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Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

1. Tormented Souls - Switch
2. Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II - PC
3. Fantasy Empires - PC
4. Vagrant Story - PS1
5. Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honor - PC
6. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Switch
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project - NES
8. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - PS5
9. Tomb Raider Remastered - PC
10. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - PS5
11. Unicorn Overlord - Switch
12. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Solaris Showdown - PC
13. Princess Peach: Showtime - Switch
14. Fida Puti Samurai - PC
15. Fallout New Vegas: Dead Money - PC
16. Fallout New Vegas: Honest Hearts - PC
17. Fallout New Vegas: Old World Blues - PC
18. Wrath: Aeon of Ruin - PC
19. Fallout New Vegas: Lonesome Road - PC
20. Super Buff HD - PC
21. SaGa Emerald Beyond - Switch

Emerald Beyond is the latest in the SaGa series, Akitoshi Kawazu's pet project that keeps getting greenlit by Square even though it's weird compared to other RPGs. This game iterates on the systems in Scarlet Grace; the base combat mechanics will feel familiar, but they've pulled back in stuff from previous games to create deeper combat and better character building.

The game features five protagonists (technically six, but one of the starts is a pair of them). Your choice of protagonist will determine the various scenarios you experience through the game, alongside the various choices you make. Some scenarios are shared between protagonists, while others are unique. And even the shared ones have unique content for each one. Like SaGa Frontier, you're encouraged to play through the game multiple times with each starting character, but here the scenarios are much longer. And unlike Frontier, there isn't an extra protagonist that ties up the loose threads. So feel free to do just one and come back later to the rest.

Once you're in game you'll find that it's got a lot of elements of visual novel presentation. Instead of wandering around a world map with random encounters, you have a limited area to move and fixed encounters, almost always tied with story segments. The game lets you know where all the story hotspots are, and you're free to engage them in any order, though sometimes you have mutually exclusive options. Sometimes there are also grind spots, where you can trigger optional combats. Some story segments are just conversations, while others include a monster fight. Your goal is to move through the various worlds, solving the problems of each world, and collect the MacGuffins to trigger the final boss.

Combat-wise the game starts with the same timeline that Scarlet Grace used. All the combatants are placed on a line, indicating the turn order. The moves you select can move you and enemies around on this line, and each action will also have an area of influence on the timeline. This is the first major component of the strategy. Whenever two characters on the same side have their areas of influence touch they begin a combo. Each subsequent attack in the combo does more damage, and getting a high enough damage multiplier can trigger a second set of random actions by these characters. But be careful; since some actions move combatants around, you can accidentally break your own combo by moving an enemy into the chain and removing the links. There's a second mechanic for getting big damage, and that's having a character that does not have any other character on either side within two spaces on each side (and you need two spaces on each side, no cheating by being at the far end of the timeline) and doesn't connect their area of influence with a friendly (as combos take precedence). In this case, the character gets the same full set of battle points that you started the turn with to go on a personal combo rampage. Like with Scarlet Grace, the number of actions you can take is based on your battle points, which are gained at the start of the turn and each action costs different amounts. The formations you pick can influence the rate you gain and can reduce the cost of your actions under certain circumstances. Weaving all this together is the most important part of winning battles, though there can also be a fair amount of luck (sometimes you get bad setups and lose agency).

On the character building end, a lot of cues are taken from SaGa 2. Humans are the primary type; they gain stats randomly after battle based on the types of stats they exercise in combat (so you're free to build characters however you like, it'll just take some time to be effective), and they have the ability to randomly learn techs during battle. Their versatility gives them a lot of power, but it does require some luck to get the powerful techs. Monsters are next, and here they are far more useable than previous SaGa games. Instead of eating meat to transform according to arcane formula, here monsters can store the essences of enemies that are killed within their equippable gear. These essences correspond to techs, while they gain stats the same way as humans. If you want to get rid of one of your techs in favor of something else, you have a special unleash move that uses a tech for a single BP and then wipes it from memory. Returning from SaGa 2 is the robots, who gain all their stats from their equipped gear, along with their techs. As a result, their power curve is much more of a stairstep, as a new piece of gear represents a jump, but then they stay flat until the next piece of gear. There's a couple other classes described in the in-game tips that I didn't encounter, but they also have their own unique ways of gaining techs or other power. The systems give you a fair amount of flexibility in building your teams. And unlike some other SaGa games, there doesn't appear to be any significant learning biases. One of my characters was presented as a caster, but I was able to make her a two handed sword user with little difficulty, and she did the job quite well.

The game has fairly low production values, due to the team focusing on the mechanics and acknowledging that the series is niche and said niche fanbase is more focused on the mechanics. The graphics get the job done in terms of conveying what's going on, but it's definitely PS2 level graphics. More egregious is the localization; it definitely feels like they got some budget translators. It's not bad, but it definitely has that feel of some of the basic translations we used to get back in the day after games started to have more text but before localizer were willing to do more than a bare bones translation. It doesn't really detract, but I did notice it. Overall, this is a solid entry in the SaGa series, and the battle system has enough decision points that it stays engaging without having so much that every fight turns into a slog.

Games Beaten in 2024 - 13
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten) February (1 Game Beaten) March (3 Game Beaten) April (7 Games Beaten) May (1 Game Beaten) 13. Army Men: Air Combat - Nintendo 64 - May 2*



Army Men: Air Combat, which is its N64 title, initially released on PlayStation as Army Men: Air Attack. I have no clue why they changed the name for the Nintendo 64 release; the later Windows port used the Air Attack name. Regardless, this is the second air-based game in the series coming out a year before Air Tactics on PC. This is the game of the three on Nintendo 64 that I didn’t have as a kid, so my first time playing this one was in college back in 2012. While it took me a few minutes to get used to the helicopter’s floatier controls compared to Sergeant Hawk in Sarge’s Heroes, I was quickly sucked into what is definitely one of the best games in the series alongside the two Sarge’s Heroes titles. Maybe the secret to a good Army Men game is to put it on Nintendo 64?



