The DLC Report: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC #2 - Hero

 Another heroic mime joins the party!

 Yes, another Swordsman joins the cast. But hero is a bit more unique than the average Smash anime sword-user, y'see, he doesn't have counter, praise the sun!

 The Hero is alright. I love the fact that he has four different looks based off four different Dragon Quest games. Plus, I think he is a perfect pick for Smash, alongside Banjo, not only did the first Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior games defined the Famicom era in Japan, but Dragon Quest itself is a bit of a big deal in the world of gaming, at least in Japan. Heck, while Dragon Quest jumped ship after V, it eventually returned to the Nintendo DS, with a new instalment(Dragon Quest IX is one of the best JRPGs on the Nintendo DS, you can fight me on this, but, trust me, this is not a hill you want to die on) as well as remakes of a few of the classics. The Hero deserves this place in Smash, which makes him a stellar pick for a newcomer.

 That said, can't say I'm much of a fan of the execution. A ton of his basic attacks seem ripped straight out of Roy and Link's movesets. It also drives me bonkers how every anime-swordsman(Joker, Shulk, Cloud, FE Lords, Hero) have different proportions, it looks so weird! On another note, I like the MP mechanic, but his Down+B is a bit hard to pull off, since you have to take your eyes off the action in order to see what the RNG god picked for you, and then scroll towards your desired spell. That said, his Side+B looks amazing and has fantastic KOing potential.

 All in all, while I didn't find his playstyle all that fun or original, the Hero is a great addition to the cast in virtue of his reputation alone. I love how many different skins he has, so there's bound to be a Hero that catches your fancy, in my case, Eight's my boy. We are down two characters out of five, and so far, both characters were good inclusions due to who they are and not because of their gameplay. Hilariously enough, it's the other way around with the Piranha Plant, a poor choice... but is so much fun to play. Regardless, Banjo-Kazooie are looking like a real winner and they can't come out soon enough.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #676: 64 Memories - Chameleon Twist 2

 Any game that tells me I'm perfect deserves bonus points.

 Part I: The Flashback
 Now begins my 'unfulfilled dreams' saga on the Nintendo 64 memories, a 4-game epic comprised of sequels to games I loved but never got to play, starting with Chameleon Twist 2. While I learned last year that Chameleon Twist definitely wasn't as good as I remembered, it was still a very precious game from my childhood, so I knew that I would eventually get around playing the sequel, a game that eluded me for years. I knew it existed. I read reviews. I wanted this game, but I never ever saw it up for sale or rental. Today is reckoning day.

 Part II: The Review
 It's good, it's really good. For a while I was arguing with myself about which game was better, either this one or the first one, but that's because nostalgia kept getting in the way. Basic gameplay is the same as the first game, but it has been expanded upon. Just like before, you'll use your long reptilian tongue to eat-and-spit enemies, vault yourself up into the air or use it as a grappling hook over chasms. What's you new, is that now you can spin on a horizontal axis as well as a vertical one, plus, now you can stick your tongue towards pretty much any wall, and, after your Chameleon follows his tongue and hits the wall, press the A button to walljump. It adds an entirely new dimension to the platforming, making for fun new obstacles as well as new last-ditch efforts to save yourself from a bottomless pit. There's also a parachute, used with the Z button, to slow down your descent.

 Part of the problem with the first game was that it had a great idea, but didn't make the most of it. While this game is six stages short, it has a bigger emphasis on the platforming. There are plenty of new challenges to beat, and the game can get moderately difficult on the last stage. Rarely does it feel unfair, as even the toughest platforming challenges feel doable with the tools you are given. I'll admit, however, that there were a few quirks with the engines, sometimes my Chameleon would slide off a few surfaces that didn't seem so steep as to not allow me more leeway into running against it. The fourth level's boss also felt rather tough, I never really did learn how to avoid his arms, but I managed to brute-force my way through.

