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Partridge Senpai's 2025 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
* indicates a repeat

1. Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii)
2. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
3. Battlefield: Hardline (PS3)
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3)
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (PS3)
6. Dead Nation (PS3)
7. Kileak, The Blood 2: Reason in Madness (PS1)
8. Paro Wars (PS1)
9. in Stars and Time (Steam)
10. Tetris Battle Gaiden (SFC)
11. Super Tetris 3 (SFC)
12. Battlefield 4 (PS3)
13. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3)
14. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3)
15. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (PS4)
16. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PS4)
17. Call of Duty: WWII (PS4)
18. Resistance 3 (PS3)
19. Tearaway: Unfolded (PS4)
20. Grow Home (PS4)
21. Grow Up (PS4)
22. Ratchet & Clank (2016) (PS4)
23. Dark Sector (Steam)
24. Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (N64)
25. Multi-Racing Championship (N64)
26. Super Smash Bros. (N64)
27. Puyo Puyo Sun 64 (N64)
28. Shin Nippon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Road - Brave Spirits (N64)
29. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 6 (N64)
30. Let's Smash (N64)
31. Mario Tennis 64 (N64)
32. Ucchannanchan no Honō no Challenger: Denryū Iraira Bō (N64)
33. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 4 (N64)

34. FIFA: Road to the World Cup 98 (N64)

I’ve never been much of a fan of soccer games despite having friends who really liked them growing up. Having been on a bit of an N64 sports game kick lately, though, I decided to grab this one seeing that it was both cheaply available (the only FIFA game properly released on this console in Japan) as well as highly recommended online. Thankfully, one was available locally, so I hopped right in. Well, I would’ve done, but this is actually one of the very small handful of games (or at least the Japanese version is) that requires a Jumper Pak in your N64 to work properly. The game *does* launch with an Expansion Pak inserted, but it trying to access the training mode would immediately hard crash the console. I didn’t want to play with fire any more than I had to, so I ordered a generic Jumper Pak on Amazon and waited for it to arrive before continuing any further lest I risk the game hard crashing at some later juncture that I actually cared about. It took me about 5.5 hours to win the world cup as Argentina (in honor of my good friend Gale who’s from there) in the Japanese version of the game with everything on default settings (so also on easy mode) on real hardware.

There’s no real story to this game, as is the case with pretty much any sports game of the time. There is *something* of a “narrative”, but it’s more of a conceit than a bona fide narrative. This being the “Road to World Cup ‘98” (as this was released in late ’97, so the qualifying matches had been happening for a while, but the actual World Cup wouldn’t be on for another several months), the end goal, if you decide to view it as one, is getting your selected team through the lengthy qualifiers into the preliminary rounds and finally to victory in the World Cup final match. While you don’t have any proper football club teams to choose from, as game does boast (so far as I can tell) every national team that was competing in the ’98 World Cup, so from Ghana to Brazil, from Macedonia to China, you can play as any team you’d want in your path to victory~.

Having chosen a South American team, I inadvertently picked a much lengthier qualifier route than pretty much any other (this division having at least 8 if not 9 teams you’ll need to play all of twice rather than most other divisions which are divided into groups of 5 or so), but it only made my rise to glory all the more magnificent! X3. There’s not like characters or anything like that beyond what you make in your head (such as my goalkeeper Gonzalez who I dubbed “The Iron Keeper” for his ironclad defense powers!), but that’s no different than any other sports game of the time. It’s more than enough reason to go for the trophy as far as I’m concerned, so go out there and get it! X3

The gameplay was something I’d heard was much more accessible and fun than Konami’s soccer games of the era, and while I haven’t played those Konami games, I can certainly attest to just how accessible this game is. Compared to later FIFA games which have different buttons you can hit for different strength shots for different scenarios, this game is much more straightforward. You press A to pass, B to shoot, and B to steal the ball if the other team has snatched it from you. You can press the C buttons for more aggressive tackles or fouls on defense or more intricate shots on offense (even sprinting), but I generally found that playing smart was all you needed with those main two buttons. It gives the game a great “easy to learn, tough to master” quality that made for great fun, frenetic action. It sure isn’t anything as wild as one of Midway’s games from the time, but there really is hard not to shout GOALLLL in real life when you manage to score a point on the opposing team X3

And another really nice feature of playing the game is that you are indeed a *team*, and it feels like it. While the game does allow up to four players (who can even play with or against you in the World Cup mode, if you like), you’re far from SOL if you’re playing by yourself. I’m perfectly willing to admit that it might’ve been partly down to the fact that I was playing with a team with bruiser stats like Argentina, but it was so nice to see that my teammates were out there really putting in a good effort when they weren’t under my control. Tapping A will switch you automatically to the player closest to the ball, but even when you’re not doing that to be on top of the action as much as you can, your AI buddies are still out there covering defenders, getting in good shot position, and even stealing the ball for you (so you automatically take over once they have possession of the ball). The game does buffer button presses, so you *do* need to be careful if you’re mashing A to switch players because it’ll lead to immediately passing the ball (sometimes more than once) once you’ve made the switch, but once you get used to that, you’ll be playing soccer with the (quite literal) best of them~.

For people wanting a more advanced experience, that is also here too, though not quite as advanced as some of EA’s later titles (even on the N64 itself). While the game lacks normal FCs, you can always make your own custom teams and even custom players too. You can modify team strategy, level of aggression per player, how your substitutes will function, the works! The game even has a pretty beefy options menu for the time with even the ability to make *and save* several alternate control layouts if you so choose. This isn’t anything that I understand the sport nearly enough to use properly, but the fact that it’s here at all is super impressive for the time, and it’s always nice to see the sheer degree of options available in a game this old (the option to prevent teams from wearing matching colors when they play each other is an option I particularly appreciate). It's honestly really impressive not just how many options there are, but how smartly they're used. There are quite a few options (from the passing marker to automatic heading) that are on by default, but the one thing they all have in common is that they make the game easier and more approachable. Huge props to the developers for knowing that real FIFA sickos will know the settings they want to tune and how, so it was a smarter idea to set things up by default for new players. An inspired bit of design for an impeccably assembled game~.

The aesthetics of the game are quite impressive for the time too! The music is nothing to write home about, but what is there during the menus is at times bizarrely yet delightfully funky and very of the time. I specify menus as, during games, there really isn’t much more than the in-game commentary and the roar of the crowd. I quite like that for the matches though, as it really lets you focus on what’s happening on the field rather than it getting drowned out in the music. Speaking of the commentary, you’ve actually got Japanese commentators for this version of the game, and what impresses me the most is the plural there. I’ve seen singular commentators in things like PawaPuro baseball games from Konami which were quite well put together on the N64 (and even the Super Famicom), but it was incredibly cool to hear such well strung together commentary when there were two people doing it. It’s far from advanced as more recent games that do this because it’s not like they’re saying players’ names too, but it’s still really well done for what it is, and it really helps bring the action to life that much more.

