Review #675: 64 Memories - Turok 3 - Shadow of Oblivion

 Third time's the charm. Sorta.

 Part I: The Flashback
 This was one of the final few games I got on the Nintendo 64, and thus, I never got to play it as much as I played the other Turok games. That said, I remember enjoying Turok 3 - Shadow of Oblivion a whole lot. I loved having two playable characters, with different weaponry and routes, and I sure loved continuing Turok's story. I don't think I spent much time with this game's multiplayer since Rage Wars had that covered.

 The first thing that hit me was how great the game looked as soon as the intro cinematic played. It's very memorable, and you can tell that this game had high production costs. What I hadn't noticed back then, however, is how much they toned down the violence. Maiming enemies is a pretty rare occurrence now, and when it does happen we don't get fancy, gruesome death animations. A shame!

 Part II: The Review
 The Turok series hasn't aged the best, but it's my humble opinion that Turok 3 has held up much better than the other two. Firstly, they have streamlined levels into much more linear affairs, to the game's benefits. There are still keys to be found, a super powerful weapon to be assembled and what not, but you no longer need keys to open up other levels, need to revisit older stages or even go round and round through massive levels. It's a much better approach that makes the game much more fun to play through. As previously mentioned, there are two characters now, Danielle and Joseph, each one gets alternate routes at key points during every level, since Danielle has a grappling hook and can jump a little higher than Joseph, while Joseph can crawl through smaller spaces. Each character also gets different enhanced weaponry, so, for instance, while both characters get the Shotgun, Danille can upgraded it into a Fire Shotgun while Joseph gets the Shredder. As a rule of thumb, Danielle gets the more explosive and powerful weaponry, while Joseph gets more tactical and stealthier upgrades. Which means Danielle is a blast to play with.

 Besides levels being more constricted and thus more manageable, the game has completely done away with the lives system, now we have unlimited retries as well as very generous checkpoints. Praise the gods. You can also save at any time. The framerate is still pretty bad, but nowhere near as unplayable as Turok 2. While cutscenes look like very early PS2 graphics, you can tell that graphics during gameplay have definitely lost a bit of detail, but it's a fair tradeoff if I can actually play the game now. That said, there were a few instances that dropped the framerate into single digits, but they were brief and far in-between.

 While in my youth I adored every Turok game(except the first one), this one is the first one that I can say I enjoyed all the way through in the present day. I lurked a few forums before trying out Turok 3 after all these years, and I saw that it received a rather lukewarm reception, and now I know why, at a surface level it feels like a step back from Turok 2, with simpler graphics, smaller levels and less collectibles... but seen through modern-day lenses, all those tweaks and changes make for a much more enjoyable experience.

 It's still not perfect, however. I found a few setpieces, particularly in the last two levels, to be rather boring. Aiming with the N64's joystick is less than ideal, as per usual, and while the framerate is more tolerable... it's still pretty bad.
 5.0 out of 10

Review #674: Bloodstained - Curse of the Moon

 Alright, we don't need Konami anymore.

 Alright, I'm gonna cut right to the chase here: Bloodstained - Curse of the Moon is amazing. Not only did Igarashi create one of his best Metroidvanias with Bloodstained, he also produced one of the finest Classicvanias out there. Seeing how we've got both fronts covered, I think I can safely say that we can officially forget that Konami exists.

 Curse of the Moon is a weird 8-bit demake/alternate take on Bloodstained, here you play as Zangetsu as his curse drives him to slay a lot of demons. On his journey he'll join up with Ritual of the Night's protagonist Miriam, Alfred and Gebel, the main antagonist of said game. Or you can just kill them. That's right, you can kill them. The game is made up of 8 different stages, and on the first three you'll meet up with your potential allies, then you can either talk to them, and have them join you on your adventure, kill them, and have Zangetsu earn a new move, or just ignore them. You can get slightly different epilogues depending on what you do, but the real kicker is that you can unlock different modes on either 'Everyone joins' or 'Everyone dies' routes. Ignoring characters unlocks nothing, but it's easily the hardest way to play the game. Killing everyone unlocks 'Ultimate Mode', which let's you play as the powered up version of Zangetsu AND recruit the other characters, while allying with everyone unlocks 'Nightmare Mode', in which you play as a party made up of Miriam, Alfred and Gebel from the start, and they get an alternate eight stage.

 The game plays just like any classicvania, you move from left to right, slaying enemies and clearing platforming challenges. There are two different styles: Veteran and Casual. Veteran plays like any Classicvania: Getting hit pushes you back, often to your doom, health pick ups are extremely rare and live can run out. Casual, on the other hand, is much more lenient, getting hit won't ruin your jumps, you'll come across health pick ups often and lives are unlimited. I found it a great way to please everyone, want the hardcore experience? Go with Veteran. Would you rather have a much more pleasant cruise? Casual is for you. Regardless of which style you go with, the game offers a decent, but fair, challenge. Depending on your the decisions the game might get a bit tougher, for instance, throughout every level you can come across permanent power ups, but these require having allies to reach, as even a powered-up Zangetsu can't reach most of them, and if you decide to ignore everyone, you'll have a weak Zangetsu all the way through,

 As for the game itself, it plays like a dream. Controls are responsive and simple: A jump button, an attack button and a subweapon button, you can also use L and R to switch between your characters on the fly, each one having their own lifebar. Subweapons can be found inside purple candles, and each character has their own set of subweapons, these consume 'magic points' which can be replenished by finding magic pick-ups, usually hidden inside orange candles. Each character also have their own stats and abilities: Zangetsu has the highest life bar and attack power, but he has a short reach and limited subweapons(One that buffs him or an ally for a while. an upwards chain attack or a downward tag-bomb), Miriam can jump higher than anyone else and slide, has the second largest lifebar, long reach thanks to her whip and the most versatile subweapons... although who needs versatility when her ax subweapon is the biggest damage dealer in the entire game? Alfred is slow, has the shortest reach and shortest lifebar, but has very useful spells, it's a good idea to cast something and then switch to another character so that him or her can make use of it. Gebel is a bit more unique, his basic attack sends three bats flying upwards, but he has a single subweapon: Bat transformation, allowing him to reach higher places... or skip a ton of hazards! Killing everyone earns Zangetsu a special jumping attack, a double jump and the ability to dash.

 I can't stress this enough, Curse of the Moon is immensely enjoyable. Each playthrough should last about an hour, but thanks to its many modes and variations you can get a pretty decent replay value out of it. While it looks, sounds and feels just like a Castlevania of old, it doesn't fall into older tropes of making the game cheaper and harder just for the sake of it... or for the sake of trying to get people to buy games instead of renting them. As a side note, I'm glad I waited to play this game until after I played Ritual of the Moon, because I think this game works great as an 8-bit demake, since a lot of stages are inspired on zones from the main game, and it uses a lot of the same enemies and bosses from said game, even if the patterns and gameplay are completely different.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #673: Dead or Alive 6

 Dead. Mostly dead on arrival.

