NOTA: 10 ou perfeição

Elden Ring é basicamente tudo que eu sempre quis, desde os primordios de 2021 onde me tornei fã do gênero Soulslike e depois de todas as jornadas em Demons Remake, os três Dark Souls, Bloodborne e Sekiro, o grande Miazaki junta mecânicas principalmente vistas nos Dark Souls, mantendo e superando no quesito trilha sonora e direção de arte, introduzindo-as em um mundo aberto.

Tendo experienciado esse game desde 2022 constantemente, decidi que seria a vez de platinar no PC e não me canso de admirar o que para mim torna esse game o meu preferido de pelo menos da última década: sua flexibilidade. O gênero torna os inúmeros confrontos do game engajantes e sempre dá para o player opções ao se deparar com um adversário formidável: Utilizar summons? Chamar um amigo ou aleatório? Tentar diferentes equipamentos e builds? Ou simplesmente virar as costas e explorar/upar.

Fora isso, a exploração de Elden Ring é surreal, o game utiliza muito do mapa e o retrospecto de excelência em level design para construir dungeons com variedades de materiais de upgrade e equipamentos com diferentes weapon arts. Mesmo que os chefes se repitam.

A lore de Elden Ring é uma das coisas que eu acho que ficou meio desperdiçada, a temática é fantástica e ainda contou com o auxílio de George R.R.Martin e por mais que faça parte da proposta do game, sinto que poderia receber mais destaque.

Minha maior crítica ao game fica em seu NG+, os inimigos e chefes de pelo menos até a boss fight do Radahn não evoluem nem perto do que o player após a conclusão do game, além dos diversos atalhos e builds bem roubadas, esse trecho em questão fica muito fácil e me da sempre uma sensação de querer skippar simplesmente.

Um dos pontos que me fez jogar por horas e horas é o coop especial em apenas 2 pessoas, pois utilizamos da flexibilidade do game para se nerfar em momentos e eu pude aproveitar e usar algumas armas que nem sempre no solo teria como, ou se não, precisaria de uma boa adaptação. Em especial no PC, nossa gameplay veio acompanhada do excelente mod Semless Coop e Harder Coop, o que derruba as barreiras do coop e torna a run pelo menos 5 vezes mais complicada.

De maneira geral, a versão de Elden Ring de PC foi a melhor escolha que eu já fiz, por si só já fui capaz de variar a jogabilidade em relação às minhas 500+ horas no PS5 por ter jogado no Rog Ally, como os mods que citei tornou a gameplay ainda mais genial. O sucesso desse game é eminente e abre portas para o gênero souls like se tornar menos nichado, recomendo muito para aqueles que querem iniciar no gênero e para aqueles que ja conhecem, é simplesmente experiência obrigatória. Chega logo 21 de junho, não aguento mais esperar pela DLC.

Simplesmente a masterpiece do gênero souls like!

Mega man and bass is often described as a very difficult and unfair game, but that wasn't gonna stop an epic gamer like me from giving the game a try. Boi am i glad i gave this game a shot because for me, this is easily a top 5 mega man game.

You get to choose between 2 characters to play as which are of course Mega man and Bass. In my playtrough i decided to play as Bass.
Bass is really fricking fun to play as! He has a dash, a double jump and his base weapon has the abilty to fire rapidly in almost all directions. The weapons that Bass acquires throughout the game are all very fun. Copy vision, lighting bolt and spread drill are my favorite weapons.

Copy vision creates a clone of Bass fires for a few seconds and then disappears, and thats cool as fuck!

Lighting bolt summons a bunch of lightings that will inflict damage on everything on your screen.

Spread drill shoots a giants ass drill tha can transform into smaller drills.

You can also buy many upgrades by using bolts acquired during levels. These upgrades are very useful and some of them are definitely worth buying to give yourself an easier time, the one that i mostly used is the one that upgrades your base weapon which is very useful for both enemies and bosses.

I was a huge of fan of the levels in this game.
Every single level is just the right lenght and all of them are unique, challenging and very fun to go through.
My favorite levels are: Magic man's stage, cold man's stage and astro man's stage.

The bosses are hit or miss. Some bosses in the game are very solid but some bosses are straight up poo poo stinkers.
King, burner man, cold man, magic man and ground man? Very great bosses and my personal favorites of this game.
King's tank, atetemino, jet king robo and green devil? EW! DOO DOO! POO POO! STINKY BOSSES!

The graphics are very nice and colourful, like seriously every single stage looks really good in my eyes.

The music is pretty great. Some of my favorite tracks include: the robot museum, king stages, boss battle and astro man stage.

So yeah i really like this game! Wanted to make a short review during school since i was bored.
8.5/10

So, it’s been a while, huh? The last review I posted on this website was my Owl House: Witch’s Apprentice review over a week ago, and since then, I kinda fell out of playing and reviewing games, especially since continuously attempting and failing HaraHara in Puyo Pop Fever over and over again was kind of starting to wear on my mental health. So I decided to take a brief break from playing games and worrying so much about making another review. However, on a whim, I decided I wanted to get back into making these reviews and knocking games off my backlog, so what better game to do so than with a really short one? As you can already tell, that game is none other than Mega Man IV… uh, no, not the NES one, the Game Boy one. Yeah, so all of the Mega Man games on Game Boy have abhorrently bad names in the US, so for the sake of not making it too confusing (especially since I’m going to be mentioning Mega Man 4 on NES a few times in this review), I’m going to refer to this game as Mega Man World 4 (or MMW4 for short) from here on. I remember getting Mega Man World 4 on the 3DS eShop after hearing that it was one of the better Gameboy Mega Man games (alongside Mega Man World 5), but I never really got to sit down and play it until recently. And after finally finishing it, I gotta say, for a Gameboy Mega Man game that remixes levels from the NES ones, it still manages to hold its own identity and plays really well, even if it has some strange flaws.

