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THE LIST:


16. Cave Noire (GB) - I played through this game until I got to the credits (IIRC after you've completed 6 or 7 levels of all 4 quests) for one of the Together Retros last year but now I played through to total completion!
The game was never released in English but is quite import-friendly if you're not literate in Japanese. Knowing katakana helps but isn't necessary though there is a translation patch if you're emulating or using a flash cart if you're unsure of things.
Cave Noire is a simple roguelike where you are tasked with four different quests: 1) Kill X monsters 2) Collect X gold 3) Collect X orbs/goblets 4) Free X fairies. It starts off extremely easy and becomes much more challenging. The game comes down to learning different monster behaviors and strategizing how to get away from them. Blindly entering combat is almost never a good idea: outside of the killing monsters quest, there's rarely any reward for killing creatures over just running away. You'll inevitably die many times as you attempt the quests (with the most frustrating deaths being when you are killed after completing a quest but before you find an exit) but it's never a big deal. You don't level up or keep items between missions, you just go back into the dungeon and try again. There's not much of a story either: when you complete the hardest level quests you get a fancy medal, they declare you a "Master" and you just walk away as the credits roll. No big bad guy, no fabulous treasure to find. Just a sense of accomplishment.

RPGs weren't popular in the US in the 90s, so I understand why it was never translated but the game is perfectly suited to the original Game Boy, not requiring fast reactions and no using fancy graphics. It's simple but challenging and is very much a "pick up and play for 20 minutes" kind of game.

It's almost the end of March and it's my first time posting in this thread. Whoops!

It's been full on in the world of AJ currently though, so writing reviews has seemed like a step too far - so I thought I'd do things a bit differently this time and give you my concise impressions of the games in the form of good points, bad points, and overall thoughts

1. Metroid Dread Switch
2. The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures Switch
3. Return of the Obra Dinn Switch
4. Policenauts Saturn
5. Pokémon Legends: Arceus Switch
6. Sam & Max Save The World Switch
7. The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve Switch
8. Dragon Force Saturn
9. Astro’s Playroom PS5


Metroid Dread



Great Ace Attorney Investigations:



Return of the Obra Dinn



Policenauts:



Pokémon Legends: Arceus



Sam & Max Save The World




The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve



Dragon Force:



Astro’s Playroom:

...I finished Ace Combat 7 Saturday. The final mission was more of the same foolishness that Namco has been pulling since the series started on the PSX but I still really enjoyed the game. I've heard really good things about the DLC, so I may have to check that out eventually.

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

1. Underworld Ascendant - PC
2. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair - PS3
3. Ni no Kuni - PS3
4. Operencia: The Stolen Sun - PC
5. RPM Racing - PC
6. Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem - PC
7. Pokemon Legends: Arceus - Switch
8. Ni no Kuni II - PS4
9. Everspace - PC
10. PowerSlave Exhumed - PC
11. Horizon Forbidden West - PS5
12. Elden Ring - PS5
13. Shadow Warrior 3 - PC
14. Ghostrunner: Project_Hel - PC
15. Triangle Strategy - Switch
16. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands - PC

Borderlands 2 was a game that massively improved on the original by tightening up the game systems, having some excellent writing with a fantastic villain, and having an amazing piece of DLC in Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep, which presented the veneer that the game was actually taking place in a D&D knockoff being run by the titular character. Tiny Tina's Wonderlands continues that legacy, by iterating again on the mechanics with some nice quality of life, having again some excellent writing and great performances by the main characters, and leaning even harder into the D&D knockoff idea.

The game is set shortly after Borderlands 2, and has basically no setup. Tiny Tina is on a crashed spaceship with newcomers Valentine (Andy Samberg) and Frette (Wanda Sykes). It starts with the end of the previous campaign they ran to segue you into the new one. You are the newbie; you haven't even painted your miniature when things begin. In order to let you shine Valentine and Frette serve as your advisors, which is how the game has them participate without actually being in game NPCs along side you. Cue a bunch of looting and shooting in the fantasy world coming out of the mind of Tiny Tina. You are the Fatemaker, and you must stop the resurrection of the Dragon Lord. And along the way you'll learn the true meaning of friendship.

Now, if you've played a Borderlands, you know what to expect. The game is a looter shooter with a Diablo-esque plethora of randomly rolled equipment and skill trees. You start by picking a class, which gives you a passive, a choice of one of two actives (that you can swap freely), and a tree of buffs. You might notice that this is a change from previous games, where you got three skill trees. Well, here you instead will get a secondary class midway through the game. This gives you the passive of that class, adds that class's two actives to your pool of selections, and now you have a second tree. In the post game you can even swap this secondary class as you like. As a result, your character ends up being more customizable than before, and it plays into how people tend to build their characters anyway (mostly one tree to get the top skill, then branch out).

