it back in the day, even though I got my ass kicked many times, especially by Bald Bull, who I just couldn’t beat at the time, no matter what I tried. But now, I have beaten the entire game, and from my experience, I still had a pretty great time. Much like its arcade counterpart, there isn’t too many changes made to the sport in this game, and it isn’t that complicated or unique, but it stands out on its own from every other boxing game at the time by having that Nintendo charm spread all throughout, but having the difficulty to keep that drive to beat your opponents down much alive as you keep going.

The graphics, while definitely not even close to the quality of the original arcade titles, are still pretty good for the NES, and the character sprites and designs still retain the charm and energy seen from those titles, the music, while there aren’t too many tracks to listen to, are iconic, and still pretty good to listen to nowadays as you beat up people from around the world, the controls are simple, being what you would expect for a boxing game, but being all that you need in order to take on your numerous opponents, and the gameplay is pretty similar to that of the original games, but bigger, badder, and brutal-er.

Like with the other games, the game is a boxing game, where you take control of Little Mac, which is the best name for a main character in this universe, and you take on many different opponents in the ring from many different countries around the world, dodging, ducking, and counterattacking blows to learn your opponents’ moveset and get the upper hand, and become the ultimate title holder by the end of the game. Being an adaptation, not much of the formula is changed from the arcade games (if at all), but what makes this version much more appealing and iconic is not only because it was at home and more replayable, of course, but because there was more stuff here, not only in terms of the little segments that add more charm and story to the game, such as the training with Little Mac and Doc, but also how much longer the game lasts.

In the original two Punch-Out games, if you were good enough, you could beat both of them individually in less than 10 minutes. Yes, you could refight opponents on a much harder difficulty, but really, if you don’t want to do that, then there is no point to doing it. You won, plain and simple, go home at that point. But here, there are many more opponents and plenty more fights, so you will be at it for a while, and while a lot of the opponents have the same methods of attacking, a good chunk of them having different gimmicks of how they will try to take you down, such as with Bald Bull charging straight at you at certain times for a one hit KO, or King Hippo being more of a puzzle boss, where you have to find out exactly how to deal damage to him before he gets knocked down for good. It isn’t entirely complicated, and you can figure it out pretty quickly, but it is very memorable and extremely satisfying to take down a lot of these opponents.

And speaking of, this brings us to the main attraction of this game… Mike Tyso- I MEAN, Mr. Dream… yeah, definitely not as cool. He is the final boss of the game, and HOO BOY, if you aren’t ready for it, he will remind you as to why he was the champion of not just the game, but in real life boxing. If you aren’t too careful, he could instantly knock you down, and timing exactly when to dodge his attacks and when to counterattack yourself is a lot more hard and precise then it sounds. Yes, he has a clear pattern like everyone else, but with the speed he executes these attacks, and the damage he does to you in the process, it is no secret as to why he is considered one of the hardest bosses of the 8-bit era. Luckily though, I beat him! I just, you know, have to go to the hospital to fix my broken fingers after this fight.

If there were any complaints that I could give to the game, it would be that, while I do appreciate how much longer the game is compared to the originals, it does suffer from padding out the length for no reason. For the last main circuit in the game, you will need to refight a good number of the opponents you had already faced previously, and yes, while they are harder, they are practically unchanged from their original fight in terms of their movesets, so it is moreso about enduring these characters once again to eventually take them down once more to proceed forward. Yeah, not a big fan of that. It’s even weirder because, at that point, they had several other characters from the arcade titles they could’ve used, and they also could’ve made new characters as well, so I don’t understand why these rematches need to exist at all.

Overall, despite having a lot of unnecessary rematches, as well as the game being absolutely relentless with certain fights, the original Punch-Out for the NES still holds up extremely well, and while I wouldn’t say it is as good as later titles in the series, it still stands on its own for being what not only a Punch-Out game, but a boxing game for consoles should aspire to be. I definitely recommend it, not just for those who are fans of the later Punch-Out titles, but for those who wanna find out what else Nintendo had up their sleeves when it came to the NES library. Still though, kinda sucks that they couldn’t keep using Mike Tyson for the later releases. I mean, aside from contract expirations, what reasons would Nintendo POSSIBLY have for NOT wanting Mike Tyson to appear in their video games for general audiences?..... Wait, wha-

Game #272

So, here, lemme ask a question real quick… how exactly does a fever dream of a game like this exactly come into existence? I got a couple theories, like one where the people at Natsume just put a bunch of words on pieces of paper, hung them up on a rotating wheel, and then just threw darts and knives at them, until they landed on “monkey”, “fruits”, “bubbles”, and “sports balls”. After that, the employees were then forced to try to make a game around it, while trying to make it all fit together to make it seem like it makes any kind of sense. That, or the most likely scenario for how this game came into existence… the employees at Natsume were just extremely fucked up on drugs. But nonetheless, from one of these experiments, we got Spanky’s Quest.

