Like many, I heard of Banjo and its reputation thanks to Smash Bros speculations.
"A N64 classic, Rare at its best, Xbox bad, Nuts & Bolts has cars" and yada yada. You know the drill. SO I just gave it a shot thanks to the NSO.... so here it is what I think of it

As many already stated online, the biggest part of Banjo Kazooie is the presentation: from the first second, you can feel how much personality this game oozes: the walking N64 logo, the musical opening, the characters, the spiral mountain exploration, the quirky humor. Everything is just perfect and you can already tell why it is so beloved.
Compared to Mario 64, which in more instances present a world that feels empty, every part of Banjo's world feels alive and memorable.
And this personality makes a lot: the various levels are nothing you haven't seen already in a platformer: desert, woods, swamps, haunted houses, greenlands, beaches... but then you discover the changing of Seasons and stories in Click Clock Wood, the a**hole shark and the goofy pirate in Treasure trove cove, the delusional dad and the christmas theme in Freezy Peak, the disturbing Clanker literally swimming in dung.... the way they are presented and built makes you want to visit them over and over again, which works perfectly for the collective aspect of the title, that is not only necessary to progress, but also feels incentivated.

It's clear that the devs really cared for this world, so much so that they added so much extra details that on paper feels completely unnecessary, like the infamous quiz at the end of the game or the ability to literally turn on cheat codes (and the punishment for inputting too many)

The gameplay is also incredibly good: compared to Mario and other types of platforming heroes, Banjo just... waddles around at a slower pace, but this, combined with the various moves you unlock in later world, makes for a really varied set of skills, that feels natural and just enjoyable to perform.
One thing I particularly respected about the exploration of the levels is how you kinda have to.... manage the resources you get: in a game like Mario 64 or a Hat in time, you can breeze throught the world without a care in the world, getting every extra hearts you find and breezing through enemies with your best moves. Banjo on the other hand has to take care of his amount of eggs, feathers and especially life bar, since dying in a world means having to re-collect the musical notes from the start. This approach I feel is only a flaw in levels like the engine room in Rusty Bucket (which is a cheap way to die) or whenever you gotta grab some tiny objects underwater. Otherwise, I like the idea that I have to be careful about my health and powers: I can't just use all of my gold feathers on these vines, what if I need them later? Or I can't kill this honeyhive now, maybe I will need some health because that freaking bird in the tree keeps pecking me.

It is a sort of "survival-platformer" approach that I really liked, despite many people may prefer the more direct action of other platformers.

The flaws of the game for me: definitely the clunky camera, that while better than the one in Mario 64, still makes for some annoying moments in later platforming options.
Another thing: I am not a fan of the swimming controls, reason why Clanker's cavern and Rusty Bucket are my least favorite levels. I may not be ashamed to say that save-states helped me endure levels like CLick CLock Wood or Rusty Bay, that I feel otherwise would have been infuriating to traverse at times. Grunty's Lair can be also kinda dispersive to nacigate I feel, and in thar regar I may prefer how compact other hubworld like Peach's castle are.

Overall I just ended up going through Grunty's Quiz, save Tootie, and call it a day.... I wasn't really tempted to go into the final battle, since I needed like 10 extra notes and I didn't want go back on a level to collect them all again.
But then I said "ehe, just an extra run on Mad Monster Mansion! What can go wrong?"

And honestly I am glad I came back: first off, because it confirmed to me that replaying levels for collection is incredibly fun, but also because I was really surprised by that final boss. First, just the fact that I ended up with just enough puzzle pieces to complete Grunty's portrait made me smile hard, and reminded me of why collect-a-thons are so based.
Second, Grunty's confrontation has no reason to go this hard: it is simple in concept, but the way the witch shoots fireballs to predict you movement, dashes through the screen and makes you use all of your different abilities only to end up killed by a giant blue terminator jinjo.... I dunno I really liked that..
I didn't 100% the game so I didn't get the "Banjo Kazooie 2 secret footage", but the sole fact that the devs add that..... man it is so good.

So yeah, I heard a classic N64 game was good, tried the game and find out it was more than good.
It has some things that makes it jankier compared to more modern titles, but for the rest this is an immaculate experience.

Kazooie literally called Banjo sister "that ugly thing"... that is kinda messed up, girl.

It's said that the reason the Mona Lisa is such an impactful painting is because of the miracle Leonardo Da Vinci accomplished with her. You can spend hours and hours discussing what the Mona Lisa is and what she means, hyper-analyze the technique and flaws that make her as she is. I don't meant to devalue that critical process in any fashion. But if you look upon her - really, truly look upon her, and let yourself be open to idea, you might just experience what centuries of people have seen in her, what few people throughout history have been able to replicate in their own artistic endeavors: the essence of the human soul.

What on earth does this have to do with a metafictional murder mystery visual novel concerning the fate of a wealthy Japanese family? ...we'll come to that.

Umineko: When They Cry (to use the localized title) consists colectively of the third and fourth entries of 07th Expansion's "When They Cry" anthology series, something that has given me no end of trouble when it comes to thinking through how to present this review. As with Higurashi: When They Cry before it, Umineko is an episodic visual novel series, broken up into two collections of four episodes each, with each episode broadly retelling or rearranging the events of a two-day serial killing. While the mechanics behind how this works eventually become clear to the reader, it's sort of a hard effect to wrap your head around before reading. I would assume it's more natural if you start with Higurashi (which is the normal pipeline for readers anyway), only I went into Umineko first. Actually, at the time of this writing, I've read the first one-and-a-third episodes of Higurashi's Steam release and experienced nothing else, so I can't be sure.

No, instead, I was introduced to Umineko completely out of context by a friend. See, we were involved in a couple different forum games on this message board, and he would introduce random Umineko characters and music to them for variety's sake. So long before I ever read a thing, I knew about a couple fan-favorite songs such as "miragecoordinator" as well as memorable characters like Lambdadelta, Bernkastel, Ronove, and Rosa Ushiromiya. Also Nanjo Terumasa, for some reason. I have to say, world of difference between how relevant Nanjo was to me before and after reading Umineko.