Air Combat a follow-up of sorts to Sarge’s Heroes as it’s set in that universe with those characters rather than the “Sarge” in the original game’s universe. You play as Captain William Blade, the Green army’s elite combat chopper pilot, as he goes on various missions to attack Tan bases, foil Tan plots, and rescue Green soldiers. The story is pretty average and a little disjointed as the missions feel only loosely connected for the most part, but it does serve as a good introduction for Captain Blade who would go on be the protagonist in Army Men: Air Tactics on PC, Army Men: Air Combat on Game Boy Color, and Army Men: Air Attack 2 on PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and Gamecube. (which has a plethora of names depending on platform and region).



The story may be the weak point as is the norm in Army Men games, but the gameplay more than makes up for it. I’ve seen some online rank it as the best game in the series, and while I’m not prepared to put it above Army Men II or Sarge’s Heroes 2, I will slot it in third place. Once you get used to the floaty feel and the strafing, the helicopter controls wonderfully, and the combat feels fluid and natural. In addition to your machine guns, you have an array of secondary weapons to use like rockets, guided missiles, napalm, etc. There are four helicopters that you will unlock over the course of the campaign, each with their own different stats. You also have different co-pilots to choose from, each of whom have a weapon in which they specialize thus boosting that weapon’s damage. Air Combat, the N64 version of the game, also has a console-exclusive additional co-pilot, Bombshell, who specializes in napalm. That’s really the only difference I noticed between the two versions; even the visuals are only the slightest bit better on Nintendo 64, and that may well be my rose-tinted Nintendo glasses (it probably is, although if the N64 didn't use that god awful blur effect intentionally, I think it would come out on top). The game is pretty impressive by PS1 visual standards.



There’s some good variety in mission objectives. Sometimes you have to destroy all Tan forces in an area. Sometimes you have to retrieve a particular item and bring it back to base. Sometimes you have to defend your base. Sometimes you have to rescue soldiers in the field before they’re killed by Tan soldiers. I’m not going to say it never gets repetitive, but there is a decent amount of variety that I thought kept things fun and interesting throughout my playthrough. Speaking of my playthrough, it was pretty short - around three hours from start to finish. If I hadn’t failed the last two missions so many times, it would have been about two hours.



My only real complaints are pretty standard for Army Men; the camera control isn’t great, and there are some invisible collision hitboxes that get annoying. The camera is the same issue in Sarge’s Heroes, so it’s at least a familiar jank. The invisible hitboxes, while also familiar from Sarge’s Heroes, are much more irritating. In Sarge’s Heroes, there were a lot of times that I’d be trying to shoot an enemy while being as minimally out of cover as possible and having a clear line of sight with my manual crosshairs directly on the foe only to have my bullets hit an invisible piece of cover. The same kind of thing happens here except instead of with shooting, it’s with flying; I’ll be trying to skirt around close to the side of a mountain to save some time and maintain my speed, and I’ll get snagged on and stopped by...the air, apparently. Still, though, those are my only two complaints with the game. The music is pretty good, the voice acting is as nostalgically cheesy as ever, and the game looks pretty good for Army Men. For this series, that’s a pretty minimal list of complaints.



Army Men: Air Combat - or Air Attack if you’re playing on PlayStation or PC - is a surprisingly good game. It’s not just fun; it’s genuinely a pretty good game. It’s not a graphical shocker - it’s still Army Men - and the controls aren’t perfect, but it’s a great game. The difficulty ramps up pretty evenly and fairly throughout the game’s 16 levels, and while I think the last two or three missions were a little excessively brutal - especially the last mission - but that’s a pretty minor thing. It’s got the general jank and shallow story of most Army Men games, but it’s genuinely fun, and my only complaints with the game are pretty minor. I 100% recommend playing it in general, and it’s a must-have for Nintendo 64 collectors and definitely a game to consider for PlayStation collectors.

Games Beaten in 2024 - 14
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten) February (1 Game Beaten) March (3 Game Beaten) April (7 Games Beaten) May (2 Games Beaten) 14. Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 - PlayStation 2 - May 4*



Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2 might well be the best game in the series. I'm partial to Army Men II, but unless one of the few later releases that I haven't played in years is better than I remember, Sarge's Heroes 2 is probably the best game from an objective standpoint. Now, if you go on Metacritic or Gamespot or similar sites, you'll see the exact opposite; a lot of those sites say that Sarge's Heroes 2 is worse than the original game. I firmly disagree with that, and I think that critics are generally wrong about Army Men, at least from an experience standpoint. The games may be rough visually and have unfair difficulty curves more often than not, but they're dumb fun, and that's an oft underestimated part of the video game experience.



Sarge's Heroes 2 is a direct sequel to the first Sarge's Heroes. After the events of the first game, General Plastro is trapped in the real world where he was eventually plastered, or frozen in place as an actual toy soldier due to staying in the real world for too long. After a series of military defeats in Plastro's absences, Colonel Grimm convinces the acting Tan commander, Field Marshal Tannenburg, agrees to an armistice. Unbeknownst to either Grimm or Tannenburg, Bridget Blue, a spy from the Blue nation, has an anti-plastrification serum developed by Grey scientist Dr. Madd (despite being from a different universe, this is the same - or at least a parallel version of - the "mad Grey scientist" from Army Men II) and revives Plastro. After rebuilding his forces at a toy store, Plastro bursts through a portal and assaults the peace treaty signing event, thus ensuring that the war between Green and Tan would continue. Most people - at least fellow Army Men fans I've discussed the game with - seem to like the lighter story here more than the previous game's story with its overt mention of death rays and torture. I, on the other hand, usually prefer darker stories, so while I prefer this game over the first one, I found the previous game's story to be a little more interesting. That's just personal preference, though, not a point for or against either game.



