I used to call this "the most overrated Final Fantasy game ever", but after replaying it I have to admit... it's actually pretty great. Playing it back to back with VI it's simultaneously striking to see the creators ambition spilling over everywhere, and surprising just how much of the 16-Bit DNA is still in there.

The PSX entries exist in a genre that is still awaiting a second reneissance - the fixed perspective pre-rendered background game. It's easy to look back at clumsy controls or weird graphical artifacts and write this off as just a concession to technical limitations, but I think there's a lot of artistry on display in it. There are shots you just don't get in games with a modern dynamic camera- zoomed out shots of the hulking reactor machinery, or clostrophobic close-ups of Cloud crawling up a vent, or watching the player character spiral down into the depths of the shinra mansion, getting smaller and smaller as they travel away from the camera. Occasionally it's annoying, but more often than not in VII it's charming and shows off the creators' cinematic ambitions.

This is also, weirdly, somewhere the proximity to the SNES still shows. VII uses a lot of zoomed out overhead shots that give you a plan view of the levels you're in. Places like Shinra HQ, for instance, are basically viewed from above the same way they would be if the game was made for the SNES, as if the dungeon were a doll house where we've lifted the roof off and peered inside. The sequel will completely abandon this kind of presentation, never allowing the camera to break the fourth wall, for better or, more often, worse.

In terms of RPG mechanics, I still find this one a bit frustrating. The materia system gives you lots of fun powerups and options, but a lot of them don't show up until deep into the game, and the progression for materia is glacial. The synergies don't show up until very late in the game and the stat adjustements will never really matter, which limits the ability to make distinct builds. By the end game I could make Tifa a counter-attacking, holy-punching monk machine, but by that point a lot of strategies were also trivialised by summoning Knights of the Round 10 times in a row. It's a good system, but it feels like the game itself is only just scratching the surface of its potential.

Ultimately, I find this game most memorable for the stunning visuals and set pieces, for the charming if clumsy attempts to turn everything into a minigame, and for the tough as nails superbosses. It doesn't beat out my SNES favourites, but it is as good as everyone says. Play it with some CRT filters if you can, the pre-rendered backgrounds look absolutely gorgeous under that soft nostalgic light.

While it may have been a remake of the original Castlevania and not a completely original game, Super Castlevania IV was, without a doubt, one of the best Castlevania games ever made. Not only did it add plenty of content to make it the definitive version of the original game at that point, but it also made controlling Simon much more enjoyable and satisfying, with full midair control while jumping and being able to whip in eight different directions. There were no real complaints that I had about the game overall, and it is definitely the best way to bring the series to the 16-bit era. With all that being said, however… in my original review of that game, I did mention that it was not quite my favorite Castlevania game, or even my favorite classicvania game. That game would be released just a couple years later, but only in Japan, while us in the west would get the inferior Castlevania: Dracula X. Eventually, we would get the original version of that game released as part of Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, where it would get fully translated in English as Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.

In many different ways, Rondo of Blood could be seen as nothing too extraordinary when it comes to a classicvania game, and in other ways, it could even be seen as a step back when compared to what Super Castlevania IV brought to the table. However, what it does add greatly outweighs what was lost in this title, making for what I would consider without a doubt to be the best of the classic Castlevania games. Even back in the day, when I was just playing it for the first time on my Wii out of curiosity, I knew that I preferred this over all the others, despite all the additions that they would bring to the series. There is so much to love about this game, as it manages to still retain the good ol’ Castlevania gameplay intact while still being pretty fun, while also adding plenty of elements that benefit it just enough to make it edge out over the others.

The story is, for the most part, exactly what you would expect for a Castlevania game, but it does add several other elements to make it seem somewhat more original, such as there being several maidens that were kidnapped to be used to bring back Dracula, which does add a little more flavor to the story other then it just being “dracula bad, go kill”, the graphics are incredible, with this definitely being the best looking Castlevania game at this point, and the designs of the enemies, bosses, and Richter himself still looking great all the way to this day, the music is as great as you would expect for a Castlevania game, with plenty of rocking tunes, as well as remixes of classic tracks that hold up extremely well, the control is exactly what you would expect from a Castlevania game, and it works pretty well, even if it isn’t as versatile as what Super Castlevania IV gave us, and the gameplay is also what you would expect from a classic Castlevania game, while also adding in several new additions to make it stand out from others.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you primarily take control of Richter Belmont, take on a set of at least eight stages across plenty of different gothic environment, fend off plenty of different monsters, both classic and new, which will give you quite the challenge if you aren’t properly prepared to take them on, gather plenty of hearts, money, sub-weapons, and health items throughout the game to assist you in your quest to vanquish the unholy creatures before you, and take on plenty of different bosses that range from familiar faces, to all new foes that will test your strength and reflexes. For the most part, it plays pretty much like your standard Castlevania game, and it doesn’t really warrant any reason to play it over other titles, at least, on the surface level. But, what it does add to the series greatly benefits it in the long run, and makes it fun to come back to even now.

