racketboy.com

The First 50:

51. Dishonored: The Knife of Dunwall (PC)(Stealth Adventure)
52. Dishonored: The Brigmore Witches (PC)(Stealth Adventure)
53. The Spy Who Shot Me (PC)(FPS)
54. Z.A.R. (PC)(FPS)
55. Bunker Punks (PC)(FPS)
56. Wolfenstein: The New Order (PC)(FPS)

It's 1960, the Allies have lost World War II, the Nazis rule most of the world, and B.J. Blazkowicz is in a mental institution as a human vegetable after taking shrapnel to the back of the skull. Then the Nazis show up to kill the inmates, and guess who wakes up in time to shove a steak knife in his SS would-be killer's neck?

Ok, the Wolfenstein series has always been a big what-if with fantasy and retrofuturist technology to set it aside from more "realistic" WWII FPS series like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. Yes, it's full of mutants, undead, time-stopping talismans, and the like. Yet somehow none of this bothers me the way Nazis on the moon in 1960 does. That just feels...insulting somehow. Sure, they're stealing technology from a proto-Jewish secret society, but that also feels insulting, so let's not focus on the ridiculous nature of the story.

Let's focus on the gunplay instead, which in general feels good. The New Order gives you a slowly expanding set of weapons, including alternate firing styles and the ability to dual wield the same types of weapons. While this doesn't let you mix and match, the dual option enables some interesting gameplay possibilities, and there are benefits and difficulties with both styles. For instance, you can't use ironsights or cover with dual weapons, but you get twice the firepower to put out walls of bullets, rockets, lazers, etc. While I tended to favor a single assault rifle, I swapped over when I felt it necessary, enabling different strategies.

If I have any complaints, I wish there was a dedicated grenade button the way there is for throwing knives. It would have made me use them more, as in general I only relied upon them for specific challenges. Yes, there are challenges to complete with the weapons which unlock benefits such as larger magazines, faster reloads, and resistance to self-harm from explosives. It's worth getting everything, but in some cases things can be tough to do, such as causing five kills due to dropped grenades from enemies.

There is also a stealth component which ties into taking down commanders and finding secrets; kill a commander in stealth, and you limit enemy reinforcements and unlock the location of hidden items on the map, though the game is not designed for stealth. You can do it, but there were times where I managed to get stealth kills when I shouldn't have, and at least once where I alerted enemies by swinging a knife in the air. No, I still don't understand how that happened. It feels like a gross oversight.

Ultimately, the firepower feels adequate for what I'm doing, and the special weapon of the game is a laser cutter that works phenomenally well when fully upgraded. Things aren't perfect, but the core is done well enough that the window dressing (which, let's face it, plot in an FPS is generally window dressing) can be glossed over. If there is a major concerning issue, it's that the game starts with a warning that it is not making any statements on Nazis being superior or glorifying them. That someone would think this terrifies me, partially because the Nazi central ideas regarding racial superiority and eugenics were so horrific, but also that I know there are people who do find these ideas attractive. Maybe not directly, but elements of a hateful and genocidal belief system are seeming resurgent, and such ideas cannot simply be defeated with space lasers and assault rifle rocket launchers in a violent gloss of sex and sanitized violence.

Yeah, that's right, and I suppose that's why I find the plot problematic; there is enough reality in the fantasy, and enough fantasy in the reality that it needed a warning.

But seriously, we fought alongside most of the world to defeat this ideology in the 1940s. It should have stayed dead.

Games Beaten 2019:
First 50:
51. Mario Party N64
52. ActRaiser SNES
53. GoldenEye 007 N64
54. Mom Hid My Game Switch eShop
55. Money Puzzle Exchanger Switch eShop
56. Gunbird Switch eShop
57. Tokyo School Life Switch eShop
58. Musynx Switch
59. Gremlins 2: The New Batch NES
60. Subsurface Circular Switch eShop
61. Yoshi's Woolly World Wii U
62. ToeJam & Earl: Panic on Funkotron Switch
63. Bare Knuckle III Switch
64. Gunstar Heroes Switch
65. Space Harrier II Switch
66. Sonic Spinball Switch
67. Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium Switch
68. Sonic 3D Blast Switch
69. Rabbids Go Home Wii
70. Alien Storm Switch
71. Alien Soldier Switch
72. Untitled Goose Game Switch eShop
73. Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole Switch
74. Fatal Labyrinth Switch
75. Ristar Switch
76. Golden Axe III Switch
77. Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master Switch
78. Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine Switch
79. Bonanza Bros. Switch
80. Shining Force II [& Sega Mega Drive Classics] Switch
81. Castlevania Bloodlines Switch eShop
82. Puyo Puyo Sun 64 N64
83. Chameleon Twist 2 N64
84. Cruis'n USA N64
85. Darkwing Duck Game Boy
86. Fortified Zone Game Boy
87. Lock 'N Chase Game Boy
88. Spanky's Quest Game Boy
89. Looney Tunes Collector: Martian Revenge! GBC
90. Puchi Carat PS1
91. Battle Garegga Rev. 2016 PS4
92. Flower PS4
93. FlOw PS4
94. The Longest 5 Minutes Switch
95. West of Loathing Switch
96. Pokémon Sword Switch
97. Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2
98. Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosecutor's Path
99. Game Center CX: Arino no Chōsenjō 2


Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2



I got married earlier in the year, and me and my wife went to Japan on our honeymoon. Whilst I was there I picked up a handful of games, including all 3 of the games I’m posting reviews of now. Ouendan 2 was the only one of these games I didn’t need to find a fan translation to play, as it’s generally easy enough to follow without one – it’s a rhythm title where the story is relatively minimal, often told with pictures as well as dialogue, and where it’s not too important to be able to follow it to have fun.



If you’ve played Elite Beat Agents on DS, you know exactly what to expect. EBA is kind of a half remake/half sequel to the original Ouendan on DS, and this title takes a lot of the improvements Elite Beat Agents made and applies them back to Ouendan, then adds new story and songs – it’s more of the same, basically. And that’s no bad thing, because I love Ouendan/EBA.



You play along with a selection of licensed tracks – in this case they’re all obviously Japanese, so they were all unfamiliar to me. This added some extra challenge as I didn’t know the songs as well, but it wasn’t really a major obstacle. As you play, notes pop up on screen numbered 1,2, 3 etc, and you must tap them in order along with the beat as circles close in on them. As well as the standard tap the touchscreen notes, you also have hold notes where you must follow along a path with the stylus, and spinners which require you to spin as fast as possible to get more points.



The story of Ouendan involves a cheer squad who cheer people on to help them overcome various challenges in their life. Each challenge is told via a comic book style sequence and they cover a wide range of scenarios – many of the ones in Ouendan 2 are particularly Japanese though, with things like Ryokan owners and Sumo wrestlers being amongst those you help. Songs are broken down into 3-5 sections, each of which tell of another step to overcoming the hurdles presented – performing well in a section and finishing above 50% health (health drops with each miss and can fall fast on harder songs, but is replenished by doing well) helps the person achieve success, but a bad performance will show them failing, normally in a slightly comical way. Finishing the song with all successes shows the best outcome, but finish with one or more failures shows a partial success. Failing the song obvious gives a bad outcome.



The main issue with Ouendan 2 is it’s length – there are only about 20 songs in the game, and it takes just a few hours to play through them on normal difficulty if you’re good. There’s an easy mode too, and unlockable hard and extra hard difficulties too, but it’s still a short experience – the replayability is mainly centred on mastering the harder difficulties and increasing your score on each level.



But that’s fine, because Ouendan 2 offers everything it needs to and everything you expect of it. The gameplay is fun, the soundtrack is generally enjoyable and bouncy, and the story is silly and hammy but charming throughout. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Ouendan 2, or really any game in the series, to anyone who enjoys a rhythm game or 2. It’s great.





Ace Attorney Investigations: Prosecutor’s Path



I’ve been a big fan of the Ace Attorney games for years now, and a personal favourite of mine was Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, the final release on the original DS. Or at least the final release in the west – over in Japan, there was a sequel to Ace Attorney Investigations. Unfortunately, due to the late release on the system, and probably the costs of localisation and distribution, Capcom elected not to bring this final DS swansong westwards. Luckily enough for me though, some very talented individuals have taken it upon themselves to translate the game into English, and so I was able to enjoy it after all.



And a remarkable job they’ve done too – it’s hard to tell this wasn’t done by the usual translation team. They’ve managed to localise the game faithfully, acknowledging all of the ‘definitely set in America’ weirdness of the canon localisation whilst also faithfully conveying the intricacies of the source material.



Like the original AAI game, this game eschews the usual courtroom drama of the series to focus purely on the investigation component on the game. This is somewhat deceptive though – in reality the core gameplay is still very similar – you find evidence and present it to expose contradictions in peoples stories, press witness testimonies and all the other usual components of the core series. The main difference in reality is the pacing – whereas the usual story focuses on large portions of investigating the crime scene followed by large sections of cross-examination in court, the Investigations series jumps back and forth between the 2 more frequently, and in my opinion, feels better paced as a result.



Story wise, this game picks up after the first Mile Edgeworth game, and explores Miles Edgeworth’s decision on whether he should continue to follow the Prosecutor’s Path or change his focus for his future. The game has a selection of great cases, which at first seem distinctly disconnected from one another – a presidential assassination attempt, a murder at a prison, a case from Greg Edgworth’s past, and more – and then eventually, a case that surprisingly manages to pull it all together for a great conclusion. I’d hesitate to call it the high point finale of the series – there’s definitely been better ones in the series. But the overall quality of each case is phenomenal, and this is my new vote for the potential best of the series.



