Markies' Games Beat List Of 2025!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***
1. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
2. Mario Party 4 (GCN)
***3. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2)***
***4. Pokemon Snap (N64)***
***5. Dead Or Alive (PS1)***
6. Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
7. Pokemon Blue (GBC)
8. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
***9. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (NSW)***
***10. Sonic The Hedgehog (GEN)***
***11. The New Tetris (N64)***
12. Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA)
13. Yoshi (NES)
***14. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)***
15. L.A. Noire - The Complete Edition (PS3)
16. Batman: The Video Game (GBC)
17. Splatoon 2 (NSW)
18. The Punisher (GEN)
***19. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time / Master Quest (GCN)***
***20. ChuChu Rocket! (SDC)***
21. Advance Wars (GBA)
22. Shadow of the Ninja (NES)
23. Tecmo Super Bowl (SNES)
24. Child of Eden (PS3)
***25. Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth Of Destiny (PS2)***
***26. DuckTales: Remastered (WiiU)***
***27. The Bard's Tale (XBOX)***
28. Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)
29. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
***30. Threads of Fate (PS1)***
31. Metroid Fusion (GBA)
***32. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)***
***33. Super Baseball Simulator 1,000 (SNES)***
34. Miitopia (NSW)
35. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (WiiU)
36. Shadow Hearts: Covenant (PS2) 37. Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters (GB)
I completed Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters on the Nintendo GameBoy this evening!
Back in 2018, I beat the original Kid Icarus on the NES. Besides the beginning of the game being very hard, I actually enjoyed the rest of it. It is such a unique game and theme. So, when I finally got around to being able to play GameBoy games, I was interested in picking up its sequel. In 2023, I found it rather quickly at a local retro convention of mine. Much like the NES game, I was a bit hesitant to play it and there were other GameBoy titles that got me more excited. Well, over two years later, those exciting titles were finished and it was time to start up Kid Icarus.
Much like the NES game, you start off incredibly under-powered compared to later on in the game. Thankfully, unlike the NES game, the monsters and stages are a bit easier. Once you do a little bit of enemy grinding, the game becomes much easier. You have the same layout as before with vertical and horizontal scrolling levels with the final level of each stage being a dungeon with a boss. They use many of the same sprites and look to the NES version. Actually, in many way, the GameBoy version is just like a little add on or a condensed version of the NES game. At the end, you become much more powerful and are able to literally glide through the later levels. None of it feels incredibly cheap or hard as it has a nice and consistent level curve.
However, that is not true for the bosses. You only fight a few of them, but they are giant bullet sponges. They have easy patterns where you won't get hit, but the fights still take forever just because they just won't die. It is quite frustrating and becomes a little repetitious to be exciting. Also, heal rooms are kind of hidden in many levels, so you don't find them all the time. If you don't, you could be spending much of the level on low health, which makes it harder to navigate. Enemies don't drop health until the very end and even that is rare. So, that would have been helpful.
Overall, I still enjoyed Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters. The bosses Hit Points and lack of health pick ups make the game from being great. But, once you get into it and really begin to power up, the game becomes so much more enjoyable. There is very little cheapness in the game and it plays perfectly. It is a solid GameBoy title that is worthy of your time if you enjoyed the NES version.
The original Resident Evil 4 served as a turning point for the series; no longer utilizing fixed cameras, it was a more action-oriented entry. It was also considered one of the best games in the series, so the remake had high expectations. I’d say it meets them, but that’s mostly because it’s like the Game Cube remake of the original: slightly tweaking things based on years of game development experience, rather than doing a major update like the remakes of 2 & 3.
The President’s Daughter has been kidnapped by Spanish cultists. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue her? Ok, so at the start you don’t know about the cult part, just that she was tracked to a small village in Spain. You play as Leon from RE2, now part of a US government task force formed in the wake of the Raccoon City incident. Once Leon reaches the village, he discovers that the inhabitants are deranged and want him dead. And then night falls and they start growing tentacles.
