Game #896: Garou - Mark of the Wolves

  The true king of fighters.

 Lemme tell you a little secret.... Garou: Mark of the Wolves is one of my favorite fighting games of all time. I've longed to own a legit version of the game, so I'm really glad Limited Run Games decided to release this one.

 Look, I don't think Fatal Fury is one of SNK's best IPs. I grew up with a bootleg Famicom version of Fatal Fury 2, which I'd play alongside bootleg Famicom versions of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. But as iconic as even this Chinese cheap 8-bit renditions of MK and SFII were... FF had no staying power, with me anyways. Cheng, the fat guy, was memorable because of how tough and cheap he was, and I sorta liked using Kim and his bicycle kicks, but that's about it. What's more, I never got to play Fatal Fury on the Arcades. Regardless, eventually I got into Emulation and discovered the SNES/Genesis ports of the first couple of games, before graduating to the big Arcade releases. I think the first time I really liked Fatal Fury was with Real Bout 2. The game looked amazing, and both Rick Strout and Li Xianfei were brilliant designs. It wasn't enough for Fatal Fury to make it into my favorites, however. And then.... I came across this weird game called Garou: Mark of the Wolves.

 It was love at first sight, as this game has some of the best character designs in the series. Not all characters are winners, I'm biased against kid characters, so I hate Hokutomaru, Freeman looks like Benimaru with his hair down and while Kevin is supposed to be Blue Mary's counterpart, he looks like another take on Terry, with his huge confident smile and his blonde American looks. Those characters aside, everyone else is a winner. I love the fact that Terry grew up, and he looks the best he has ever looked. I loved having successors to the characters from Fatal Fury(And Ryo, from Art of Fighting) as to let the plot move forward, but above all, Rock Howard is my favorite fighting game character EVER. EVER. He is EVERYTHING I look for in a fighting game character. And the animation? It's some of the best SNK had ever made by the time.

 Thankfully, my love for the game isn't just skin deep. I love the T.O.P. system, basically, you pick one third of your life gauge, be it its beginning, the middle or the final third, and once your health drops into that third you enter T.O.P.(Unless it's the first third, in which case you already start in T.O.P.). As long as your health remains inside this third, you get health regeneration as well as access to a powerful T.O.P. move that differs between characters, so it's sort of like a come back mechanic, but not busted. That aside, the game system is pretty fast, which I really like, and it added things like 'Just Guarding' and 'Guard Crush' to the series. If anything, I'm disappointed this re-release has no tutorial or manual to let players learn how to play the game and about its original systems, like T.O.P.

 While it's more or less a straight NeoGeo home console port, it does have a few neat extras, like a few art pieces, a few bonus modes like Survival and VS, as well as making the two boss characters, Kain and Grant, playable from the start. It's not much, but hey, it's nice. They also retain SNK's delicious original wonky translation.

 So far, so good. Great game, plays well, a bunch of extras... But no matter how you slice it, this is a 50mb rom inside a 50GB blu-ray disc. It's pretty darn egregious how Limited Run Games are releasing these roms by themselves. They could've easily made a 'SNK Fighters compilation', heck, I'd take even a Fatal Fury only rerelease. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that I finally get to own this game, but it feels sorta underwhelming.

 9.0

Game #895: Naruto Shippuden Ultimate NInja Storm 4 - Road to Boruto(Switch)

 Well, let's try this one more time.

 Back when Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 - Road to Boruto first released Cyberconnect 2 swore up and down that the older system couldn't handle Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 because of the graphical enhancements, mostly done to the particle effects. Well, here we have UNS4 running on the Nintendo Switch, a machine that's barely more powerful than the PS3/X360. Concessions were made to get the game running on the Switch, but boy, did the get it right.

 Well, the Story Mode is as disappointing as it was on Playstation 4. Ever since they started re-creating the entire story of Naruto with their in-game graphics on UNS2 the games became something truly special for fans of the series. And then comes UNS4 and 40% of the story is told through anime stills, and most of them are fairly ugly, featuring characters looking very off-model. Well, this mode is still a pale shadow of what it could've been. In order to get the in-game cutscenes running smoothly on Switch, they've gone from running in-game to  simple pre-recorded cutscenes. Sometimes they can get a bit pixelated but they get the job done. This time around I noticed that quite a few things were changed in the adaptation. Some work better here, since it's a videogame, others do not, but it's still a decent adaptation of the series' final stretch.

 To celebrate this re-release, Namco released Boruto's two villains as playable characters, as well as 'Road to Boruto' skins for most of the main genins as well as the Gaara siblings as paid DLC on PS4. Thankfully, these new additions are present on the Switch cart, no need for additional downloads. A bit lazy? Sure, but I like having new characters, even though I dislike Boruto and these two should've been playable from the get-go. Heck, even Adult Konohamaru has an in-game model as well as animations, he probably should've been playable too. Ah! But I'm not complaining, as this version has everything the PS4 original had and then some. 

 But what matters is how the game runs, and I'm happy to report that it plays really well. Fights can maintain a very stable 30 FPS, I only noticed major drops during the more cinematic ultimate attacks, which isn't too bad since it's just cutscenes, as well as when I was traversing the overworld in Boruto's Tale mode, which once again, isn't critical to this game's enjoyment. So, yeah, CC2 did a superb job in scaling down what they needed in order to get the game running well without sacrificing too much graphical fidelity.

 Alright, fine, I admit I may have been a tad too harsh on the game back when I first played it on PS4, but c'mon, the Story Mode being such a HUGE step down from previous games' really soured the whole experience. And while I'm still baffled by how much they cut corners, I was able to appreciate the game more for what it was, a fun, simple anime fighter that allows you to play as a ton of different characters from the world of Naruto. It's also quite a looker, while it's not the best looking or cell-shaded game I've ever played, it does a fantastic job of looking like a playable anime, and CC2 are masters of style, bestowing some very fluid, cool animations to most characters Plus, I'm really impressed with the job they did porting the game to Switch, so there's that.

 7.0

Game #894: Panzer Dragon(Switch)

  Maybe it's one of those 'you had to be there' games....

 Panzer Dragon is one of those games that you've always head about, but unless you were a Sega kid, you never really played. Maybe if you were one of the few original X-Box adopters you got a bit of a taste of those late 90's Sega properties, but otherwise, you never really got to experience it. Well, after going through this game... can't say I care much about it.

 Panzer Dragon is a on-rails shooter, like Star Fox, but a bit different. For instance, while your dragon is moving on-rails at all times, you'll have to use the directional pad to shift your rider around in order to aim to the left, right and behind your dragon. It's a bit clunky, and 360 degree camera control would've been better. For you see, when you look sideways or behind you, the camera gets super zoomed-in, which was awkward to say the least. You can use the right analog stick to zoom out a bit, but still.... I mean, it's not like dodging incoming fire is easy, as your dragon barely moves around the screen, so you're better off trying to shoot down enemies before they get to shoot. To help you keep up with incoming enemies, you have a radar which shows you on which side enemies are approaching. It gets a bit annoying the few times it's hard to pinpoint if you should be looking left or in front of you, but it's not too bad.

