Game #1338: Lost Judgment

  School's back in session.

 The original Judgment was kind of a big surprise because of just how good it was for 'just' a spin off, but damn it if the Ryu Ga Gotoku Team didn't pull it off. Yagami is back with Lost Judgment, and much like they do with the Yakuza games, it builds up on top of what came before it.

 This new entry has Yagami infiltrating a school to find out if there's bullying going on... but it quickly gets tangled up with a case about a guy that molested a woman... but, at the exact same time, murdered a man. I wasn't too thrilled about the plot at first, since the whole highschool angle sounded lame when compared to how personal to Yagami and how original the plot in the first game was but I won't lie, by the end I was hooked. I wouldn't say the plot is AS good as the original, but it's still darn good, and seeing the four amigos that forged their bond by fire in the original game teaming up again was glorious. And it also irks me how the other guys aren't playable yet!

 As per usual, this is a sand-box action/beat'em up game with a very serious main story and a plethora of silly side-quests to tackle. There are only 43 sidequests, which is kinda pathetic for modern Like a Dragon games, but it makes up for those with School Stories. These are 8 sub-plots in which Yagami infiltrates different school clubs that might be tangling with the mysterious Professor. These are pretty hit or miss. Some of them are very brief, like the Casino, which is made up of a single event, or pretty involved, like Boxing, Bike Racing and Robotics so your mileage may vary with this one. Thing is... most of them are grindy, for instance, you must perform each song for the Dance Club FOUR times, and there are four songs in all, and Bike Racing is made up of about 16 duels.... needless to say, hopefully the ones you dislike are not the grindy ones. In my case, I loved the gaming story, since I got to play Virtua Fighter 5, but it felt very brief when compared with Robotics. Robotics is not bad persay, but you have to grind for loot, which may or may not drop, in order to enhance your robots and stand a chance. The final quest unlocked upon finishing every club IS worth it, but man if it isn't a grind. And all in all, a mostly complete playthrough of the game took me 55 hours.

 Combat is similar to the original but more refined. Now Yagami gets a third combat style, Snake, which is good for disarming opponents. Swapping between styles is immediate so you can pull off new types of combos, and in general, you get new tricks with both Tiger and Crane, so there's a lot to play with. I know I'm not the only person that despised the tailing missions in the original, but they decided to double down on them and they are back. There aren't many of them, but they are still boring and clunky. They also introduced some very scripted parkour which doesn't add much to the game, and some boring stealth segments, which.... why? Yakuza is a beat'em up, and I get it, Yagami is a detective.... but why? Yakuza is at its best when you are fighting enemies not avoiding them.

 Lastly, Like a Dragon has been pretty good about DLC, but with this entry.... well, I fear their acquisition of Atlus made Sega learn about being scummy. For instance, you can get a fourth style, boxing, with DLC, which was available on day 1 if I'm not mistaken.... and you can play as Kaito, who gets his own story, for about 25 USD. Guess getting a side campaign as a neat extra, like Majima's in Kiwami 2, is a thing of the past.

 Lost Judgment is really good. I think Judgment felt a bit more special, but Lost Judgment is up there among the best Like a Dragon games too.... now, if only we could get them to ax tailing and stealth sections entirely....

 8.5

Game #1337: Knights and Bikes

 They see me cyclin', they hatin'

 Made by the same mind that crafted Tearaway comes Knights and Bikes. This is a puzzle-based adventure game in which you play as a couple of friends who set out on an adventure for treasure. 

 While it can be played in single player, the game is at its best in multiplayer, as each of the girls gets a different set of tools that double both as weapons and as ways to clear different obstacles. Combat is quite clearly an after-thought, as it feels pointless and drab, which is why it's so surprising just how much combat there actually is in the game. The rest of the game is all about puzzle-solving, and the puzzles themselves are alright, most of the time, but I don't remember the last time I felt so lost when playing a game. And it's baffling really, as this is a very linear game, but so many times we simply didn't know where to go. Should we backtrack? Should we try to find a way forward? Did a new path open up somewhere? Proceeding felt so unclear so many times.

 That said, each girl gets her own bike, and bike customization was kinda cute. I liked accessorizing and painting my bike to suit my taste.... although, for having such an emphasis on your bikes, they are not particularly interesting to ride nor are there interesting courses or stuff to do with them.

 The game goes for 'whacky' when it comes to the story and the characters.... and I can't say I cared about anything. I think I checked out about a third into the game, yadda yadda Demelzia is hunting for treasure yadda yadda she might be insane and imagining everything yadda yadda don't care.

 I'm sorry to say... that even playing this game with my girlfriend was boring. There's something about the game, be it its dumb plot, the minimalistic art-style or the boring gameplay that just lulled me to sleep. There's probably an audience for this game... I'm just not it.