Resident Evil 4 moves past the T-virus zombies; now the enemies are humans infected with the las plagas parasite. It has a mind controlling effect, thus giving control to the big bad, but also meaning that the enemies are far more intelligent. They can use weapons, properly gang up on you (e.g. one can grab you from behind while others intentionally wail on you), and can even lay traps. Compared to the original, enemies are more aggressive and also react more when hit, in terms of having a busier stagger animation that tends to throw off the aim of follow up shots. Since we are still playing an ammo-limited game, you’ll want to make use of the follow up melee and the crossbow with the recoverable ammo.
Fans of the original will notice two major changes. The first is the complete removal of all quick time events (not counting combat stuff like mashing a button to fight off a grab). That Krauser knife fight QTE cutscene is now a proper boss fight using the game’s knife mechanics. The second is that some of the set pieces have been moved to the Ada DLC. This improves the pacing for Leon a bit, though I imagine some people were disappointed to not see them in the base game.
Mostly, the game is just polished compared to the original. Aside from the obvious graphical improvements, there’s just more options for the player, such as a crafting system so you can get the ammo you want to focus on. The knife now is breakable but can be used quickly and can parry enemy attacks. There’s even a minor stealth system that can save you some ammo use, though the game often has enemies set up in a way that keeps you from using it.
Overall, it’s a good upgrade of a good game. If you haven’t played the original, this would be the version to get, but I would say it’s not super essential if you have played the original.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Markies' Games Beat List Of 2025!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***
1. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
2. Mario Party 4 (GCN)
***3. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2)***
***4. Pokemon Snap (N64)***
***5. Dead Or Alive (PS1)***
6. Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
7. Pokemon Blue (GBC)
8. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
***9. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (NSW)***
***10. Sonic The Hedgehog (GEN)***
***11. The New Tetris (N64)***
12. Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls (GBA)
13. Yoshi (NES)
***14. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)***
15. L.A. Noire - The Complete Edition (PS3)
16. Batman: The Video Game (GBC)
17. Splatoon 2 (NSW)
18. The Punisher (GEN)
***19. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time / Master Quest (GCN)***
***20. ChuChu Rocket! (SDC)***
21. Advance Wars (GBA)
22. Shadow of the Ninja (NES)
23. Tecmo Super Bowl (SNES)
24. Child of Eden (PS3)
***25. Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth Of Destiny (PS2)***
***26. DuckTales: Remastered (WiiU)***
***27. The Bard's Tale (XBOX)***
28. Xenoblade Chronicles (Wii)
29. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
***30. Threads of Fate (PS1)***
31. Metroid Fusion (GBA)
***32. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)***
***33. Super Baseball Simulator 1,000 (SNES)***
34. Miitopia (NSW)
35. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker (WiiU)
36. Shadow Hearts: Covenant (PS2)
37. Kid Icarus: Of Myths and Monsters (GB) ***38. Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth (PS1)***
This is a repost from a previous deleted post.
I completed Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth on the Sony Playstation 1 this evening!
Back in the early days of my college gaming days, I used to play PS1 & PS2 SRPG's all the time. I would play multiple games at the same time and the SRPG's were a nice break. Well, at the time, my friend was playing the DS version and not liking it very much. One day, I found the game at the game store and I decided to wallow in his misery as well. We helped each other through the pain and length and I finally beat it. It wasn't until I started playing SRPG's on Monday's while watching the Backloggery Live Streams that I thought about Hoshigami. Deciding now would probably be the only time to do it, I decided to play Hoshigami again and after over a year and a half, I finally did everything in the game.
Let me get one thing straight: Hoshigami is a bad game. I know it is a bad game, but yet, I have a fondness for the game. It might be one of the first games I actually played together with my friend. So, I have a bit of nostalgia for the game. For the game itself, it is pretty standard fair. The story involves a large nation taking over and a group of people fighting against the empire. Something you have heard millions of times before. The game play is interesting for a SRPG. Each turn, you have a large bar of action points that you spend on either moving, attacking or magic. It offers a nice give and take system. And the ability to equip any magic and upgrade is also very interesting.
