Game #1055: Luigi's Mansion

 If there's something strange in your neighborhood.... Who you gonna call?

 If there's something I'm wont to do that's play horror game franchises out of order, nothing spookier than that eh!, so as not to drop a bad habit, I'm playing the very first Luigi's Mansion... after playing its two sequels. It gives me an interesting perspective, as now I know how the series evolved and changed. Posh introduction aside, the original Luigi's Mansion is considered by many the best in the series, and since I adored the third game... I was chomping at the bit to get my hands on this one.

  Well, I'll tell ya this, it took me a while to get used to how the game plays. Luigi has his flashlight out by default, and you need to aim at a ghost with it to stun it, and then, and only then you can use the Poltergust-3000 to suck them in. You have a very brief window of opportunity to turn on the Poltergust, and once you enter the tug 'o' war against the ghost you have to hold down the opposite direction the ghost is moving towards in order to sap their health, but you also have the option of mashing the analog stick in that direction to suck them in even faster. I don't think the controls ever felt completely comfortable, but I learned to appreciate the simplicity of it all.

 Another thing I appreciated was how streamlined and Arcadey it felt. The closest thing to mini-bosses are a few big ghosts with unique designs and weakness you have to find and exploit before you can stun them with the flashlight. There are no cutscenes introducing them, or anything weird, you just find them and do your best, which is something that aids in making it feel like a fast-paced game. As you clear rooms from ghosts you'll get keys that will allow you to move deeper into the mansion, and since the mansion isn't very large it feels like you're getting intimately familiar with it, to the point that even now, about a week after finishing the game, I can still remember the Mansion and its rooms. The mansion is very well designed too, while it doesn't have the variety of, say, Luigi's Mansion 3's hotel, the consistency makes it easy to immerse yourself in the adventure.

 As you go through the game you'll unlock the ability to use elements: Spit fire, ice or water. To be honest, this mechanic is very underutilized. There are a few candles you must light, a fire to put out and some plants to water and... I think you only had to use Ice once in order to progress through the game. That said, you'll find a few elemental ghosts you must defeat with the appropriate element. Besides how little this mechanic is used, it can also be a bit annoying, since it's possible to find yourself fighting a ghost without the proper element and having to remember WHERE you could find the element you need, backtrack there and then return. I think this became an issue three different times at most, but since it's a short game it did leave an impression.

 Luigi's Mansion 2 gets a lot of flak for returning you to the Mansion's entrance after every chapter, it's something I disliked a lot, but what if I told you that this game did the exact same thing? The game has four bosses, counting the final boss, and after every boss you are returned to the Mansion's Hallway. It was a bit annoying, because you'd be closer to your next objective if you could continue from the room you fought the boss in!

 And then we have the Boos, there are 50 boos in the game, but you only need to capture 40 them, and 10 of them are freebies that you get after the third boss. Capturing all 40 boos wasn't an annoying concept in and of itself, but the thing is... Boos can escape. And you have to chase them around the mansion. And they heal while they are in a different room. And they could potentially escape into a room you haven't opened yet and don't have the key for. I swear, having to chase boos from room to room really hurt the otherwise enjoyable quick pacing the game had. This was very annoying near the end of the game, when Boos started having annoying amounts of health and I'd go to and fro the same two rooms until, inevitably, it fled into a room I couldn't open yet, and then it'd recharge its health while I continued with the game, thus, wasting my time.

 Minor annoyances aside, I felt like Luigi's Mansion was really fun, and I understand why so many people have such fond memories of this game. That said, yeah, LM 3 is still my favorite, but I think I liked this game a tiny bit more than the second game. The mansion was really fun to explore, and I feel like its design was super memorable. The mini-bosses added some valuable variety into the ghost-hunting shenanigans, and the presentation holds up very well. I think this one's a classic.

 7.0

Game #1054: Around the World in 80 Days

  Or in about an hour give or take.

 Since I never tire from playing garbage, today I'm writing about Jackie Chan's Around the World in 80 Days videogame adaptation. Y'know, muddy digitalized sprites, somewhat labyrinthic level design, a password system... yeah, I've been here before.

 So, the basic gameplay loop is weird, you have to find four symbols on each stage before you can proceed, and upon finding all of them your health bar is permanently lengthened. There are very light platforming elements, but the game is a beat'em up, Jackie Chan's character can punch and kick, jump and wall jump.

 Combat is pretty much the core element of the game, and it's weird... if you try to straight up fight enemies you'll probably take damage, so you have to employ these lame looking hit and run tactics which aren't much fun. On the other hand, stun-locking enemies with your attacks is so easy it ain't even funny.

