I was about eight or nine years old when I played The Legend of Zelda on the NES for the first time at my neighbor's house. I remember feeling incredibly confident in my Zelda knowledge and gaming abilities, since I had then recently beaten The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the N64 for the first time.

Because they are the same game.

I discovered that The Legend of Zelda on the NES is hard, clunky, and doesn't really offer much in the way of story (given that I skipped the intro at the beginning and didn't have any sort of instruction booklet on-hand), much to my dismay. Several years later, I noticed a recurring sentiment regarding the first Zelda about how it offers very little in terms of "explanation," and instead opts to let the player's sense of curiosity and adventure take them everywhere, instead of being told what to do and where to go by a little glowing fairy-creature. This same style of free-form exploration is reflected again in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, a game I appreciate very much.

From the time I first played it to now, I have come to appreciate The Legend of Zelda for the NES very much.

Today is the first time I have played Atari's Adventure. I appreciate it tremendously.

My earliest cognizant childhood memories were formed during the time of the GameBoy Pocket and N64, so older arcade games and the Atari 2600 often feel like some kind of relic to me. I've been chipping away at Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration as a means of acquiring much-needed insight into video game history. I played my fair share of Asteroids on a family friend's computer, along with different versions of Breakout, but never had any concrete understanding of how important Atari games were for the context of video gaming as a whole. I'm getting there though, and Adventure was an enormous step for me.

Pong was important.

Breakout was important.

Adventure?

Fuckin' important.

It's got all the sense of wonder and exploration, simple rules, simple colors (out of necessity), and dragons that definitely look like ducks. It's all squares, and leaves much to the imagination. Not much in the way of story, no grandiose plot about being a chosen one, no advanced mechanics. Simply an Adventure.

And if I'm being honest with myself, I like actually playing it more than The Legend of Zelda on NES.

Not more than The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds though.

That one's my favorite. :)

The sfx and music of this are bad, so I decided to mute it and blast Drukqs by Aphex Twin through my speakers instead. It was absolutely worth it.

I found Majin and Sacrificial Girl to be a surprisingly okay experience. I don't consider myself to be the biggest fan of deckbuilder/card battler games unless there's some kind of trick to give it a pull.

To compare with some others from the small handful I've actually played, Inscryption draws me in with its art direction, presentation, and the way it handles giving the player power-ups in subtle, fun-to-acquire ways that I cannot talk about any further at risk of spoiling the game. It's great, go play Inscryption.

SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech got me simply by being a SteamWorld game. I can't recommend it too much (I also gave it a 3 out of 5), but it was an enjoyable enough time. What can I say, I'm a sucker for robot characters. Look at my dang username.

The last one I'm gonna bring up is Slay the Spire because if you're into deck builders at all, you've played this. And if you haven't played this, you are lying to me. And if you're not lying to me what the hell stop reading this review and go play Slay the Spire but actually go play Inscryption first because I like it more but after you're done with Inscryption go play Slay the Spire jeez

Anyway, while Majin lacks the depth of Slay the Spire, the simple charm of Steamworld Quest, and the overall presentation and polish of Inscryption, it does have a very cool art direction that pairs well with Aphex Twin. I can't say that about most games, and for that it barely passes into "I liked it enough" category. Cold_Comfort mentions that you might as well just look at the itch.io page itself for the full experience, and I'm in agreement for the most part.

I can't recommend actually playing this.

But overall I'm glad I did, and I'm really grateful to have an extra motivator play these kinds of games through the Game of the Week on the Backloggd discord.

Maybe the real Majin was the Sacrificial Girl we met along the way. :)

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Semi-related, I know everyone uses ratings on this site differently but I think this game presents a really good example of how I've been having more fun rating games on here. I don't use half-star ratings these days because it's just much easier on the brain and it's a waste of time to be nitpicky about whether Zombies Ate My Neighbors is actually just a 3.5 because it's a little repetitive and difficult, or if it's a little bit higher than a 4 because of the doofy protagonist character with his 3D glasses mowing down zombies with a weed-whacker. Who cares, I'm rounding up, it's a 4. Whatever.

Majin was an interesting example for me to rate, because the game itself works okay. There are some things that I found to be a little off/unexplained, like how when some enemies have a glowing background it means that your card cost increases. It never tells you this outright, and it took me a few tries to understand what was actually happening. Navigating the maze itself is easy, and I appreciated this more than anything. I genuinely enjoyed the progression of deckbuilding as it happened, while there was never much reason for me not to immediately add a new card to my deck (except for maybe the Fruit card, idk). There's not too much depth to it, but I appreciate that about it. The music sucks, the effects are a little weak, and the plot is lackluster, but given that it's also an itch.io game presumably made by one person, it's hard for me to hate this, and I'd feel actively bad giving it a negative rating after genuinely enjoying my time with it. Plus, because I don't use half-stars, it forces me to commit to a concrete positive or negative, which I actively need to do for my mental health.