The game doesn’t look half bad either for the time. It’s hardly photo realistic faces on players like you’re getting these days, but they’re good enough representations for the camera angles you’ll usually be viewing them from, and they have a great polygonal retro charm for people like me who enjoy this kind of thing. When you do get those close ups, however, it’s super fun how well animated their victory celebrations are when they score goals. Doing tumbling front flips, stomping the ground and shouting at the sky, all that sort of stuff. They have different animations for walking off sides to throw in a penalty kick (an arrogant swagger if you're winning by a lot, and a sad trudge if they're losing by a bunch). Heck, even the little grumpy shout they have at the ref when they get fouled looks just like it would in real life! X3. I was very happily surprised at just how much characters the players have to them despite this being such an old game, and it really shows just how much the developers cared about replicating the feeling of watching a match on TV despite playing the game yourself, so to speak.

The framerate when playing is far from perfect, but it’s more than solid and consistent enough to make the ball and player physics work how they need to. While the FPS boost when it’s zoomed in on *just* the goalie for a goal kick is quite funny with just how much higher it is than during the normal play, I never noticed any problems during gameplay related to frame rate. This is hardly something worthy of praise in a newer game, but it’s something very much worth mentioning for an older game like this on the N64. The N64 infamously struggles with framerates when there are lots of moving bodies on screen, and the previous game on this console, FIFA 64, both ran terribly and had pretty bad physics problems to boot, so it’s very nice that they’ve fixed that here.

The Japanese version of the game is overall not that meaningfully different from the international versions, so far as I can tell. For the Jumper Pak problem, it might be worth mentioning that I use an American N64 to play these on, but I don’t have a foreign version of the to test whether that RAM issue exists in both versions of the game. The color commentary is great, as I mentioned before, so it’s pretty darn hard to complain about audio production here. The only real issue I could bring up is that the resolution on the Japanese text makes it a bit hard to read sometimes, and there’s a good amount of text that just isn’t translated at all (such as the copyright info at the start or player’s names). All of the important text is translated, however, so between that and the Japanese audio tracks, that puts FIFA 98 well above a lot of other western-developed games localized for the Japanese market on this console (or any other of the time, frankly).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. It’s kind of hard to recommend a game like this in a wider context of soccer games when I’m so unfamiliar with the genre, but I can certainly speak highly to how much fun I had with it! Even as someone who doesn’t really play soccer games and finds soccer a pretty boring sport to watch, I still had a pretty darn good time with this (and I imagine I would’ve had even more fun with a buddy to play with).　It’s even the last of these games to have the super cool indoor soccer mode, which is also great fun and a very neat twist on how to play the normal game~. If you’re looking for a retro soccer title to play or even looking for a more simple soccer title to play with someone who likes the sport but doesn’t happen to be very familiar with video games, then this game will fit that bill excellently.

Partridge Senpai's 2025 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
* indicates a repeat

1. Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii)
2. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
3. Battlefield: Hardline (PS3)
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3)
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (PS3)
6. Dead Nation (PS3)
7. Kileak, The Blood 2: Reason in Madness (PS1)
8. Paro Wars (PS1)
9. in Stars and Time (Steam)
10. Tetris Battle Gaiden (SFC)
11. Super Tetris 3 (SFC)
12. Battlefield 4 (PS3)
13. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3)
14. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3)
15. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (PS4)
16. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PS4)
17. Call of Duty: WWII (PS4)
18. Resistance 3 (PS3)
19. Tearaway: Unfolded (PS4)
20. Grow Home (PS4)
21. Grow Up (PS4)
22. Ratchet & Clank (2016) (PS4)
23. Dark Sector (Steam)
24. Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (N64)
25. Multi-Racing Championship (N64)
26. Super Smash Bros. (N64)
27. Puyo Puyo Sun 64 (N64)
28. Shin Nippon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Road - Brave Spirits (N64)
29. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 6 (N64)
30. Let's Smash (N64)
31. Mario Tennis 64 (N64)
32. Ucchannanchan no Honō no Challenger: Denryū Iraira Bō (N64)
33. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 4 (N64)
34. FIFA: Road to the World Cup 98 (N64)

35. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 2000 (N64)

This is the title in the PawaPuro series on N64 after PawaPuro 6. The reason for the 2000 in the title rather than a 7 (outside of general style of the time) is that a game with that title already existed, but on the PS2. It’s not nearly to the degree of the following year’s PawaPuro game on N64, which even went as far as to have “Basic Edition” in the title, but this is effectively an N64 version of a PS2 game. That said, with the changes they’ve made, you’d hardly notice it. After having so much fun with the previous N64 games in the series, it only made sense to go on to this one next. It took me about 6 to beat the Japanese version of the game’s Succeed mode on original hardware by getting drafted to (my faves~) the Nippon Ham Fighters in the 6th round~

Where the Succeed mode (this series’ version of a career mode) in PawaPuro 5 was about a high school player trying to get drafted and 6 followed a university player, 2000 follows a... company worker? After failing to get drafted playing for your school’s baseball team, you’re still not giving up trying to chase your dream of baseball super stardom! As such, you’ve joined the corporate world for now, but not in any ordinary company. You’ve joined a, erm, baseball company? As a part of the division of the baseball branch of a company (Powerful Products, the company I joined, had a head coach/president who stated work was for the mornings and baseball practice was everything after lunch XD), you’re gonna make it big no matter what it takes in this weird, weird version of a baseball story XD

Upping the ante from the previous game, where you had to balance a part time job to pay your university fees alongside practicing enough to have good stats at baseball, now work and baseball are kinda one in the same. Practicing baseball well makes the head coach happy, but fulfilling your work quotas keeps your manager and the president happy. However since the president is also the head coach, keeping him happy gives you that much more chance of getting put onto the team’s roster, or at least being a bench warmer. You have a regular salary now instead of needing to top up normal university payments with part-time work too, so balancing work with baseball practice is a much more simple task than it was in the previous game (and once you get promoted enough, you won’t need to work anymore anyhow XD).

Money is overall far less of a problem in this game than it was in the previous game, really. The game chides you about not spending too much money or anything, but with no expenses like university fees or annual expenses like how nice a training camp you want to take the team to, there really isn’t that much you’ll need to consider. There’s gear you can buy for your player to increase their chances of getting stat-ups while playing baseball, but you’d need to be pretty straightforwardly irresponsible with your money to ever actually run out of it. The shop randomly gets new items in it in each playthrough, so there’s no guarantee of getting great stuff to upgrade to with any regularity. Your cheaper gear (and even expensive stuff sometimes) will also break periodically, so you’ll need to replace it pretty regularly.