But, the game is a literal slog to go through. Everything about the game takes absolutely forever. To end your turn, it takes 7 different button presses. You are lucky to gain like 7 Experience Points when you kill somebody when you need 100 to gain a level. You do maps where the enemy has almost triple the amount of people that have advantage, so your only way to survive is just through levels and them missing.
Overall, I have a fondness for Hoshigami, but I would only recommend it to the hardcore SRPG lovers out there. It is not a game that should put your entire focus into as just the regular story will take you like a 100+ hours. However, it is the perfect game if you playing other games at the same or watching Twitch on your computer. If you enjoy grinding and want something rather mindless, then Hoshigami is not a bad way to waste a few hundred hours. But, there are obviously much better ways to waste your time.
@MrPopo, I'm currently playing through the RE4 remake and currently stuck on that part where you and that one guy are stuck in the house while all the villagers swarm in. And there's that hammer-wielding asshole with the bull head.
@Markies, I remember hearing about Hoshigami before I got into SRPGs proper. Back before I knew that the subgenre predates Final Fantasy Tactics. But seriously, I should get more into SRPGs. In theory, it should be my jam.
1. Advance Wars ReBoot Camp - Advance Wars Campaign Switch
2. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Switch
3. Advance Wars ReBoot Camp - Advance Wars 2 Campaign Switch
4. Another Code Recollection - Another Code: Two Memories Switch
5. Another Code Recollection - Another Code R: A Journey Into Lost Memories Switch
6. Bomb Chicken Switch
7. Castlevania Advance Collection - Castlevania: Vampire’s Kiss Switch
8. Castlevania Advance Collection - Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Switch
9. Disco Elysium Switch
10. Espgaluda II Switch
11. Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir Switch eShop
12. Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind Switch eShop
13. Emio: The Smiling Man - Famicom Detective Club Switch
14. Donkey Kong Country SNES
15. Super Mario World SNES
16. Kirby's Dream Land 3 SNES
17. Super Mario Kart SNES
18. Super Metroid SNES
19. Starwing SNES 20. Split Fiction PS5 *NEW*
21. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island SNES *NEW*
22. Super Mario Party Jamboree Switch *NEW*
23. Pikmin Switch *NEW*
24. Pikmin 2 Switch *NEW*
25. Persona 5 Royal PS4 *NEW*
26. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 PS1 *NEW*
27. Mario Kart World Switch 2 *NEW*
28. Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour Switch 2 eshop *NEW*
29. Ghost of Tsushima PS5 *NEW*
As usual, I'm waaay behind on reviews, so I'm going to be posting mini-reviews over the next week or so to get caught up.
Split Fiction
Split Fiction was a great split screen co-op experience with fun setpieces and interesting mechanics. I like how the 2 characters rarely have the same abilities requiring co-ordination in problem solving. The tone of the game is bizarre those – the story feels very kid friendly and simple in many respects with simple caricature villains, but it also features some slightly jarring moments of gore or darker elements which are tonal whiplash. Great experience but maybe slightly forgettable in retrospect.
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
The final SNES replay I did earlier this year. The Yoshi series is one of the more middling franchises by Nintendo generally, and it had coloured my view of this game, but upon revisiting it’s clear this is truly excellent and deserves it’s accolades. I did a 100% run of the game which could be frustrating on occasion when you missed a single red coin somewhere, but was mostly easier than expected. A masterpiece game and easily a top 5 on the system.
Super Mario Party Jamboree
The Mario Party series is on a bit of a redemption arc lately – whilst the newer games still don’t match the peak of the series in the Gamecube era, they’re much closer in quality. Jamboree has it’s faults but it’s a fun time. The single player mode I played through is fairly throwaway but it’s nice to have something to do for a solo player.
Pikmin
Pikmin is secretly one of the best IPs by Nintendo, and I love Pikmin 1. I replayed the game via the HD collection on Switch and it was mostly as great as ever. However, there are a few changes to the game since the Gamecube days which I think don’t quite work – they’ve added camera controls to the right stick but this has necessitated remapping the charge controls to a button plus stick combo. I found this a real challenge for my muscle memory. They also made it so yellow Pikmin don’t drop bombs when whistled, which is great for avoiding explosion accidents, but makes using the bombs way more cumbersome for boss fights – meaning the final boss became a bit of a janky slog. Gamecube is still my favourite way to experience this game, but it’s excellent nonetheless.
