I gotta say, I always had a soft spot for this one. I can't deny its flaws, the very suspicious (to say the least) level design choices and how atrocious certain bosses can be (Gate and High Max are just inexcusable), but also can't bring myself to hate this little mess of a game.

The ominous setting of a world where things aren't perfect even after all the sacrifices in X5 just clicks for me. I could say this might be a bit meta? Probably just a stretch, but I like to think it this way.

This premise alongside the gameplay changes I do enjoy (such as the saber for X, new Zero playstyle, parts customization, etc) and some OST bangers always push me through the bad stuff. Alternative stage routes is a great concept but poorly implemented. Character designs here are also some of my favorite in the series by far. I feel like they nailed it on the art side, even though all the rest had to suffer.

A lot of bullshit is always happening, no matter which stage you are. Terrible enemy placements, the Reploid rescue system and a horrible boss balancement (again, Gate makes no sense at all. What were they thinking?!) are very offputting, and I can't blame people for disliking it. The plot's resolution is also a bit disappointing, despite the initial good ideas.

With all of that, this is still my guilty pleasure in the series. Love it or hate it, I feel like they had some great ideas in here. Can't say it's the best in the series, but it's a close tie with X4 for the best in the PS1 era. At least for me, of course.

You know what I really appreciate? Game demos. Not the kind of demos that you can download from a store, where you can get a good feel of a game that is coming out and decide whether or not you wanna get it for yourself, but instead, the gameplay demonstrations that can play on the title screen before you press start in a game. These are pretty neat to watch in action, not only because they show off what the developers wanted the players’ first impression of the game to be (at least, I hope that is their intention, anyway), but it also gives you a good idea as to how the game will be in terms of quality. For the longest time, I myself didn’t really take the time to appreciate the art of a gameplay demo, for obvious reasons, but now that I have played Athena, I have a whole new love and appreciation for them.

I had been interested in checking this game out for quite a while, not because of the almost naked woman on the poster (I prefer real women over fake women, thank you very much), but more so because it was one of SNK’s earliest titles, one that they have rereleased several times over the years, and as for Athena herself, she has been brought back plenty of times by the company for other games or collections that they have had over the years. So, surely it must be important to the company, and it must hold some level of quality, right? Then I went to play the game, and I watched the game demo play out, and from that point on, I knew that I made a horrible mistake. I then tried playing through the first level, died a million times to the tree boss, and gave up. You may criticize me for this, but trust me, based on that short experience, I had plenty of material for a review, because THIS GAME FUCKING SUCKS. Sure, there are some qualities about it I can admire, but over all of those qualities lies a bunch of problems, mistakes, and awkwardness that makes this one of the worst arcade games I have ever played in my life.

The story is at least self-aware, where one day, Athena, the princess of the Kingdom of Victory, was bored, and so decided to open the Door Which Shouldn’t Be Opened, which gets her sent to the Fantasy World, where she must now defeat the evil Dante and save the world from his evil reign, which is a generic set-up, but again, they are aware of how silly it is, which I can appreciate. The graphics are… interesting, looking decent enough for the time, but there are a lot of visual glitches and enemy designs that do look pretty… off, making it somewhat of an eyesore to look at, the music is ok, with there being some alright tunes that you can hear throughout, but it will all be hidden behind the obnoxious sound effects that make my ears bleed, the control is… something to behold, but I will get to that later, and the gameplay is pretty standard for the time, and yet, somehow, they manage to fuck it all up in the process.

The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Princess Athena, go through eight different levels, or worlds in this case, full of plenty of terrors for you to face, fight off many, and I do mean many, dangerous creatures that you will encounter using whatever you can find, gather plenty of weapons, armor, and magical items that will assist you in your quest, as well as giving you a much greater chance of survival, and fight plenty of intimidating bosses who will put up quite a fight, making sure that the only way that you will be proceeding through this game is when you are begging for mercy on your pitiful soul. Most of it is all what you have come to expect from an arcade platformer, and for what it is worth, it does have some neat ideas going on here that do make it an interesting title for the time… but right alongside that, you have the fact that, when the devs were making this game, they probably thought to themselves “Man, Ghosts ‘n Goblins was pretty easy, wasn’t it?”

