A new entry in the fun with-friends flavor of the week genre (e.g. Lethal Company). So far I love the concept of this game, where you get to roleplay being Logan Paul in a suicide forest.
It's basically an excuse to act stupid with mates and have laugh at the playback at the end.
Although you will quickly see all the game has to offer in a few hours so the novelty wears off fast.
It was a smart idea giving this for free for 24 hours because I don't think it's something I would buy or convince my friends to play if it wasn't free. Still had a good couple of laughs with it.

I used to see my cousins play this game a lot as a kid, but it looked fairly generic to me. All I remember is it had some funny sound effects for some reason.
Years later I find that this was made by Rare, so I wanted to give it a shot considering their reputation on the N64.

Blast Corps is a 'turn your brain off and wreck shit' kinda game. You're given levels each with a time limit to complete the objective, the objective mostly being wreck all the required shit before time runs out. The variety comes in the type of vehicles you are given each mission. Sometimes you are given a bulldozer and other times you are given a giant mech amongst other things. Something it will switch up and you will need to use multiple vehicles in a sigle level.

The gameplay is satisfying and easy to pick up. But once you've completed the first couple of levels, you've basically seen everything the game has to offer and the rest of the game provides similar challenges, just much harder. If you wanna complete this game you will be retrying a lot of the later levels over and over again.

Blast Corps is a fine time waster if you wanna just crumble the fuck outta some 1990 lookin-ass buildings with some big machinery, but once your fun runs out the game does not have much else to offer.

EARLY ACCESS REVIEW:

I generally don't play early access games and usually wait out until 1.0 is finished, however this was just sitting in my library looking like a juicy steak that I couldn't resist.

Obviously a homage to Star Fox, Ex Zodiac is looking to be one of the best Star Fox-like games that is not Star Fox or Star Fox 64. This definitely scratches that itch as the gameplay itself feels like a 1:1 creation of Star Fox 64.

Each level is vibrant and deep, each containing smaller secrets you can find to acquire more power-ups. The charm of the original Star Fox is here and you can tell the dev is a big fan.

Besides the "arwing" gameplay, you also get a bike that controls similar to the landmaster and also bonus levels, that plays like a homage to Space Harrier.

Ex Zodic feels like it's made by a mega fan of the rail shooter genre and wants nothing but to do it justice. At the moment there are about 9 stages that can be completed in about hour, but the devs says there's plans for 13 stages.

As the game is unfinished, my feedback would be to incorporate ways to make the game more replayable (e.g. Branching paths with different difficulties, challenges etc) and the moment it's a straight forward level by level game with not much reason to go back unless you want a higher score. Also a slight nitpick more than a complaint, similar to the OG Star Fox, it's hard to read the dialogue while concentrating on the action, so hoping for voice acting in the finished version. Since this is an indie game, maybe the Dev could also follow the trend of indie games and incorporate some kind of endless/roguelike mode as an unlockable after beating the main game.

There are a lot of good ideas presented here that seemed to improve an idea of the sequel to the first game, but the execution brings it down a bit to the point where I couldn't enjoy this as much as Bomberman 64. I still enjoyed and appreciated some aspects to it.

I really liked the original Bomberman 64. It had a few flaws in a couple of areas, but I was more forgiving to it considering it was the first 3D adventure-style Bomberman. The main issue I had with Bomberman 64 was that the level design was okay if you weren't fully exploring the level for the 100%. You could beeline it to the end of a level without much challenge. In Bomberman 64: The Second Attack, this is the main thing they addressed, but not to the degree I like.

As opposed to the open-ended nature of levels in the original, levels are now structured like Zelda dungeons. I like this idea for a 3D Bomberman game that is based around exploring and puzzle solving. The more intricate level design actually puts you to the test without the need to go for 100%

While the "Dungeon puzzle" designs are fine and clever. The execution is not. The game has a lot of backtracking, which is fine for a game like this, but the problem is there are a lot of rooms that are locked and won't open until you beat all the enemies in that room. That is also a fine concept, it is done in Zelda too. The problem is that every time you leave and re-enter a room (which you will be doing a lot) the enemies are reset and the doors are locked again. And this happens so much, I can tell you it probably adds an unnecessary extra 2 hours to your playthrough.