Prosecutor’s Path features a lot of references and tributes to past games in the series, with many returning cast members from past cases in the series, although it also features many new and likeable (and hateable) characters. I wouldn’t recommend it as a first game in the series for new players despite it’s quality because it really is improved by prior knowledge of the series, but it’s still absolutely excellent quality overall. If you’re a fan of the series, this is a real must play.





Game Center CX: Arino no Chosenjo 2



Game Center CX for the DS is a game based on a Japanese TV show where the host, Arino, attempts to complete a variety of old games in one sitting. Arino is renowned for not being especially good at games, but the show has a kind of infectious enthusiasm and a delightfully low budget to it and has become a bit of a cult favourite – even here in the west where people dedicate themselves to translating each episode into English. And similarly, they have dedicated themselves to translating this game too.

Now the first game in the series was actually officially translated and localised to the US under the name Retro Game Challenge. Both games are made up of a variety of mini games, designed to look, play and feel like a game that would have been released in the 80s or 90s, but all original creations. You play through various challenges on each game to progress, unlocking more games as you go, as well as a variety of gaming magazines which offer hints, tips and tricks for the games in question. Each game also includes a manual in game which can be read for details of how to play, and the localisation of both the official and fan translated releases is solid and authentic to the time period.

Being as the game treats each mini-game as if it was it’s own release, I will do that same here and provide mini-reviews for each title:



Wizman: Wizman is a genuinely great Pac-man clone where you play as the titular wizman. Red and blue gems litter the maze, and you can only pick up each crystal by first acquiring the respective coloured wand. Grabbing multiple wands of the same colour speed you up, and with each wand you can cast a few spells to attack enemies – white enemies are weak to either the red or blue wands, but red and blue enemies need hit with the opposite colour. Each level also contains hidden gold wands unlocked in a variety of secretive methods (think Bubble Bobble or Tower of Druaga for example) which are weaker but allow you to pick up any gem and attack any enemy. This one is very enjoyable, and had it released on NES or Game Boy for real I’d call it a hidden gem.

[img]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vaqpCsyzjgc/hqdefault.jpg
[/img]
Mutekiken Kung Fu – This one is a pastiche of the likes of Karateka, with you walking left and punching enemies as they approach. You can find secret warps by punching certain spots in the air. You can also combo enemies to send them flying into each other, which releases icons you can collect to fill the Mu-Te-Ki-Ken meter, which when full grants you invincibility. Boss fights appear which are fought in a fixed arena, International Karate+ style, with you turning to face your opponent when you jump on them. This isn’t a favourite of mine, but it does feel like an authentic take on the inspirations.



Demon Returns – This is the iconic platformer of the game, and it takes inspiration from the likes of Mario, Ghosts n Goblins and Adventure Island. You play as a demon who can slash with his claws. You start small, but grabbing power ups makes you large and then grants a projectile, Mario style. Being hit shrinks you back down. You can slash enemies and then jump on them to ride them, kind of like the skateboard in advanture island – you can double jump from these rides too for extra height. You also can find secret warps, and must grab apples to keep your hunger meter filled – it depletes over time. This one is a solid game, but perhaps not up to the heights of it’s inspirations, mainly due it feeling less focused than those games due to it’s myriad of ideas from other games.



Detective Kacho 1 & 2 – This is actually 2 games, rather than 1, but like similar games on the NES they’re actually all one continuous story with the same gameplay, so I’ll combine them too. This is a text adventure game where the Arino is tasked with solving the 7 mysteries of the office, and you assist him. All of the NPCs in the game are figures from the TV show or from Bandai Namco’s development staff. Unfortunately, this one isn’t a favourite, as the story feels a little inconsistent, and although faithful, there are too many awkward solutions that don’t really make sense and a lack of direction. Neither of these are a favourite.



Gun Duel – Gun Duel is a shmup in the vain of Star Soldier or the Aleste games – you can obtain multiple different weapons and equip one as a primary and one as a secondary fire – each weapon has different effects depending which weapon position it is in, but you can swap at any time. The game is fast paced and fun, and is a personal highlight of the selection for me. In 2 player (which can be played with CPU) you also gain the ability to merge your ships after grabbing a certain power up, combining your firepower to become even stronger.



Triotos – This is a tetris knock-off which is designed to appear as if it’s a GB game. Making matches of icons will make them disappear, and you can trigger special effects by making complete horizontal rows, creating combos or deleting 6 blocks at once. I personally don’t really like this one – the puzzle mechanics feel a bit underdeveloped and the game is unfortunately not that interesting over all



Guadia Quest Saga – This one is a sequel (actually supposedly the third game in the series) to the game Guadia Quest from the first game. This one is meant to be a Game Boy Colour RPG, and it’s very old-school. The game features 3 playable characters who can capture monsters to use in battle. It obviously has some pokemon inspiration, but most battles are fought by your own party and in honesty this feels more like it draws it’s inspiration from Dragon Quest 2. This one is a bit grindy and repetitive, as 8 bit RPGs are known to be, but it’s enjoyable in it’s own way, and surprisingly challenging.



