steelybel
2023
>tries to play killer 7
>its poop killer 7
>its poop killer 7
2011
guys i think i downloaded the wrong game where is freeon leon
when someone talks about "messy queer art" they're actually talking about this
2005
the streets are soaked in melodrama. To Live Is To Not Run Away. hell yes brother.
see, what sega did here was basically update kunio-kun for 3D because nobody else was gonna do it, and god bless em for it because this game rocks. a game from the golden era of open worlds, with a razor-sharp sense of scope and locations only as detailed as they needed to be for 480i.
yakuza opens with a sleek, stylish and totally unique sega logo, and from that point the presentation never lets up. the opening song "recieve you" instantly sets the tone, and the soundtrack as a whole consists of tasteful funk-rock and alt-metal motifs alongside some brilliant sampling work. visually, the game's a killer too. city streets are adorned with gorgeous baked lighting, and the fixed camera angles paint beautiful portraits of the night life. UI elements are given a clean modern look that reflect kiryu's stoic yet transparent personality. good shit.
storytelling as always is something i'll have trouble articulating my thoughts on but i enjoyed how soapy this was. i could see the big twist coming from 200 miles away but it didn't matter to me. the game successfully makes you care about haruka and yumi and nishiki and everyone else and that's all i can ask for. the notorious voice acting in all fairness WAS pretty bad (save for mark hamill as majima; what an inspired casting!!!) but it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the story in any way. i am also soooo glad this one doesn't have that many substories... not looking forward to the RGG games that mainly consist of those.
the traversal and exploration is very understated though i found it incredibly novel here. kamurocho, being only one district of tokyo, makes for a very small "open world" but one i adore. this is the only game to recreate the feeling of finding a shop/restaurant in your hometown you never knew about, and that rules to me. lots of fun stuff tucked into every corner, like the arms dealer hidden inside a porno dvd shop.
the combat to my surprise was mostly very fun! crowd control is very tough early on, but once you get more upgrades it becomes a fun puzzle to solve for each encounter. keeping the heat gauge up is tricky but it's also incredibly rewarding. almost all good but my two main complaints lie here: most weapons are useless, and turning around is needlessly difficult. you learn to work around these issues but "work around" is the right term here unfortunately.
in the end i'm glad i chose to play this after 2 hours of kiwami left me disappointed years ago. yakuza 1 kicks major ass and part of that is due to how streamlined it feels. that sense of scope i mentioned earlier is there, but it never feels overwhelming. never trust a remake, kids.
(late review, this took me a while to write)
see, what sega did here was basically update kunio-kun for 3D because nobody else was gonna do it, and god bless em for it because this game rocks. a game from the golden era of open worlds, with a razor-sharp sense of scope and locations only as detailed as they needed to be for 480i.
yakuza opens with a sleek, stylish and totally unique sega logo, and from that point the presentation never lets up. the opening song "recieve you" instantly sets the tone, and the soundtrack as a whole consists of tasteful funk-rock and alt-metal motifs alongside some brilliant sampling work. visually, the game's a killer too. city streets are adorned with gorgeous baked lighting, and the fixed camera angles paint beautiful portraits of the night life. UI elements are given a clean modern look that reflect kiryu's stoic yet transparent personality. good shit.
storytelling as always is something i'll have trouble articulating my thoughts on but i enjoyed how soapy this was. i could see the big twist coming from 200 miles away but it didn't matter to me. the game successfully makes you care about haruka and yumi and nishiki and everyone else and that's all i can ask for. the notorious voice acting in all fairness WAS pretty bad (save for mark hamill as majima; what an inspired casting!!!) but it didn't hamper my enjoyment of the story in any way. i am also soooo glad this one doesn't have that many substories... not looking forward to the RGG games that mainly consist of those.
the traversal and exploration is very understated though i found it incredibly novel here. kamurocho, being only one district of tokyo, makes for a very small "open world" but one i adore. this is the only game to recreate the feeling of finding a shop/restaurant in your hometown you never knew about, and that rules to me. lots of fun stuff tucked into every corner, like the arms dealer hidden inside a porno dvd shop.
the combat to my surprise was mostly very fun! crowd control is very tough early on, but once you get more upgrades it becomes a fun puzzle to solve for each encounter. keeping the heat gauge up is tricky but it's also incredibly rewarding. almost all good but my two main complaints lie here: most weapons are useless, and turning around is needlessly difficult. you learn to work around these issues but "work around" is the right term here unfortunately.
in the end i'm glad i chose to play this after 2 hours of kiwami left me disappointed years ago. yakuza 1 kicks major ass and part of that is due to how streamlined it feels. that sense of scope i mentioned earlier is there, but it never feels overwhelming. never trust a remake, kids.