 I've got a... soft spot for Dead or Alive. While I've always been a crusader against fanservice in videogames, underneath its dumb otaku culture exterior lies a honest to goodness decent fighting game. The franchise has always been easy to pick up and play, a more casual take on Virtua Fighter, if you will. And I friggin' love Virtua Fighter. Sadly, Tecmo has really dropped the ball with Dead or Alive 6.

 The game covers well tread ground with its mode offerings: Story, VS(VS Cpu or Player, Arcade, Survival, Time Attack) as well as a Training/Tutorial mode. Special mention goes to how terrible the Story Mode is. Firstly, just as with DoA 5, it's a disjointed collection of scenes that might or might be relevant to the main story thread, the one concerning Ninjas, that unlocks as you play different chapters. The story is ridiculous, the voice English acting is horrible(And not lipsynched) and, like any Japanese game wanting to pander, shoehorned Marie Rose(Resident loli, very popular with the Otaku crowd, supposedly 18 years old) and Honoka(Her personality are her big breasts, really dumb design and voice, extremely popular with the Otaku crowd) into as many scenes as possible, to the game's detriment since both characters are horrible, their dialogue is completely idiotic and their scenes only induced cringe. As for how much of an after thought the story mode was is that you don't get a single thing for completing all chapters, not a single costume piece, not a single trophy. There's absolutely no reason to play the Story Mode besides wanting to cringe for two hours or so.

 Thankfully, the tried and true gameplay that originated from the very first game remains unsullied. You've got a punch, a kick, a throw and a 'hold' button, and that's everything you need to have fun. Every character has a somewhat extensive amount of different attack strings made up of Punches and Kicks, so even newbies can have fun pressing buttons and watching cool stuff happen. Indulge your inner daredevil and you might even try to use the Hold button in order to counter different attacks aimed your way. In this manner, combat in Dead or Alive is fast, furious and, above all, fun. Power Blows and all that jazz from DoA 5 has been axed, instead now we have Break Blows and Break Holds, powerful, gauge consuming moves. The hold consumes 50% of your break gauge and can counter any type of incoming attack, while the Blow consumes 100% of your break gauge and serves as a powerful special attack. Most characters have very similar Break Blows, so they are nothing to write home about, and, as a matter of fact, I thought they kinda got in the way of the match's flow.

 If it's pretty much the same old game as before, then how did Tecmo Koei drop the ball? Well, because there's absolutely no reason to settle for DoA 6 while you can get DoA 5: Final Round for much cheaper. Let's start with the roster, here we have 24 different characters. The same exact number as vanilla 5. Except that 5 got two further revisions with even more characters. What we get here is, basically, Last Round's roster minus the guests, Gen Fu, Ein, Leon, Alpha-152, Momiji, Rachel  but with two new characters, Otaku's wet dream NiCO and discount Travis Touchdown, Diego. That's pretty disappointing in and of itself, but let's add to this the fact that Nyotengu was a pre-order exclusive, as well as Phase-4, which happens to be another Kasumi clone. Both Nyotengu and Phase-4 are fought during story-mode, if only to let you know how shady their DLC practices are. With Last Round you get more characters and more costumes. Diego and NiCO aren't worth sacrificing Ein, my favorite, or Momiji. To add insult to injury, Mai Shiranui returned as DLC again, because we gotta nickel and dime dem otakus and weaboos.

 While I'm not one to care about graphics, it's hard to notice any difference between DoA 5 and 6. Mind you, if you look at them side by side you can definitely tell that the new game is much more colorful, and it's got more details, things like sharper muscle tones and looser clothes. But the stages are pretty similar, and plenty of characters reused their costumes, or very similar costumes to the ones they wore in 5, making for a very similar looking game. Koei Tecmo should've spent more time giving everyone new designs. Or maybe not, Rig and Bayman's secondary outfits, for instance, are as generic as they get. Speaking of outfits, as per usual, boys only get two different costumes, while girls get about six of them. Each outfit has 3 different colors, which is kinda neat. Unlocking them, however, is not neat. Playing offline modes(Survival, Arcade and Time Attack) rewards you with about 1 costume piece. Costumes require anything from 100 to 1000 Costume pieces. Pieces you unlock go toward random costumes. Notice a problem? Quest Mode is the easiest way to earn costume pieces, since you earn in the hundreds, but quests are limited, I was lucky I got to unlock a costume for Hayate, my boy, but I wasn't able to unlock anything for a few fighters. Conversely, I unlocked a ton of costumes for Kokoro, a character I don't care about or like to play as.

 Bottom line is: Get Dead or Alive 5 - Last Round. It looks practically the same, it has pretty much every character in this one plus a lot more, it has more costumes and it's cheaper. If Tecmo-Koei is planning on moving forwards with Dead or Alive into a seventh installment or beyond, they should really look into refreshing how every character looks, making new stages instead of trying to pay homage to the older games and adding more than new two characters per entry(Kasumi clones don't count) and not axing anyone unless the plot demands it. Story Mode should either get cut and reworked into Arcade Endings or given a better written plot, losing the disjointed narrative and giving everyone their chance to shine during a linear story progression. Males and females should have the same amount of costumes, axe the silly fanservice costumes and gives us cooler or casual clothes(Honestly, Mila's new casual clothes make her a cutie, although Rig could've done with something less generic) and stop trying to nickel and dime their fanbase. Either that or continue riding this horse and see where it gets them.

 The saddest part about this is that Dead or Alive 6 is a fun game, because its foundation is rock solid. Its simple nature makes it a joy to pick up and play, you don't need to spend time learning a character(Unless you really want to), just pick someone, mash buttons and have fun. The hold system was a brilliant mechanic back then, and it still makes for some very exciting back-and-forth. But Tecmo-Koei really need step up their game, because such a lackluster attempt at a husk to profit from through DLC can only take them so far. Or maybe not, there's got to be a reason as to why they keep getting away with things like a 90$ season pass.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #672: Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night

 Not to be confused with Castlevania. Completely different games.

 Koji Igarashi, the madman, did it. He successfully led a multi-million dollar Kickstarted to deliver exactly what the fans wanted. Bloodstained - Ritual of the Night is the Castlevania successor we wanted, nay, needed. While the game does little in treading new ground, this is a homage and tribute to all the Metroidvanias Iga had developed during his tenure at Konami, as a matter of fact, the game takes so many cues from Symphony of the Night it might as well be a spiritual reboot.  And yes, I'm coining that expression.