What makes this game more unique compared to other platformers at the time was that, in several ways, it had RPG elements strewn within it, even before games like Cadash and Wonder Boy in Monster Land would hit the market. As you go about getting different weapons to try out, along with shields and armor to defend yourself with, there will be two bars that will either increase or decrease depending one what you grab, giving you either more strength or defense, which is always very much appreciated. In addition, the magical items that you can find throughout are practically essential to your quest, as each one can benefit you in various ways, such as allowing you to jump higher, or even shoot laser beams out of your sword (why does that sound familiar…). And these things can be pretty hidden too, encouraging the player to not only explore the levels to see what they can find, but also experiment with the weapons you can get, as some are able to break open blocks throughout the levels, and some cannot.

However, all of that is easier said and done, because the one thing that holds you back from doing that is the BALL STRANGLING DIFFICULTY. I know what you are thinking, like “Yeah, no shit Mega, arcade games are hard, and you should know that, given you basically live and breathe these games at this point”, but no, have you actually taken the time to PLAY this game? From the very first level, you start out with nothing, only being able to kick a short distance, which won’t help you that much against the dozens of enemies you immediately have to deal with. You can get weapons from them pretty quickly so that you can defend yourself, but that won’t help you all that much, given how they respawn so goddamn fast, and they want nothing more than to make sure that this princess becomes a horribly mangled corpse, especially with how quickly your health can be drained. I can’t confirm myself if this is like this for the entire game, but from what I did see, it seems to be that way, and needless to say, my hands are bleeding, and I want to make sure they don’t break off.

And speaking of my hands bleeding, that leads us to the controls, which feel AWFUL to use. You have pretty basic functions, just being able to move left to right, climb up things, jump, and attack, which you can get a handle on pretty quickly, but the problem is that the movement and the jumping feels horrible to pull off. There is no proper momentum to your movement, nor is there a proper amount of weight for your jump, making it feel like you are constantly restrained at all times, which for a platformer is one of the key essentials that you absolutely cannot fuck up. This especially becomes more clear when you get that magical power-up I mentioned earlier that allows you to jump higher, because then it gets even more confusing. You would think it would work where you would just have to hold down the jump for longer in order to go higher, but no, instead, you have to press the button once to do a normal jump, and then you have to hit it again to do the higher jump, and given how you already have enough to deal with when there are a million enemies coming for you, this is much easier said than done.

Overall, despite its innovative ideas and mechanics that were pretty unique for the time, nothing more can be said that can save Athena from being a frustrating, clunky mess of a game, one that I’m surprised SNK likes to bring back a lot, given how it ended up turning out at the end of the day. Do not play this, whether you are a fan of arcade platformers or not, because it absolutely does not deserve your time or attention whatsoever, no matter what the reason may be. But of course, since this is SNK we are talking about, this game did get sequels that I am gonna have to play at some point, which will be loads of fun, RIGHT?! HA HA HA HA HA…………………. help me...

Game #505

Dropped at the Mondo boss because I forgot to grab the Pandora's Box in the previous level and I'm not playing this madness of enemies popping up whenever they want, unresponsive controls and more cryptic requirements than Ghost and Goblins all over again just to see further. Play Alex Kidd in Miracle World instead, has a similar art design, gameplay orientation and a cuter feeling of adventure (this was what I was expecting from this game). I've read this was made just to appeal to wider japanese audiences and that's why Athena is a loli, as if this was one of those weird machines they have in casinos with the scantily clad women. Well, your quarter muncher philosophy may have attracted ludopaths but not me.