But the most important context I had going in was familiarity with Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", specifically through René Clair's excellent 1945 film adaptation. My mother's childhood was spent watching television broadcasts of movies from her parents' youths in the 30s/40s/50s, something she was able to pay forward for her children with the widespread availability of DVD rereleases and Turner Classic Movies. "And Then There Were None" was not my very favorite movie she introduced to me like this - "The Thin Man" and "The Court Jester" are stronger contenders, and I've always been fond of "The Penguin Pool Murder". But it must certainly belong in the conversation! The private island setting, the revelation that each of the major players are baddies in their own way, each character being memorable despite their introduction as an ensemble ("Beastly bad luck" has managed to work its way into my daily vocabulary), the creative way they're each picked off in accordance with the titular song/nursery rhyme, the mounting tension as the number of possible killers dwindles down... Fantastic setup, great direction, captivating movie. The only thing it's missing is the original story's chilling confession-in-a-bottle ending, though I can accept the altered ending as necessary under the Hays Code (and also not being a bummer to film audiences of the time).

This is only loosely related, but since I'm on the subject - one way I used to connect with media as a kid was imagining what video game adaptations would have looked like for it. Keep in mind this would've been before I ever had regular access to non-computer games, yet this often took the form of imagining GameBoy or N64 tie-ins, since there was still allure in what intrigue those consoles held. I remember doing this while watching "And Then There Were None", and I specifically remember imagining a TV spot for it ending with, "And Then There Were None, only on GameBoy Color". It didn't occur to me until later how this was a pretty strange gaming platform to exclusively assign a black-and-white movie!

Anyway! Having "And Then There Were None" as reference, I was eager to read through what was to me a transparent attempt to invoke that book, only with magic and electronic dance music somehow incorporated. It took some time, but I was able to read it, first through an under-the-counter copy translated on the sly by fan effort The Witch Hunt (at the time, the only viable way to get it in English), then through buying the somewhat-more-official MangaGamer release (only "somewhat" because my payment to MangaGamer was listed in my bank transactions as a phantom charge to a random London ATM. Is this still people's experience with MangaGamer? That was a hard one to explain to my father, who at the time still had access to my bank account). All things told, I think it took me the better part of three/four years reading it on/off to get through all of it, around high school/college.

Let the record show that that loooong reading time was not a consequence of disinterest, just intimidation. Hard to find 80-120 hours to read a book! But I was pulled in immediately, even in spite of Umineko's notoriously slow opening leading into the First Twilight, when things really kick off.

Before that, you have the soundtrack. I say this with no hyperbole: Umineko has my favorite soundtrack of anything ever. There's a decent amount more instrument-driven atmospheric pieces than melody-driven, and thus less likely picks if you're specifically looking up music from the game - but even then, tracks like "Witch in gold", "Apathy", "Stupefication", and "Voiceless" are all great. But then you get into some of the main leitmotifs, some of the main melodic set pieces, and holy crap, the musical team drives the story in ways that words alone could not do. It's just a song that plays over a crawl of character names, but "Ride On" gave me chills the first time I heard it, that buildup slowly giving way to triumphant strings. "Towering Cloud in Summer" comes shortly thereafter, a less-bombastic progression of the melody that receeds into the backdrop of a bright day on the coastline. The melody finally comes into its own after these hints once the family reaches the island and wanders through the rose garden. As the cast experiences this serene beauty - "Hope" plays.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to call "Hope" the song of Umineko. It's a quiet, understated, beautiful composition, constantly finding its footing and receeding into the background in sequence, its simple musical phrases swirling in turn as more instruments are added, until it finally lets itself fade away to the call of seagulls. Because that's what Umineko's title refers to: the crying of the black-tailed gulls, the Japanese "sea-cats", sure to be heard once the storms clear at the end of the story.

There are a lot of emotions tied to "Hope", largely contingent on the context of the scene during which it's played. Most of the moments to use the main composition are introspective and melancholic character beats, sometimes used to punctuate conversations about the future or the past. One of the lyrical versions (not used in-game) places it as a sad piece, regretting the curse of the singer's existence and how much better everyone's life would be if the singer did not exist - a desperate misery that wishes for a hope that does not exist in this world. Another places it as a triumphant piece, bemoaning the circumstances that have come to pass but becoming a rallying cry to burn it all to cinders and fly onward. I think, ultimately, the song is less about having "hope" and more about finding "hope", particularly in such a dire situation.

Because, you see, the main family - the Ushiromiyas - are cut off from the world during a tropical storm that ravages their island for two full days. Once the storm passed, when the seagulls cried, none were left alive.

I don't want to cover too many specifics, because so much of Umineko comes from experiencing its story beats and songs in the moment. But I will mention the First Twilight. By this point, you've been reading for about four hours. Not a whole lot of exciting stuff has happened - you had an out-of-context scene of a dying old man playing chess with his doctor, then the family arriving at the island, then discussions around inheritence, the storm, and a strange riddle placed next to the beautiful portrait of the family's mythical benefactor. There is some intrigue as one of the characters reveals a letter, supposedly from their benefactor, the Endless Golden Witch Beatrice, announcing that she will take back everything she had given the family lest they solve the riddle. The family sets to it, but they're not able to make headway before turning in for the night.

Then we follow one of the characters, who wakes up the following morning. There's a subdued atmosphere as they start to prepare for the day. They start to search for the others, who should be here. They reache for a doorknob...

...and find blood. The terrifically filthy, oppressive "Golden slaughterer" kicks in as a frantic search begins, more of the family waking and scouring the grounds until finally, six horribly mutilated bodies turn up. In accordance with the riddle's "First Twilight", six were offered as sacrifices.

If you haven't read it, you might think this is giving a lot away. But this is only describing the first chunk of the first episode. You've been reading for about four hours to this point; that's at best one-twentieth of what the book has to offer. And it will be full of this sort of thing, constantly inventing and reinventing itself, becoming somehow bigger and better the whole way through. This? This is nothing in the grand scheme of things. And yet when I read through this first part with my (politely patient) sister, I got four hours' worth of conversation out of it with her.

