Game #1072: Sonic the Hedgehog - Genesis

  Well... it's one way to celebrate Sonic's 15th anniversary....

 You don't need to be an expert on Sonic the Hedgehog to tell just how much is wrong with Sonic the Hedgehog: Genesis, because yes, this game deserves it's legendarily bad reputation. Released alongside Sonic(2006) to celebrate Sonic's 15th anniversary, let's just say that the little blue hedgehog had a hell of party.

 In a few words, this is a port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog genesis game. In a few more words, this is a disastrous port of the original Sonic the Hedgehog genesis game. It's so bad I'll start with the good, namely, a save feature that let's you start on Act 1 of any zone you have previously unlocked, and it also features two game modes: Original and Anniversary, the latter letting you use the Spin-dash introduced with Sonic 2, which is a pretty neat novelty. And that's where the good things about this god-forsaken cart end.

 Here's the thing, before you can even select either Original or Anniversary you'll be greeted by a horrible conversion of Sonic's theme song. The GBA is infamous for its subpar sound chip, but this game shows just how bad it can get. I'm not fan of how the Genesis sounded, as music and sounds in that console sound very... metallic, but every piece of music in this port sounds garbled or distorted, some tune are downright grating. Grabbing many gold rings in one go may even force the game to skip the ring-grabbing sound. The game sounds like a bad bootleg, but it gets worse....  

 Let's say that you remember the sound slider on your console, so you push that bad boy all the way to the bottom... You start the game in either mode and then you'll notice the dreaded SCREEN CRUNCH. One big problem with GBA ports was the console's small screen, so many games had to cut part of the screen. I never felt like it was too much of an issue, at least with the ports I played, but it's particularly bad in this game because Sonic is fast and you can barely see what's ahead of you. Not only will enemies take you by surprise, you'll have a hard time figuring out if you should jump forwards or if you should try to see how to progress next because there simply isn't enough screen. I'm no Sonic expert, but when I played the game a few years ago, giving it a honest try for the first time, I actually liked it. The size of the screen actually hurts this game badly, as the level design, which was originally pretty good, doesn't fit the screen.

 But maybe you know the game by heart, maybe you can play the game with your eyes closed because you know every motion and button input as if it was your second nature. Joke's on you, because this game has the worst framerate I've ever experienced on the console. There's slowdown galore, and even while just running every few seconds it feels like the game freezes for like half a second, or as if something tugs at Sonic. Stages with water, like the labyrinth zone are nigh unplayable, as the framerate seems to hit the low 10s. Seems Blast Processing was real after all.

 I can count the times I played the original Sonic on my two hands, and even so I could tell that the physics are off. The game feels as choppy as a real bootleg game, because there's something odd about how Sonic transitions between certain animations, for example, you can tell that there's something off when you land from a jump on uneven ground, like Sonic shouldn't have interacted with the environment like that. At least it can be unintentionally funny at times, like being pushed backwards while Sonic tries to run forward, for a ridiculously lengthy amount of time, friction works in mysterious ways in this port.

 Is it so bad it's good? Sometimes, but it's mostly just bad. That said, it's such a bad port of such a popular game that I feel like that justifies owning the game. I mean, how can a port this terrible not be one of the centerpieces of somebody's game collection? Yeah, I'm damn glad I own this terrible, terrible port, because now my standards have been lowered so I feel like I'll be able to enjoy mediocre games just a little bit more. Thank you, Sonic.

 1.5

Game #1071: Star Wars - The New Droid Army

  No younglings, but at least you get to massacre a ton of droids.

 Taking place after The Attack of the clones, Star Wars: The New Droid Army is an isometrical adventure/beat'em up game in which you, as Anakin Skywalker must put a stop to Count Dooku's new plan.

 New Droid Army is interesting. The small digitized sprites and the isometrical camera angle reminded me of a Gameboy Color game, Obi-wan's Adventures, which makes me think the same people might have worked on it. The game is styled after an adventure game, as you visit towns in-between hacking-and-slashing, and you must even talk with NPCs to figure out where to go next, but it's just an illusion of choice and exploration, as the game is very linear, no side-quests to be found or any reward for for going out of your way.

 The first thing you'll notice is that Anakin's walking speed is unbearably slow, so much so that there's a 'Speed' force power. However, toggling it on quickly saps your stamina, and you need stamina to fend off the ridiculous amounts of enemies you'll be fighting. Having a stamina meter in a game like this is ridiculous. Everything costs stamina, using your Jedi abilities, attacking and even deflecting shots, so there's no point in using the Speed ability, which you'll be tempted to since you are SO slow, if you'll be assaulted by enemies but lack the stamina to fight back.

 Combat looks cool, because tapping directions on the control pad while mashing A will net you all sorts of cool attacks, like an overhead flip or spinning slashes. It looks really cool. Sadly, it all feels clunky, and at times it feels like there's no way to avoid damage. Which is probably why your health and stamina are constantly regenerating.... and eventually you get the 'meditate' ability which roots you to the spot and quicken your regeneration. There's no other way to restore your health, and the combat is clunky so... expect a lot of downtime as you wait for your health and stamina to recover, which was very boring.

 Some levels feature jumping, which isn't completely awful, but sometimes there are enemies on the other side that you just couldn't see and will just push you to your death with a blaster the moment you land on the next platform. Cheap!

 Star Wars wasn't kind to the Gameboy Advance, that's for sure. Sadly this is probably one of the better SW outings on the system, as the basic structure of the game is fun, it's a shame the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

 4.0

Game #1070: BurgerTime Party!

 Also featuring hot dogs.

 Doesn't matter how you slice it, BurgerTime is an all time classic, so it was bound to get a remake of sorts, enter BurgerTime Party! This is a multiplayer-themed revival of the arcade classic but re-envisioned with an art direction reminiscent of Cuphead, and it kinda works.

 Not much has changed, so the game is little more than pure Arcade action. There's no plot, no complicated game mechanics, nothing of the sort, just you, maybe another players, and killer sausages, eggs and donuts ready to put your 2-D cooking career to a stop. You, as Peter Pepper, are only armed with a limited-use pepper spray that can stun enemies, and must step over every piece of a burger (Buns, meat, lettuce, tomato) to make it fall down. floor by floor, to the bottom floor. Once every bit of every burger on the screen makes it to the bottom you win the stage. Every stage is a single-screen affair, filled with various floors and ladders to take you everywhere you need to, as well as various baddies that will chase you. There are a few mechanics that will make your job easier and earn you extra points, for instance, if you drop a piece of the burger directly on top of another, this other piece will also drop down a level, thus, possibly, setting of a chain reaction. If you drop a piece of burger with at least an enemy on top of it, it will drop more than just a single floor. Using both mechanics together will net you tons of points and make your job easier.