Supposedly the NES version is even worse, I would explode if I played that

If you look around at videos and old magazines the coverage for Rise of the Robots leading up to its release was a little insane. They really truly thought they had a winner with this one, enough so that there were plans for a multi media franchise. While intended for a Q1 1994 release (sources seem to vary between January and February), problems arose and delays happened until it released at the end of the same year. It sold well enough due to the marketing, but critical reception was horrible, with such scores as 5 out of 100. Magazines that threw out positive reviews were seen as a total betrayal of trust by their readers. This isn't really an exaggeration, either. The game is pretty goddamn awful.

You can only play as Textureless Pepsiman out of 7 characters total, which is still a small ass roster. In two player mode, player 1 is still confined to only playing as aforementioned Textureless Pepsiman for some reason, while player 2 can pick whoever they please. You could argue for single player mode that it's for story purposes or whatever, but you can't really defend the two player situation at all. How do you even go through with that in a final fucking product?

Rise of the Robots boasts complex artificial intelligence in its computer opponents, which learn and adapt to your playstyle. This is not true. What it does is it starts countering an attack if you use it too many times in a row, unless it's jump kicks, which they are apparently totally unequipped for. If you jump kick around mindlessly you can beat some versions of the game in 20 minutes, maybe less. This isn't always the case in the SNES version, where instead you have to jump kick and also Dodge Sometimes! Wow!

One of its selling points is also a soundtrack composed by Brian May from Queen (who I'm not huge on to begin with), which isn't true either. He did make a soundtrack, but label antics ultimately led to it being left out. The SNES box still advertises this for some reason, and it turns out what made it into the game is like a 15 second sample from an already existing song by him or something, while the rest of the music is done by someone else.

Rise of the Robots at the end of the day is a tale as old as time, overhyping and underdelivering hard, and every time it repeats it still amuses me to some degree. It's honestly more interesting to talk about its buildup and failure than the actual game itself, so I would recommend looking for a video or two about that. I will say it has an edge over Ballz 3D for 1) looking honestly pretty impressive for the time and 2) not being the most annoying thing ever. Having an edge over Ballz 3D is like having an edge over a newborn in a skateboarding competition, though.

Played through the demo, so I'm definitely not that in-depth with it, but from what I experienced, it just didn't work for me. The parkour elements are nice, but when you have to use them to dodge and end up managing to fall off a bridge with them, it does feel a bit poorly thought out. Combat wise could be pretty interesting in the entire game when you get more spells and whatnot, but from what I saw, it was spam or holding down the fire button and the enemies die too easily. And of course, the dialogue...there isn't even any cutscenes here and I already hate Frey with how whiny and annoying she can be, constantly being bratty to the very bracelet that is helping her for no good reason during combat. Cuff, that bracelet that talks, isn't as bad, but he is still irritating at times as well. Obviously, if you enjoyed the gameplay and can put up with the critiques I have, by all means, have fun, but me, the demo was more than enough for me.

I really really wanted to like Forspoken. I liked the idea of a mage centric open world fish out of water fantasy game. I really like Frey's desgin and character. The flavorfull speach that a lot of people complain about I actually thought made sense and generally think it enhances the game. That's how people talk. Very great start to the game. Loved the transition from New York to the fantasty world. My problem with Forspoken is just how uneven and shallow everything is. Everything seems half baked and unfinished. Characters get very little screen time and have no character outside good or evil. The side characters and quests are meaningless as nothing is developed or even change by the end.