For every level, if you die you start all the way back at the beginning. Sometimes with some of the puzzles already solved, but you have to track all the way to the point where you previously were. It is real easy to die with the fact that there are bottomless pits everywhere (insta-kill), so this also heavily takes momentum out of the game.

The original Bomberman 64 let you move the camera around which was a godsend in a game where you need to properly see all your enemies and aim your bombs carefully. This game does the genius idea of removing all camera control, so now you're stuck with a fixed camera and worse bomb aiming because of that, with the prone-ness to easily die now due to falling off things because of the bad fixed camera. The fixed camera also makes the game feel much less grandiose.

In regards to the gameplay itself, everything here feels slightly worse than it did than the original. Movement, charging bombs, throwing bombs, kicking etc. Everything feels more sluggish and less accurate. They really messed up what was fine to begin with controls. The biggest sin is how bombs are charged. Originally, you had to pump them up by mashing the A button, which would give you a satisfactory pumping animation. The faster you mash the faster it would pump. Now for this game, you have to hold the B button and it will slow grow. Keep in mind if you are next to a well, or your companion, the bomb won't grow at all for some reason. This makes charging infinitely less satisfying and made me want to avoid doing it.

The act of boming itself is much worse too. In the original 2D Bomberman games, you bomb would blow up in a '+' shape. This made sense for how the game is presented. For a 3D game, the + shape does not cut it. Good thing this was addressed immediately in the OG Bomberman 64 with the fact that the explosion is circular, but in this game it has been reverted back to the + shape. This is a bad idea with the fact that enemies move in a free 360 degree motion, as opposed to just a vertical or horizontal direction. Because of this, your bombs will now miss like 60% of the time.
You are given different bomb types this time around which act like new Zelda dungeon items. Each bomb fulfills a different purpose for solving puzzles, and enemies are weak to some more than others, but you will be using your Ice bombs 90% of the time as that is the only bomb that will blow up in a circular shape without charging it.

On top of all the annoying gameplay quirks that heavily bring the game down. There is a lot of unskippable dialogue, which I'm normally fine with in RPGs, but this is a Bomberman game. Like I don't wanna spend 5 minutes reading dialogue about "deep" Bomberman lore, c'mon.

This game on paper sounds like my ideal kind of Bomberman game, but it shows how even with the best ideas, bad execution can ruin something good. I still enjoyed the game for a single playthrough, and the best parts were going through these dungeon like levels, and figuring out the puzzles as you go along, but with everything else bringing the vibes down I just wanted this game to end.

If you want a REALLY good Bomberman Zelda-like though, go play Bomberman Quest on the Gameboy. That shit is as good as Link's Awakening let me tell ya.

I don't think I've ever instantly fallen in love with a video game faster than I did with Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom.
With the resurgance of 3D platformers in the indie scene, this game is most definetly something you can add to the list of greatest 3D platformers of all time.

A platformer where there is no jump button? That is right... sort of. In this game you are taking advantatge of slopes and ramps with the dash abiity your taxi has in order to "Jump" and get to high places. As you play the game you will eventually learn more and more tricks where you will be moving around the map like an abosolute master, the same way you would be moving in Mario Sunshine or A Hat in Time. The skill ceiling here is TALL, and once you really get good with the mechanics, you will be jumping and zipping all around easily getting to out of bounds places. The game controls like an absolute dream and you'll have no problem getting used to the mechanics.

The game is structured like a 3D Mario game and Banjo-Kazzoie where you're given open zones to explore and collect gears (this games version of Stars or Jiggies). Some are out in the open for you to platform to and collect, and others require you to complete some sort of challenge. The standard fare, but not a single gear was ever frustrating to get. Going for the 100% is immensly fun.

With it being a Taxi game, there are also some Crazy Taxi moments where you gotta pick up and drop of passangers during some of the levels, which bring another unique twist to this platformer. Think Crazy Taxi but you're platforming as well as driving to your destination.

The visuals are super charming, it's a like a cross between Megaman Ledgends and a beautiful Sega Saturn game. It is absolutley charming and shines with every level theme the game has from the beach, to the bustling city, to haunted mansions. It's got all the themes you'd expect a platformer to have.

It takes about 8 - 10 hours to finish this, something expected from the genere, however when you beat the game there is a huge post-game that is about the same size as the main game, and in completly new levels too. There is so much content here with some of the postgame being real challenging if you want to exhaust everything you can from this game.