 4.0

Game #1336: NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2

 And there are still games left for volume 3!

 Well, the NeoGeo Pocket was a bit of an underrated console back in the day, so I'm happy that NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection Vol.2 is here, and heck, I'd hope we get a third one. Most of the heavy hitters were already featured on the initial selection, so this one has a few more obscure games... so obscure that some of them don't even feature English, so you have to hope that the translated digital Instruction Booklet is enough.

Baseball Stars Color

 It's a Baseball game. I don't know Baseball and I don't care about Baseball, and guess what? This game didn't make me care about it either. But, yeah, it's a Baseball game.

Big Bang Pro Wrestling

 As the name would suggest, this is a Wrestling game. The graphics look really good, and I really liked the character designs... but I didn't find it very enjoyable. I just couldn't get the timing for the grappling right, either that or the CPU cheats, so it felt... random. I don't know, at least it entertained me for a couple of minutes. 

Biomotor Unitron

 This is a RPG, and it's not horrible, but it's built around a very boring loop. Visit the four neighboring dungeons to get money, use money to buy parts for your robot, rise two ranks in the Arena to unlock more parts, return to the four dungeons to make more money and buy the new parts, rinse and repeat about 4-5 times until you can clear the arena and get access to the parts you need to defeat the bosses in the four dungeons so that you can unlock the final dungeon.

 I can't stress enough just how repetitive it gets by the end, as you have to fight a TON of random, turn-based battles in order to get money, and the story is barely even there, and what little there is ain't very interesting as it's just the story of a kid and his pokemon-like robot and his rise to the top.

Ganbare Neo Poke-Kun

 This one is weird....? You have to wait for this mascot thingie to make mini-games that you can then play? It's almost like a virtual mascot, except that you can only press the A button to make something happen, a mini cutscene of sorts. Honestly, I got bored before I even unlocked a single game. It's boring, at some point I was mindlessly pressing A while watching youtube videos. Too boring.

The King of Fighters: Battle de Paradise

 Have fun playing this board game that's entirely in Japanese. It's not completely unplayable, but there's no way to know, unless you know Japanese, what the items you collect do. So, is it good or bad? Couldn't say since I can't get much out of it due to the language barrier.

Megaman Battle & Fighters

 I'm so happy that this game is here! Having Neo Geo Pocket Sonic would've been just perfect, but hey, I'll take this one. It's a pseudo port of the Arcade Megaman fighting games, as its a sort of compilation-dash-demake of both games. This one doesn't have English language, but since it's a fighter... you don't really need it, although translating the menus in the game itself would've been nice, you can actually see what every item on the menus are on the in-game manual, which was translated to English, thankfully.

 Obviously it's not as good as the Arcade game, but dang if it isn't close.

Neo Geo Cup '98 Plus Color

 Team descriptions in story mode are HILARIOUS. "Best in the world, bad heading", "Best team overall, low goals", "Ok coach". Story Mode has very Akira Toriyama like NPCs, and you can buy items to change the stats of whichever team you picked.

 About as good as a handheld soccer game could be, I actually found it quite enjoyable, and the story mode is a neat bonus.

Pocket Tennis Color

 This one is really cute, really simple and a lot of fun. It's pretty barebones, but it gets the job done, and since it's bundled with all these other games... it doesn't really matter if it's "just" tennis.

Puzzle Link 2

 This one is weird. It's a puzzle game in which tiles slowly drop down in lines from the top. You have to shoot tiles to create a road between them, with the goal of forming a road between two matching tiles. A bit forgettable, but I dug the art direction.

SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighters Clash

 The Neo Geo Pocket's crown jewel, this is an RPG/Card-battling game. Split into two versions, a la Pokemon, one SNK and one Capcom. This one is a lot of fun, because the card battling is simple, and very easy to understand, but it's also a lot of fun... that said, the game can be a grindfest as you battle the same opponents in order to get good cards so that you can face off against the strongest enemies.

 Overall, personally, this selection of games didn't appeal to me as much as the ones in the previous Selection. It's not a bad set of games perse, but there's not much here I'd like revisiting.

 5.0 

Game #1335: Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury

 Cat Mario goes super saiyan.

 Often regarded as one of the best games on the WII-U, it finally made the jump to the Switch in the form of Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, including the base game as well as a bonus new mini-game.

 3D World is basically an isometrical 3D Mario game, much like 3D Land on the 3DS. The big new feature is that it can be played in multiplayer, with up to three other players, taking control of Luigi, Peach and Toad... and Rosalina, near the end of the bonus stages. Multiplayer is... haphazard, to put it bluntly, characters are very quick, and it's very easy to accidentally get other players off-camera, which will get them into a bubble and floated right to the player in the lead, which, y'know, is sorta annoying.