n the first Sarge's Heroes, the four versions were split into two "build" of the game but were relatively identical to one another outside of graphical quality. That's largely the same here, but not exactly. The Nintendo 64 version of the game came out first, a few months prior to the PlayStation version's release, but while they have identical stories, the PlayStation version was actually built from the ground up separately from the N64 version. When the PlayStation 2 version came out a year later, rather than being based on the PS1 version, 3DO took the N64 version and adapted and improved it for the PS2 release. That's probably a good thing, too, as the PS1 version is by far the worst looking of the three and actually looks worse in my opinion than Sarge's Heroes did on the system. There are some exclusive features to each version, as well. The N64 version gets an exclusive level not present in the PS1 or PS2 versions. The PS2 version gets drastically improved visuals and, in some cases, completely redone models. The PS1 version gets...disappointment. That's all it gets. Jokes aside, though, there are four weapons and six enemies that only appear in the PS1 version as well as one enemy that appears in the N64 and PS2 versions but not in the PS1 version. Most noteworthy here, to me at least, is that 3DO didn't make the same mistake with the 6th gen release of Sarge's Heroes 2 that did with Sarge's Heroes. Sarge's Heroes on Dreamcast, like the PS2 version of Sarge's Heroes 2, was based on the Nintendo 64 version. With the first game, however, that included the lack of FMV cut scenes despite the Dreamcast's GD-ROM format having more than enough space for the FMV scenes. With Sarge's Heroes 2, however, the PlayStation 2 is a truly definitive version (minus the one N64 exclusive level and a few PS1 exclusive weapons and enemies, but those are minor details); not only have the PS1 cut scenes been included in the PS2 port, but they've been remastered to look much better and run much smoother in addition to running at a higher resolution. It really makes me wish even more that Sarge's Heroes on Dreamcast had been given the same treatment.



In terms of performance, the versions rank just like you'd expect; PS1 had the most instances of slowdown in my experience, with N64 suffering from some slowdown as well but not quite to the same degree, and the PS2 version winning hands down with very little slowdown and drastically improved visuals. I do have one grip with the PS2 visuals, and this is completely subjective - the zombies outside of Dr. Madd's castle don't look as cool. They definitely look more like zombies, but that honestly takes part of it's charm; in the 5th gen versions of the game, they look like they do in Army Men II and Toys in Space - shambling army men with limbs of all different colors. You can see some color variation on PS2, but they look too much like actual toy zombies and not enough like Army Men zombies for my taste. As I said, though, that's definitely a personal taste issue, not a knock against the game. As far as music goes, the Sarge's Heroes sub-series is 2-2; the music is fantastic and even better than it was in the previous game.



I may not have like the story in Sarge's Heroes 2 quite as much as I like that in the previous game, but the missions in Sarge's Heroes 2 win hands down. You spend a lot of time in the real world in this game whereas it was pretty scarce in the previous one, and that is definitely to the game's benefit. The most memorable and iconic mission in the whole game in my opinion is the refrigerator level. You have to climb your way up inside this fridge, fighting Tan soldiers along the way, while you search for and destroy cans of deplastrification spray. It's a pretty short level, but that's true of most levels in the game; only one level took me more than ten minutes to complete (excluding deaths and restarts), and that only took 12 minutes with most missions averaging around 5 or 6 minutes once I knew what I was doing. That's not a bad thing, though; one of my biggest complaints with the previous game was that the increasingly long levels added difficulty through an obnoxious method with the lack of checkpoints mid-level. There are still no checkpoints in the level here, but with levels that take less time to complete fully here than it takes to reach a checkpoint one-third of the way through some of Sarge's Heroes's later levels, that's not too bad; even if you get killed at the very end of the level, you've only lost five or six minutes, not ten or twenty.



For me, there are few games quite as nostalgic as Army Men: Sarge's Heroes 2. I used to play this for hours on my Nintendo 64 with friends when I was in elementary school. I even had action figures of Sergeant Hawk and General Plastro when I was a kid. It may not look or play quite as brilliantly as it does in my childhood memories, but that doesn't mean it's not a genuinely good game. The auto aim is a little more irritating and less reliable than in the previous game, and at least on PlayStation, it doesn't look quite as good as the previous game, but the visuals saw a bit of an improvement on Nintendo 64, and the PlayStation 2 version truly looks like it's a generation ahead whereas the Dreamcast version of the previous game looked markedly better but only barely a "generational" leap if at all. Whether its the local deathmatch multiplayer or the cheesy but fun as hell single player, Sarge's Heroes 2 is definitely a game you need to play. If you collect for Nintendo 64, this one is absolutely mandatory, especially if you can get the green cartridge. If you collect for PlayStation, you should snag this one just because there are so many Army Men games on the console, and they look great on a shelf next to one another. If you collect for PlayStation 2, there are still five Army Men games on PS2 - six if you count Portal Runner - but I wouldn't say it's as much of a collection must-have as it is for PS1 or N64, although the PS2 version is definitely the definitive way to play the game. Whatever retro console you prefer, give this game a play.

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

1. Tormented Souls - Switch
2. Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II - PC
3. Fantasy Empires - PC
4. Vagrant Story - PS1
5. Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honor - PC
6. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Switch
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project - NES
8. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - PS5
9. Tomb Raider Remastered - PC
10. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - PS5
11. Unicorn Overlord - Switch
12. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Solaris Showdown - PC
13. Princess Peach: Showtime - Switch
14. Fida Puti Samurai - PC
15. Fallout New Vegas: Dead Money - PC
16. Fallout New Vegas: Honest Hearts - PC
17. Fallout New Vegas: Old World Blues - PC
18. Wrath: Aeon of Ruin - PC
19. Fallout New Vegas: Lonesome Road - PC
20. Super Buff HD - PC
21. SaGa Emerald Beyond - Switch
22. Blasphemous 2 - Switch

Blasphemous 2 is the follow up to the original, iterating on the Metroidvania gameplay while maintaining the same "inspired by plague-era religious art" insanity in the art direction. It tones down some of the evil parts of the first game's difficulty; pits/spikes are no longer instant death, just a big health hit and a respawn on the nearest ledge. Parrying isn't nearly as important (which isn't to say it isn't useful), and you don't need to do any inventory juggling for your mobility abilities.

Approximately 1000 years after the first game, the Miracle manifests again as a beating heart over the land, and it is prophesized the heart will birth a child. Since the Miracle is batshit insane, the Penitent One awakens from his slumber at the end of the first game and sets out to stop the Miracle for good. Because the Miracle has only recently manifested, the NPCs aren't quite as jacked up. You still run into a few that were mutated by it, but there are many other normal ones. You can again do sidequests for rewards, but in a nice quality of life feature, any quest that is failed (and one is mutually exclusive with another) will have its reward item available for purchase from one of the shops. So there's no screwing yourself out of content this time.