 Remember the collectible crowns from the first game? And how they did pretty much nothing? Now there are two collectibles, Coins and Carrots. There's one Carrot per level, and they unlock a few silly minigames like bowling. Coins, however, are used to unlock costumes. Each Chameleon has his and her own six costumes, which is really neat. Collecting all twenty Coins in a stage not only rewards you with a costume, it'll also display a message saying 'You are Perfect', which, in my opinion, is a much better reward. On the other hand, the american version of the game gave characters new, more 'realistic' character models which are just hideous. If you can, just get the Japanese version, it's not like dialogue is important in this game, and you'll get the original, round-headed chameleons.

 As for a few gripes, the camera is still a bit wonky, you can't turn it but shift it left or right, which is weird to say the least. If the first game has one thing over this one, besides the character designs, is that levels were more aesthetically pleasing. The jungle felt like a jungle, the chocolate factory felt like a factory. In this game, levels are made up of platforms floating over simple, colorful background images. Mind you, this game favors platforming over everything else, and these stages have much better obstacles than the ones in the first game, but they are cruder in design, a bit too basic for my taste. You could swap any level's textures and it wouldn't matter since it's just platforms floating over static images. The first game had both enclosed spaces as well as more open areas, which make stages actually feel like places instead of, well, game obstacles. There's also new power-ups you can pick up, but soon you'll wonder why bother since they could also be power-downs, it's entirely random. There's nothing worse than getting a temporary speed-down nerf just when a falling-platform challenge awaits you, or getting your tongue shortened just as you need to fault over poles. It's such a weird addition.

 As a whole, I can say that Chameleon Twist 2 is a great sequel to a bland game. This time around the developers knew what they had and they chose to build upon it. The platforming is quite fun, although a couple more stages wouldn't have hurt. On the other hand, it sucks that we get the ugly redesigns, but getting a Japanese cart to run on an American console isn't too hard. I'll admit that the first game had better stage-layouts, but there's no denying that these levels are better designs from a gameplay standpoint.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #675: 64 Memories - Turok 3 - Shadow of Oblivion

 Third time's the charm. Sorta.

 Part I: The Flashback
 This was one of the final few games I got on the Nintendo 64, and thus, I never got to play it as much as I played the other Turok games. That said, I remember enjoying Turok 3 - Shadow of Oblivion a whole lot. I loved having two playable characters, with different weaponry and routes, and I sure loved continuing Turok's story. I don't think I spent much time with this game's multiplayer since Rage Wars had that covered.

 The first thing that hit me was how great the game looked as soon as the intro cinematic played. It's very memorable, and you can tell that this game had high production costs. What I hadn't noticed back then, however, is how much they toned down the violence. Maiming enemies is a pretty rare occurrence now, and when it does happen we don't get fancy, gruesome death animations. A shame!

 Part II: The Review
 The Turok series hasn't aged the best, but it's my humble opinion that Turok 3 has held up much better than the other two. Firstly, they have streamlined levels into much more linear affairs, to the game's benefits. There are still keys to be found, a super powerful weapon to be assembled and what not, but you no longer need keys to open up other levels, need to revisit older stages or even go round and round through massive levels. It's a much better approach that makes the game much more fun to play through. As previously mentioned, there are two characters now, Danielle and Joseph, each one gets alternate routes at key points during every level, since Danielle has a grappling hook and can jump a little higher than Joseph, while Joseph can crawl through smaller spaces. Each character also gets different enhanced weaponry, so, for instance, while both characters get the Shotgun, Danille can upgraded it into a Fire Shotgun while Joseph gets the Shredder. As a rule of thumb, Danielle gets the more explosive and powerful weaponry, while Joseph gets more tactical and stealthier upgrades. Which means Danielle is a blast to play with.

 Besides levels being more constricted and thus more manageable, the game has completely done away with the lives system, now we have unlimited retries as well as very generous checkpoints. Praise the gods. You can also save at any time. The framerate is still pretty bad, but nowhere near as unplayable as Turok 2. While cutscenes look like very early PS2 graphics, you can tell that graphics during gameplay have definitely lost a bit of detail, but it's a fair tradeoff if I can actually play the game now. That said, there were a few instances that dropped the framerate into single digits, but they were brief and far in-between.