Somehow, I have known about this game for quite a long time, back when I watched the Completionist episode on this game way back in the day, back before it was yeeted into a void to never be seen again by Greg. Not only that, but I remember playing through this game once before, and I remember somewhat liking it, but I must’ve also been high as well when playing it, because when I decided to replay it to review it, I found it to be one of the most average SNES games that I have ever played. Sure, the game is appropriately goofy and dumb, like a good ol’ generic SNES game should be, but in terms of the actual gameplay, there really isn’t that much here holding it up in the end.

The story is kinda like a role reversal of the usual damsel in distress scenario, except it now involves a monkey and a witch, the graphics are cartoony and goofy like they should be, and all of the enemies and bosses have some alright animations, but nothing more, the music is good, but nothing too noteworthy, and a number of the tracks blend in together, the control is pretty standard, doing the bare minimum, and nothing more (see a pattern here?), while feeling as good as it should, and the gameplay is inventive, I’ll give it that, but aside from the initial concept, it doesn’t carry itself too much further to create a fun, worthwhile experience.

The game is a 2D puzzle platformer, where you control a monkey named Spanky (gross), you go through plenty of different rooms, take on a bunch of living fruits that came out of your backpack, which you do so by throwing bubbles that when popped, turn into different kinds of sports balls, you collect keys, you go through doors, find hidden bonus stages, and you of course fight several bosses along the way… yeah, like I mentioned before, this game is pretty fucking weird. Although, with that being said, the weirdness does somewhat add to the charm of the overall package. I mean really, how many other games out there can you say has you playing as monkeys that kill fruits with sport ball bubbles? Yeah, practically no other.

Although, with all that being said, despite the weirdness factor at play here… it is still painfully average. Throughout all of the levels, you are doing the same thing: killing fruits, getting keys, and going through doors, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing on paper, but the enemies pretty much never change throughout the whole game, the level layouts are all extremely similar and repetitive, and there is no real challenge to getting the keys other then to just, you know, get them. Sure, the theme of the worlds change, but they don’t add too much to make you remember them all that well, and there are powerups in the form of hats that help you out, like giving you the biggest bubble immediately or allowing you to hover, but you only get them for one stage at a time, so none of them really make that much of an impact.

And of course, mixed in with this array of mediocrity comes the rottenness of this apple, and while there isn’t much rot to be found, it still doesn’t make me wanna look at that apple for too much longer before throwing it away. As you could’ve probably gathered from what I mentioned earlier, this game is EXTREMELY repetitive, and while this factor is negated by several aspects, such as the game and the levels themselves being pretty short, but you do still feel the experience drag on for a good bit before the end. And speaking of the end, the final “world” of the game is literally just a boss rush, and we all know how much I LOVE boss rushes that add nothing to the game other than extending game time. Yes, there is a new boss to find in this boss rush, but even still, an unnecessary boss rush is still an unnecessary boss rush, no matter how ya slice it.

Overall, despite the unique premise and elements this game has going for it, if you were to play through the first world of the game, or hell, even the first LEVEL of the game, you pretty much know everything you are gonna get from it. It provides nothing more than what you are initially presented with, and as a result, it becomes way too average to the point where I don’t know if I could even recommend it to anyone. Unless, you know, you like monkeys throwing sports balls at sentient fruit. Then this game is right up your alley.

Game #261

So far in this series, we have had a trilogy of frustrating, yet wonderful games on the NES (all the problems with Simon’s Quest aside), and two handheld titles that weren’t quite perfect, with Castlevania: The Adventure in particular being extremely flawed, but for what they were, they were pretty effective as the first handheld titles for the series. Oh yeah, and there was also that one arcade title as well, but shhhhh, we don’t talk about that game in this household. Now, after this slew of titles, it was about time that this series was brought to the next generation of systems, with Masahiro Ueno being up to the task, not only deciding to make the game less frustrating in comparison to previous games, but also making a game that would be a remake of sorts of the original Castlevania. So, after two years of development, Super Castlevania IV was released to the public, and has since been praised and enjoyed for many decades to come.

