Mega Man Zero is certainly a good start for the series, but there are some blatant flaws here that can’t be ignored. I’ll start with the Cyber-elves. You’ll find them throughout the missions and most of them give you a temporary boost of some sort (stunning enemies, healing Zero, etc.), but some others will provide permanent upgrades for Zero. However, you’ll need to feed them each some Energy Crystals before being able to use the permanent Cyber-elves. This sounds fine, but the problem is that the necessary amounts of Crystals are staggeringly high. You will really have to grind for these things, and that’s not fun. I suppose they didn’t want to make it too easy to fully upgrade Zero, but they definitely didn’t have to go that far with the Energy Crystal costs. Next up, we’ve got a big one: the lives system, and I have one question about it: who the fuck thought it was a good idea? For those who don’t know, this game really broke the mold by not giving you some extra lives back after losing all of them, therefore you can only get more of them as they’re scarcely scattered throughout the levels or very rarely dropped by defeated enemies. This issue is coupled with the fact that you are locked out of a mission if you fail it without any lives left. Yeah, I guess you could say it makes sense in terms of story, but you could apply that logic to so many other games, just about all of which don't have these kinds of features! Thankfully, this bullshit can be avoided in the Legacy Collection with the Save Assist feature, which gives you checkpoints throughout the stages. You’re automatically sent back to the most recent one upon death without any lives lost. While such a feature might not be necessary for the other games in the collection, it’s absolutely essential for at least your first playthrough of this one. Once you have Save Assist enabled, you’re in for a fun action platformer. It has the same fun, fast-paced movement of the X series, pretty good music, and generally solid level design. The bosses are kinda hit or miss (The second phase of the final boss is an absolute miss), but I felt like the good outweighed the bad. Also, while the story is rather simple in this game, it provides a nice foundation for what’s to come and has some really cool moments (rot13 spoiler: V ernyyl yvxr Mreb erzrzorevat ubj zhpu orggre gur erny K jnf hcba qrsrngvat Pbcl K) Overall, despite its blatant issues, Mega Man Zero 1 is absolutely worth playing if you enjoy challenging action platformers.

A considerable improvement over the first one! The two big issues I had with the first game are completely gone. Granted, there’s still an Energy Crystal requirement for the permanent Cyber-elves, but those amounts are all significantly reduced, so it’s a lot easier to get them activated. Although the newly-introduced Chain Rod felt unintuitive for swinging across gaps and there were a few rather unfun moments (Phoenix Magnion my DETESTED), it was still a fun game with a pretty good antagonist for something that’s rather short. And yeah, I probably won’t have as much to say about most of the games here as I did for MMZ1.

What a great way to cap off the Zero series! Once again, Inti Creates provides a solid and challenging action platformer with good-ass music and what I consider to be a top-tier story. I’m not going to spoil anything here, but the plot of this series is concluded in just… a really good way. That said, I gotta put this just a little lower than Zero 3 because there were a few small moments that weren’t fun. Also, stealing enemies’ weapons with the Zero Knuckle was neat, but I kinda stopped using it because those weapons never felt particularly useful. I could probably write more, but I’m really tired right now so my brain’s a bit fried. But yeah, Zero 4’s a very good game in every respect!

Yep, this one’s pretty good too. Satisfyingly precise controls, levels and bosses that are reasonably challenging (albeit a little easier overall compared to the Zero games), and some really good music (my favorites in this one are probably Wonder Panorama and Misty Rain). Pretty much what you’d expect after playing Inti Creates’ previous offerings. But there’s something that mixes things up this time around: a Metroidvania-like interconnected map. I wanted to like this feature, but sadly it’s just antithetical to how the game progresses. Just like the Zero games, you select a mission from a list, but instead of being taken to the level instantly, you have to go find it yourself. This could’ve been fine, but the map on the pause screen is a goddamn waste; it gives you pretty much no indication as to where you’ll need to go for your current mission. Don’t feel bad at all about looking up a guide to figure it out. If you can get past that blunder, you’ll find yourself yet another solid action platformer!