 You have to means of offense. Tap the shoot button to make your dragon rider shoot with his gun, or hold down the shoot boot and aim over different enemies to use your homing laser. The homing laser is infinitely more useful, but some enemies and bosses are more vulnerable to gun fire. And that's the game, there are no screen-clearing bombs, no evasive maneuvers, no nothing. One thing to keep in mind is that the game is super oldschool, it runs on credits, and while it's very easy to gain 1-2 credits per level, you only get a bit healed between stages and if you die and use a credit you have to replay the entire stage again, even if you got to the boss. I was a bit antsy when I realized this because I was playing on Normal and I didn't want to replay the entire game again(Since I wasn't liking it too much) but I managed just fine.

 The game is super short, I finished it quicker than I did Donut County, a game that's often lamented as being too short. Still, what really hurts the game are the incredibly long loading times. They are almost a minute long, which is surprising for a game this brief. In its defense, it looks really good, but I would've easily taken worse graphics if it meant shorter loading times.

 I'm sorry to say, but I didn't really care for Panzer Dragon. I wanted to, I wanted to be in on this whole Panzer Dragon thing, but I found the game too clunky and the loading times too annoying. It's not like I'm against shooters like this, I really love Star Fox 64, another game from this era, so maybe it's one of those games that you had to be there and play it back when it first released to understand why it was/is so good. But I'm not, so I don't think I'll be coming back to this one any time soon. That said, I admit that I'd be willing to give the sequels a try, if they ever get re-released or remade, for something about its setting piqued my curiosity.

 5.5

Game #893: Dead Cells - Prisoner's Edition

  Guess it's time to return to one of my favorite games of all time...

 Well, Dead Cells - Prisoner's Edition marks the third time I'm purchasing this game. The original release was love at first sight, then I purchased the 'Action Game of the Year' edition which included the free DLC... which was a lie, as it was the same exact cart as the original release. Prisoner's Edition re-release includes a lot of physical extras, as well as a cart that includes the first batch of free DLC as well as the paid DLC. Sadly, a new wave of free additions were recently released that aren't included on the cart('Barrels of fun'), but, hey, it's a start.

 Well, as far as the game goes, it includes Rise of the Giant, which adds new mid-game content which is probably made up of the hardest levels and boss in the game, so if you get through it you'll be good to go for the final zones. It also includes the Bad Seed paid DLC, which adds new early game content, as well as new weapons, such as the only two-slotted melee weapon, that has both a weak and strong attack, making it a very unique weapon.

 Besides the four new areas and two new bosses, it also has the patches that included 'Custom Run' mode, that lets you customize which upgrades and unlocks to play with or without, the Costumes that you can unlock, a bunch of new monsters and weapons as well as a ton of rebalancing. For instance, double auto-crossbow traps were super strong way back when, so now you can only equip one of any weapon. There are some monsters that can now be found in areas they didn't belong before, as well as meeting new monsters earlier. The difficulty curve as you go up through the difficulty tiers has been softened, making for a much more approachable game. In other words, I think this is the best the game has ever been.

 The physical extras are pretty neat. We get a figure of the Beheaded holding a pan. It's really badass, although I wish he could've had a sword instead of the pan. Considering the game's sense of humor, it makes more sense for the Beheaded to wield the mighty Vorpan, but hey, I'd have preferred a sword. The vinyl is alright, not something I care about, the pins look pretty good and the stickers could've used a better presentation instead of coming on individual paper slips. My favorite extra, believe it or not, was Signature Game's coin, it's massive, it's heavy, and it's super cool. Overall, I think the goodies are pretty neat for the most part, personal preference aside, but I wish this version with everything on-cart/on-disc could've been available without the fluff. I'd buy the PS4 version in a heartbeat if I could get it with everything on-disc at a decent price.

 Lastly, I had played through Rise of the Giant, and while I had quite some stuff left to unlock, Bad Seed was most of the new content as far as I was concerned. But the game is so much fun, so addictive, that I clocked about 15 more hours into the game. Playing Dead Cells feels SO good, the controls are so responsive, movement is stylish, the animations are so quick and snappy, the sound design is so rewarding.... playing the game is something you can do for hours on end. If you ask me, Dead Cells is one of the best games ever made, and it should be as popular as Shovel Knight.

 10

Game #892: Batman - Arkham Knight

  A successful movie trilogy and a successful videogame trilogy? Batman was on a roll!

 Few franchises can claim to have a successful trilogy, but even fewer licensed games can claim that. With Batman: Arkham Knight now the caped crusader can lay claim to that too. Arkham City was a tough act to follow, and while Arkham Knight falls short of its potential, it's still a bonafide winner.

 The game picks up shortly after Arkham City, starting off with the Joker's corpse's incineration. I thought killing off Joker in Arkham City was brilliant, and I hoped they wouldn't go full comic book and revive him... but they managed to shoe-horn him into the game anyways. While the game's main villains are The Scarecrow and the 'new' Arkham Knight, Batman will be joined by a hallucinated Joker throughout 80% of the entire game. While it's not a terrible concept, it undermines Arkham City's powerful ending as well as the new main villains, because it's Joker who'll you'll be seeing most of the time, as he makes appearances as you traverse this bit of Gotham City. Oh, and Arkham Knight is exactly who you think it is, which isn't a spoiler by now, and I'm personally mad about it, because even though anyone with a passing knowledge of Batman guessed who he was, Rocksteady promised that it wasn't him. It was. And I believed them.

 Those gripes with the plot aside, I'll commend it for being quite dark. This story features a tired, worn and furious Batman, who's fighting both his enemies as well as himself. Barbara and Tim Drake play bigger parts in this plot, which I liked, but as a HUGE Nightwing fan I can't say I approve of making Barbara and Tim a thing. Speaking of Nightwing, he gets a voiced role too, albeit only on Sidemissions. Both him and Catwoman share the dishonor of being relegated to side content, and being damsels in distress for Batman to rescue, which, y'know, not cool.

 One of my few issues with Arkham City was how most side content wasn't marked on the map... and that's a thing here too, which is quite annoying. I somehow managed to finish everything without a guide, but sometimes it just feels as if you are stumbling onto stuff, which isn't my idea of fun. I still can't believe I noticed Azrael was on top of a statue on an island, which I just happened to fly by just that one time because I don't know. I don't think this is good game design, and the fact that they haven't changed it yet is quite disappointing. The side content itself is very disappointing, as most of it is made up of repetitive sequences. The Penguin/Nightwing side mission has you tagging a van, knocking on the door which triggers the exact same animation of the thugs opening the door to Batman and getting scared every single time, having to evade them then chasing them to a battle arena. The Firefly sidemission is made up of finding a burning building and then chasing FireFly on the Batmobile 3 times. Or rescue 16 firefighters from mobs of enemies. Or clear about 10 enemy checkpoints. Or defuse about 12 bombs by fighting waves of enemies. It's quite dull to be honest. The base game has no bonus content, and while there are about 63 challenges, you can only use Batman. Catwoman, Robin, Azrael and Nightwing can only be played very briefly on very short segments. 

 The Riddler's challenges return, and there are 243 of them, which is fine, would be a decent extra like in previous games.... except that the ending of the game is locked behind this collectathon. Not even a bonus 'True Ending', but the game's only ending is locked behind this busywork. What were they thinking? What a baffling, dumb decision.

 Arkham's gameplay was polished to a sheen with Arkham City, so for this installment it was mostly about tweaking things. Batman retains his move repertoire from the previous game from the get go, but early in the game Batman gets a new suit, and with it, new variations on the things he can do. Now you can counter with a throw, perform a three-enemy take down(Which can be upgraded up to five enemies), that allows you to target different enemies as you take them down, and the Triple Boost Grapple, which lets you soar through the skies faster than ever before. There are a few new tools too, and a few new enemies to contend with, like charging enemies that must be taken down with a batarang, to make things harder. I can't really fault them for this approach, the previous game was excellent, so they went with a rather safe choice of adding small variations on top of what worked.