This game gives you three different weapons, rather than the fixed sword of the original. You can pick one at the start and get the other two while doing the initial three major bosses. The weapons are your standard array of fast and weak, slow and powerful, and middle of the road. The weapons also serve as part of your mobility kit, with each one giving you options for getting through the various pits and barriers in the world. There's also some generic mobility abilities that you'll gain in the fullness of time. You also have an array of spells divided into two types. There's simple spells which are fast and take the place of a subweapon in Castlevania. And then there's complex spells which use more mana, freeze you for a bit, but have a major effect (not quite as good as an item crash, but definitely worth casting). You can have one of each type equipped at a time, and balancing your weapons and spells is important for succeeding in your quest.

Overall I found the combat to be easier. I ended up one shotting several of the later-game bosses, and even the early ones were just me being greedy instead of paying attention to patterns. It appears the devs tried to balance things so that all three weapons were equally viable, and since one of them can't parry it means they seem to have created all the attacks to be just a bit more forgiving in dodgability. Only the penultimate boss felt like I was handicapped by not wanting to swap weapons (I was ride or die on the slow one).

Overall, it's an iterative sequel to a good first game, so if you liked the first the second is worth picking up. There's not really a strong story that carries between entries, so it's also a fine point to jump in; no need to play the first to understand what's going on.

January
Injustice: Gods Among Us (Xbox Series)
Metroid Prime Remastered (Switch)
Fire Emblem Engage (Switch)
Knights of the Round (Switch)
Megaman: The Power Battles (Switch)

February
Metroid Other M (WiiU)
Metroid Zero Mission (WiiU)
Super Mario Bros (All Stars/Switch)

March
Xenoblade Chronicles Deluxe (Switch)
Mario Kart 8 DX Booster Course Pass (Switch)
Princess Peach: Showtime (Switch)
ACA NeoGeo Real Bout Fatal Fury (Switch)
Super Mario Advance (Switch)

April
Splatoon 3: Side Order
Mario vs Donkey Kong (Switch)
Super Mario 3D World (Switch)

May
Super Mario Wonder (Switch)

Yikes! I managed to go 9 games beaten without updating this. Some one or two sentence comments to keep things short:

- Super Mario Bros, especially the All-Stars version, remains one of my all-time feel good games.

- It took like 70 hours to beat Xenoblade Chronicles DX and I think I only completed maybe 45% of the quests. I finally understand more about how XBC1 and XBC2 are connected but it's clear that was never the original intent. For an upscaled Wii game, it looks and plays fantastic.

- The Mario Kart 8 DX Booster Pass was a lot of fun although, on the whole, the tracks are not as creative or zany as the WiiU originals.

- Princess Peach: Showtime! is charming and pretty. It is a much better treatment of the Mushroom Monarch than Super Princess Peach was.

- I finally eked out a win in Real Bout Fatal Fury. Arguably one of my top 3 SNK games of all time. I lost so many times that I would have spent well over $75 if this had been on an actual MVS cabinet in an arcade.

- I still do not understand what Nintendo was trying to do with Super Mario Advance. It's the SNES version of Super Mario Bros 2 plus a ton of edits that feel completely out of place.

- If you like Splatoon and you do not have Splatoon 3: Side Order, please consider getting it. There's a lot of bang for your DLC buck with a challenging and replayable Rogue-Lite mode, some significantly touching story content that advances the series' lore considerably, and a whole slew of extras and unlockables.

- I forgot how by the numbers Mario vs Donkey Kong was. It's a game that I want to like but I get bored of very quickly. I finished the main campaign and it was quality GBA remake.

- On the other hand, Super Mario 3D World is anything but boring. I think it still might be my favorite of the 3D Marios.

- This is my second time beating Super Mario Bros Wonder and I believe it made a much more solid impression on me. The last time I played it, I had trouble appreciating what felt to me to be reduced gameplay mechanics. So much of the tool set that you took for granted in the New Super Mario series had been regulated piecemeal to the badges system. This time I took an opportunity to better appreciate the level design and the finishes and had a blast.

Games Beaten in 2024 - 15
* denotes a replay

January (1 Game Beaten) February (1 Game Beaten) March (3 Game Beaten) April (7 Games Beaten) May (3 Games Beaten) 15. Portal Runner - PlayStation 2 - May 5



​I went into Portal Runner on the PlayStation 2 with extremely low expectations. I found the Game Boy Color game to be dreadful, and while I know a PS2 game and GBC game are, by default, a far cry from one another, I figured “If the Game Boy Color game screws up what should be a winning formula for me - platforming - then what will this screw up?” Fortunately, though, what I got was the opposite of what I expected. It’s not the best game in the series or anything, but it’s genuinely fun and significantly better than I expected it to be.



The story takes place immediately following the events of Sarge’s Heroes 2. General Plastro is in a Green jail, the Tan army is behaving (for the moment; you can never trust plastic Nazis), and Bridget Blue is in hiding somewhere. She’s still obsessing over Sergeant Hawk, though, with a creepy “I’ll force you to love me” stalker vibe going on. She devises a plan to get what she wants; she sends an anonymous message to Green Plastic News ace reporter Vikki Grimm, Hawk’s girlfriend and Colonel Grimm’s daughter, telling her that “the story of your career” awaited her at a not-at-all ominous location in the middle of nowhere. Having literal plastic for a brain, Vikki goes, and of course, she’s kidnapped. This naturally lures out Sergeant Hawk where he, too, is kidnapped. Vikki is exiled to a different world, one she’s never seen before. This isn’t the plastic world or the real world; this is a world of dinosaurs. She’s trapped as the portal that brought her there was destroyed, but she’s not alone; she befriends a lion she names Leo (how original). Together, they search for a portal home. This adventure ends up taking them through three different worlds.