I’m so happy you guys oh my god. I’m SO happy!! This game is everything I was hoping for and so much more. I was honestly a little doubtful that a full-fledged Kirby 3D platformer could be truly great after the series stuck to 2D platforming for nearly three decades (damn I feel so old saying that), but I’m absolutely pleased to say this is easily one of the greatest games in this series! The Copy Abilities each have more simplistic movesets compared to the standard set by Super Star, but that’s made up for with upgrades to obtain for each of them. Also, the two new Copy Abilities, Ranger and Drill, are very fun to use and perfect for a 3D platformer. The music is superb as well; from another beautiful ice level track to my new favorite version of King Dedede’s theme, Kirby’s large library of excellent music has grown even larger. God, just… what an awesome game. I can’t recommend Forgotten Land enough, especially if you felt like Kirby was starting to get stale.

(please disregard how long the playthrough took i just kinda suck at focusing on stuff sometimes. also i played volt white 2 redux but that's not on backloggd)

Yeah, it's a very good ROM hack of one of my favorite games. It's a very different experience from the base game; even on Normal Mode (that's how I played it), you need to plan for several fights throughout the game so you don't get your ass kicked. Thankfully, there are many ways to go about this thanks to the sheer variety of Pokemon available (You'll be able to get most of the 649 Gen 1-5 Pokemon before the E4). Also, many of those Pokemon have some pretty interesting changes/buffs, such as Flygon becoming a Bug/Dragon-type pseudo-legend and Fan Rotom getting the ability Speed Boost instead of the redundant Levitate. I highly recommend this to any Pokemon fan looking for a fun challenge.

Also, although I used several different Pokemon throughout the playthrough, I'm going to list my hall of fame team here (I'll probably do this for any other Pokemon games I log too):
- The Rot (Shiny Samurott, lv. 77): Surf, Shell Smash, Close Combat, Ice Beam
- The Drill (Excadrill, lv. 77): Rock Climb, Earthquake, Brick Break, Smart Strike
- The Goth (Gothitelle, lv. 77): Calm Mind, Dark Pulse, Psychic, Thunderbolt
- The Tom (Shiny Fan Rotom, lv. 77): Nasty Plot, Thunderbolt, Air Slash, Stored Power
- The Gon (Porygon2, lv. 77): Tri Attack, Nasty Plot, Recover, Ice Beam
- The Tan (Darmanitan, lv. 77): Lunge, Strength, Flame Wheel, Flare Blitz

Yeah I think I've put enough time in to give this a rating. I was torn on 3.5 stars or 4, but I settled for the higher rating. Anyway, it's another fun spinoff in a series chock full of them! The controls felt kinda weird at first, but I easily got used to them after just a few rounds. The plentiful amount of costumes, colors, character treats and music to unlock is nice too. Speaking of the music, it was really nice to hear remixes of tracks from Kirby's previous ball-based spinoffs (I'm a fan of Block Ball's OST in particular). I didn't try the online yet, but I'll edit this review once I get around to that. But yeah, fun little game! I'd say it's worth $15, though I'm absolutely biased as a longtime Kirby fan.

This review is primarily for the campaign, and yeah! It's pretty good! I like the use of both the basic get-to-the-goal stages of the Splat 1 + 2 campaigns and the unique objectives from Octo Expansion. I think it's also pretty great that almost every (release date) weapon is usable in at least one stage; it definitely got me excited to use some of them in multiplayer (especially the Splatana Stamper). Also, the climax of the story goes hard as hell! I don't want to say much else for those who don't know about it, you really gotta play it for yourself.

Not rating it higher than a 4/5 because, while I didn't have any issues with the story mode, it's not particularly outstanding either (save for the end, like I said). But that's okay! There's a lot more to do in Splatoon 3, plus there's going to be single-player DLC once again!

smallfry 😍😍😍😍😍

I was anticipating this one for a while and it definitely didn't disappoint!! I did like the first one more, but it's been a while since I played it so my thoughts might change in the future.