With this being the studio's first game, I am very shocked at the result here. I have no idea who the individual devs are, but this game feels like it was made by very experienced people in the industry. Something you'd expect nowadays from Toys for Bob or Insomniac. This is definetly my favorite platfomer so far from 2024, and expected sleeper hit.

Kirby's Adventure was actually the first game I ever let's played when I still had my old YouTube channel back in the day. I chose it because around that time, I got an NES and figured it was a good game to play first because it's so easy. Turns out, I really sucked at the game lol. Since I was using a camcorder and didn't know how to edit videos, I had to keep every single death in too. I may have sucked ass but I truly wish I still had those videos, as sadly they're lost to time now. Anyways, playing this again brought me right back to those memories of making the videos 10+ years ago, good AND bad memories.

Let's start with the biggest addition, the copy abilities. This was the first game to have then. And it kinda shows. You have a ton of classic abilities here; sword, hammer, cutter, needle etc. The NES was very limited with its buttons, so the move sets are super simplistic, but it works well. The reason I said "it kinda shows" was they have abilities that would later just be combined into one. Ice/freeze and fire/fireball. Freeze and fireball are both so much better than ice and fire, there was just no need to have both. But of course, they had to be split due to the NES controller only having two face buttons. Overall, a decent selection of copy abilities but not great imo.

For an NES game, and compared to dreamland 1's graphics, this game looks great. While I'm personally just not a fan of how NES games look in general, this game does have a very consistent color palette which I can commend. It's no Dreamland 3, but again it looks nice for the console it's on.

The OST is ofc good again, all Kirby games are. This game introduced a buncha songs that have become staples now. Butter Bridge is a big one, such a banger. Honestly might be my favorite version of that song too, it's that clean.

The level design is solid though I feel like no level really sticks out and they all just blend together. The levels have these switches that you can find in the stages that unlock little parts of the map outside of the levels, and let me tell you some of them are mean. I only found a couple this playthrough, but I feel like with some of them, you'd absolutely need a guide. Like I said, there's a map. Besides the main levels, there's other stuff you can do. There's little arena sections where you can fight a boss for a maxim tomato. There's a copy ability room where you can get a specific ability anytime you want. And then there's the little minigames that can net you some lives. All of them are fun but my personal favorite was always the crane game.

Something I did not like back then, and this still applies to the NSO version, is the lag that happens in game. Every single room you're gonna get some sort of lag, and sometimes it chugs hard when there's like 4 enemies on screen or a fire/ice/electric effect is happening. I get they wanted to make the game look super good but it was at the cost of the game not running well which stinks. Apparently the 3DS version fixes this funnily enough? But the E-Shop is now closed so ahhh that blows. Also I never really liked how you barely have any invincibility frames in this game. The game is easy but it can be super easy for enemies to stun lock you in certain circumstances, especially since enemies respawn. Not a huge issue but it did annoy me somewhat even on this replay.

This game brings back a lot of good memories but sadly this was never one of my favorite Kirby games. It's definitely a solid time but I like most of the other mainline games more. Honestly, I think I like Dreamland 1 more just because it's so short and comfy. Ah well, still recommended for anyone looking to get into Kirby or NES games in general!

This is gonna be a conflicting one.

In 2021, I first saw the trailer for NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139. I was a huge fan of Automata and had also played a bit of Gestalt before dropping it, so I was no stranger to the series. I wanted to play Replicant but also wanted to play every prior game beforehand. Alongside going back to Gestalt and finally beating that, I also decided to buy both Drakengard and Drakengard 3 since I knew they were connected to the series somehow. Fast forward to 2022, I randomly decide to finally dive into the Drakengard games. I play up until like chapter 3 or 4 I think and drop the game due to a skill issue. What did I think of it? I thought it was shit! Not only did I not like the gameplay, which most people don't ofc, I also just thought the story was super boring up to that point. The story was the main reason you'd be playing the game, so for me to not be into the characters or story at all, I just wasn't motivated to continue playing it. Fast forward to present day, fellow user Lemonstrade eggs me on to play it as a joke. Well I didn't back down and decided to beat it this time. The first mission or two, I immediately thought "yup this is still shit". But then I remembered some of the gameplay mechanics that made the game more tolerable and bada bing, I started to enjoy myself more.