This is overall not a change I like very much. Having your part-time jobs serve as strength training or such was a cool feature of the previous game that made it a more interesting risk-reward system by weighing it against normal baseball practice to impress the coaches. Buying and rebuying things to replace them is just annoying, and the actual work just isn’t very interesting outside of the story interactions for them. It’s also far less reliable to hang out with friends or coworkers to relax like you could in the previous game instead of just straight up resting, which made a lot of the life sim stuff feel less engaging. It felt like you deliberately needed to sacrifice being better at baseball to have any kind of life outside of it, and when the victory condition is *only* being really good at baseball (anything else is a straightforward loss at the end screen), it was hard to feel like getting a girlfriend or being better friends with Yabe was particularly worth it.

This is a real bummer, because your new characters and coworkers more are fun and silly than ever! I loved all the impossible devices you’re made to create for your job, like a wireless power strip or an anti-customer automatic door, and all the funny expressive faces everyone makes during the conversation scenes are just so much fun to watch over and over again. The dialogue is really funny and had me outright cackling out loud at times, even if there is perhaps a bit too much dialogue overall. I appreciate that we still have the option to turn on “short dialogue” mode which skips most of that stuff (and unlike in PawaPuro 6, you can switch that on and off whenever you want now rather than making the choice once at the start of a Success mode run), but it still felt like there were too many long story interruptions week to week when I just wanted to focus on practicing baseball for a bit ^^;. I certainly appreciate the effort Diamond Head and Konami went through to make this feel like a really different, evolved experience from the previous game (even down to the different starting companies feeling REALLY fundamentally different from one another compared to previous games, even down to base game objectives), but the balance between amount of story/events vs. amount of baseball worked much better for me in the previous game even outside of the general changes I don’t like terribly much that I talked about in the previous paragraph.

You’ll really need that baseball practice too, because oh my heck did they make this game a *lot* harder to win the Success mode than in any previous N64 one. Well, I suppose it’s actually more of just a reasonable challenge if you’re actually decent at these games, but I’m not, so it was way harder for me XD. In previous games, you’d have plenty of opportunities to impress the scout both when he’d show up to watch you practice but *also* in the various baseball games he’d watch you play. You always had at least 3 or 4 games a year even if you and/or your team were doing poorly, so you didn’t need to play super duper well to play enough baseball to impress him. In this game, however, that is absolutely not the case.

You still have 3 years to get drafted by, but you will only have a maximum of *2* games a year to play in if you’re not doing well. If your team loses a match in a tournament, there are no other qualifying rounds like PawaPuro 6 had. A loss means you’re out of that tournament, full stop, and your team tends to be way worse on its own than any of the other games ever had it for their default starting circumstances (so good luck winning any game your first year or so, at least in my experience). They’ve thankfully made some thorough changes but also some tough ones since PawaPuro 6 to aid you in this regard, though. Unlike in 6 where you only got to be team captain in your third year, so you only had control over how the team trained for a third of your time on it, now you can tell any of your subordinates how to train as you get promoted. This means that as early as the first year you’ve already got at least some control over how the team is leveling up its stats, and you’ll likely have control over nearly all of it by halfway through the second year. This is a change I really like, especially with how generally poor the team is on its own before you start coaching it in any respect ^^;

The other big change, and one that makes the game far more difficult than prior ones, is that you no longer only control yourself. In prior games, the team’s performance was the team’s performance, but you only controlled your own times at bat. You only ever needed to pitch or play defense if you were playing a pitcher. Now, as early as the second year of playing, the AI will play the first six innings of tournament games (even when your character is up to bat), but you need to control the entire team to play the last three innings. I’m reasonably okay at bat (against weaker pitchers at least <w>), but I’m awful at playing defense in these games (for reasons I’ll get into later), so these stopped a lot of my runs in their tracks because I just couldn’t stop their players from scoring runs.

While your AI-controlled first six innings actually do count towards your personal player’s record, despite you not playing them, anything impressive you do while controlling the other team members does nothing for your chances of being drafted outside of giving you more baseball games to play in and impress the scout further in. The teams you’re playing against are a lot tougher than they used to be too! Some of them will even cheat and play in ways that you can’t to stack the odds against you that much more, and this was just so demoralizing when I was already struggling so much against them. I’m sure some people quite like this change, but as for me, this is just not what I play Success mode for. Sure, some of this is just me being grouchy that I’m bad at defense and it made the game a lot harder and a lot less fun for me, but if I wanted to play a whole team’s games and have it matter, then I’d just play the league or pennant modes already in this game.

At least as far as my personal enjoyment of the game goes, this was a pretty grim injury to the already existing insult of me just not enjoying the general structural changes to how this game’s Success mode changed things so much from PawaPuro 6’s mode. While a lot of the writing is really fun and funny, and I really loved the new characters and presentation too, all of the mechanical changes really just did not mesh well with how I’d come to enjoy these games, and it definitely makes this game’s Success mode the hardest out of any of these to recommend.

I specify the Success mode in particular because the rest of the game is still PawaPuro playing better than it ever has. You’ve still got the scenario mode to play “do or die” moments from the previous year’s real life Japanese pro baseball season, the league and pennant modes to simulate and/or play games against the AI or your friends, the wonderful spectator mode that I use a lot to relax and watch the AI play exhibition matches, and all that other fun stuff. The home run derby and create-a-team modes that you can even put your own players who’ve cleared the Success mode are also still here and as fun as ever.

However, there have been a few general changes to how the game is played that have been things the series has sorely needed, minor as they are. The most worthy of being mentioned is that you can now set if exhibition games and such will have the ability to go into extra innings, and if they’ll only be allowed to go up to 12 or 15 innings rather than that not being an option at all like in earlier games.

While the batting with the targeting reticle is still as fine tuned (and quite the hard skill to master <w>) as ever, playing defense in these old baseball games is still the most tricky aspect of them, as far as I’m concerned. The camera angle from home plate versus the trajectory and speed of the ball when it zooms out to the full-field view has genuinely been improved a lot since PawaPuro 6, and I’m very thankful for that. However, it’s still as hard as ever to actually judge whom the game will assign your control to once the ball begins flying, and that’s a very costly mistake to make when the AI are as good at the game as they are.

I cannot count the number of times I assumed I’d be controlling the second baseman and held hard right to go for the ball when, in fact, the game put me in control of the first baseman so I went in the complete wrong direction and the batter went from what would’ve been an easy out to an easy double or triple as the ball rolled deep into the outfield. The AI never make these mistakes, and effectively can’t make them, so it makes it so frustrating to play against them particularly when they’re cheating in the Success mode. It’s still frustrating as it ever was to play against how perfect they are, but the new camera stuff helps a little, at the very least. That’s just one less thing the AI are automatically perfect at that you had a much harder time being even decent at. Of course, when you’re playing against a human opponent, none of that really matters, and this is just one more thing that makes playing against your buddies that much better an experience.