 While in my youth I adored every Turok game(except the first one), this one is the first one that I can say I enjoyed all the way through in the present day. I lurked a few forums before trying out Turok 3 after all these years, and I saw that it received a rather lukewarm reception, and now I know why, at a surface level it feels like a step back from Turok 2, with simpler graphics, smaller levels and less collectibles... but seen through modern-day lenses, all those tweaks and changes make for a much more enjoyable experience.

 It's still not perfect, however. I found a few setpieces, particularly in the last two levels, to be rather boring. Aiming with the N64's joystick is less than ideal, as per usual, and while the framerate is more tolerable... it's still pretty bad.
 5.0 out of 10

Review #674: Bloodstained - Curse of the Moon

 Alright, we don't need Konami anymore.

 Alright, I'm gonna cut right to the chase here: Bloodstained - Curse of the Moon is amazing. Not only did Igarashi create one of his best Metroidvanias with Bloodstained, he also produced one of the finest Classicvanias out there. Seeing how we've got both fronts covered, I think I can safely say that we can officially forget that Konami exists.

 Curse of the Moon is a weird 8-bit demake/alternate take on Bloodstained, here you play as Zangetsu as his curse drives him to slay a lot of demons. On his journey he'll join up with Ritual of the Night's protagonist Miriam, Alfred and Gebel, the main antagonist of said game. Or you can just kill them. That's right, you can kill them. The game is made up of 8 different stages, and on the first three you'll meet up with your potential allies, then you can either talk to them, and have them join you on your adventure, kill them, and have Zangetsu earn a new move, or just ignore them. You can get slightly different epilogues depending on what you do, but the real kicker is that you can unlock different modes on either 'Everyone joins' or 'Everyone dies' routes. Ignoring characters unlocks nothing, but it's easily the hardest way to play the game. Killing everyone unlocks 'Ultimate Mode', which let's you play as the powered up version of Zangetsu AND recruit the other characters, while allying with everyone unlocks 'Nightmare Mode', in which you play as a party made up of Miriam, Alfred and Gebel from the start, and they get an alternate eight stage.

 The game plays just like any classicvania, you move from left to right, slaying enemies and clearing platforming challenges. There are two different styles: Veteran and Casual. Veteran plays like any Classicvania: Getting hit pushes you back, often to your doom, health pick ups are extremely rare and live can run out. Casual, on the other hand, is much more lenient, getting hit won't ruin your jumps, you'll come across health pick ups often and lives are unlimited. I found it a great way to please everyone, want the hardcore experience? Go with Veteran. Would you rather have a much more pleasant cruise? Casual is for you. Regardless of which style you go with, the game offers a decent, but fair, challenge. Depending on your the decisions the game might get a bit tougher, for instance, throughout every level you can come across permanent power ups, but these require having allies to reach, as even a powered-up Zangetsu can't reach most of them, and if you decide to ignore everyone, you'll have a weak Zangetsu all the way through,

 As for the game itself, it plays like a dream. Controls are responsive and simple: A jump button, an attack button and a subweapon button, you can also use L and R to switch between your characters on the fly, each one having their own lifebar. Subweapons can be found inside purple candles, and each character has their own set of subweapons, these consume 'magic points' which can be replenished by finding magic pick-ups, usually hidden inside orange candles. Each character also have their own stats and abilities: Zangetsu has the highest life bar and attack power, but he has a short reach and limited subweapons(One that buffs him or an ally for a while. an upwards chain attack or a downward tag-bomb), Miriam can jump higher than anyone else and slide, has the second largest lifebar, long reach thanks to her whip and the most versatile subweapons... although who needs versatility when her ax subweapon is the biggest damage dealer in the entire game? Alfred is slow, has the shortest reach and shortest lifebar, but has very useful spells, it's a good idea to cast something and then switch to another character so that him or her can make use of it. Gebel is a bit more unique, his basic attack sends three bats flying upwards, but he has a single subweapon: Bat transformation, allowing him to reach higher places... or skip a ton of hazards! Killing everyone earns Zangetsu a special jumping attack, a double jump and the ability to dash.