Most importantly, watching the little mushroom guy dance while Drukqs played in the background genuinely made me smile more than once. Easy 3.

Anyway, here's my personal very generalized way in which I categorize game ratings. Thanks for reading.

1 = Trash. Either flat-out does not work, or morally reprehensible. Possibly both.

2 = Mid and I don't like it, or there's just something holding it back from being actually good.

3 = Good video games and experiences worth merit begin here. I hesitate to blanket-recommend these for some reason or another, but just like with Majin here, a 3-star generally means that it has clear flaws or problems, but I truly enjoy it for what it is.

4 = Very good video games. Easy recommendation. They hold out as strong examples as to why I love the medium so much.

5 = This just hits different. Play these.

it wouldn't let me turn when I clicked the turn buttons and that is the only interactive part of the game

still got a massive score

why does the game want to access my camera

you will never learn my location mcdonalds

I absolutely did not enjoy my time playing Cult of the Lamb.

The game starts off with a simple enough premise: you're a little lamb being sacrificed to four religious leaders because some really big scary dude will come back or something, but after the sacrifice the big dude brings you back to life and instructs you to build a cult in order to grow more powerful and kill the four religious leaders so that the big dude can come back. He gives you a crown. The crown can turn into a sword, a knife, claws, an axe, and various tools. You're given a home-base, and a level-select hub-world-type area to open the door to the first "world."

Then the gameplay loop begins.

God damn I hate the gameplay loop of this game.

I've read some takes from other reviewers on this site I respect saying things like "gameplay loops are inherently suspicious" and, while there are better more egregious examples of games with capital-O Obvious gameplay loops, I think Cult of the Lamb is an excellent example of a game with a fucking horrendously obvious gameplay loop.

In short, there are two core sections of the game:

1. Binding of Isaac-but-worse roguelike dungeon crawling.
2. People-farming.

You do these as far as you can, and when you get to the end you win!

In long, Massive Monster put these two core sections next to each other in the most annoying way possible. You go on a "Crusade" to "purge the heretics" and "convert" any new potential followers to your cult, collecting miscellaneous resources along the way. Then you go back to your cult, do your dailies (I detest this fucking term), run out of resources, and then go back on another crusade until some kind of emergency by no direct fault of your own (aside from deliberately playing the game, which I would argue is very much your own fault) forces you to go check on the cult. Maybe someone died? Bury the body or collect meat. Someone's starving? Gotta make food and farm more. Poop everywhere? Gotta clean. Faith level low? Fix it. Health level low? Fix it. Issue? Fix it. And the loop repeats itself ad nauseam.

Listen, I do chores in my own home already. I've played enough Animal Crossing and had enough "chore simulator" arguments for one lifetime. I have no problem with a game having chores in it, but there has to be some kind of tangible payoff if you're gonna put a checklist of chores in a video game. And by nature of it being a CULT, "Smiling Happy Faces" and undying loyalty from cult members you "rescued" is a fairly fucked up reward. It could be argued that this is the point, but it doesn't make for a fun video game to me. I play video games for fun.

I'm glad I brought up Animal Crossing just there, because the satisfaction I get from creating a "neat and tidy" "home" for my cult members is on-par with the enjoyment I got from molding the island to my every whim and desire with no real consequences in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Minimal.

And that's completely ignoring the combat half of the game.

The combat half is fine. Not great. Fine. It would be even better were it not constantly interrupted by the day-night cycle and the people farming gameplay loop. I get that this was probably a deliberate design decision, but it's a decision that actively interrupts progress for no reason other than to remind you that you've got "people at home."

In contrast, the lessons I'm picking up from the gameplay hints that this game is dropping via the pressure of time, aging cult members, and the sheer number of times it suggests doing mean things to your cult members, is to view my cult members as dispensable.

No matter how much you'd like it to be, this isn't a family. You're collecting pawns. You're repeatedly given choices that seem to imply otherwise, but just remember: this is the all-messed-up cute animal game.

Absolutely depthless.

There's very little actual direct involvement from your cult while you're fighting. You're just getting stronger through the farming gameplay loop giving you more points to get more resources to get more upgrades to get more point generators to get more points and you get the idea. They're separate, except that the game will remind you that the other exists and needs tending to, so they're forced to exist together. Actually separating it from the farming half completely, the enemies and bosses are unremarkable and, with some minor exceptions, there aren't all that many core differences between weapons and curse types.