As for the gameplay it's a real mixed bag. All the powers and moves look and feel cool and you get a real good feeling like you are a high powered mage. Once you have all the moves and powers unlocked you really do feel quite powerful. The issue is the pace at which you unlock things is really slow. My first third of my playthrough I was still stuck on the same basic power that you start with. I eventually made the descion to stop messing around the world and doing side stuff and just progress the story so I could open up the combat. The world of Athia is really big and feels huge and there are collectibles littered everywhere, hundreds of them actually. The sucky part is that it's too bloated with stuff and none of it feels meaningful. So many hidden chests and treasures that give pitiful resources that are a dime a dozen. Even the character quips "Oh it's just one of these, at least it's a freebie" that doesn't relieve the tedium of work for no pay off. Lots of areas of clear this enemy wave or beat this monster here. I mean this game would make banjo and kazooie blush with it's collectible stuff. You can spend hours collecting stuff and it wouldn't give you remotely more of an edge than if you just sprinted to the finish line. One thing the game does do really well though is it's traversal. Using magic to get around the land feels fast and cool. Your speed runs feel like your moving fast, you even have a super mario style tripple jump and climbing is quick and easy. They really nailed this aspect. I would put it up there with Sony's Spider-Man in a good traversal gameplay.

The good really stops there though. The first third of the game felt like sludge with the terrible pacing then when it starts to get more interesting and good the game put it's story telling into hyper drive and force feeds you the rest through scripted walking sectiosn and just drops you into the final boss. I was flabbergasted when I saw the prompt for the final battle. I feel like there should have been ten hours or so of stuff left but nope. Completly rushed in every since. Really soured my whole experiance with the game. How can it start so slow then dash straight to the end. Clearly feels like more cut content than MGS5 with even more cutscenes and story left on the cutting room floor. I honestly felt like there was another five or eight hours of story and game left but nope. The ending was so awful and it's rushed nature shows and all the side characters where completely worthless and pointless. Frey's growth felt forced because the game needed it to be done at this piont. It's a shame cause I really liked the base idea of the game but it was so poorly thought out I can't see how they expected to be a franchise. It has the worst alternate ending I've ever seen lasting a whole 19 seconds, roll credits back to your last save. What was the point of even giving the player the option. Then the post credits scene was so dumb and our of character I stood in disbelief.

Forspoken is a really hard recomendation and a complete disapointment because there are aspects of it I do like but it's unfinished nature and quite frankly awful story telling leaves a lot to be desired. I kinda wish that they would just keep the main character and fish out of water story in a magical story and throw away every other story aspect and reboot it. Maybe this is just an alpha concept and in another world they got a full fleshed out story and game.

o jogo morre na sua concepção, o maior câncer do jogo claramente é a ideia estúpida e HORROROSA de ter tanto planeta e tanto espaço vazio no jogo (ora bolas quem diria que fazer mil planetas artificiais pra caralho ia ser muito chato), o jogo tenta quase tudo e erra em quase tudo que tenta, é gráfico de personagem estranho pra porra, é você ir numa missão num acampamento de bandido perto da cidade principal e você ter que ir A PÉ LENTAMENTE até lá pois não tem veículo, é o combate duro padrão da Bethesda que já tá desatualizado tem uma década, é um estilo de design e arte pouco atraente e que tenta simular a vida real e irmão SE EU QUISER COISA REALISTA EU VOU PRA FORA DE CASA CAMINHAR. loading pra ter loading pra mais uma tela de loading.. FORA UNS ABSURDOS TIPO: sua nave não consegue ir tão longe (só chega na galáxia de distância 5 por exemplo) então você tem que melhorar pra ir mais longe certo? ERRADO, se você quiser ir pra distância 6 basta ir pra galáxia 5 e dar mais um fast travel pra 6 TORNANDO O PERK INÚTIL (além de ser mais telas de loading sem graça), quando joguei não tinha mapa e pelo amor de deus mano 2024. já mencionei a já ultrapassada fórmula Bethesda de contar histórias com suas animações duras e pouco expressivas? das missões que são basicamente dar fast travel pra tal canto só pra falar com alguém e depois mais fast travel pra falar com outra pessoa (notou as telas de loading aí?), e os 30 FPS que quando lançou era dito como "escolha artística" e que do nada foi apenas consertado E É ISSO? esse jogo é um desperdício de tempo pra todos os lados, de quem joga ao produtor e programador do jogo. eu queria te amar starfield, de verdade, mas pra eu te amar você deveria ter sido lançado em 2014.