Unlike the other Army Men games on PlayStation platforms, this isn’t a strict third person shooter. You do shoot - Vikki has a bow - but it’s an adventure platformer first and foremost. Yeah, there was a good bit of platforming in Sarge’s Heroes, but nothing like this. In those games, it was a feature that livened things up between bouts of combat; here, it’s the focus whereas combat is the feature that livens things up. Whereas the platforming in Sarge’s Heroes felt pretty clunky, it’s thankfully pretty smooth here. It’s no Crash Bandicoot or Mario, but it’s good for a series that epitomizes mediocrity. The shooting is pretty solid too; there’s a very strong auto aim that, while it struggles a little with the Y axis aiming, makes X axis aiming something you barely have to do; shoot anywhere in a 45 degree arc, and you’ll probably hit it. That’s not to say there’s no manual aiming; there is, and you’ll have to use it now and then both for puzzles and to hit distant enemies. It’s just not how most of your shooting will be done as was the case in Sarge’s Heroes. Speaking of the puzzles, they’re not bad. They’re pretty rudimentary - no Resident Evil puzzles here - but they are, for the most part, interesting enough that I didn’t get bored with them.



The visuals are what most impressed me. That’s not to say that it’s a visually stunning game, but it is an Army Men game even if the title doesn’t suggest that, so I expected the usual sub-par visuals. What I got was exactly what I’d expect from a mid budget PS2 game. It definitely looks better than Sarge’s Heroes 2 and Air Attack 2, and I thought it looked on par with or slightly better than Green Rogue. The sound design, while lacking the rad soundtrack of Sarge’s Heroes and Sarge’s Heroes 2, is solid. The music is good even if not great, and I don’t have much complaint with the sound. I’m fairly certain Jim Cummings still voiced Sergeant Hawk, but I can’t find anything other than “Additional Voices” for his credits for Portal Runner online, so I can’t be sure. Hawk’s voice sounded a little different to my ears, but I don’t know if that’s actually because it was a different voice actor or just something weird with his lines in the game’s sound. The difficulty modes were also interesting to me. Army Men games, especially the World War games, have usually been quite difficult towards the end of the game. Maybe 3DO took that feedback on prior games into account because in addition to the usual Easy, Normal, and Hard difficulty options, there was also an option called Dream which is essentially the below-easy difficulty that usually gets called “Story” these days. It’s stupidly easy on that setting, but if you’re bad at the game and just want to experience the story and the environments, it’s there for you. As the patron saint of Bitch Mode, I approve of this setting’s inclusion.



I’m a little surprised that Portal Runner only came to PlayStation 2 (I’m not counting the handheld version; it’s a totally different game). Every other game non-World War game was on at least one other platform, and a lot of folks have a mental connection between Nintendo and Army Men with Sarge’s Heroes and Sarge’s Heroes 2. Since Air Attack 2 (albeit with a different title), Sarge’s War, and RTS were all on GameCube, and Major Malfunction was on Xbox (exclusively on Xbox if you’re in North America), it just seems an odd choice to keep Portal Runner locked to the PlayStation 2. Green Rogue was also only on Sony hardware, but it was on PS1 as well as PS2, and Portal Runner released in 2001; it was a year into the PS2’s life, sure, but there were still some games being released for PS1. Regardless, though, it’s a much better game than I expected. It’s not perfect, and the story is a little underwhelming since the main enemies you fight are dinosaurs, knights, and little green men instead of Tan soldiers, but it’s still a decent Army Men gaiden sort of story. Since it doesn’t have “Army Men” in the title - something that will never not irk me - obsessive compulsive fans don’t need to grab this to put it next to the other Army Men games on your PS2 shelf, but I do think it’s definitely worth a playthrough if you’re a fan of the series. I kind of regret waiting so long to actually play this now; this is the only game in the series that wasn’t a replay for the review. If you haven’t played this, don’t deprive yourself. You won’t be wondering why it didn’t win any Game of the Year awards, but it’s definitely not a waste of time.

Partridge Senpai's 2024 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
* indicates a repeat
1. Terranigma (SFC)
2. Eastward (PC)
3. Pulse (PC)
4. Lost Ruins (PC)
5. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion (PC)
6. Dropsy (PC)
7. Call of Juarez Gunslinger (PC)
8. Pokemon Ruby (GBA) *
9. Secret of Mana (SFC)
10. Fire Watch (PC)
11. Bokura (PC)
12. Romancing SaGa (SFC)
13. Trials of Mana (SFC)
14. Castlevania Legends (GB)
15. SaGa 2 (GB)
16. SaGa 3 (GB)
17. Celeste (PC)
18. Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit (PC)
19. Celeste 64 (PC)
20. CB Chara Wars: Ushinawareta Gya~gu (SFC)
21. To The Moon (PC)
22. LOVE (PC)
23. Pikuniku (PC)
24. Night in the Woods (PC)
25. The Beginner's Guide (PC)
26. Suikoden (PS1)
27. Chocobo Dungeon 2 (PS1)
28. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Advance! Fire Adventure Team (Wii)
29. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Go! Storm Adventure Team (Wii)
30. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Aim! Light Adventure Team (Wii)
31. Line Attack Heroes (Wii)
32. The Quest for Camelot (GBC)
33. Tales of Destiny (PS1)
34. Metal Walker (GBC)
35. Frog Detective 1 (PC)
36. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team (GBA) *
37. Frog Detective 2 (PC)
38. Frog Detective 3 (PC)
39. Super Robot Wars Alpha for Dreamcast (DC)
40. Brain Lord (SFC)
41. Lagoon (SFC)
42. Dark Hunter: Jou Ijigen Gakuen (PS1)
43. Ys: Books I & II (PCE)
44. Ys III: Wanderers From Ys (SFC)
45. Ys IV: Mask of the Sun (SFC)
46. Dark Hunter: Ge Youma No Mori (PS1)
47. Ys V - Expert (SFC)

48. Jaseiken: Necromancer (PCE)

This is a game I’d been told was worth checking out way back when I first got my PC Engine Mini, and it’s a game I’ve been meaning to check out for just as long. Back when I first got the Mini and was playing through a ton of stuff on it, I very briefly booted this up, but decided I just wasn’t in the mood for something like this at the moment. I actually did that once again a couple weeks back after I hooked the PCE Mini back up to play through Ys I & II XD. However, while I still had the PCE Mini all hooked up, I resolved to finally give a genuine attempt to get through this clunky old RPG, and this Golden Week weekend I finally did it~. It took me around 30 to 40 hours (neither the game nor the Mini keep any kind of record of play time, so that’s my best guess) to beat the Japanese version of the game via emulated hardware only abusing save states a little bit (for reasons that will soon become very clear).