So let's get into the absolute most contentious aspect of the game, the gameplay. The biggest issue I had with it, and it's still its biggest issue now, is it doesn't flow the best due to the camera. It's a fixed camera depending on what way you're facing and the right stick only tilts the screen a bit and goes back in place when you let go of it. If there's an enemy behind you, this can be really clunky feeling as you manually have to face the enemy before you can see them in front of you. I got used to this pretty quickly but this is the only major issue I had with the gameplay tbh. Otherwise, it's just a perfectly fine hack and slash/musou game. The actual gameplay, not including camera issues, is perfectly serviceable I felt. It actually does get satisfying killing hoardes of enemies while the side characters talk about how brutal Caim is. That plus there's combos that can knock enemies down which makes the gameplay more tolerable, there's summonable characters that can just mow down hoardes of enemies like nothing and the magic that changes depending on what weapon you're using. The combat is surprisingly more in depth than you'd think, and that's not even getting into the air combat. I found that more enjoyable from the start tho that can be even more frustrating than the ground combat at points just because how slow it is to aim sometimes. That's only an issue with later encounters and bosses but either way, the combat in this game? Not bad honestly, it's not great ofc but in the end I found it a lot enjoyable than when I played the game initially.

The music is honestly super fitting and also really experimental and out there. A big chunk of the songs sound like looping messes. It kind of sounds shit at first, and look I aint listening to the OST outside of the game, but it really is memorable. Playing this 2 years later, I still remembered all the early game songs. I wouldn't say I actually "like" the ost, except for maybe a couple of the more comprehensible songs, but it's still a good ost since the game is trying to drive you crazy.

Diving right into the story, I'm gonna just say it. I didn't think it was mind-blowing at all or even that amazing. My issue with not caring about the story or the characters still applied to a good chunk of my playtime here. It wasn't until like the last third, and all the endings, where I was actually interested. I really really enjoyed how crazy it got near the end, and I really loved the dark fantasy elements. I just wish more of the game was like that, and that the earlier chapters weren't so boring. But I also think that was the whole point, it was to subvert expectations and make you think it'll just be a boring fantasy game only to surprise you with all that craziness in the endgame. It also wasn't until post ending A, where you got cutscenes with all the side characters. Those were entertaining every once in a while but I just did not care about the cast in this game. Even Caim, who has an iconic design (which may have been caused by a very iconic user on this site) I just didn't like as much as I should've. I know the whole point of him not speaking is for the characters to describe how awful his slaughtering is and for you the player to basically take his role. That's a cool concept but it just made me not care about his character. It's funny how I'm more positive on the overall gameplay than the story, but the peaks of the endgame story cutscenes overshadow everything else at least. I just wish there was more idk. Also, that final boss, holy shit idk how you're supposed to do that without the pause trick or looking up inputs. I had to do both cuz otherwise I would've just not beaten the game lol.

Additionally, I may not really care about the cast in this game, but I can't deny the voice acting is actually surprisingly good. It's a mix of British and American voice actors but it works surprisingly well, especially for a game from 2003. Aroch, specifically when you summon her and she screams "WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN", holy crap is it satisfying. Idk who voices her but that voice actress was cooking.

So yeah, like I said, it's a very conflicting game for me. Usually you see people either loving or hating this one but I just personally think it's a decent little game that does some really unique things. I'm glad to finally have beaten this as a huge NieR fan and I'm glad I did end up enjoying this one overall. Excited to play 3 in the future, tho I also own that physically too and idk if I'm ready for the framerate lol.

6.5/10

After hearing the news that the 3DS/Wii U's online services were shutting down, the first thing that popped in my head was replaying this game's online one last time.

Back in 2015, I remember seeing the trailer for this game and thinking it looked really cool. I never played an online shooter in my life, but this one actually interested me with its colorful art style and interesting concept. The day of release, I ask my dad if he could pick the game up on his way from work and when he came home, not only did he have the game..he had an Inkling Boy amiibo as well. That basically kickstarted my Amiibo addiction around that time but that's a story for another time. Anyways, I ended up enjoying Splatoon a ton. I remember the day after I got it, I had a relatives party to go to and I could only think about playing this game. This game consumed my whole summer, I loved it so much. Playing every Splatfest, seeing every update as they roll out, I was hooked for a couple months. Part of that is because I had no school of course, because once September arrived I didn't play this game nearly as much as before. Still, May-August 2015 was the summer of Splatoon and I'll never forget it.