 But that's nothing, as certain stage gimmicks just don't work in multiplayer. The jump-and-platforms-move hazard has been in the series for a while now, since Mario Galaxy I believe, but it was tough enough synchronizing between two players, with four... it must be impossible. But that's not considering how bad the controls are in multiplayer. Y is used to shoot and run, classic Mario stuff, but it's also used to grab items... and players. How many times, while try to shoot fireballs or boomerangs at an enemy did I accidentally grab my partner and throw them into a bottomless pit or an enemy? This also happened whenever I wanted to run and they were close by. Having the grab function tied to the run/shoot button is ridiculous, particularly considering how many buttons go unused.

 Thankfully, the game is fun, it's really fun. It's not the best Mario ever, but exploring the overworld is cute, and you can find goodies such as one ups off the beaten way. The power up selection is very strong too, featuring the Fireball, the Tanooki suit, the Boomerang, the Super Giant Mushroom, and, new to the series... the Cat power up! It gives Mario all sorts of fantastic new abilities, such as climbing walls and diving attacks that give you new mobility options. Heck, base Mario has all sorts of unnecessary moves, such as a dive and a roll that add a lot of charm and fun to the game.

 Besides the poorly implemented multiplayer, the only other big issue I had with the game is that unlocking the bonus worlds requires 100% game completion, and this doesn't end with you collecting all hidden coins in every level, it also means touching the top of the flagpole, for whatever reason. And considering this is a re-release, I would've liked Rosalina to be unlocked from the getgo, since you play 80% of the game without her.

 I've seen Bowser's Fury receive a lot of praise... I didn't care too much about it. It brings back pretty much every mechanic from 3D World, but now with a 3rd Person camera, taking place on a small sandbox. You have to collection Cat Shines in order to stop Big Bowser, who 'wakes up' every few minutes, and then you either have to fight him or collect a Cat Shine to make him go away. As a bonus it's OK, but by itself... forgettable.

 They also added a 2-Player mode... which is pretty much worthless, the second player gets to play as Bowser Jr, who can't die but also can't do half the things Mario can do, instead being able only to fly around and hit enemies. The camera doesn't even follow him, that's how much of an afterthought this 2-Player mode was.

 I might get in hot water for saying this... but I didn't feel that this game was anything special. It's a very good Mario game, it is, and trust me, I've just gotten off New Super Mario Bros. 2, so I know what a mediocre Mario game is, but this one just wasn't anything groundbreaking. And if they are gonna do multiplayer, they should try to do it right.

 8.0

Game #1334: Valis - The Fantasm Soldier Collection II

 I'm guessing the next one is gonna be numbered X?

 

 Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Collection II is yet another mediocre collection of mediocre games, these one made up of games that should've been on the cart. So, what is actually here? The final game, Valis 4, the cutesy spinoff, Syd of Valis and... the MSX and Genesis version of the first game, y'know, alternate version of the game feature on the first volume? There's no logical reason these games weren't feature in the previous cart besides greed, and to top it all off, it's missing Super Valis, the SNES version of Valis 4. Guess they are gonna release that one by itself since they clearly love money. And the translation is spotty at best, there are grammatical errors, and it's easy to see that the subtitles can't possibly much the amount of words characters spew, heck, in Syd of Valis, one line of text clearly says "12", but the subtitles make no mention of that number.

 Enough prattling about the collection itself, onto the games:

 Valis 4: The next step from Valis 3, this one features new trio of playable characters, each one has a unique skill that will be necessary to proceed, one is immune to environmental traps(Spikes, slides), one can double jump and one can slide.

 Much like before, the enemy placement is super cheap and the platforming and sliding is sometimes obnoxiously precise, all of this is mitigated with the Rewind and Save Anywhere features, making it the most enjoyable game in the cart. I thought it was a decent way to end a fairly unspectacular series of games.

 Syd of Valis: It's cutesy, so you might think it's easier, but nope, it's not. Enemy placement is as cheap as always, and the screen only scrolls when Yuko is dangerously close to the edge of the screen making avoiding some enemies nigh impossible. To add to all this, the game is a bit slippery, particularly with some armors.

 Oh, yeah, while level design is as lame as always, this game has a bunch of really cool ideas, such as equipment. As you go through the game you earn different weapon projectiles and different armors(That actually change how Yuko looks!), and you can swap between them at any time. This was such a cool feature, shame it never made it out of this game!

 Later bosses can be downright brutal... unless you learn how easily you can cheese them with the homing shot. 

 Valis(Genesis): While it has the same cutscenes as Valis 1, the levels are quite different. It was relatively enjoyable, shame it's so slow paced. Yuko runs very slowly which makes the game drag on a bit, but it's not half bad.

 Valis(MSX): The very first version of Valis.... this one is a mess. It's almost unplayable, the screen scrolling is incredibly choppy and the gameplay is very sloppy, you get creamed in seconds flat while bouncing all over the maze-like stages. As bad as it is, I'm happy that it's here, as a piece of history.