 And then there's the Batmobile. Your mileage may vary on this one. I thought it was alright. My biggest issue were the controls, they were a bit hard to grasp. I kept entering Battle Mode when I meant to drift. That aside, I eventually learned to like the Battle sequences against drones, they aren't particularly exciting or creative, but they were somewhat fun. On the other hand, races were a mess because you're expected to go fast, but the Batmobile just doesn't turn or drift very well. To add to the hilarity, there's a checkpoint before a Drill boss battle that behaved very randomly. Sometimes it spawned me behind the drill, which forced me to kill myself by driving onto the drills, other times it'd respawn me with the drill on top, instantly killing me and reloading, and other times it respawned me correctly. 

 The good news is that at a core level, Batman: Arkham Knight is very fun. Combat is fun, albeit a bit less precise than before, stealthily taking down enemies is still satisfying, and moving around the city is fun. That said, it's a shame most of the side content is so repetitive, that they were afraid of letting go of the Joker which crippled what they could've done with the new villains, and hiding the ending behind busywork was just dumb. In some ways, it's the weakest Arkham game Rocksteady made, but it's still a really good game, and a decent send off to one of the best licensed videogame series ever made.

 7.5

Game #891: Danganronpa Another Episode - Ultra Despair Girls(Playstation 4)

  Classic Danganronpa.... it's good to be back.

 Well, just got done reading my entry for Danganronpa Another Episode - Ultra Despair Girls on Vita, and I pretty much agree with everything I said back then, so I'll just comment on a few things that caught my eye this second time around.

 As far as the PS4 version goes, it looks decently, most assets were touched up, so there are barely, if any, jaggies. But the textures are super simple, in some cases they look very stretched. Some of the text and CGs can look very stretched and pixelated too, but most of them made the transition well, which is why whenever you do catch a pixelated text or CG scene asset it stands out so much. On the flip side, I remember the original version had a few framerate issues, but there are none to be found here, the games runs pretty smoothly.

 The story is SUPER messed up. It's about kids who got abused in different ways murdering adults, and as a consequence of that, these adults are just as messed up and want to murder these kids. As with most Japanese games, some of the dialogue can be a bit unnatural, which makes a few scenes come as less believable, but for the most part it's pretty good. I really enjoyed the budding friendship between series veteran Toko and the newcomer, Komaru.

 That said... just as I claimed when I played it before... the game is at odds with itself. There's WAY too much dialogue for a third-person shooter. It feels as if you can't go more than one room without triggering a conversation. I like reading. I like the Danganronpa visual novels, but since parts of the game are, well, made up of third person shooting, the humungous amounts of dialogue and and dialogue scenes really feel a bit tedious.

 Overall? It's decent. It's a decent time, but it's strictly for Danganronpa and/or visual novel fans. Coming at this game expecting a fun shooter will lead to nothing but disappointment.

 6.0

Game #890: J-Stars Victory Vs+(Playstation 4)

 Some things get better with age. Others age like milk. 

 I wasn't the biggest fan of J-Stars Victory VS+ back when I played it on PS3, but for whatever reason I was mostly satisfied with the time I spent on the game. Years later, here I found myself playing the oh so slightly better version, and yet, the only thing I found was a subpar arena fighter.

 Well, on to the things that are better... a steady 30 FPS. It's not 60, but at least it's super smooth, if it drops, it must only drop by 1 or 2 frames, because it felt silky smooth. Y'know how the American release of the PS3 version had this mini microsecond freezes? They aren't present here. Loading times were super brief, and considering how the game looks pretty nice, I'm willing to bet load times were improved from the PS3 version.

 The opening is really good, and it made me wish the game actually looked like that. It made me wish the sequel looked like that and not the uncanny valley monster we actually got. While it's got a smaller roster than the sequel, I'd say it's much more varied and interesting, it covers more series, although, as a consequence of that, this game's roster is mostly made up of main characters. So make of that what you will. Less supporting characters, but more series? This is your game. More secondary characters, but less series? Jump Force. Plus, as I stated before, there's more variety here. Super Lucky Man, D.Gray-Man(Although only as support characters), as well as a few other weirdos I never even heard about but add to the 'Shonen Jump celebration' theme of the game. What can I say? I think this is a better roster.

 But here's the problem with the game... it just isn't much fun. Things like combatants getting mercy invincibility after getting up just doesn't sit right with me. It forces a pause in the action, in which if you are the offensive party you need to take a step back, and that's just boring. How much fun you'll have with the game will also depend on who you pick to play as. For starters, movesets are super limited. But even then, some characters are more fun to play as than others. Pick Goku and you'll be able to chase opponents into the sky, he really gets a lot of fun stuff you can do. Pick someone like Sasuke, and you'll get a fair amount of things you can do. Pick Toriko or Zeta and just mash Square because their options are fairly limited. The fact that the game can go from utter dullness to complete averageness depending on who you play as really hurts the game

 What can I say, J-Stars Victory isn't very good. There's a certain appeal to watching you favorite shonen heroes duking it out, but the mechanics aren't very fun, and in turn, the action you see on-screen isn't very exciting either. Is there value to the game if you're a fan? Maybe. But I think going for any other anime battler would be a better choice.

 3.5

Game #889: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mutants in Manhattan(Playstation 4)

  Man, we really need more new TMNT games...

 There's one thing I never understood, and that's why this game was so poorly received. After playing it again on superior hardware, I'll admit I may have been a bit overly enthusiastic about it. But only a bit. I won't go over the basics of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan because this is pretty much the same game, bur rather on how I felt playing it again.

 Well, for starters, it's rather disappointing how even though this game is running on a stronger system ,the framerate is still capped at 30. A very steady 30, but 30 nonetheless. There's no offline multiplayer on this system either, which is just criminal for a TMNT game.

 I may finally be able to somewhat understand why the game was so poorly received. While it's a beat'em up, it went for a somewhat random approach. Each level will task you with a few random, mini missions. And... yeah, not all of them are equally fun, particularly if you are playing with the brain dead AI. If the game was only made up of these segments, then I'd agree, it'd be a rather dull game.

 But man, the boss fights!! The boss fights are amazing. The game feels incredibly kinetic, you can have all four turtles pummeling on the same big bad boss at the same time. And you're given so many different tools to deal with bosses. A block that runs on a timer, parrying or countering, all depending on how you time the R2 button. It feels very satisfying to land the counters and parries. Not all Super moves are equally useful, albeit most grant invulnerability frames when using them, but if you find a set up that works for you just stick to it. I love being able to customize each turtle. You go for the safe and unimaginative road and just equip all the turtles with the same skills, the ones you think are the best.... or you can set up each turtle with different skills in order to have different roles. It's not too deep, as each character only has two unique skills, but hey, I think it's a decent system.

 It's not the best TMNT game, and I'll admit some of its elements can be rather dull, but when the game is at its best it's simply sublime. On most games, like Megaman or DMC, I always hate when they have a boss rush at the end. In this game, the boss rush stage was my favorite. I'd really be all up for Platinum to expand upon this concept, even if they forgo the license. But it'd be better if they kept it.