Ryukishi07 is a master of tonality in writing (though, due credit goes to The Witch Hunt as well for capturing his writing essence in English). Umineko tackles a lot of extremely complex emotions and themes throughout its entire runtime, as we come to know the family and the myriad other characters who crop up here and there. This might sound weird, but a lot of how it's able to capture this wildly divergent tonality is through how sloppy the writing comes across. We know that Ryukishi07 is capable of formal prose - that prologue scene with Kinzo and Nanjo playing chess is played largely straight with a stiff third-person narrator, only devolving towards the end as Kinzo falls into a passion and begins to scream (but this is contained in dialogue tags, and anything goes in character speech). But for much of the narrative, there's little effort to keep a consistent tone with how the story is presented. Sometimes the narration is in first person, following the stupidly-named Battler Ushiromiya as he directly addresses the reader. Sometimes the narration is in third-person limited, only following a single character around. Sometimes it's third-person omniscient, flitting from character to character or describing things that characters present could not know about. Sometimes, in moments of heightened emotion, dialogue bleeds into the narration, and a third-person narrator briefly becomes the character. Sometimes the narration just devolves into repetetive onomatopoeia or stage directions, and you get digital pages worth of metaphorical noise.

If we're strictly focused on proper form, then yeah, this is rough. But pay attention to what the music is doing, or what the visuals are doing, or what the words are trying to communicate, as this goes on. This is always in service of emphasizing a certain mood. Some of my favorite books do this sort of thing, too: "Everything is Illuminated" makes excellent use of run-on sentences, forgetting punctuation to communicate both the POV character's rough grasp of English as a second language and his heightened emotions during particular sequences. The "How to Train Your Dragon" books use different typefaces to communicate different spoken languages. "The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear" plays with font size to communicate volume, uses garbage characters to communicate incomprehensible dialogue, and - in one of my favorite scenes - creates "dialogue" between the in-universe encyclopedia entries and the narrator. I love it when fiction plays with its specific medium to articulate itself, and Umineko is a masterclass example of that. Honestly, something I think anyone who wants to be a writer should study...

...with the caveat being that if you're squeamish about... oh, just about anything... then this probably isn't for you. There was a point in my life where, as soon as this came out on Steam, I started buying copies for all my friends who I thought could learn something from it. But one friend gleefully spoiled one of the more explicit, mean-spirited murders to another friend. Dude was so offended that he proclaimed he was disappointed in me as a person and loudly uninstalled the game from his hard-drive, just so his computer wasn't tainted by this filth. So, um, just to avoid another heartbreak and wasted twenty-five bucks: if you're someone who has a weak constitution for any heavy subject matter besides racism or animal abuse (two of the few subjects Umineko doesn't cover), I'd understand it if you steered clear.

At the same time, that willingness to tackle just about anything means Umineko has the ability to connect to the reader through extremely specific, unexpected moments. There are ultimately a LOT of characters that do a LOT of things, and while some are mostly there to serve some narrative purpose (I don't imagine Sabakichi is a character a lot of people think about), a ton express very specific ideas. This is largely a consequence of the game's narrative and central theming... becoming unmoored, let's say. This is never a work to abandon its given themes, but each episode represents a separate cycle of the same events, which suggests counter-narratives running alongside everything that has been established. In particular, the visual novel is metafiction, a story that becomes a commentary on murder mysteries as much as an example of the murder mystery genre; even this gets unmoored, and the commentary becomes about storytelling and commentary on storytelling.

You'd think this would devolve into gibbering madness, but there's always some sort of emotional core and throughline for the reader to hold onto. Sure, at a given point we might be three layers deep in the Witch's Game (how the metafiction manifests - a game of wits between characters, where the murder mystery is the gameboard), but the narrative still devotes time to the character dramas of the Ushiromiya family because that remains the heart of this experience. Like, Natsuhi is a character who was pretty important in the first episode but got largely abandoned by the narrative, only to become a central character again in Episode 5, at a time when the narrative has flown off the rails into deep metafiction territory; I'd argue we get even better insight into the character in Episode 5 because the game's now set up the tools for the reader to read between the lines of its own narrative.

We're getting into abstract territory, so I'll give a specific personal example to highlight why I think this is so effective. This is a line from Episode 6, paraphrased a bit to avoid spoilers (why am I still trying to present this unspoilered, mumble grumble). This is a point where the Witch's Game is a central part of the narrative, so we're spending more time with the characters in the metafiction rather than in the initial Ushiromiya murder mystery. Still, we're viewing a gameboard presented by a novice Game Master (who I'll refer to as 「Guy」), so the Ushiromiya murder mystery is at the forefront of the text. At this point in time, within the murder mystery, Rudolph Ushiromiya has just asked Krauss Ushiromiya about the whereabouts of another character (who I'll refer to as 「Character」). As readers, we know exactly what 「Character」's whole deal is. We learned all about that over the last five episodes. There's a perfectly valid explanation for their whereabouts, and it has nothing to do with the murder mystery. So, the narration explains:

"Flustered, Krauss tried to explain away 「Character」's silence. 「Guy」, the Game Master, hadn't made '[「Character's」 absence]' a major theme for this game, so the conversation didn't progress any further at this point. They stopped talking about 「Character」 without Rudolf thinking anything was particularly suspicious."

This is a complete throwaway line. And yet, this is one of the lines I think about most from this visual novel. As mentioned, to this point, we've spent a LOT of time thinking about '[「Character's」 absence]'. It was a major theme of the previous episodes, because the metafictional author of those murder mysteries chose to emphasize it as a major theme. This time around, 「Guy」 didn't want to express that theme, because 「Guy」 has different narrative goals in mind. So the characters in 「Guy」's drama don't fixate on it, even though they would have if someone else was writing the story. It makes me think a TON about the essence of what storytelling is. Like it's so easy for someone just learning to write or engaging in literary criticism to fixate on the monomyth or the Seven Basic Plots, and fear that anything they say has already been done by someone else. Yet every author chooses to express different themes, both as conscious goals and unconscious expressions of the author's lived experiences and worldviews; it's from this divergent understanding of reality that we get our stories. We read stories and look for authors because of the way they express ideas, not because the ideas being expressed are wholly new.

Or, another way to look at it: as a writer, characters are your tools to express certain themes. Because 「Guy」 didn't want to roll with '[「Character's」 absence]' as a theme, 「Guy」 made the characters not worry about it. Now, presented with this quote out of context, you might suggest that this is a clumsy way of diffusing this question, since the reader will just want to know more about what's going on with 「Character」. I would agree! Within the text of Episode 6, 「Guy」 is not a good Game Master. There are much better ways of diffusing the question of given themes. But this clumsy example still proves the point: you don't have to make every potential consequence of your characters and your setting an element of your work's text. You can naturally diffuse situations if you don't wanna tackle them. Same reason why we don't see a lot of toilets in fiction, or we don't always ask how fantasy characters can wear their hair or clothes like that. The work doesn't have to be about that.

