UH-OH! BIG!
A massive improvement to the first two, and a massive difficulty spike to go along with it. Metal Slug X is a sort of remake of Metal Slug 2, with redone levels and improved performance (hence why I beat this game and not Metal Slug 2). However, I guess SNK was going through a tight spot, cause they apparently needed to get WAY MORE QUARTERS from people playing this game. This game is crazy difficult, stealing $11.25 from me in virtual quarters. However, the game does make it worth it. So much character, new weapons as well as STRONGER WEAPONS, new vehicles, and a strange narrative through out the levels involving an alien invasion. All and all, I loved Metal Slug X but I didn't need the kick to the balls it gave me. (also Fio is so cute omg)

Sometimes I like to play games before the AVGN covers them so I can laugh at the same stuff he makes fun of. That said, I don't think I got very far when I played this, and there is one good reason why.

Colorblindness Rating: F
Having one of your stage gimmicks be based on being able to traverse yellow pipes but not green pipes is AWFUL. Who made this choice? I spent more time trying to figure out where I could cross over and over again because I can't tell the yellow pipes from the green pipes. AVGN put it best. What a shitload of fuck.

My first Soulslike, and it looks nothing like the common associates with the genre, perfect for me!

It has a good blend of action adventure combined with 3D platforming. The combat is easy enough to understand with a charge attack, parry, dodge options, all that jazz. There are also special powers from either shells or the powers you pick up from bosses, though I found myself mostly using the latter of those two. The shell mechanic is the big mechanic meant to help this game stand out. A neat idea, but I think a lot of the shells blend together too much for my taste, but that's mostly just a nitpick because the game encourages you to swap shells due to the difficulty.

The platforming is very well made. It gets creative with various mundane objects providing challenges and Kril's movement options like the floating and fork throwing used as a grappling hook. I would even call the whole gameplay great, if it wasn't for, well...

The biggest issue with the game is its performance. There are several slowdowns that happened to me (which I heard is a problem on other consoles as well), the game is sometimes hacking because of way too much going on, and there are moments when hitboxes on both Kril and enemies made no sense to me, and I don't know if it's because of glitches. Speaking of glitches, hoo boy, this game has a lot of them. I fell through the floor a few times, music cuts off, the aforementioned hitboxes, etc. These problems actually made me use the assist mode at certain points because I was getting my butt kicked in ways that didn't feel entirely my fault.

So that dragged down the gameplay for me, but I'm gonna be honest, the story made up for it for me, because... goddamn. I didn't think the cute funny crab game was gonna make me cry. It may have a lot of themes that are preachy but the way it works into Kril's arc just really got to me, and the direction that it was taken was definitely not what I was expecting. I bumped up the score to what it is because the story got to me that much.

Gonna go sit somewhere and reflect on myself for some time now.

My first Donkey Kong Country game was Returns for the Wii. I got it for Christmas the year it came out (that or it was 2011 I forget) and I remember being so excited to play it. While nowadays, I'm not the biggest Returns fan personally, I can't deny it started my love for the DKC series. Once I got into Super Nintendo games with Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island, I decided I wanted to play the very first Donkey Kong Country game since at that point I still only played Returns. I bought it at my local flea market I believe and really enjoyed it. I mentioned how Yoshi's Island always reminds me of the weekend, since I would play that a lot during that time, and the same applies here too. While I think the sequel does everything this game does but better, I still think the original is a really fun time.

The general gameplay of Donkey Kong Country is you run, jump and roll. Those are basics of course, as each level has other aspects that change gameplay up like barrel cannons you can shoot out of or ropes you can jump on but the general gameplay is pretty simple. The controls are basically perfect, rolling feels super good to perform, and if you know the layout of the levels it's very easy to just speedrun through levels since both Donkey and Diddy are relatively fast. Speaking about the characters, Diddy Kong's first appearance was in this game, and he honestly upstages Donkey Kong. If you get a DK barrel, you can get the other Kong along and they basically act as a 2nd hit. You can switch freely and this is helpful since they each have different attributes to them. Donkey Kong is slower but heavier so he can kill certain enemies that Diddy can't. Diddy just feels better to play as he's faster than Donkey and also has a smaller hitbox. Both are valuable, but Donkey is more situational and is mostly just used for one enemy type (and even then, Diddy can defeat them by rolling into them) so Diddy Kong is my much-preferred Kong to use.

