Month Overview: June 2017

Tally:
Shadow Hearts - Covenant 9.0
Suikoden II 9.0
Gungrave 6.5
Tony Hawk's Underground 7.5
Midway Arcade Treasures 3 7.5
Jersey Devil 6.0
Hidden Invasion 2.0
Spider-man(PS1) 7.5
Spider-man 2 - Enter Electro 7.5
Spider-man - Mysterio's Menace 7.0
Spider-man(PS2) 3.0
Spider-man(GBA) 4.5
Spider-man 2(GBA) 4.5
Spider-man 2(DS) 4.0


 Spider-manathon began this Month! And we're off to a rather mediocre start. The PS1 games were pretty good, but as soon as we jumped ship to the PS2, it sunk, it sunk deeeeeep. The first gameboy advance was pretty good for what it was, it's funny because it's pseudo 3-D sprites are downright hideous, but it is a good game! And then came both movie games, which look league and bounds better... but made levels even more mazelike, added time constraints and turned the gameplay into a scavenger hunt rather than a traditional side-scroller, much to the games' detriment. Spider-man 2 on the DS is particularly bad about it, but it felt even more tedious that time around, tacked-on touchscreen controls didn't help its case. The good news is that now we've got Spider-man 2 and Ultimate Spider-man, both on the PS2, which I remember being particularly good, Ultimate being the last Spider-man game I had played, and my favorite.


Game of June 2017:

 A game deserving of every bit of praise it gets, Suikoden 2 features a rather deep storyline, with interesting characters and twists. So much so that Suikoden V, which borrows from almost every game in the franchise, borrowed the most from Suikoden II and, in my opinion, pulled it off even better. That said, Suikoden II did it first, and what a treat it was.

Runner-up:

 Shadow Hearts Covenant is easily one of the PS2's finest JRPGs ever made. The story is interesting, characters are endearing and the combat is a blast. I feel about this game kinda like how I feel about No More Heroes. No More Heroes/Shadow Hearts had made up in personality and style what No More Heroes 2/Shadow Hearts Covenant polished up in the gameplay department. So while the gameplay is much better, it's also missing a bit of the personality that made the first entry so fantastic. So long horror elements, you'll be missed.