Like I said, complete throwaway line, but from that I've found those two extremely fundamental things to hold onto as I work to be a novelist. Because of how dense Umineko is with its narrative goals, there are so many things like that throughout. And it's not just the metafictional angle! The story has a lot to say on faith and belief, on self-identity and actualization, on logic and magic, on love and hate, on kinship and family, on fantasy and reality. The literary stuff just happens to be the main thing I really held onto over the last ten years, on top of the music.

...that, and Beatrice.

I cannot say much about Beatrice without giving things away, because Beatrice is the essence of Umineko. Nevertheless: I have never seen a more fully-realized character in any fictional work than Beatrice. So much of it is her role as the assumed killer, and the extent to which the narrative examines the possibilities of its central murder mystery. But so much of it as well is how often she surprises you. You'll think you have her pegged, only for a single line to completely change everything. Even by the end, you don't completely understand her; I don't, not even after having ten years to think about her. But you understand what you need to, and you accept that that's all you need.

And, I'll be honest - I see within Beatrice the essence of the human soul. I struggle to articulate what it is, specifically; perhaps it is that struggle that forms that essence? But the act of going through the visual novel and making sure I understood the themes and lessons at play made me want to believe in her reality, even if just for a moment. Beatrice is my Mona Lisa.

I have no interest in pretending that Umineko is a flawless masterpiece that everyone will love. It's really long, there's very limited interactivity even for a visual novel, it's frequently crass and vulgar, syntactical errors can be distracting, it's easy to read a bad message out of the thematic conclusion, there are pros and cons to each art style (though using anything besides Ryukishi07's original art is weird to me), etc etc etc. A lot of people aren't gonna resonate with it. And that's perfectly fine (as long as you don't take me to task for it)! But for me, it was an extremely formative piece of fiction. Some of my favorite fictional characters, one of my biggest writing influences, an incredible soundtrack, and one of my favorite things to think about. I don't expect I'll be rereading it any time soon, but I guarantee it'll remain a part of my life for a long time yet, even if it's just me centering my thoughts again by listening to "Hope".

I wish I was more in love with Megaman.

I'm partial to platformers, but typically that's been stuck within the third dimension. The Wii and 3DS virtual console cracked me open to Megaman 1, 2 and 3, but as is common with most NES games coming into contact with my particular tastes, they've never exactly wowed me. Those NES classics are good games, and I respect their legacy as games, but I never found them to be my cup of tea.

SNES titles have a better chance of winning my interest. I had beaten Megaman X and walked away with a clear understanding of the brilliance held within the game's design, but once again, I never found myself driven to dive deeper into the franchise. The gameplay was fun, but not exactly something I find myself wanting to come back to time and time again.

I'd like to say Megaman Battle Network has changed that perspective, but I can't in good faith stake a flag in that claim. Megaman Battle Network is a fantastic concept, but is bogged down by heaps of padding and hell-ish level design that drags the rest of the game down with it.

A combination card game and RPG, you battle opponents upon a 3x3 cyber grid, building a deck and optimizing your build. You move about this battlefield in instant, snappy movements, having the player make quick paced decisions as to what cards to throw out, dodging incoming enemy attacks, and charging your mega blaster to deal additional damage. Certain cards have synergy with one another, enemies have elemental strengths and weaknesses, some cards are short and long ranged, but all come together to create an engaging complexity. There's a tightness to this design that sets up an incredible foundation for a series, while also being one of the most unique RPGs I've played in just how essential on-the-fly strategy is implemented.

You put this framework within an alternate universe where Megaman and the gang are merely navigation programs built for users, and out pops this wonderful, Saturday morning kids cartoon world that's built to maximize kid retention. It's a cute, charming world that I could easily see myself liking as a kid, with cute, relatable little characters.

... But I know myself all too well. This would be one of those titles where I wouldn't be able to complete the thing until I was older. If I managed to be as lost as I was when I first tried playing MMBN1 on the Wii U virtual console years ago, I'd have been more lost in this game than anything in my entire life up until that point.

One of the big reasons why I dropped the game during that Wii U era run was due in part to the level design being an esoteric, confusing labyrinth. Levels were constructed as mazes without a functional map in sight. This was meant to emulate the chaotic landscape of the information superhighway, with many paths linking and interconnecting to separate real life locations outside the digital world. As a result though, navigation becomes an absolute nightmare to figure out where you've been, where to go, and how to get there.

As if that were bad enough, added on to this minotaur's maze were quests designed to extract as much of your playtime as possible. Main story quests require you to move back and forth between areas to progress the story, dragging on plot points way more than necessary. Sometimes in order to reach these new plot points, the game decides to be vague with where you need to go next, expecting the player to play interpretor. Combine all this with no real quick travel system to circumnavigate this headache causes yours truly to, well, have a fucking headache.

I could maybe stomach this padding in isolation, but somehow even more layers are added to this comedic groin kick of a game. Battles occur randomly as you're moving about the superhighway, which means much like a barrage of pop-up viruses, I'm having to swat away these annoying things until they're gone. Once I'm done, I've become so distracted from the fly swatting that I end up forgetting what I was even doing beforehand. Often, I'd lose which way I was meant to be heading, causing me to backtrack from being unable to discern which direction I was intially heading towards.

Sometimes if I'm making my way towards an objective, I might end up getting sidelined by one of the most obnoxious enemies to ever grace my screen, of whom wipe me from memory. 7 times out of 10, sure enough, I'd have forgotten to manually save after every battle to prevent me being sent back 20-60 minutes. Modern day autosaves have softened me, yes, but this is just an added layer frustration among the more objective design problems held within MMBN1. There's better ways to direct the player that just weren't done here, and these tiny elements pile up into a frustrating existence.