The first part of this game I’d like to discuss is the level design, possibly one of the most important aspects in making Classic Mega Man so good. But before I do, I’d like to really quickly discuss the gist of the Mega Man World games, as this’ll be pretty important when discussing Mega Man World 4’s levels. For those who don’t know, until Mega Man World 5, the Gameboy Mega Man games used remixed levels from the NES Mega Man games, usually with an original boss character near the very end. For example, Mega Man World 4 uses remixed levels from Mega Man 4 and 5 for its main levels, and after you beat all of them, you get to face Ballade before taking on the Wily stage. I often see people mention this as a detriment towards the Game Boy Mega Man games, but I personally didn’t mind this, as (at least for Mega Man World 4), the levels still feel really unique from their NES counterparts. I can’t comment much on the Mega Man 5 levels as I actually have yet to play that game, but as someone who’s played Mega Man 4 a billion times, the levels from those games still felt really fresh and new to me. Part of this comes from the fact that these levels usually opt for new gimmicks to be added to the stages, such as rising platforms for Bright Man’s stage, platforms you can shoot in Crystal Man’s stage, etc. But even with the levels that don’t introduce new gimmicks, they still feel unique because they’re using these familiar level concepts in completely new ways. It also helps that these levels are really fun as well. Hell, I prefer some of these Mega Man 4 levels over their NES counterparts, mainly Pharaoh Man and Toad Man’s stages in particular. A lot of the Mega Man 5 levels also feature branching paths, which is an inclusion I always enjoy from classic Mega Man and makes these levels all the more replayable. Overall, these levels are just generally really fun and well-designed, however, there are quite a few cheap sections that kind of plague the levels. These range from minor but annoying things like cheap enemy placements, to pretty deplorable game design decisions like not knowing to hold left before jumping down and then falling into a pit of spikes. The game also tends to suffer from pretty heavy lag, especially when you’re using a weapon like Pharaoh Shot or Rain Flush. Thankfully, the lag never caused any of my controller inputs to be dropped like in Mega Man 3, but the slowdown can still happen quite often. These issues can get pretty annoying, but they’re few and far between and they’re nowhere near enough to ruin the otherwise really fun level designs and creative concepts of the levels. My favorite was probably Napalm Man’s stage, not only due to the clever use of the gimmicks already present in that stage, but also for its cool original setpieces like the disappearing block paths and the fires that you can put out with Rain Flush. Environmental interaction before Mega Man 7? See, this is one of the many examples of how creative these levels can get. While none of these levels are like, super mind blowing or anything, they’re still really fun and feel really refreshing for a Gameboy game consisting of remixed NES stages. Alongside the original Wily stages and bosses, you can tell that this was the entry in the series where Minakuchi Engineering really wanted to make something original for themselves, as shown by the fact that a year later, they’d cook with Mega Man World 5, one of the most unique entries in the entire series to this day. All-in-all, the levels in Mega Man World 4 were just a really solid time all around and still felt new, even with the reused enemies and setpieces.

I mentioned how the new level gimmicks and the creative enemy uses made the levels feel more unique, but there are two more things that the developers added that made this entry feel fresh. One of which was the introduction of the P-chip system, which is sort of like a predecessor to the bolts seen in later games like Mega 9 and 10, where you collect them throughout your adventure and can spend them at the shop in between stages. Unfortunately, like in Mega Man 9 and 10, this system kind of leaves a lot to be desired. They suffer from the same problem as the bolts in those games where, aside from the Energy Balancer, you really only have E-tanks and Extra Lives left to buy, so if you’re like me and don’t really use E-Tanks, you don’t have much of a reason to come back to the shop or collect any more P-chips. Thankfully, Mega Man World 5 fixed this by adding a lot more cool stuff in the shop you could buy, like upgrades for your Mega Arm. As it stands though, Mega Man World 4’s P-chips are a cool idea in concept (hence why they’d be used again in later entries), but in execution, they could’ve been fleshed out a little bit more. Another element that Mega Man World 4 had that made it feel more unique is the collectibles. Well, I say it makes it feel more unique, but this idea was re-used from Mega Man 5, but in a slightly different way. In the Mega Man 4 levels, you can collect letters spelling “MEGA”, and just like in Mega Man 5, your reward for collecting these is the robot bird Beat, which I never used. Meanwhile, throughout the Mega Man 5 levels, you can collect letters that spell Wily, which… allow you access to Ballade and the Wily stages? I don’t know, that feels like kind of a weird requirement to be able to progress through the game, don’t you think? Eh, at least they aren’t too out of the way, so it’s easy to collect them all on your first try, but it’s still pretty weird to have some of your collectibles be required. Though, despite what it sounds like, I still very much appreciate the addition of these two features to the game, and they help even further in giving Mega Man World 4 an identity of its own.