Pikmin 2
Historically, people always seemed to laud Pikmin 2 as the better of the games on Gamecube, but lately it seems people have started to turn around on this opinion. That’s fine by me, because I’ve always considered this the weakest one, with too much unpredictable and random ambushes meaning you can’t effectively multitask and necessitating slowing down the gameplay too much. That said, Pikmin is Pikmin and this is still a solid 8/10 experience.
Persona 5 Royal
I loved Persona 4, so I was fully expecting to enjoy Persona 5. It takes what worked in 4 and builds upon it to really elevate the experience, and the presentation of it’s UI is incredible, which is something you rarely hear people laud in other games. A big point of improvement is the dungeons, which are much more deliberately designed with puzzles and traps, rather than the samey corridors of prior games. The plot is fairly compelling even if some of the big twists are way too telegraphed, and as is standard for the series, the characters are likeable and seeing how they develop is one of the biggest drivers of playing the game. The game really suffers from dungeons using up time that could be used for developing social links, incentivising completing dungeons in one sitting. This impacts the pacing of the game – meaning you spend hours upon hours in dungeons followed by hours upon hours doing visual novel stuff. Having more regular dungeon progression would make the game more fun by mixing up gameplay more often. Still though, an excellent time.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
THPS2 was one of the highest rated games of all time at it’s release, and in many ways it’s easy to see why. That said, it’s hard to go back to now because so many improvements were later made to the series in terms of playability, and this PS1 title still has a lot of that early 3D jank. Some of the objectives can be a bit rough, especially the high score challenges which lack a lot of the ways to effectively combo tricks together from later entries. Mostly though, the game holds up. It certainly made me sweat at the TV a lot though.
Mario Kart World
Mario Kart World made sense to me as a Switch 2 launch title, but it’s not my favourite series in the world. I picked this up with my Switch 2 though, and I had a decent time playing through all the cups and unlocking characters. The big new feature of the game with the open world feels super flawed to me though – with no real method to track which challenges you’ve found and beaten, it mostly just felt like a time waster to me. I’d have loved to see more reasons to play the mode, but it feels like an afterthought now.
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour
Switch 2 Welcome Tour is a greatly maligned eshop title for Switch 2 that shows of the hardware and explains some of the features of the console – including some great explanations of modern tech terms like 120hz, 4K, ray tracing and more. It’s not really a great ‘game’ – but it is an interesting virtual museum that explains more than you might expect about the engineering and hardware design decisions that went into the console. Is it fun? I’m not totally sure that’s the right question. It would have been nice for this to be included with the console, but it wasn’t and that makes it a hard sell.
Ghost of Tsushima
Ghost of Tsushima is one of Sony’s big franchises of the PS4 and PS5 era. It’s a striking looking game, with some spectacular visuals in the style of Kurosawa movies. Gameplay wise though, it’s a fairly standard open world adventure, with lots of subquests and collectibles spread across the map. The story is a fairly predictable triple A affair with the hero The story is a fairly predictable triple A affair with the hero trying to weigh the honor of the samurai code with the need to deploy underhanded methods to deal with the mongol invasion. I enjoyed playing through the game, but it felt a bit safe, and like it was missing something to make it feel more memorable.
1. Streets of Rage 3 (GEN)*
2. Iridion II (GBA)*
3. Final Fantasy III (SNES)
4. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (PS1)
5. Shockman Zero (SNES)
6. Suikoden (PS1)
7. Chiki Chiki Boys (GEN)
8. Altered Beast (GEN)
9. Jewel Master (GEN)
10. Fight'N Rage (NSW)
11. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (PS1)
12. Phantasy Star (SMS)
13. Super Metroid (SNES)
14. Double Dragon (Arcade)
15. Final Fight (Arcade)
16. Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (SNES)
17. Virtua Fighter 2 (SAT)
18. Yoshi's Story (N64)
19. Crusader of Centy (GEN)
20. Koudelka (PS1)
21. Castlevania: Bloodlines (GEN)
22. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (GB)
23. Brawl Brothers (SNES)
24. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (GEN)
25. Silent Hill (PS1)
26. Arc the Lad (PS1)
After finishing up Silent Hill, I was in the mood for something light hearted. I was also hoping to play a RPG, but preferably something shorter I could beat by the end of the year. With these different factors in mind, I figured I would give Arc the Lad a go. The game was released in a collection by Working Designs in the US, with two other sequels and a spin-off game included. From my understanding, the first Arc the Lad title serves as an introduction to the second game, with the same cast of characters returning.
