Sega X Star Wars, What a Dynamic Duo!

1998->2023 25 years later, I believe this game can still carry arcades IMO. From Childhood to Adulthood once more I see myself wondering if things were once great as I remember them and I am glad Star Wars Trilogy Arcade still holds up very well.

Running on the Sega Super Model 3, this game certainly shines through the CRT television. This cursor-based rail shooter takes you through the epic battles of Episode IV-VI which include Death Star I, Battle of Hoth, Boba Fett Duel on Tatooine, Battle of Endor, Darth Vader duel in the Emperors Throne Room & Death Star II. This game is all gas and no breaks. It wants to throw you right into the action and even better they thrown in that John William Score which is absolutely memorable on the cabinet Sub woofer and Speaker system. There was never a moment I was not excited to thrown my quarter at it to continue.

Its length is about 30 minutes or so, the cabinet I was playing it was 25 cents to play and the cabinet seemed to be on the normal difficulty as "Cheap shots" were not as prevalent but were still there if you did not know the pattern. I would say the most important aspect is if the stick is calibrated correctly. Do not even bother playing it on a non calibrated or broken stick, you will have a mediocre time.

As far as cons go, you do have your arcade cheap shots which is unfortunate but I get it. There is also times during the duel were it was slightly hard to navigate the hand to where it needed to go but I don't blame it on the game but its stick calibration but no calibration is gonna be perfect.

Not much more I can say besides this is absolute classic SEGA managed to cook with the Super Model 3. I absolutely recommend this if you see it at a Barcade, Movie theatre, hell anywhere were they still have these machines. BANGER of a Arcade Game.

Spielberg franchises didn't have the best start in video game history. Even though E.T. for the Atari VCS wasn't as bad (still not good though) as many say it is, it became the figurehead of the big crash in 1983. Steven Spielberg didn't show much interest in video game development back in the day, which many believe lead to a lack in quality control, but with his creative input to GameWorks, a 1996 joint venture of Sega, DreamWorks and Universal, things must have been different on the 1997 arcade adaption of The Lost World: Jurassic Park, right?

Fast forward to 2023, I'm at the arcades again, looking for the machines I haven't played yet and on a six hour gaming spree having a cabinet to sit down is always nice for a change. I'm just too old to stand at western cabinets like Gyruss forever, so I even started liking the Candy Cab section more recently. Anyway, I skipped The Lost World: Jurassic Park before, because it's been ages since I watched the movies and coming from a time when licenses had been almost a guarantee for a turd, my prejudice held me back as well.

On display was the original theater cabinet with two lightguns, a 50" rear projection screen, four speaker surround sound and a shaker. That might seem like a downgrade from the hydraulic Ford Explorer seat on Sega's 1994 Jurassic Park arcade game, though I didn't mind much as we've been playing plenty of racers like Midnight Maximum Tune 6R that day already and I prefer a lightgun over the then used joysticks. I sure wouldn't have played The Lost World: Jurassic Park in its standard upright version though, which has the same stereo sound cabinet as The House of the Dead.

That's actually a thing with the arcades, you know, having to draw from something to catch your interest. And even trying to spot hidden gems, I've got a little snob inside me, looking for something special. Producing a good game in that context could mean hoping for a sleeper hit, it seems, looking at cabinets from the nineties that I mostly remember as fighters or maybe NBA Jam and the larger cabinets, racers and lightgun shooters.

Now, I'm not saying I didn't have fun back in the day, especially with Daytona USA and Sega Rally or Time Crisis and Point Blank, but there might be a temptation to cheap out once you lured in your players with large advertising and there might not necessarily follow a lot of creativity, just like within every other established genre. So that plus a The Lost World: Jurassic Park license could make you suspicious.

I kind of needed that as an introduction to look a bit deeper into why I didn't feel The Lost World: Jurassic Park wasn't very convincing, at least played today. It's still a somewhat decent railshooter, please get me right, in my opinion still better than the 2008 Rambo arcade game or Transformers: Human Alliance, the latter looking much better, but playing like shit and having been outsourced by Sega to chinese developers rather than making it a prestige inhouse project illustrates quite well how the arcades had to compete with games you could play at home but just like cinemas still have a hard time when there's no substance.