The closest immediate comparison I have of a game integrating combat and farming together well that I actually enjoy is Pikmin. Literally any of them. There's an element of direct resource/people management in both Cult of the Lamb and Pikmin games, and, while they are completely different genres with the former being a farming-sim roguelite and the latter being an RTS game, I just think Cult of the Lamb is somehow way worse about both creating a consistent element of emotional attachment to your "underlings" (which could be argued is the point of the whole game, which is even worse) and the collecting element. It wants you to exploit them as much as you can, and there's no option not to. It doesn't even bother pretending like you're capable of making moral choices here, you know what you are and you know what you're doing.

It has about as much subtlety as, I don't know, what's a good example...

The Jonestown Massacre?

Yeah, that's a good example.

I don't mind a game portraying religious extremism and cult behavior, but if your gameplay is mid, at least have literally anything to say about your subject matter.

Whatever. Cute marketable lamb character doing weird things a cute marketable lamb character wouldn't normally be doing, very clever and never been done before. Twitch streamers delight. Money all around.

Anyway, just play Binding of Isaac again instead of getting this.

If I'm gonna play twitchcore bullshit, it should at least be good.

Me, playing this via Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration after having played several garbage Atari 2600, Jaguar, and Lynx games back-to-back, praying for a single good game.

Tempest 2000 rocks.

I'm not the biggest fan of the original 1981 Tempest, while I do respect it especially for the time. It's good arcadey fun, but there's something about it when compared with other games of its time. It just doesn't do much for me.

Tempest 2000 on the other hand feels like a clear definitive version of the game. The graphical effects are aged, but still incredibly cool and engaging. The classic version of Tempest is included with a slight graphical "upgrade" (vector graphics will never die), and the new "2000" version adds fun stuff like power-ups into the mix.

Overall, I love this a lot. It's one of the few games on the Atari 50 collection that fills me with the feeling of "I'd love to play this again sometime."

Since Devil World got added to the Nintendo Switch NES Online, I figured I should give it another shot.

My confused first impression of it was fair, but incorrect. "Why can't I eat the dots?" Get a cross. "How do I beat the bad guys?" Get a cross and press B. I like it now, especially understanding how to actually play it. It's not bad. It's not great either, but interesting for its time. Pac-Man but more convoluted. And worse. Still alright though.

I understand why this game wasn't released in the US back in 1987, the puritans would've probably burst into flames. I, for one, will eat my communion wafers next to my fire-breath-inducing crucifix with great joy.

The "vs mode" of this game is a genuinely great time. It's effectively a game of calculating a certain number on a calculator faster than your opponent can, except that the numbers and signs are all over the place and you have to navigate everything by controlling Donkey Kong Jr. from the game Donkey Kong Jr. for the NES and Arcade.

It's jank. It's trash. It's perfect.

I am Donkey Kong Jr. Math's strongest defender.

Me in the mid-to-late 2000's: "The King of All Cosmos is strange and unusual and he needs to be nicer to his son."

Me in 2024: "The King of All Cosmos is the only monarch I would willingly take a bullet for."

I'm taking a star away because this isn't a great remaster, especially with the pop-in/draw-distance issues making it impossible to see far away rollable things. It's still We Love Katamari though, and I'm happy that it's become more accessible than ever with the re-release.

The Royal Reverie part of the game isn't nearly good enough to warrant including it in the title, no matter how much I love The King of All Cosmos. Still, it was great playing We Love Katamari again.

I wasn't expecting much from this, knowing that it's an inexpensive arcade-style game with pixelated art.

It's great. Annalynn is a great game. The amount of love poured into the creation of this thing is obvious, and it handles the idea of "what if Pac-Man was a platforming game" incredibly well.

It's also really dang hard. However, when you run out of lives you're given the option to continue playing at the cost of cutting your score in half.

Really good stuff, incredibly pleasant surprise.

Funny snakes.

I don't know if it's the standard for games featuring loot boxes or if I've just been incredibly lucky at avoiding this exact situation, but getting hit with a loot box before even starting the tutorial has to be some kind of record.

Hot Wheels Unleashed is a cool game in-concept, with highly-detailed (not on the Switch lmao) car models accurately reflecting the actual Hot Wheels model cars, furiously racing down a toy track complete with loop-de-loops, boosts, and off-track sections showcasing that the courses take place inside of a home. These are toys, after all.

In practice, I'm honestly too blinded by anger from the immediate loot boxes and all of the cool cars being DLC that I'm just gonna end the review highly discouraging spending money on anything ever. The one-two-punch of seeing the Mystery Machine as a playable car, and then seeing "Paid DLC" next to it isn't one I'm gonna forget.

Thankfully, I am a drunken sailor.