 The game's plot is pretty silly, and I found the introductory cutscene to be needlessly long, but it gets the job done: You are Miriam, our new resident badass, suffering from an affliction that's turning her body into stained glass. As if that wasn't bad enough, her friend Gebel has gone off the deep end, so she sets out to stop him and his evil ways. Simple, dumb, just the way a Metroidvania should play out! On another note, this might pretty well be Iga's largest castle yet, and it even features a few challenging bonus bosses. Order of Ecclesia-challenging bosses. As far as the difficulty goes, it's not as easy as Symphony of the Night, but it's not as challenging(barring the bonus bosses) as Order of Ecclesia, sitting at a happy medium.

 Bloodstained features the usual Metroidvania tropes of exploring a large environment, a Castle in this case, with progression being  held back by obstacles that require finding specific power ups to clear. Along the way Miriam will be battling a ton of baddies, earning experience to level up and increase her stats, as well as scavenging for equipment. There are a ton of different weapons, and there's even a simple crafting system to create even more weapons and pieces equipment. Heck, a few accessories will actually show on Miriam... for good or bad. I wish that could've been toggled on and off, since some of the silliest looking equipment pieces also had good stat increased. Speaking of looks, if you find a specific NPC you can alter Miriam's hairdo, hair color and even the color of her outfit. Simple, but fun, hope future Igavanias only expand on the character customization features.

 Crafting elements isn't the only thing Bloodstained borrowed from Dawn of Sorrow, as the game features Shards, with are analogues to Souls from the Sorrow duo. Defeating enemies not only has the chance to reward you with loot, but there's also the chance that it might drop its Shard. Shards come in various color-coded types, Miriam being able to equip one of each at the same time. Red shards are used with the X button, Blue shards and purple shards are used with the R buttons, yellow Shards give you passive bonuses(And once fully upgraded turn into White Shards, shards that are active at all times) and, lastly, Green Shards summon familiars, like Symphony of the Night. There are over a 100 different Shards, and each Shard can be strengthened by collecting the same Shard and they can also be upgraded by going to the crafting NPC. More shards of the same power will usually increase its strength, while the crafted upgrades tend to extend their range or the such. The shard system is, like the soul system before it, brilliant. Drop rates tend to be more generous than other Castlevanias, which makes sense considering how much stuff you can craft.

 It's easy to tell that Iga wanted his new game to be a celebration of everything he's done before with the Castlevania franchise, as such you'll be noticing a lot of winks and references to his previous Metroivania games. It might stick too close to Symphony's blueprint: The game ending prematurely if you defeat the boss without having the special means to stop him, said special means requiring you to get an armor that can withstand spike damage, having a librarian... for all intents and purposes, it's a very classy stealth Symphony of the Night spiritual reboot. And you can tell that a lot of love was spent making this game.

 ...however, while it's easy to tell that this was a passion project, it's also easy to tell that it was made by a team that wasn't very experienced with the Unreal Engine 4. In this sense, the game can be incredibly unstable. Look, the game was poorly optimized on the big consoles(PS4/XOne) featuring  undeserved framerate drop, so a Switch Port of something that didn't run as well as it should is, unsurprisingly, even worse. Yes, the game can struggle to maintain 30 fps, so much so that you'll eventually start getting 1-2 second freezes every now and then. I thought my game froze(Like, a freeze freeze) after I defeated the second-to-last boss since the game froze for about 6 seconds. I was about to reboot the darn thing before it unfroze. That said, unlike what alarmists would have you believe, the game is far, far from unplayable. Suboptimal? Yes, but the game is perfectly playable, and so much fun that it's hard to care too much about it.

 Sadly, the instability doesn't end there. Every single port of the game is prone to crashes, albeit in a predictable way: Interacting with bookshelves and NPCs has a chance to crash your game. Eventually you'll learn that it's best to wait interacting with an NPC until you saved your game, and while it's worst in the Switch version, every port has this issue. There were a few other technical issues, like a few specific rooms having long load times for whatever reason. There's one in the library that comes after a jump, so if you didn't held jump long enough, Miriam may just drop below the platform triggering the loading screen again. During the latter parts of the game, my enemy compendium sometimes displayed at 0.00% even though it was almost full. There also seems to be an issue with how rooms are connected, since about 3-4 times, while entering-and-exit a room in order to try to get an enemy shard or drop, I would teleport to another zone that was close by. This got me to break a sequence once and get through a door triggered by a switch that was on the opposite end of the room! Another two times I couldn't get out of this void, so I had to use a WayStone to teleport back to town and not lose any progress.

 It's easy to see that the team struggled with the game, there's a reason it got delayed so many times and and how there are framerate issues even on the upgraded current-gen consoles, but because of that the entire game isn't on the cart/disc at the moment. The mandatory alternate characters? The bonus modes, including multiplayer? All of them are to come in the future as free updates. That said, as much as I hate having to settle with a physical/digital hybrid for the entire game, I can say that what we got is a complete game, what's coming is just the cherry on top.

 When it comes down to it, Bloodstained Ritual of the Night is pretty darn great, and it's sure to scratch that itch Konami refuses to acknowledge. A lot of love and care went into designing this game, and I'm sure that Igarashi and his team will be able to polish the game through patches as they get more comfortable with the engine. It's also worth mentioning that the Switch version is definitely the worst way to experience Bloodstained, but even so it's still a great game.
 8.5 out of 10

Review #671: 64 Memories - Hybrid Heaven

 Featuring a RPG/Fighting game hybrid!

 Part I: The Flashback
 Yes, yet another Nintendo 64 game I had always wanted to own but never got the chance to, we couldn't even find it up for rental! The game's art looked fantastic, with the Ryu and Ken lookalikes and the whole RPG/Fighter hybrid mechanics. Everything I could scrape and read about the game made me sure that this was a game I wanted to own. And considering how RPGs and Fighters were my favorite genres back then, with games like Legaia and Xenogears being among my top favorites thanks to their hybrid nature, I would've loved this game.

 Part II: The Review
 Hybrid Heaven is fun but with a few caveats. What most sources fail to mention it's that it's also a bit of a third-person shooter, featuring simple, if boring, level design as well as basic robot-enemies that you can defeat with your energy gun. As a matter of fact, there's a boss fought entirely through the third-person shooting mechanic... and it's also one of the most annoying ones, since Johnny, the main character, gets rooted to the spot he was standing on the moment you try to aim his gun. It's very clunky and stiff. It's not too bad for most of the game since the basic robot enemies are pretty dumb, easy targets, but this one boss....

 Thankfully, shooting and jumping is but a tertiary part of the game, the main brunt of the game comes in the form of one on one fights against hybrid and aliens. When you and a humanoid enemy get close to one another a fight ensues, during which you, and the enemy, can move around the environment. As you both wait for your power gauges to fill, the enemies' are invisible so the AI might as well cheat, so that you can perform different attacks. Once at least one fourth of the gauge is filled you can then press the A button to enter a menu and select an attack. There are about 70 different attacks in the game, in the form of multiple punches and kicks. Honestly, you'll want to focus on a few of those in order to level them up and maximize your damage potential. Each limb also levels up on their own, so you can opt for a jack of all trades that can punch as hard as he kicks, or focus on either set of limbs for a strong fighter focused on a specific style.