The Lost World might not have created the same excitement like the original Jurassic Park at the cinemas. I fondly remember the queue being so massive back in 1993, the theater owners brought out extra foldable chairs and after a screening you had to use the emergency exit, because the lobby was packed. But I can imagine as a kid, who wasn't as disappointed those CGIs just didn't look as familiar as the awesome practical effects we were used to before, it might have been great to do anything related to a huge dinosaur parade like that and every cinema or shopping center that could wheel out this cabinet might have made more than their money back.

I trust others though The Lost World: Jurassic Park doesn't stay exactly true to the movie, because I've read up a little on the history of this arcade cabinet developed by Sega's AM3 division who in early 1997 started into a quite promising project given the above mentioned liaison between the japanese video game producer and movie mogul Steven Spielberg. It didn't turn out all that well.

First off, the ambitious AM3 team was the first to use the Model 3 board, allowing for 60 frames and 100k polygons a second, on a lightgun shooter and having a tight schedule didn't exactly help solving the difficulties they had to overcome in programming and researching. Announced in the first quarter of 1997 The Lost World: Jurassic Park was already unveiled at E3 in June of the same year. For that, AM3 had to start from just the script to compile action scenes for the game.

It was only three months before completion they received additional materials, but with little to none communication with the movie creators they had to go from what the promotional team provided. Developers sent to the US to visit the sets had been ghosted by ILM and as a fan of Stan Winston it was nice to read that his dinosaur creations had instead been available. Still, the procedure sounds very familiar to what I've heard from other Spielberg related video game projects and it makes you wonder less about the quality of licensed games back then, when they've been seen as nothing more than additional merchandise.

So if you wondered why I'm beating around the bush so much, it's because I don't want to be too harsh on a game that might actually have been supposed to be better. Usually you don't see these circumstances as a customer, especially at the time of release and having received quite generous contemporary reviews might speak for some of The Lost World's shine wore off over time, because polygons had been still wearing baby shoes compared to what beauty classic 2D graphics were capable of and I'd argue developers still have the tendency to overdo 3D objects for state of the art instead of making them look good.

However, with all that aside, in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, you're on a mission to save Dr. Ian Malcolm and Dr. Sarah Harding with your trusty lightgun. Having to reload by shooting off screen is a standard and to be honest, as nice as the hordes of mostly small raptors and fewer big ones are, they could as well be any kind of alien creatures. The game just keeps you occupied enough that you don't have much time to think about.

Of course you wouldn't finish off a T-Rex for example with just one shot, as lucky as it might be, so the big birds are sort of divided into sections to hit within a time limit and that repeated over and over. Might as well be a calibration thing, but it turned out I'm a lot more precise shooting from the hip than aiming like a cop, which might correlate with me spending more time with water pistols than on a firing range, despite I've actually performed a Robin Hood with a crossbow at the age of twelve.

So it felt a bit random not having that much control over the aim and having numerous enemies thrown at you in waves without any dodging option, but I somehow got used to the situation, so that I kept clearing screens also to help my girlfriend who joined me halfway through. I was happy she got into it for a while, but neither having a relation to gaming history other than through me nor being interested in dinosaurs, you could sense increasing boredom and that she'd have enjoyed butchering me at Mario Kart again a lot more.

I found it a welcome variety that you can save people in The Lost World: Jurassic Park in trade for refreshes and upgrades. That you've actually also have to rescue your teammate was a surprising function that we had to comprehend at first and I'm not sure we knew exactly what we've been doing though it seems to have been enough to finish the game on a couple of credits anyway.

It ain't over till the fat dinosaur stops roaring and with not much more clearly established in the heat of battle within a humble hulk of a story rolling, the short runtime of The Lost World: Jurassic Park is rather exhausting. With the shaker massaging the back quite nicely and the volume natively cranked to eleven it's probably the loudest and most stressful kissing booth I've ever been to.

I could conclude that it might have been a rather nice looking performance in its day and that I won't probably play The Lost World: Jurassic Park again although it was a still decent ride while it lasted considering how rushed development was, which actually showed in being rather average. It seems though AM3 wouldn't let that sit on them and so by January 1998 came out with a special edition I just did not have the honor to find in the wild, so please tell me if it's worth it.

With rotating and rocking seats, an 80" screen and an air blower they sure were after a fresh breeze and being rewritten to follow the film's plot more accurately and the inclusion of ideas left out from the original sounds like they might have really been wanting to make up for the original flaws with The Lost World Special. Now the problem is, it was only released in Japan where it might actually be hard to find these days, so all we're left with in the west is what AM3 could finish until the original release only a few months prior. I wish updates would have been easier back then.