 I can't stress this enough, Curse of the Moon is immensely enjoyable. Each playthrough should last about an hour, but thanks to its many modes and variations you can get a pretty decent replay value out of it. While it looks, sounds and feels just like a Castlevania of old, it doesn't fall into older tropes of making the game cheaper and harder just for the sake of it... or for the sake of trying to get people to buy games instead of renting them. As a side note, I'm glad I waited to play this game until after I played Ritual of the Moon, because I think this game works great as an 8-bit demake, since a lot of stages are inspired on zones from the main game, and it uses a lot of the same enemies and bosses from said game, even if the patterns and gameplay are completely different.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #673: Dead or Alive 6

 Dead. Mostly dead on arrival.

 I've got a... soft spot for Dead or Alive. While I've always been a crusader against fanservice in videogames, underneath its dumb otaku culture exterior lies a honest to goodness decent fighting game. The franchise has always been easy to pick up and play, a more casual take on Virtua Fighter, if you will. And I friggin' love Virtua Fighter. Sadly, Tecmo has really dropped the ball with Dead or Alive 6.

 The game covers well tread ground with its mode offerings: Story, VS(VS Cpu or Player, Arcade, Survival, Time Attack) as well as a Training/Tutorial mode. Special mention goes to how terrible the Story Mode is. Firstly, just as with DoA 5, it's a disjointed collection of scenes that might or might be relevant to the main story thread, the one concerning Ninjas, that unlocks as you play different chapters. The story is ridiculous, the voice English acting is horrible(And not lipsynched) and, like any Japanese game wanting to pander, shoehorned Marie Rose(Resident loli, very popular with the Otaku crowd, supposedly 18 years old) and Honoka(Her personality are her big breasts, really dumb design and voice, extremely popular with the Otaku crowd) into as many scenes as possible, to the game's detriment since both characters are horrible, their dialogue is completely idiotic and their scenes only induced cringe. As for how much of an after thought the story mode was is that you don't get a single thing for completing all chapters, not a single costume piece, not a single trophy. There's absolutely no reason to play the Story Mode besides wanting to cringe for two hours or so.

 Thankfully, the tried and true gameplay that originated from the very first game remains unsullied. You've got a punch, a kick, a throw and a 'hold' button, and that's everything you need to have fun. Every character has a somewhat extensive amount of different attack strings made up of Punches and Kicks, so even newbies can have fun pressing buttons and watching cool stuff happen. Indulge your inner daredevil and you might even try to use the Hold button in order to counter different attacks aimed your way. In this manner, combat in Dead or Alive is fast, furious and, above all, fun. Power Blows and all that jazz from DoA 5 has been axed, instead now we have Break Blows and Break Holds, powerful, gauge consuming moves. The hold consumes 50% of your break gauge and can counter any type of incoming attack, while the Blow consumes 100% of your break gauge and serves as a powerful special attack. Most characters have very similar Break Blows, so they are nothing to write home about, and, as a matter of fact, I thought they kinda got in the way of the match's flow.

 If it's pretty much the same old game as before, then how did Tecmo Koei drop the ball? Well, because there's absolutely no reason to settle for DoA 6 while you can get DoA 5: Final Round for much cheaper. Let's start with the roster, here we have 24 different characters. The same exact number as vanilla 5. Except that 5 got two further revisions with even more characters. What we get here is, basically, Last Round's roster minus the guests, Gen Fu, Ein, Leon, Alpha-152, Momiji, Rachel  but with two new characters, Otaku's wet dream NiCO and discount Travis Touchdown, Diego. That's pretty disappointing in and of itself, but let's add to this the fact that Nyotengu was a pre-order exclusive, as well as Phase-4, which happens to be another Kasumi clone. Both Nyotengu and Phase-4 are fought during story-mode, if only to let you know how shady their DLC practices are. With Last Round you get more characters and more costumes. Diego and NiCO aren't worth sacrificing Ein, my favorite, or Momiji. To add insult to injury, Mai Shiranui returned as DLC again, because we gotta nickel and dime dem otakus and weaboos.