 The game offers a surprising amount of very brief stages divided into four modes: Solo, which has stages that feel a bit more like puzzles, in which you need to reach a certain point threshold to unlock every set of stages. Main Burger, that can be played with other players and has stages that are a bit more straight-forward, less thinking of how best to score points, Competitive, which has you competing against other players and Challenge Mode that features even more stages divided into difficulties.

  To spice things up this game introduced a few new elements. First of all, there are long hotdogs every now and then instead of burgers. The new enemy type, the donut, can charge towards you which can throw you off at first. Various new floor types, such as slippery ice, heat that can kill you and floors and ladders that crumble after a while. In multiplayer you can revive other players and your pepper reserves slowly recharge over time. It's enough to keep things interesting without changing things too much.

 Well, it's nothing to write home about, but it's a decent multiplayer game and not a bad take on BurgerTime. It's not a very involved game, or the one with the most depth, but if you're into Arcade-style games it might be up your alley. 

 6.0

Game #1069: Scott Pilgrim VS The World - The Game Complete Edition

  They are using word, 'Complete', I do not think it means what the think it means.

 After much begging, campaigning and praying, Scott Pilgrim VS The World: The Game Complete Edition got a re-release, as this was one of those games that showed why physical media matters so much. But Ubisoft is Ubisoft, so they even managed to botch the limited physical release: Knives Chau can only be unlocked by syncing with a Ubisoft Account. Bunch o' jokers, the whole point of this release was that digital media is not as reliable as physical media.

 But I digress, I'm happy I finally get to own the game, even if it isn't quite as good as I would've liked. Scott Pilgrim is a beat'em up styled after River City Ransom. You move from left to right beating up every baddy in sight, while picking up the money they leave behind so that you can buy items or food to restore your health and/or enhance your stats. And you'll want to enhance your stats, 'cause the game can be downright brutal even on the easiest setting until you get properly leveld up. Enemies will gang up on you, they'll lock your attacks and they'll be really friggin' cheap.

 Gameplay is simple, Y is your weak attack, X is your strong attack, you have a summon attack, a 360 degree attack that consumes health, you can get new moves when leveling up and you can also pick up a plethora of weapons to make your job easier. Or harder, if the weapon you pick up sucks. The engine is pretty good, and you can get some decent combos by juggling enemies in the air, but it's definitely not as refined as Streets of Rage 4.

 The game NEEDS to be commended on how GOOD it looks. The sprite-work is reminiscent of  custom, detailed sprite-art you can find on the internet... but in playable form. If you like 2-D pixel art this game is pure eye candy.

 The game is very brief, shouldn't take over two hours, and that's considering I did some grinding for money in order to get my stats up to par. If you are so inclined, this game includes a few bonus modes that sed to be DLC, such as survival

 I'm glad Scott Pilgrim got the Physical release it deserved, it's a shame Ubisoft hid some content behind a download, but of course, they are Ubisoft, when was the last time they did something without ruining it in some way, shape or form? I'm a bit disappointed that the game is not as great as its reputation would suggest, but the game is far and away from being bad, it's just that I think it's mythical status might play against it.

 6.5

Game #1068: inFamous - First Light

  I finally get to play as one of my favorite singers of all time, Pink!

 Considering how much I like the inFamous franchise it was about time I took inFamous: First Light for a whirl. Originally released as a stand-alone companion mini campaign for Second Son, it got its own physical release so I was able to give it a try, and unlike Festival of Blood, I get to keep it.

 Basically, it's just like Second Son but you play as Fetch, the girl with the Neon Powers. Her moveset is quite different from Delsin's, which mae her enjoyable to play as. The story campaign is very brief, but you do get a small sandbox to play in, and it has a few side missions, such as collecting Lumens, races and graffiti tags. It's nothing super involved, but it's decent padding.

 What makes fetch different is how she plays. Her neon form allows her to dash all over town very quickly, which made it pretty fun, and her powers are more deliberate than Delsin's. While aiming you can slow down time and highlight an enemy's weakpoints, hit them and they die instantly. If you get the right level ups, you'll refill your slowodown gauge when taking down enemies like this, which makes her combat a bit more slow-paced... but fun in its own right.

 While Fetch's backstory isn't particularly bland, it seems that the focus of this companion piece was to add more replayability in the form of Challenge Arenas you can play in. If you have a Second Son save file you can even play as Delsin, good or bad, instead of Fetch, and you even get to play around with his Stone powers. Can't say I was too interested in this side content to be honest.

 As a small piece of inFamous... it's fun. It can't be as fun as the main games as it's a much shorter and shallow affair, but I appreciated getting to play as another Conduit with her own powers, as well as getting new ways of moving around with super powers, somewhere where I think the inFamous games excel at. So, yeah, I wouldn't recommend it over a main game, but anyone who likes inFamous should give it a try. 

 7.0

Game #1067: Rage 2

 It did fill me with rage, Gamer Rage. 

 'twas but a few months ago that I played Rage and I friggin' adored it. It was fairly simple and straightforward, but I felt that it did what it did pretty darn well. And the reason I wanted to play Rage... was because Rage 2 looked pretty fantastic. In the end... it's better in some aspects, but failed pretty hard in others.

 The first thing you'll notice is the bright pink that highlights pretty much everything in the game. They went with this 80's pink and blue synth-wave theme that hilariously enough makes the game a bit more forgettable. Rage was accused of lacking a personality, but if you ask me, giving Rage 2 a personality... actually robbed it of one, as this theme feels very cliched and it's not used in very interesting ways. Eventually you just forget about it.

 While Rage 1 had an open world the game didn't really revolve around it, as it worked more as a tool to immerse the player in the game. Rage 2 says screw that and went full open world, the game is MUCH larger than the original, and it's plagued with busy work that gives you negligible rewards but is framed in a way that hits all your dopamine receptors. As a matter of fact, there aren't true side missions in the game, but rather, optional busy work. Liberate areas, destroy Authority Turrets, Find the Arks(The only ones worth a damn, as they hold new weapons and powers), etc. Thankfully the combat is a load of fun so it doesn't feel as repetitive as it really is. What will really annoy you is that you'll spend hours searching for chests in order to fully clear an area, and they are pretty well hidden. You can unlock an ability that gives you a radar, but it only tells you if you are close to something, so you'll still waste a ton of time hunting for these dumb chests.