You're welcome to read more of my backloggd arcade reviews for games like:
Teki Paki
Gunforce
Superman
Aliens
Stagger I

Peak Adventure Island. The NES game is known for being difficult to the point of being absolutely fucking broken by the time you reach its eighth world. I should know because I actually beat the stupid thing as a teenager before shelving it and never touching it again.

This game is basically what the NES original should've been. It's easy on the eyes (you even get to see Master Higgins make an ass of himself in little intermission cutscenes after finishing a world), has decent music and manages to be tough-but-fair instead of a tedious trial and error gauntlet. It's very doable on one continue, but it's worth noting that you get infinite credits. (No need to be aware of a stupid ass cheat that demands a prerequisite item to even work- Hudson really learned their lesson)

The controls still feel a little bit off, and that's really my only gripe. Higgins can still slip and slide on most terrain, but I will say the skateboard feels infinitely better to control than it did in any of the other games. Getting to the end of the stage with it also grants a big points bonus (which matters when it comes to racking up extends), and you will feel like a badass for doing so.

If you're going to play any Adventure Island, this is the one to go with. Super Adventure Island comes as a close second.

Fantastic. Absolutely fabulous piece of gaming from the 90’s. I’m not sure why am i even bothering in writing a review of this game. I mean, how would you not play a Roger Rabbit-inspired adventure game featuring not only a fantastic performance by Cristopher Lloyd but also a great voice casting with many figures such as Tim Curry and Dan Castellaneta? That alone constitutes enough of a reason to check this game out.

This game is another example of that typical adult take on childish cartoons. Therefore, everything here is filled with dark humor, sex jokes, and so on. I think the humor is actually one of the best things in this game, which is actually very well written as a whole when it comes to story and dialogue.

Gameplay-wise, there are times where i feel like Toonstruck might be one of the best games in succesfully applying moon logic to it’s puzzles. Of course, there might be a couple of puzzles where moon logic is not applied succesfully, but after all this is a 90’s adventure. I have talked in many reviews of games of this kind, about how the puzzle design has to be determined by the narrative, in order to make a game believable. What happens in Toonstruck is that, simply, you’re in a cartoon world, and you have to apply cartoon logic. It just works fantastically. And also, i love how in many occasions, solving a puzzle works just like the punchline to a joke. Just like in many Lucasarts games.

In conclussion, a must play for every fan of point n’click adventures, and probably something worth the try for every fan of retro-gaming in general.

I have always been been a fan of 2D Sonic but it's clear outisde of Sonic Mania there really hasn't been much to like since the genesis days. Watching the initial trailer I didn't get any annoying vibes from Superstars but I still felt skeptical. Still, the game did look pretty and hearing impressions that the physics and levels were very clearly desgined by the classics did edge me into the direction of wanting to try it. The whole multiplayer aspect I did not care for what so ever. Not sure it's possible to do a traditional sonic game in multiplayer and it not be shit. They are just not desgined to be that way with the whole "gotta go fast" mantra.

I have to give Superstars some credit though it is one pretty game and it's gameplay does harkin back to the classics. I really liked the level design in this game. Some of the stage theme's were pretty great and while others might not hit the mark they were not bad or dull. Overall the game plays how I want a traditional sonic game to play and I very much enjoyed my initial playthrough. The levels are a bit longer and really feel even more labyrinthian in nature and feel great to explore. They really did well there. Equal parts of platforming and exploration. The game has pretty good lenghth as well. It's not super long but any longer and I feel like it kills the replay value. I don't know if it's worth the full game asking price but for what I paid I was very happy.

Superstars isn't perfect though. One big glaring issue I have with it is that quite frankly the music in Superstars sucks. It's so dull and unenergetic. Man the one thing you can usually count on in a sonic game and it's not here. I think I would like the game even more if I could be jammin with the tunes like in the classics.

Some other gripes that are most certainly worth mentioning is some of the bosses in this game are really annoying. Not hard but just frustrating. Like going long stretches where the boss can not be damaged and repeating easily avoided phases constantly. It's the one thing that kinda kills the pacing of the game.

The emerald powers I thought were a great idea of adding some flavor to the classic style and offer some great exploration tools and they do just that but still I feel like some of them are rather pointless and underutilized. Wish some were redesigned or given more use.