There's a few other gameplay updates that are nice iterations. The first is that melee now has a dedicated equipment slot, and the damage to match. This makes engaging in melee FAR more satisfying and useful than before, as melee can hit as hard as a top tier sniper, apply elemental debuffs, and do something meaningful between reloads. They also swapped out grenades for spells. In addition to just having a wider range of possible effects, this also puts it strictly on a cooldown, rather than be resource limited. And a lot of the skills and affixes will key off of spell casts, so you're very much encouraged to put it part of your repertoire. Finally, a thing I noticed is that nearly all of the sidequests were picked up as part of exploring a zone for the first time; the handful that aren't have a good story reason for that not to be the case and the traversal accommodates that. One of my complaints about Borderlands 2 was the zones had a cadence of first do the main quest, clearing out the zone, then get a bunch of sidequests and do the zone all over again, which felt like major padding. Here the sidequests and main quests tend to take you to different parts of a zone, so they all flow together much better. The game also presents a world map dividing zones, and it's a cute representation of a map a DM might have put together (you'll even see real world objects as barriers and scenery).

Which leads to the last really strong part of the game; the writing. The game really leans into all the D&D campaign stuff, like the DM realizing they need to add descriptions and the scenery swaps ahead of you, or quests changing because the party goes off the rails or questions what the DM is doing. You even get two viewpoints through your advisors; Valentine is the player who is in it for the fluff, while Frette favors the stats and power gaming. If you've ever played a tabletop campaign a lot is going to resonate with you.

Overall this game really course corrects some of the mistakes Borderlands 3 made that brought it below 2. Personally, I think this game is my favorite of all the games. It's a bit shorter than Borderlands 2 for all the right reasons while still having the same strength of writing that makes the game compelling. It's also got a better end game loop pretty much ripped off from Diablo 3's rift system and paragon system (and hey, rip off what works) for those who want to keep engaging. I highly recommend this one.

1. Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth (N64)
2. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (Arcade)*



3. Metal Slug 6 (PS2)

Last year I went through most of the games on the Metal Slug Anthology disc on PS2, but I after getting my fix of run and gun games, I had left the last the game untouched and aimed to return to finish it at a later time. Well, that time came last week as I was in the mood for some arcade action and decided to fire up Metal Slug 6. I never ran into this game in the arcades when released, so it was really fun having a new experience in the Metal Slug series.

Right off the bat, I noticed the amount of characters you're able to select here. Most of the previous games had four characters to choose from but in this entry, you get a choice of six. Fio is my go to character in the Metal Slug games, so I stuck with her. An additional gameplay mechanic that's different here is the ability to have two special guns in your inventory, which reminds me of the system in some Contra games. Another thing I noticed, is the background graphics in this game are pretty impressive. They do seem a bit more detailed than previous entries. The boss fight in the second level was pretty impressive visually, as the battle is taking place while moving down hill and the fight scales in and out when the vehicle begins aerial strikes. Awesome!

There's a few things I need to critique in this entry though. While it's nice that there's a difficulty selection here, it's a pain that the easier difficulty only gives you access to the first four levels of the game. I think having an easier setting that lets you finish the game would be much better for a casual co-op experience. Another issue that I need to bring up is with the boss fights. The bosses do not flash to indicate that you're damaging them! This is really a pain, as it can take some time to figure out where you need to attack the enemy. This is a visual indicator that appeared in all the previous games, so it seems counter intuitive to remove it in this entry.

Overall though, I really enjoyed my time with Metal Slug 6! For me it was awesome to finally experience the last of the main title games. I've mentioned this before, but Metal Slug is my favorite run and gun series. While the sixth installment does not best my favorite entry, Metal Slug X, I still think it holds its own, and may even be better than some of the other late entries. If you're in the mood for some arcade action, I definitely recommend this one!

Metal Slug 6 was developed on the Atomiswave arcade platform instead of the Neo Geo, so it makes sense it would have some differences. I don’t know how accurate the home ports are.

marurun wrote:Metal Slug 6 was developed on the Atomiswave arcade platform instead of the Neo Geo, so it makes sense it would have some differences. I don’t know how accurate the home ports are.

I don't think I ever ran into any Atomiswave arcade games in the wild when they were newly released but more recently I became aware of some games from the platform. Dolphin Blue is another shooter developed on the platform that I want to try! Looks ridiculous and really fun.

The ports on the PS2 Anthology feel like there is some input lag. There's even a difference from the Metal Slug X release on the PS1 and the version on the PS2. I played this game a lot in the arcades and on the PS1, so I think it's the easiest for me to judge, and I can feel a difference.

1. Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth (N64)
2. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike (Arcade)*
3. Metal Slug 6 (PS2)



4. Time Crisis II (PS2)*

Another game I revisited lately was Time Crisis II on the PS2. I already wrote a lengthy review of it a year or two ago, so I'll keep this one pretty short. I haven't spent as many hours with this game as I have with the original release on the PS1, but I think it's a worthy successor. The graphics are impressive for the time, and there is some great action sequences here. The shootout while riding on a boat is fantastic, and the mandatory train section is also a lot of fun. Also, it's cool that the sequel has some different guns to be found throughout the game.