 Combat is what should've made the brunt of the game and not the open world, for it's where the game shines brightest. At first, it's your basic first person shooter, with a proper, oldshool lifebar, but if you explore the Arks you'll obtain powers that run on cool down. A quick dash that can turn into a dash punch, a deployable barrier, a grenade that blows enemies into the air leaving them in stasis so that you can pick them off at your leisure, a ground pound(Super useful and fun to use), extreme dashing and a shockwave. Using these powers is SO much fun, and as you level them up you'll make them even stronger and with shorter cooldowns. It's so good that it's a shame how much time you'll spend driving from one point to another, or searching for dumb chests, as fighting enemies is so incredibly enjoyable, and the weaponry you get is pretty fun and it's fun to use.

 Racing returns, but, to be honest, driving in this game didn't feel as good as it did in the original game. It's not bad, it simply feels a bit wonky, so after I finished the mandatory race in the main story I avoided racing entirely.

 Another thing I liked is that doing all the optional busy work will reward you with different forms of currency or points, and you get a ton of different things you can enhance. The abilities your suit grants you, the Predator Vehicle, your Weapons(And you can equip them with Mods to specialize them in different areas) and even more global skill trees tied to the three major allied characters in the game. Heck, you can use some special items in the Wellsprings town to get buffs to your health or strength. Getting noticeably stronger as you go through the game feels SO good and rewarding.

 Well, but the game has two big issues. Firstly, the framerate, it can take a hit, at least on base PS4, and it does so often. That alone I could live with. But the other problem is much worse, so much so that I couldn't finish the game. At this point I had two manual saves and various autosaves. I was playing normally and I skipped a cutscene... which made the game stutter all the time. I exited and loaded my save and... the problem persisted, so I completely closed the game, upon booting it up again... all my saves got corrupted and the game deleted them. All of them. I had sunk in over 10 hours into it, I had done most if not all of the side-content.... Yeah, I'm not playing it again.

 While Rage 2 is much better when it comes to combat I think that Rage 1 worked better as a whole. The open world wasn't as intrusive, the driving was better and I liked its personality, or lack there of, much more than this one. But what really killed me was the corrupted saves, and I looked it up and I wasn't the only victim to it. Bethesda should've done better.

 6.0

Game #1066: Samurai Warriors 5

 The reboot of a reboot.

 There's something perversely funny about calling Samurai Warriors 5 a reboot of a reboot, but considering that these games retell the same story with every iteration... This is exactly that, a more extreme reenvisioning of the series.

 Core gameplay remains the same, you vs thousands, so I'll delve deeper into that a bit later, for now I want to focus on what makes this game different from the previous entries in the series. And you might notice just by looking at the game's cover, but the series' poster boy, Yukimura(Nobushige) Sanada is nowhere to be seen, for this game takes the series to a place before his birth, and focuses on Oda Nobunaga's rise, from the Fool of Owari to the Demon King. As a matter of fact, the brunt of the story has two branches: Oda's chapters and Mitsuhide Akechi's chapters. That said, this is Tecmo Koei, so they went about it in the laziest way possible, so both chapters share a lot of identical stages with identical objectives, sometimes you can even pick both Oda and Akechi as the duo to play as, making you, in a way, having to play some stages twice. Really, Koei? This entry also focuses a lot on its story, featuring more dialogue than previous games, but... I do feel like most of the dialogue is a whole lot of nothing. Oda's transformation into the Demon King feels rushed and undeserved.

 This game also sports a beautiful new look reminiscent of Borderlands, with textures having thick black lines resembling comic book art, while characters are coated with cell-shading. Attack effects borrow from classic Japanese brush-art. All of this makes for a really good looking game. The Warriors series of games always redesign the characters on every new iteration, but they went further with it with this entry, as 90% of the redesigns are unrecognizable. This was also an excuse to make the character roster smaller, as we are down to 37 characters... And only 15 unique movesets. Just like Dynasty Warriors 7 did back in the day, every character can equip any weapon, however, in this game you can only have a single weapon equipped in battle. And sure, characters have favorite weapons, which means they get 2-3 unique attacks with them.... but only 27 characters have favorite weapons. That's right, for whatever reason they couldn't be bothered to give 2-3 unique moves to 10 characters. How lazy can you get? And mind you, I LOVE the game's new look, I like the new emphasis on the narrative, even if I do feel it needs more work, but it feels so lazy. 15 possible movesets for 37 characters. And 27 of them don't have favorite weapons AKA unique attacks. How was making 30, at most, new animations so expensive or time consuming? I am perfectly OK with downsizing the character roster considering that they really tried something different with this game's looks and new focus on the narrative, but they failed really hard when it came to character diversity.

 As for the gameplay, Hyper Attacks return from SW4, which is really cool as they made for an easy and satisfying way to clear open battlefields of enemies. They finally added a lock-on feature, making taking down generals much easier, and they also borrowed elements from Pirate Warriors, namely, the possibility of having four unique attacks that run on cooldown gauges. There's not a lot of variety here, there are four buff moves, every character has his or her own unique skill, and four skills that depend on the weapon you have equipped, but even if there aren't many option, there are enough to play around with to find what works for you or the weapon-moveset of your choice. You can also take two different officers on most battle and swap between them at any time.

 I like most of the changes in this game. The new art-style is glorious, every change done to the gameplay works great and makes the game more fun, and I appreciate the new emphasis on the narrative. That said, it's a shame that Koei had to be lazy. They could've knocked it out of the park if they had had at least 30 unique movesets. It would've been tolerable if at least every character had a favorite weapon. But they went with all these weird choices in order to cut costs. Also, as much as I appreciate the focus on the narrative, I think they could've pulled it off better, and I hope they continue this trend with SW 6. I'd have less boring dialogue scenes, but make each one count, I'd also remove duplicate stages if they plan on having different routes. But I'm getting ahead of myself, as far as Samurai Warriors 5 goes, I think they should maintain this new direction going forward.

 8.0

Game #1065: Dungeons & Dragons - Dark Alliance

  To the dungeons with this one!

 While I haven't played the Dark Alliance games yet, it is a series that I plan on eventually trying out. Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance was a game that instantly caught my attention the day I learned about it, so I purchased it day one. Then they announced that couch co-op would be patched in later down the line, which immediately raised red flags: Clearly, the game wouldn't be finished at launch. The game came out, and so did the reviews and... in some ways it's better than you'd think, in others it's as bad as people have made it out to be.