Super Demon Returns – This is supposedly the 16-bit sequel to the first Demon Returns. Mechanically it’s very similar to the first game, but with a few tweaks. Overall it’s more of the same though. It does look better as you’d expect, but I don’t really feel like they pulled off the SNES look very well, unlike their 8 bit games.

There’s a bunch of other versions of games from the first title here too, as well as a game boy colour variant of Triotos. There’s plenty to see and do here, and the game is all pretty decent. The actually progression through the main game is somewhat flawed - the challenges are more like tutorials for each title, and the games unlock sequentially after finishing all challenges meaning you’ll restart them over and over which can be tedious. But once you’re through and have free range to play what you want, this is a pretty decent time. Worth a play.

First 50:

51. Valfaris - Switch
52. Unreal: Return to Na Pali - PC
53. The Outer Worlds - PC
54. MechWarrior 4: Black Knight - PC
55. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - PC
56. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: System Rift - PC
57. MDK - PC
58. Pokémon Sword - Switch
59. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - PC
60. Blazing Chrome - Switch
61. MDK 2 - PC
62. Heavy Gear - PC
63. Virtual-On - Saturn
64. Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram - DC
65. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries - PC
66. Metaltech: Earthsiege - PC
67. Earthsiege 2 - PC

Earthsiege 2 is the same game as Earthsiege. Though it now runs on Windows, the only real upgrade to the game is that the terrain now has levels. So instead of a flat plane with blocking hills on it you now have canyons and hills to climb. This instantly makes the game a bit more interesting, as now you have to account for enemies coming at you from different points and you 100% need to use your turret tilt now.

The other new thing the game adds (other than the obvious slightly better weapons and new mech chasses that can mount extra guns) is a plane. And the plane, frankly, sucks. The two good things that can be said about it are it's amazing for recon missions that have no kill requirement (as you just merrily fly from waypoint to waypoint without anything being able to touch you) and it apparently can fly on the moon as if it were in atmosphere.

It's a bit harder to run on a modern system than the first game; initially dxwnd was working for me, then that decided to randomly not work and I needed to include in dgvoodoo as well. You might be able to get away with just dgvoodoo, but I had the problem of really bad overscan. I seem to get overscan problems on any game that renders in 640x480 and nothing I can do fixes it, so I had to stick with dxwnd to window it. And then that decided to stop accepting the window size I want and went for something slightly smaller.

The verdict on Earthsiege 2 is if you liked the first you'll like this, and if you didn't like the first you won't like this. Because it's the same damn game.

Finished Thimbleweed Park this afternoon.

Beat Nemo for arcade on default difficulty (medium iirc).

First 50:

51. Valfaris - Switch
52. Unreal: Return to Na Pali - PC
53. The Outer Worlds - PC
54. MechWarrior 4: Black Knight - PC
55. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - PC
56. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: System Rift - PC
57. MDK - PC
58. Pokémon Sword - Switch
59. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - PC
60. Blazing Chrome - Switch
61. MDK 2 - PC
62. Heavy Gear - PC
63. Virtual-On - Saturn
64. Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram - DC
65. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries - PC
66. Metaltech: Earthsiege - PC
67. Earthsiege 2 - PC
68. Cthulhu Saves Christmas - PC

Cthulhu Saves Christmas is a short prequel to Cthulhu Saves the World done in the same combat engine that Zeboyd used for Cosmic Star Heroine. It tells a tale of Cthulhu's first exposure to the idea that there is more to life than just destroying the world. Also, you get to beat up a variety of Christmas-adjacent bosses who have conspired to steal Christmas.

The basic plot is that Cthulhu gets a Christmas present that steals his powers. Enraged, he goes off to beat up Santa. But he finds out from Santa's granddaughter that Santa was kidnapped and the dastardly fiends who did so have been giving out reverse Christmas presents (so the opposite of what you wanted). So Cthulhu reluctantly agrees to restore Santa to his rightful place so that he can get his powers back so that he can destroy the world.

Because this is a short game mostly for the dev team to have fun with, things are a bit bare bones. You go through a series of dungeons with some treasures and beat a boss at the end. Afterwards you go back to town, which is menu based, to waste some time. The way you do so is you decide to go visit some place or person in town. This will give you a reward (equipment or an item) and give you a bit of character development. It takes a very slight cue from Persona in this regard; the more you visit one place the better the rewards get and eventually you will have built a R'ylethionship with the character, which gives you a great item. You'll also visit those people once you beat the final boss. You only have a limited amount of time and there are far more places than time, so you can't do it all. So there's a bit of replay value inherent there.