Arc the Lad is a strategy RPG, and one of the first RPGs that was released on the PS1 console in Japan. It’s a simpler game overall, with only seven characters to be added to your party throughout the adventure and minimal accessories to find. There is no weapon or armor to manage for each character, just four accessory slots. There are also no towns and shops to explore, and no large overworld to roam around in. Early in the game, you have access to an air ship, but the travel works by just selecting a highlighted area of where you’d like to travel to on a map. You can backtrack to different areas and replay certain battles to grind. The gameplay mostly consists of battles, cutscenes, some inventory management, some grinding, and minimal exploring. To clarify, there are a few small areas where you can briefly explore.
In regard to the battle system, there are some interesting nuances here. Your character’s positioning can allow you to dish out more damage by hitting enemies on their side or their back. The same goes for enemies hitting you, so it’s important to rotate your character’s position prior to ending the character's turn. In regard to the abilities and spells menu, the circular menu system is reminiscent of the one found in Secret of Mana, so RPG veterans who have played that title should be comfortable here. Spells level up as characters level, so no worry about having to use specific spells repeatedly to increase their strength. The experience points and levels raise pretty quick, and one or two levels makes a big difference in battle.
I have a few nitpicks of Arc the Lad, mostly to do with how some of the side quests were set up. The first side quest I should mention is the tournament arena. In the arena, you get to choose one of your characters and fight in a one-on-one battle. You can earn rare items along the way, and if you win 1,000 battles (you can leave and come back), you complete it. My main issue with this side quest is that while it seems like it would be good for grinding, I found the support characters have a tough time surviving in one-on-one fights with the stronger enemies. The battles go by fairly quick for the fighter characters, but are a serious challenge for the support cast. Compared to the run time of the main game (about 12-15 hours), the lengths of the arena quest and the Forbidden Ruins (a 50 floor dungeon, where you must travel to the bottom floor and back up again) seem excessive, but I guess the developers were trying to pad the length of the game here.
Overall, I did have a fun time with Arc the Lad and it fit the bill quite well in regard to what I was looking for. While it is a pretty simple game, I still found the battles to be fun and the storyline engaging. I’m interested in taking on the sequel, to see what a more comprehensive iteration has to offer. For SRPG fans or retro fans looking for shorter games due to a busy schedule, I recommend this one. Check it out!
Last edited by Note on Mon Dec 22, 2025 10:57 pm, edited 3 times in total.