The war between gods and demons has raged since the dawn of time. In the endless eons since their battle began, the gods in their desperation created a weapon powerful enough to fight with the strength of a demon to fight back against those demons: The Necromancer. Eventually, worlds between the heavenly realm and demonic realm formed, with the Makai forming closer to the demons, and the overworld (where humans live) forming closer to the heavens. In that overworld where you dwell, things have slowly been getting more and more dire. Monsters increase in number every day, kings and knights have done nothing but get slain trying to contain it, and the world cries out for a hero to stop the madness. That hero is YOU, fair player, and the story begins as you set out to be the hero the world needs to save it from destruction.

As you probably gathered from me relating the contents of the game’s opening text crawl in the previous paragraph, the story is an extremely typical “save the world” fantasy story for early 1988 when this game came out. The game marketed itself as a horror experience, with commercials warning players against playing it too late at night and such, but that stuff is largely contained in the game’s aesthetics. HudsonSoft and NEC clearly knew that they needed a Dragon Quest for their console coming out in late ’87, and this was the Dragon Quest equivalent they created for their new console (and DQIII actually released a whole month after this, in fact). They’re not trying anything too daring in the narrative, and it works just fine for what it is. While it may’ve been entertainingly novel for them to have tried a horror narrative alongside their scary monsters, the story is more than competent enough to stand comfortably among its contemporaries, even if it’s certainly nothing impressive now.

The gameplay is similarly very Dragon Quest for both better and worse in a lot of ways. It’s a turn-based RPG with an overworld and dungeons, you level up as you kill enemies, etc. I’m not encyclopedic enough on the full breadth of Japanese RPGs by late ’87 to say for certain how actually innovative much of this is, and it’s otherwise so derivative I’ve basically assumed just about nothing truly is. That said, there are a few important things that differentiate it from its contemporaries in ways that I feel are worth mentioning (particularly compared to DQI and II, the games that this begs the most obvious comparisons to).

You have a party of three including your main hero, but you actually get to pick your other two companions from a group of five right at the start. Whom you choose is a very big decision, as you’ll never get to take back that choice, and some party members are sadly much worse than others. I went for Maito the black mage and Romina the female warrior, as the guide I used quite heavily recommended them as two of the best choices. While this is cool, I certainly have trouble calling it an outright benefit, as some characters like Kaosu the white mage are simply downgrades from others, and some like Baron the male warrior are just awful choices, full stop. While it’s certainly different from several other big games at the time, it’s hard to praise it that much because it’s just so clumsily handled.

The game’s balance is also quite interesting, albeit far from atypical of the time. It has very little in the way of dungeons, for starters. Most dungeons are just caves with only a couple floors, and the only reason they’re difficult is due to the strength of the monsters inside as well as how dark they are, so your visibility is very limited. Additionally, as I’m sure will be a surprise to no one, this very DQ-inspired game has a crap ton of grinding in it, and frankly grinding makes up around 70%+ of your playtime by the end of it (provided you’re using a guide to tell you where to go next, because if not, you very well may end up spending a lot more time wandering around trying to wade through hordes of enemies trying to find out where to go next). It’s certainly something that makes the game more difficult to play these days, but it’s also extremely common for the time, so I can’t bash the game too heavily for it, ultimately.

I also can’t be too harsh on the game for that stuff because it does have some pretty nice quality of life features as well. Much like many games of the time, certain characters can only use certain magic and spells (you buy spells Final Fantasy-style instead of learning them with level ups like Dragon Quest). However, unlike a lot of games up until that point, going into a magic or equipment shop actually tells you which things can be used by which party members! It’s a really nice quality of life features that makes the game just that much easier to play, even if the weapon limitations for some characters will still probably be quite annoying regardless x3.

Additionally, just like Dragon Quest, if you die, it’s not a game over. You’re just sent back to town with half your money. The money grind in this game is pretty damn brutal, so that’s still quite the penalty, but at least it’s a reason to keep grinding for levels, which you’ll always need anyhow XD. This is also something of a necessity as well, really, as this is a HuCard game. HuCards can’t fit a button battery for saves inside them, and the CD add-on for the PCE didn’t exist yet, so no saving using that thing’s save battery either. This game, therefore, arrives at the same conclusion that early Famicom RPGs (such as DQI & II) did, and saves progress the only way it possibly could have: Passwords. Going to an inn gives you a 45(!!!) character password composed of hiragana, katakana, and alphabet characters that you’ll need to write down if you want to restart from that point after you turn off the console. Thankfully, modern conveniences make it so you can just use save states instead, but this is a REALLY big pain in the butt compared to contemporary Famicom games which at least would’ve had save features. It’s hard to get too terribly upset at the game for doing this, as it was literally the only choice the developers had, but it’s still a monstrous obstacle for anyone planning to play this game these days if you’re trying to do it on original hardware.

All that said, I really do have to praise the game’s balance for the time. There were many times I felt like I was just really stuck, and while it was difficult, braving the journey to the next town to grind at instead and buy better equipment was always a worthwhile investment. Bosses are also quite fair and reasonable (what few there are) and having enemies that you can go up against and beat without needing to just pray to the RNG gods is a really nice an unexpected feature for 1988. The biggest part of this, frankly, is due to the handling of one very important mechanic: Instant death magic.

Anyone familiar with the subject will be very keenly aware that RPGs of this era (from Japan or otherwise) LOVE instant death. Dragon Quest II, in particular (which would’ve been the most recent DQ when this came out) has lots of end game enemies AND bosses that will fling instant death spells at you, and your only real solution is to just pray you get lucky enough to survive them. Necromancer, on the other hand, while it DOES have an instant death spell, it has zero enemies OR bosses that know or use it. This was frankly shocking to me, and I was waiting the whole game for some new wretched enemy or late game boss to start hurling instant death magic at me, but the moment never came. More than anything else it does, I think that resisting the temptation to follow contemporary convention and pack itself with RNG-based fun-killing mechanics like this is something that Necromancer deserves a lot of praise and respect for, as it’s something that certainly makes it an appealing alternative to most other 80’s RPGs for me, at least (despite its hell-password system XD).