As mentioned, the combat is taken from Cosmic Star Heroine. It's based around an action economy wherein your actions can only be used once (aside from a handful that specifically say they can be reused, or be granted that status through equipment). To recharge your actions you have to use your defense action; this increases your defense for a turn and recharges all your abilities. Additionally, every several turns (it varies depending on the character) you enter a super mode which improves all your abilities for that turn. So figuring out when to use stuff and when to recharge to maximize things is important. Unique to this game is that three of your eight slots are random. They pull from a bespoke list of insanity abilities as well as any regular ability you haven't assigned. Every time you recharge it will reroll these abilities, so it can be very worthwhile to recharge abilities early to reroll for something more advantageous for the situation. Finally, every character pair has an ability that can be used once per combat. The ability starts off very weak, at 10% power. It gains 10% power every time the initiating character takes a turn, up to a maximum of 100%. Activating it when you are in super mode gives an effective 20% boost, up to the 100% cap. These can make regular fights go much faster, and using them at the right time in boss fights is important.

Aside from all that, we have the two standards of Zeboyd games; self-aware humor and limited encounters. Every dungeon has a counter in it, and it goes down every time you get in an encounter (which includes summoning one from the menu). Once it hits 0 you never get another random encounter, though you can still pull them from the menu if you want to grind. The game also lets you avoid an encounter by hitting Enter when an exclamation appears right before a combat initiates. As for the humor, it's still very well written and since Cthulhu is a silly premise to begin with it is VERY fourth wall breaking and targeted to long time JRPG fans. It's definitely the highlight of the game.

The whole experience takes about 6 hours to get through, which is at just the right length to not overstay its welcome. There's just enough depth in ability setups to keep your interest, but if the game were much longer they would have needed to put in a lot more story and non-combat exploration to break things up. But trying to stretch the premise that far would have fallen flat, so the devs demonstrated a good awareness of how long their game should be. If you're a fan of JRPGs and enjoy some irreverence then I recommend it, especially if you've enjoyed any of Zeboyd's work up to now.

Partridge Senpai's 2019 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018
* indicates a repeat

1. Night Slashers (Switch)
2. Bye-Bye BOXBOY! (3DS)
3. GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Xbox 360)
4. Katamari Forever (PS3)
5. Detention (PS4)
6. Donkey Kong 64 (N64) *
7. OctoDad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) *
8. FlintHook (Switch)
9. God of War (PS4)
10. God of War HD (PS3)
11. Tiny Barbarian DX (Switch)
12. God of War 2 HD (PS3)
13. Starlink (Switch)
14. Shin Gundam Musou (PS3)
15. Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS (DS)
16. Banjo-Kazooie (N64) *
17. Super Mario 64: Rumble Edition (N64)
18. Mario Party 3 (N64) *
19. Paper Mario (N64) *
20. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) *
21. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (GBC) *
22. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC) *
23. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC) *
24. Yoshi's Island (SNES) *
25. Super Mario World (SNES) *
26. Super Mario RPG (SFC) *
27. Kaeru No Tame Ni Kane Wa Naru (GB)
28. Final Fantasy VI (SFC) *
29. Final Fantasy IV (SFC) *
30. Final Fantasy V (SFC)
31. Final Fantasy III (Famicom)
32. Mother 2 (SFC) *
33. Mother 3 (GBA) *
34. Hebereke (Famicom)
35. Donkey Kong Country 2 (SFC)
36. Donkey Kong Country 3 (SFC)
37. Donkey Kong Country (SFC) *
38. Wario's Woods (Famicom)
39. Paper Mario: Color Splash (Wii U)
40. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (3DS)
41. Luigi's Mansion (3DS) *
42. Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS)
43. Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga & Bowser's Minions (3DS)
44. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story & Bowser Jr's Journey (3DS)
45. Tomato Adventure (GBA)
46. Corpse Party (PSP)
47. Rave Master: Fighting Live (GC)
48. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA) *
49. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA)
50. Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA) *
51. New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
52. The Outer Worlds (Xbone)
53. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (Xbone)
54. Guacamelee 2 (Xbone)
55. Steamworld Dig 2 (Xbone)
56. Yoku's Island Express (Xbone)
57. Guacamelee (Xbone) *
58. Blazing Chrome (Xbone)
59. Minit (Xbone)
60. Dishonored 2 (Xbone)
61. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (Xbone)
62. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Xbone)
63. Recore: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
64. Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
65. Super Lucky's Tale (Xbone)
66. Snake Pass (Xbone)
67. My Friend Pedro - Blood Bullets Bananas (Xbone)

68. Kirby 64: Legend of the Crystal Shards (N64) *

I was really stressing out about my driving test yesterday, so I decided to boot up an old favorite to help take my mind off of it. It's been a few years since I've played Kirby 64, but I played it a TON when I was little, and I remember it very fondly~. Part of my love for it is certainly down to nostalgia, but I think it still holds up really well among the increasingly large pantheon of Kirby games. I got all the shards to get the real final boss, and it took me around 5 or 6 hours. I played through the Japanese version, but aside from some very small cosmetic differences, it's identical to its international counterparts.