 D&D:DA is, plain and simple, a dungeon crawler looter, in the same vein as Diablo, but it does things its own way. You can pick from four pre-defined, uncustomizable characters, made up of two fighters, and archer and a rogue that plays like another fighter. It sorta feels like a beat'em up at times, thanks to the third-person camera and how the game plays, for y'see, R1 and R2 can be mixed together to perform different combos. As you level up, you can use money to unlock new moves by inputting or holding down different directions as you tap R1 or R2, giving it a very unique feel among dungeon crawlers. To further aid you in combat, you can press Square after basic attacks to perform more powerful, gauge-consuming attacks, you can hold down L1 to block or tap it before getting hit to parry attacks and open up enemies and you even get an evade. Landing hits fills up your Ultimate gauge, which can then be used on the previously mentioned Square attacks or by pressing L1+R1 to perform your Ultimate move. Lastly, characters have up to eight different skills, but you can only equip two at a time, one by tapping triangle and the other one by holding down triangle. In paper, I'm sure this sounds really cool, and at times, it actually feels fun, at least when playing as Drizzt, but....

 ....where should I start? Firstly, the AI is downright idiot. They love standing in place while you go to town on them or on their buddies. Sometimes the engine works in hilariously mysterious ways, enemies might go out flying to the skies after you hit them or they might behave like a runt out of Hokuto no Ken, standing in place for a few seconds before realizing that they are already dead. And even though enemies are this stupid, at least on single player, the game can have some ridiculous difficulty spikes, so that even if your 'power counter' is way above the recommended level, you'll still get absolutely demolished in a few seconds because enemies get such a ridiculous power boost. It's hard to gauge if you should tackle a higher difficulty level BEFORE trying out the level, and exiting a level only to retry it again on a lower difficulty level feels like such a waste of time. It's also a waste of time because lowering the difficulty lowers the XP rewards and the loot rewards, so strengthening your character slows down to a crawl.

 And leaving that aside, some mechanics are just broken or poorly designed. The lock-on camera is a must if you don't want your combos to hit thin air after a few strikes, but... locking onto an enemy gives you this awkward below-the-waist angle that makes it impossible to see your surroundings as you pummel an enemy. There's also a stamina gauge that governs your basic attacks and your evades. Why is there a Stamina gauge on a dungeon crawler? It's a dumb mechanic, and the cherry on top is that as you expend it... it's maximum amount will go down, and you'll only be able to fix the cap by random enemy drops, by drinking a potion or by toggling a checkpoint. It's such a dumb mechanic. It was probably put in place to have the player consider toggling a checkpoint, for y'see, after some enemy waves a Rest point might spawn, which you can use to restock your consumables, trigger a checkpoint and heal your life and stamina gauges, however, not using them makes the rarity of the loot you find higher. Thing is... I never used them. And even then it still felt like most of the stuff I was finding was garbage.

 But the stamina gauge isn't even the game's worst design choice. How about the way the game doles out experience? Defeating enemies helps a tiny bit... a bit, but 75% of the XP you earn is obtained by finishing a level. You could skip most enemies and you'd miss out on very little extra XP. Oh, and you might've guessed it by now... you only get XP after finishing a level, so no mid-stage leveling up or allocating stat points. Lame. This also holds true for loot, you can't check what you found until you finish a level, so no mid-stage swapping, which is also so incredibly lame.

 And the money you obtain? Well, you can use it to purchase new moves, strengthen restockable items(Mostly potions) or change the color of some equipment pieces, but funnily enough, the store has no items or equipment for you to buy. Equipment can only be found or sold, not purchase. Why? That said, different equipment pieces do reflect on the character model, which was pretty cool, and every character has their own set of unique-looking equipment, so I'll give it that. The final bit of praise I'll give the game is that the cutscenes look REALLY good, they are very well animated.

 Oh, and I'm not proud to admit it, but I rage-quitted the game, the bugs got too bad. I mean, at some point trolls started spawning on the air, and they wouldn't attack, so I could only kill them with ranged attacks, which was boring, but their drops would also fall higher up on the air, which was annoying. This bug with the trolls was pretty frequent. Not as frequent as the enemy life bars just disappearing for no good reason... or the AI disappearing as previously mentioned. Oh, and one type of cape for Drizzt's would NEVER display properly on the inventory screen. I don't know if I should count it as a bug, but sometimes it felt as if pressing square wouldn't register when I tried to grab loot when moving, I think it has to do with a few seconds of input delay that the game suffers from. What does count as a bug is the fact that the game crashed on me. Twice. I lost over half an hour of progress both times and had to replay dungeons. It was super boring. But the cherry on top was when I was exploring a level and... Drizzt fused with the environment. No mid-level saving, no 'reload last checkpoint' and no way to get out of the environmnet.... yeah, I had enough of the game, so I just rage quitted.

 It's definitely not the worst game ever made, I can see a lot of potential in the combat engine, and I know that some care went into designing the various equipment pieces for the character models, plus, the cutscenes are a thing of beauty. But even so, the game suffers from so many poor design choices as well as a slew of bugs that go from funny and harmless to downright frustrating, making it extremely hard to recommend, even to fans of the genre.

 3.5

Game #1064: Scarlet Nexus

  Low-budget nexus

 I had very high hopes for Scarlet Nexus, ever since I saw the reveal trailer way back then, it looked really cool, so I avoided every and any news about the game. And then it released and... it received very positive press, with comparisons to Devil May Cry. And then I finally played the game and... this is it?

 I've long gone trying to skip talking about a games's plot, but man... it's bad, Firstly, while you'd think this was a high budget game... 90% of the game is told through image stills. Why? How? They look so bland and do little to engage the player. Add to this how uninteresting the story is, it's as anime as anime gets, throwing loads of world-specific terminology you don't care about and characters like behave like anime tropes and cliches that have been running rampant since the late 80's. You can play as either Kasane or Yuito, and both characters get 12 chapters, in-between chapters you can talk with your party members to initiate 'bond scenes', but these were SO boring, after chapter 6 I just started skipping them, as they weren't fun or interesting, plus, the fact that it was told through boring stills only added to the tedium. Oh, if you know anything about anime, you'll figure out which characters will die and which characters you'll end up fighting after the first chapter. It's that predictable.

 Gameplay fares a bit better. As previously stated, you either play as Kasane or Yuito, and you can have up to two other teammates fighting alongside you. They might as well not be there, but hey, sometimes they can distract enemies. What really through me off at first is how floaty moving around feels, it felt kinda wonky until I got used to it. Combat takes place in real time, you use Square and Triangle to attack with your weapons, or R2 to use Telekinesis and attack with objects lying around. As you recruit characters into your team you'll be able to use their skills. For instance, you can set your blade ablaze or electrify it, another character makes you invulnerable, one makes you super fast, one makes it so that you instantly teleport next to an enemy when you attack, etc. These abilities are locked behind their own individual gauges, and by the end of the game you'll have access to 8 different abilities.