The aesthetics of Necromancer are certainly nothing impressive compared to later 16-bit offerings, of course, but they’re nonetheless quite nice looking, especially the monsters. Sure, the overworld and such are nothing special, and the few music tracks the game has are all pretty forgettable. That said, they clearly put all their focus on making the monsters, and the game has some pretty stellar and very creepy monster designs. Even right outside the first town your first two enemies are some pretty inoffensive giant moths alongside the much creepier looking vaguely humanoid figures being pulled around by their intestines. The Special Thanks part of the credits has a special cut out to thank H.R. Giger, and it’s frankly not hard to see why XD. While I do stand by my earlier statement that the game marketing itself as a “horror RPG” feels a bit dishonest (especially by modern standards), the horror content it does have is easily one of the coolest and most memorable aspects of its design.

Verdict: Not Recommended. While I spilled a lot more ink here talking about how the game is actually quite good for the time than I did actively complaining about it, this is in no way a game I think anyone should be playing these days. I really do stand by my opinion that, for the time, this was a very competent RPG that (other than its password system) stands very comfortably next to what the Famicom was boasting. That said, as is the case with nearly any 8-bit or 80’s RPG I’ve played, gameplay sensibilities have changed a LOT since back then, and even a well-executed game like this is still an absolutely brutal slog of grinding and roughly signposted puzzles. If you’re a super-duper-ultra fan of the Famicom Dragon Quest games, then you might have a lot of fun with Necromancer, but for anyone who doesn’t like their RPGs as grinding-focused time-wasting machines, Necromancer is a game you should stay far, far away from XD.

Unicorn Overlord (Switch)

I wrapped this one up a few days ago, although I've taken a few more nights to finish a few minor quests that I missed on my way to the endgame. The whole thing is really a massive love letter to the original Ogre Battle, right down to certain character designs and musical cues. I'm fine with that, as I love Ogre Battle, and Unicorn Overlord has the now standard lush Vanillaware visual design (toned down a bit here compared to its usual, um, excesses) and overall gameplay polish. If you like Japanese fantasy strategy games or even Valliware's other titles, you'll find a lot to like here. That being said, I did feel like the game was a bit on the long side, and a lot of the side battles ended up feeling kind of like padding. Normal difficulty was definitely on the easy side, which I'm not complaining about, but combined with the long running time made the game feel like it dragged a bit during certain portions of the latter half. Definitely a strong recommendation (particularly if you're a fan of the Ogre Battle games), just don't go in expecting it to redefine the genre or anything.

Hime's Quest (GBC)

Fired this one up last night as a quick holdover before I go on vacation next week and can sink my teeth into another massive RPG, but I actually ended up beating it in one sitting. It's an action adventure game heavily modeled after the GB Legend of Zelda games, only it's made by Crunchyroll (yes, the anime streaming company) starring their mascot who is on a quest to rescue anime. I mean, sure, why not? If you've played Link's Awakening or either of the Oracle games, you know what to expect. You explore an overworld (which is pretty small) seeking out different themed dungeons where you solve puzzles and find items until you reach a boss. Once you've cleared all the dungeons it opens the path to the final confrontation. The visuals are pleasant and the action is completely serviceable, but the overall game doesn't hold a candle to its inspirations. The fact that I cleared it in probably less than three hours should make it pretty clear that its a bit on the lean side. But, if you loved Link's Awakening and the GBC Oracle games and you're looking for a quick chaser, it's a pleasant, inoffensive, bite-sized Zelda-like.

WWF Betrayal (GBC)

For a while there it seemed like I was apparently finishing a GBC game every night.

I don't know anything about wrestling, and I'm not particularly interested in learning. But what I was interested to learn was that this game is actually a beat-'em-up created by WayForward and that it's supposedly pretty good. It is... not. I mean, it's not terrible. The animation is great, as one would expect of WayForward, and the overall vibe of the game is very fun. The tone of '90s-'00s wrestling seems to lend itself well to this genre, as it feels perfectly at home as a wrestling story (okay, I know a little bit about wrestling) and also a beat-'em-up, a genre that also contains a game where a former pro-wrestler mayor took his shirt off and ran down the street punching people until he rescued his kidnapped daughter. So it's the perfect setup for a brawler, and thanks to WayForward, it also looks and sounds the part. But the gameplay itself is just... not great. Hit detection is kind of iffy, and you're usually just fighting one enemy at a time, which starts to feel pretty dull. There is a system where you build up energy as you fight, and when the gauge is maxed out, you can do different wrestling finishing moves to enemies. In fact, a lot of enemies can keep getting back up until you perform a finisher on them, which adds a degree of strategy to the fighting. But the enemies often feel either completely disposable (particularly in the early levels) or absolutely infuriating. The bosses in particular move so fast they can absolutely obliterate you in seconds, and they have so much health that it takes what feels like ages to wear them down. The fact that it was a pretty short game definitely helped mitigate the frustration, and I tried to focus on the aspects I did enjoy while I was playing. But at the end of the day, I can't really say I'd recommend it.

One fun bit of trivia is that there are four playable characters (Steve Austen, Triple H, the Rock, and the Undertaker), and whichever characters you don't pick end up becoming the villainous bosses that your player character faces over the next few levels. That felt very appropriate for a wrestling story.

