one of the best multiplayer pvp games.

miscellaneous notes:

- the first and only multiplayer pvp game to incorporate building and destruction in a way that feels natural (that is, does not come off as a gimmick) and actually matters.

- extremely simple mechanics with extremely high skill ceilings -- archer is not worse than knight, but they are certainly harder. high-level builder requires absurd and excessive skill.

- incredibly dynamic matches with territorial ebb and flow and war-infrastructure construction and demolition that is reminiscent of real warfare but sped up.

- i would say there's a potential gamemode better than CTF, but CTF is in many ways perfect for this game.

- there could probably be another class. it feels like some niche is missing its fulfillment, some piece of the puzzle is absent, but i'm not sure what. maybe this is just the maximalist part of me talking, and if i had my way there would be minimum 9 classes.

wandering the dark jungle halls of lower Brinstar desperately trying to figure out where to go next as the piano part of the song comes on. traversing the magma pits of Norfair scouring the map for secrets while simulacra of opera voices sing in the backdrop. very possibly the best atmosphere of any game, period, in large part due to the music. certainly the best Metroid (that I have played). also, of course, the ur-metroid game, what people really mean when they talk of "metroid" in a general sense. the previous two were mere protoypes. may increase score to a five.

significant improvement over the previous entry in every way; far less annoying enemies and other obstacles (some notable exceptions), far more consistent behavior where it matters, much better sprite work and overall aesthetics, much better music, etc. just holistically far more pleasant.

the first game had an issue a lot of games of this generation had wherein many enemy and especially boss encounters are either trivial or absurd because you can't realistically dodge their attacks. due to that, the dominant strategy -- at least given the limitations of most human beings -- is just tanking damage and shooting the enemy hoping you win. most of the bosses in Mega Man 1 require this "strategy"; some still do in 2, but it's much less. enemy behavior overall is also less buggier and more predictable, which in a similar vein allows for more neuron-activating tactical decision-making instead of mindless spam. these are all sort of "platformer 101" elements, so it's hardly high praise and compared to contemporary offerings this game still isn't very special, but given the quality of 1 noting these improvements is relevant.

also weirdly... profound? the [famous] intro, some of the levels, combined with the [famous] ending, are all very emotional and evocative for what this otherwise is. i presume that's mostly the music working its magic; actually, the music in general is very good, able to capture a lot of tones (i.e. "vibes", not musical tone) in ways that contemporaneous games don't come close to. with this game one can start to see what people see in this series.

the best multiplayer FPS (besides TF2) is a western-themed Source deathmatch game that averages around ~50 players.

people think the problem with multiplayer FPS is hitscan but it's not[ASTERISK]. the problem is hitscan that fires faster than a lever-action rifle, is accurate at range, has ~20-30 round capacity, can kill in 4-5 body shots, and is in game modes/maps/contexts which are decidedly not designed well for it. assault rifles and SMGs and LMGs and many handguns are a plague. good thing a cowboy game doesn't have to have any of them.

you can have loadouts and pickups in the same game/mode; they are not mutually exclusive and combined they can be superior to either individually. just make pickup weapons better than loadout weapons.

i think this is the only FPS where dual wielding (actual dual wielding, not uzis that can only ever be held in pairs) is well implemented. it definitely sucks in the Halo games that have it.

the only criticism I can offer is that handgun style seems to be a largely unnecessary feature.

[ASTERISK]more multiplayer FPS could certainly use projectile weapons that aren't effectively hitscan or instakill explosive launchers, though. of course if they exist alongside assault rifles then assault rifles will beat them in every way.

a game with very satisfying base mechanics. as far as i know, the first if not one of the first platformers to give you the full, momentumless air control this series is known for, which feels very liberating relative to something like Castlevania. compared to most other platformers this game also has a high focus on combat and dodging enemy attacks instead of platforming which paired with most levels being fairly difficult makes for a game of attempting levels multiple times until trivialization through mastery; with exception for the ecstasy of defeating some particularly difficult bosses, this is the nicest part of the game.

despite all of that, is extremely rough around the edges. some enemies and hazards are just straight up annoying and poorly designed, many checkpoints are very bizarrely placed (why not have dedicated rooms for checkpoints?), many edge-of-the-screen spawning enemies are unpredictable to a fault or at least seemingly so, a specific enemy which doubles as a floating platform behaves annoyingly and lethally inconsistently, etc. additionally, bosses are generally poorly designed. many of them seem nigh-impossible to defeat without taking damage (at least without cheesing their AI), meaning tanking and out-damaging them is generally the way to go, especially when you can nuke them if you possess their weakness. difficulty is rather excessive, though not as much as others make it out to be. many levels overstayed their welcome and their are some brutal spikes (the beginning of Gutsman's stage, Yellow Devil (if you aren't a cheater who uses the pause-resume trick), the final Wily stage, though that last one is arguably acceptable). any one of these in isolation is not a huge deal, but combined they bring the game down quite a lot.

COMPLETED WITHOUT SAVESTATE ABUSE

an insane psychotic trip through retrofuturistic hackerman renditions of cyberhell mixed with absolutely bonkers SFX and music… and a goddess-empress trans (?) AI antagonist. the gameplay is surprisingly solid by contemporary standards for something which appears superficially to be as outdated as a game can get. but it’s just an FPS metroidvania, in essence. combat can be obnoxious and movement can be weird but it's fine the overwhelming majority of the time.

if i hear one more person say "it's like an OS" or "it's like controlling a tank" im going to stab myself with a Laser Rapier™.

this game rules, i even consider it one of my favorites, but it has awful game design by conventional standards. that could be excused if it leaned into pure simulation non-game territory like it's big brother Dwarf Fortress, but it's clearly still trying to be a video game. yet it's tedious and repetitive as fuck. it's an open world game with like, less than 20 quests? most of them are apart of the main quest line--which is solid, the writing of this game rules--but being a roguelike, an open world roguelike no less, it's not exactly fun to do the main quest line over and over again with no variation. the game gives you very little ability or incentive to play any differently from just following the main quest in the exact same way every run, and there's very little compelling content outside of it. i would love if this game took cues from like, any other open world game, instead of trying to hang on to its increasingly diminishing influence from more traditional roguelikes. i hope these flaws get rectified, as this game is certainly going to be updated post-release, but they seem so essential to the design of the game that i'm not sure they will be. as of now this game is more fun as a sandbox for modding than it is as an actual video game.

if you enjoy, like, ADOM or NetHack, you'll probably love this. if you enjoy, like, DCSS or Brogue, this probably isn't the game for you. if you've never played any of those games, much less heard of them, you should probably stay away.