 It sounds interesting but it's super basic. Triangle always performs the same spinning attack, and you only get a single square attack combo that can go up to five hits. Interacting with party members during intermissions can upgrade them and give you access to a few new abilities, but nothing game changing. It's flashy, and when you are mixing in telekinetic attacks between sword slashes it's rather fun, plus, there are some special objects that allow for more powerful Telekinetic attacks, such as riding a bus, which was admittedly kinda cool. But there's no denying that it all ends up feeling very repetitive, particularly since stronger enemies can soak up quite a bit of damage, so you'll be relying on the same strategies to bring each type of enemy down. A huge flaw with the combat is how poor the targetting system is, as your character won't automatically direct their attacks toward the target and sometimes the camera pans to slowly towards the targeted enemy. Pathetic. Oh, and there's no dodge cancel and attack animations are a bit too long, so you'll be taking a lot of damage, which felt a bit unfair. Some bosses do take the cake, as it seems they are way too hard being able to murder you way to quickly. I mean, it's an easy game on the default difficulty setting, but there are these three bosses that are just crazy tough for no reason.

 I did enjoy the upgrade system, leveling up nets you Skill points which you can then invest on various new abilities, from passive buffs, to new abilities such as double jumping or aerial dashing. You can buy new weapons that have their own unique 3-D model, and you can customize characters with a few accessories, albeit it's very limited. Most accessories are of the joke variety, and in-game alternate costumes are just white color palettes, if you want the red color palette you better pony up some cash. There's not much in the way of extras, no secret bosses, and the sidequests are boring "Kill X enemy in X way" affairs that have very crummy rewards.

 While Scarlet Nexus is NOT a bad game, it's certainly very disappointing. The presentation is very lackluster, the plot is trite and predictable, with it's only redeeming quality being its combat, which is fun, it really is, but the game is way too long so even the combat loses some of its luster once you are 2/3rds through the game. I think that considering the budget wasn't very big it would've been a better idea to ax one of the playable characters, ax the bond scenes, since characters weren't very interesting and a lot of money probably went into voicing those boring scenes, and with the money they saved up, animate every cutscene and add more combat moves. Those are my two cents anyways.

 7.0

Game #1063: The Mummy Demastered

  Can't we at least have a playable Dark Universe? Pretty please?

  Wayforward is one of the most interesting Western developers, as I feel most of their work is pretty darn impressive considering they've mostly tackled modestly budgeted games. The Mummy Demastered is yet more proof as to why you should call these guys when you need a movie tie-in game.

 This game might as well be a sort of spiritual successor to their other licensed gun-toting metroidvania, Aliens: Infestation. You play as a faceless agent, one of possibly many, as you try to hunt down the Mummy before it lays havoc on earth. In Aliens the gimmick was that any of the of the unique marines could die, in this game, once you die that agent is dead, or rather, undead, so you play as the next guy in line and you must kill the previous agent in order to recover your upgrades. All of your upgrades: Your weapons, your health upgrades, the whole inventory.

 Since killing your previous agent is this game's gimmick they made the game harder than you'd expect. In all honestly, I only died once, to the second boss, but I had some close encounters here and there, and some bosses felt unnecessarily lengthy. I also feel some of the challenge is more annoying in nature, for instance, there's no quick way to heal yourself, so you'll have to enter-and-exit whatever room you feel has plenty of enemies or objects you can break to slowly refill your health bar. If you explore the game's world, and you should, you'll unlock new weapons you can carry that are much stronger than your assault rifle, although the have limited ammo, however, getting to any ammo-depot room will instantly refill your ammo. Would've been nice to have something similar for your health. Wasting time to refill your health isn't challenging, it's just boring. Speaking of challenging, considering how tough the previous bosses were, particularly the second one, the final boss in the game is just pathetic. Maybe the fact that I was carrying the best weapons, a ton of health upgrades and ammo capacity upgrades helped, but still... the final boss shouldn't be one of the easiest battles in the game!

 I also feel like they tried to make the game difficult by placing the player in annoying scenarios. Plenty of rooms have endlessly spawning enemies, so enemies might spawn RIGHT beneath you while you defeat other enemies. And by the end of the game, basic enemies can handle ridiculous amounts of damage, at least from the default assault rifle. Once again, as hard as they tried to make the game I only died once, but I feel like the challenge came from the game being cheap rather than fairly challenging the player.

 Still, healing issue aside, what really grinded my gears was how unhelpful the map was. Wayforward have made Metroidvanias before, they know how to make them. Here's the thing, the map graphics don't show openings. So you'd better remember if there was a door you couldn't break somewhere. You'd better remember how rooms connect together, because the map won't be of much help. 

 On the flipside, it's a fun game to play once you get used to shooting and rolling, as well as get used to the annoying enemy patterns and placement. As with any other Wayforward 2-D game, it's a visual delight, so it's always fun to come across new enemies or try out new weapons. It was also pretty fun testing the limits of how you could explore the game, as being creative enough with your running jumps can get you into areas you should be using the phase shift to get into!

 The Mummy Demastered is a decent little game, with a few design choices that veer a little into the annoying, but thankfully the core gameplay is pretty solid, as exploring the world of the Mummy is pretty fun, the rate at which you can acquire upgrades and weapons is slow enough to keep you interested in exploring more areas and the absolutely gorgeous sprites makes it so that finding new enemies is always a treat. Not Wayforward's best, but definitely a good one.

 7.0

Game #1062: The King of Fighters XIV

 The King of Fighters goes JoJo. 

 The King of Fighters XIV is here and alongside it a new Hero and a new saga... even if Kyo steals the limelight in the game's cover. The King of Fighters XIII was something special, and for a company that doesn't have the budget other companies have it was gonna be a tough act to follow, so they sacrificed quality for quantity, kinda.

 Remember how GORGEOUS XIII looked? Well, it came at a cost. XII was disastrous, it came very late in Ash's saga, and while the game was beautiful the character roster was pathetic and the lack of content was shameful, my favorite character K' was missing too. XIII  and XII were beautiful... and expensive, so with XIV we get 3-D graphics. Ultra simple, and a bit ugly, 3-D graphics. Some of these characters have certainly seen better days, and I'm super peeved that Terry isn't using his Garou look. And while I understand that Ash is gone, I'm disappointed that him and his partners(Shen Woo, Duo Lon) are gone entirely. On the other hand, thanks to keeping graphics simple and low budget, we get a TON of characters. FIFTY characters. It's a roster that dwarfs the competition, featuring a ton of returning characters and a healthy amount of cool new characters. Personally, I would've preferred if they had built on the previous game's roster while keeping the fantastic new 2-D assets, but at the end of the day I understand why they had to keep things simple.