This is considered to be one of, if not THE best, game in the entire Castlevania series, and when you play it, you can definitely see why. I myself wouldn’t consider it the best game in the series, as there would be several games made later down the road that I would say I enjoyed a lot more then this game, but don’t think that I am saying this game is bad, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. In my opinion, this is what I would consider the PERFECT rendition of the original Castlevania, and it is executed flawlessly in practically everything that it sets out to do. Yeah, it is kind of a step back when compared to Castlevania III and the features that game introduced (which is understandable, but still), and some of the bosses can be a huge pain in the ass, but none of those things ruined my experience with what is the perfect way the Castlevania series could have entered the 16-bit era.

The story is… basically the exact same as the original Castlevania, which is completely fine, as you really don’t need a big story to get you into the action, the graphics are absolutely fantastic, not only having the perfect look for these gothic environments, but also having fantastic atmosphere, which can even be seen as early on as the intro cutscene and the title screen, the music is GODLY, with plenty of original tracks along with remixes of classic themes, and there are some real head-bangers to be heard from this, the control is… I’m not ready to gush about them just yet, we will get to them eventually, and the gameplay is a pretty good evolution of the classic formula, while keeping things mostly familiar for those who are coming from the previous games in the series.

The game is your typical 2D Castlevania title, where you travel through many different side-scrolling levels, whipping many different gothic monsters along the way, gathering hearts, sub-weapons, and items to help you deal with the many baddies seen throughout, and taking on many larger-then life bosses, with the bosses themselves having great variety, either being classic monsters we have seen before, or new types of monsters with their own gimmick. Yeah, the game sticks closely to the original formula from the original Castlevania, which is kind of a letdown, again, considering what Castlevania III brought to the table, but what makes up for this is how the game manages to take this formula and perfect it.

Playing through the game overall does feel a lot less frustrating then that of the original game, with there not being too many instances of cheap damage or deaths that you will encounter. Now don’t get me wrong, this game is still pretty damn hard (after all, it wouldn’t be a Castlevania game if it was easy), but a lot of the hardships you will encounter can be taken care of pretty easily, and you will feel responsible for the damage you take and deaths you suffer… well, most of the time anyway. There will be several bosses, especially towards the end, where you will have quite a difficult time with them, as they are relentless, but thankfully, with the help of the unlimited continues, they shouldn’t take too long for you to take down once you learn their patterns.

One of the defining features of this game, and one of the reasons that I absolutely adore it, is with the control. This game has the BEST control scheme out of any of the classic Castlevania games, and I wish the future games would’ve stuck to, but hey, at least we have it here. For all of the previous game, while the control was enough to get a hang of, it was still pretty limited, with a very stiff movement and being unable to change your jump in midair. Thankfully now, despite still have a somewhat stiff movement, you can change your direction in midair while jumping, as well as do things like jump onto stairs to help you get through places faster. It may not sound like much, but it does help out a lot, making the pacing much faster, and giving you an edge up over the enemies. And speaking of getting an edge up over the enemies, this also goes into your whip, which is the best that it has been and will ever be in any of these games. Not only does it still pack a punch and have a great length, especially with the powerups, but you can also whip it in 8 different directions, as well as being able to… flail it around like an idiot, for some reason. I don’t need to explain to you how helpful this maneuverability and attack range is, allowing me to get plenty of hits and kills in on enemies that, if the attacking was the same as the original game, I would never be able to do easily without some damage.

Overall, despite some slight hiccups to be found here and there, this is definitely the best entry in the Castlevania series so far, and one of the best in the entire series. If you were a fan of the original trilogy of games, or you want to experience the series but don’t know where to start, then I would highly recommend it, as I guarantee that you will have at least some fun with it. I can’t even think of an ending joke this time around, the game is just too good. Go play it. NOW.

Game #254

This game was such a nice place to be for a few hours. A mashup between a 3D Zelda and a 3D Platformer Collection mixed with cozy childhood summer vibes??? Add humor, charm, wacky items, and post-game tools to help you find everything you missed (I was at 96% completion before rolling credits), and you'd be hard-pressed to find an indie game more tailor-fit to my tastes.