Another thing that stinks is the story. Now I don't need much of any plot in these games and usually the less the better but some nice stage transitions or a loose structure outline would help it. I feel like something is missing especially with the new character Tripp and the other villian Fang. No idea what's going on there and I certainly didn't know what in the world that unlockable true final boss was. Seemed completly out of left feild. What in the world where they thinking? Still as the base game and base final boss are satisfying enough. I feel the regular "main story" path is enough and the extra tripp mode and final final boss are useless padding that are not needed.

I am happy to say despite what I read online where a lot of people seemed kinda luke warm on Superstars, I happened to like it much more than I thought I would. It might not be as high as Mania or the genesis titles but it's still leagues better than CD or Sonic 4.

Platinum #198

Rent-A-Hero is the most distinguished of Sega's trilogy of RPGs built on the Sword of Vermilion engine, the others being Phantasy Star III and - well, Sword of Vermilion. Both of those games are victims of the engine's limitations and the pre-Sonic development environment that SEGA's console studios were stuck in: They're sluggish, disorienting, lack basic qol and mechanical nuance, and all around suck.

Rent-A-Hero is most of those things too, but I find these limitations work greatly to its narrative conceit. To put it succinctly, this is The Doordash RPG: Do mini odd-jobs for cash while the never-ending torrent of rent, groceries and bills (in this case, health items and energy for your suit) eat away at you. It's extremely repetitive, sorely lacks in variety, has extremely shoddy programming in the 2D combat sections, completely fails to waypoint you in lots of really obnoxious missions, all among other issues. It's 30 hours of 'get a job -> run around -> talk to identical-looking npcs -> run around -> beat someone up -> run around -> inspect a nondescript tile for plot reasons -> run around -> take the train to the one store with full heals and D batteries -> run around -> finish the job -> get paid -> deposit cash to your bank -> run home -> get another job'. It's the textbook monotony of the part-time lifestyle, which makes for an exhausting moment-to-moment experience, but has a hook and prose squarely ahead of its time. What kept me going was the comfort of the grind, and getting spoonfed those little bits of quirky human interactions - seeing a couple break up over their vomiting cat, helping a kid through her hospital surgery, being an actor for a live toku show, and more.Even with how much this game's structure makes you feel like a cog in the capitalist machine, there's enough of that good shonen hero meat to make you feel like you're getting somewhere meaningful through all the hum-drum.

Could've been a lot better, but I couldn't imagine this being anything other than a low-budget B-tier diamond in the rough. Adding even a little more spitshine would've drastically changed the feel - which is why I'm extremely intrigued by the DC remake. Is it gonna have that slimy jank I need, or will they make it - shudder shudder - good???

Here's to 1500 games!

Against my introverted self's better judgment, a week or so ago I went to a dinner party hosted by a good friend. I arrived a little late, and by the time I walked in, everyone was crowded around the TV playing Puyo Puyo against each other. "Yo Iyellatcloud!" someone calls out. "Have you played Puyo Puyo before?"

"No," I say. "But I've played Mean Bean Machine..."

"I don't know what that is. But you should try playing Puyo!" A controller is thrust into my hand, and 30 seconds later I've hit a 4-hit combo and won. (and then everybody clapped...) Everyone takes turns trying to challenge me, and the closest I come to losing is when the most experienced Puyo player dumps junk all over half my playing area, but I manage to calmly clear it all and pull off the comeback.

"I don't get it!" she says. "How are you kicking everyone's ass if you've never played Puyo before?"
------------------------------------------------------------
At this point I'd like to take a detour to rank the opponents in Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine in ascending order of punchability.