 Once you get over how bad it looks(I mean, it's perfectly acceptable, but coming right out of XIII does make it look ugly in comparison) you'll discover that it plays just as well as any other game in the franchise. Ex special moves are gone, but now you can power up your super moves by using two gauges by pressing two buttons when inputting the command. You get a quick MAX mode activation that halves how long it lasts but gets you on the move, so it can be pretty useful. Oh, and of course, the game still has evasive rolls and three types of jumps, wouldn't be KoF without them! Yeah, I'm happy to report that it's pretty fun, plus, I think the skill floor was lowered, as I was able to make my combos much more easily that in XIII, which had some pretty strict timing! The one thing I didn't like... like pretty much every other modern fighting game, mashing the weak attack button produces an autocombo. Lame. Auto-combos should be OPTIONAL, like they used to be, I just want to mash the weak punch button and branch into combos of my own creation, is that too much to ask?

 Alongside the Arcade Ladder, there's a pretty decent tutorial, a training mode, character trials, Survival and Time attack, making it a pretty complete package. There's an extensive gallery that houses official art and music, which you'll regularly unlock as you play through the game.

 I can't really say that SNK knocked it out of the park, since the previous game still did some things better than this one, more than just the graphics, the overall art direction was much superior, the setting and story was more interesting and while I think this game has some fantastic new designs(A Brazilian ninja! A boxer with a bionic arm! The new hero fights with something akin to a JoJo stand!) I do miss characters from the Ash saga, such as Adelheid, Ash, Shen Woo and Duo Lon. I do feel like some of the mechanics and higher skill floor also made the previous game a bit more hype, which was also aided by a more robust visual presentation. Still, it's a much better 'new engine installment' than XII ever was, and I can tell that SNK did the best they could with the budget and time that they had.

 8.0 

Game #1061 : Enter the Gungeon

 Bullets shooting guns and guns shooting pillows and lasers and water and....

 Full disclosure, I haven't finished Enter the Gungeon yet, but I'm over 10 hours in and got to the final boss(Once!) so I'm pretty sure I've a solid idea of how I feel about this game. Plus, I haven't given up on escaping the Gungeon yet!

 There are two videogame genres that have really flourished in the past 10 years, Metroidvanias and Rogue-likes, this one being the latter, and they usually mix either genre with another one, in this case, bullet-hell. You play as any of five different characters, you can change which character you play as on each run, as you try to go deeper and deeper inside the Gungeon, while shooting your way through and avoiding painful curtains of enemy bullets. Basic shootouts are manageable, most of the time, but its the bosses at the end of every floor, or sub-bosses if you're lucky(or unlucky) enough to randomly spawn one that will really test your bullet-dodging skills.

 The game is styled after twin-stick shooters, the left stick moves you around and the right stick allows you to aim your guns. You also get a dodge with generous invincibility frames, very limited blue bullets that can be used to clear the screen of enemy bullets as well as dozens of guns to help you through. Defeating bosses nets you a special currency that can be used before each run to permanently unlock new weapons, passive items or usable items. Mind you, everything in the game is randomized, so unlocking something means it MIGHT spawn on your next run, or it might not, it simply enters the pool of possible rewards.

 It's its randomized nature that makes it so much fun. While every floor has its own set theme, its layout and the rewards you might find are completely random, and there are even different possible end-floor bosses per floor! Heck, there are a ton of specialty rooms that might or might not spawn. Compounding this are a lot of secrets, and going down the Gungeon means you might find and rescue NPCs that will either grant you new benefits for future runs or simply allow for a new type of specialty room to spawn, maybe, on another run.

 Alright, so, I have a tiny gripe with the game, and that's that most guns seem to be more funny than useful. Some guns are useful, some are funny and some are a mixture of both, but it seems most guns fall into the funny category. So if you are terrible at bullet hell games, like me, how far you make it on each run might depend on how lucky you are with the guns that you find, which is the nature of the beast I suppose, but I kinda wish more guns were just straight up useful.

 All that aside, the game very solid and simple gameplay that make it very easy to pick up and play, even after months having gone by without playing it, something I can attest to. As disappointed as I sometimes am when I get a useless gun, I do believe that making the game have so many random elements actually works in its favor to make keep things fresh and interesting.

 Enter the Gungeon is a very brief game, but it will probably be a while before you can beat it, and even a longer while for you to really see everything that the game has to offer. It's also super addictive, with that 'one more run' sensation so many games wish they could generate this effectively.

 8.0

Game #1060: Super Paper Mario

 The one that divided the fanbase...

 Ah, Paper Mario 64 was something special, it was one of the last games my parents purchased for my Nintendo 64, and I had followed news, on videogame magazines, since it was first revealed as Mario RPG 2, only for it to arrive YEARS later at the tail-end of the Nintendo 64's lifespan. I'm skipping over the second game, for now, as Super Paper Mario was less of a time-investment, considering... this was the game that took the series out of the RPG genre forever.. at least as of 2021.

 Super Paper Mario is a narrative-focused platformer with RPG elements. The game is very linear in nature, while you could backtrack to previous chapter areas, if you wanted to, it's more often than not a waste of time. There's a single town in the entire game, Flipside, or two, if you count Flopside its mirror counterpart. While you do obtain experience points, which are called just Points in this game, every level up nets you a pre-selected stat increase, either in Health or Strength. Turn-based combat is a thing of the past, now you simply find an enemy and stomp it to kill it.

 This game's gimmick is the third dimension, really. Early in the game, Mario meets a 'Pixxi', a pixelated being that grants him the ability to explore the world in 3-D by pressing the A button. There are many puzzles that cleverly use this mechanic, and every single room and zone in the game can be flipped into 3-D, which was pretty neat, although most of the time it serves no real purpose. As you play through the game you'll obtain more Pixxies that grant Mario, and his friends, more abilities: Turn Mario or his pals flat, shrinking in size, a Bomb, a Hammer, the ability to ground pound, etc. If anything, I feel like most mechanics are very underutilized, you'll have to use your new pixxi a few times throughout the chapter and then their necessity will become pretty sparse. This might be for the better, having to pause to change pixxies on the menu screen can be a bit annoying.

 This holds true for Mario's pals too. You'll eventually unlock Peach, who can glide, Bowser, who has double attack damage and spits fire, and, lastly, Luigi, who has a super jump and you get so close to the end of the game you'll barely use him. Heck, most of the time you don't even have to swap characters to proceed, not that it matters, since you'll be playing as Mario most of the time since he is the only one who can flip the environment into the third dimension, which is a bit lame. And yes, character abilities are barely required to proceed, so the other characters are woefully underutilized, although, considering you have to go into the pause menu to swap characters, maybe it's a blessing.