Another thing that helps make classic Mega Man so good is its selection of special weapons. Mega Man World 4 has a pretty great weapon roster, though, part of that is kind of expected as half of its weapons come from Mega Man 4. Mega Man 4 genuinely has one of the best weapon selections I’ve seen in any game. Nearly all of them manage to be useful in some fashion and genuinely really add to the stages too. Likewise, the Mega Man 4 weapons brought over into this game are just as amazing as ever, with my personal favorites being Pharaoh Shot and Flash Stopper. Ring Boomerang kiiind of got nerfed as it can no longer pierce through shields, but the ability to pick up items from far away more than makes up for it. Even the Mega Man 5 weapons brought into this game are pretty decent, and the excellent Ballade Cracker is the icing on the cake. It’s an exploding weapon that travels fast, and can be fired in 7 directions, yet still manages to be more balanced than the Metal Blade. This weapon roster is just really solid overall. While not as good as base Mega Man 4’s roster, I still felt like the stages were very well built around the game’s weapon roster and they were pretty fun to use. Unfortunately though, as much as I’ve praised the Mega Man World 4’s levels and weapons so far, I really can’t do the same for the game’s main robot masters.

The bosses are another one of the three key factors in making classic Mega Man so great. I mean, they’re what stand between you and the special weapons you get to use, so they’ve got to put up a formidable yet fair fight. However, most of the time, NES Mega Man bosses tend to be… not great? A lot of the time, they typically don’t have much of a discernible pattern, typically relying on the player’s location or inputs (like most of the Mega Man 4 robot masters), and having insanely hard attacks to actually dodge, so the fight just kind of boils down to, “who can outlast the damage race”, rather than actually learning the bosses’ pattern. Other times, it’s WAY too easy, and their pattern is so easy to cheese that you can basically get out of the fight scot-free. From my experience, this felt like the case with a lot of Robot Masters in NES era Mega Man, and it wouldn’t be until Mega Man 7 onwards where Robot Masters and their patterns started to reach their full potential in my opinion. Sadly, the Robot Master fights in this game feel a lot more like the former than the latter, which I guess isn’t really the developers’ fault as they did have to port over these fights. They did change up a few fights from the NES ones a little bit, such as Ring Man firing his rings towards you, making the fight play out almost completely differently from NES Ring Man. I really wish they did this for a lot more of the Robot Master fights in this game, because a lot of these battles just never felt all that challenging or satisfying to me. They’re made even worse by the fact that the screen is so small. Mega Man World 5’s Robot Masters felt pretty well designed around this, but here it just makes the fights feel a lot more cramped than anything. Honestly, if I had to change anything about this game, these fights would certainly be it, because if they tweaked these fights a bit like they did with Ring Man’s fight, I think they could’ve been a lot more fun. However, there’s a lot of room for improvement with these fights, and this is especially true for the game’s special robot master, Ballade.

Look, I love Ballade as much as the next guy. He’s one of the coolest motherfuckers that classic Mega Man has ever introduced! But MAN, this fight just does not feel good to play against. If you’ve played Mega Man 10’s 3rd time attack stage like I have, it’s seemingly a lot like the fight in that stage, and in essence, it’s the same idea. Ballade lays down a bomb to watch out for, jumps towards your location around 1-4 times, runs towards your location, and throws a Ballade Cracker, rinse and repeat. It’s actually a good idea, and has been done quite well in Mega Man 10, but unfortunately, we’re not reviewing that game. We’re reviewing Mega Man World 4, where this seemingly pretty simple fight is butchered by a pretty terrible execution. I have a few problems with this. One of which is that Ballade will stop dead in his tracks whenever he reaches your location, which doesn’t sound too bad, but trust me, jumping over him when he does this is a hell of a lot harder than it looks. He’ll usually stop as you’re making a jump, so you end up just crashing into him and taking a shit ton of damage. Mega Man 10 mitigated this issue by having him run to the end of the screen instead of at your location, so you won’t get blindsided by him just suddenly stopping in his tracks. Speaking of which, another thing that Mega Man 10 has going for it is that Ballade’s fight just feels more natural in that game. There, you didn’t have to worry too much about the amount of jumps he did just because you could react to it quickly enough, But in a game where the screen is shrunken down and the physics are a lot more floaty, it feels like it just doesn’t work. Put all this together, and you’re once again left with a fight that feels like it just boils down to “win the damage race”, which sucks, because in concept and design, Ballade is incredibly cool, but his fight definitely needed some more time in the oven before coming out. After you do inevitably win the damage race, you can move on to the endgame, but before we do, I’d quickly like to discuss the section that comes directly after this. After beating Ballade and getting the Ballade Cracker, you’re then thrust into a chase sequence. The ground behind you is breaking apart and you need to get past a ton of exploding missiles before you fall to your doom, preferably by using Ballade Cracker. However, because you’re so focused on moving as much as you can, and the missiles are basically clustered together, you’ll often end up taking damage from the blast radius. Plus, the layout of the room and the missiles are just really awkward to work with. Your best bet is typically switching between Pharaoh Shot, Ballade Cracker, and the buster, as those are your three best tools to work with when dealing with them. Still, this section really isn’t that fun to go through, and most importantly, just doesn’t feel necessary in the first place. Why even have a chase sequence here? Honestly, if there was one section I’d cut from the game, it’d probably be this. Thankfully, it is pretty short, and after all that’s said and done, we can finally move on to Mega Man World 4’s endgame.