The presentation of this game is better than ever even despite being the fourth game in the series on this hardware. While the actual baseball playing looks more or less the same as it has since the start of the N64 era, the Succeed mode’s graphics and presentation are better than ever, as I’ve already gone into before. The music is also as great as ever, and jamming out to the Succeed mode music or even the menu music was always very fun~. There are even little trash talking segments before and after games in the Succeed mode now like it’s some old arcade fighting game, and it just brings the silliness to life that much better. Just how much I love all the fun character designs and such in the Succeed mode made it that much more frustrating that it was so much more difficult to play and enjoy this time around, really XD

Verdict: Recommended. This is a *really* weird one to recommend. As far as the actual playing of the baseball goes, it’s better than it’s ever been, and there’s still absolutely no reason to play any other baseball game or series on the N64 as far as I’m concerned (unless real MLB players and teams matter to you that much). On the other hand, the Succeed mode may have a stellar presentation this time around, but it’s also much harder and more unforgiving, making it a much harder recommendation for a casual baseball game fan like myself. Additionally, the rough and annoying edges to actually playing the mode compared to the previous game’s tuning make it harder to recommend for a more seasoned baseball game fan as well. While PawaPuro 6 is still my favorite overall game in the series on the N64, it’s hard to fault just how much the general experience has still improved from that game to this one. This is still a good, but not the best, game if you’re looking for a PawaPuro Success mode to have fun with, but if you’re just looking for a great N64 baseball game to play, then you’ll be damned if you try to find a better experience than this.

1. Streets of Rage 3 (GEN)*
2. Iridion II (GBA)*
3. Final Fantasy III (SNES)



4. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (PS1)

For starters, I don't have much experience with stealth games. My only experience was watching friends play Metal Gear Solid and trying it out a bit, so this is a genre that's out of my usual comfort zone. However, I've wanted to give Tenchu a try as I heard good things from a few different reviewers. And in general I enjoy games that are ninja themed or based in feudal Japan. For this particular playthrough, I went through the game as Rikimaru, the male ninja, who is a little slower but hits a bit harder.

Tenchu is a stealth action game that was released prior to the dual analog controller. With that in mind, the game uses tank controls and uses the L1 button plus the d-pad to adjust the camera to look around your immediate area or look around corners. I actually think the developers did a good job with the control scheme within the limitations they had. It took me some time to learn the controls, as there are some useful button combinations for specific moves, such as a longer jump, a blocking technique, a forward lunge of your sword, and the ability to turn around quickly with a roll or a jump in which you twist in the air. You're going to want to take out enemies with stealth kills, as that will defeat them with one attack. If you end up in a one-on-one fight with an enemy, you have the potential to take a lot of damage, especially if you don't get the blocking down.

The game contains a status bar in the lower left corner which displays your health bar and a number showing how far away the closest enemy is, along with a symbol letting you know whether the enemy is aware of your presence, has spotted you, or is totally oblivious to you. After each mission, the game rates your performance with "Thug" being the lowest rank and "Grand Master" being the best. Tenchu has a point system, and if you manage to get 400+ points in a level, which is mostly decided by getting through undetected and getting a certain amount of stealth kills, you can reach the best rank. If the best rank is attained, you gain access to a special item that can be used later, if you choose. Regarding saves, you have the opportunity to save after you beat each level, but there are no save points in the middle of missions.

Prior to each level, you have a choice to take up to four different additional items, plus your grappling hook, which you automatically have access to in each level. For most missions, you don't need much to help get you through. Shurikens are good for taking care of guard dogs, as they take them out in one hit from a distance, poison rice helps to get a guard to move into a certain position, and bombs are useful for dealing with tough bosses. Also, health potions are useful for longer missions, but can also be found in certain levels. For most missions, you really don't need much, but there are two longer missions in the game where I found it useful to load up. Many of the game's missions can be completed in 10 to 15 minutes, once you figure out where you need to go. You have access to view a map of each level, but there's no guide to show you exactly where to go, so you'll have to figure things out by trial and error.

Graphics wise, the game is in line with other early 3D offerings, with low-res polygons and textures, and a shorter draw distance. While I think it looks decent for the PS1 at the time, gamers who are not fans of that early 3D look might have a tough time going back to this one. My main complaint visually is in regards to the camera. Sometimes when moving off a roof or a ledge and jumping down behind an enemy for a stealth kill, the camera will shift, and the building you were on ends up blocking the view of your character. It didn't happen often, but when it did, it can be particularly frustrating in a game where you're trying not to be spotted, and momentarily can't tell where exactly your character is. Also, the draw distance can be a little tough to deal with at times, as you need to wait for guards to rotate in a certain direction before you can run up behind them, but it can also be difficult to tell which direction they're facing in from longer distances, which is more common in the later levels. Soundtrack wise, the tunes found here are very impressive. There are some great ambient and atmospheric compositions throughout, and the music for the last level and some of the boss fights is quite intense. The music definitely fits well and adds to the experience. It's something that I could put on and listen to outside of the game.

Overall, I ended up really liking Tenchu: Stealth Assassins. Even when I had trouble on the fourth mission and the last mission, or even if I beat a mission but felt like I could do it a bit better and get a better ranking, I was eager to give it another go. I'm looking forward to trying the sequel on the PS1 and the PS2. Even if you're a newcomer to stealth games like myself, I would recommend this one! Check it out if you haven't already!

Partridge Senpai's 2025 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
* indicates a repeat

1. Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii)
2. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
3. Battlefield: Hardline (PS3)
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3)
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (PS3)
6. Dead Nation (PS3)
7. Kileak, The Blood 2: Reason in Madness (PS1)
8. Paro Wars (PS1)
9. in Stars and Time (Steam)
10. Tetris Battle Gaiden (SFC)
11. Super Tetris 3 (SFC)
12. Battlefield 4 (PS3)
13. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3)
14. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3)
15. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (PS4)
16. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PS4)
17. Call of Duty: WWII (PS4)
18. Resistance 3 (PS3)
19. Tearaway: Unfolded (PS4)
20. Grow Home (PS4)
21. Grow Up (PS4)
22. Ratchet & Clank (2016) (PS4)
23. Dark Sector (Steam)
24. Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (N64)
25. Multi-Racing Championship (N64)
26. Super Smash Bros. (N64)
27. Puyo Puyo Sun 64 (N64)
28. Shin Nippon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Road - Brave Spirits (N64)
29. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 6 (N64)
30. Let's Smash (N64)
31. Mario Tennis 64 (N64)
32. Ucchannanchan no Honō no Challenger: Denryū Iraira Bō (N64)
33. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 4 (N64)
34. FIFA: Road to the World Cup 98 (N64)
35. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 2000 (N64)

36. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 5 (N64)

Despite the rough edges that PawaPuro 2000 had, I had really enjoyed the Success modes in 4 and 6, so it only made sense to hunt down 5 as well. I figured it would be a less polished version of 6's mode, as this was the first time they'd actually done a more proper scenario to the Success mode, but 4 was so readily easy and solveable that I assumed it wouldn't be too much trouble. It turns out that I actually got way more than I bargained for, but I overcame it all in the end (but just barely ^^; ). It took me around 5 or so hours playing on real hardware to finally have a successful attempt to get drafted to the Swallows in the 6th round of the draft after going to the normal high school.