As for collectables in the levels, you have bananas of course. The main plot involves King K Rool stealing DK's banana hoard and he must go after him and his baddies to obtain them back. I think the reasoning behind there being so many littered throughout the levels is he just dropped them or something but either way, they act as coins and getting 100 earns you a life. You can collect letters that spell out KONG and they also give you a life. You can also collect these animal buddy tokens, and getting three of a specific buddy lets you collect these stars, and every 100 you collect ALSO gives you a life. Besides all this, you can also find secret bonus rooms. These all contain all the aformentioned items, or just lives straight up, but these can be a pain to find. I wouldn't have an issue normally since these are optional bonus rooms so it makes sense they'd be really hidden, but getting every single one is how you get 101% in the game, so if you're a completionist you must find them all. The real issue then is, a good chunk of them are just kinda bullshit. You'll have some that are very easy to spot and are self-explanatory. But then you have ones that are completely hidden and sometimes even require blind jumps into pits. I know they wanted you to buy a guide or a Nintendo Power back then to find these locations, but I don't find random pit bonuses or random breakable wall bonuses fun ever. I used a guide for like 80% of these cuz I only ever 100%ed this game once before, so I forgot most of these. The sequel can be like this too, but it generally handled bonus room locations a lot better. Alongside all the collectables and bonus rooms, you also have animal buddies. These are fun as they change up the gameplay slightly. Rambi can kill usually unkillable (unless you have a barrel) enemies by running into them. Expresso can jump a bit higher and float over large gaps. Enguarde swims faster in water and has an attack you can perform. Winky...well Winky just jumps really high, tho he can also jump on usually harmful enemies too and he's honestly underrated. These guys appear enough where they don't just feel like one-off gimmicks or anything.

The levels themselves are generally well designed. They're simpler than the sequels, and I feel like there's generally more bullshit due to enemies suddenly appearing on screen randomly, but there's a nice flow to the levels. Visually, I think it just looks alright. The characters themselves looks good, I just think some of the backgrounds don't look great compared to others, and definitely compared to 2's backgrounds. I think it also doesn't help that the level themes aren't too interesting in this game. You have jungles and mines and factories and Mayan temples and some of these are more unique than others, but they don't exactly lead to very vibrant colors. When it hits, it hits. The one jungle level with the sunset is really nice and I like the ice caves. The factories are kind of cool near the end too, but overall, I think the level settings can be a bit bland here. Not like Returns tho, since that is very formulaic with its level themes but compared to 2, 1 is not as good in that regard.

The bosses in this game are kind of a joke. All of them, besides King K Rool, are incredibly easy and just feel like a slightly tougher regular enemy. They could've easily had no bosses and it would've been fine so I guess it's not like they detract from the game too much, however 2 did bosses way better.

This may be my hottest take though. I don't love the OST. A big reason for that is most of the OST was in Returns, and so I had always felt there was an identity crisis with this game which is not the game's fault and is more a me thing because I played Returns first. Even outside of that, some of the songs I just never really got into...but objectively the OST is quite solid. There are still bangers like Aquatic Ambience and Gang-Plank Galleon of course. Also a shoutout to Fear Factory, that one's nice too. Even though I don't love the OST, it's still good overall, I just much prefer 2's tbh.

I've kind of been complaining about things here or there despite praising the gameplay. Something else I'll praise about this game tho is its Rare charm. Animations are very charming between characters. Donkey and Diddy both get terrified when you're at the edge of a cliff. They do a charming celebration whenever you defeat a boss or complete a bonus room. Diddy Kong throws his hat down and stomps on it when he loses a bonus room. The dialogue between the other characters like Cranky or Funky or Candy are very charming too. There's a fake-out Kremlin credits that happens when you get halfway into King K Rool's fight, and the actual credits have humorous cutscenes between characters. Not only is this game charming as hell, but it also created all these well-known characters too. We wouldn't have Diddy Kong or Cranky Kong or Funky Kong if it wasn't for this game. We wouldn't have my man K Rool either, he's such a memorable villain. The Kremlins themselves are very memorable and cartoony. I think besides the actual gameplay, the best thing DKC1 does is the worldbuilding and charm. Before this, we just had DK and DK Jr. It's all thanks to Rare, that we have as many memorable characters as we do now.

I may have some issues with this game, and I think 2 fixes them all pretty much, but this is still a classic for a reason and is staple Super Nintendo game. I was honestly thinking about dropping this to a 7, even up until writing most of this review, but it wasn't until the paragraph before this did, I really ponder and think about how many staple characters this game created and just how charming this game is in general. It's very important to entire DK series as a whole and is a very fun platformer at that! However, as I've said several times in this review, 2 is better in every way and I'm going to be replaying that soon so stay tuned for that review!