Previous Years: 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

1. Tormented Souls - Switch
2. Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II - PC
3. Fantasy Empires - PC
4. Vagrant Story - PS1
5. Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honor - PC
6. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown - Switch
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project - NES
8. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth - PS5
9. Tomb Raider Remastered - PC
10. Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth - PS5
11. Unicorn Overlord - Switch
12. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries: Solaris Showdown - PC
13. Princess Peach: Showtime - Switch
14. Fida Puti Samurai - PC
15. Fallout New Vegas: Dead Money - PC
16. Fallout New Vegas: Honest Hearts - PC
17. Fallout New Vegas: Old World Blues - PC
18. Wrath: Aeon of Ruin - PC
19. Fallout New Vegas: Lonesome Road - PC
20. Super Buff HD - PC
21. SaGa Emerald Beyond - Switch
22. Blasphemous 2 - Switch
23. Trepang2 - PC

Trepang2 is an FPS that is heavily inspired by FEAR. It features the same mix of slowmo, intelligent enemies, and an absolute beast of a shotgun. It does demonstrate its indie nature in its storytelling; it isn't as strong of a narrative as FEAR, and it also doesn't go quite so much into the horror stuff (though there is some).

The game begins with you waking up in captivity. You are Subject 106, an agent of the Syndicate, and you must bust out of confinement and take the fight back to Horizon, the group that captured you. Horizon is involved in some shady shit, and what better way to deal with that than a shadowy organization with a super soldier? If you're thinking "there must be more going on than I'm being told", congratulations, you were not born yesterday.

The game consists of six main missions, as well as another six side missions. The side missions are optional; they are much shorter than the main missions and are only necessary for unlocking gear. While FEAR was portrayed as you constantly smashing your way forward, here you return to base after each mission. Whatever your inventory was at the end of the mission is carried over to the base, so if you snag a gun that you don't have unlocked yet you can keep it, but you won't be able to refill ammo at base until you unlock the weapon. You have the ability to replay previous missions; you'll make use of this to get intel you might have missed or do a harder difficulty to unlock certain gear.

When it comes to the missions themselves, this is where there is a dramatic drop in coherence. FEAR's levels were fairly consistent, and while it did mean you spend most of the game in office buildings, it also meant you could see how this was all part of an overall single narrative. With Trepang2, it feels like they created interesting level concepts, then decided to string it together with a narrative. After the initial escape you do a mission to extract a scientist, but midway through it turns into zombie horror. After that comes an assault on a cultist stronghold, followed by a pure horror mission that involves transportation to strange dimensions. Only the last two missions feel connected, along with being connected to the very first.

On the weapon front, you have a standard mix of modern-day weapons. You can carry two weapons, swapping out as needed from what enemies drop or are found in the environment. You can find weapon mods in the levels, which can be applied in special areas to give your guns things like suppressors and scopes, as well as more interesting effects like incendiary shells for the shotgun. There is also a wide variety of throwables, such as grenades of various flavors and tomahawks. The shotgun is definitely the stand-out weapon, as it hits like a mack truck and never lets you down. The incendiary shells are extra awesome, as they set enemies on fire which puts them in a disabled state. If they aren't killed they eventually will get up, but the helplessness makes it easy to clean them up. The gunplay is aided by the slowmo system. Unlike FEAR, it doesn't automatically regen; you only get some back when you kill enemies. It definitely behooves you to cancel it early when you aren't actively firing. You also get a cloak, which uses its own resource (which DOES regenerate), but the cloak disables on taking a hostile action and cancelling it empties any remaining charge. It's mostly only useful for running through laser tripmines.

All in all, Trepang2 wears its influence on its sleeve and does a pretty good job of imitating it. Sometimes you really do need to focus on managing enemy waves by understanding what triggers them (as sometimes you can stack those triggers and get overwhelmed). And none of the bosses are really satisfying, but that's a very common problem for FPS's in general, and modern military ones in particular. If you enjoyed FEAR this is worth a pickup.

Markies' Games Beat List Of 2024!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***

1. Mario Kart Wii (Wii)
2. Jackal (NES)
***3. Evolution: The World Of Sacred Device (SDC)***
4. Skies Of Arcadia Legends (GCN)
5. Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PS2)
6. Sunset Riders (GEN)
***7. Tactics Ogre (PS1)***
***8. Forza Motorsport (XBOX)***
9. Riviera: The Promised Land (GBA)
***10. Darkstalkers (PS1)***
***11. Splatoon (WiiU)***
12. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (NSW)
***13. Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball (NES)***
14. 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
***15. Puzzle Kingdoms (Wii)***
16. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall Of The Foot Clan (GB)
17. Steel Empire (GEN)
***18. Super Mario Strikers (GCN)***



I completed Super Mario Strikers on the Nintendo GameCube this afternoon!

Many years ago, my friend picked up a copy of Super Mario Strikers on the Nintendo GameCube. He wanted to do a Co-Op playthrough of the game and we did and it was an absolute blast. We loved every moment of it and so I knew I had to pick up the game for myself. So, when I beat my Backlog, it was one of the games added to my GameCube list and I eventually picked up a copy for myself later on. After playing it back in 2022, I thought it would be a fun and easy game to go back. Looking for something just like that, I decided to pop it back and finish it up.

Super Mario Strikers is a Mario Soccer game in the loosest sense and the most Arcadey form. There are no penalties, special weapons are constantly used and there is an electrified fence around the entire field that you can check your opponent into. The game quickly devolves from Soccer and turns into one of the violent sports games you can ever imagine and it is fantastic. The game has only a little of the rubber band effect that comes with most Arcade Sports titles, so it never gets too cheap to play. Checking your opponents will never get old and I love throwing bombs and shells at my opponent the second they catch the ball. The game has incredibly tight and responsive controls that after one game, you should have it completely mastered. You can do quick passes, super shorts and switching characters in just a heartbeat. All of the regular Nintendo Characters are there as Captains and the smaller characters are there as Sidekicks and this is the most personality you will see from these normally reserved characters. I am expecting them to tell me to Suck It or Kiss My Ass at any moment, which is shocking coming from Nintendo.

Overall, I absolutely loved playing Super Mario Strikers. There is a part of me that loves Mario Golf, but the excitement and just joy to play makes Super Mario Strikers my favorite Mario Sports game that I have ever played. I don't think it could ever get old and the joy that comes from this game is just unmatched. I found it that the game is developed by Next Level Games, who was responsible for NHL Hitz Pro, one of the best Hockey games ever made, so I know that they know how to make a good arcade Sports title. Even if you only have a mild interest in Sports, this is still a fantastic game and one that is very easy to get into!