 But it also might happen that just before you press the A button the enemy will trigger their attack before you, in which case you'll be granted a few defensive maneuvers: Guard, Counter or evade. If you were in the middle of a sidestep when the enemy triggered their attack you just might evade the attack completely. There are other angles to fighting, such as either you or the enemy can try to target a specific body part of the opponent in order to temporarily disable their attacks or handicap them, like slowing them down(broken legs) or getting them dizzy for a while(If you damage their heads). It sounds pretty in-depth, but after you unlock the ability to use combos, all you'll be doing is dancing around the stage waiting for all five gauges to fill so that you can unleash a powerful combo on your enemy. Might as well look for a guide, since a few specific combos have a hidden, extra sixth attack at the end.

 While in theory the combat is pretty dynamic, the truth of the matter is that most of the fighting was, as I said above, just moving around, guarding and evading waiting for my five gauges to fill so that I could use the same exact combo every single time. While different enemies should be approached in different ways, such as you'll want to step around a few enemies while close by so that they don't use their projectile attacks, or others will chase you around if you try to run, the end goal of each fight was pretty much the same. That said, I can't deny that I still had fun with the combat system, and I think that I would've liked it quite a bit back in the day. I also enjoyed how pretty much every fight in the first 5 hours or so of the game meant a stat-up of some sort, made depleting enemy-generators a rewarding, if repetitive, ordeal.

  The story shows promise at the start, being very dumb and involving aliens, but some of the ridiculousness get replaced with boring nonsense by the end, it doesn't happen that special agent Johnny Slater is mute for 90% of the game. The game lasts about 16 hours, although keep in mind I grinded for a bit and died a few times. And some deaths can be painful, since save spots can be pretty darn sparse. You can't skip cutscenes, when sucks when retrying a boss, and is particularly annoying during the last part of the game which consists of a six-boss gauntlet. You don't want to die and then have to suffer through every boring cutscene again.

 While a bit dull by today's standards, I think Hybrid Heaven is a fun experiment. Most of the fun with the game comes from seeing how weird, yet strangely fun the gameplay is, although it grows quite stale by end. That said, I know that I would've loved this game back in the day.
 6.5 out of 10

Entry #670: Resistance - Burning Skies

 Back when games where brown and grey.

 Burning Skies is an odd one. Back when the Vita was first announced, one of its main selling points was having AAA experiences on the go, and back then First-person shooters where in vogue and a handheld with two analog sticks was the bees knees, so of course the Vita had to had a few first person shooters! Resistance - Burning Skies was one such game, which arrived to a somewhat lukewarm reception. Well, I'm here to tell ya that it ain't bad at all.

 The game has two modes, Online Multiplayer, which of course nobody is playing, and a short 6-level single player campaign. I quite liked my time through the game, each stage is widely different form one another, even if every single stage is either brown, grey or somewhere in-between, making for rather boring environments. The story itself I found passable at best, with a few of Riley's, the main character, interactions with his daughter in the final chapters of the game laughably bad. The game looks relatively good, although there were a few jarry polygons here and there. One level failed to load textures, so I killed myself in order for the game to correct itself. On the other hand, it's surprisingly and satisfyingly gory, watching the enemy chimerae explode into chunky bits felt great. The game is quite manageable, although the final level had a few very tough segments that I could only clear thanks to abusing grenades in order to make enemies panic and give me some breathing room. The last boss while simple to figure out was quite a bastard too.

 I really liked the weaponry in this game. I know for a fact that at least one of the weapons came from the home-console games(The wall-penetrating Auger) so I'm not sure how many, if any, weapons are original to this game. Each weapon has a main fire and an alternate fire, and while it's not as unique as Painkiller, weapons tend to have interesting alternate fires. As you go through the game you'll collect alien technology cubes which can then be spent in upgrading your weapons. There's a total of six different upgrades per weapon, but you can only carry two at a time. You can override your pick at any time if you have a spare cube. None of the upgrades, at least the ones I purchased felt too impactful, although having my shotgun blast both rounds on a single shot gave me the added horsepower a berserker Rambo like me needs.

 Now onto the controversial, touch-controls. Alternate fire is done by touching the screen. Quick-melee attacks are done by tapping the Axe icon, and grenades are shot by dragging the grenade icon onto the desired point. Also, interacting with objects is done by pressing the touchscreen. That's a lot of different functionalities tied to a single mechanic. Yes, you will occasionally use your alternate fire when trying to open a door or pick-up a wounded soldier, hopefully you won't be carrying the Carbine and kill yourself when you accidentally shot a grenade round instead of opening the door. I never killed myself this way, but I read about a few people that did. Also, as anyone who is unlucky enough to read this knows I love using melee in any game that lets me, so I abused that axe icon like there was no tomorrow and I never had the game register that input incorrectly, so the controls are fine, it's just that the 'open door' icon is a bit too small and it might move as you get closer to a door causing you to press another area and use your gun's alternate fire.

 If the game had one huge flaw besides how bland it looks it's how the quick toggle works. Y'see, holding down the triangle button will have the weapon wheel show up on screen so that you can pick your weapon, fair enough. Tapping the triangle button, however, will switch between your whichever two weapons you used last. That's fantastic, and works well enough... except when you die and reload your checkpoint or even after you upgrade a weapon: The game will just forget what was your other quick-toggle weapon, which can be a bit annoying the first few times it happens and your character won't switch out with the other weapon, but once you figure it out you'll prepare yourself after it resets.

 I enjoyed my time with Burning Skies. It is pretty basic, and the art-design is pretty uninspired, but the gameplay is fast, tight and, above all, fun. The nice amount of variety when it comes to weaponry was pretty welcome too, I don't remember the last time I felt comfortable just switching between every single weapon in an FPS. And, if anything, the shotgun feels great, and any first-person shooter that gets the shotgun right is A-OK in my book.
 6.5 out of 10

The DLC Report: Power Rangers - Battle for the Grid Season 1 Jen Scott, Gold Zeo Ranger

 Now we've got a proper game!

 Well, then, the first two characters from the 3-character season pass are here, alongside a few quality of life tweaks here and there. Besides the individual characters' buffs and nerfs, they added Power Rangers-style sparks whenever a weapon hits a character, which is a pretty neat touch. You also get a blue/red shine whenever a player switches characters when tagging, which is alright by me.