 Yeah, another shovelware game on the GBA, who'd have known!? It was sorta kinda maybe almost fun a few times, but it never lasted more than a couple of minutes, so... better off left forgotten alongside the movie that inspired it.

 3.0

Game #1053: Pitfall - The Mayan Adventure

  Puts the Pit in Pitiful.

 I went from the NES to Nintendo 64, so the SNES generation was one I skipped... and one that pains me to, since ever since I discovered its games through emulation I consider it one of my favorite videogame generations. Which is why GBA ports of SNES games are something special to me, so I was looking forwards to Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure. I shouldn't have.

 So... yeah, another game with maze-like level design, however, in this game it's not like you're searching for stuff, most of the time, and checkpoints direct you towards the right path. If anything, the big issue with the level design is how zoomed-in the screen is, it's hard to get a good understanding of your surroundings and the level layout. It also makes it a chore to see some incoming enemies. Speaking of enemies, they tend to be tiny and dull in color, so the tiny snakes and mice just blend into the background. They also move super fast and you have little time to react once the make it into the screen. Not aiding matters is how fast your character moves, in fact, it feels like a Sonic game, except that you don't have an ever-helpful spinsdash and EVERYTHING around you is out to kill you, from enemies to the many, many hazards.

 Movement is very slippery, but there aren't many bottomless pits to contend with, so it's not too bad. To defend yourself you can use a very weak whip or shoot stones. I felt like enemies respawned, but I'm not too sure, sure felt that way though. The bosses are incredibly annoying, early in the game you have to face a tiger or leopard, which is annoying enough since you have to pretty much predict its coming so that you can time your jumps, but then you have to face two of them at the same time which wasn't much fun.

 The absolute best part about the game is that there's no savefile... and no password system either, so you have to beat it in one sitting. Lame. Thankfully there's a level select code. This GBA port has a feature unique to it: No music. If there's one thing left to mention is that I found the game's ending to be hilarious. Oh! And while the game looks very washed out, in order to make it easier to see on the GBA, the spritework is pretty impressive.

 I'm willing to bet that the original versions of this game haven't aged very well, however, they are better alternatives to this port for use. The screen probably shows more of your surroundings, they have music and the colors are better. Not a good showing for Majesco.

 3.0

Game #1052: It Takes Two

  One trippy therapy session.

 I think that with It Takes Two, Josef Fares has more than earned the title of Auter, like other greats before hime like Suda 51 and Swery 65. Y'see, 'A Way Out' had a brilliant premise which carried the game beyond how generic it looked. But It Takes Two takes the brilliant co-op premise to the next level, while adorning the game with a very unique, unforgettable art-style that makes this game something truly special.

 The plot feels like something out of a family movie, even though the game is anything but, in which Cody and May are about to divorce and Rose, their daughter, is struggling to accept it. So she cries over facsimile dolls of her parent and... now her parents turn into those dolls, Cody turns into a chubby clay doll while May turns into a lithe wooden doll. The entire game is played through the eyes of these tiny doll avatars, so you'll be seeing a lot of every-day items up close. And let me insist, the visuals in the game are AMAZING. The dolls are very life-like, and the textures are incredible.  It's easily one of the best looking games I've ever played.... which is probably while loading times can get a bit lengthy. Oh, and the audio got unsynced on a few cutscenes, but it wasn't too bad.

 One you get over how pretty it looks, then comes the gameplay. Just like A Way Out, you absolutely need another person to play the game with, as getting through this adventure requires both characters cooperating the whole way through. And man, the ideas never stop coming. Most games built around puzzle-platforming give both characters a different set of abilities and that's that, but in this game what each character can do keeps changing. Very early in the game, Cody gets magical nails that he can use either to stick things in place OR to create platforms for May, while May gets a hammer that allows her to hit a few switches, balance on Cody's nails or break glass jars.... but it's not too long before this tools are replaced by a sticky-ooze gun for Cody, which lets him weigh down structures, while May gets burning matches she can operate switch with... or May can shoot an enemy that is covered in Cody's Ooze to make it explode. Later the game even has a top-down Diablo-esque scenario in which COdy gets turned into a wizard that can phase through metal grates while May gets the ability to dash over long gaps. The game never sticks with one set of tools for too long, so the game feels SO fresh.