 7.0

Game #888: Marvel's Spider-man - Game of the Year Edition

  The king of swing.

 Ah, Spider-man, we meet again, no Spider-manathon this time though! Marvel's Spider-man: Game of the Year Edition should be the reason I wait to buy games. Should be, for you see, the DLC is not included on the disc, it's nothing but a voucher. The disc doesn't even include the updates, so if you want to play the DLC you have to update the game, which means Spider-man takes a whole lot of space on the console. Why not include a install disc? Beats me, Sony has the money, so why the opted to release a Game of the Year Edition in this state is beyond.

 And it sucks! I care about game preservation, but worst of all, my favorite costumes, Kaine's Scarlet Spider and the Iron Spider, are not on the base game. Poor form, Sony, poor form. I always hate it when companies skim on costs like this, and I'd have never expected it from Sony.

 Well, on to the story I guess. It's interesting, it reunites a ton of characters, villains and heroes, from different incarnations of the webbed crusader, and it makes for an interesting take on the hero. I like the fact that we get an adult Peter, since most adaptations are stuck on Pete being a university student. I liked this new version of Yuri Watanabe, her relationship with Spider-man is very endearing. Silver Sable was pretty cool too. I loved what they did with Aunt May in this version, and we get a fairly nuanced take on Norman Osborn. Miles Morales makes an appearance, and I loved his interactions with Peter, however, I'm not so keen on making him a teen genius, heck, they even made him out to be smarter than Peter. Mary Jane was decent, but I really don't like how they went for the Ultimate version, making her a reporter. I get it, they wanted MJ to play a more active part on the story, but I wasn't a fan. They also made her a bit dumb, constantly getting into danger but then chiding Spidey for rescuing her, she wound up feeling more annoying than anything.

 A lot of villains make an appearance here, but most don't get much development.... but when they do? Oh boy. This is the second most interesting version I've seen of Tombstone, only beaten by the one in the Spectacular Spider-man TV show. As previously mentioned, Norman Osborn felt very nuanced, and I hope we can see him turn into the Green Goblin eventually. Dr. Otto Octavius was fantastic too. So, yeah, the few villains that get developed are fantastic, the ones that only show up to be beaten at least look cool. Mr. Negative is here too, but among the developed villains he was, to me, the least interesting. At least he looked really cool and had some nasty abilities.

 Just like the script, gameplay borrows various elements from previous games. The swinging, arguably the element that has mattered the most in 3-D Spider-man games since Spider-man 2, is pretty good, while not as involved as in other games, the sense of speed makes it fun. It's done just by pressing, or just by holding, R2, which sounds lame since swinging has usually been the most fun when it was a bit more complex, but trust me, it works really well. It's fast and fluid, and the rumble on the joystick makes it rather gratifying, plus, the soundtrack makes it even sweeter. Oh, and Spider-man can swim! Very slowly, and he can't dive, but hey, this is the first time Spider-man has ever been able to swim in a videogame, that I know of anyways. 

 The game plays like your modern open-world sandbox that Ubisoft likes so much. There's a ton of busy work, towers to climb to clear the map, the whole nine yards. It's much smaller than your average Assassin's Creed game, but also much denser, which each zone housing various side activities. Activities reward you with different kind of tokens that you can then use to unlock costumes or improve your gadgets. As for the activities, they involve random Crimes(Stop a car, stop a robbery, rescue a kidnaped person, etc), defeating various waves of enemies inside a criminal hideout, chase and capture pigeons(really), take photos of landmarks as well as simple 'sciency' puzzles. 

 Combat too takes cues from some of the better Spider-man games, as well as a few elements from the Batman Arkham series. Basically, you attack enemies with the square button, use your webs to throw or disarm enemies with triangle, dodge with circle(Time it right for perfect dodges!) and you can even use various gadgets, such as electric web or web bombs to help you. Unlike Batman, Spidey can take it to the air for some fun and simple aerial combat. You get a focus gauge, that raises as you land hits, that can be used to either heal yourself or use powerful finishers. You can also use a support ability(Call in help from a drone, electrify your attacks, shoot web everywhere) by pressing L3+R3 once your Suit Power gauge fills up. Each costume unlocks a different ability, so you can use the costume you like the most with the power you like the most.

 As you finish missions and side activities you earn XP, and every time you level up you get some Health, Damage or Swing speed bonuses, as well as a single skill point you can then use on three different skill trees. By the end of the game you'll get every skill, so no need to worry about which branch suits your playstyle better.

 So far, so good. It has a pretty good script and pretty good gameplay, but there were a few things I didn't really like. For instance, QTE, which, at least can be turned off on the options menu(Although I think these options appeared after I installed the patch?). Which I did. Also, the game forces stealth sections upon you in which you play as Miles or MJ. These aren't hard at all, but man are they boring. Playing as Spider-man is so much fun, so whenever I was forced to play these stealth segments I couldn't help but groan. Also, like with pretty much every Spider-man game, it can be a bit tough to move precisely, since he sticks into walls and moves fairly swiftly. It might've costed me a few tokens on the Challenge activities, but it wasn't too bad.

 Lastly, a few times throughout the game you are forced to wait. Spider-man suggests doing side activities but... I did everything as it popped up. So the game just forced me to aimlessly swing about for like 3 minutes straight every now and then because reasons. I know, Yakuza has done this a few times, but it was once or twice at most per game. In this game this was a very common occurrence. And they do it again on the DLC packs. I had a fully maxed Spider-man, so doing the DLC side activities was something I did just for completion's sake, but the game forced me to wait just because. Luckily swinging around is fun in and of itself, but boy, this isn't good game design, it's not immersive in the least, it's just annoying.

 The last thing I want to mention are the bugs and glitches. The game crashed a couple of times on me, another couple of times the XP bar on the top of the screen wouldn't go away, another time the random crimes got bugged and while the missions would spawn, the enemies I had to defeat did not. Oh, and after I defeated the final boss, Spider-man just spawned inside a building. I reloaded the last checkpoint and... I spawned on the boss arena, with no boss, and nowhere to go. I reloaded the last checkpoint again and finally the final cutscene played.

 Marvel's Spider-man is probably one of the best games starring the webbed hero. It borrows some of the best features from previous games, while also adding a few original elements of its own, the end product being pretty darn great. It does have a few shortcomings, like the forced waiting periods or the unnecessary stealth sections, but the brunt of the game is really good. On the other hand, I really don't like the fact that the DLC came in the form of a voucher, Sony could and should do better. 

 8.5

Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme VS: MaxiBoost-ON Suits

 So, um, I started writing this, as with most Gundam VS games, but I realized there were TOO many suits, and it'd take me forever to cover each suit. But since I already wrote this, might as well post it! For preservation's sake, if anything.

 Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny

NEW Gundam Akatsuki

 Returning from Gundam VS Gundam, we have the Akatsuki. While he doesn't really fit my playstyle, I like him just because he is a callback to the Hyaku Shiki, so I like having him. He is similar to how he used to be, so he has two forms: A decent mid-range fighter with a gerobi to a weak, ranged unit with access to a fantastic shield you can put on your ally. Glad to have him, not a fan of his style.

NEW Orange Gaia

 The first of Full Boost's crappy DLC I'm gonna cover, the Orange Gaia is different enough from the Gaia to deserve his spot. He can't switch between modes, instead his melee attacks change him into the doggy form. That's why it took a while for me to get used to his melee, but after I did... he was surprisingly fun!