Honestly this feels like it might be a 5/5, but I'm super judicious about what I slap that score on. I'll think about it for a bit!

”Now, let me tell you a new story that also begins with stardust…”

Super Mario Galaxy 2 loses the elegance of its predecessor. Gone are the mysterious Rosalina and her majestic Comet Observatory; in their places we get a fat purple Luma and a spaceship shaped like Mario’s head. Instead of moving through the hub world to find levels, we have a basic world map. More often than not, instead of the dark, lonely reaches of space, we’re treated to cheery blue skies and bustling planets. Instead of an epic, semi-serious story with a surprising amount of backstory, we get… Bowser kidnapping Peach, only this time, he’s HUUUUGE!

I prefer the first Galaxy for its superior atmosphere and story. So why did I give Galaxy 2 five stars despite everything I just said?

Because I enjoyed damn near every second of it.

What Galaxy 2 loses in terms of atmosphere and story, it makes for with its sheer level design. Every level is meticulously structured to introduce a challenge, escalate the difficulty, and conclude on a high note. Galaxy 2 beats out its predecessor in terms of how much more consistently fun its levels are.

Cloudy Court, Cosmic Cove, Tall Trunk, Yoshi Star, the list goes on. So many galaxies with so many great ideas. Sometimes your braving the depths of an underwater labyrinth, next you’re racing against a slew of buzzsaws that are cutting apart the very ground you stand on, then you’re dashing up a vertical wall on top of a dinosaur… this game just never runs out of ideas!

While the atmosphere of the first is absolutely better, there’s still something endearing about Galaxy 2’s upbeat nature. The bright colors, gorgeous graphics, and sweeping music score make the game feel so… good. It helps that the game technically does pick up where the previous one left off (“…the cycle never repeats itself in quite the same way…”), and the ending is quite heartwarming. Although it’s overall a downgrade, the cheerful tone of Galaxy 2 nevertheless helps it stand out on its own.

The bosses are also a step up. Every Bowser Jr. fight is a banger (especially his Boomsday Machine). A Lakitu tries to strike Mario with lightning. A whole planetoid comes to life and tries to crush Mario to death. A fucking dragon smashes through a planet while chasing Mario around. The only disappointment is, strangely, Bowser himself, who just isn’t as good as Galaxy 1. Other than that, though, this is easily the best set of bosses in the Mario series.

Then there’s power-ups. The Cloud Mushroom is awesome and allows for creative, player-driven platforming. The Rock Mushroom is… fine, but it’s utilized well in Melty Monster Galaxy. The Fire Flower and Boo Mushroom are back, and they work exactly the same. Finally, my precious Bee Mushroom (which everyone seems to hate for some reason) returns for some very tasty, honey-themed stages.

Oh, and Yoshi!!! Yoshi’s back, and this is probably his best outing yet. Instead of being a cumbersome and sometimes glitchy hinderance like in Sunshine, Yoshi adds on to Mario’s moveset and even gets power-ups of his own: he can float, dash across surfaces in ways that defy gravity, and light up otherwise dark and invisible paths. You still can’t take him out of levels, but unlike in the New Super Mario Bros. series, this makes sense as Yoshi simply wouldn’t work in many of this game’s levels, so I’m fine with him being confined to a select number of them. Man, Yoshi’s implementation is phenomenal in this game.

There are other slight improvements over the first game, too. Coins are actually useful for something other than health refills, as they can be used for feeding Hungry Lumas and a gambling minigame in the hub world. The Prankster Comets actually stay once they’re unlocked (that never really bothered me to begin with, but it’s more convenient here). Motion controls are overall better-implemented (except in Rolling Coaster Galaxy, which can go fuck itself). Finally, Galaxy 2’s difficulty is significantly higher than its predecessor, and is one of the hardest games in the series. However, the difficulty isn’t due to “fuck you” level design like The Lost Levels, or “fuck you” glitches like Sunshine; rather, the game just has some good ol’ fashioned, skill-based platforming. I rarely felt cheated when I died, I felt bested, as it was almost always my fault

I don’t know. Despite the watered-down story and the loss of a unique, melancholic atmosphere, Galaxy 2 is still phenomenal. It’s got great level design, unique power-ups, fantastic visuals and music, stellar bosses, and numerous improvements over the first one. I still prefer Galaxy 1 and Odyssey for their unique tones and creativity, but Galaxy 2 is still a fantastic, highly-polished, and wonderful sequel that hold its own as one of the plumber’s best adventures.