 And sometimes it'll be a bit more mundane, like just having to cooperate by moving stuff around or pushing switches to activate something for the other player,  simple tasks that either character could do so players can just decide who'll tackle the challenge in which way. But it never stops being fun. And man, can the game get trippy sometimes, or the gameplay shifts so unpredictable, or the cutscenes so morbidly funny.... It's an incredible ride, from beginning to end. And everything is so well crafted and made, it feels like the game had a never-ending budget! And just like A Way Out before it, there are a ton of optional interactable objects, just to mess around with, as well as optional VS minigames if you look hard enough.

 It Takes Two is an absolute masterpiece. The only real complaint I have about it is that it requires another player to experience it. I understand the intent, I appreciate couch-co-op games such as this one, but finding somebody else willing to clock in all 9 hours it takes to finish the game at whatever point in time you want to play it... could be tough. I really value Josef Fare's effort to bring couch co-op back, but his games are amazing and deserve to be played by as many people as possible, so maybe looking into make some single player alternative for their next game could be a good idea.

 9.0

Game #1051: Star Wars - Jedi Power Battles(Gameboy Advance)

  Scratching the bottom of the battle I find myself at.

 Bayonetta was really good, and that just can't stand, so here I am playing licensed GBA garbage again, today's feature being Star Wars: Jedi Power Battles. I mean, the console game wasn't very good to begin with, so did this version stand a chance at all?

 Well, let's start with the classic sure-fire signs that this is a low-quality licensed game: Classic, muddy digitalized 3-D sprites, Isometric perspective that makes jumping a pain in the rear end and... passwords. And weirdly enough for such a simple game, it's a bit buggy. On the second stage, after I performed a jump, Qui-Gon turned invisible.

 Let's start with how it plays, basic combat is clunky at worst and dull at best. A, A+movement, L and L+movement are your basic attacks, and to be fair, each of the four characters have different animations. Some are way better than others. Mace Windu has fast attacks, making him the best character, and Darth Maul, the one you unlock, is more of a punishment than a reward since his animations are SO slow. You can also deflect lasers and get force powers, but meh, nothing to save the game from being boring. Sometimes enemy placement is just annoying, so that you'll get shot after a jump, and thus pushed to your death, so now you know that you have to be ready to deflect the laser before continuing your jumps.

 Speaking of jumps... the isometric perspective is less than ideal for platforming, but in this game it's extra clunky. While you have a double jump, you can't change or correct your momentum, so if you accidentally slipped off or if an enemy pushed you... you are basically dead since you'll drop straight down, and your double jump won't carry you anywhere. And don't even let me get started on the fact that there's fall damage in the way of fall instant death. It's so incredibly stupid, there are so many stages in which you have to drop down, but if you forget about this and decide to jump down you'll just lose a life.

 Y'know, Jedi Power Battles might be slightly entertaining or a few minutes, but it's not long before the annoyances with the gameplay start piling up. I'd just get Star Wars Episode 3 on the GBA instead, does what this one tried to do but much better.

3.0

Game #1050: Bayonetta

  Are #50 games a milestone now that I reached #1000? Maybe.

 I never thought I'd be giving Bayonetta a chance, the over-sexualized design of the character was a massive turn-off for me, fanservice being the primary reason I got tired of anime, but.... since Bayonetta 2 and 3 became Nintendo exclusives and I love Nintendo... here I am. I was ready to hate the game, plus, it's the terrible PS3 port, but... but... damnit! The game does a ton of things I really liked!

 Firstly, I love how Bayonetta looks. The sleek, black catsuit with gold accents, her hairdo, the glasses, the Slenderman proportions, the fact that she can turn into a panther or a crow... I love how she looks. I think Bayonetta is one of the coolest looking character designs out there. On the other hand, the fanservice is completely insane, most cutscenes try to find ways to focus on her bust and on her butt, a secondary character even gropes her when she rescues him... it's as if the game is trying its hardest to make me dislike the character. Heck, her gimmick is that she uses her hair to attack and her outfit is made out of her hair, so her most powerful attacks also leave her naked. It's so forced that it could've only have come from Japan. So if you get your kicks out of 2-D or 3-D women, you'll probably like Bayonetta. If you find it dumb... well, in the end I could tolerate it since the rest of the game is SO good.

 Speaking of cutscenes, it seems the budget wasn't all that high, as some cutscenes are fully animated while others... others are more comic-book style, with voice overs over still images. It's not the best alternative ever and these latter cutscenes do feel like they drag on for too long, but if it was necessary in order to polish other parts of the game, such as the combat... I guess I can live with it. On the other hand, the soundtrack is GLORIOUS, the theme song being a remixed cover of 'Fly me to the Moon' which I think is superior to the original. Since I'm covering the presentation, both the sound and art design make it feel like a PS2 game, and I mean that as a compliment. The game has this PS2-charm to it that latter PS3/X360 games just lost as they got more and more homogenized.