PawaPuro 5's Success mode is, as stated before, the first time they really started having these follow some kind of story. PawaPuro 4's Success mode started to have named characters and such (like your buddy Yabe and your rival Mamoru) who'd continue to appear in the series for a long time, but there wasn't much actual character to the story. It was more like a cool gimmick mode that you could use to make your own custom players for the create a team mode. Here, however, things are finally different and a bit more in depth. You are a baseball player entering high school with dreams of making it big in the pro leagues. Your dad heavily disagrees with your choice though because he wants you to study economics and take over the family business. He makes you promise that if you don't make it pro by the end of high school, you've got to promise to give up baseball forever and take up the family business instead. Now you've got three-ish years to show the pro scouts what you're made of on the school baseball team and prove your dad's skepticism wrong! It's a very Sports Anime™ story for sure, but it's also a clever conceit to justify why you can't just try again to make it pro in university or something afterwards.

The overall formula here is very much a middle-ground between PawaPuro 4 and 6, but it more so resembles the latter. You've got the choice to train in a particular way for baseball to raise your stats, and different activities have different chances of getting you hurt. Thank goodness you now have a bespoke meter for your stamina as well as your toughness so you have a much better idea of just how much different activities are tiring you out or decreasing your toughness (a higher toughness decreases your likelihood of injury, so it's very important to keep it high if you can). Other than that, you can consult with your teammates, captain, coach, or others, and you can also study/rest if you want to. It's nowhere near as in depth or nuanced as later games (even just the very next one) would have it, but all of these options on top of just how many more story events the more specific story allows for makes this SUCH a step up from PawaPuro 4 that it's kinda difficult to compare their finer points.

The main way they're different is in how that aspect of having a life simulation is increased so highly. Whereas later games would have you juggling your work or part-time job for money in addition to your baseball practice, this game has your studies. Resting isn't just resting in PawaPuro 5, and instead it's both resting *and* studying (with a chance to get increases on one, the other, or ideally both). If you haven't been studying, you'll fail the exams in February and you'll be shoved into a remedial class to retake the tests, and that means more than a month of no baseball practice at all (on top of the coach and the team being very angry at you). You'll need the coach and captain's approval if you want to actually debut in games at all, so shirking your studies is something you only do at your own peril. PawaPuro 4 had no element like this at all, so this is already a huge change from that game that takes a while to get used to.

Additionally, there are a lot more characters and random events to partake in. Yabe and Mamoru along with your younger teammates, classmates, teachers, and others are all much larger characters than ever. Mamoru even has a little brother that I've never seen him have in any other game, and the relationship you can have with the two of them is honestly quite sweet and novel compared to later game's handling of Mamoru as just a rival to hate. Granted that isn't saying much as PawaPuro 4 has virtually no true characters in its story mode, but it's still a lot more than that! XD.

You can even actually get a girlfriend now, and having and keeping a girlfriend can do a lot for your mental well being, which in turn will make practicing for baseball a lot more easy to do. I found it a lot trickier to keep a girlfriend and make dating worthwhile than it had been in PawaPuro 6, frankly, but it's a nice step in the right direction in terms of letting you choose your own destiny and role play a bit. I'm a lot less than happy at the misogynistic jokes they often do on the Valentine's Day event where a conventionally unattractive girl (complete with stubble or other traditionally "ugly" features) who otherwise doesn't even exist in the story will confess her affection to you, but it's hard to expect more from Konami, frankly, and it's mercifully a pretty small part of the game.

In all these new features, however, lies a game that's experiencing a *lot* of growing pains. In trying to turn this into more of a life simulation game, they've left a lot of things FAR too harshly tuned against the player, and it frankly makes this game the most miserable Success mode on the console by far. It's frankly hard to enjoy any of the life simulation stuff at all because the world and everything in it are out to get you SO damn hard. I had well over a dozen runs of this (only a few of which were actually going well enough that I took them anywhere near the end), and most of them I had to quit because I was just getting dicked over by bad luck SO hard and so frequently. It's hard to even start not already behind, as this game has an extremely high chance to start you either already sick (with some awful illness you'll need to sacrifice weeks of practice to heal immediately) or the "poor sense" trait, which cannot be healed and means your stat gains are worse for the entire game. The run I actually *barely* ended up winning on was the sole run where I had zero starting traits at all, and at that point I was absolutely shocked to learn that such a starting condition was possible at all in the first place.

However, your capacity for bad luck extends far beyond your birth (so to speak). Random events that you have no control over (like getting poisoned before a game or have some awful prank pulled on you at practice because another one of the city's high school team's gimmicks is cheating like bastards) screw you over constantly, getting you hurt, losing you stats, and making people hate you. Events you *do* have some modicum of control over do this too, and it quickly leads to a strategy of never trying any new event because the chances of getting hurt or bad results from them are *so* high. I'm completely convinced that percentages telling you the chances of getting hurt per practice type even lie to you as well, as doing knock practice got me hurt SO often (at least once a year if not more and for 4~6 weeks at a time, coming with massive stat losses as well) despite the alleged 1% chance of injury, meanwhile other 1% activities never got me hurt at all.

Even something like resting/studying isn't free from peril, as you're never actually guaranteed a good result on that. You don't actually get to choose which of those things you do, as they're one and the same event, so a *lot* of the time you'll only get rest and no studying or vice versa. It basically robs the game of any actually reliable way to rest, and that hurts a lot when you're already getting dicked over so hard by everything else. Even getting drafted is left way up to chance, as Mamoru will challenge you to a few "single hit challenges", where you try and hit one ball he throws at you to try and show he's not so much better than you. The scout follows you to this, and succeeding on it actually gives a huge boost to his opinion of you (my winning run had like 4 out of 5 success in this somehow). However, unlike later games where you're actually swinging at his pitches with the game's normal batting mechanics, here you're just picking 1 choice from 3 possible pitches he might do and hoping for the best. It really sucks as something you're forced to do at least 2 or 3 times a playthrough, because if you miss his pitch the scout's opinion of you actually DROPS, instead!

You can ill afford those drops, too. Compared to any of the other three PawaPuro games I've played through on this console, your team is absolutely AWFUL at baseball. Unless you're playing really amazingly (putting up like 2 or 3 RBIs a game at the very very least), your team is almost certainly going to lose, and then that's it. No matter how hard I tried, I found it completely impossible to make the team in my first year, so that means you're only playing *three* games minimum in one run of the game unless you're racking up wins. That is generally nowhere close to enough baseball to impress the scout enough, so you're going to lose, and if you're hurt from one of the game's many sources of easy injury, you'll miss even the few games you *do* get to play in. I never even managed to make team captain in my 2nd year no matter what I did either, so you must need to be incredibly skilled and lucky to make that compared to any other of these Success modes. All that meant is that I never even got to control how my awful team trained, not that it'd matter all that much since it'd only have an actual effect for one whole tournament (the last one you play).