Like with Castlevania III, this game has plenty of different alternating pathways that the player can take, but unlike with Castlevania III, you aren’t just flatout given the option to choose between them, but rather, you have to find them in the stages for yourself. That may seem like a hindrance to some, but for me, I always love shit like this, where you are encouraged to explore these seemingly linear levels to see whatever kinds of secrets you can find, and it is all the more rewarding whenever you do eventually find them. And also like Castlevania III, this game brings back the option of being able to play as multiple characters. As you go through the stages, you can end up finding and saving the maidens that got captured at the beginning of the game, and while most of them are just there for you to save, one of them, Maria, ends up becoming a character that you can swap between at any point. For those of you who haven’t played this game, let me tell you, when you unlock Maria, you will not wanna switch back from playing as her, because she is AWESOME. Not only is her main attack pretty cool and very useful, but the sub-weapons she gets are extremely helpful in certain circumstances, especially against bosses. The only downside to her is that she takes double damage, but with all that stuff that I mentioned earlier, plus having the ability to double jump and perform a special attack on top of that, how can you not want to stick with her for the entire game?

In addition to those new features, we also get fully animated and voice acted cutscenes for the first time in a Castlevania game, and they are pretty well done……… or at least, I would say that, if I wasn’t playing the Japanese version, and I could understand what they were saying. I would play through the English version, but that’s only part of The Dracula X Chronicles, which I don’t have, and I wanna save those for whenever I do get around to that game, so for now, I will just say that the cutscenes do look and sound really good, even if I can’t understand anyone. And finally, this may be a tiny little thing, but I gotta mention it anyway: you no longer permanently lose sub-weapons upon picking up a new one. For every Castlevania game before this, whenever you picked up a new sub-weapon, the one that you were currently holding gets completely replaced, which does kind of suck in some instances, where you end up picking up a sub-weapon that you REALLY didn’t want. Any classic Castlevania player knows this struggle, we have all gone through it. Thankfully, this time around, whenever you do grab a new sub-weapon, the one you were holding gets tossed aside, and you can choose which one you want before proceeding forward. It may not seem like much, but trust me, that is a fix that I am incredibly thankful for.

With all that being said though, as much as I have sung this game’s praises, and while I myself don’t have any problems with it, I can see why people may not prefer this over the previous title. This game returns to the classic control style of the original games, meaning that you can only whip whatever is directly in front of you, and you have an arching jump. While I myself don’t personally mind this, as I am very used to this style of gameplay, those who didn’t like this style and loved the changes that Super Castlevania IV introduced will probably be disappointed when going to this game. But again, that would probably only apply to some certain players, as this didn’t bother me at all. And not to mention, you get a backflip and slide, which Super Castlevania IV didn’t have, so your argument is invalid either way. For me, this game was still great to play through even to this day, and with the added replay value of the many different pathways and the multiple endings that you can get depending on who you beat the game with, it gives the player many different reasons to want to try this game out and go through it again and again.

Overall, this is, in my personal opinion, the best classic Castlevania game ever made, as it not only is another round of that incredibly fun and satisfying gameplay that we all know and love, but the many additions that this game would introduce adds to the amount of charm and fun that can be experienced from it, which I’m sure any longtime fan of the franchise could appreciate. I would definitely recommend it for those who are fans of Castlevania, or even for those who want to get into the series, because even if it may not be as accessible as Super Castlevania IV, it has plenty going for it that makes it worth checking out. Just, you know, make sure you are playing the CORRECT version of the game, and not Dracula X. It isn’t bad by any means, but nonetheless, it should be ashamed of itself for even existing in the first place.