- Grounder (Stage 8): My favorite badnik from AoStH because of his Inspector Gadget powers, it's kinda hard to dislike his goofy voice. He even cries when he loses, the poor thing.
- Arms (Stage 1): The mandatory easy first opponent, he looks like a chill fella; I'd have a beer with him.
- Humpty (Stage 3): Another slightly adorable little doof.
- Coconuts (Stage 4): His "winning" face is kinda annoying, he might rank higher on this list if not for the fact that you won't see it much because his AI is a joke.
- Sir Ffuzzy-Logik (Stage 10): Not particularly likeable, not particularly punchable; kinda generic.
- Frankly (Stage 2): Very annoying and punchable "winning" face... and it only gets worse from here.
- Davy Sprocket (Stage 5): Frankly v2.0. Never trust anyone who smiles that much.
- Spike (Stage 9): Augh, what a snot nose. He looks like the stereotypical fat bratty kid that bullies the protagonist in every children's book/movie.
- Dr Robotnik (Stage 13): The big man himself. Not quite S-tier levels of annoying, but when he starts winning his moustache takes on a life of its own and it gets really distracting flipping up and down. His "HUAHUAHUAHUA" when you lose against him is worth some extra points on its own.
- Dynamight (Stage 7) - The most shit-eating "winning" face on this list so far.
- Dragon Breath (Stage 11) - Now we're entering the S-tier of punchability. This prick looks more like a pig than a dragon, and his "winning" face looks... perverted. He looks like he's ogling at girl dragonpigs while he's beating you at Puyo and it's utterly infuriating.
- Scratch (Stage 12) - "I'm winning this one by fair means or fowl." How apt that his entire thing is chicken-related puns because this guy is a gigantic cock. Puts on an extremely skeevy smirk when he's in the lead - real "you can't touch me, do you know who my dad is?" vibes here. Also, he has teeth. WHY DOES A CHICKEN HAVE TEETH
- Skweel (Stage 6) - The champion, nay, Grand Master of Punchability. This damn cylindrical purple pig on wheels already has the most aggravating smile, but when he's in the lead he starts swinging back and forth like a giant purple dick. Can you imagine trying to focus on the falling-block puzzle with this self-satisfied pig face is flopping back and forth in your peripheral vision?
----------------------------------------------
Ahem, back to the story.

"I keep winning," I tell my friend, "Because you honed your skills against cutesy anime characters, and I honed mine against a giant swinging purple dildo." Well, I didn't say that because it would have led to more questions than answers, but that just added to my mystique.

Mean Bean Machine is essentially nothing more than a Puyo Puyo reskin, but through its wonderfully expressive and smug smarmy character designs it manages to be a far better teacher than Puyo Puyo, by harnessing the power of hatred. Back when I was in middle school and before I could buy alcohol, there was nothing more addictive than finally wiping the bloody smirk off each opponent's face, and I trained tirelessly to that end. It's been many years since I last touched Mean Bean Machine, but I can still beat most people at Puyo Puyo, and a quick playthrough has shown that I can still beat Easy and Normal modes within 1-3 credits. The principles of planning ahead and setting up good combo strings have been seared into my subconscious by the sweaty pigdragon perv.

Thank you, Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, for giving me an extremely niche life skill and briefly making me a celebrity. All it cost me was some longstanding unresolved anger issues.

If you were Mina, what would you get a guy like Soma for the holidays?

He's got a massive arsenal of weaponry that spans beyond the generations of all legends passed down through history, from a sword with no name to Excalibur to Positron Rifles and Death's own scythe. He has that lovely white furred coat, where he most likely also keeps a purple Game Boy Advance that every cool kid keeps around on their person. On top of all this, he even has the power to rule... a power only he possesses which grants him dominion over every soul he comes across. He is a man who has everything... even dive kicks...

God, he's so cool.

However, cool people will often not know that they are "cool" or perhaps "even cooler". For them, these things are just commonplace. Sure, the materialistic possession of every mythological weapon through the ages and the power to rule will convince oneself that they are cool for the first few weeks that they come across these awesome cool things, but overtime they just become a regular occurrence. These cool things don't come with helpful advice, moral support, or even a pleasant conversation. Maybe Soma could summon an Imp to be his second player, but is that imp really gonna give it to him straight or have anything to say beyond "yeah thanks master, gee you're swell master"?

That is where folks like YOU come in, people who offer their support through thick and thin. Without them, how would you know you're even cool without someone there to tell you that they believe in you before your fight with your own inner demons? That person who doesn't mind when you ask them for a lift to work, because you don't want to garner unwanted attention by using Black Panther soul to dash through everyone on the sidewalk when you're running late. Someone whose gift will be more cherished than any sword made of gold or absurdly powerful holy weapon found in a hidden treasure hoard behind a waterfall in the basement of a floating castle within a total solar eclipse above Japan.

That is how they know they are way past cool, by being friends with you.

Happy holidays.