It's like the movie The Blob but cute.
You're a 2cm alien that agglomerates everything in your path into a giant mass of agony. Cops shoot at you, cars honk and people scream.

This ball of torment is launched into space where it replaces the missing stars. People who did not die from being pressed or asphyxiated meet their terrible end there.
It's like in the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it's not shown, but we all know those kids didn't make it.

Despite the violence and frustrating controls at the beginning, it's a super relaxing game.

In theory, a quick and fun game. I don't know if it was due to the interface and/or lack of clarity, but in practice players only chose the first level, rarely the second at most. The first levels are so simple that even with enemies launched by other players, it was common for games to last more than 15 minutes and only end when someone got fed up and jumped into the hole to go dinner. Only once did I manage to play a more advanced level.

Game is now delisted from the eshop. It could have been sensational but was just alright. Style worked better for F-Zero and Tetris.

Unfortunately this game is not good, it's not a worthy spiritual successor to Punch-Out.
It ends up being more trial and error with an emphasis on memorization.

Worst of all is that with low life, a filter covers the entire screen and occurs a dramatic close-up, which makes it difficult to see the patterns, which are inconsistent and not very clear, even more difficult to read at the most necessary moment.
The filter even covers the start menu, making the yellow highlight almost indistinguishable.

One of the bosses is a witch who releases magic, and guess the color... With low health it was better to restart the fight.

You’re trying to tell me these are mechs? They look like potential rayman characters

One of the last games released for the famicom during the shift to the super famicom in Japan, joy mech fight was nintendo’s last attempt to create a fighting game for the famicom (like what they did with urban champion). This game was actually never brought to the west until Nintendo switch online a year ago so uhh…good job Nintendo. Good to see the game finally got a localisation! Oh wait-

So because I can’t read what’s going on, I’m currently going off of what it says on the Wikipedia page. Dr. Emon and Dr. Walnuts create these really cool robots until walnuts steals them and plans world domination. Thankfully, Emon brings a robot called sukapon and turns him into a military robot to fight back against Walnuts and all his robots. Pretty simple plot.

Gameplay is your typical fighting game, though it has quite a lot of charm to it. In the story mode, you eventually get 36 available fighters, each with their own abilities that you can use. These can also be played in the multiplayer modes, and some are extremely easy to master. The story mode consists of beating 7 fighters per level until having to face a boss at the end. After finishing the boss, you move onto the next level.

Overall, whilst not the best game on the famicom, I must admit that joy mech fight has a really nice charm to it. And as one of the last famicom games, it has a really nice presentation that I love and it doesn’t feel stiff at all. It is probably one of the best fighting games on the famicom, but whether it is on a similar level to that of street fighter 2 or tekken is possibly a very big stretch.

Fun gameplay, really nice presentation, neat music, rayman if it was a fighting game

The year…is 2012. The London olympics have been hosted, Whitney Houston died, and West Ham beat Blackpool to return to the premier league. But I feel like we are missing something important, a small piece to this very large puzzle. A year ago to this year, Skylanders spyros adventure released. An experimental game to not only attempt to bring back spyro, but to also birth a new gaming trend: toys to life. And so, on 2012, that is when, I finally got my first toys to life game: Skylanders giants. To any onlooker of this series, they would simply assume giants is quite possibly the weakest and most cashgrab entry. But today, I’m here to disprove that, and hopefully give people a taste of what one of my favourite games as a kid was. So without further ado: let us begin.

The story is pretty simple, basically these Skylanders have been brought to earth and forced to just be these figures, which we the ‘portal masters’ have to save by spending actual currency to put them on a FLASHING LIGHTS portal and then they get brought back into the game. Simple right? Well we also have to stop this evil dude called kaos, who is just as evil as me when I leave the toilet seat up. He basically is trying to reawaken the arkeyan robots whom the giants stopped years ago. And that’s it in terms of plot.

Gameplay wise it’s VERY simple. You scan a Skylanders onto the FLASHING LIGHTS portal and then that Skylander is put into the game. You then go through really simple and basic levels. You beat the enemies, do a tiny bit of exploration, and you move on. At certain points you’ll find certain areas that can only be unlocked through having a skylander of a certain type (fire, water, etc) so you know what that means! Spending time! There are also little puzzles and also…the legend that is: skystones. Remember tetra master from final fantasy 9? It’s basically that but better in every way. It is the quintessential card game.

The music is also something I have to stop by and talk about. Lorne Balfe put his heart and soul into this soundtrack. Levels like the junkyard isles and wilikin village give me an instant hit of nostalgia that is unparalleled. The other tracks as well are also quite memorable and honestly he did a really great job of giving the game that cinematic feel to it.