Game #412

kiryu's last outing is such a sweet finale - while it definitely has some story flaws that can't be overlooked, the final result of a 6 month game that was initially meant to be DLC is very impressive, and i'll admit it left a much better taste than Yakuza 6 did.

i'll start with the gameplay, since dragon engine kiryu was a literal middle finger to the combat systems of the games that came before it. it's definitely an improvement for starters, the devs took the solid foundation of lost judgment and put kiryu's k2 moveset over it. obviously that means it's not going to be as fun as LJ's but i wasn't expecting that anyway. no slippery ragdoll physics also allows for some cool tech like juggling to make a return, along with some very cool combo potential that im sure the community will take full advantage of eventually. Even though i played on professionaI mode, the difficulty was stupidly easy - i know yakuza games aren't known for being hard, but there was never much of a challenge at all. yakuza style does crazy damage to normal enemies, and bosses can be cheesed through with extreme heat and mortal reversals (such a weird thing to keep from LJ). since you use money to purchase skills instead of XP, it was a given that skills would be easy to max out, especially with how easy it is to make money thanks to the akame missions and coliseum. speaking of those things, i'm so glad they brought back the giant castle from y2 and did something with it - felt so out of place in that game considering how it just pops in outta nowhere. akame's a nice addition too.

the story felt kinda pointless at first, but the many twists that happened throughout were funny enough to keep me interested. the story really started picking up in the last 2 chapters, when the game starts to merge with 7's story. also im so fucking mad that we never really see an emotional side of kiryu until now, apart from yakuza 3 (and i guess 5?), he never really had any heart-to-heart moments that made his character stand out, which is why the last cutscene, along with its references to y3 and 5 just hit so hard.

apart from me wishing the story was a bit more fleshed out, i'm definitely satisfied with this ending for kiryu, hopefully 8 is just as good, or even better.

Y̵a̵k̵u̵z̵a̵ Like A Dragon Mission: “ K̵i̵r̵y̵u̵ Joryu, we need you to save the cancer-riddled children of Sunflower Orphange from the Big Baby Breakdancing Gang! I’ll give you 5,000 Bronze Dragon Points if you can finish them off with this flaming dildo shaped like a copyrighted anime character and livestream it all on Snitch.tv!”

Y̵a̵k̵u̵z̵a̵ Like A Dragon Cutscene: “I’ve survived past the point of death so many times, often in the place of others who meant so much more to me than I could have known in the moment. Only now, as I face my own end, do I understand the true pain of feelings left unsaid. I tried to live without regrets, but the consequences of a life left living are inevitable.”

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Long - though comparatively short by franchise standards - periods of drama wholly contingent on the viewer's pre-existing knowledge of plot and history from Yakuza 0, Yakuza, Yakuza 2, Yakuza 3, Yakuza 4, Yakuza 5, Yakuza 6, Judgment and Yakuza: Like A Dragon exist in tandem with tutorials for complex game systems like "using the map" and "doing a kick", highlighting the epic contradictions this saga repeatedly unfolds and upholds upon itself. If you're an insane member of this subcultural phenomenon and have played through all ten games in the series, there is no spiritual need for anything beyond Kiryu's story, but ultimately all the Level-Up Daily Login Bonuses are in service of this game's overarching theme of going through the duties while you watch the exterior world move further away from you and begin to accept life in the interior world built for you by the actions of your past. Either you're new to this and woefully out of your depth (don't worry, Joryu will help you), or you've always known the man who erased his name and are now compelled by brotherly honour to remain with him until the end.

everyone even the least bit inquisitive about beat 'em ups as a genre should play this, full stop. i cannot think of a more textbook representation of the idea that for a beat 'em up, encounter design is level design; divergence from this principle in final fight 2 results in perhaps the most anemic beat em up i have ever been subjected to. absolutely lifeless brawling in overlong stages as you contend with wall-to-wall waves of three polite barely dissimilar crooks at a time. devoid of any spirit even compared to some of its home console contemporaries. sure FF2 has a couple of things going for it compared to its predecessor but streets of rage 1 came out two years before this and while it is comparably centered around simplistic crowd control, it thoroughly overpowers this game on the basis of its encounter design, aesthetics, soundtrack, pace, etc. shout outs yuzo koshiro. FF2 does have maki though so who can say whether it's bad or not. bring her back in SF6 capcom i'll be very grateful