 Now that I'm done with the fluff, onto the real meat, the combat... It's brilliant. Bayonetta has three offensive buttons: Guns, Punch and Kick, and her moveset is MASSIVE. There are a ton of combos you can perform by mixing punches and kicks... and then mixing punches, kicks and wait-times between certain attacks. You can also perform variant attacks by holding down the punch or kick button when you press it. I'm not kidding when I say that the moveset is ridiculously massive. And as you play through the game you unlock WEAPONS you can equip, you can have up to two weapon sets equipped at a time, but you can customize this sets at any time. I call them sets because you equip weapons to hands and feet, and depending on how you mix and match weapons... you get different combos. Most button inputs are shared between weapons, for instance, Punch - Punch - Kick - Kick - Kick and Punch - Punch - Punch - Kick - Kick is pretty much identical whether you are using your fists, the katana, the whip or the gauntlets, but every weapon has different properties. The Katana is fast and strong, features some pretty nasty combos that involve waiting between attacks and can charge every punch into a Iai strike. The whip causes very little, if any, stagger to the enemies, but has great range and can pull enemies towards you. The Gauntlets can change modes, between slow and powerful or fast and weak. In my case, I found the Katana to be the perfect mix of strength and speed, while I used the gauntlets for variety's sake since I found them very interesting. And, of course, you can swap sets mid-combo, so you can pull off all kinds of shenanigans. Not gonna lie, in some ways, I think Bayo's combat is much superior to Devil May Cry's single attack button affairs. Bayonetta's moveset offers so much variety. Add to this the fact that some enemies can leave behind weapons you can pick up and use for a short while before they break.... yeah, Bayonetta's combat is mighty impressive.

 And then there's the magic system. Landing attacks charges your magic gauge, once full you can perform a Torture attack that insta-kills any weak enemy or deals massive damage to the stronger baddies. Getting hit costs you magic, so you gotta try your best to avoid damage and deal damage. You can dodge attacks with the R2 button, but spamming R2 will eventually make Bayonetta perform a high jump, leaving her vulnerable upon landing, in order to punish you for not learning how to dodge! If you press Dodge JUST before getting hit, you'll activate Witch Time, slowing down enemies around you. Man, Bayonetta's got Devil May Cry beat when it comes to combat, and I hate to say that because I ADORE Devil May Cry and actively avoided Bayonetta for so long.

 Beating enemies and performing lengthy combos rewards you with Sonic Rings(really) which you can then spend on more techniques, support items, more health, accessories or the ability to dual wield a few weapons(Meaning, equipping them on both arms and legs). Just like with Devil May Cry, do remember that Hideki Kamiya directed both the first DMC and the first Bayo, levels have heart pieces and pearl pieces hidden everywhere, as well as hidden challenges that will reward you with either, in order to extend your health bar and magic gauge.

 The game is pretty lengthy, bordering on 9 hours(And I suspect the game's internal clock stops ticking during cutscenes), and while some environments are reused you don't traverse them in the same way, heck, you could say that it reuses parts of environments, but not wholesale. Beating the game under certain conditions(Or which cheats...) lets you unlock costumes or the ability to play as Jeanne, which is identical to Bayonetta but with few quirks(Deals and receives more damage, can spam R2 indefinitely, etc) which are all great extras to top the game with.

 But well, Bayonetta couldn't be all that perfect, now could it? QTEs, and some of the worst I've seen. The time is pretty rough, a lot of times I could've sworn I pressed the button but it didn't count. One time I knew it was coming so I was mashing the button beforehand... and it didn't count, so you can't be too early either. And failing a QTE means death, which will sap you points from your chapter total, it's very unfair. And since missing a QTE translates into a death... it means that you have to sit through another loading screen before you can try again, and this is the PS3 port, for you see....

 ...the PS3 port was outsourced, and it's terrible when it comes to framerate and loading. I've said it before, while I like a smooth framerate, I can forgive a choppy framerate if the game is really good. So yeah, the game caps at 30FPS, unlike the other ports, and there are some very nasty drops here and there... but the real issue are the loading times. Loading a chapter is much lengthier than on other consoles, that in and of itself is bad enough, but it also has loading times that the other ports do not have. Pausing the game needs a loading screen. Opening the equipment menu needs a loading screen, when you pick up items, the description needs a loading screen. And I remind you, the other ports do not have these. Mind you, it doesn't break the game, but no other version of Bayonetta has this issues, so playing the game on PS3 is the worst way you could experience Bayonetta by far.