1. Advance Wars ReBoot Camp - Advance Wars Campaign Switch
2. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Switch
3. Advance Wars ReBoot Camp - Advance Wars 2 Campaign Switch
4. Another Code Recollection - Another Code: Two Memories Switch
5. Another Code Recollection - Another Code R: A Journey Into Lost Memories Switch
6. Bomb Chicken Switch
7. Castlevania Advance Collection - Castlevania: Vampire’s Kiss Switch
8. Castlevania Advance Collection - Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Switch
9. Disco Elysium Switch
10. Espgaluda II Switch
11. Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir Switch eShop
12. Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind Switch eShop
13. Emio: The Smiling Man - Famicom Detective Club Switch
14. Donkey Kong Country SNES
15. Super Mario World SNES
16. Kirby's Dream Land 3 SNES
17. Super Mario Kart SNES
18. Super Metroid SNES
19. Starwing SNES
20. Split Fiction PS5
21. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island SNES
22. Super Mario Party Jamboree Switch
23. Pikmin Switch
24. Pikmin 2 Switch
25. Persona 5 Royal PS4
26. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 PS1
27. Mario Kart World Switch 2
28. Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour Switch 2 eshop
29. Ghost of Tsushima PS5 30. Donkey Kong Bananza Switch 2 *NEW*
31. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life PS4 *NEW*
32. Kirby and the Forgotten Land Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World Switch 2 *NEW*
33. Pokémon Colosseum Gamecube *NEW*
34. Metal Slug Neo Geo MVS *NEW*
35. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Switch *NEW*
36. Felix the Cat [NES] Switch *NEW*
37. Felix the Cat [GB] Switch *NEW*
38. Panzer Dragoon: Remake Switch *NEW*
39. Sparkster: Rocket Knight Adventures 2 Switch *NEW*
40. Sparkster Switch *NEW*
41. Rocket Knight Adventures Switch *NEW*
Donkey Kong Bananza
Donkey Kong Bananza was the other big Switch 2 title of the year, and this one I enjoyed more. The Mario Odyssey was involved in this one and it shares a lot of similarities, but this game shifts it up a gear with the destructive nature of DK and the mobility of the character really selling the idea that you’re controlling a big strong ape. There’s an absolute wealth of content for the genre too – I easily put in over 40 hours in the process of completing this one 100%. It also features a ton of throwbacks to prior games across the series, including the Rareware titles which really made it feel like a celebration of DK’s legacy, unlike the likes of Jungle Beat and DKC Returns that felt like they reinvented the world of DK in spite of what came before. An absolute joy from start to finish, although finding the last few collectables in each world could become a slog – thankfully mostly resolved thanks to an easy source of hints built in to the gameplay in the form of purchaseable maps.
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life
After starting with Yakuza 0 so many years ago, I finally made my way through Kiryu’s saga and made it to the ‘last’ classic Yakuza game before it reinvented itself with Ichiban and the RPG gameplay. As a finale, I enjoyed it, but I felt like they dialled back the scope in ways that made me sad, with a lot of the supporting task taking a backseat or outright not appearing at all. This was the first game on a new engine after 0 as well, and because of this it feels like couldn’t go as big as previously in terms of content – with less substories, smaller environments, only 1 playable character and much less minigame content. As a conclusion to the saga, it underwhelms a bit, but the plot is one of the better ones in the series (with the usual over the top nonsense twists too), and the gameplay is still as fun as ever. Considering how close Yakuza 5 came to jumping the shark, this did a good job of reigning it back in to the usual amount of batshit crazy.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Star-Crossed World
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is one of the best Kirby games, and this release on Switch 2 comes with the full game with improved performance on Switch 2, plus additional DLC content. The performance boost is nice – it especially improves the issues the game had before with low frame rates on enemies further from the camera. The new content is more of what worked – I’ve heard people complain it reuses levels from the base game, but that’s a misrepresentation – the new levels quickly veer off into alternate paths from the original levels and are mostly new. There’s some new crazy ass bosses and a bunch of extra collectibles to get too. It’s not a mandatory upgrade on either the performance or DLC front, but I enjoyed revisiting the game and also enjoyed the new stuff enough to be satisfied.
Pokémon Colosseum
I’m on a slow mission to get a living Pokédex (one of each pokemon in the PC, including all evolutionary stages) in the 3rd generation of Pokémon. Despite being a much smaller amount of creatures compared to the 1000+ of nowadays, this is one of the hardest generations to do that in because it requires playing through at least 6 games. I replayed Colosseum as part of this quest as it has many exclusives in this generation. I haven’t played Colosseum since I was a teenager, and it’s a flawed experience in many ways. It’s slow paced, the level curve is terrible and requires a ton of grinding, the pool of usable Pokémon is small and purifying shadow pokemon is super time consuming. That said, I still rather enjoyed replaying this one, using my team of Jumpluff, Flygon, Ampharos, Granbull, Sunflora and Typhlosion. I’ve never played the sequel, Pokemon XD, but it’s on the hitlist for next year so I’m keen to see how it improves the formula.