Overall, I found the Success mode in PawaPuro 5 a great source of schadenfreude for my friends, but a marvelous suffering simulator for myself. It's a nice gimmick mode if you're looking for something to hurl yourself into in a vain attempt at success, or a nice challenge mode if you're already *really* good at these old baseball games, but outside of those scenarios, it's one of the weakest versions of this mode Konami ever made. PawaPuro 6 is just as cheap and easy to find as this game, so if you're looking for a good Success mode on this console that's enjoyable if you're not a veteran retro baseball game player, there is absolutely no reason to give this game the time of day.

As for the actual baseball itself, it's still as great as it's ever been. The batting and pitching are still great with how they use the targeting reticles. Fielding is still quite hard due to how it determines which player you'll be controlling once the ball is hit, but that's something just about all these retro baseball games struggle with, and you'd never have trouble with it if you were playing with a human buddy anyhow (and even still, you can always just set it so the game does the fielding for you anyhow). The create a team mode, home run derby mode, league, pennant, and even the returned scenario mode are all here to let you baseball to your heart's content. While the Success mode may be incredibly lacking compared to other entries, the actual playing of baseball is just as solid as it's ever been from the brilliant minds at Diamond Head.

The aesthetics are also as charming as ever. We've transitioned away from the pre-rendered 3D model design for the players that PawaPuro 4 used in favor of dedicated sprites, and they look as excellent as they'd continue to do in this style on the N64. As miserable as the Success mode often is, the designs for characters in it have gotten a major facelift from how they looked and acted in PawaPuro 4. Even though they're still a far cry from the jumps we'd see them make in PawaPuro 6 and 2000, it's still hard to deny just how far they've come. The announcer is put together just as well as ever for the games, and the music is as fantastic and funky as ever. Even the options menus are super charming in yet another way as the keep upping the ante on how to make the UI fun and different each year. I just wish they'd put all of the options in one place so you didn't have a main menu options mode and an in-game options mode too XP

Verdict: Hesitantly Recommended. As I said before, the actual playing of the baseball is still as great as ever. If you don't mind lacking MLB teams and can vibe just fine with NPB ones instead, there's a lot of fun to be had here if you're just looking for a way to play baseball with a buddy on this platform. That said, with so many of these games on this console (and others of the time) all at the same low price point, it's very hard to recommend this title over any other when the unique experience to this game, the Success mode, is so damn poor. While this game stands fine on its own as a baseball game, it is towered over by its brethren on the N64 for the features really worth taking a look at in the current year, so if you've got the chance to play any PawaPuro but this one on the N64, I'd go for any of them instead, frankly.

1. Growing My Grandpa! (Point-and-Click Adventure)(PC)
2. The Black Masses (Action RPG)(PC)
3. Dead Estate (Action)(PC)
4. Call of Cthulhu (Horror RPG)(PC)
5. 100 Asian Cats (Puzzle)(PC)
6. Blade Chimera (Action)(PC)
7. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (Action)(PC)
8. 7 Days to Die (Action)(PC)
9. An Arcade Full of Cats (Puzzle)(PC)
10. Excive A-1000 (FPS)(PC)

I've been quiet lately because I've been playing some endless multiplayer games or just hopping around, but I did manage to beat a few titles during my silence. Time I record them.


7 Days to Die

Technically it's an endless game, but as there isn't really an end game, and I reached max level and did everything, I'm saying it's beaten. 7 Days to Die is about surviving a zombie apocalypse, because what isn't about surviving a zombie apocalypse these days? You fight zombies, explore, craft bases, and so forth. You make weapons and armor, visit traders, figure out how to traverse, strip mine sections of the world for resources, and claim your territory. Eventually bigger zombies show up, and you kill them. It's mostly straightforward.

Except that the title is important. The 7 days referenced is when the blood moon rises, and suddenly hordes of angry, screaming zombies that know exactly where you are come running. When you build your base, you have to take them into account, because they will literally burrow under you to get to you, because they want to kill you that bad. I wish I was kidding, but no, they take the direct line. And if the direct line means to cut the supports out from under you or dig through the earth to find your hidden cavern, they do it. This is the real meat of the game; the rest is bland in comparison.

Unfortunately, beyond that, there isn't much to do. The lack of an end game does significantly hamper things. But development is ongoing, so who knows, maybe there will be a proper one some day.


An Arcade Full of Cats

This is another hidden object game, but it's actually surprisingly deep for one of these titles. You're not just looking at an arcade, you're looking at it through time, with each level being a different era of the arcade's lifespan in the United States as well as a capsule of what culture looked like at each time. You go in, you find cats, as well as hidden cats, but you also find things like coins to use with specific arcade games that take you to themed levels based around popular games at the time. Not just arcade games either, but game history. There are also expansions which add new time periods where no arcade existed but still provide new means to search. I found the game delightful, and it openly celebrates a piece of American cultural history.


Excive A-1000

You are a robot sent in to kill other robots in Wolfenstein 3D style, only you also have shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, which are useful for destroying landmines. That's pretty much it: start a level, fight your way through, blow stuff up, find secrets, kill enemies. Eventually fight bosses, some of which are frustrating challenges because they're faster and like to run you over. Also, keep in mind there is no way to customize controls or anything, and the game has a bug that caused me to pull left very slowly, so...yeah, I can't recommend this. It's not a bad little FPS overall, but it's annoying at times, so I'm not gonna tell you to play it.

First nine: 10. CyberPunk 2077
Amazingly ambitious, just seeing the effort put into this is a marvel. Goes beyond the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Witcher III in almost every way, and thankfully, also in terms of gameplay and emergency. Unfortunately, the whole thing buckles under its own weight, as it's clear that the design process was hacked into parts for delegation. So don't expect level design as bold and organic as in Deus Ex, and systems working as well together. But there's still a lot to toy around with, and often enough make a choice with emotional weight.
8/10

11. Wario Land 4
Despite being the third iteration as a costume-based puzzle platformer, design is still rather tame and in stark contrast with the its exuberant personality. Some of the later levels dare the player to think twice, but never are you allowed to attempt things creatively. Still, it's a highly saccharine trip and you can't help but feel glee as Wario plows through ancient ruins with reckless abandon. Great bosses, too!
7/10

12. SUGAR (Jen Simpkins)
This interaction fiction is so short, it borders on being poetry. No matter, every second is gripping, as is every branch in the narrative. We already knew she was a talented writer as editor of Edge. I can only hope Jen's talents make it into other games. And you get to be a sex worker that eats the rich, indeed a very wholesome topic.
7/10