R-Type isn't my cup of tea but I always got huge respect for the first one, most shmups wouldn't be here today without it. It's the intricacy of the levels that really brings it all together, you weren't playing shmups before this where the areas feel sequentially connected and have unique biome-driven mechanics. Every level sticks out here - The cinematic intro where you raid the enemy ship from the outside, the slimy biodens in level 2 and 5 with insect-like creatures flying about, the awesome giant battleship of level 3, and the machine pass with the seemingly-indestructible cargo devices in level 6.

The Master System version is super impressive with how faithfully it recreates every element of the original - no cuts, and just as much firepower. The only hit is in performance and visibility - the high spritecounts with all the multi-jointed enemies and bullets bring a bunch of flicker, and the bullets have some Phalanx energy going on. I can't see these dark red shots. Difficulty felt a lot more approachable than the other versions too. It's not more recommendable than the others, but it's the most fun I've had with the game yet.

Haunted Castle is funny, and you're probably asking, "funny hah hah" or "funny peculiar"? Truthfully I think it goes both ways. I would like to first articulate the "funny peculiar" part as Haunted Castle sticks out from the rest of the games in the series like a particularly sore thumb.

It is of course an arcade game, an attempt at bringing the gameplay of the beloved NES title to the mean streets of the coin-op cabinet at your local pizzeria. You may have noticed it is also called "Haunted Castle" instead of "Castlevania", unlike the JP title Akumajō Dracula where it shares the same name with the Famicom Disk System game (along with later the Super Famicom and Sharp X68000 games, thanks lads I'm sure that's not confusing over there). I could actually wager a decent guess as to why they did this change. You see, the director was a massive fan of the Atari 2600 classic Haunted House, they just had to get their reference in. Remember the bat and the ghost? They in fact guest star in Haunted Castle, that's actually the same characters from Haunted House. I shit you not, my logic is infallible.

The game also bizarrely begins with an obvious Ghosts n' Goblins-esque intro with Simon peacefully walking along with his bride-to-be, only for an explosion to go off in the distance with Dracula flying in out of nowhere to whisk her away to god knows where (Ohio maybe) as Simon gives off a "curse you Dracula!" pose. Official documents state this was supposed to be a retelling of the first game, but I like to imagine that Dracula is constantly trying to inconvenience Simon at every turn. In the next Adventure Simon will be peacefully enjoying a meal at his favorite steakhouse only for it to be revealed that his steak was well done, then Dracula explodes from the background revealing his new ownership of the place and proceeds to put on the most annoying song in the jukebox.

This is where I stop farting about and actually comment on things that legitimately annoy me that have nothing to do with the gameplay, and that's the fact that Simon does not do his famous strut in this game. Instead he looks like he's clutching his tummy and needs to take a massive shit. It turns out there's no bride at all, Simon is just breaking into Dracula's castle to use his bathroom and ruin his plumbing. I am continuing the charade that this is all a childish rivalry between Mr. Belmondo and Mr. Dracula. There is also a second thing that annoys me, and that's that the best upgraded weapon in the game is a sword. That's right, Simon has sold out. He throws out his trademark whip for the most dull weapon to ever hit dullsville. The reason all of these peculiar things happen is most likely because Haunted Castle was originally not supposed to be related to Castlevania at all, and everything kind of got shoehorned in during the middle of development. It was also painfully early in the series' life, so maybe they figured they could just do anything since it was the new hotness and would probably make massive bank.

However! If you wish to make massive bank at the coin-op, maybe you should allow infinite continues! For the original release of these games, one credit was one life. That's all you got, and you could only continue with an additional credit three times, and after that? Do I hear wedding bells? Oh my, another explosion has taken place and Dracula took another one of your wives! Dearest me. Apparently Konami couldn't quite wrap their heads around how to properly gouge people of their money, because I doubt new players are going to bother with this kind of brutality, especially when the North American release features an insanely high damage boost to the enemies. In the original JP release of Haunted Castle, a bone thrown from an enemy skeleton results in a bit of damage. In the American release? One of those bones is now powerful enough to level the broadside of a Nimitz-class Supercarrier. There is also no pot roast in this game, and your health is not refilled between stages. You are given very little room for error.

Astonishing.