My main criticism is the two-player mode. I think it's a cool idea that each character has their own unique path through the level, but it's kinda rough that they made co-op split screen here. It just makes each player's side so much smaller when playing on a CRT. There is also double gun mode, which can be used as a substitute, but then you're sharing a life bar.

Overall, I do think Time Crisis II is one of the best light gun games for home consoles and it's highly recommended. I'd like to grab a few more light gun games for the console, to see what else the PS2 has to offer in this genre. Check it out if you haven't already!

Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars - PS 4
Voice of Cards: The Forsaken Maiden - PS 4




So I was curious about these two due to Yoko Taro's involvement. Both games are very similar and can be played in any order as they are stand alone stories. They were released only a few months apart, almost like they were both being worked on at the same time. They even share a lot of visual assets. A big selling point (or turn off) is the unique presentation of these games. They are your basic JRPGs, but the adventures are laid out like a Dungeons and Dragon campaign with a narrator (who is the Game Master) and with dice rolls determining a variety of things like the effectiveness of attacks in battle or completely random things like whether or not your characters avoid getting hit by random lightning strikes while exploring an area. There's actually a lot of random events throughout the game to keep things interesting when you are exploring. Something to keep your interest beyond the numerous random battles you'll face. There are moments as well, where you will be presented with choices during these events, or during the main story



The random stuff can be quite fun, like you randomly acquiring a powerful weapon you shouldn't have access to for another two chapters (and getting it for free no less), random events giving you money, randomly fighting a rare monster, or random events that heal your party, etc. Some of the random stuff can screw you over too though. Some of those natural events I mentioned before like lightning or tornadoes can damage your party if you get a bad dice role. Making poor choices during some random events can screw you too. There's a lot of fun, quirky, comedy surrounding most of these random events.

Visually, everything in the game from your characters, to the NPCs, to your enemies, to the environment itself, are represented by cards. So it's almost like watching someone play a CCG game like Magic: The Gathering, mixed with a D&D campaign as I mentioned earlier.



There's also a fun card game within the game itself you can play, and it seems to have a multiplayer mode. While it is fun, it relies heavily on luck, which can get annoying. In fact, if you play on "include all" mode which throws in every rule set into one game, things get chaotic. Random events happening, random skills triggering, luck of the draw, Joker cards making players exchange their cards, so many rng elements come into play it's ridiculous. It's fun though if you like playing something that is so luck dependent it just feels like pure chaos, where victory is 30% strategy on your part, 10% what other players decide to do, and 60% luck.

These are very basic RPGS. Nothing too complicated or challenging, they are piss easy to be honest. However, the unique presentation and characters keep the games engaging. Every NPC and enemy in the game has a backstory that is fun to discover, and the main story lines are entertaining enough with a cast of funny characters. The games have some weird, quirky, and occasionally dark, humor too, particularly with some of the NPC and monster backstories. Sometimes you think an NPC's story is going one way, only for the game to subvert your expectations. Like a seemingly romantic story about a man promising his loyalty to his wife, only for that same man to be relieved when she dies of illness years later and he is no longer bound to his promise. Plus, the entertainment factor that the narrators bring to the table is nice, similar to games like Bastion. The random stuff that happens when exploring areas are fun too as it breaks up the repetitive combat and keeps you on your toes

If you want to try something a little different, or are in the mood for an RPG that won't be too challenging, give them a shot. These by the way, would be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT for introducing someone to Japanese rpgs. They are EXTREMELY accessible. Just something for you guys to keep in mind. Particularly someone who is a big fan of D&D or card games, but has never played a video game or specifically an rpg video game.

THE LIST:


17. Mary-Kate & Ashley: Get a Clue! (Game Boy Color) - Yes, I beat one of the Olsen Twins games. I actually finished it earlier in the week and I have to say, this game wasn't that bad! It's based on the direct to video series "The Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley" from the 90s where they solved mysteries with a dog. Apparently the rebooted the series as The New Adventures of Mary-Kate & Ashley but never made videos: just books and video games, which makes sense since the girls are obviously tweens rather than very young children. It's obvious that this game was not designed from the ground-up with the license in mind, the gameplay is mostly a throwback to The Lost Vikings. You control three characters (Mary-Kate, Ashley, and their dog Clue) - each with different abilities and try to reach a puzzle piece. Ashley can flip switches and throw Clue, Mary-Kate can jump higher and other characters bounce when they jump on their head, Clue can defeat enemies when thrown at them, swim, and other characters can stand on him. I find it amusing that this game for children requires you to abuse animals: picking up and throwing the dog, step on the dog, etc. There are terrible cut-scenes with the Olsen twins endlessly repeating variations on "we'll solve any crime by dinnertime" which border on funny just for being so bad, but they can be skipped, but the game itself is very light on story.
The puzzles are never too hard, but they also get challenging enough to hold my interest later in the game. With 50 stages, it's good for a couple hours of entertainment but not much more than that. Considering that this game is one of the least-valuable titles on the platform, I'd say a couple hours of entertainment is good enough! It's not exactly a hidden gem, but it's a lot more fun than you'd probably expect.