...so I finally wrapped up Ace Attorney Justice for All over the weekend. It's the second Phoenix Wright game that I've completed, and I played through the HD remaster on my Series X. Though I own the DS release, my eyes just aren't what they used to be , and the remastered Ace Attorney games just have a really nice presentation in one convenient package. On to the second game in the Ace Attorney series, I found that the tone of the game overall is a little darker. The cases imo appear to have more at stake and honestly, some of the culprits had some solid motivations for what they did, and the defendants aren't always very likable people. The final case especially flips the traditional Phoenix Wright gameplay goal on its head and allows for two distinct conclusions to the game. Gameplay wise Justice for All is the typical Ace Attorney fare, though I did find it a bit more difficult than what I remember the original game in the series being, but maybe it's just the way I'm remembering things but some of the puzzles in Justice for All seem very obtuse. Overall, I really enjoyed the game, especially the new character Pearly. My only issues really being the length of the 4th case, which seemed like it dragged on for a while and some of the solutions to the cases. I'm looking forward to checking out Trials and Tribulations, but I'm going try to work through some other games before getting back to the Phoenix Wright series.

Just beat Iron Meat for PC. Granted, it was on Easy, but still.

Markies' Games Beat List Of 2025!
***Denotes Replay For Completion***

1. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (Wii)
2. Mario Party 4 (GCN)
***3. The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age (PS2)***
***4. Pokemon Snap (N64)***
***5. Dead Or Alive (PS1)***
6. Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
7. Pokemon Blue (GBC)
8. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
***9. Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising (NSW)***
***10. Sonic The Hedgehog (GEN)***
***11. The New Tetris (N64)***



I completed The New Tetris on the Nintendo 64 this evening!

I want to say that I have been playing The New Tetris off and on for about 15 years now. I actually cannot remember when I picked up the game, but for a while this was a go-to game for my friend and I. If one of our board games ended too soon and we still had some time to kill, we would pop in The New Tetris and try to get some lines together. We would mute the game, put on a YouTube playlist of video game music and play until our minds couldn't take it anymore. Well, it slowly became not a frequent occurrence anymore. So, my friend suggested I play it on my lunch breaks now that I work from home. It's the perfect game to play for like 20 minutes at a time and make a little bit of progress. After many months, I finally collected over 500,000 lines which means I unlocked the last wonder and I completed the game.

The New Tetris is a very simple and no frills game of Tetris. It's really just Tetris with other window dressing. There is no Game Mode B like in the NES version. The big draw is that you can play 4 player Tetris, which gets very chaotic. You have different modes, but they are either timed, a race or a marathon. The big difference is in the game of Tetris. For one, you can save a piece, which I think is the very first introduction of that mechanic and comes in very handy along with a series staple later on. But, you can also create these large blocks if you create a perfect 4 x 4 piece of either multiple shapes or the same shape. When you complete a line with these large blocks, they add an additional 6 or 12 lines. That came in very handy when trying to get to 500,000 lines. After a certain milestone of lines, you will unlock a wonder and the goal of the game is to unlock seven of these wonders. All of this is wrapped around a world music style soundtrack that has some very hypnotic tracks and I could easily play a Marathon match for over 40 minutes of dropping these blocks.

Overall, I absolutely loved playing The New Tetris. Actually, I am a little saddened that I finished it. It is the perfect game to play for a short while and those are getting hard to find. They are perfect to play after lunch or while waiting for your friend to call. Trying to do this one in long sittings would have drained me, so this was a fun alternative. I don't know if I'll do another lunch game, but I can always do some SRPG grinding on Saturdays.

Partridge Senpai's 2025 Beaten Games:
Previously: 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
* indicates a repeat

1. Arc Rise Fantasia (Wii)
2. Return of the Obra Dinn (PC)
3. Battlefield: Hardline (PS3)
4. Call of Duty: Black Ops (PS3)
5. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (PS3)
6. Dead Nation (PS3)
7. Kileak, The Blood 2: Reason in Madness (PS1)
8. Paro Wars (PS1)
9. in Stars and Time (Steam)
10. Tetris Battle Gaiden (SFC)
11. Super Tetris 3 (SFC)
12. Battlefield 4 (PS3)
13. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (PS3)
14. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (PS3)
15. Call of Duty: Black Ops III (PS4)
16. Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (PS4)
17. Call of Duty: WWII (PS4)
18. Resistance 3 (PS3)
19. Tearaway: Unfolded (PS4)
20. Grow Home (PS4)
21. Grow Up (PS4)
22. Ratchet & Clank (2016) (PS4)
23. Dark Sector (Steam)
24. Nagano Winter Olympics '98 (N64)
25. Multi-Racing Championship (N64)
26. Super Smash Bros. (N64)
27. Puyo Puyo Sun 64 (N64)
28. Shin Nippon Pro Wrestling: Toukon Road - Brave Spirits (N64)
29. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 6 (N64)
30. Let's Smash (N64)
31. Mario Tennis 64 (N64)
32. Ucchannanchan no Honō no Challenger: Denryū Iraira Bō (N64)
33. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 4 (N64)
34. FIFA: Road to the World Cup 98 (N64)
35. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 2000 (N64)
36. Jikkyou Pawafuru Puroyakyuu 5 (N64)

37. Time and Eternity (PS3)

After finishing Arc Rise Fantasia earlier in the year, I'd definitely become more than a little interested in ImageEpoch's back catalogue of games. Their only other major console release was this, which had a few other very interesting aspects to its reputation and development. It reviewed very poorly with most English-speaking outlets when it came out, yes, but it also released in 2013, when Japanese RPGs were very not in vogue. It's often hard to find opinions in English-language press from that period that I can truly trust, as most of them valued things in games that are totally alien to what I generally enjoy in games (if they weren't so obsessed with Japan/anime-bashing that they'd give the game a fair shot in the first place). Despite that, this game has a writer who's credited with the scenarios for some of the most lauded (Japan-exclusive) RPGs of the PS1 era such as Linda Cubed. All of that topped off with just how novel and interesting the presentation was made this a game I just had to check out, so thankfully it was something I could find for very cheap out here. Playing the Japanese version of the game, it took me around 30 hours for my first playthrough on normal mode doing all the sidequests, and then it took me another 15 or so hours to beat it on New Game+ for the best ending on easy mode.

Time and Eternity is the story of Zack, a knight about to be married to the beautiful princess Toki. Having just returned home after months out on expedition, you're catching up with Toki and her friends at your tiny home you have in the city. When Toki mentions a weird prophecy she got from some random lady like six months ago about a death happening at the wedding, you're a little concerned, but you brush it off as random craziness. However, such is not your luck. At the wedding the next day, just as you're about to kiss the bride, assassins barge the door down! You manage to cut one down, but only after he's struck you with a fatal blow. As you lay dying in your bride's arms, she suddenly shifts attitude completely, her hair goes blonde, and she starts kicking the ever-loving hell out of these assassins. Before you can even begin to guess what's happening, she uses time magic to warp back in time six months ago to see if that prophecy had anything to it in the first place. You luckily get to go along too, but not in your body. Stuck unable to talk in the body of her pet dragon, you set out with her to see if there's no solving this problem of getting killed on your wedding day.