 While I'm not one to care about graphics, it's hard to notice any difference between DoA 5 and 6. Mind you, if you look at them side by side you can definitely tell that the new game is much more colorful, and it's got more details, things like sharper muscle tones and looser clothes. But the stages are pretty similar, and plenty of characters reused their costumes, or very similar costumes to the ones they wore in 5, making for a very similar looking game. Koei Tecmo should've spent more time giving everyone new designs. Or maybe not, Rig and Bayman's secondary outfits, for instance, are as generic as they get. Speaking of outfits, as per usual, boys only get two different costumes, while girls get about six of them. Each outfit has 3 different colors, which is kinda neat. Unlocking them, however, is not neat. Playing offline modes(Survival, Arcade and Time Attack) rewards you with about 1 costume piece. Costumes require anything from 100 to 1000 Costume pieces. Pieces you unlock go toward random costumes. Notice a problem? Quest Mode is the easiest way to earn costume pieces, since you earn in the hundreds, but quests are limited, I was lucky I got to unlock a costume for Hayate, my boy, but I wasn't able to unlock anything for a few fighters. Conversely, I unlocked a ton of costumes for Kokoro, a character I don't care about or like to play as.

 Bottom line is: Get Dead or Alive 5 - Last Round. It looks practically the same, it has pretty much every character in this one plus a lot more, it has more costumes and it's cheaper. If Tecmo-Koei is planning on moving forwards with Dead or Alive into a seventh installment or beyond, they should really look into refreshing how every character looks, making new stages instead of trying to pay homage to the older games and adding more than new two characters per entry(Kasumi clones don't count) and not axing anyone unless the plot demands it. Story Mode should either get cut and reworked into Arcade Endings or given a better written plot, losing the disjointed narrative and giving everyone their chance to shine during a linear story progression. Males and females should have the same amount of costumes, axe the silly fanservice costumes and gives us cooler or casual clothes(Honestly, Mila's new casual clothes make her a cutie, although Rig could've done with something less generic) and stop trying to nickel and dime their fanbase. Either that or continue riding this horse and see where it gets them.

 The saddest part about this is that Dead or Alive 6 is a fun game, because its foundation is rock solid. Its simple nature makes it a joy to pick up and play, you don't need to spend time learning a character(Unless you really want to), just pick someone, mash buttons and have fun. The hold system was a brilliant mechanic back then, and it still makes for some very exciting back-and-forth. But Tecmo-Koei really need step up their game, because such a lackluster attempt at a husk to profit from through DLC can only take them so far. Or maybe not, there's got to be a reason as to why they keep getting away with things like a 90$ season pass.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #672: Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night

 Not to be confused with Castlevania. Completely different games.

 Koji Igarashi, the madman, did it. He successfully led a multi-million dollar Kickstarted to deliver exactly what the fans wanted. Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night is the Castlevania successor we wanted, nay, needed. While the game does little in treading new ground, this is a homage and tribute to all the Metroidvanias Iga had developed during his tenure at Konami, as a matter of fact, the game takes so many cues from Symphony of the Night it might as well be a spiritual reboot.  And yes, I'm coining that expression.

 The game's plot is pretty silly, and I found the introductory cutscene to be needlessly long, but it gets the job done: You are Miriam, our new resident badass, suffering from an affliction that's turning her body into stained glass. As if that wasn't bad enough, her friend Gebel has gone off the deep end, so she sets out to stop him and his evil ways. Simple, dumb, just the way a Metroidvania should play out! On another note, this might pretty well be Iga's largest castle yet, and it even features a few challenging bonus bosses. Order of Ecclesia-challenging bosses. As far as the difficulty goes, it's not as easy as Symphony of the Night, but it's not as challenging(barring the bonus bosses) as Order of Ecclesia, sitting at a happy medium.

 Bloodstained features the usual Metroidvania tropes of exploring a large environment, a Castle in this case, with progression being  held back by obstacles that require finding specific power ups to clear. Along the way Miriam will be battling a ton of baddies, earning experience to level up and increase her stats, as well as scavenging for equipment. There are a ton of different weapons, and there's even a simple crafting system to create even more weapons and pieces equipment. Heck, a few accessories will actually show on Miriam... for good or bad. I wish that could've been toggled on and off, since some of the silliest looking equipment pieces also had good stat increased. Speaking of looks, if you find a specific NPC you can alter Miriam's hairdo, hair color and even the color of her outfit. Simple, but fun, hope future Igavanias only expand on the character customization features.