 As for the new characters, we've got the Pink Time Force Ranger, she's a rushdown character that's pretty fun to use. Plus, she wields two swords which instantly made me love her. On the other hand, we've got the Gold Zeo Ranger, and he is a blast to play. While I'm not a fan of his staff, they added little flourishes to most of his basic moves and even to his backstep, making him a very fun character to control. His super move is a delayed 'rain from above' type move, like the Green Ranger's, but you can swap him out and the attack will still come out, so it might do for some shenanigans. Overall, both characters are pretty good.

 I'm happy to announce that after this patch I can say that this is a proper game. The 14 character roster is acceptable and the gameplay is good fun. It still needs a bit more polishing, like a few extra single-player modes(Survival, anyone?), at least 10 more characters and a few more options, like letting players change the difficulty setting. But the game is on the right track.
 7.0 out of 10

Entry #669: Time Commando

 An antique of times past.

 Time Commando is one of those games I used to play a lot when I was younger, and I thought it was just as good after I played the first few levels only to discover that it has aged as tastefully as milk as I got further ahead. Time Commando was probably one of the games I played the most growing up. I first heard about it when a friend of mine talked to me about it before eventually getting to play it at his house. A few years later I would end up purchasing the game on PC for myself and having a grand old time. About 10 years since I last played it, here I am, revisiting on PS1, and boy oh, boy was this game best left off in my memories or what?!

 I'll describe the game pretty much like it was described to me back when I was a wee lad: It's an action game in which you go through different time periods beating up enemies, each period having its own set of weapons. I bet that sounds awesome, and I still think that the concept is brilliant. The game has 18 stages, divided through 9 different time periods, and you get 5 different weapons per era. You start during the prehistoric era, fighting cavemen and bears using clubs, stones and a basic spear, then you move on to Ancient Rome, peaking up a dagger, a sword or even a trident, eventually making it to  the Conquistadors, when you'll be using a rapier alongside a flintlock pistol. There's a lot of variety, both in enemies, stages and weaponry, making it very hard not to anticipate what'll come next.

 Sadly, age hasn't been kind to this game, and it's as clunky as clunky gets. Firstly, while backgrounds look pre-rendered, they are actually a pre-rendered cutscene that 'advances' as you walk forward. It doesn't look as bad as it sounds. Combat is when it gets choppy, you get a backstep and two sidesteps, but attacking is done by holding the attack button and pressing different directions on the D-Pad. Combat is pretty bland, but passable throughout most of the game. Once you hit the middle ages you'll start noticing that enemies start soaking up too much damage. But as soon as you hit the second half of the game, starting with the Wild West, the game takes a nosedive down, down, down as most weapons from then on become guns. Melee combat was sloppy, but projectiles are cheap. It's incredibly easy for enemies to lock you in place once they get a single shot in. You also have to keep in mind that aiming is harder than it should be, particularly at a few choice enemies that use height to their advantage, and you can actually run out of ammo, essentially spelling your doom.

 That's not to forget about some of its terrible ideas, like the 'corrupting memory', y'see, the story involves some Virus-thingie, so the time machine's constantly corrupting. You have to collect chips which you can then spend on Terminals to 'fix' the corrupted memory. If the corruption gauge fills completely you'll lose a life. I actually lost a few lives to this stupid mechanic, aided by the fact that sometimes you'll have to interact with very specific background elements, and if you don't interact with it at the right pixel you'll get a big 'Nope' from your character as you aimlessly explore the environment not knowing that you had the right idea, just that poor programming  led you astray. And losing a life sucks because it'll also remove a segment from your maximum HP, which you can increase by collecting batteries, very rare pickups. So not only do you lose a life, you also get penalized for it. Fun.

 The game has no memory card support, which is interesting to say the least, and you only get a few seconds to write the level password before it fades into oblivion. You'd better pause the game as soon as that bastard pops up, and good luck understanding the password's font. Don't even let me get started on the music, at first I thought I had a faulty disc, but I found a Longplay on youtube that had the same audio issues: The music begins and stops seemingly at random. It's incredibly jarring.

 While I had fun revisiting my childhood, at least during the game's first half, there's no denying that Time Command is a pretty bad game. While I think its time travelling ideas, and how they pulled it off, were great, there really is no point revisiting this game unless you have some form of nostalgia for it.
 3.0 out of 10

Entry #668: El Shaddai - Ascension of the Metatron

 Gives a whole new meaning to Divine Intervention.

 El Shaddai - Ascension of the Metatron is quite the experience, the biggest praise I can give it is that it almost feels like a Suda 51 game. Almost. This is a 3-D hack-and-slash action game that mixes in platforming as well as 2-D sections alongside some very surreal imagery to create a weird, inviting beast.

 The plot is hard to completely grasp, but it has you playing as Enoch, a heavenly scribe turned warrior, as he is sent back to earth to defeat 7 rogue angels. And then a ton of nonsense happens. While the story is quite simpler than anything Suda 51 would ever do, it still feels like a very surreal experience, with a ton of stuff that doesn't make sense or never gets brought up again. That said, most of the story is plaid straight, so no hidden symbolism or what have you, just amusing stuff like Lucifel(Not a mistranslation, since he is still an Angel his name ends on L) talking with a worried god about Enoch. The graphics are cellshaded, but it's the dream-like design of the levels that really makes the game stand-out. It's weird and very unnatural, which fits the theme of the game so much. Every new area is a feast for the eyes.

 Sadly, gameplay isn't up to snuff. The rhythm-based combat is innovative enough, but there are only three different weapons in the entire game, and only so many things you can do with them. There's no point to styling on enemies either, since there's nothing to upgrade. The purifying mechanic was also kinda boring, after using a weapon for a while it'll corrupt, making it much weaker, so you have to wait for an opening to tap R1 to 'purify' your weapon and restore it. Alternatively, you can just hit an enemy until it gets dizzy and then steal his weapon, purifying it in the process. A lot of the time the best strategy seemed to be to just disarm every enemy and then pulverize them with whatever weapon you ended up with. Honestly, the combat was decent at best and boring at worst.

 The platforming was also pretty bland, be it the less than precise 3-D platforming sections or the floaty, slippery 2-D platforming sections. Either way, platforming wasn't much fun in El-Shaddai. Mind you, it's not like platforming is completely horrible, it's just passable, forgettable even.

 While El-Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is definitely lacking as far as its gameplay goes, the unique audiovisual presentation alongside its Suda 51-like script made me really enjoy my time exploring El-Shaddai. I don't think I'll be replaying this one anytime soon, but I am glad I got to play it at least once.
 7.0 out of 10

Entry #667: Super Dragon Ball Heroes - World Mission

 Gotta catch'em all!

 Known as that game with the badass commercials depicting what-if forms for a ton of characters, Super Dragon Ball Heroes - World Mission finally made it outside Japan, so we can finally see Super Saiyan 3 Vegeto duking it out against Gold Cooler. It's amazing.