... But man, it's still difficult not to like MMBN1. Despite the flaws of MMBN1, I see heaps of potential. There's something to this game that just grapples me enough to start coming up with excuses for the lackluster elements. Maybe the constant deaths due to shitty, annoying enemies is all in part of the charm coming from Megaman's roots as being a tough as nails series. Yeah, the level design might instill a cardinal desire to chew cement, but the core gameplay loop is just so fun! How can the game be that bad if I'm having fun simply grinding? And you know, maybe Ms. Madd does attempt to kill a middle schooler by doing a Speed and driving a bus into oncoming traffic, but you know, maybe she's really a good person under all that! How can someone that hot be evil?

Masochism or not, I still appreciate MMBN1. There's something here that needs some work, but I think I'm here for it every step of the way. I can fix her.

Ten and a half years ago, I got my first and only 3DS - the sleek red Xerneas and Yveltal edition - and went to a midnight release of this game. The first couple weeks of playing it in my spare time, with my social network of college students or recent grads who had grown up on Pokemon, but never grown out of it, able to connect for battles and trades with the greatest of ease, was a magical experience with this franchise that drove home its communal nature and got somewhat close to approximating the Pokemon fervor of its Gameboy/N64 heyday. (Of course, this would be outdone by Pokemon Go a few years later.)

But when the fun of seeing my friends online and literally poking them for a quick battle began to dwindle, I realized I had no interest in finishing the game itself, and abandoned it after capturing the legendary. It was the first Pokemon game I had played at that point which I put aside before reaching the credits. I became convinced the only fun I'd had with this game at all was in its social aspect. Therefore the impression this game left in my brain for the past decade was that it was boring, its story was a low point even for the lackluster standards of the Pokemon series, and that despite a few major steps forward, this was one of the worst mainline Pokemon games.

...And then they announced Legends Z-A, nostalgia for Kalos started going around again, and I wondered, was Gen 6 really that bad? It was time for me to revisit and find out.

I started from a fresh file to get the whole experience. The first few hours of the game were agonizingly slow and easy, despite me putting some challenge rules in place almost immediately, such as turning off the EXP share and vowing to never use non-held items in battle. But once it got going, the game grew on me more and more. I'm still not the biggest fan of the art style that tries to straddle the line between chibi sprites and full 3D models, but the world is quite lovely and well-realized. Poké-France has a decent amount of character and mystery to it, and some of the artistic elements have great appeal, such as the trainer designs and the cut-in illustrations of them before battles.

The writing alternates from feeling extremely childish to occasionally having trainers that floored me by saying something unexpected. The trainers in the Battle Chateau, as parodies of elite socialites (and the occasional android maid?) offer some great examples of this. There's also a "your power level is over 9000" line in this game, as well as a "my body is ready" reference, and probably some other memes I didn't pick up on, which made it feel like a time capsule indeed. Make of that what you will.

As for the story, it feels like less than the sum of its fascinating parts. An ancient war in which countless Pokemon (and humans?) lost their lives; a regal giant who mourned his beloved little flower fairy and brought her back to life, only to have the Pokemon leave in despair after seeing the destruction that had been wrought for her own sake while she was dead - there is some surprisingly serious subject matter which is undercut by the limitations of a "kid-friendly" Pokemon story and the juvenile level of the writing. While putting this story directly in front of the player, the game also doesn't dwell on it too much, as if it's almost embarrassed it commited to telling such a serious tale, imagining young kids couldn't handle it.

Of course, this more interesting history ties into the modern-day dilemma posed by Team Flare, often considered one of the most laughable evil teams in Pokemon. But I actually think Flare are more thematically interesting than they seem at first. Their focus on fashion and beauty is just a facade (and frankly, they look far more garish than stylish). The meaning behind Team Flare is simply a story of people who have declared their own superiority as a tautology; they defined what was "cool", they took that identity for themselves and they decided NO ONE ELSE DESERVES TO LIVE. And to no surprise, what's secretly behind this in-group classification is the ability to pay your way in; and it's all orchestrated by a social media/tech mogul. It's a blunt look at in-group/out-group psychology and the idea that societal misfits and have-nots are without merit. ...Or they're just a bunch of absurd people with hairdos that look like flaming poop.

Overall, this game is nothing fantastic, and moreover it will never - it CAN never - be again what it was at launch. But it's also a pleasant, unobjectionable game with some almost-interesting concepts and its heart in the right place, and I'm glad I gave it another chance. Pokemon X and Y may have started the series down some paths that Game Freak has still never exactly learned how to handle; the animated 3D Pokemon models often manage to feel more lifeless in battle than completely static sprites ever did due to their blank expressions, stiff poses and goofy perfunctory animations; the game's character customization is so frustratingly limited that they might as well have not had it at all... but it did give us a new type which is an extremely special occasion, and advanced the idea of Pokemon as being more of virtual and interactable pets in addition to just fighters, which I have enjoyed ever since.

...Also Calem please stop whining that you can never beat me when you refuse to catch more than three Pokemon until lategame. You dingus.

Anyway I got surprisingly emotional about finally beating this. It's been 3,000 years.

Man, I was really liking this game. About halfway through Shinobi I was debating whether to rate it as 5 stars, or "just" 4.5. I really wish I still felt that way, because it is really dang cool, at its best.

Shinobi makes a damn good first impression. Look up literally any footage of this game, and one thing will immediately stand out to you. The scarf. It's just so cool, it trails behind Hotsuma, flows dramatically when he attacks, never gets in your view while always remaining an extremely memorable part of the game's visual identity- I've played entire games with not a tenth the style of this one piece of clothing. The rest holds up quite well too, it doesn't have any other incredibly cool tricks (besides the Tate, which I will get to) but it all looks very solid, with the one issue that stages are clearly built out of repeatedly reused rooms, which makes them feel a lot samey-er.

It's really cool to play an action game from this era that doesn't feel like it's just trying to be Devil May Cry at home- besides the basic concepts of the genre, there's basically no similarities. Shinobi focuses on movement and positioning over juggling and combos, which you aren't really able to do here. Your moveset is minimal, just an attack combo and a dashing charge attack, the fun comes into quickly chaining kills. Your sword gets stronger the higher your kill combo is, and if you manage to kill every enemy in the encounter at once, you get a really cool "Tate" cutscene, where their bodies fall apart as Hotsuma strikes a pose. Like the scarf, this somehow always looks cool, partially because of the skill that's sometimes required to do this, and partially because the camera angles and enemy positions are going to change every time, which makes it feel very dynamic, like you're making your own cool animation in real time. It almost feels like a precedent to MGR's Zandatsu- a really viscerally satisfying means of rewarding the player for a job well done. If you fail to string kills you might need to hack at a stronger enemy for like ten seconds straight, so it feels really good to not mess it up and kill them in a single slash.