I don’t have too much to say about Mega Man World 4’s endgame since it is pretty short, but I thought it was a lot of fun. Barring the two terrible Met cannon minibosses at the start, the Wily stages felt like what classic Mega Man end game stages should feel like. A gauntlet of everything you’ve learned so far, putting your weapon skills and reflexes to the test before finally facing off against the main man himself, Wily. Like I said, this endgame stage is pretty short, so you won’t have much time to test out your newly acquired Ballade Cracker (and no, the chase sequence does NOT mitigate this). I would’ve added a bit more to this stage, but other than that, it’s a pretty well done endgame stage, even if I don’t have much to say about it. After getting through the obligatory robot master rematches, you can finally reach Dr. Wily himself, and face off against one of the coolest Wily fights in the series. See, rather than just using your standard Wily machine, Wily decided to bring out the big guns, and you’re left facing a huge ass robot, which is just one of the coolest concepts for a Wily boss I’ve ever seen. The fight itself is also pretty fun too. The first phase, where you fight the robot’s chest, can kinda catch you off guard with how fast its hands come out, but once you start to get mentally prepared for when they come, you’ll be able to overcome it. Next up, you face off against the head, and it’s quite a bit easier than the chest phase, but it’s still pretty fun and creative, requiring that you shoot him while his mouth sucks you in. After you’ve beaten that, now it’s time for the final phase. You follow Wily into another room- aaand it’s just another Wily capsule. This is probably the lamest of the three forms, plus it requires you to use a special weapon to beat it, which I’m never too keen on. I don’t dislike it at all, but it’s pretty easy, especially if you use Pharaoh Shot to beat it. After you do, you get a cutscene escaping Wily’s fortress, Ballade sacrifices himself to save you, and then the game’s over. You just beat Mega Man World 4!

Man, I had a lot more to say about this Game Boy Mega Man game than I initially thought. I guess I just really like talking about classic Mega Man, so I guess in a way, this was probably the perfect game to get me back into Backloggd reviews. I had a really fun time with this one. It’s not anything super special, and yeah, it has a ton of strange flaws, but not only is it pretty well-designed, but it’s also quite creative for what they had to work with. You can really tell there was a strong desire to make something more original out of these Game Boy Mega Man games, and that would show when they’d release Mega Man World 5 soon after. And even though I’d typically recommend that game if you were to only ever play a single Game Boy Mega Man, I still wouldn’t overlook this Game Boy gem either. Even if you’ve played Mega Man 4 or 5 a lot, I can still say there’d probably be something here that you’d enjoy. (7/10)

I’ve always liked Super Meat Boy, but never loved it until recently. Being one of the first of the many “masocore” platformers, it’s always maintained relevance since the 2008 prototype. It doesn’t have any major gimmicks, and instead focuses on the games of old. You have a simple goal.

Dr Fetus has kidnapped Bandage Girl. Save Bandage Girl! It’s as simple as it gets. Well, what about the controls? You run, jump, and that’s it. So, where’s the fun? The controls. I firmly believe that Super Meat Boy has the best controls of any platformer released to date. Meat Boy is incredibly fast, while also having a floaty jump. Normally I’d say that this is bad for most games, but Super Meat Boy makes it work. All of the levels are designed with this high speed and floatiness in mind, stretching the controls to the furthest possibility. It’s most noticeable in the much later levels, but even then, this attention to detail is present in earlier levels. It makes the game feel truly limitless, by allowing you to speed through the levels, having an extremely high skill ceiling down to the very frame. It’s a bit unwieldy, but once you master it, it feels like you can do anything. And do everything you shall, because there's a catch. It’s called SUPER for a reason. Super Meat Boy is considered among the hardest platformers, and for good reason. It’s a relentlessly difficult game, doubly so for 100%, but that’s where the beauty of the game lies within. Sure, you may retry a dozen times just to unlock the Dark World level, but by all accounts, the game pushes you to that mastery by rewarding you for overcoming challenges. It wants you to succeed. It’s difficult, but fair, and one of the most rewarding to conquer. The levels all feel distinctive from one another, and each individual one teaches the player a different lesson throughout their short runtimes. The level progression of Super Meat Boy is nothing but incredible. It introduces a gimmick in one level, and each level builds upon it. And then suddenly, another gimmick pops up. And then another, and another, and another, until you’re working with all of the mechanics before you even know it. And then the Dark World version of the level shows how much better you can get with said mechanics. No gimmick feels underutilized, nor unfun and cheap, and no level feels forgettable at all. It emphasizes how strong the whole game’s design is. And if you really want a challenge, you can always go for the Bandages! The bandages of Super Meat Boy force you to master the level to even get a shot at them. Getting them is the easier part. Surviving is harder. If you so much as graze a saw with these babies, you lose the bandage, but succeed and the game proudly announces that you got the bandage. It's a feeling like no other. I had my shit absolutely rocked throughout the entirety of Super Meat Boy 100%. Getting the bandages really made me feel like I accomplished something, both in a metaphorical and literal sense, as unlocking bandages allows you to play as brand new characters.