 Definitely not as good as the first collection, not that that means much.

 5.0

Game #1333: New Super Mario Bros. 2

 New is a bit of a strong word.... 

 So, what's new in New Super Mario Bros. 2? I dunno. New Super Mario Bros. on the DS was Mario's return to 2-D platforming, using new 3-D graphics but playing in 2-D. It felt new. Then New Super Mario Bros. Wii did the same thing, but added new power ups, and Yoshis, and, best of all, multiplayer. This one.... Er...

 Multiplayer? Gone, it is a handheld aftear all, propeller helmet? Gone. At leas the Mini and Giant mushrooms are back, I guess. The only new Power up is the Gold Fireflower which makes your fireballs explode on impact and give you coins on enemy kills. It only lasts for a single stage. There's also a new emphasis on collecting coins because.... I don't know, just because. There's a new coin rush mode too, and the game keeps a tally of your collected coins, and they all amount to.... a new Press Start splash screen. Yeah....

 I know that it's been tradition since Mario World, but I hated the secret exits, I found them to be too well hidden, like 'get a guide' kind of hidden most of the time. In this day and age, I found it annoying instead of fun. They also kept the whole "can only save after beating a castle or a tower' gimmick which is just baffling. This is a handheld game, let me save anywhere on the world map, for crying out loud. This limitation doesn't add challenge, it's just annoying.

 It's just Mario. That's all this game is, a perfectly acceptable 2-D Mario game. It doesn't do anything new, but there's nothing particularly bad about it, it's just.... Mario.

6.0

Game #1332: Wolfenstein 2 - The New Colossus

 Weird science.

 The Wolfenstein remake was pretty darn good, so of course a sequel was coming, enter Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

 It picks up immediately after the previous game, with Blascovitch on his death bed... only to be rescued at the last minute, albeit left badly crippled, but don't worry, he gets better. The story follows the two timelines gimmick from the previous game, and you can pick whichever timeline you preferred, which nets you a different NPC ally as well as a unique weapon on each.

 The story, boy, the story is such a weird mess. How can you make a game about killing nazis overly woke? No, really, they... it's a mess. Now William, suddenly, is the son of a racist that beat him up for kissing a black girl even though... he married a jewish woman. And y'know, William's past is bleak, really bleak, but his father is such obvious pandering to the people that think they are fighting racism that it took me off the game. He even uses the N word. And then there are lines in which William has to say "WHITE" nazies. I mean... of course they are and were white? Why? Because pandering. You've got this badass black woman leader but she's so incredibly unlikeable, she smokes next to her baby and has the most abrasive personality they could get her. To the point that you feel glad when another character grabs her by the throat, she even calls another character 'white boy', dismissively, a few times. Insufferable. They also added Engel's daughter, and she's fat, and much like William, she's also victim to her mother's upbringing, but this parallel goes absolutely nowhere. The character herself is a bit of a walking fat joke, which is off-putting since they went after a woke tone for the plot.

 And leaving that aside, since not everyone will cringe from the overtly woke tone, then there's how the game wants you to take the plot seriously... but then has all these idiotic jokes in it. Engel's daughter, Sigrun's plight is sometimes portrayed in a way that it seems as if they want you to laugh at her? Which is incredible, since she gets the most interesting character arc, growing out of the nazi mindset she was forced into. Then there's William's wife, who is now pregnant, going into bullet-fights while pregnant. How does that make any sense? She is a liability. She is carrying children in her womb. It makes absolutely no sense. Then there's another character who happens to be dropping acid all the time, and I'm supposed to believe he survives every time he makes it out of the base? Don't even let me get started on the cringe party scene. While the previous entry also had a bit of humor that didn't gel very well with the new serious tone.... it wasn't THIS bad. And the subtitles disappear or go out of sync every now and then, so you can't even trust those.

 And then there's the gameplay.... I'll get the best thing about it out of the way first, the new dual wielding mechanic is glorious. You can have Will carry any weapon on either hand, so you can go guns akimbo in all sorts of ways, like having a shotgun on the left hand and the assault rifle on the right one. It's amazing, and it's such a small little addition, but it works so well. That said... the game is brutal. It doesn't even feel fair, throughout the first 2/3rds of the game your total life points cap at 50 instead of 100, you get murdered in SECONDS and the HP and Armor upgrades from the first game are nowhere to be seen, compounding with this is how worthless the damage indicator is, quite a few times you'll only realize you are taking damage if you notice the HP going down.

 Most of the game I was left frustrated than anything else, fighting spongy enemies that can take what feels way more punishment that I could deal. It was not a fun experience. And the story was such a mess too... I don't know what happened with this one, considering the previous games were so great.

 4.0