(late review, this took me a while to write)
1998
oh my god. oh my god i get it. literally everyone was right this whole time. i didnt even think i LIKED racing games
(played as jill)
awesome game!!! very fun puzzle solving, great audio design and beautiful pre-rendered visuals make RE1 an absolute treat. story is engaging the whole way through, the voice acting is great in an endearing sort of way but the localized text is genuinely great, i love reading all the lab reports and such. the item management can be a little difficult sometimes, i'd often go out of my way to put away certain weapons and key items only to realize i needed them 3 rooms ahead from where i was. (not entirely sure how much of this is my fault!) i think it's cool that this is basically just a sierra/lucasarts style adventure game with combat. remains to be seen if i will do a chris run... excited to check out re2!
awesome game!!! very fun puzzle solving, great audio design and beautiful pre-rendered visuals make RE1 an absolute treat. story is engaging the whole way through, the voice acting is great in an endearing sort of way but the localized text is genuinely great, i love reading all the lab reports and such. the item management can be a little difficult sometimes, i'd often go out of my way to put away certain weapons and key items only to realize i needed them 3 rooms ahead from where i was. (not entirely sure how much of this is my fault!) i think it's cool that this is basically just a sierra/lucasarts style adventure game with combat. remains to be seen if i will do a chris run... excited to check out re2!
2023
it's a very good map (a technical marvel no doubt), with tons of great twists and turns to boot, but far too hokey and unserious for me to consider some narrative triumph. very much in the same ballpark as godzilla NES creepypasta if that makes any sense
??????
2013
when you make sonic 1 control like sonic 2 with no consideration for the level design it's no wonder why so many people think this game sucks. what christian whitehead did for CD was a miracle, but for this game it was damnation.
2024
a punchline 13 years in the making and it's literally a broken asset flip made by a duo of "parody" developers. bravo
1986
frank frazetta. bela lugosi. lon chaney. ray harryhausen. the guy who directed the music video for DIO's holy diver.
i thank these people not just for their contributions to art but because without them we probably would not get castlevania, an almost peerless work of art that transcends time. very few platformers can stack up to it and i think it deserves a kiss and a big warm hug. the start of gaming's greatest series and one of the finest games to ever grace nintendo's own family computer.
the visuals and music have always been what sets castlevania apart from its contemporaries and, as it turns out, this has been true from the very beginning. there's a perfect level of visibility on just about everything, from the slightly pink fireballs to purple and red skeletons to simon belmont's own orange-tinted armor. backgrounds are always vibrant, from red curtains to the deep transylvanian horizon to a system of moving brass and iron cogs, making each stage feel like its own special setpiece.kinuyo yamashita crafts an impressive series of memorable tunes to accompany these setpieces, along with her cohort satoe terashima; i guarantee songs like vampire killer and wicked child will be remembered for ages to come as some of the greatest tracks in this era of videogaming. the identity of castlevania is as unmistakable and unique as it is playfully derivative; in addition to everyone i named earlier whose legacy impacts this game, there are just tons of nods to different mythologies of the world, the history of horror, and cinema in general (where else would the otherwise conan-esque simon get a WHIP from, if not Indy?).
everyone has had their own strongly-held viewpoint on the classic castlevanias' infamous "fixed jump arc" at some point. maybe you've changed your opinion over the years but i know at the least you have one. mine is that it rules and this game would be so much worse without it. every platforming challenge and enemy pattern is expertly designed around it beautifully. and speaking of challenge, it must be said that few games have a difficulty curve as balanced as CV1's. the escalation is natural, you fight enemies with basic patterns and no attacks on the first stage, onto slightly more complex patterns in the second, you're introduced to bone-throwing skeletons and wild flea-men in level 3, and so on, until by the time you're almost at dracula's door, you're fighting the former first boss as a normal enemy while hopping over bottomless pits. it's great! and while we're at it, talk about an iconic villain, huh? it's goddamn dracula. what can you even say. he turns into a fuzzy blue monster after you whip his head off, this could be the best game ever dude
i thank these people not just for their contributions to art but because without them we probably would not get castlevania, an almost peerless work of art that transcends time. very few platformers can stack up to it and i think it deserves a kiss and a big warm hug. the start of gaming's greatest series and one of the finest games to ever grace nintendo's own family computer.