It was fine. Ngl doing a more open take on the kuru kuru kururin gameplay formula is pretty ingenious, but once they added a jump button that allows you to just not engage with the spinning mechanics plus the less-than-stellar hit detection means I felt kinda disengaged playing it compared to actual kururin. The characters and goofy FMV have their own kind of humor that either will or won't click. The writing didn't super click with me and the low budgety FMV nature felt less like a B-movie and more like some high school media project or limited run E3 showcase, idk the whole zero-budget style trope has kinda lost its luster to me. Beth hard carries the entire narrative, it's not even funny. That all being said, it did seem like the developers had a lot of fun making the game and I can't really hate it so yeah. It exists!

(oh and if you are so inclined to want the platinum trophy for this game, I hope you like desert bus)

It is wrong to say it's a lesser version of Rondo of Blood, while they are meant to be the same events, they are clearly very different games. What's not wrong is to say this game sucks.
The levels are frustating, with a lot of them being to corridors with enemies on the top who CAN attack you while you cannot. The screens barely flow into one another making it feel like you just teleported places. On the topic of screens, a few of them are lifted from older Castlevania titles and end up being ust worst version of those screens.
Richter controls terrible, he feels slow and heavy, and has really short invincibility frames, making it that you could get stun locked by some enemies.
On the topic of enemies, it has the worst Dracula fight of the Castlevanias i've played, just a bore.
With all that you could wonder why i didn't score the game lower? At the end of the day is still a Castlevania game, and has its good parts, when not being an extremely frustating game i had fun with it, as some parts of it display effort and competence, it's just a shame those parts are not that many.

This is one of the coolest Namco games out there and also one that I see next to no one talk about. Valkyrie no Densetsu is an arcade adventure game that plays like a mix of Legend of Zelda or insert early console ARPG here and a top down run and gun shooter. The visuals of the game are cute and charming and it just generally plays really well for a game released in 1989.

A quirk of this game is that all of your weapons/powerups have limited ammo and you'll need to constantly be searching for or purchase other weapons as you progress through the game. This becomes a engaging system of resource management once you get past the initial obtuse nature of it, and learning which weapons/spells are best for certain parts of the 8 stage journey is a pretty major aspect of routing the game.

Valkyrie no Densetsu is by no means an easy game and you'll have to spend a lot of time learning the bosses, stages and item collection routing if you want to make good progress without constantly dying, but most of the game feels surprisingly fair and balanced (besides the last stage, which is just crazy with its enemy spam and precise platforming).

It's good to be playing new games again [Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, Dead Space...]

2002's Metroid Prime was my introduction to both the Metroid series and the search-action genre it spawned, and as far as first impressions go, I can't fathom it going much worse. I had such an unpleasant time with the game that I convinced myself I just didn't like the genre as a whole and cordoned myself off from it for nearly two decades. However, after playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night back in 2019, I finally found the motivation to sit down and run through the classic 2D Metroids, and I thought they were pretty damn good.

I think it's important to reappraise things. After all, people grow and tastes change. I thought I hated Metroid, but now I am one of the initiated, immersed in Samus Aran's struggles and excited to get lost in strange, alien worlds with her. With the announcement of Metroid Prime Remastered, I thought "Holy shit they're charging 40$ for this, huh?" and went back to picking lint out of my belly button between rounds of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai. About two weeks later I saw actual footage from the game and realized it was a more substantive overhaul than I initially thought, and I shifted my thought process to "you know, there's no better time to replay this game than now." So I promptly bought a site-to-store copy from Wal-Mart which was cancelled because they ran out of stock, then I drove over to Gamestop and they were also out of stock, then I called the other Wal-Mart in town and they were out of stock, and then I went to Target and they had precisely one copy left which I bought for full price along with a Spectra Pro Controller because I refuse to ever play another game with those dogshit Joycons ever again and oh my god finally... Metroid Prime. It's been a long road.

Metroid Prime's opening aboard the space pirate's research station is one of the most iconic sequences from gaming's sixth generation. Every beat was immediately recognizable, as comforting and familiar as visiting a childhood home. Even the ensuing two hours on Tallon IV are remarkably smooth, with near perfect pacing and excellent level design that subtly guides the player onto the game's critical path, acclimating them to Samus' ever-expanding kit of suit upgrades in a way that is deliberate yet never overstated. Needless to say, I found a good groove with Metroid Prime early on and started to question what negatives I ever saw in it to begin with.