Destiny Gundam

 The Destiny is the same strong machine it's always been. He has fantastic melee and great ways to close the gape towards his enemies, but it's also blessed with a decent beam rifle and two gerobi beams. It's just too good, which is just too bad because Shinn sucks.

NEW Orange Destiny

 I was so angry for the longest time! That's because I had Extreme VS Force's DLC codes, but since my Vita had a USA account, but you can't have more than a single account on the Vita.... I wasn't able to play as this one! And that made me so angry because I love the Destiny Gundam, and it looks so cool in orange. Since it's a lower cost-clone, it is weaker than the original Destiny, for a 2500 unit it's still REALLY good, but it loses one of the Gerobi beams and while you get two mirage wing uses, instead of Shinn's single stock, it has a slow start-up time making it less effective.

 Gaia Gundam

 Dang, I was fairly harsh with it when I played it on Full Boost! I had not trouble using its mobile armor mode this time around, however, I still am not a fan. Surprisingly, I liked the Orange Gaia clone a bit more since it's more streamlined.

Strike Freedom Gundam

 Y'know how the Destiny is really good at everything but particularly good at close range? Same deal with the Strike Freedom, but it's particularly good at long range. This guy has been so good in Extreme VS, and that ain't changing any time soon.

NEW Legend Gundam

 Seed Destiny had one of the more insufferable cast of characters, didn't it? The Legend is decent. It has funnels, which makes it effective at mid-long range distances, but I didn't find anything worth talking about with this one. Next!

 Impulse Gundam

 Still one of my favorite units to play as, what can I say the Orange Destiny is too good, it feels as great as it was in Full Boost. The close-range form feels a bit stronger than before? Maybe I'm crazy, but I was tearing through units as if they were Swiss cheese.

 NEW Luna Maria's Impulse Gundam

 The first of Full Boost's really crappy DLC I'm gonna cover, Luna Maria's Impulse looks just like Shinn's and plays just like Shinn's, except for its Burst Move, but it costs less so it's weaker. Lazy, boring.

Infinite Justice Gundam

 I was REALLY positive about this one back when I played Full Boost. My, how things change, because I found him so BORING for a 2500. It excels at nothing.

Lacus' Infinite Justice Gundam

 Another boring clone. It has a better assist than Arthrun's IJustice since the Strike Freedom fires a beam instead of rushing in with a stun. It's super move is better than Arthrun's, while his twirly slash is easy to interrupt, Lacus' burst has Strike Freedom shooting a gerobi. Surprisingly... I found this one better than Arthrun's, because I think the 1500 cost fits this boring unit better, and it really shines as a weak support unit, I think.

 Gunner Zaku Warrior

 Luna Maria's packing heat, baby! What I really like about this one is that her gerobi and beam ax is all she needs, because her three sub-weapons are all summons. Sadly, I don't really like using summons, so this Zaku ain't for me. Still, her basic weapons are so good she doesn't really need anything else.

Gouf Ignited

 This guy was in Extreme VS Force and he really bummed me out, because he was a constant reminded that I couldn't play as the Orange Destiny(Same pilot). He felt rather weak, its whip sub weapon attacks are rather slow and its bullets just don't cut the mustard. As far as his summon goes, the Beam variation worked better to cover its weaknesses.

NEW Strike Gundam Rouge Ootori

 Yes, another version of the Strike, but it's no clone. It's a really solid unit, good melee, lots of ammo, summons and even a missile sub-weapon! Coming into this one right after using the Gouf marked such a stark difference.

 Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Astray

 Gundam Red Frame Astray

 It has a beam rifle and its Katana and that's it. Yeah, it's long-to-mid range game sucks, but dude, the amount of damage he can deal with his combos is astronomical, if this guy catches you you are done. Plus, he has some really cool animations. Man, the amount of power this unit has makes the Gouf Ignited, another 2000 cost unit that specializes in close range, look WEAK.

Gundam Blue Frame Astray Second L 

 Much more balanced that its Red counterpart, this guy has some fun things of its own. It has a one-time charge gerobi that turns into a long-range stunner, perfect for closing in with his giant sword sub-weapon. His charged square actually puts up a shield in front of it while it shoots its machine gun. Pretty interesting unit.

Gundam Gold Frame Astray Amatsu

 I enjoyed this one in Full Boost, but... my tastes have changed. It has its tools to close the distance, such as two stun-projectiles and its invisible forward dash, which mains it's a pain in the butt to fight against!

NEW Gundam Gold Frame Amatsu Mina Custom

 One of the boring DLC clones from Full Boost. This one has armor on its feet, but otherwise looks pretty much identical to the other Gold Frame. It's a 2500 cost unit, instead of 2000, so it packs a stronger punch and has more ammo stock. It also has a single different combo string. Boring.

NEW Hyperion Gundam Unit 1

 I thought this guy was a bit boring at first, but it's a very interesting defensive unit. It has a beam 360 degree beam shield, and every time it uses its beam laser uzi it gets a mini shield in front of itself. It also has a pretty nifty one-time temporary unlimited ammo mode. It does suffer a bit in the melee department, but this guy can be quite a pest!

NEW Gundam Red Frame Astray Kai

 Add a curve-bow sub weapon to the Red Frame and give it the Blue Frame's giant sword and you get the this bad boy. The giant sword can also be used as a claw, and it gets a nasty AoE stun that could hurt your ally. The Claw is extremely nasty, it's very slow, so an enemy's buddy might be able to rescue your victim, but if you land the full attack? Oh booy... Once I understood how this unit played I grew to like it.

NEW Dreadnought Gundam

 Eh, it can set out two tendrils to shoot alongside him for a few seconds, and that's about it. I didn't really like it, it's one of those very weak 2000 cost units. I dunno, I think 2K units are better when they excel at one particular area, like melee or ranged. But even though it has a few tendril-beam subweapons it still feels a bit weak.

NEW Gundam Red Frame Astray Red Dragon

 Surprisingly, not a 3000 cost Red frame, but another 2500. It's a bit more balanced, but still slanted towards melee, with two burst attacks(One being a projectile!) . It can buff itself by landing attacks with its massive sword sub weapon.

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Stargazer

Stargazer Gundam

 And THIS is why 2000 cost units are better when they specialize in something. While it's melee is useful, but awkward, this suit is built to zip around the battlefield showering the enemy with energy beams.

Strike Noir Gundam

 This suit has a lot of different sub weapons and beams, and looks really cool too, he can even use his two beam pistols to target both enemies at the same time. But, as cool as it looks... It feels so weak, and it's a 2500 cost unit, it shouldn't take it so long to destroy its enemies.


Mobile Suit Gundam Seed

LaGOWE

 Oh, look, it's the LaGOWE. Woohoo? It's incredibly basic, and its low height means that if you are not careful your shots will hit the ground. It can summon other LaGOWEs to rush the enemy, and its ammo recharges pretty fast, so I think it's a decent support, even if a bit boring.

Game #887: Black Clover - Quartet Knights

  So this is what watching an episode of Dragon Ball Super feels like, huh?

 So, um... I don't really like Black Clover. I read the first 80 chapters and found it almost as dumb as Fairy Tail, although I've been reading the last few chapters that were released because why the hell not, so I approached Black Clover: Quartet Knights as someone that didn't really care about the series but found a very cheap game and decided to give it a try.