 Well... I regret not having played Bayonetta before. The rampant fanservice is stupid, the QTEs are annoying and the PS3 exclusive features, namely more loading screens and lengthier loading times, are awful, but the game itself is fantastic. Heck, it has better combat mechanics than even Devil May Cry V, one of my, if not MY, favorite game of the PS4 era(So far). I think if I had played one of the superior ports, Bayonetta might've become one of my favorite games in the genre. Dante might be the king of combo-based action games, but Bayonetta is the queen, and from what I've heard they removed the QTEs from the sequel so... I can't wait until my sister returns me my Switch and I can play the sequel.

 8.0

Game #1049: The Mummy Returns

  The curse of the mummy is dreadful.

 Well... another bargain bin surprise, The Mummy Returns is a prime example of why licensed games get such a bad rep. 

 I think the game is supposed to follow the plot of the movie of the same name, but I wouldn't know. What I do know is that the game offers two campaigns, in one you play as Rick and in the other one you play as Imhotep, the evil resurrected mummy, and they do get their own levels, dialogue and even powers. Rick's stages are more adventurous while Imhotep's are a bit more focused on combat, at least from what I played since I didn't care to finish the game again as Imhotep.

 Jumping is so awkward, you need to run towards an edge and pray that the square button input turns into 'jump' otherwise you'll drop to your death. Why not have Square act as jump all the time? Or if it depended on an edge, why not make it automatic, like in Zelda? I don't know. And sometimes, when landing, Rick will perform a vault that will probably get you killed if you jumped onto a small platform. Why? Who came up with this?  While your joystick has a right analog stick, there's no camera control, just press L2 to reposition the camera behind you. When you shoot your guns, Rick will aim automatically, which works decently enough, but melee combat feels very slippery and haphazard, sometimes it feels like Rick or Imhotep actually want to punch or kick in the opposite direction of the enemy you are trying to kill. Oh, and some enemies LOVE to run away when you are trying to kill them, only to make combat last longer, waste your time and annoy you further. And enemies? They respawn constantly. Why? Seriously, why? Who came up with this?

 Level design is absolutely terrible, stages feel like mazes, there are no checkpoints and it's easy to just die. Almost as if to make up for it you can save anywhere.... provided you are not taking in or out your weapons or in the middle of a jump or attack. I found out about this the hard way, so let me tell you about my very first experience with the game.

 Rick's first stage is an absolute nightmare, to the point that every stage afterwards is undeniably easier. No other stage has as many hidden walls, deadly traps, bottomless pits over small platforms you have to awkwardly platform through with this game's awful jump mechanics or as many gimmicks as this one. Heck, there's one part in which you have to use dynamite to blow up pillars, but you can barely aim your shots so you'll probably take damage from the explosion, and then trying to get onto the broken pillars can be a hassle, since if you miss your jump or accidentally walk off the thing... instant death. Alright, so I paused the game many times and not a single time did the 'Save' option appeared, so I guessed it would only let you save once you beat a level. This is how I discovered there were no checkpoints, every time I died, and I died a ton of times, it meant back to the start of the level.

 I was so frustrated I looked up reviews, nobody mentioned the high difficulty or how to save the game. I looked in my instruction booklet, and it said nothing about when I could save the game. 'Maybe I'm just bad' I thought, maybe I was used to easier games and other people didn't find it Crash Bandicoot 1's levels of unfair. So I tried Imhotep. I cleared the first stage and.... the game didn't ask me if I wanted to save. So as soon as the level started I pressed start and... no save option. 'Maybe it autosaves', so I quit, went to load game and.... no save file existed. I was angry, and decided I wasn't gonna play it anymore, it was trash and it was unfairly hard because of how awful the controls were. So I looked up reviews again, and somebody mentioned being able to save anywhere. Two days later I gave it a try and... the Save option was there. As I played I discovered the actions that would make it so that the Save option didn't appear, it seems that the first time I played the game I was super unlucky so I was always trying to save when I was taking out items or punching the air or something. Yeah, when you can save anywhere the game is a cakewalk, except for the final boss.

 Sure, I had a bad first experience with the game, but I swear to god I gave it a proper chance after I figured out how the Save Option worked. But even then, the game is devoid of any fun, it just isn't good in any way, shape or form. If anything, props to the guy that voices Rick, as he pulled of a fantastic Brendan Fraser impression. But then again, I'm matching him to how I remember Brendan Fraser sounding! Plus, I'll give it some credit for having two campaigns, one following a what-if story in which the villain wins, which is admittedly pretty neat. 

 2.5