Akin to The Binding of Isaac, all characters cover a specific niche. Meat Boy is your main man, with all of the levels designed for him first and foremost. The others give you entirely new platforming abilities, but typically have a stipulation, like for example, Commander Video. He gets a short float, but is pretty slow compared to Meat Boy. There's about 10 characters overall, a few of which require a secret code to be inputed. The cool thing about it is that most characters come from other indie games, making Super Meat Boy feel more like a video game which proves how far indie games have come. Even more interestingly, the console and PC versions of the game has different characters within them, each accommodating the difference in the Indie scene on PC and Consoles. The Warp Zones themselves have the same characters, so Commander Video from Bit.Trip, Jill from… Mighty Jill Off, Ogmo from Jumper, the titular character, Flywrench, and The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy are all here and accounted for. Meanwhile, Gish, Tim, Guy Spelunky, Pink Knight, and The Ninja are console exclusive, while Headcrab, Alien Hominid, Josef, Naija, RunMan, Captain Viridian, and MR. MINECRAFT, are all exclusive to PC. In the end, it doesn't really matter which version you play, but it kind of sucks that we never got some Super Meat Boy Definitive Edition with all of the characters from both versions, but in general, the balance of characters is very solid. While The Kid is among the best characters in the game for the best double jump in the game, he is a lot slower and jumps lower than Meat Boy. And also, in order to even get him, you need to complete the 3 hardest levels in the game, back to back.

This is a perfect transition into talking about the bane of my existence. GOLDEN GOD. Is actually really fun! Super Meat Boy will take you about a weekend to complete, but GOLDEN GOD could take upwards of a month to achieve. I played on-and-off ad nauseam over the course of a year, amd Golden God completely transforms Super Meat Boy as a game. In order to achieve Golden God, you need to
- Clear all 7 Light Worlds, with an A+ Rank
- Clear all 7 Dark Worlds (aka X worlds), harder versions of the Light World, but no A+ ranks are needed
- Obtain all 100 Bandages
- Unlock every Character
- Clear all Warp Zones, sets of 3 bite sized levels with 3 lives per level
- Clear all Glitch levels (technically optional but adds to 100%)
So... yeah, any completionist certainly has their work cut out for them. The Dark Worlds alone nearly broke me, but damn did I pop off when I cleared every one of them. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 6 are pretty manageable when it comes to their challenge, but I genuinely contemplated quitting the entire operation at World 4X. I was 100%ing each World at about 1 or 2 per day, but 4X threw off my flow by a lot. It took me about 3 days to fully beat it alone, and 5X only got more and more challenging. 5X is among the most challenging worlds in the entire game. Each level was a challenging contraption made with only the most difficult platforming setpieces in the entire game. But each time I died, the music always brought me coming back for more!

Super Meat Boy’s soundtrack is legendary, no doubt about it. Some of the most Newgrounds esque shit that you can imagine, but it’s some of that good shit nonetheless. Forest Funk was stuck in my head for months once I first conquered Super Meat Boy, Beatus Blues is an incredibly catchy tune. Can O’ Salt is a Minecraft song (described by one of my IRLs), Hell feels grand and imposing, and The Rapture feels like a goddamn military tune. The End is weirdly cinematic but also really good, and CHAPTER MOTHERFUCKING 7!

Chapter 7 is where my 100% streak really died off. I completed 5 levels a DAY at this point. There are no bandages, no warp zones, nothing. Just you, your controller, and Bandage Girl. Yeah, for Chapter 7 alone, you get to play as Bandage Girl. And these levels aren’t among the most difficult in the game, they ARE the most difficult in the game. Don’t let the happy music and overabundance of pink fool you. The Cotton Alley has some of the most pseudo-pixel perfect shit that you can imagine, but once again, it’s HARD but FAIR. I never wanted to ragequit because the game wasn’t unfair. It’s one of the hardest 2D platforming levels ever made, but one of the best. Every single piece of tech that the game taught you comes back for a spectacular finale, and a spectacular finale that is. This all culminates in the HARDEST level I’ve ever beaten. “The Four Letter Word” is IMPOSSIBLE. It’s 1 minute of straight pixel perfect platforming, easily the hardest level in the game, and it was 11 PM. I was in my room alone, with only the bright visuals of the Cotton Alley keeping me awake. But I was determined. And it took over a very long time, but after an hour, I saw Meat Boy. I was at the goal. I made the final jump, and dropped my controller. I was so satisfied, but I knew that was only half the battle. So, I got a good night’s rest, knowing that the following day would be hell.

Or was it? I powered through Cotton Alleys’ Dark World like it was nothing. I was Meat Boy. I felt the heaviness on my heart each time he died, but each victory kept me coming back for more and more. I crushed half of the levels like soda cans. But the remaining few pushed me past my breaking point. And with 4 levels to go, with just me and the game, I received... Golden God??? Welp, that was fun! Yeah, not sure why the achievement unlocked early, but I decided to leave it at that. But as the final completion reward, you unlock the Meat Ninja, who always runs and can teleport through sawblades after pressing X. You can’t use the leaderboards with him, but it’s a solid reward for 100%.

Super Meat Boy is a masterclass of game design, being one of the best platformers ever made. It has over 300 handcrafted levels, all of which test the player’s skills in the best way possible. It’s one of those pick up and play games, where you can play and clear a few levels, or complete the entire game in a sitting. It’s a fun game, to put it simply, and I can’t recommend it enough, now that the XBLA store is shutting down. Rest In Peace, but long live Steam. Welp. What is there to to cover now?