Some hiccups come in the movement. You're very mobile, with a dash, a double jump and a wall cling/run, but all of it can feel strangely stiff? For example, when locked onto a foe Hotsuma's walking speed is greatly reduced, and since time is of the absolute essence if you want to keep up your combo, that can feel really bad. Similarly, your teleport dash somehow doesn't go through enemies (despite visibly doing so in the opening cutscene...), which means sometimes you'll be trying to circle around them (many enemies block attacks from the front, and even those that don't will take more damage from behind) only to just sort of bump into them and then get hit. The lock on itself can be finicky, too. In its defense, it's actually pretty good for the era, it's just that this game relies really heavily on it being perfect, and when you're on a very strict timer locking on to an enemy you aren't capable of killing quickly rather than the one that's a sitting duck always really stings. All of this works mostly fine, it's just that with how much this game asks of you, it can feel unfair when it doesn't quite meet its end of those expectations.

Bosses are a mixed bag. Something I absolutely respect is that they're built around the chain kills just as much as the rest of the game- you may not deal much more than scratch damage at first, but if you build up a good enough chain you can quite literally one-shot any boss in the game. The problem with that is that this means the entirety of a fight hinges on bosses being a threat both with and without summons, and on them putting up a fair challenge when you try to get a hit in with a big chain. I'd say most of the bosses don't really pull it off. Some teleport around a massive battlefield in such a way that you can literally not have a chance to get any hits in before your chain runs out, including the infamously bad final boss. Those that are stationary or more aggressive tend to fare better.

I have been sort of mildly negative so far but I want to be clear that this is an incredibly fun combat loop- it's incredibly tense but whenever you pull off a hard Tate it's so, so satisfying. The real problem with the game is in its later half's design. They start putting insta-kill bottomless pits everywhere, and the game goes from a tense race to keep up your health (did i mention your health goes down when you're not killing things?) to frantically handling the camera (which just doesn't work when sticking to walls) and the clunky platforming hoping that no enemy snipes you and makes you fall and restart the level from start. The only checkpoints are at bosses but honestly that's fine, most of the time, stages are short enough that I don't mind having to do them over, unless I fall into a fucking pit because the camera sucks and Hatsume's jumps are nearly as high-committal as your average Belmont's. The final boss too, man. I don't even understand how he's supposed to work, it feels like that kid at the playground with the everything-proof shield that just makes up shit on the fly to win every argument. I didn't beat him in the end, I just decided to peace out knowing I'd just get mad trying to.

That's all, really. It's a damn shame that the second half of the game is pretty bad because the foundation is really great. I know there's a sequel, but word is that it isn't as good, so I don't know when I'll check it out. Be really cool if some indie dev picked up the gimmick or something, it's really worth perfecting.

I remember trying Space channel 5 Part 1 and thinking it was a good time, but nothig that mindblowing in my head..... the I tried the sequel out of curiosity.

Legit one of the best Rhythm experience you can have: SEGA at it strongest delivering a title that works perfectly as a great rhythm game, a musical, and a Michael Jackson coreography (Yes he is in the game)

It evolves on the first game in every single aspect: the premise is one of the most hilarious things in a videogame, that is able to keep you entertained and even going incredibly hard especially in the final act with an bombastic epic ending.
Music and presentation are so varied and have an energy so pompous and crazy that you can’t help but laugh for the whole experience.
While the first game I feel was kinda okay interms of the gameplay, Part 2 adds the option to HEY between the CHU CHU CHU and DOWN DOWN DOWN, something simple that adds a lot of spice to a gameplay that can otherwise feel a bit too repetitive.

Absolutely incredible rhythm game, one of the best: play it especially for Ulala and Space Michael (he has a bigger role here compared to the first game). I suggest this to literally everyone!

I love when really promising concepts gets butchered by the greediness of their "parent companies".

Imagine creating one of the most promising crossovers for a fighting game by taking the deep and great character from some amazing series of the Arcsys catalogue, and combine them in a balanced MUGEN like experience appealing for both veterans of the respective series, and more casual players....
Seems like a clear slam dunk. What could possibly go wrong-OH? What do you mean over half ot the cast is locked behind DLC for no reason? And not only that, but most of the "free" characters mostly uses quick reused assets from other Arksys titles and don't blend well together?

In my opinion, these factors alone drop the quality of the title immensely, from both veterans and casuals alike: casuals that will buy it because they are RWBY or Persona fans will immediately find out that literally half of the main cast for the respective series is locked behind a second paywall... while competitive players coming from Blazblue or Undernight will find their mains "desaturated" and with a big loss of moves and gameplay options in order to appeal to a more casual audience.


This could have been one of the best Arksys works, but the decisions surrounding its launch and the unbalanced amount of content available drags it down a lot.

Like, I am not even the biggest RWBY fan (I thought the show is kinda just okay at best), but how the heck you put those characters as one of the main selling point, only to not add the "Y" and the "B" or "RWBY" at launch?

Still an enjoyable fighting game with a decently fine combat system and presentation, but I am sorry to say that there are better crossover fighting games on the market.

Super Mario Galaxy is the game that made me love video games.

It wasn’t the first game I played, or even the first Mario game (that honor goes to Mario Kart Wii), but it was the first to make me see games as an art form. It’s been over 15 years since I first sat down to play it at the tender age of 4 years old, but that first play session is burned into my brain. The transition from a quiet, somber storybook into a joyous festival instantly invokes a sense of childlike wonder and turns the remotely interested into the completely invested. Then, Bowser’s attack on the Star Festival and Mario’s defeat lets veteran Mario players know this adventure will be something special, while also making the basic elements of Mario clear to new players.