the visuals and music have always been what sets castlevania apart from its contemporaries and, as it turns out, this has been true from the very beginning. there's a perfect level of visibility on just about everything, from the slightly pink fireballs to purple and red skeletons to simon belmont's own orange-tinted armor. backgrounds are always vibrant, from red curtains to the deep transylvanian horizon to a system of moving brass and iron cogs, making each stage feel like its own special setpiece.kinuyo yamashita crafts an impressive series of memorable tunes to accompany these setpieces, along with her cohort satoe terashima; i guarantee songs like vampire killer and wicked child will be remembered for ages to come as some of the greatest tracks in this era of videogaming. the identity of castlevania is as unmistakable and unique as it is playfully derivative; in addition to everyone i named earlier whose legacy impacts this game, there are just tons of nods to different mythologies of the world, the history of horror, and cinema in general (where else would the otherwise conan-esque simon get a WHIP from, if not Indy?).
everyone has had their own strongly-held viewpoint on the classic castlevanias' infamous "fixed jump arc" at some point. maybe you've changed your opinion over the years but i know at the least you have one. mine is that it rules and this game would be so much worse without it. every platforming challenge and enemy pattern is expertly designed around it beautifully. and speaking of challenge, it must be said that few games have a difficulty curve as balanced as CV1's. the escalation is natural, you fight enemies with basic patterns and no attacks on the first stage, onto slightly more complex patterns in the second, you're introduced to bone-throwing skeletons and wild flea-men in level 3, and so on, until by the time you're almost at dracula's door, you're fighting the former first boss as a normal enemy while hopping over bottomless pits. it's great! and while we're at it, talk about an iconic villain, huh? it's goddamn dracula. what can you even say. he turns into a fuzzy blue monster after you whip his head off, this could be the best game ever dude
2010
wow. wowowow. what a fucking game man. nier goddamn 2010. nier gestalt. whatever you wanna call it. this is what video games are all about. i was prepared to enjoy it but i didn't realize just how "on board" i was going to be for all of this game's percieved bullshit. like early on i knew what i was getting into and i thought "man i love this jank 2010 action rpg combat and the weird tonal clash happening constantly but i am not really looking forward to getting all the weapons" and by the end i was thinking "fuck yeah i wanna do a million sidequests and fish in the desert for like an hour so i can get all the weapons". this doesn't ever happen to me normally so this was like a freak accident. but i loved this game's bizarre world and impeccable storytelling so much i just wanted to continue until i could see it all. and so i did. so i did.
final notes: i'm gonna miss my fishing records. been humming the junk heap theme all week. i think it's really funny that liam o'brien does the same voice he does in this for leviathan in skullgirls. i have zero interest in playing the remake. grumpy old nier 4 lyfe <3
final notes: i'm gonna miss my fishing records. been humming the junk heap theme all week. i think it's really funny that liam o'brien does the same voice he does in this for leviathan in skullgirls. i have zero interest in playing the remake. grumpy old nier 4 lyfe <3
2011
second half is dope. dont talk to me
2017
no shit one of the worst metroidvanias i have ever played. very pretty looking and the sound design is nice but the map design and combat is genuinely dogshit
2019
thinking about the types of people who worked on this game and the types of people who okayed every decision made on this game and the types of people who this game was made for and i feel nothing for any of these people but pure contempt. fuck this game and fuck everything it stands for. it is a repulsive pile of soulless pink glittery filth. it is nothing short of nauseating to look at, to listen to, or to play. the game grumps are in this and it's not even the most upsetting/annoying part of it. i've literally never hit the "skip cutscene" button on a first playthrough before i played this game. but in the end i'm not really sure why i did, because the actual game sandwiched between these F-tier 2012 tumblr comic voiceovers sucks, too! as if it couldn't get any worse it's a fucking terrible beat-em-up! i don't even understand how they got it so wrong! the people at wayforward have obviously played a lot of old games, they should know how this stuff works, but they seem to have fucking forgotten, so you're left to trudge through a broken mess of non-functional juggles, pointless backtracking and some of the worst bosses i've ever has the displeasure of fighting in a video game. i think i'd rather play any beat em up than this. hell, give me Bad Dudes and i'd probably have a better time. anyway did you know this game's sequel which released a week ago has chris niosi in it? thought that was cool and interesting