 Crafting elements isn't the only thing Bloodstained borrowed from Dawn of Sorrow, as the game features Shards, with are analogues to Souls from the Sorrow duo. Defeating enemies not only has the chance to reward you with loot, but there's also the chance that it might drop its Shard. Shards come in various color-coded types, Miriam being able to equip one of each at the same time. Red shards are used with the X button, Blue shards and purple shards are used with the R buttons, yellow Shards give you passive bonuses(And once fully upgraded turn into White Shards, shards that are active at all times) and, lastly, Green Shards summon familiars, like Symphony of the Night. There are over a 100 different Shards, and each Shard can be strengthened by collecting the same Shard and they can also be upgraded by going to the crafting NPC. More shards of the same power will usually increase its strength, while the crafted upgrades tend to extend their range or the such. The shard system is, like the soul system before it, brilliant. Drop rates tend to be more generous than other Castlevanias, which makes sense considering how much stuff you can craft.

 It's easy to tell that Iga wanted his new game to be a celebration of everything he's done before with the Castlevania franchise, as such you'll be noticing a lot of winks and references to his previous Metroivania games. It might stick too close to Symphony's blueprint: The game ending prematurely if you defeat the boss without having the special means to stop him, said special means requiring you to get an armor that can withstand spike damage, having a librarian... for all intents and purposes, it's a very classy stealth Symphony of the Night spiritual reboot. And you can tell that a lot of love was spent making this game.

 ...however, while it's easy to tell that this was a passion project, it's also easy to tell that it was made by a team that wasn't very experienced with the Unreal Engine 4. In this sense, the game can be incredibly unstable. Look, the game was poorly optimized on the big consoles(PS4/XOne) featuring  undeserved framerate drop, so a Switch Port of something that didn't run as well as it should is, unsurprisingly, even worse. Yes, the game can struggle to maintain 30 fps, so much so that you'll eventually start getting 1-2 second freezes every now and then. I thought my game froze(Like, a freeze freeze) after I defeated the second-to-last boss since the game froze for about 6 seconds. I was about to reboot the darn thing before it unfroze. That said, unlike what alarmists would have you believe, the game is far, far from unplayable. Suboptimal? Yes, but the game is perfectly playable, and so much fun that it's hard to care too much about it.

 Sadly, the instability doesn't end there. Every single port of the game is prone to crashes, albeit in a predictable way: Interacting with bookshelves and NPCs has a chance to crash your game. Eventually you'll learn that it's best to wait interacting with an NPC until you saved your game, and while it's worst in the Switch version, every port has this issue. There were a few other technical issues, like a few specific rooms having long load times for whatever reason. There's one in the library that comes after a jump, so if you didn't held jump long enough, Miriam may just drop below the platform triggering the loading screen again. During the latter parts of the game, my enemy compendium sometimes displayed at 0.00% even though it was almost full. There also seems to be an issue with how rooms are connected, since about 3-4 times, while entering-and-exit a room in order to try to get an enemy shard or drop, I would teleport to another zone that was close by. This got me to break a sequence once and get through a door triggered by a switch that was on the opposite end of the room! Another two times I couldn't get out of this void, so I had to use a WayStone to teleport back to town and not lose any progress.

 It's easy to see that the team struggled with the game, there's a reason it got delayed so many times and and how there are framerate issues even on the upgraded current-gen consoles, but because of that the entire game isn't on the cart/disc at the moment. The mandatory alternate characters? The bonus modes, including multiplayer? All of them are to come in the future as free updates. That said, as much as I hate having to settle with a physical/digital hybrid for the entire game, I can say that what we got is a complete game, what's coming is just the cherry on top.

 When it comes down to it, Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is pretty darn great, and it's sure to scratch that itch Konami refuses to acknowledge. A lot of love and care went into designing this game, and I'm sure that Igarashi and his team will be able to polish the game through patches as they get more comfortable with the engine. It's also worth mentioning that the Switch version is definitely the worst way to experience Bloodstained, but even so it's still a great game.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #671: 64 Memories - Hybrid Heaven

 Featuring a RPG/Fighting game hybrid!