Speaking of basic elements, Gateway Galaxy is a fantastic tutorial. The Star Bunny segment seamlessly introduces the game’s gravity mechanic, as well as the concepts of bushes, pipes, and craters. Rosalina’s introduction introduces a sense of mystery and quiet contemplation, and the next few planets establish the game’s phenomenal sense of epic adventure and even more gameplay elements: spinning, crystals, Launch Stars, Star Bits, enemies, Black Holes, Star Chips, Flip Switches, and electricity. And all this culminates in the rescue of the Grand Star, giving 4-year-old willn46 his first chance to save the universe and make it back home to the beautiful Comet Observatory.

But even beyond its importance to me, Mario Galaxy is simply an incredible 3D platformer. Right from the outset, Mario controls like a dream. Every input is immediately taken into account, with jumps, ground pounds, and everything in between being perfectly tuned to just feel good to use. But I’d be remiss not to mention the crown jewel of Mario’s moveset: the Spin Move. Not only is it a fantastic use of the Wii’s motion controls that feels both significant and unobtrusive (unless you have a disability that renders the controls unusable for you, in which case I am incredibly sorry), it’s also an incredibly versatile tool that’s easy to use, but has nearly limitless potential. First and foremost, the momentum-halting midair jump lets players easily recover from mistakes and adjust their positioning on the fly, giving newer players a safety net that eases them in to platforming in a 3D space. Additionally, the extra jump is great for getting places that seem just out of reach, horizontally or vertically, enabling the game to set up interesting platforming challenges and fun opportunities to skip past sections if the player is good enough. But the Spin Move isn’t just for platforming; it’s also the player’s primary means of interaction with the game. It’s used to defeat enemies, break objects, collect shells, swim faster, and so much more, and every interaction is completely intuitive (Ceave Gaming has a great video on this exact topic).

I’ve seen some people criticize the Galaxy games for not having as much movement tech as other 3D Mario games. While, yes, the movement here is much simpler than 64, Sunshine or Odyssey, I actually think it works to the game’s benefit. Not only is it much easier to learn, requiring the player to understand a few basic moves rather than a plethora of complex maneuvers, but the more limited moveset lets the game be carried entirely by its level design.

And said level design is top-notch. Like 64 and Sunshine before it, Galaxy spreads its 120 stars across multiple worlds for the plumber to tackle. But it trades their handful of levels holding a few collectibles for a supercluster of memorable locales, each one bearing a unique mechanical, visual and auditory identity. Fully committing to Sunshine’s separation of individual objectives lets the designers get the most out of a single Galaxy by introducing multiple ideas while still maintaining the level’s core themes, and splitting up the action across multiple planets allows for great variety within missions as well as between them. Plus, the introduction of mid-level checkpoints allows for longer levels that don’t feel like they drag on and gives the designers more time to play with a level’s gimmicks. The more linear level design even means the game’s limited camera rarely feels limiting. And the generous amount of Power Stars gives players plenty of freedom in choosing which levels to tackle.

This would all mean nothing if the levels themselves were boring, but luckily they couldn’t be further from that. Galaxy takes basic level tropes like Ice, Beach, and Desert levels and pushes them to their absolute limits: combining ice and fire mechanics in a lava-skating course, hiding the path to a deadly obstacle course behind an underwater cave, and navigating sand streams and tornadoes across an ocean of quicksand. And that’s not even mentioning the more original levels, like HoneyHive Galaxy, BattleRock Galaxy, or Toy Time Galaxy. Besides a few stinkers like the ball-rolling levels and some of the race levels, the level mechanics on display are consistently excellent in a way I think is only matched by this game's own sequel. Interesting obstacles like altered gravity, throwing Bob-Ombs, and launching from Sling Pods are expertly paced and explored to the fullest. Cool enemies like spinning tops, bugs that need to be ground-pounded, and giant eels combined with interesting spins on classic enemies like Goombas and Boos work wonders both from a mechanical and aesthetic standpoint. Plus the bosses are great tests of skill, utilizing a level’s mechanics in their battles on top of being tests of basic skill. Power ups are pretty fun too (besides the spring), with their own unique attributes, interactions with level gimmicks, and hazards to deal with.

And do I even need to mention the visuals and music? The artstyle is vibrant, yet the locales are consistently stunning, with great attention to detail both in the actual levels and in background elements. The character designs are excellent, both with how returning characters look and how the new characters perfectly fit in with Mario while still standing out. Plus, there are tons of cool little details and secret areas that, while they may be a little pointless, give the levels tons of personality. But even more impressive is the game’s music. The confident, orchestral themes give the game an almost cinematic feel, and yet each one perfectly fits within the level and the Mario series. There are so many standout pieces in this regard, like Good Egg Galaxy, BattleRock Galaxy, and Buoy Base Galaxy. However, the game also knows when to be more subdued and reflective, with pieces like Space Junk Galaxy and Gateway Galaxy.

And on that note…besides sparking my love of video games, there’s another reason this game means so much to me.

Back in late 2016, I made some mistakes. The details are personal, but long story short, I was a stupid 12-year-old who took his friends for granted and ended up losing them all. And for the entire month of November, going to school was absolute Hell for me because of it. In every class, I would argue with people, get teased, or get laughed at, and since a lot of it was my fault, I didn’t want to ask any teachers or my parents for help. Luckily, Thanksgiving Break rolled around eventually, and I was home safe. But at this point I realized something horrible: I had no one to turn to. All my friends left me because of my egotism, and my parents wouldn’t understand enough to help me. For that entire week, I was more or less left to think about my actions, angry at myself and at the people who hurt me. I didn’t know if I could go on, and before long, my mind went to some…dark places.

Then, on Sunday, the day before I had to go back to school, I thought I would boot up Mario Galaxy so I could at least have a little fun. I played around a little, going through some of my favorite levels, not really accomplishing much. But I enjoyed it. The game didn’t judge me. It didn’t try to hurt me. It didn’t care what I did. It was just there for me, and it was there to make me happy.

And…suddenly, I wasn’t alone anymore.

Not only did that moment save my life, not only did it bring me out of the hole I dug for myself, but it made me realize the true power of a good video game. Some people might say video games are silly little things, that they’re hunks of digital junk to give to a kid so they’ll shut up for a bit. But I think they’re more than that. Like any form of art, they can lift a person up, give them a new perspective on life, and help them move forward even when nobody else will. That moment is why I wanted to become a game designer. Because I wanted to help someone feel like someone cared for them, the same way Super Mario Galaxy helped me. Sometimes, when you’re feeling hopeless, that’s the only message you need to hear:

“Thank you so much for playing my game.”