 Dragon Ball is no stranger to weird games, so World Mission is nothing out of the ordinary. Based on an Arcade game that featured real cards, this port on the Switch makes everything digital. You don't play as the characters themselves, but rather, you make 7-card decks featuring known and unknown characters from the world of Dragon Ball and fight against another 7-card deck, in a five-turn mini-game extravaganza. It's not a game for everyone and it's definitely not a game for your average Dragon Ball fan, but it's quite fun all things considered.

 You won't find yourself out of things to do with this cart, as there is a lot of content packed in this little cart. The story mode is made up of five different chapters, with various sub-chapters contained withing, and most sub-chapters even contain 'alternate dimensions', which translate as another map full of fights. You can also fight in tournaments, 'puzzle fight's and even fight against other players(Sadly no single-console multiplayer), and if you are up to it, you can even challenge Arcade Mode, which is sort-of like Story Mode but without the story and less customization. Add to that that there's about 1000 different cards, and about 350 different characters depicted among those. The amount of combinations and strategies you can build around this massive stack of cards is staggering.

 While the game's tutorial is pretty bad, leaves a lot untold or poorly explained and does it in a very weird order. Honestly, you'll learn more about the game by partaking in puzzle fights and by experience alone. The gist of it is like this: Each of your seven cards/characters can fall on any of three classes(Berserker, Hero, Elite) each with different properties, and on each turn you can place your cards on different areas of the playing field, the furthest away from you the more damage they'll deal and the more stamina they'll consumer, while the closest area to you is the 'support' lane, in which characters can restore their stamina or trigger special abilities. Afterwards whoever player goes first gets to attack first, and attacking/defending is all about timing minigames. If the attacker wins the game he'll deal extra damage and, if available, perform a super move. If the defender wins, they'll receive less damage.

 Yeah, gameplay is pretty limited here. As a matter of fact, I kinda disliked having to go through timing minigames on every single turn. I mean, I learned to accept it on the long-run, but this is not my kind of game mechanic. That said, the game really shines in the strategy department, as characters come with all kinds of abilities and what not, smart players will be able to craft some really smart moves. For instance, you can even form your deck around a 'Round', like, for example, a deck surrounding Ultra Instinct Goku allowing him to win the game right on the first turn if you win the timing minigame. Since a few abilities can be use AFTER a certain round, you can even build a deck based on surviving the first four rounds and then laying waste to the enemy on the fourth. It's a simple game, and it's actually quite simple to understand after a few matches, but I felt awe at how deep creating a deck can get.

 On the other hand, the game desperately needed more animations. Every character shares the same 8-9 basic attack animations, and you'll see them play out over and over and over and over and over and over again. I know, it's crazy to expect them to create different animations for every single character, but they could've gone with different 'sets' of moves shared by different groups of characters, that alone could've gone a long way into making fights look more dynamic. Or at least add more animations, so that you haven't seen every single basic move by the fourth battle you fought.

 As for how you actually get your cards, that's done by winning fights and earning Gacha tickets. Those can then be used on the store to randomly get cards. Yes, it can take a while before you can get every character or card that you can, but I was using my most wanted 7 characters by the ten hour mark, so that's not to bad. And while there are rarer cards than other, the game does a good job of making cards useful in some way or another. You could make an entire deck built around Yamcha and still win because some of his cards can increase the speed of the timing minigame for your enemies, tied to the fact that 'weaker' cards have a lower cost for their super moves, so they can start using them earlier. Honestly, no card is entirely useless and there are a ton of ways you can play. You can also build your own card by collecting 'pieces'(The character, the aura, the abilities, etc) through playing the game and then use mix them together in the card-maker. There's a lot you can do in this game, trust me.

 If there's one major 'flaw' with the game is how Story fights completely break the game mechanics. Say, you build an entire deck built around depleting the enemy stamina? Too bad, most CPU enemies have unlimited Stamina. By the end, pretty much every enemy has a timing mini-game speed increase on you, and they seem to time their 'perfect's, well, perfectly.

 Here's the skinny: Super Dragon Ball Heroes - World Mission is good fun. There's a lot of tools you can play around with to create various different strategies, and there're a lot of different Dragon Ball characters you can toy around with. It's a bit lacking in spectacle, and a few CPU fights are a bit too cheap, but it's a fun game. Fights are so short(Less than 10 minutes each!) that, for a portable game, lends itself quite well to playing in a few bursts. That said, as fun as it was, now I wish Namco would take all these character models and make a new Tenkaichi game on the Switch.
 7.0 out of 10

Entry #666: Samurai Shodown(2019)

 No Gen-An Shiranui, no buy!

 Samurai Shodown is back, baby, and it's back in style! While I've always enjoyed the series, I never considered myself a fan. As a matter of fact, I always preferred SNK's other Samurai game, The Last Blade(When are we getting a physical release of both games? SNK, get on it!) but I think I might be changing my mind any time now, since this game is pretty darn brilliant.

 I'll get my complaints out of the way first, starting with the poor character roster. There's a scant 16 playable characters. We get 10 out of the 12 characters from Samurai Shodown 1, because pandering, 3 newcommers(Darli Dagger is alright, Ruxieng is the dumb 'ditzy big breasted animu waifu' stereotype and Karasu, which might be my new favorite) as well as a few choice picks from the rest of the games: Shiki, from 64(Brilliant pick, even if her in-game reason for being present is incredibly dumb), Genjuro from II and Yoshitora from V. It's missing a lot of fan-favorites, including MY favorite Kazuki. You can get the season pass for free for a few days which will turn the game into a physical/digital hybrid with four extra characters: Basara from III, Wan-Fu from I, Kazuki(THANK GOD) from IV and Rimururu from III. The roster leaves a lot to be desired, sadly, but at least all 16 characters are very different from each other: There's no filler here. Although that might change once Rimururu makes it in.... My other gripe comes in the form of loading times, they are a bit longer than they I would've liked, making for a lot of dead time whenever you play.

 Now then, I'm not one to judge games solely on graphics, but by the gods is Samurai Shodown pretty. Everything in the game is extra colorful, and character models are incredibly detailed with beautiful animations to compliment this new oily, inky style they went for. As a matter of fact, everything has a slight parchment-like texture applied to it, making it look like a Ukiyoe painting. Super moves makes the texture more notorious for added style. I can't stress this enough, this game is gorgeous. It might not have the most realistic looking character models or environments, but they went for style and they knocked it out of the park.

 But let me tell you WHY Samurai Shodown is SO darn good, because it's not just its incredible graphics, but its gameplay. Samurai Shodown is unlike most fighting games, while there is a combo counter here, combos are not the norm but the exception: This game is about landing precise attacks when you see an opening. This means that matches can go by very quickly, if you land slow-but-strong attacks, or very slowly if both opponents can't find an opening. It's not a game for everyone, and that's fine.