First of all, the Somniums in AINI are quite a step up from those in the first game; each one feels very unique and it didn't feel as trial and error-y as last time. The plot really had me hooked from the fascinating concepts it presented to the various twists and turns that kept me on my toes (one twist in particular was an absolutely flabbergasting headscratcher, iykyk). And of course, the game had a very enjoyable cast of characters too! However, there was a certain character that would've been a favorite of mine had it not been for something really icky that doesn't get properly addressed. That said though, I definitely recommend this one, especially if you enjoyed the first one! I'll be on the lookout for whatever Team Zero Escape is cooking next!

👍

This is certainly a cold take, but I think Pokémon Violet is a very good game despite how blatantly rushed it is. The three storylines and open world are a great way to shake up the formula of the series; I'd be happy to see something similar in later games. The 103 newly introduced Pokémon are wonderful, with Klawf, Tatsugiri, and especially Clodsire being some of my new favorites. The story and characters are very solid this time around, and the music is awesome too, though that should go without saying with Toby Fox's involvement. The game also felt just right in terms of difficulty, though that's probably because I went in order from lowest to highest level for each boss battle. I could imagine the difficulty curve feeling off if you don't follow this order, though I'm sure many people would welcome the challenge. Overall though, this is some of the most enjoyment I've had out of any Pokémon game!

...That said, the frankly unfinished state of the game is impossible to ignore. Sword/Shield and Legends: Arceus were unimpressive graphically, but they at least ran pretty smoothly. Scarlet/Violet, however, has some major framerate drops (North Province Area 3 was particularly egregious in my experience) in addition to the graphics still being crusty, though there's definitely some effort put into improving on that front. There is also the fact that future updates to the game will almost definitely improve this, but that absolutely shouldn't be the norm here (It's not a Pokémon-exclusive issue, to be fair). As these games expand further in scope, the strict, unchanging schedule that every aspect of the Pokémon franchise is bound to gets harder and harder to deal with. I want to say that one of the highest-grossing media franchises could afford to have its major releases more spaced out, but at the same time that astronomical level of revenue is probably at the core of the problem. I really hope this changes, as unlikely as it is, for the sake of both the fans and developers; I can't imagine working on these games under such strict time constraints being a stress-free experience. As a result, I can't bring myself to bring my rating any higher, as much as I'd like to. To reiterate, I really liked Pokémon Violet despite all of this, and I recommend playing it if you enjoy Pokémon and can look past the bad performance/graphics.

On a lighter note, here's the team I used for my playthrough:
- mark (Skeledirge Lv. 65, Blaze, Throat Spray): Torch Song, Shadow Ball, Yawn, Snarl
- wilma (Clodsire Lv. 65, Poison Point, Soft Sand): Earthquake, Poison Jab, Toxic, Yawn
- kylie (Klawf Lv. 65, Anger Shell, Loaded Dice): Swords Dance, Rock Blast, X-Scissor, High Horsepower
- scott (Scovillain Lv. 65, Chlorophyll, Big Root): Giga Drain, Flamethrower, Growth, Sunny Day
- matt (Annihilape Lv. 65, Vital Spirit, Expert Belt, Tera Normal): Bulk Up, Rage Fist, Close Combat, Metronome
- shane (Droopy Form Tatsugiri Lv. 65, Commander, Mystic Water): Nasty Plot, Surf, Dragon Pulse, Icy Wind

(Played on Nintendo Switch through Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2)

Been a couple of years since I played it but I feel like I need to put into writing that this game fucking sucks, man. From the soul-suckingly unfun level design to the wildly inconsistent difficulty, I think this is probably my least favorite game I ever played. It's debatable whether or not it's worse than X7, but to me, that one was just woefully boring instead of being aggressively unenjoyable, so yeah

Would probably rate this 1/5 or 0.5/5 if it didn't have such a great OST. Genuinely just listen to it instead of actually playing the game.