violet
38 Reviews liked by violet
Super Dodge Ball
1989
even as far as nes sports games go, this is kinda trash. it's just not even a little fun.
sonic 2 is perfect. transposing knuckles into it is a fun novelty but it makes the game feel a lot lonelier, and honestly it feels a little worse for it? (sonic & tails 4ever.) but i mean it's still sonic 2. it's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination.
Tetris
2009
have you ever wanted to play tetris with a bunch of battery-draining ads? this gives u the chance to play tetris with a bunch of battery-draining ads! a perfectly fine way to pass the time while you're waiting for a table at applebee's or something.
this let you make your own custom league from scratch and that was super awesome to young me. the game itself was pretty horrible with horrible graphics compared to madden games of the time, but eh.
The Sims 2
2004
this game meant a lot to me because it let you be gay at the time when i was first realizing i was gay.
Super Mario Bros.
1985
this is so much easier as an adult??? i played this in one sitting in bed while my nesting partner snoozed next to me. i didn't use level warp pipes because i wanted to experience the whole game. i think this is the first time i've actually beaten this??? still very nostalgic, though, as this is the first video game i really remember playing.
for lthe longest time if you asked me to name my favorite video game of all time it was a dead heat between this & ocarina of time. and it's not really that they were ever surpassed. (well... i think wind waker surpassed ocarina of time, actually, but that's another conversation.) it's just that our understanding of what a video game can be changed drastically.
but like... in terms of what we understood video games to be in the 90s, this is still (and always will be) the absolute pinacle to me.
but like... in terms of what we understood video games to be in the 90s, this is still (and always will be) the absolute pinacle to me.
Fight'N Rage
2017
this game rules! all the enemies are hot buff furries or dominatrixes!! my only complaint is that i'm expected to fight back instead of just letting them beat me up? seems fake.
this movie: [proposes a complex & multilayered causal framework with complex relationships between reality & the movie]
me: lol sure
this movie: [a character offers another character drugs]
me: [waiting for the edibles i took earlier to kick in] ... wait...
me: lol sure
this movie: [a character offers another character drugs]
me: [waiting for the edibles i took earlier to kick in] ... wait...
i played this game a ton as a child & found it again on a website that has lots of abandonware on it! so much nostalgia. so glad i finally figured out what game it was.
Star Fox
1993
woo, filling another major hole in my experience with nintendo first party games. this seems pretty ahead of its time! and i don't just mean because of the gay romantic tension between fox & his tsundere boyfriend falco. i can only imagine how this 3dish space combat must've blown kids' minds in the snes era.
heck, it is so satisfying to finally beat a game you never got around to beating, right? anyway i remember getting this for the nes and being astonished at how "realistic" the graphics were. really goes to show you how far things have come. the gameplay is still incredibly fun even today. this holds up in basically every way except for the truly awful racist/nationalist stereotyping of all the boxers.
Super Mario Bros. 2
1988
another game i never got around to completing back in the day!! i played all the way through as toad, because i have decided they are an enby icon. don't @ me.
so everyone knows this game was just a slightly modified doki doki panic, but i kind of don't mind that because shy guys are cute as heck and i wouldn't want to not have them in the mario series. also, mouser is uncomfortably hot? like, dang.
anyway, i don't care about the doki doki stuff so much, but i DO care that this game is kinda racist as heck? like, there is orientalism out the wazzo happening here. the game is still pretty enjoyable and finally getting around to beating it was nice, but still. ugh.
so everyone knows this game was just a slightly modified doki doki panic, but i kind of don't mind that because shy guys are cute as heck and i wouldn't want to not have them in the mario series. also, mouser is uncomfortably hot? like, dang.
anyway, i don't care about the doki doki stuff so much, but i DO care that this game is kinda racist as heck? like, there is orientalism out the wazzo happening here. the game is still pretty enjoyable and finally getting around to beating it was nice, but still. ugh.
scorching take: doki doki panic was always mario 2. this is a glorified expansion pack. it's still extremely good though.
Baseball
1983
i played a ton of tecmo baseball on nes as a kid, and this is pretty bad compared to that. i know it's from a few years before tecmo baseball, but it's just so bare bones and not nearly as fun.