 Complimenting its simple design its got equally simple game mechanics. You have lots of them, for instance, for defensive options you've got: Blocking/Just-Blocking, Deflecting, Parrying and disarming. All those actions are fairly simple to pull off: Tap backwards to block(Tap just as you get hit for a quicker just-block), perform a just-block and press quarter-circle-forward+LS+MS to deflect. Press LS+MS to dodge on the spot or Quarter-circle-forward+LS+MS before getting hit to disarm your enemy. Every mechanic is very easy to pull off, and you've got tools if you want to predict an attack or if you want to react to one. For attacks you have 3 Slashes(Weak, Medium, Strong) and a kick, special moves, a one-time use super-special move, a rage-explosion as well as a rage-super move that disarms your enemy. Plenty of those will give you options in how you want to manage your Rage gauge. This means that this is a feature-rich game, with just the right amount of mechanics and tools for anyone to pick up the game fairly quickly and master it at their own pace.

 Samurai Shodown(2019) is the fighting game I didn't know I wanted. It managed to bring the series into the present day with a high degree of success. A more robust character roster as well as more extras(Like unlockable color palettes) could've made this great game into an even better one, so it'll be interesting to see how it develops as more characters get released. Not that I want to encourage DLC, but what can I do? On the other hand, I can't wait to get this game on Switch and take it out with me anytime, anywhere.

 8.5 out of 10

Entry #665: Dungeon Hunter - Alliance

  Gameloft strikes again, for better or worse.

 Gameloft is a company I've learned to appreciate in the last few years. Yes, they make knock-off mobile games based off console games... but they always make GOOD knock off games for a mobile market. That said, they make mobile games, so whenever a game of theirs gets ported to more mainstream consoles, well, they tend to not get such a good reception. Dungeon Hunter - Alliance had it tough, it was already outdated by the time it released(Dungeon Hunter 2 was already a thing) and it was a 40$ re-release of a game you could get for a fraction of that on mobile.

 Well, in true Gameloft fashion, Dungeon Hunter - Alliance is your generic dungeon crawling loot-based RPG modeled after the good ol' classics, like Diablo. You've got your passive and active skills you can develop as well as bonus stat points you can allocate on your various different stats every time you level up. You've got your basic classes: Warrior, Mage and Rogue, with equipment reflecting on your character model and what not. It does little new or original, with a fairy companion that acts like a free spell every minute. It's a bit barebones, and simple, but it's also competent and lasts a solid 10 hours or so.

 The game is kinda tough, I'm sure I couldn't have gotten all the way to the end of the game without investing on the potion capacity upgrade skill.... and I've played with a Warrior. I've read a few complaints that other squishier classes are even tougher, which probably means they balanced the game with multiplayer first. Online is dead, and good luck finding another person with a Vita and this cart, so you are on your own!

 On the other hand, the game has a few technical shortcomings that really hurt the overall experience. The biggest problem of all, and rather common in a handful of Vita games, are the exasperating long loading times which are very inconvenient on a handheld game. Then there are the mandatory touch controls. Using a fairy spell requires tapping the screen twice, which works relatively well except when the game thinks your double tap was you pinching the screen to zoom in. Very annoying! Then there's the shaking, when your character gets stunned you have to shake your Vita. Cumbersome, yes, but you have to shake the console while keeping track of your tiny health bar so as not to waste a potion because you weren't sure if you were at death's door yet!

 I'm gonna go on a limb and say that, for all its unearned bad rep, Dungeon Hunter - Alliance is a good time for anyone interested in the genre. It's not perfect, it's not original, it has its technical shortcomings and you can get it cheaper on, probably, any other console. But it's still a competent, meaty game that can get you your dungeon-crawling fix on the Vita.

 6.5 out of 10

Entry #664: Tales of Vesperia

 Tales of crashes and freezes.

 Tales of Vesperia has long been THE Tales Game, you know, the one stuck on X360 that a lot of long-time fans, such as myself, never got to play. I was hyped for this port, like, a lot, but in pure Namco-Bandai fashion... they screwed it up. It's sad, because it looked great on paper: Both English and Japanese dubs alongside all the extras from the enhanced Japanese-only PS3 version, just what could go wrong? Well, nobody tested this dumpster fire it seems, because every version of the game is prone to crashing, but the Switch version is EASILY the worst one. Reports for PS4/XOne crashes are very few, but one needs not look very far to find just how many people suffered this game. Namco-Bandai released a couple of patches which do make the game more stable, but I had the game crash once during my post-patch playtime, and I've heard reports that the post-game is still pretty unstable. As for me, I finished the main game, what I cared the most about, and had my fill with the game, and after reading so many reports about its crashes... I decided not to play it.

 As for the game itself, it's certainly very overrated, or maybe it has simply become yet another victim of its own age. The story is a mixed bag, every thread regarding Yuri's vigilantism and Yuri and Flynn's friendship was fantastic and fresh, even if the resolution to Yuri's solo-activities felt a bit underwhelming. On the other hand, a lot of the story has to do with 'Guilds', and it was just so... dull and boring. This makes the story have a lot of ups and downs, as far as my interest went, sometimes I was invested in seeing how the story would develop and others I was just going through the dialogue waiting for something interesting to happen. The rest of the story is made up of generic anime tropes, as per usual, as well as the repetitive Tales of tropes, so you have your Traitor and also your mandatory annoying kid character. This version of Vesperia also adds ANOTHER annoying kid to the party

 The combat in the game is pretty decent, but it's not as fun as I've had with other Tales of games. Customizing the CPU felt a bit more limiting than I expected, and the Healer would fail to use the most appropriate spells for the occasion. That said, I've always liked Tales real-time combat, and this is no exception. The Skill system sounds great on paper: Learn skills from weapons by using the weapon for a certain amount of time, but it translated into quite a bit of grinding, since it took a far too long to learn a few skills. As for the environmental puzzles, they are pretty simple affairs, nothing too memorable.

 Tales of Vesperia is alright. The story has its moments and the gameplay is alright. I think I would've enjoyed the game more had I not been scared of crashing every few minutes or so. As it stands, this is a bland port of a good game.
 6.5 out of 10

Entry #663: Psikyo Collection Vol.3

 Breast-pad included.

 Here it is, the final entry of the 3-part compilation, Psikyo Collection Vol.3. In what can only be described as baffling, this entry includes even less extras than the previous collections: No bonus art, and each game get its own slot on the Switch's dashboard, as opposed to a single program running all four games. It's a weird couple of choices, but there must be some reason as to why they changed it up for this installment. There must be.