An evil darkness has attacked a planet of fairies and shattered their giant crystal. One of the fairies, Ribbon, takes a larger crystal shard and is flung to the far off planet of Pop Star where she plummets onto Kirby's head. Kirby quickly agrees to help his new friend and they team up with Waddle Dee, Adeleine the painter, and King Dedede to save the solar system from these evil black blobs. As in the manner of Kirby games before it, the story is told with no words through brief cutscenes that play between worlds. Your friends largely play cosmetic roles, but they occasionally hop in to aid Kirby and add a special section to the gameplay. Waddle Dee provides vehicles for minecart sections (like DKC but nowhere near as brutal), you can hop on Dedede's back for hammer swinging action, and you'll sometimes pass Adeleine and she'll paint a powerup (health or a 1up) that will come to life to aid you.

The gameplay otherwise is fairly standard Kirby with some new twists. 22 stages across 6 worlds with 7 boss fights, it's not a super long game, but it's definitely longer if you're going to try and find all the crystal shards to fight the real final boss. There are 3 hidden within each non-boss stage, and they're either a reward for beating a mini-boss, a reward for completing a simple puzzle, hidden in the stage, or hidden behind a colored bit of level that you need a special power or power combo to break.

Kirby's animal friends may be gone from the Kirby's Dream Land games, but the main gimmick for this Kirby game is that you can combine powers. You have many mainstays of Kirby, cutter, rock, fire, but you can combine them with themselves or one another to make all new powers! Combining powers just to see what they'll be is still something that makes me smile all these years later. You can either combine a power with another of itself for an upgrade of that power (cutter + cutter = BIG cutter blade) or combine them with other powers for all new stuff (cutter + electric = double-bladed lightsaber, one of my personal favorites X3). This does however mean that most of the powers are just "press B to make power", and most powers have virtually no directional inputs to change how they work (like how powers worked in Kirby Super Star).

The presentation is colorful, happy, and very Kirby. Cute enemies, cute powers, cute allies, it's nothing out of the ordinary for Kirby of this era. The music is fantastic though. This is easily one of the best soundtracks on the N64 in my book.

The only real negatives I can say about it, other than that the solutions and locations for some of the shards can be a bit obtuse at times, is the lack of any co-op. The co-op in Kirby Super Star is one of the reasons I adore that game as much as I do, and the lack of it here is very unfortunate. There are some multiplayer competitive mini-games you can play from the game's main screen, which are all games I've had good fun with friends with in the past, but it's hardly a replacement for Super Star-style co-op play. The game is also harder than I remembered it was. Newer Kirby games are certainly quite easy, but a lack of tons of healing items in later stages as well as the use of the Kirby's Dream Land 6-hit health bar system means you can't just barrel through a level and probably be okay. You do have to try at least a little XP

Verdict: Highly Recommended. One of my favorite Kirby games and always will be. The power combo gimmick is a really strong one that I really wish newer Kirby games had at least tried to experiment with a bit more. Given that this is on the Wii Kirby Anniversary Collection, I'm not sure the game is worth hunting down on its own if you're gonna pay a big bundle for it, but if you're fixin' for Kirby and want a good one, it's hard to find much better Kirby than this UwU

First 50:

51. Valfaris - Switch
52. Unreal: Return to Na Pali - PC
53. The Outer Worlds - PC
54. MechWarrior 4: Black Knight - PC
55. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - PC
56. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: System Rift - PC
57. MDK - PC
58. Pokémon Sword - Switch
59. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order - PC
60. Blazing Chrome - Switch
61. MDK 2 - PC
62. Heavy Gear - PC
63. Virtual-On - Saturn
64. Virtual-On: Oratorio Tangram - DC
65. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries - PC
66. Metaltech: Earthsiege - PC
67. Earthsiege 2 - PC
68. Cthulhu Saves Christmas - PC
69. Starsiege - PC

Starsiege is the last game in the Earthsiege trilogy, before the series turns into the Tribes series (and mostly drops the plot in favor of just being a multiplayer game like UT). Humanity has spread to the rest of the solar system and is ruled as a single Empire. However, the colonies are oppressed by the Terran government and rebel. While this rebelling is going on it turns out the Cybrids are hiding on Pluto and take advantage of the factionalism to invade for a third time. The Cybrid threat convinces humanity to ally again and make one last desperate push to take out the Cybrid leader Prometheus once and for all.

Starsiege finally updates the game, but unfortunately not for the better. Instead of going for a MechWarrior-esque torso twist system, you now instead just have a lot of range of motion on your guns. So you set throttle and turn left and right and your mouse controls where your guns fire. The traversal is impressive, and it properly models that if you're all the way to the left the guns on your right side can't fire, for example. By switching to this system they were able to introduce a lot of new mech designs that look like AT-PTs from Star Wars, as those wouldn't be able to accommodate the torso system of previous games. In whole this system ends up being not as good as what we see in MechWarrior at the same time, as the game is contemporary with MechWarrior 3 which had both torso twist and the fine grained aiming with the mouse. The real problem is you can't just do the circle of death because you can't traverse that far. Unless you're using one of the tanks, which is the new vehicle available. Tanks are faster than walkers and have a 360 degree turret, but they also don't have shields (they have higher armor to compensate). They're actually pretty solid vehicles, but their general lack of weapon mounts hurt them.