 With Shonen shows, nothing makes more sense than a 1 on 1 fighting game, but for Quartet Knights they did something very different, for you see, this is a 4 on 4 goal-based third person shooter. Every character falls into one of four different categories: Fighters, which tend to fight up close and can block incoming damage, Shooters, squishy wizards that pelt you with projectiles from afar, Supporters, who usually have spells that grant bonuses to their teammates and Healers, which are pretty much self explanatory. The game includes 17 playable characters, 5 fighters, 4 shooters, 4 healers and 4 support characters. Every character feels very different from each other, even Young Yami plays nothing like Yami, which is pretty cool for an anime game.

 Modes is where the game falters a bit... There's NO offline multiplayer, which is very disappointing. If you are by yourself you can play the Story Mode(2-3 hours top), Challenges(1 hour top), and... there's Training or VS CPU Mock Battle. Pretty lame to be honest. You can customize your characters with alternate color palettes and give them passive buffs to their spells... but you can only see these online, not even during Mock Battle. It's a shame, but if you're not planning on going online you only get half the experience... something that split-screen versus/co-op could've easily fixed.

 So, what do you get if you only plan to play offline? Well, the Story Mode follows a whole new story, featuring a time-travelling young Yami. This mode also has all new anime cutscenes drawn exclusively for this game.... And I hope to god the anime doesn't look like this. The art is atrocious and the animation is incredibly bad, it looks like something made by the same studio that animated Dragon Ball Super. Still, I appreciate the effort into giving fans something new that feels official.

 Challenge Stages are simple fights that more or less introduce you to each playable character. They are prefaced by a few story bits, but they are boring and dumb.

 Black Clover: Quartet Knights is an interesting offering. The gameplay is fairly original and it works well, so it gets bonus points just for that. That said, if you're not planning on going online, the game won't have much to offer you, something that offline split-screen could've fixed.

6.0

Game #886: Assassin's Creed Origins

  Now with 40% more Witcher.

 The problem with Assassin's Creed lies in the fact that it's an yearly franchise that rarely skipped a year, which translates to a lot of stagnation. AC 2 was great, Brotherhood and Revelations not so much. With 3 they changed up things, and while some people may not agree with me on how good it actually was, with 4 they expanded on everything that made it great. Unity was great fun, but let's be honest, it was more of the same. Syndicate was more of the same but without the wow factor. Assassin's Creed Origins brings another shake up to the series, taking more than a little inspiration from The Witcher III, effectively turning the series into a RPG, for good or bad.

 Well, at last we get a proper Egypt game, that's cool. You play as Bayek of Rivia, I mean, Bayek of Siwa, who is pretty much an Assassin before the Assassins. Bayek is an interesting character, sure, he is another vengeful hero, like Ezio, but he is much less of a rogue, being deeply devoted to his wife, Aya. Aya is sort of a secondary character, and you play as her for some very short bits, but they missed the mark with her completely. She is like Kratos, consumed by anger, and she only thinks about The Mission, about The Creed. So, not only is she unlikeable, but the few times you play as her you're stripped of your hard earned equipment as well as your experience points and the abilities you worked for, now being forced to play as her. You're not even properly told of what abilities she has, you sorta have to try things and see if she can do them or not. Apparently, Bayek was supposed to die early on the story and you'd play as Aya, and that probably would've worked better since we could've gotten a more sympathetic portrayal. You don't need to look far to see how much people disliked her on Youtube comments, and it makes sense, she's very unlikeable and in gameplay she is a huge step down from how you've been playing. Kratos works as an angry character because we get glimpses into his humanity, even at his most unlikeable, during God of War III, he'd still take Pandora as a substitute for his daughter. We've got a new modern-day protagonist, and we saw too little of her to make heads or tails of her, as of now, can't say I care about her, she seems a bit too arrogant for my tastes. That said, the modern-day segments are mercifully short.

 Look, I've made fun of Ubisoft for pretending to be woke and then making Evie Frye 'Weak but stealthy' as opposed to her brother, who was 'strong' because he is the dude, I'm all in for diverse portrayal of characters. However, I think they tried TOO hard with this game. Most of the Warriors Bayek meets are women, there's even a female Gladiator. And then men take them seriously, the Lanista boasts about her as his finest Warrior. It feels very unauthentic for the era, an era in which sexism ran rampart. And I can't help but feel slightly disappointed considering how much attention to detail they pay when it comes to recreating these past eras. If it was up to me, I'd have a fewer number of female warriors, but better developed, and have the men in the game actually comment upon it in a negative way, and then have these women join Aya's pre-Assasssin order, a place where they could be accepted beyond the societal norms of the era. I think it'd be a better work around in order to have strong female characters, but still make sense for them during the era. I just think there were better ways of having their cake and eat it too, y'know?

 Alright, final complaints about the story... I felt it started off very promising, but for whatever reason it felt a bit... forgettable? It starts with Bayek's son getting murdered by an order of people code-named after animals("The Snake"), and it's all about him and Aya trying to bring them down. This order would be the precursor to the Templars. But as a whole, this whole Hidden Ones vs The Order isn't as interesting as it should be, and despite them being precursors to the Assassins and Templars, it feels too far removed from them. I liked Bayek, and I liked this depiction of Cleopatra, but I think the rest of the characters were forgettable, Caesar was a complete wasted opportunity, he was so lame and left no lasting impression.

 Well, the script is a bit of a bust, luckily the game fares a bit better. For starters, Egypt is MASSIVE, and it has a ton of "?" signs on the map, just like The Witcher 3, which hide side activities. Mostly having to do with finding hidden treasure or finding treasure AND defeating X amount of Captains and Generals inside an enemy encampment. Beside the trademark Ubisoft busywork the game offers about 150 side quests, which is massive. As much as it borrows from the Witcher, I can't say most side quests were very memorable or interesting, but, hey, if you like the game you won't find any shortage of stuff to do, and I can appreciate that. I cleared 120 missions, including side missions, and felt satisfied enough, even if I didn't finish every side mission.

 Gameplay has seen the most changes since AC 3. This is an a RPG, so now you obtain XP and level up. You have a skill tree made up of three branches, and you can level up on forever, there are three skills, one for each branch, that can be leveled up as much as you want, letting you dump all those bonus Skill Points you get after you reach level 40. One thing I didn't like about this system is that they went about it exactly like Xenoblade. If you try to attack an enemy that's 5 levels above you or higher you'll deal chip damage, while they can easily massacre you in one or two hits. That said, the game clearly defines the recommended level per area on the map, so if you veer where you shouldn't it's completely on you.

 Parkour has been further simplified since Syndicate, just press X once and you'll be able to freely climb up however you see fit, and hold Circle for Bayek to make his way down a building. It works pretty well, I think. Since it's an RPG, now there many different weapons to equip, from double swords, to axes or spears, as well as different types of bow. There's not a whole lot of different weapons for each type, and there are no modifiers, the only thing that changes is its level. You can only equip weapons of your own level, and you upgrade weaker weapons up to your own level at any Blacksmith, for a hefty fee. In my case, by level 20 I had already found the Rare dual swords, single-handed sword, bows and shield I wanted to use for the rest of the game, so every five levels I'd go the blacksmith and upgrade them to my level.