To be perfectly honest, I do kinda miss this franchise. Not to sound like I’m 8 but man collecting the figures was a lot of fun. Fortunately I still have mine and I do look at them from time to time just because I can’t get rid of them. Even if I could I’d only get a penny from them and that’s the unfortunate downside of toys to life as a whole. But that’s a story for another day. Giants would also be the game to bring other competitors in, those being Disney and Warner bros. and oh man, this is gonna get real big and go down very quickly. But until then, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts on a classic childhood game of mine. Gone but certainly not forgotten.

…also for those who might ask, my favourite was jet-vac.

Ok story, simple gameplay, brilliant music, skystones is peak, also the drill-x rap lives in my head rent free

Yeah puzzle games are great and all, but nothing really keeps my att- OH MY GOD ARE THOSE FLASHING LIGHTS.

I’m back, yet again, to talk about puzzle games. And today, I happened to land on one made 23 years ago, and one I’ve never heard of. This is Fantavision. A game developed to show the capabilities of the PlayStation 2 for some reason. Come on, you know me. I can’t like a video game console if it hasn’t got one game which has FLASHING LIGHTS. Anyway, let’s get into the uniqueness of this game and why I kinda like it.

Your mission in Fantavision is simple: you control a circular cursor and quickly match up different firework colours (known as flares). You use a ray of light to gather up these flares by pressing the X button and then press circle to detonate them. You need to string together a minimum of 3 or 4 to be able to get any points out of them. You also have different types of flares which explode in different and mesmerising ways. If you also happen to get a multi-coloured flare, you have the chance to make chains which go on for a ridiculous amount. However, if you miss quite a few flares, it affects your play meter and if that goes down, it’s game over. You can also chain along different power ups which award extra points or help with your play meter. There is also starmine. When you chain together these certain stars, they create these letters which spell out starmine, which is essentially your bonus stage. In the stage you have to detonate as many flares as you can within the time limit. And that’s Fantavision! You can watch replays if you decided to save it and can also have the ability to unlock harder modes and extra stages, but other than that. That’s Fantavision!

So, what did I think? It’s a pretty good puzzle game all things considered. It definitely kept me invested at multiple points and the music is really nice and chill. I will say, the only problem is the replay value but it’s still a nice game to come back to every now and then. This game would later get a rerelease for the ps5 titled 202X. Whether I’ll play it or not we’ll see, as fun as it looks. Also uhh, it’s the American anniversary of this game in 2 days so uhh. Happy early birthday Fantavision!

FLASHING LIGHTS, chill music, good stages

much like life, being trans is awful. having to live your life as a compromised version of yourself, not quite belonging anywhere, even among the people who love you most, and constantly struggling with the feeling that you can't do what you want to do because people won’t let you or won't understand. there is a sense of loneliness, of isolation, a sense that you're not ever going to be understood and that you'll always be just a little off, a little too clockable, a little too different. there is an incredible sadness to the whole experience.

as for the positive aspect? i'm still working that out. i'm not lucky enough to have a family that supports me. i live in a state of constant fear and apathy, knowing that no matter what i do, i'll never be the girl i've always had in my head.

the problem is, i'm a pretty miserable person, and i take it out on everyone around me. i hate my life, and i can't be happy being a man and i don't know what to do about it. but i do know that i hate this situation i'm in, and the idea that i can't escape it. it's like i have an anchor dragging me down, and i can't get out of the water.

i know there's a lot of trans people who are really happy, and i'm happy for them. for me, it's not been a good experience, and i'm not at all sure it's going to get better. but it has given me some perspective on life.

my perspective on gender has led me to have unfortunate habits of psychoanalyzing everyone i see, recognizing patterns and trying to understand why they do what they do. it has given me a sense of being misunderstood and that it's everyone else's fault. because of this, i'm very judgmental. it's like i've dissociated from all of society, there's no human connection or emotions behind the faces and words. it's almost like i'm a vampire. it's not exactly easy being this way, and i wish i had been born different, but at least i know that, at the end of the day, no one is ever going to be able to understand me completely.

my feelings are a complicated mess, and trying to explain them to people who don't understand gender dysphoria is difficult, so it's easier to go without trying, especially if it was easier for everyone to assume i'm cis than have me talk about my feelings. it's just easier to keep people at arms length, let them make their own assumptions and let them feel comfortable in their own bubble. but if i tried to interact with people, i'd just be putting them in an awkward position, trying to understand what i'm saying. it's easier for everyone to just assume.