The real problem is in the weapons of the game. Everything you fight moves too fast and your weapons consist of hitscan with long cooldowns (so you miss a lot) and big damage weapons that have incredibly slow projectiles. This is a game you'll want to make heavy use of your AI partners, as they can aim much better than you. Frequently the best tactic is to bull rush a mech so that you both are facing each other and then hope your damage output is higher. The game does model location damage like before, but because everything moves so fast it's hard to take advantage of it except against the slowest of mechs. There is one weapon late in the game that removes the pain because of its huge auto tracking. The game would have done better with either larger mechs or slower mechs; the problem is everything is fast and thin. Or more rapid fire hitscan weapons that would let you make up for how zippy everything is (the autocannon is utter trash because it does virtually no shield damage).

The story campaign has some rough spots when you have to do protection missions; the things you protect die quite fast, so you need to nail enemy units immediately. Fortunately, the AI will switch to you when you shoot them over their defenseless target, so a strategy of taking potshots works. But sometimes you get screwed by a spawn you weren't aware of. You'll have to replay those missions a few times to learn spawn points so you can get there in time. The real highlight of the campaign is that your main mission briefing guy is Mark Hamill. And then late in the campaign his brother Mark Hamill-doing-a-gruff-voice joins in. It's mostly a middling performance; he's not trying hard, but he's also not just going "why the hell did I agree to this?"

Starsiege is frankly a bit of a letdown; they really bungled the overall combat physics and it's not nearly as fun to play as the previous two games, or any of the MechWarrior games. Add in some underutilized features (an artillery beacon used twice early in the game and never again, for example) and you have a game that really falls short of what it could be.

Partridge Senpai's 2019 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018
* indicates a repeat

1. Night Slashers (Switch)
2. Bye-Bye BOXBOY! (3DS)
3. GTA4: The Ballad of Gay Tony (Xbox 360)
4. Katamari Forever (PS3)
5. Detention (PS4)
6. Donkey Kong 64 (N64) *
7. OctoDad: Dadliest Catch (PS4) *
8. FlintHook (Switch)
9. God of War (PS4)
10. God of War HD (PS3)
11. Tiny Barbarian DX (Switch)
12. God of War 2 HD (PS3)
13. Starlink (Switch)
14. Shin Gundam Musou (PS3)
15. Battle & Get! Pokemon Typing DS (DS)
16. Banjo-Kazooie (N64) *
17. Super Mario 64: Rumble Edition (N64)
18. Mario Party 3 (N64) *
19. Paper Mario (N64) *
20. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) *
21. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX (GBC) *
22. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC) *
23. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC) *
24. Yoshi's Island (SNES) *
25. Super Mario World (SNES) *
26. Super Mario RPG (SFC) *
27. Kaeru No Tame Ni Kane Wa Naru (GB)
28. Final Fantasy VI (SFC) *
29. Final Fantasy IV (SFC) *
30. Final Fantasy V (SFC)
31. Final Fantasy III (Famicom)
32. Mother 2 (SFC) *
33. Mother 3 (GBA) *
34. Hebereke (Famicom)
35. Donkey Kong Country 2 (SFC)
36. Donkey Kong Country 3 (SFC)
37. Donkey Kong Country (SFC) *
38. Wario's Woods (Famicom)
39. Paper Mario: Color Splash (Wii U)
40. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam (3DS)
41. Luigi's Mansion (3DS) *
42. Paper Mario: Sticker Star (3DS)
43. Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga & Bowser's Minions (3DS)
44. Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story & Bowser Jr's Journey (3DS)
45. Tomato Adventure (GBA)
46. Corpse Party (PSP)
47. Rave Master: Fighting Live (GC)
48. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA) *
49. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA)
50. Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA) *
51. New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS)
52. The Outer Worlds (Xbone)
53. Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight (Xbone)
54. Guacamelee 2 (Xbone)
55. Steamworld Dig 2 (Xbone)
56. Yoku's Island Express (Xbone)
57. Guacamelee (Xbone) *
58. Blazing Chrome (Xbone)
59. Minit (Xbone)
60. Dishonored 2 (Xbone)
61. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (Xbone)
62. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Xbone)
63. Recore: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
64. Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (Xbone)
65. Super Lucky's Tale (Xbone)
66. Snake Pass (Xbone)
67. My Friend Pedro - Blood Bullets Bananas (Xbone)
68. Kirby 64: Legend of the Crystal Shards (N64) *

69. Kirby's Adventure (NES)

I was in the mood for some more Kirby after finishing Kirby 64, and then I remembered Kirby's Adventure on my NES Classic! It's one of the very few mainline Kirby games I haven't yet beaten (and I think may actually be the last I hadn't beaten), so I thought why not give it a try. I remembered it controlling not so hot the last time I tried it, but I figured that must've just been the mood I was in at the time. I proved to myself it was in fact not the mood I was in at the time, and I didn't really enjoy my time with this game when all was said and done. I'm glad to have the entire mainline Kirby series under my belt now, I suppose, but the 3 hours of this game aren't really ones I'll look back on super fondly compared to the many many hours I spent with the GBA version of this game as a kid.