MYSELF. Yeah, I know this is pretty out of scope to cover in a controversial platforming series with a silly cube of meat, but I wanted to talk about another controversial platforming series with a Witch. A dark one, perhaps. Plus, it directly related to me and the near future of zeusdeegoose as a whole, and I’ve done so in the past with my Binding of Isaac reviews. So humor me for a bit, or, if you’ve had your fill, feel free to click off, and I wish you a good day. For many people within my Discord and other related spaces, they knew that I was re-reviewing The Legend of Dark Witch series in it’s entirety; keyword, was, and I have to upsettingly say that said review series is now canceled. Many people don’t know about it, and I think that’s a good thing. It was a series that I used to play in the past, and me and a few friends have heavily criticized over the past few years. We also have a bit of bad blood within said community itself. We were talking about it again and how the developer sucked, practically beating it down as a farce of a franchise, mostly leaving the community stuff out of it as a whole. And while I still agree those remarks about the developer, one discussion got taken pretty far as I took a jab at one of the wiki’s vandals, and that spiraled into one of the members of the server leaving. Initially, I thought it was going to be a lighthearted joke, but it was pretty inappropriate of me and for those involved, I do apologize. I won’t extrapolate anything further at the behest of the people in said chat, as the server that the discussions were held within was a private venue, and I don’t wish to share any links so said server.

Secondly, after said conversation, I realized something huge. I didn’t NEED to re-review the series. I mean, what would I get out of it? Initially, the thought going in was that this would re-introduce people into zeusdeegoose’s past by re-reviewing what got the ball rolling for the long ass review format and to bury the hatchet for the final time, but here’s the thing. I already kind of did that. I had already archived my Wiki reviews on Backloggd, and notwithstanding the occasional bias, my criticisms of each game have still held up. So the newer reviews would just be... lesser. I don’t have the energy nor the time to discuss every stage in Dark Witch 2 again when that would go against the overall message of the review series; that being that The Legend of Dark Witch is a dogshit series, aside from 1 and 2, and I don’t think it’s worth potentially burning some bridges just to prove my point. Me and other friends have already long since moved on, and potentially bringing a lolicon back into the spotlight simply isn’t worth the effort that’d I’d put into it.

Thirdly, I got burnt out. Ladies and Gentlemen, I LOVE tearing apart games I hate, believe me. Super Meat Boy Forever is one of my favorite reviews that I’ve ever made. But I can only say “This game fucking sucks” so many times before getting tired, folks. And that’s just the review side. Imagine playing 8 games back to back, 99% of which are mid, and the 1% are games that I’ve burnt myself out on and already played for hundreds of hours already (not joking, btw). I didn’t hate myself for booting up The Binding of Isaac, because The Binding of Isaac is an actually GOOD video game that I like. Wow! But whenever I boot up any Dark Witch game, I just feel disappointed.

Fourthly, who cares? I could make point after point about why NAN-A and The Legend of Dark Witch suck, but it’s fruitless. The Legend of Dark Witch is far past it’s eShop era where it was actually semi-popular. Hell, I’d bet now that the games don’t even average a sale a day, with the 3DS eShop now gone. Now, only a very small, inactive fanbase remains. Ever since me and others left, it’s a complete GHOST TOWN. Nobody cares about it anymore. I’ve barely heard anyone in my online sphere talk about it, and it remains as a niche franchise, like it should be. People got their balls blown off with 1 and 2, and then almost all of us collectively fucked off afterwards because the games SUCKED and it wasn’t active anymore. Now that the dust has settled, it’d only serve to piss people off who still give a damn about the series anymore. And trust me, they WOULD get pissed. I’ve seen it firsthand. And as funny as it would be, I don't want to act as if I'm some villain or something.

So... yeah. That’s all I got to say on the matter. Sorry to anyone who was expecting the review, and sorry to anyone who was involved in the first incident. It was a flawed idea from the start, and I really don’t have anyone to blame for the reviews except myself. Now, for real this time, I’m burying the hatchet. No more of my valuable time will be spent on a video game franchise made by some jizzer. I may edit this out sooner or later, because truth be told, it’s mostly irrelevant to a game series with a funny meat man, but I just needed to get my thoughts out, off of my chest, and announce that the series is canceled, as disappointing as it may be. Finally, I still have all of my Dark Witch reviews in a Google Doc, so if you'd like to see them, whether that be out of curiosity or otherwise, come on over. ;) Shoot me a DM to @zeusdeegoose, either on Twitter or Discord. They’ll remain forever unfinished, but hey, if people wanted to know how it would've played out, they can come and see. But now, with all that being said, lets just move on to greener fields because I don’t know what else to talk about.

Sooooo... it might be too early, but it may be time to start another review series. I’ve been playing a wider variety of games than ever before. Old games, new games, and even bear games. I’ve had good games and bad games, but it’s true love that we share! So I do have quite a few on my mind that I want to do. Blaster Master Zero, Super Monkey Ball, and Devil May Cry are all on my mind. So, I hope you’re looking out for those because they’re probably coming soon. Blaster Master Zero will probably be first up, as I’ve finished all of them, and then Super Monkey Ball and DMC will follow soon after. Again, there may or may not be a bit of a drought when it comes to reviews thanks to the aforementioned cancellation, so apologies. But, zeusdeegoose always comes back stronger than it was. So please tune in, when it’s ready of course. But in the meantime, I’m going back to the Basement so I can type more reviews. If you’ve read this far, I really appreciate your support, but please go outside. It’s almost Summer now, and the sun is good for your skin and health. Don’t be like me. Or hell, play Super Meat Boy! You wont regret it.