 GunBarich

 A pseudo-sequel to the Gunbird series, this is an Arkanoid-Breakout-shooter hybrid that's actually kinda disappointing considering how much I grew to like GunBird. There are a few power ups to make your life easier, and the game is quite cutesy, but while I can tell that it's a decent game, it just wasn't a good way to end the series.
 6.0 out of 10

 Sengoku Cannon

 The Sengoku series quickly became my favorite from these compilations, and Sengoku Cannon does the series right. 6 different characters, and now we've got: Spread shots, focused shots, cannon shots(Which turn enemy bullets into coins if you defeat said enemy with it) as well as the mandatory bomb. This is probably the best in the series.
 7.5 out of 10

 Strikers 1945 III

 Strikers 1945 III is the prettiest of the bunch, but it's also the hardest, to the point that I wasn't having much fun. Keep in mind I'm not much of a fan of shooters(And I purchased these games because I thought Strikers 1945 was Aerofighters!), so this high level of difficulty, even on the easiest setting, was a big turn-off. On that note, the game follows the formula Strikers 1945 has been following to a tee, with nothing noteworthy for this last installment. It's alright.
 6.5 out of 10

 Zero Gunner 2-

 Oh boy, oh boy, now this is something special. Zero Gunner 2- is unlike anything else from these compilations. Well, it's still a shooter, so it's not THAT different, but it's very unique. This is the only game that's completely in 3-D, but it also adds a new dimension to the shooting: You can turn your ship in a full 360 degrees. This is done by holding down a button which will make a target-reticule appear in front of your ship, now, as long as that button is being held, moving the analog stick will make your ship move in around this marker, as opposed to 'strafing'. It's a bit hard to explain, and seems daunting at first, but getting the hang of it is very simple. The game is a bundle of fun, and one of my favorites from these compilations. On another note, this game is called '-' because it's been rebuilt from scratch since they lost the original Dreamcast code. I've read a lot of comments about how bad it's in comparison to the Dreamcast original, but I found the game to be great.
 7.5 out of 10

 Psikyo Collection Vol.3 is a bit of a letdown, coming right out of Volume 2, but it's not half bad. Sengoku Cannon is brilliant and, having not played the Dreamcast original, Zero Gunner 2- is fantastic and a breath of fresh air from everything that I had been playing from this collection. On the other hand, GunBarich wasn't very interesting, and Strikers 1945 III stuck too close to its guns failing to make any sort of impression outside of 'I've played this before at least two other times'. Not that any of these games are bad. Bottom line is: I still think Volume 2 is the best one, but everyone's in luck: This collection is being re-released in a 2-part edition, bumping the games to 6-per-cart which will make for a much more appealing purchase and will help make up for the few less remarkable entries.
 7.0 out of 10

Entry #662: 64 Memories - Cruis'n USA

 Outrun, made in America

 Part I: The Flashback
 As a famous racing game hater of the 90s I never really did care much about Cruis'n USA. I must've played it a few times when we went for dinner to a few restaurants that had Nintendo 64 consoles for children to play with. It's a shame I wasn't able to appreciate this game back then, because this is exactly the type of game I've been looking for since I can't get my Outrun fix outside of said franchise.

 Part II: The Entry
 I know, alright, I know. This game is supposed to be a terrible port of a great little arcade game. The framerate is choppy, the physics are weird... but I loved it. Heck, the unpredictable physics when you crash and hit other cars is part of the chaotic fun that is Cruis'n USA. The game is an Arcade racer through and through, and unlike most other racing games, this one is about going from point A to point B, kinda like Outrun. However, instead of one long track, the game is divided into 15 shorter courses. You can play on any course by itself, but the main attraction is 'CRUISE THE USA', in which you play every race in a set order.

 The game is a bundle of fun, easy to get into, simple to understand and play. It's fast, even if the framerate can't keep up, and I absolutely love this type of racing game. Honestly, it feels like an American take on Outrun, and I say that as a huge compliment.
 8.5 out of 10

Entry #661: 64 Memories - War Gods

 Gotta love generic green dudes. This game loves generic green dudes.

 Part I: The Flashback
 War Gods was one of the first games I rented(So many firsts!) for the console, although I wouldn't buy it until much later down the line. I remember for a fact that I rented this game a bunch of times, for whatever reason. I don't know, alright? I loved fighting games and it's not like the N64 had many to choose from!

 Part II: The Entry
 War Gods is pretty much Mortal Kombat 4 beta. It plays like Mortal Kombat, High and Low variations of both punches and kicks, alongside fatalities. The characters even look like Mortal Kombat rejects. It's only got two modes, Arcade and VS, so there isn't much you can do. The gameplay is fairly basic, but it's kinda fun and kinda stiff. It's alright.

 One advantage it has over the PS1 version is that there are absolutely no loading times, making fights seamless, making the game as a whole much more tolerable. It's nothing worth writing home about, but I wouldn't write it off either. And the N64 version makes the PS1 version completely obsolete, the five-button control scheme works really well with Nintendo's clunky trident, so even the much more comfortable Dual Shock won't sell you on its version.

 5.0 out of 10

Review #660: 64 Memories - Kirby 64 - The Crystal Shards

 All you can eat buffet of powers.

 Part I: The Flashback
 I'm pretty sure I rented this game at least once, but I can't really say for certain, what I do remember is that my parent purchased it for me once we crossed the border into the Chuy and found all these amazing low prices on Nintendo 64 games.

 This is my favorite Kirby game for the simple reason that it's the only one, as far as I know, in which you can mix powers. I loved, LOVED using the Fire Sword and the Electric Glave.

 Part II: The Review
 Kirby 64 - The Crystal Shards is a 2.5D platform game in which you play as the infamous pink blob with a massive appetite. As per usual, you use the B button to suck your enemies into your mouth and eat them to steal their power, and jump/float with the A button. But here's where things get interesting... If instead of eating an enemy you shoot it towards another enemy, a power-wielding enemy, you'll be able to merge both powers together.  So, while this Kirby doesn't have so many powers(Electricity, Ice, Fire, Bomb, Needle, Cutter and Stone) you can combine any of them for a total of 49 different powers. And there's a lot of variety: Bomb+Fire turns Kirby into a firework shower, Fire+Stone turns him into a volcano. Electricity + Needle turns him into a lightning rod! There's a lot of variety here, and it's always fun to see what powers you can get.

 The game is made up of 6 world, 4 of them having 5 stages and 2 of them having 4. Every world ends with a boss fight. In this game your main objective is helping a fairy collect all the crystal shards, 3 per stage, and finding all of them is the only way to fight the true boss and get the good ending. The game is a bit on the short side, but it's a lot of fun and all these different powers make it highly replayable, even if just to fool around. There are 3 multiplayer minigames that, while simple, are a decent diversion.

 Kirby 64 holds up very well to this day. Something about the powersets he can acquire in this game makes it feel fairly different from the other games in the series, so it's worth checking it out. I don't know if I can still call it my favorite Kirby game, but it definitely has my favorite ideas, and I'd love to see Nintendo tries this concept once more.
 8.5 out of 10