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