That's a lot to take in for a premise, but it's ultimately the setup to a really sweet love story (and quite the unconventional one at that). Toki and her blonde counterpart aren't just different forms of Toki either. The blonde girl is someone else entirely, Towa. They're what's called a "dual soul", with two souls in one body. Toki was just "in the front" more often for convenience reasons, but now the current crisis has meant that Towa comes out front too just as regularly. As someone who is plural myself, it's very hard for me not to read Toki and Towa as a form of plurality (however likely unintentional by the authors of the story it may've been), and I honestly really love the depiction here. People (including Zack) are a bit surprised at first, but they're very accepting of the two as they are despite an adjustment period. Also being someone who's polyamorous, I also really appreciated how they do the love story between Zack, Toki, and Towa. It was really sweet and a huge surprise to see a story about something that could've been a love triangle, but where the guy just nonjudgmentally loves both girls and (can) end up with both of them in the end. As someone who *also* just got married, I'll admit this story ended up being kinda laser-targeted at my exact demographic XD. Even still, I really loved how it was written. It's a really sweet and unconventional romance with a lot of really great representation as well as messages about healthy relationships. It's also got other kinds of messaging that you don't see in stories enough, especially romance stories, about how you don't *need* a romantic partner to live a fulfilled, happy, love-filled life, and your friends can be just as important and fulfilling for you in that regard. Unconventional as it may be, there's a tremendous amount of heart and sincerity to the story at play here, and I loved it to pieces.

And it's not just sweet, it's funny too! T&E is a game that's pretty darn genre savvy about both fantasy stories and romance stories, and it has a lot of fun being flippant about tropes present in both. So many people you meet are just the most chuu-ni weirdos you've ever conceived, like when you try and borrow a magazine from a guy only to learn he's eaten it instead, or when a big evil dragon is more afraid of bureaucracy than he is the point of a sword XD. This is definitely a comedy from the time it was made, however, and Zack being a weirdo and a pervert is definitely no small part of it. It making someone uncomfortable would be a really legit reason to enjoy the comedy less, even if far from all (or even most) of the comedy centers around it. That said, I do find it a wild change of pace that nearly all of Zack's attempts to peep at a girl are at no one other than his fiance(s). It's not consensual, sure, so it's hardly un-problematic, but this is also SO much higher a bar for this kind of fiction compared to usual (for stuff both then and now) that I'll give it credit for that much at least ^^;. Still, pervy weirdness aside, as a big Urusei Yatsura fan, I still really do enjoy how much of that comedy is still centered around what a moron and a loser Zack is as well as how rarely he actually gets what he wants. As much as the humor may not be for everyone, I still thoroughly enjoyed it despite being someone who generally has a very low tolerance for anime sex-comedy bullshit <w>

The gameplay is also very unconventional too, but that's largely because of how the game's aesthetics are. If you look up any video of this game, it'll be hard to ignore or miss what's so novel about it. While the environments are 3D, all of the characters and enemies are animated 2D sprites that look like they've been pulled right out of an anime. There are a large amount of recycled animations, of course (the game wasn't made with infinite money, after all), but they're used very well to make a story I found both well written and very visually appealing. Lumped in with a stellar Japanese voice cast and an excellent Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack, the aesthetics of this game are as phenomenal as they are novel. I think it'd be totally fair to not vibe with how not-quite-perfect the animation is compared to a real TV show, or how the 3D environments are a bit simple to the point that they let down just how nice the 2D art is, but those were never meaningful problems for my playthrough.

However, with this kind of aesthetic conceit, the gameplay has to make some compromises and interesting choices to build itself around that as a result. This is an RPG with random battles and dungeons (of a sort) to go through, but they all need to take into account that you're 2D flat. Dungeons are very straightforward as a result, and thanks to the mini-map in the corner, you'll never get lost. Exploration and puzzle solving even like how contemporary Tales games do it is not what this game's gameplay loop is about (which is fair for a game that's nearly part visual novel with just how much text and dialogue there is). What gameplay is there, however, is honestly closer to something like Punch Out than any RPG I can think of.

In control of Toki or Towa, you face monsters in a sort of duel format with them at one point and you at the other. You can blast them with your rifle at range or get in close and personal to use your knife (for bigger combo damage), but there are only those two far points to move between, so knowing when to move in for pressure or stay back for safety are a fun way to learn every monster. You've also got very powerful magic that you can sling at enemies, as magic can't be blocked. It can be dodged, however, and you can dodge left or right (Punch Out-style) to dodge enemy attacks and magic. Magic may waste most enemies in one or two blasts, but it takes a *long* time to charge up, so learning when you can actually safely go for big swings is another important part of fighting your foes in this game.

On top of all of that, you don't actually control when you swap between Toki and Towa. They change who's fronting automatically every level up, so you'll need to learn how to fight just about every enemy with both girls. You can get new active and passive skills with an in-game skill tree too, but those also only actually give you new toys to play with upon a new switch of who's fronting. With Towa more geared towards getting stuns on the enemy and rushing them down with melee, and Toki more focused on rapid ranged attacks and powerful magic, learning how to tackle especially the stronger enemies with both of them made for a very fun gameplay loop. It's far from the hardest game in the world, but the harder fights will definitely push your problem solving abilities as you try and figure out a boss's weak points. Thankfully, you can just retry any fight you lose immediately for no penalty at all. The game is ultimately far from the hardest game in the world, and has effectively no grinding at all with how enemy EXP division is handled, but that results in a very good pacing for both the story and gameplay that I really appreciated. As much as this is mechanically a game that you probably won't know how you vibe with until you try it, I found it very engaging and fun, and I was honestly kinda bummed when I ran out of side content to do.

Verdict: Recommended. This game has *just* enough rough edges and "your mileage may vary" design aspects in both its mechanics and writing that I can't quite comfortably highly recommend it to everyone, but even with that said, I absolutely adored this game. It's a kind of romance and comedy that I never expected to see from any game, let alone one from over a decade ago, but it's still one that made me laugh as much as it made me cry. This game may not be perfect, but it's still a beautiful love story with some awesome representation too. If I can say anything else about Time and Eternity, it's that it is a *wildly* over-hated game online by any measure, and it's far more worth checking out than nearly any of the old critical assessments gave it credit for. If it didn't have the absolutely exceptional Arc Rise Fantasia that I played earlier in the year to contend with, it'd definitely be my favorite game I'd played all year, but even still, it'll always have a special place in my heart regardless~.