It's Kirby in his first adventure where he could gain powers and not just suck things up and spit them out. It's a pretty groundbreaking entry for the series, considering the copy ability is one of the things Kirby is best known for these days. There are a good handful of powers, at least on paper, as many of them have very similar or nearly identical effects but different cosmetics. You go through 7 worlds with 7 bosses to eventually fight Nightmare in a special final two-stage boss fight.

The level design is alright, even if some levels end up feeling a little short in retrospect. You get to them via a series of hub areas for each world that has both doors to the stages but also doors to mini-games you can play for extra lives, mini-boss arenas you can do for a maxim tomato, or a gallery area where you can get a certain power for free whenever you want. Many of the levels have secret switches hidden in them that will unlock more of these special bonus areas in the hub maps, but some of these switches are SUPER hard to find and are behind nearly or entirely invisible doors. 100%-ing this game without a guide is no easy feat, and I definitely couldn't've done it in 3 hours if I hadn't remembered basically all of them, at least in part, from all my time with this as a kid.

My biggest issues with the game are largely mechanical. First off, while the game is very pretty for a NES game, it also means there's a LOT of slowdown, particularly when there are a lot of enemies on screen at once. Next, Kirby has a lot more heft to him than he does in later games, and even compared to Kirby's Dream Land 1 and 2 (the games before and after this one), it feels like it takes him way longer to recover from hits, falls, etc. before he can jump or use a power again. On top of that, while you press B to use your powers and A to jump, A very critically does not fly. Pressing Up on the D-pad flies, and while this is certainly partly my fault for having the muscle memory that later Kirby games have given me, there were a ton of times where I wanted to fly but couldn't, or accidentally started flying when I didn't want to because of a stray command on the D-pad. Lastly, it's always just one hit (instead of how it's almost always several in later games) before you lose your power. The end experience wasn't often very challenging, but it was very often frustrating due to some combination of the above issues.

The presentation is nice, as you'd hope a NES game from 1993 would be. Although it does add to the aforementioned slow down, the environments have lots of colors, enemies and Kirby have a lot of animations. The color pallet swaps from stage to stage do a good job of coming off more as stylistic choices instead of hardware necessities. The enemy designs would go on to be reused to countless Kirby games for a good reason: They're really solid and memorable ones, especially the bosses (even though a lot of these guys are lifted from Kirby's Dream Land themselves). The same thing goes for the music, which is as iconic as anything else in this game when it comes to Kirby.

Verdict: Not Recommended. I did not enjoy enough of my time with this game that I can't recommend it without tons of caveats. The experience of Kirby has been improved and tightened up so significantly since this, his second outing, that the barrier to entry is already weirdly high for a Kirby game (having to relearn how to Kirby) even if the slowdown issues weren't a problem on top of that. It's an important stepping stone for a series I love, but this is definitely my least favorite among all the mainline Kirby games.

Games Beaten 2019

Kentucky Route Zero Act 1 - PC
All Our Asias - PC
Shape of the World - Switch
Hidden Folks - PC
Hyrule Warriors - Wii U
Onrush - PS4
Assassin's Creed Origins - X1
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown -360
Metro Exodus - PS4
Split/Second - 360
Far Cry: New Dawn - PS4
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - X1
Marvel vs Capcom Infinite - PS4
Rage - PC
Red Faction: Armageddon - 360
Momonga Pinball Adventure - Switch
Psycho Soldier - Vita (Arcade)
Super Mutant Alien Assault - Vita
Burly Men at Sea - Vita
Sigil - PC
Fat Princess - PS3
Borderlands 2: Commander Lilith and the Fight for Sanctuary - PC
Monster World IV - Genesis (PS3)
Marvel's Spider-Man - PS4
Mega Man X4 - Switch
Armored Warriors - Switch (Arcade)
Battle Circuit - Switch (Arcade)
Borderlands 3 - PS4
Hyper Dyne Side Arms - PS3(Arcade)
Legendary Wings - PS3 (Arcade)
The Outer Worlds - X1
Akai Katana - 360
RayStorm - PS2 (Arcade)
Operation C - PS4 (Game Boy)
Kid Dracula - Switch (Famicom)
Castlevania: The Adventure - Switch (Game Boy)
Castlevania II: Belmont's Revenge - Switch (Game Boy)
What the Golf - iOS
Ninjin: Clash of Carrots - PS4
tint. - iOS *new*

Total: 40

Previously: 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010


This is a relaxing/creative puzzle game where you have to use watercolors to unlock origami. I played through the original game (they have since added more "books"/levels which I hope to get back to at some point), so up it goes on the list. If you have Apple Arcade, you should check it out - you'll know in the first minute or so if you like this kind of puzzle game or not.

I have a small hope of making it to 45 this year, but we shall see...