Anyways, time to actually review the game lol. I think the most striking aspect is just how stylish this game is. From the different outfits you can wear, to the more experimental soundtrack, to the unique art styles that appear in the sunken scrolls. I've seen people compare this game to Jet Set Radio cuz of it's sort of counter culture type attitude and ofc its stylishness and appeal to the younger demographic and I can totally see it. It can be really influential playing this as a young lad, and it certainly worked for me.

Speaking of the music, I've seen some individuals on this site specifically call it bad and I just don't see it. Sure, it's not everyone's cup of tea but the OST is really well done honestly. Splattack! is of course a classic and Ink Me Up brings me right back to participating in Splatfests all day. Those are my two favorites but the whole OST is great. I think Splatoon 2 is great and all and probably the objectively better game, but if there's anything I prefer more in 1, its the soundtrack.

The meat and potatoes of this game however is it's online matches. This game doesn't have as much content or modes as 2 (and god it was pretty barebones at launch I'll admit that) but it's still a ton of fun to play a match or two. I was able to play a couple turf war and ranked matches and they were still fun. I remember raging so hard whenever I would lose on ranked matches, I had issues lol. Still, I wish Urchin Underpass and Saltspray Rig were in future games, I miss em lol. Sadly couldn't play them during this last play session but I remember they were some of my favorites.

I did also replay the campaign, and it's still fun as it was back then. Sure, it's no octo expansion and probably worse than 2's, but I always enjoyed it personally. I don't know if it's weird to say but I kinda get Mario Galaxy vibes from it. Just going from section to section using the launchpads and seeing the really cool backgrounds in each level. Always got that vibe. It does get a bit formulaic having every 5th and 6th level be the same level type, however overall, I really enjoyed the single player. At least you can still play that even with the online off.

This game may have been a bit obsolete in the eyes of a lot of people once 2 and eventually 3 came out. However, 2 I never got into nearly as much so my memories of 1 really outshine it. It's not perfect but this game will always hold a special place in my heart and is one of the first things I think of when the year 2015 is brought up. Rest In Piece Splatoon 1 online and the 3DS/Wii U online in general, I loved you dearly.

The next Kirby game to release after Adventure was Kirby's Pinball Land. This was the first game I had yet to play prior to this whole thing and I gotta say, not really a fan of it tbh.

I do honestly enjoy pinball a bit, it's fun when you're just going for a high score or are at a pizza parlor and you see a pinball table and play it to pass the time. But Kirby's Pinball Land is actually beatable. See, each stage has a boss from Kirby's Dreamland you can fight if you progress high enough into the stage. The entire game is Dreamland themed actually. Well, I tried to get to Wispy Woods for 40 minutes straight and that's the first stage. Every time I'd defeat all the cappies in the little bonus game and make the warp star appear, something would make me fall down again. So yeah, I never even got to fight any of the bosses because I was just so frustrated trying to even get to the very first one in the first place. After giving up on the first stage then, I just decided to play the other two for a bit as well before calling it quits. There's 4 bosses in total, the three from the stages and then Dedede at the end. Idk if you have to do every stage and Dedede in one continue, because if so that's pretty ridiculous with how random pinball can be.

This review seems overly negative and yeah I was getting frustrated when playing and still don't care fit it much but for a simple pinball game, it's not bad. I'm giving it a bit of slack since it is an OG Gameboy game (and also maybe me not being much a fan is just a big skill issue). The Dreamland 1 visuals and references are nice and the music's nice too (most of it is just reused from Dreamland tho). Just maybe don't try to actually beat this game cuz you'll also get frustrated unless you have a high tolerance for random pinball BS lol. It's been a while since I played a game and didn't finish it, and I really hate doing that especially for a Kirby marathon like this, but idk man I just can't do it lol. Looking forward to playing Dream Course next!

Edit: In retrospect, maybe a 5 is too generous, especially since I couldn't even get to a boss cuz I had enough at that point. So I'll drop it to a 4.