 Part I: The Flashback
 Yes, yet another Nintendo 64 game I had always wanted to own but never got the chance to, we couldn't even find it up for rental! The game's art looked fantastic, with the Ryu and Ken lookalikes and the whole RPG/Fighter hybrid mechanics. Everything I could scrape and read about the game made me sure that this was a game I wanted to own. And considering how RPGs and Fighters were my favorite genres back then, with games like Legaia and Xenogears being among my top favorites thanks to their hybrid nature, I would've loved this game.

 Part II: The Review
 Hybrid Heaven is fun but with a few caveats. What most sources fail to mention it's that it's also a bit of a third-person shooter, featuring simple, if boring, level design as well as basic robot-enemies that you can defeat with your energy gun. As a matter of fact, there's a boss fought entirely through the third-person shooting mechanic... and it's also one of the most annoying ones, since Johnny, the main character, gets rooted to the spot he was standing on the moment you try to aim his gun. It's very clunky and stiff. It's not too bad for most of the game since the basic robot enemies are pretty dumb, easy targets, but this one boss....

 Thankfully, shooting and jumping is but a tertiary part of the game, the main brunt of the game comes in the form of one on one fights against hybrid and aliens. When you and a humanoid enemy get close to one another a fight ensues, during which you, and the enemy, can move around the environment. As you both wait for your power gauges to fill, the enemies' are invisible so the AI might as well cheat, so that you can perform different attacks. Once at least one fourth of the gauge is filled you can then press the A button to enter a menu and select an attack. There are about 70 different attacks in the game, in the form of multiple punches and kicks. Honestly, you'll want to focus on a few of those in order to level them up and maximize your damage potential. Each limb also levels up on their own, so you can opt for a jack of all trades that can punch as hard as he kicks, or focus on either set of limbs for a strong fighter focused on a specific style.

 But it also might happen that just before you press the A button the enemy will trigger their attack before you, in which case you'll be granted a few defensive maneuvers: Guard, Counter or evade. If you were in the middle of a sidestep when the enemy triggered their attack you just might evade the attack completely. There are other angles to fighting, such as either you or the enemy can try to target a specific body part of the opponent in order to temporarily disable their attacks or handicap them, like slowing them down(broken legs) or getting them dizzy for a while(If you damage their heads). It sounds pretty in-depth, but after you unlock the ability to use combos, all you'll be doing is dancing around the stage waiting for all five gauges to fill so that you can unleash a powerful combo on your enemy. Might as well look for a guide, since a few specific combos have a hidden, extra sixth attack at the end.

 While in theory the combat is pretty dynamic, the truth of the matter is that most of the fighting was, as I said above, just moving around, guarding and evading waiting for my five gauges to fill so that I could use the same exact combo every single time. While different enemies should be approached in different ways, such as you'll want to step around a few enemies while close by so that they don't use their projectile attacks, or others will chase you around if you try to run, the end goal of each fight was pretty much the same. That said, I can't deny that I still had fun with the combat system, and I think that I would've liked it quite a bit back in the day. I also enjoyed how pretty much every fight in the first 5 hours or so of the game meant a stat-up of some sort, made depleting enemy-generators a rewarding, if repetitive, ordeal.

  The story shows promise at the start, being very dumb and involving aliens, but some of the ridiculousness get replaced with boring nonsense by the end, it doesn't happen that special agent Johnny Slater is mute for 90% of the game. The game lasts about 16 hours, although keep in mind I grinded for a bit and died a few times. And some deaths can be painful, since save spots can be pretty darn sparse. You can't skip cutscenes, when sucks when retrying a boss, and is particularly annoying during the last part of the game which consists of a six-boss gauntlet. You don't want to die and then have to suffer through every boring cutscene again.

 While a bit dull by today's standards, I think Hybrid Heaven is a fun experiment. Most of the fun with the game comes from seeing how weird, yet strangely fun the gameplay is, although it grows quite stale by end. That said, I know that I would've loved this game back in the day.
 6.5 out of 10