Playing this gave me the conviction that it's actually criminal Nintendo will throw up games onto its Switch Online service for western audiences without translating them. I get that it's an extra expense, but hey, I'm paying them for this. It's honestly impressive how much of this you can get, even the little tutorials, without understanding a character of Japanese. But it sure would be nice to enjoy the flavor text, and I fear the lack of translation will turn people off from a solid, cute, very enjoyable little title.

I'm not a fighting game person, but playing through the story mode was really fun, and encouraged me to try out all of the playable roster (8 for story mode) as the various abilities for each might give you an advantage when you find yourself stuck. The last set of fighters in story mode are clones of your own roster, but more powerful, which seems unfair but makes it more satisfying when you beat them.

I love that the mascot is essentially the comedy character, as well. Still, drill guy for life.

Better than Letter Adventure because it has Cookie Monster, and Elmo does sick tricks with his jetski in the Land of Chocolate.

In all seriousness, this Elmo game and its twin are fairly amusing as a meme speedrun race for adults, but they emulate really badly (like, frequently crashing and freezing) and for some strange reason the N64 emulation community has not collectively worked very hard to change that. So unless you have an everdrive or the cartridges, it's probably not worth trying to make it work out for 20 minutes of gameplay.

As an actual game for children, this duology was perhaps more useful in teaching toddlers how to hold an N64 controller and navigate virtual 3D space than actually teaching them anything about reading or numbers. If you can recognize how a letter/number is written once, you can probably do it 20 times. p and q or b and d might be the only challenges. I dunno, I don't have kids yet though. When I do I can share this with them and see what they think, and possibly be the first person to actually subject children to this perfectly harmless but also unimpressive edutainment game in like 25 years. I'll get back to you someday.

If I had a nickel for every N64 game where you get through all the levels and have an initial confrontation with the villain (who is a stereotypical green Halloween witch), but to get the true final battle you have to go back and get VERY close to full-completing the game, I'd have two nickels.

This game actually holds up extremely well... for the most part. The graphics are simple, which is all they need to be for a game like this, and there are a surprising amount of charming and unique details interspersed throughout the levels, with pleasant colors and textures. The music is great, but there aren't that many songs, and hearing the same relatively short loop for three levels in a row gets tiring, no matter how much of a banger it is. Apparently the way they got around N64 music limitations was just... actually making the songs shorter by cutting out parts of them, the "calmer" parts that made them seem less repetitive. The PS1 and Dreamcast versions apparently have more levels too, including more bonuses with varied gameplay, not to mention other features like voice acting and rendered preview images before levels. In my quest to play every decent game on the N64, I have once again fallen victim to the inferior version of a product.

Version differences aside- the simplicity of this game is another reason it holds up so well. The only buttons required outside of menuing are the dpad or stick, with A and B merely zooming in and out. Everything is accomplished by walking around to collect dots (including the classic power pellets that will let you devour your foes), walking onto switches, and interacting with other things in the environment. I could see this kind of simple appeal finding an audience in the indie market today. Yet even here there somehow manages to be camera issues, with a camera that often lags behind your movement. If you don't stop and wait for it to catch up, you can run into some rude surprises.

The top-down maze format is filled with block-pushing puzzles, which almost always involve TNT blocks that explode on a timer and will blow up other blocks in your way, but also the old standby of ice blocks that can cool lava enough to make a temporary bridge, and other types of environmental puzzles and interactions. Nothing is too hard to figure out, but it's fun and engaging enough to keep you going.

Unfortunately, this game has a massive flaw: the stringency of its requirements to access the final boss. You have to get the VAST majority of stars in the game, which are gained from either finding every fruit in a level, every dot, or completing a time trial. Let's talk about those first two. They can ostensibly both be accomplished on a single run, but for some levels you actually can't get everything until you've beaten the first boss (after completing every level at least once) and received a special key, so you might spend time trying to collect everything only to later realize you're gated off from initial success. What's more, there are often "points of no return" in the levels, so if you missed something, get ready to do the whole thing all over again because there's no way to go back.

The time trials, though. They remove all key blocks from the level, making them shorter overall (as there are lots of side areas you won't have to visit)... But even so, they are EXTREMELY demanding (with a few exceptions) and will require routing, practice, and near perfect execution- including avoiding enemies who will take time off your clock instead of damaging you. Depending on how much damage they would normally do, this can be as much as 20 or even 30 seconds. Your attempt could be functionally over after one hit. The challenge could be fun and rewarding but the investment rarely seemed worth it. You will have to do at least a few of them, so choose wisely.

It's easy to sour on an overall fun experience when you have to slog your way through the same levels several times, repeating the same puzzles, with the same walking pace and non-variable gameplay. Even just hacking off five or ten of the required stars would have encouraged people to revisit levels and engage with the time trial mechanics without ending up feeling like a job.

It's a charming and unique game which, due to its simplicity, doesn't really feel dated... but far outstays its welcome. By the end, I definitely felt the maze madness setting in.

Wasn't sure if I'd like this or not, but it was really fun to play. I was initially kind of turned off by the visuals and hearing about its hard difficulty, but after playing games like the Mega Man series, I've been more open to trying harder games. This was definitely a challenge at times, but it was a pretty fun game to blaze through regardless of its difficulty. I had a blast with a good chunk of the game, though I wasn't a fan of most of the Gorilla Glacier levels. However, I do really like Croctopus Chase and Rope Bridge Rumble, both being levels that really stand out for me in particular. The levels in this game also have great gimmicks that didn't change much of the gameplay itself, but more of how you need to tackle each level. Great examples of gimmicks I love are the Stop & Go Barrels in Stop & Go Station and the flickering lights in Blackout Basement (which is probably my favourite level in the game). The music in this game is also incredibly good and it's another example of retro music being really damn good (like Mega Man), featuring tracks like Fear Factory, Mine Cart Madness, Gang-Plank Galleon, and my personal favourite which is Aquatic Ambiance. Speaking of which, props to the developers for creating really fun water levels. Normally I don't like water levels because they feel extremely slow, but these levels felt really good to control and play while having incredible music to really enhance the experience. Overall, I'd say this game provides a great level of challenge and fun and is a great starting point for the Donkey Kong Country series.