Metal Slug
Metal Slug was a replay just for the fun of it, a quick credit feeding jaunt through an old favourite. I still think the original Metal Slug is one of the strongest in the series, with a more reasonable difficulty level than some of it’s sequels, and some really excellent visuals and music. I also think it has some of the best boss design and the best balance of over the top setpieces to difficulty in the main series. This run wasn’t a very successful one for me – I was definitely out of practice and starting using continues sooner than usual – but it’s always fun nonetheless.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
I played the original Hyrule Warriors back on Wii U and 3DS, but this was my first time experiencing this entry in the series. Whilst I think Breath of the Wild is an excellent game, it’s far from my favourite games in the franchise, so revisiting the world and characters was nice but not a selling point. I did like how the game utilised some of the mechanics of BOTW with cooking, the world map and the korok seeds though, to make it stand out a bit compared to the original. One downside though was that the main story chapters often require you to grind levels via sidequests in between to make them manageable, which eventually started to make the game drag out and overstay it’s welcome. I’ll definitely give it a while before I pick up Age of Imprisonment on Switch 2, because more of the same is definitely not what I want after finishing this one. I still need to finish Tears of the Kingdom anyway.
Felix the Cat [NES]
After a few longer games, I decided to tackle my large switch backlog by trying to play through some of the shorter titles I have on the system, and I started here by playing these old Felix games that were released as part of a Felix the Cat collection on Switch. Felix the Cat on NES is a late era release for the console that has a lot of the common features for NES games from the era. It looks great and has a decent soundtrack too, but it’s fairly short and very easy. Felix can upgrade for a whole variety of attacks to dispatch enemies with, and the platforming is very simple and unchallenging. There are 9 worlds, most of which have 3 stages in, but a full playthrough still takes less than an hour. The biggest sin of the game is that it’s just not very memorable – there’s not really any interesting mechanics, setpieces or challenges that stand out, so it just ultimately feels very forgettable.
Felix the Cat [GB]
Whilst the NES game was forgettable, the Game Boy version of Felix the Cat manages to stand out for the worst reasons. The actual game is very similar to the NES title in terms of mechanics and design, meaning it’s fine – or would be, if it wasn’t firstly missing more than half the content from the NES game – only 5 worlds with less stages each compared to NES, meaning this can be finished in about 20 minutes with little resistance. As if that wasn’t damning enough, the game manages to run pretty poorly on the Game Boy too, with surprising amounts of slowdown. The Game Boy should be more than capable of handling this game. Ultimately, this is the notably worse version of an already fairly average game.
Panzer Dragoon: Remake
This remake of Panzer Dragoon modernises the original Sega Saturn launch title and cult classic title, in as underwhelming and disappointing way as it can manage. Visually it is much sharper in terms of resolution and polygon count than the original, but it underwhelms with subpar graphics for the modern era, with poor textures and empty backgrounds. It never feels like it controls quite right either, with the aiming reticle in particular always feeling inaccurate – using the gun always results in your aim being slightly misadjusted, meaning you are pretty much forced to prioritise the laser. That’s fine though, because the difficulty of this remake is way easier than the original, and I breezed through it on my first try. Entirely skippable.
Sparkster: Rocket Knight Adventures 2
Another Konami game compilation on Switch, Rocket Knight Resparked contains all of the first 3 Rocket Knight games on one cartridge. I loved the original game, so I jumped into one of it’s 2 sequels to see how they held up. This one is the game that released on Sega Mega Drive, and whilst it’s not as good as the original, I thought it held up pretty well. The game is pretty long and quite difficult – sometimes in a frustrating manner. The made the jetpack shoot much faster which makes it feel music less controllable than in the original, with the usual result of trying to use it being to fly into taking damage. Despite that, the game has some cool designs and some great graphical effects showcasing the system, and I enjoyed playing through.
Sparkster
This Sparkster is the game that released on Super Nintendo, and It’s a completely different title to the Mega Drive title. It suffers from a lot of the same issues though, with the jetpack being a bit too fast to be manageable and being way too easy to take damage. It’s compounded more by the more zoomed in view of the game giving you less info about what you’re flying into. Whilst both Mega Drive sparksters really showed off some cool effects for the system, the SNES one is a bit more underwhelming on that front, with some surprisingly plain backgrounds and some fairly rote mode 7 effects. I personally found this to be the worst of the 3 games by a decent amount – at points it veers into being outright bad, especially when it comes to the mech battle boss fight which is barely playable– but to be fair, the mech battles suck in all 3 of these games. Sparkster isn’t bad, but I’d hesitate to call it good too, unfortunately.