Just like Dreamland 2, the first time I fully beat this game was in 2022, directly after Dreamland 2 actually. I first played this years ago when I got an SNES classic, and thought it was cool. But I'll come out and say it, I never really digged the whole multiple bite-sized campaigns in one shtick. I had a greater appreciation for this game, when I played it in 2022, due to some of the series staples it added. But even then, it wasn't one of my favorite Kirby games. How do I feel about the game now though? Basically, the same tbh. Though, when compared to every Kirby game that released prior to this, I'd say it's the clear best.

The biggest improvement, and this would be a Kirby staple once Return to Dreamland released, is the expanded move set. No longer do you only have a single move per copy ability. Now, depending on your directional inputs on the d-pad, you can use several different moves per copy ability. This is a fantastic addition, and probably my favorite aspect about this game, as it makes beating each level more fun. Both of the fire abilities that were in Adventure, are now in one and the one that would turn you into a fireball is your dash attack. Spark, which was a staple in Adventure and Dreamland 2, isn't even in this game and was basically replaced by Plasma (which is all around better because of the electric shield you can get). The copy abilities in general, are really good in this game. You have your series staples like sword, hammer and all that. But then you have new ones like Bomb, Mirror and Yo-Yo which are all really awesome. Compared to prior games, the amount of copy abilities in this game is massive and I think it even rivals some of the modern games. You can also, at anytime, turn whatever copy ability you have into a little NPC helper. This was a fun addition and let's you play the game with two players? I actually never tried it out myself, but I assume you can do that and not have the multiplier be regulated to the minigames.

I am a Dreamland 3 fan, and while I prefer how that game looks visually, Superstar still looks really good for an SNES game. The game is full of that Kirby personality, whether it's with Kirby himself or the enemies he faces. The animations on some of the enemies in this game are just really expressive, and that includes the bosses as well. They're all very charming, especially the computer virus boss, that one is very witty. Some bosses are better than others (I really hate fatty whale) but most of them are pretty fun..especially with the expanded move set.

Now for the meat and potatoes of this game, the game modes. This is the part of the game I'm not much of a fan of. The game consists of 9 modes in all. 4 of them are normal Kirby campaigns, 3 of them are short minigames, 1 is a weird campaign that is more akin to a Metroid game and the last is a boss rush basically. They're all mostly fun in their own right, I just much prefer a more focused, full sized campaign since even with the longer modes here, they just don't stick in my mind as much. I'll delve into each mode though and explain my feelings on every one of them.

Megaton Punch is a short, button timing mini-game where you must see who creates the biggest crack on Popstar. It's very short and humorous to watch, but there's not much to it. Samurai Kirby is basically a remake of the one western minigame from Kirby's Adventure, and it's even more simple to play. You just press the A button faster than your opponent but I swear I just can't do it, even on the easiest difficulty. I always lose to Meta-Knight at the end. It's alright but I prefer Megaton Punch. The last mini-game is Gourmet Race. I won't get into the staple song just yet, but know it's my favorite of the three minigames because of its music and because its fun to race Dedede (and to see his reactions to you winning).

As for the normal campaigns, the first one is Spring Breeze. Not much to say here, it's the shortest of the four and is basically just a remake of Dreamland 1. It's actually even shorter than that game since it lacks the reused portions of levels before Dedede. Dedede is also super easy in this version compared to Dreamland 1. Dynablade is a little longer than Spring Breeze, but not by much. Also don't really have much to say here either, it's a pretty uneventful set of Kirby levels. Revenge of the Meta Knight is a lot longer than the previous two campaigns, or at least it felt like it was. It has Kirby trying to stop Meta Knight and his crew. The level takes place, mostly, in his ship as you destroy it. It also has the most dialogue in the game, because of his crew members, and it's very charming because of them. This felt like the most unique of the normal campaigns and it was definitely my favorite next to the final one. The final one, Milky Way Wishes, has Kirby trying to stop the sun and moon from fighting, which Kirby must make a wish using Nova (this cat face clock thing) because this fella Marx told him to. In the end of the adventure though, Marx dupes you and takes the wish for himself and you have to fight him. This one probably has the most stakes out of any campaign and Marx has a really cool design. I also really liked the space theme and I really really liked the copy ability mechanic. Basically, you can only get copy abilities from these pedestals hidden throughout the world, but once you do you keep the ability forever and can freely switch between any you've gathered at anytime. Thinking about it then, this is probably my favorite mode in the game..it would've been really cool to see this one fleshed out even more though since it still isn't very long.

As for the other two modes, The Great Cave Offensive is different from the other modes. It acts as sort of a metroidvania, where the goal is to explore each section of the game for treasure. You can backtrack freely which is unusual for a Kirby game and is why this one feels different from the other 4 campaigns. It's fun but getting every treasure can be a pain, and pretty much all of the bosses (which you would first see here) get reused in the later campaigns. The last mode, which you unlock from beating every other one, is the arena. This is the boss rush I mentioned earlier, and it's a staple in like all of the modern Kirby mainline games. I actually didn't beat it this time, I gave it like 10 go's, but I did beat it back in 2022. The copy ability you want to use is definitely hammer as it does the most damage. The arena is usually the hardest part of the modern Kirby games and that's no different here, as you have to defeat every boss in the game with only 5 Maxim tomatoes for all of them. It's not totally my thing but it's a decent inclusion nonetheless.