 Combat is fun, for the most part, but it got a bit boring by the end. R1 is your weak attack, and R2 is your strong attack. L1 makes Bayek adopt a defensive position that blocks most basic attacks in front of you, but for the red-tinted attacks you gotta dodge, with square. By the end of the game, after I was level 40, the game quickly devolved into mashing R1, or pressing R2 to break their defense and then mash R1. Or, if it came to the big enemies or enemies with Tower Shields, hold R2 to charge an attack, dodge, and then press R2 to break their defenses and mash R1. Also, R1+R2 every now and then to use my super move. It devolved into something that was super repetitive, although it never felt completely devoid of fun.... except when the game forced me to play as Aya and deal little damage to my enemies.

 Speaking of Aya, she gets 3 naval battle sections, and these were pretty fun, it's a shame there's only three of them. Going back to the combat itself(Quite a rollercoaster, eh!) I think that adding proper special moves and the such would've eased the repetition. I mean more moves besides R1+R2, something like... hold R2 and every face buttons performs a different ability, governed by some kind of cooldown meter. That would've been really neat.

 Lastly, while Ubisoft took their time to make this game, or so they say, it's still filled to the brim with bugs. Some bugs tanked the framerate and forced me to restart, this one time Bayek FUSED to a column I was trying to climb, and one time I fell below a pyramid, dropping below the game's world itself. Nothing game breaking, thankfully.

 I think Assassin's Creed Origins offers an interesting new direction for the series, but it's become so time consuming that I don't know when I'll continue with Odyssey. I think there's a lot to like about the new combat, and Egypt provides some gorgeous vistas. Sadly, the story was uninteresting, and the sidesquests didn't fare much better. As far as combat goes, this isn't a bad first attempt, but I hope they expand upon it. Still, despite how I felt the game left something to be desired on many different fronts, I still think the game is more than a sum of its parts, y'know? When you bring every piece together, it makes for a fun way to pass some time.

8.0

Game #885: Mortal Kombat XL

  Budget so high you can smell the money.

 While I love the fighting game genre, or used to anyways, Mortal Kombat was never among my favorites. And yet, ever since MK 9 Netherrealm studios have really poured blood and tears(Alongside a healthy amount of Warner Brothers' money) into making their Fighters really good. Mortal Kombat XL is no exception, taking everything that worked from MK 9, a few contentious elements from Injustice as well as some rather daring new ideas for the genre.

 The core of the game plays exactly like MK 9. Four attack buttons, a block button, Special Moves, EX Special Moves, Kombo Breakers and X-Ray attacks. So far, so good, as MK9 was pretty darn good. From Injustice it takes the ability to interact with certain objects from the background, some are one-time offensive tools, others are reusable jumping pads to gain a better positions. This was a very interesting choice, as interactive Stage Elements weren't universally well received, but MK has always flirted with going outside of the box, I mean, remember Stage Hazards from MK Deception and Armaggeddon? I do. And I wish I could forget.

 There are two big additions to the fighting: Variations and Brutalities. Brutalities are just another way to finish off an enemy with a bit of flair, they are done by fulfilling certain conditions and finishing off an enemy with a special move. Variations is where it gets interesting, because every character has 3 different variations, each variation has access to a few unique special moves, and sometimes, it even changes a few of a character's normal moves. For example, Jax could either go with the Grappler variation, that grants him access to special grabs, or use the Heavy Arms variations that allows him to use his machinegune and rocket launcher. Sub-Zero can only use his Ice Clones when in his GrandMaster variation, but you could also use a variation that lets him use Ice weapons. Every variation adds a little cosmetic addition or change to a character, which applies to every costume, and is a nice detail.

 Now onto what through a few people off.... if you remember MK9, pretty much every body died... so for this game, there's a ton of new characters, a lot of them being offsprings of stablished characters, such as Cassie Cage, daughter of Johnny and Sonya. Most fighting game fans HATE when fighting games do this... but I've always enjoyed it. Tekken 3, Soul Calibur 5, Street Fighter 3 and Garou Mark of the Wolves, I like when the story moves forward, I like the idea of successors. As for the new four main characters, I really liked Cassie and Takeda, Jacqui I didn't care about and Kung Jin I hated, because he is the new arrogant, cocky kid in the block, but I like the fact that someone with that personality is part of the group, adds a bit of variety, which I like. That said, I think they might've shilled the new characters a bit too much, when Takeda beats Scorpion, even if he wasn't taking it seriously, left a sour taste on my mouth. And I like Takeda. Kotal Khan is Shado Khan's successor, and he sucks. Seriously, he is supposed to be the next Khan, but he gets his butt kicked by Kung Jin... and then by pretty much everyone else he fights, probably because his chapter comes very early, so afterwards he turns into someone the player must defeat.

 This version of the game includes the 8 DLC characters. Four of them are returning characters, Bo'Rai Cho, Tremor(MK Special Forces, baby!), Triborg and Tanya... the other four will be a bit more divisive. Look, I was fine with Freddy Kruger in MK 9, and I would've been fine with ONE of these, but were Jason Vorhees, Predator, Alien and LeatherFace really all that requested? When it comes to crossover characters, I'd rather keep them to a minimum, I much prefer having characters that can evolve and/or change, or at least affect the story in any meaningful way. Look, I'm a HUGE horror movie aficionado, Jason, Predator and Alien ARE my childhood, but I would've much rather have other MK characters, like Reiko, Jarek and Mavado over these guests.

 Speaking of the Story Mode... Holy s.... It's amazing. Structurally, it has the same issues MK9 had, basically, every chapter has you playing as the same character for four fights, which means that when you play as someone, suddenly everyone else gets weaker so that your character can shine, and after their chapter is over they turn into punching bags. That aside, the lighting, the camera angles, the dialogue... it feels VERY cinematic. Look, the story itself is nothing to write home about, it really isn't, but it feels like a perfectly fine popcorn movie, and it looks the part too. It's pretty lengthy too, easily taking over 2 hours, although, sadly, you only get to play as 12 of the 32 character roster. They added QTEs to the Story Mode, but failing them has no consequence, except maybe robbing you of your character being a badass for a short while.

 Alright, so Netherrealms has never had the prettiest character models ever, nor the prettiest animations, but... Jesus, these character models range from decent to fantastic, which is a HUGE step up from previous games in the series, in which characters could look like very ugly facsimiles of humans at their worst. The character models themselves are very large and very detailed. The animations are much better than anything NR did before. Most walking animations need some serious, serious polishing, but most of the attack animations are really good, they really do get better after each game. It's still not quite something like Tekken or Street Fighter, but we're getting there! If there's something to complain about it's that the color palette is very subdued, even the red blood looks muddy at times, the game could've used more vibrant colors. Which is something they fixed with MK 11, judging from its bright yellow cover.

 Besides the Story Mode, there are are also Single Player Towers you can partake in, heck, Arcade Mode is now 'Klassik Tower', which rewards the player with a brief ending for your character upon completion. The Krypt returns, and it's now a first person mini-game, not only are you opening up coffins for rewards, you're also collecting items in order to open up other areas! An unnecessary amount of time and care went into something that could've been a boring list of items to unlock. Honestly, this game's production values are through the roof, I don't know how they managed to get so much money to sink into this game, but boy, is it something marvelous.

 One caveat with this disc... It doesn't include every DLC costume. It's missing costumes such as the Medieval pack, the Cosplay pack and even the cool metallic ninja costumes for Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Ermac. If that wasn't disappointing enough, some costumes are locked behind the online modes, which I think should be a BIG no no. At least we get every DLC character, which is what really matters.

 Worth mentioning, the game crashed on me multiple times throughout the Arcade Ladder, which wasn't very fun.