To say Haunted Castle is a hard game would be the biggest understatement since they invented the word "understatement". It is a game designed to make you pull your hair out with how often your Boston Big™ hitbox will be nailed by everything in sight as you get to watch a bat pull some spectacular aerial maneuvers to somehow not get hit by your whip and nibble your face off in retaliation. To be frank as Frankenstein, I also think the game just looks ugly. Many sprites feel haphazardly drawn, which gives credence to the game being quickly rejiggered into a Dracula of some kind instead of whatever it was originally going to be. The rock golem that's the boss of stage 4 literally doesn't do anything after you kill it. The game just freezes as the victory jingle goes off and you're given no satisfaction for your patience, no explosions, no decapitation, no nothing. Stage 6 is literally just walking to the left and hoping you can get by all the bats flying at you without the collapsing bridge behind you catching up. It's meant to be a setpiece, but it's just painfully boring and feels like a creative setup to make the final stage quickly, and make it less obvious that this was rushed out to bank off the success of Akumajō Dracula's name.

Now you may be thinking, "where's the funny hah hah"? Well, there's these boulders in stage 2, they make an incredibly cartoonish Scooby-Doo "bonk" sound when they hit the ground.

:)

I feel like I've done nothing but drone on here, but I guess that's what happens when it's both a Castlevania title and a bad game. Now imagine if it were also a fighting game on top of that, wow I wouldn't shut up. Oh god, I just realized something and had a vision please keep it away, oh god, oh jeez, oh god, oh fuck, oh jeez.

No irony, I love Battletoads. A wild juxtaposition between obscene difficulty and the derpiest animation alive. The kind of game that takes itself seriously through its situations and soundtrack, but then throws you a rubber duck with giant teeth or a boss with 1 frame of animation. It just wears its structural DNA on its sleeve, warts and all. Iconic.

Play this Genesis version if you can. It's kind of a rush job port (no ending or credits???!?), but the difficulty is so much more digestible. If it weren't for that last stretch of Rat Race/Clinger Winger/Revolution, I could see myself doing this on real hardware.

It's your same old Larry and it's not. I see the Lounge Lizards being a classic some people want to play it in a modern way and backed with Kickstarter Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded did happen. But it's not worth mentioning to me in more than just a few words.

See, the VGA remake of the original that already was sort of a remake of a text adventure called Softporn, did that job quite nicely though it might still be too old school for the kids. I, having played the original over and over, especially when it was installed on a school computer, would still prefer the parser version, that gives the game something truly mysterious and therefore adventurous no remake can offer.

In case of Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded, that I like the general art style of, but can't familiarize with the digitally brushed close ups, I also sense a big difference in tone. It's basically the same story with slight changes that won't stop you from finishing in four hours even if you try out all the possibilities. But it's a lot less innocent, more like unnecessarily nasty.

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded doesn't display the protagonist as a clumsy charming creep that can use your help and that might actually help you finding out a few things not to do if you're still an adolescent looking for love yourself. To me in Reloaded Larry isn't much more than a creep anymore and you don't have to try what phrase could cause something funny to happen. You just click through the icons looking for an effect that usually isn't played out anyway.

The magic has worn off, so despite the modern voice acted Point'n'Click outfit it's probably frustrating if you don't know what to do and a rather boring chase if you do. It wasn't as exciting as letting Larry finally score in the original, because the setting, that also doesn't punish your failures anymore, doesn't even allow for it. The original was short and not the best game after all, but it kinda drew me in having goosebumps whenever I could make Larry advance in his world. That's gone. Even more than in the VGA version.

Gameplay-wise, this is a precursor to rage games; an annoying jumble of trial-and-error and 'gotcha' moments. There are unlimited continues and numerous checkpoints, but they never quite seem like enough as you will find yourself dying again and again and again.

Its strength lies in its aesthetics and atmosphere, coming across like a precursor to games like Ico. Besides being beautifully animated and rendered, it also does an excellent job of pulling you into the story despite there not being much of a story at all. We don't know where the player-character gets Isekai'd to but it only takes a few moments and a couple of narrow escapes to know that it's not a friendly place. When you eventually meet a friendly alien in captivity, you don't know his name, why he's being held captive, or even the language he's speaking to you but you instantly feel a sense of kinship and cooperation with him. The magic of this game lies in the pure and visceral feelings it's able to evoke, and make it worth playing if you're patient (or have access to savestates).