 As interesting as the flip mechanic is, it's governed by a flip gauge. If it does all the way down... you lose a hit point and it refills itself. It's so dumb. It's an annoying limit, often times you won't have time to interact with everything you wanted, so now you have to flip back into 2-D and... waste time as the gauge slowly refills itself. Either that or just take lose the life point. Why? No, really, who thought this was a good idea?

 Poor design choices like show their rear end every now and then throughout the rest of the game. They put humor at the forefront of the game, so sometimes chapters have dull or annoying moments for the sake of a joke. The Heaven chapter has you feeding fruit to Princess Peach in order to wake her up, different fruits have different effects on her, often humorous, but you have to explore a boring, vertical level, looking for doors to get fruit, that occupy space on your inventory so you might not be able to carry every type of fruit, provided you find them, on your first go. So you'll climb a bit of the level, get some fruit, try it on Peach, none of them wake her up, so now you have to climb again while searching for doors. And after you wake her up, you continue your climb, get to the top and... find out you need to feed this other character one of the fruits, so hopefully you remember which fruit made Peach giant and where you found it, 'cause you gotta go down again. If anything, most of the levels are hits, but when they miss the mark, the miss hard.

 This game has received high praise for its dark story, for a Mario game, and while it does have a few dark moments.... it's nothing too dark. The plot wasn't very interesting either, although I liked some of the enemies and situations. Some of them. A few of them.

 Having played only the first game in the series I was still disappointed in losing the RPG mechanics, that said, I still liked the game for what it was and I think the simplified and streamlined gameplay still worked pretty decently. My chief complaints fall in the way of poorly implemented mechanics, like the flip gauge or having so much down time due to having to go through menus, and then wait a few seconds, whenever you change characters or pixxies. Some of the level gimmicks sometimes fall into the annoying territory which certainly hurt my overall opinion of the game, as I was enjoying my time at first, but then came across a few levels that just left a bitter taste in my mouth. Still, overall, it's still a decent game, but one that could've been so much more. 

 6.5

Game #1059: Disney Classic Games - Aladdin and the Lion King

  Let it wait all it wants, this game will never be the king.

 I've mentioned it before, but while I skipped the SNES/Genesis generation I still consider it one of the best and love the games from that era, something about their graphics and sounds just entice me to no end. Which is why SNES/Genesis re-releases, like this very game, Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King are right up my alley.

 First thing I'll mention is that I was somewhat disappointed by the game selection. In this cart we get: Aladdin Genesis, in its original release, a touched up revised version(Bug fixes mostly), its demo and the Japanese release, for whatever reason, it also contains the Gameboy port, which can be played in its Super Gameboy colorized form. So... where's Capcom SNES version? Why not the Gameboy Color updated rerelease that made the Gameboy original obsolete? Kinda lame, right? The Lion King side is a bit more complete, featuring the SNES and Genesis versions, although to be fair these are different versions of the SAME game, the Japanese release and the Gameboy/Super Gameboy port. Every game offers the ability to toggle on Invulnerability, use the Rewind feature and use save states.

 Aladdin's Genesis game is quite probably the best game in this cart, but... I can't say I enjoyed it much. I grew up playing a NES bootleg version of Capcom's game, so that's where my loyalty lies, but I always thought Aladdin wielding a sword looked pretty cool. But the game wasn't very memorable, some stages require some very precise platforming that kinda threw me off for a bit. I mean, it's decent, but nothing worth writing home about I think.

 The Gameboy port is absolutely dreadful. Wonky physics on your jumps that make platforming a chore, as it's very easy to lose your jump arc and just plummet down, obtuse level design, having to press a button to toggle between your sword and your apples and the game itself is super slow. It's interesting to see how they ported the Genesis game, but it's very bad. They should've included the GBC version instead, which I heard was slightly better.

 As for the Console version of The Lion King, both SNES and Genesis versions are almost exactly alike, the SNES version sounds and looks better, but the Genesis version has slightly more polished gameplay. Not that it matters, as some of the level design is just annoying, requiring and obscenely precise pixel-perfect jumps or just puzzling design choices, such as the cave mazes near the end of the game.

 The GB version is an absolute dreg, jumps require EVEN MORE precision, but now you also have to wrestle with unresponsive controls and seriously messed up hitboxes, really, just try to cling onto the Hippopotamuses' tails I dare ya.

 I really like the fact that this compilation exists, and the tweaks(Rewind, invulnerability, Save States) are very welcome, but these games haven't aged very well, so it's something to keep in mind. I really enjoy re-releases from this era, and I think they did a good job with them, even if they could've added a few more games, I just wish the games were better! Regardless, I'll keep buying these SNES/Genesis rereleases as long as they keep'em coming.

 5.0

Game #1058: G.I. Joe - Operation Blackout

  Bad licensed games are eternal, and knowing that is half the battle.

 Back when I was a wee 90's lad my only brush with the popular G. I. Joe franchise was through the toys and the NES Konami(?) game, since I'm pretty sure the series never made it over here. Or maybe it did? Regardless, I've not love for the franchise, but somehow I managed to hype myself with G. I. Joe: Operation Blackout, I think somehow it looked pretty decent. But beauty is often times skin deep....

 Well, first of all, on Switch, at least on handheld mode, the game looks blurry as hell, and there's absolutely no excuse when the game doesn't seem like nothing out of the ordinary. It's very colorful, and the cell-shaded look is pretty neat, but there's no good reason as to why it should look so blurry on Switch. As to cut costs, cutscenes, while fully voice-acted, used comic-book styled stills... but the art is pretty, most of the time, so I didn't really care. In other words, the art direction is great, but the technical aspect leaves a lot to be desired. Since I'm dabbling on the technical, loading times are way too long. It's so bad I actually wrote it twice on my notes.

 The game plays like your standard third-person shooter, but it has a few decent ideas. You get 12 different characters, 6 G.I. Joes and 6 cobras, each character has at least one alternate costume and 4 skins for their main weapon. Snake Eyes seemed to be the only character with a single alternate costume, but it looks so blurry I couldn't really tell how he was supposed to look, but it seemed to be the game's only joke costume. Each character has two weapons, a main gun and a side gun, a near-useless melee attack, a dodge, a unique, and often-times hard to land due to the startup, ultimate move and the ability to throw grenades. I'll give it this, they managed to make characters to feel different, not only does every character have a ultimate move unique to them, but sometimes their dodges are different, most characters can dodge, but, for example, Snake Eyes and StormShadow can dash three times, a Cobra deploys a shield and another Cobra charges forward! Main weapons are very different too, to further differentiate each character, which was very welcome.