I went into this game kinda expecting it to be bad considering what I've heard over the years but...Nah! The game itself is solid! I could imagine the slowdown and sprites/background stuff giving a lower score for most but yeah this is a decent Game Boy game. I loved the unique setpieces it brought and the music!

The romhack is stellar too, it fixes the slowdown and makes the game easier to look at with the sprites not blending into the BG. Highly recommend using this romhack if you're gonna play Donkey Kong Land 1!

Man, Mario has had a lot of odd occupations over the years, hasn’t he? He has been a carpenter, a plumber, a factory worker, owning a cement factory, being a construction worker, and being Princess Peach’s personal savior, while she constantly keeps him in the friend zone as payment. You name the job, and he has probably done it at some point in his life. Out of all of his jobs though, one of the most odd positions he has taken is that of a doctor, and a pretty bad one at that. All he does whenever he faces a problem with his patients (usually involving the same exact viruses), he just throws an endless amount of pills at them to try to take care of the issue… you know, just like a real doctor! But anyway, enough of the obvious jokes, it’s Dr. Mario on the NES!

This would be the first of the Dr. Mario series (obviously) and the start of many (and I mean MANY) different spin-offs for the Mario franchise, diving head first into the puzzle genre. So, for being the very first puzzle game for the series, I would say that it does a pretty damn good job at bringing the character into the genre, as well as being a pretty good game in general. It may not be that exciting or complicating of a puzzle game, and I can see how others wouldn’t get into this as much as I would, but personally, I find it to be a pretty fun time, and a good way to kill an hour of time where I have nothing better to do.

The graphics are pretty good for NES, with the sprites for Mario and the viruses being very well-made, with plenty of animations to give them personality to make them more memorable, the music is iconic and incredible, even if there aren’t too many tracks to choose from in the game itself, the control is incredibly simple and easy to understand, which is the best outcome that you can get from a puzzle game, and the gameplay is fun and addicting, still being good to go back to even with all the other games that would update the formula to make it better over the years.

The game is sort of a spin on your typical falling block puzzle game, where you will be given an endless amount of pills of varying color, and you will use them to attempt to take out each of the viruses in each round, rotating and moving them around to where you can place them strategically to take them all out. It is very simplistic, and pretty easy to figure out for beginners, while remaining pretty fun after all this time. There are plenty of levels to go through, each with their own amount of viruses, increasing the difficulty, and the options to choose how fast the pills fall, and the kind of music you listen to throughout, giving enough for the player to do and challenge themselves with.

Back when I reviewed Tetris, I mentioned that I prefer this game a lot more in comparison, and the primary reason for that is because, with this game, there is a clear goal for each level: to destroy the viruses. Yes, Tetris does have a clear goal as well, but that’s moreso just to see how many points you get before you lose, and even try to outlast other players that you are facing. There is appeal in that type of gameplay as well, but as someone who is very goal-oriented, having a clear task to complete is much more appealing to me personally, and thus, makes Dr. Mario much more fun.

There aren’t really any problems with the game overall, not that I can notice, but I guess if I could point out something, I would say that, just like with the original Street Fighter II, this game does feel outdated compared to future games. They aren’t updated versions of the same game, but they do take the basic gameplay and make it more appealing and addicting overall, as seen even with Dr. Mario Express, which was my personal introduction with the series, and the one that I definitely sank the most time into as a kid. So, when I originally came to this original game to try it out, the thought did cross my mind that I could just be playing Express, but I still had fun with this one regardless.

Overall, while it could be seen as outdated alongside the future games in the series, the original Dr. Mario is still a pretty solid title, and a great way to start off this small, yet memorable sub-series for Mario, and one that I still play sometimes to this day. If you are a big fan of Dr. Mario, then I would definitely check out the original to see how you like it, but if you are just a casual enjoyer of the games, then just stick with newer entries. And speaking of newer entries, I think it’s about time we had a new game for this series, don’tcha think? Where’s Dr. Mario on the Switch, Nintendo, HUH?

Game #243