The OST is good, as most Kirby games are, and the standout of course is Gourmet Race. It's one of the most well known Kirby songs for a reason (besides becoming big because of Smash) and yeah it's pretty awesome. The rest of the OST is good too, but this was my favorite new song, as this game continues the trend of remixing a lot of older Kirby songs.

I'm not crazy about this game like some other Kirby fans are, due to the multiple campaigns, but I can't deny it added some great series staples like the expanded move sets and the arena. While not in my personal top 5, at this point in the series this is definitely the best Kirby game thus far. Fun time overall!

Man, they don’t make ‘em like they used to.

For all this time, I mainly avoided the whole club aspect of this expansion pack thinking that that’s all it really added. Eh, whatever!! Maybe I don’t want my Sim to enjoy group outings with friends. But then you pull yourself back a little bit and you realize that this pack is like the main reason why there’s any LIFE in the LIFE SIMULATION game at all. I was a fool, but now.. Now I am with my tribe. In terms of completionist content for my own sick pleasure, there’s just 1 new skill and 1 new aspiration so that part is whatever. It's the actual gameplay elements that shine the brightest here though.

No, really. Arcade machines, dance floors, foosball tables, bar nights, dance clubs, cafes, civilization itself? All of that was added in this pack and it kinda makes me wonder what on God’s green Earth were Sims doing before it. Watching paint dry? Slowly aging until the sweet release of death between the walls of their solitary home? While it’s still a bit of a pain in the ass, the group mechanic allows you to control multiple Sims at once to get them to actually interact together while out. Activities can be done with several Sims, like they actually like being around each other. Before you would just kinda hope they’d sit together at the dinner table so you could have some semblance of normality in your escapist life, but sometimes that wouldn’t be where the cards fell. My wife would eat dinner on the toilet while I sat alone in the dining room. Well, not anymore!!!

They worked their pussy off creating Windenburg. It’s gotta be one of the best towns in the whole game in terms of aesthetics and things to do. It has a shit ton of empty lots to build off of for the most nasty Sims architects out there. You can visit an old antique house and learn the backstory of a random ghost couple for no reason other than.. they felt like putting it into the game? Like, it sounds stupid but I’m being serious when I say they don’t do stuff like this anymore. I’m sure as I keep reviewing these packs, there will be less and less to talk about because they get more streamlined by release order. The Sims is pretty well known for having genuinely bananas lore and questionably canonical timelines. Stuff like this just reminds me of how charming this series is at its center, even if it doesn’t really feel like it anymore.

For the club feature itself, bro I can’t tell you enough how alive I actually felt putting one together. They give you so many goofy ass options to work with in terms of club requirements and activities. It’s the kind of core dumbassery that I love experimenting with in The Sims, just a breeding ground for chaos to lay waste across your town. As your club grows more powerful, the more perks you can buy like a completely diabolical Fallout: New Vegas build. You short on change, buddy? Get your 8 friends to paint for you without a break, then collect their money. No need for romance when we’re all doing the do. I’m beating up the elderly AND cleaning up the beach at the same time. It's not like they're gonna help with that. The rewards for skill boosting are unbelievably broken in exploitative ways that I will be taking full advantage of. If I want to max a skill in under an hour, I can just buy all the skill boosting perks and then have my friends come over to watch me show off until it's 100% done.

And look, you can bark at me all day long about how this all sounds like it should have been base-game content and yadda yadda, I agree. I get it man, whabby doo, but we don’t live in this utopia that you speak of. Your dreams are just dreams and I am not the CEO of EA. You can't really talk about The Sims without someone booing and throwing tomatoes about DLC and I don't disagree with those criticisms. But, I am the ruler of my own wallet and I say that video games were actually a mistake for mankind. I am the schmuck who bought the expansions so that you don't have to, my brave soldier.

My definitive answer is that this pack is one of the better packs in the entire line-up. Is it the best ever? Naw, there's some fancier dinner plates coming down the line, but people might really enjoy the social aspect of this one and those people can use this information however they will.

Gang, gang.

Meu Deus, que jogo maravilhoso! Comecei a franquia pelo ''Resident Evil 4 Remake'' e de cara amei o jogo, desde então fui atrás de jogar os outros jogos dessa franquiam maravilhosa. Amei ''RE2 Remake'', e agora fui de cabeça no ''RE3 Remake''. Não sabia nada da história, mas sabia que muitos não gostaram do jogo, pois é muito curto e modificaram muito do original. Apesar de tudo isso, amei minha experiencia, me diverti muito do inicio ao fim. Amo o estilo dessa franquia, um ''Survival Horror'', cheio de ação, tensão, terror, zumbis, puzzles, tudo feito com maestria. Os gráficos desse jogo são maravilhosos! a gameplay, os personagens, os inimigos e principalmente a história, que é perfeita! Ainda não cheguei a jogar o RE3 antigo, porém adorei jogar esse remake. Realmente o jogo é muito curto, esperava aproveitar um pouco mais, porém acabei sendo pego de surpresa pelo final inesperado. Tirando isso, o jogo para mim é perfeito. Super recomendo jogarem essa maravilha!