I kicked 2023 off with Shadowrun Returns on Steam, and with the year coming to a close I thought it'd be interesting to pay a visit to its SNES uncle. And this game really started off strong, with a more effective narrative hook than Returns; before you even select "New Game" you watch as your character is gunned down by a hit squad and left for dead, only for a mysterious shapeshifter to cast a spell on you before leaving. You wake up in the morgue with a splitting headache and amnesia and have to piece together what you were doing before. And while this may sound a tad derivative, the Cyberpunk-Noir atmosphere and the way the game slowly opens up in a nonlinear way really make the difference - the vibes really do a lot of the heavy lifting here!

Mechanically there are plenty of interesting ideas as well (mostly adapted from the tabletop ruleset): the ability to spend karma (experience points) to raise specific stats, spending money to hire mercenaries to fight on your side, and later on finding a character who will teach you various magic spells in exchange for various random trinkets you've (hopefully) been collecting. The execution is mixed - it's not hard to raise your stats to the point that you can go without hired help, and few of the spells are particularly useful - but the effort is appreciated.

Where the game falters is in its UI. It uses a point-and-click interface which, on the SNES controller, is unsurprisingly clunky. Using different buttons for shooting, casting, investigating, and picking up is unnecessary - why not just a dedicated 'action' button? And if all this merely added up to clunky menu-hopping I might still be inclined to give it some goodwill, but the point-and-click system also extends to the (real-time) combat! It makes aiming an absolute pain, and reduces 99% of combat to standing in one spot and DPS-racing the enemies - moving around strategically in between shots simply isn't a usable approach because your enemies aren't constrained by the point-and-click system and can aim instantaneously.

Add in some extremely obtuse requirements for progression and some very suspect balancing (the most dangerous enemies are rats!) and you have a game that becomes quite a chore to play at points. Still, if you're willing to use a guide, this is a relatively streamlined sub-10-hour experience that's worth trying out if you're into this genre!

Also one of the characters looks like Robin Williams with elf ears.

I had never seen nor heard of Galaxy Fight prior to three weeks ago when someone I follow retweeted a gif of Juri bumrushing a literal child and kicking him in the face. At the time, I was refining a design for a character of mine who is a kickboxer, and seeing Juri cave a young boy's face in was a potent hit of inspiration. I had to play Galaxy Fight, and while I could download an ISO and burn it onto a CD-ROM, I instead shelled out about 35$ for a used Japanese copy because I just had to have the real thing in hand. Juri's thighs are still selling this game today.

Galaxy Fight is pretty barebones. Keep in mind that my fighting game literacy sucks, so when I say that I didn't find much here to differentiate it from your typical mid-90s fighter, someone more intimate with the genre may find a lot more nuance. There's nothing wrong with that either, fighting games of this era were great and even a very average one makes for a good way to kill a three-day weekend. However, this also makes Galaxy Fight a hard sell to anyone buying up genuine copies of old games (certainly not an American copy), though I suspect if you're serious about collecting you're probably accustomed to paying more than a game is reasonably worth. Look, I get it. I bought a copy of Mario Party, I have a sickness of the mind.

But maybe you don't, maybe you're a reasonable person and just want a good fighting game to play in emulation. In which case, Galaxy Fight is a much easier recommendation, as its aesthetic design and overall feel makes it worthwhile enough to spend a bit of time with. Combat feels very punchy, responsive, and carries just the right amount of weight. It's especially satisfying to launch an attack from a sprint thanks to the way characters truck across the screen, there's a good sense of momentum and force behind it. In terms of how a fighting game should feel, it checks all the boxes for me, even if it may be lacking in depth.

Setting aside my obvious Juri bias, I also gel with the way the rest of Galaxy Fight's modest roster looks and plays. Kouta Kita - who passed in 2017 - may be better known for Waku Waku 7, whose roster Roomi could effortlessly fight in with, but I think I prefer the designs in Galaxy Fight more. Not that I'm against cute things, but the darker, more sci-fi driven aesthetic resonates with me more. These designs translate well to sprite art, and even on the Saturn, Galaxy Fight is graphically impressive. Character pallets change to reflect the lighting conditions of the levels they're in, watery surfaces look convincingly wet thanks to some excellent reflections and shimmering effects, and parallax scrolling is used to create scope to great effect. I also love everything that's going on in Roomi's stage.

Plus, it's got Juri, man. Juri.

Although Galaxy Fight isn't the most innovative fighter of its time, it's still perfectly competent at what it does, and fun enough for what it is. I'd also like about 15 bucks back, maybe 20, but whatever. Whatever! I've made my bed, and it's filled with dusty-ass Sega Saturn imports.