 The game offers two ways to play it: A Story Campaign that can be played in offline co-op, and it's where you'll be able to unlock character and weapon skins by finding hidden collectibles or completing side-objectives, as well as a multi-player component, playable off-line with another player, and can't be played against bots, that allows for death matches, king of the hill, team arena or capture the flag competitions. I'll give it this, it's cool to finally have a third-person shooter on the Switch, if only it was any good.

 I've a small suspicion that the multiplayer mode might be quite decent, however, the only mode I played was the campaign in Single Player, and it was rough. The game feels absolutely lifeless, with unrewarding, boring shootouts against robots that sometimes employs endless enemy waves. IT feels as if the AI is only shooting at you, and not at your AI companion, which made the campaign surprisingly challenging. Every missions has a pre-selected duo of characters you can play as, which was a bit disappointing. Another thing I noticed was that quite a few missions recycle maps, even if the objectives were different... well somewhat different, as objectives are different flavors of 'Defeat every enemy', 'Survive' and 'Press the switch to proceed'.

 If you're not planning on playing the Multiplayer Mode, G. I. Joe: Operation Blackout simply isn't worth it. The campaign was such a drag! That said, in its defense, I think the multiplayer component is probably a bit more fun considering you can use any character and characters actually have differences to them. Not that it would fix how unrewarding the core mechanics are, but hey... at least it's a third-person shooter on Switch, right?

 4.0

Game #1057: M&M's Kart Racing

  If you ever wished to taste a bitter M&M... here you go.

 Why play good games when you can play M&M's Kart Racing? I knew it was bad, alright? I knew what I was getting into.... or so I thought. This game is infamous for how terrible it is, I watched plenty of videos decrying its many sins... and yet, the game is even worse than I had expected, and my expectations were at an all time low.

 So... let's see, it's a racing game that can only be played with motion controls. That should tell you all you need to know. You can play as five different M & Ms, but the CPU gets some exclusive.... aliens? that you'll face in Tournament mode. Who are they, why are they here? Nobody knows, nobody cares. There are 7 vehicles, some are infinitely better than others, to the point that I couldn't win the final race because the other Karts were simply faster and there was no way for me to win, so I had to quit the race, change Karts, and then race again. At first you can only pick between three karts, in order to unlock the others you need to collect coins... on a character by character basis. No thank you.

 The track design is absolutely putrid, races are as boring to look at as they are to race in. Tracks either have too many sharp turns, making them a chore to play, or none at all, turning them into a snore-fest with no obstacles to keep you engaged. The game has 15 tracks, and not a single one of them was acceptable. NOT A SINGLE TRACK. There's no unifying theme between them, they look muddy and brown, even though you even get to race inside an Alien ship. There's a Volcano track and I don't even remember seeing a Volcano. It's the friggin' M&M License, your tracks should be super colorful, themed around CHOCOLATE, but even the Chocolate Factory was drab. A few music tracks were somewhat decent, but they didn't fit an M&M game.

 The controls are terrible, absolutely terrible, the motion inputs are too imprecise, you'll be struggling the whole way through. Why not allow for digital inputs? Jesus. And there are no power ups or weapons. In a kid's kart game! There are only two type of pick ups: Chocolate cups(What? How is liquid chocolate related to M&Ms??) for turbos or coins to unlock karts, that's all there is to the game. The cups don't even respawn on subsequent laps. As for modes... There's Training, why? Quick Race, Arcade(Which is more like Time Trials) and Tournament, which has you playing through all 15 tracks... which isn't as boring as it sounds, since tracks are super short, you can get 3 laps around them in under 2 minutes.

 And props for the 3-D models, for whatever reason, when driving the Bike, at least with the orange M&M, his hands will be BELOW the bike's handles. Did anyone care about ANYTHING when making this game? Did anyone even try to make something at least palatable?

 In a word? Pathetic. The only good thing I can say about the game is that at least it wasn't buggy, and I kinda find it funny how my mouth was agape in disgust throughout the first few tracks I played, because I couldn't believe how bad it was. Know what? Maybe there's a good reason to own the game, maybe I could prank one of my friends by getting them to play it. Like I did with Bleach: Shattered Blade. Yeah! Maybe I'll get some use out of it....

 0.5

Game #1056: Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons

  Could pass off as an unofficial sequel to The Adventures of Cookie and Cream.

 Seeing how I now hold Fares at the same level I do my two other favorite video game auteurs, it was high time I played the very first game he made, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. The game's been on my radar for a few years now, but since it didn't have a physical release I could play I eventually forgot about it, but here we are.

 The game plays like Cookie & Cream on the PS2, the left analog stick movies the big brother around and L2 is his action button, while the right analog stick moves the little brother and R2 is his action button. I'm sure you could play this game with another person much in the same way you'd play Cookie and Cream, with each player holding a different side of the same joystick.

 Brothers is a puzzle game first and foremost, in which you'll have to interact with multiple objects using both brothers. Some actions can only be performed by a specific brother, for instance, it's the big brother who can pull levers or provide a foothold for the younger brother, while only the younger brother can fit through some crevices. Through out this 2 and a half hour long adventure you'll have to figure out how to use both brothers to clear the multiple obstacles that lying in wait to hinder the brothers' progress.

 Just like in Fares' subsequent games, there are a ton of things you can interact with, usually only rewarding you with a cute little animation. The game is filled with tiny details, and sometimes it's worth interacting with objects with both brothers, as both have their own unique personality and thus their own unique way of interacting with certain objects. And once again, most of the time you only get a small animation, no trophy, no nothing, but this attention to detail is pretty much his signature, and I'm most definitely a fan.   

 Another thing worth noting is that the game's story is nothing special, but it's very well told. I knew how the game ended already, and yet it still managed to pull at my heart strings. Characters speak in an undecipherable gibberish, but animations are expressive enough as for you to get the gist of what's being said. The world of Brothers is pretty interesting too, you'll go through high mountains, meet trolls and wade through the bodies left after a war between giants. It was a low budget game, so it's not the prettiest game out there, but it gets the job done.

 Much like 'A Way Out', I think the game is a bit lacking in its art-direction, something that Fares would get right with 'It Takes Two', but it more than makes up for in every other area. It's a well told told story, with great attention to detail and story-and-gameplay segregation, and I'm sure anyone who enjoys Fares' work will get a kick out of seeing how his signature style started off.

 8.0