Rocket Knight Adventures
After playing both of it’s sequels and finding them decent to good, but not great, I started to second guess if the original was as good as I remembered it being – maybe I was just being unfair to the sequels because they were less novel? Well, after a replay I’m glad to say that wasn’t the case – the first Rocket Knight Adventures game is still an absolutely blast. The level design lends itself much more effectively to utilising the jetpack, with much better telegraphing of places you should use it and where it might not be safe. It’s also more manageable in terms of speed, and the bosses are better at telegraphing their attacks, allowing you to learn them and react to them without memorisation. It also still looks better than either of it’s sequels, and the effects used in the levels still look great, but also tie in better as game mechanics in the levels they’re used, rather than being pure spectacle. It’s a shame Konami never managed to meaningfully follow up on the quality of this first game, but I’m happy it still holds up on a replay.
Unfinished Business is a standalone DLC for Rogue City; like standalone expansions of days of yore it doesn't require the base game to play, it just serves as the base game with a different setup for the levels and story. The elevator pitch is that it's the film Dredd, but starring RoboCop.
Unfinished Business is set six months after Rogue City, and begins with RoboCop's precinct being attacked by mercenaries while RoboCop was on patrol. They steal his interface chair for unknown purposes, and RoboCop sets off to bring them to justice. The road takes him to Omni Tower; an arcology-esque building produced by OCP, and like all OCP things, is a house of lies that is really just a giant shantytown of a tower. You must make your way to the top and take out the leader of the mercenaries. You'll also do some playable flashbacks to fill out the story, including a segment as Alex Murphy.
As mentioned, there is a lot of influence from the film Dredd. Besides the general aesthetic setup, there are several setpieces lifted straight from the film. Even the protagonists are suspiciously similar: a no-nonsense cop with a sweet pistol and a helmet that only leaves his jaw exposed. But that's ok, because it's a great setup for RoboCop to blast his way through enemies, help out civilians now and then, and pet cats.
The main thing missing compared to the base game is the sedate sections where you do lots of police work. There are short sidequests for experience that often end in the warning or ticket moral choice, but it doesn't have any actual impact. It's just a bit of roleplaying for you. All the other systems are intact; you can level up the various traits of RoboCop to improve his abilities, you'll gain access to different PCBs for your gun to improve its qualities (with one really OP one late game that lets you faceroll the rest of the game), and you start off with all the special moves so you can do all the cool stuff from the get go.
If you enjoy the RoboCop fantasy, this game delivers in spades. If you enjoyed the base game, this one is highly worth picking up.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
Zero Protocol is a bite-sized survival horror from a first person perspective. You begin the game signing up for the job of head security officer at a facility, with the caveat that you will be isolated for a year at the facility with no access to the outside. After signing the papers you wake up in the medical wing with no recollection of how you got there. You must try to figure out what is going on and escape the facility.
The game is divided into several floors, with each floor having a series of puzzles to open the way to the next floor. This requires you to read emails, look for notes, combine items, and solve minor puzzles. It's a lot of figuring out how to open the next door. You'll notice, as you progress, that your sanity slowly lowers. When it gets low enough you might start to see messages on the wall; these often open the way to extra goodies. However, you also will start to see hallucinated enemies, and I think if your sanity goes to zero you die. The enemies are a mixture of spiders and insane humans.
The whole game can be completed pretty quickly; only a few hours to see all the endings. The puzzles are just tricky enough to make you have to think a bit. The combat sucks, though. You only have 5 HP, and one of the enemies can deal 2 at a time. Ammo is extremely scarce, and although you can melee, melee is weak and a good way to take damage in return. It's not a bad experience, but you don't want to pay more than a few bucks.
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
But seriously, I should get more into SRPGs. In theory, it should be my jam.