I'll give this game credit for one thing- the presentation. Although the in game sprites couldn't rip off Megaman more if they tried, the Ninja Gaiden-esque cutscenes are incredibly well done and the hexagon transition that takes place between boards is super cool.

That being said...they forgot to make the game any good. Being able to duck and fire in multiple directions is a nice change up from what this game is obviously inspired by, but the level design is terrible and it's like they didn't actually play megaman to see what made it work. 99 percent of what I encountered in the first two worlds was using the incredibly awkward and janky broom (think rush jet but not as intuitive) or figuring out what weapon to use and what specific tile I needed to be standing on to land a hit. The flow of Capcom's classics isn't here.

Perhaps the worst thing about this game mechanically is how the character drops like a sack of potatoes if you attempt to jump and shoot at the same time. That's right- simply trying to shoot will cancel out your jump arc and will lead to cheap deaths in a game that's already full of them. Again, it's like the developers only ever saw still images of the game they're attempting to clone.

As others have said, this game is brutally hard. But not in the way that Megaman was. You know how you'd sometimes get health pickups or even energy tanks? How about checkpoints? Magical Dookie here has none of that. Even the smallest enemies are capable of taking off half your life bar...even in the first few stages.

The game does (sort of) try to give you one advantage by making all of your weapons accessible from the start and not needing to worry about their respective energy meters. That being said, all but two of them are pretty much worthless. You'll need to use the broom to navigate over spike pits and the ball to shoot diagonally in order to nail certain enemies. I did find the freeze projectile useful in a few specific spots, but that's it.

I may pick this up again and go for beating it just to check it off a list, but as it stands, this is the worst megaman clone I've ever played. I had more fun playing Mighty Number 9 when that came out. A shame too because Vic Tokai actually did a decent job emulating Sonic with Socket/Tume Dominator a few years later.

I highly recommend you just play darkwing duck or (if you want a game that does things a bit differently) Whomp Em if you need your "I can't believe it's not megaman" fix on the NES.

One of the only games published by Taito on Genesis that wasn't an arcade port, and goddamn is it library padding. Walk around bland ass '''''open-ended''''' maps just to find a key to the boss entrance, beating up the most unobtrusive anklebiters along the way. Completely mediocre and wholly unsatisfying, commits the totalitarian sin of just being Super Fucking Boring. Borderline amiga-tier gameplay and design. Literally could only recommend to a certified Small Victorian Child that wants his mummy to rent him a slashy bashy game for the weekend at dad's.

Silent Bomber is hardly very silent. It's similar to Bomber Man, but more action than puzzle or strategy. It's a really short experience, able to be completed in a couple of hours. For the most part I'd like to say it's fun, but it has some terribly tedious sections that can be downright frustrating at times. There were moments I got confused, as it can be really bad at making it clear where you need to go. Along with not explaining things there's a fun little upgrade system, but as far as I know the game never tells you it exists. The difficulty curve is all over the place, some bosses are total cakewalks meanwhile other levels feel almost unfair. My favorites would have to be the water tunnel and the giant elevator shaft, both levels where you are confined to a decent size space that is all visible on screen at once. In contrast the levels that I dislike are either so large you fall victim to screen crunch, or are really cramped to where it's hard to avoid enemies or give your bombs space. You are given special limited "liquid" bombs that you are really never pressured to use on normal enemies, and you don't want to either. Certain boss encounters are extremely obnoxious, but can be trivialized by effective use of the liquids - especially the stun liquid. The CG cutscenes have not aged very well at all, and the story is nothing to write home about. However, the actual graphics have their charm, and the music isn't amazing, but it's not bad. Lastly, there's a score system, it grades how well you do on each mission. However, there's no restart mission or replay mission buttons. Not only can this be annoying, but it also means you can't play a mission again for a high score without playing the whole game over. Overall it feels kinda half baked, but the central mechanic is enjoyable. I actually like the way the game looks and feels, and I hope we see something like this again.