Having finished the game only a couple weeks prior, my friend Larry Davis has been pontificating to me about how bad Prime is. Worse than Other M, even! I disagree with that because not a single minute of Other M is good, and I've encouraged him to go through the arduous process of whipping a Wii out and refamiliarizing himself with that nightmare, but his greater point that Metroid Prime is a game that only becomes more agonizing the further you progress is one that I agree with 100%. The Phendrana research facility was my personal turning point, and the area that I feel highlights a shift in Metroid Prime's rhythm that is for the worst and which persists until the credits roll.

Backtracking is a pillar of this series, and it is not something I have an issue with inherently, but the way it manifests in Prime feels like it exists to pad time. Upon gaining the thermal visor, you must trudge your way back out of the research facility and march a considerable distance across the map to find your next objective, with little changing along the way other than a few rooms now have the lights off. Whereas the opening two hours has very fluid and naturalistic pathing that doesn't tread on your agency, the remainder of Prime sees you zig-zagging between distant locations with very little sense of where or why. It's like someone at Retro threw a dart at a map to determine where your next upgrade is, with even less consideration given to making the run there enjoyable.

Making things even more tedious is the fact that most areas are designed around specific one-time combat encounters and events. What was once a thrilling set piece is now a hassle that far more encourages you to simply zip past enemies and carry on, assuming you even can as a considerable amount intentionally create bottlenecks to force you into a fight. Unfortunately, combat feels patently underwhelming. Enemies are incredibly spongy and derivative, and the only real strategic element late in the game entails switching to the correct color-coded beam to take out elemental-infused rehashes of previously fought pirates and Metroids. Fun fun fun fun.

Metroid Prime Remastered does make a number of improvements over the original game, at least. The most obvious is in appearance. This might be the best-looking game I've played on the Switch. Environments feel much moodier and more atmospheric, and I really love the soft lighting of locations like the Chozo Ruins. Metroid Prime has always had good art direction, but the increased fidelity really helps it shine. I can only imagine how much better this would look on current hardware, but it's impressive for a game that's a generation behind. That said, I have heard from at least one friend who is far, faaar more familiar with Metroid than I am that the filters for the various visors are straight fucked. He claims the thermal visor made him physically ill, and although I did not have quite that severe of a reaction to it, the processing going on for the thermal and X-ray visors is so intrusive that they rob them of their functionality.

Controls are improved as well, though with a couple important caveats. By default, the game now has dual stick support, allowing you to play Prime like a normal first-person game. To be fair, in 2002 this sort of control scheme had yet to be codified, and I can only think of two games off the top of my head that supported it: Quake 2 for the PS1 and Timesplitters, I believe, although if you wanna stretch it, GoldenEye technically did if you wanted to do some real freak shit and whip out a second controller. (Correction: Halo: Combat Evolved predates Prime by a full year, and I consistently forget this.) However, you can tell that Prime was not built around this more free-wheelin' control method given how targeting still seems to be the most efficient way to approach enemy encounters, though having total control over the camera otherwise makes exploring Tallon IV feel more immersive. On the other hand, I do have some beef with how combo-weapons are mapped. You have to charge your weapon and tap the missile fire button, which requires you to awkwardly paw the controller with your middle finger on the trigger and index on the bumper. This is opposed to, for example, just having it set to charge a combo-weapon by holding the bumper itself. It's archaic and unnecessary and dampens its utility in a fight, which - in all fairness - is probably the point.

By hour four of ten in this game that has no business being longer than five, I started to think about how Metroid Prime is so clearly a game made by an outside studio, not because I have that knowledge in my head already but because that's how it feels. There's a reverence for the material, but a lack of understanding on what makes Metroid feel good that can only be communicated through its shortcomings, and the way it fumbles crucial elements like the routing of its critical path. Playing this again 21 years later has not given me an appreciation for Metroid Prime outside of the quality of life and graphical improvements the remaster has made. It has only reminded me of why I steered clear of the series and genre for such a long time after. Two stars for being Metroid Prime plus an additional half star for looking purdy.

We eat the sacred cow and together we burn.