 I always used to think that Mortal Kombat was overrated. Heck, I think the only reason people held it in high regard was because it came out at the right time, and for whatever reason the violence managed to mask how basic and dull the gameplay was, I mean, Mortal Kombat couldn't hold a candle to Street Fighter II. But since MK9 Netherrealms have turned into a heavy-weight of the genre. Sure, the competitive scene might devolve into projectile-fests, but Mortal Kombat and Injustice are quality games that manage to offer fun gameplay, and the right mix of substance and style to keep most people happy. 

9.0

Game #884: Remothered - Broken Porcelain

  It's broken alright....

 Talk about disappointing, while the first game, 'Tormented Fathers' was a bit lacking in a few ways, it was also quite promising, being a decent tribute to the classic Clock Tower games. It was scary and cheesy in all the right ways. Remothered: Broken Porcelain ups the cheese, lowers the scares and couples them with an ungodly amount of bugs and glitches that range from funny to heartbreaking, as a matter of fact, the game can't be beaten without downloading the patch. It's that bad.

 Let's start with the story, I watched trailers such as 'Whispers', and it looked really interesting. You'd continue Rosemary's story while also delving deeper into Celeste's story, the missing girl from the first game. But it's so poorly told. At first the game does a boring, extensive info dump on the player in the way of boring dialogue that goes on and on. And then we delve into Celeste's past, and they try to build up her relationship with her friend, Linn, throughout flashbacks, but... they are poorly paced and sometimes very cringy, the Piano scene is meant to be romantic, but it looked ridiculously silly. Lip movements are so minuscule that sometimes it looks as if characters aren't moving their lips when speaking, and if you pause during a dialogue, for any reason, the subtitles will get out of synch from the audio. Assuming the scene has subtitles, because some scenes are unsubbed.

 They tweaked a few mechanics, now you play as Celeste most of the time, and she can carry a limitless amount of defensive items, said items also respawn regularly inside the Inn. You can 'craft' items, which means adding extra stun effect to a few defensive items, but every now and then the game will remove these enhanced items from you inventory just because. Oh, and after cutscenes your equipped items will get unequipped, so be wary lest you get murdered because you couldn't defend yourself. There are also sneak attacks against Stalkers, which is alright, I guess?

 Celeste also gets super powers, which are never properly explained WHAT they are(It's as if you take control of a disembodied spirit? The game mentions telekinesis at one point, but this doesn't feel like telekinesis) or how to use them. The game just says "Press Right to use your powers" and then... nothing. Figure out on your own that you have to use R2 to fly forwards. And it's so clunky, it's easy to get stuck on the tiny vents the game expects you to send your.... telekinesis? through.

 The game runs like butt. Seriously, the framerate seems to be on the lower 20s most of the time, and it isn't a particularly good looking game. Sometimes moving the camera around in order to interact with objects is a pain in the butt, I don't remember having this issue in the first game, so I don't know why or how they managed to break something that worked fine before. There's a new upgrade system, which is a really neat idea. You can collect Moth Keys around the Inn and then use it in designated spots to upgrade different abilities. Problem is... the game will regularly remove keys from your inventory. It seems to be tied to reloading, either because you died or because you exited the game, which is just annoying.

 Look, the game would be downright unplayable without Autosaves, I was a victim to so many soft locks it isn't even funny. I'll proceed to list everything I came across:

Firstly, the worst one, during the fourth chapter you are supposed to collect a Recorder and use it to record a voice. I collected the item but it didn't count as a tool item, so I couldn't use it. I reloaded my last save, the last autosaves, but it never worked. I even reloaded an old save and got through a very annoying boss fight again and.... the item still wouldn't count as a tool. But the BEST part about it? The patch fixes that issue with the recorder... but now you can't interact with the safe! I even came across youtube comments saying the same thing. THE GAME IS STILL UNBEATABLE, at least on PS4. Unbelievable.

 There was this time I got into a locker and the stalked forced me out of it. I mashed X and got inside the locker again and.... the controls stopped working. Had to restart. Another time I sneak attacked a Stalker as it opened a door and... soft lock. The stalker got stuck and I got stuck, the controls stopped responding too. Another time I got into a locker RIGHT before a scripted sequence happened and.... controls stopped working.

 This one time, there's a boss jump scare. But I was fooling around and triggered my super powers, which highlights bosses.... so I shot at him before he was triggered and nothing happened. I tried to use the microphone the game expects you to use and... he got up from his hiding spot, but wouldn't move! I kept shooting at him, I tried sneak-attacking him, but nothing would outroot him from his spot. I saved my game, reloaded and.... the game thought I finished the boss fight and let me proceed!

 There's this sequence in which you have to trigger a jukebox through your powers. I mashed X against the jukebox, since I wasn't sure if I was triggering anything and... the game didn't proceed as it should. A character gets to a door and... wouldn't open it. I reloaded, pressed X on the jukebox once and everything went as it should. There's this silly, cringy basketball mini-game against Linn, and every time she misses Celeste repeats the same line, I thought I had entered an endless loop for a while.

 Then there's the overall feeling of sloppiness. There's a boss fight in which you have to use a fire extinguisher, and you're not told how to use it. Firstly, getting to the fire extinguisher is a bit of a hassle, because the Stalker is right in front of it, and Stalkers are very aggressive, it's very easy to die if they just touch you once, because your hitstun is so lengthy that they can just keep hitting you without giving you a chance to get away. This is true for most Stalkers, but at least once you get the Defensive item prompt you can stun them for a bit and get away. Regardless, say that you manage to get the fire extinguisher, your natural instinct will tell you that you should hold L2 to aim and then hold R2 to spray him with the extinguisher. But nope, that will only get you killed in seconds flat. You actually have to get close to the enemy, and press R2 ONCE to hit him with... pressurized air? And then GET AWAY for the thing to.... recharge? And then repeat the process a few more items. It's very clunk, very counterintuitive and it makes no sense as to why it should work this way.

 What an utter piece of garbage. Remothered: Tormented Fathers was SO enjoyable, so much fun. Sure, its low budget showed through some of its clunkiness, but it was very, very playable. The entire time I played this game it felt as if I was fighting against it, very early through the playthrough I just stopped having fun entirely. And it's sad, because I was really starting to like the new characters, I liked the direction they went with the story, bad dialogue aside, but this game should've never been released in this state, and it's downright criminal that such a promising series might be cancelled because they rushed this game for Halloween.

 1.5

Game #883: Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection

  Street Fighter's Alright Collection.

 Dude, I love Street Fighter. I can vividly remember LOVING the hell out of a bootleg family conversion of Street Fighter II. Years later, as a teen, I'd come across a bootleg copy of Street Fighter Zero II on a flea market, which would rekindle my love for the series. Heck, as of today, Street Fighter III remains one of my favorite fighting games of all times, the animation is superb and the Parry is the best mechanic ever added to a fighting game, having to tap forward, and thus forgoing the ability to block in coming damage for a change at avoiding chip damage or getting an opening on your enemy is PURE brilliance. And it's because I hold so much love for the series that I can't help but feel like Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection could've been so much more.

 The game features 12 games. The first six are made up of Street Fighter 1, which is absolute garbage but a neat addition to a compendium like this, as well as five versions of Street Fighter II, vanilla, Championship, Turbo, Super, Super Turbo. Then we get Alpha 1, 2 and 3, as well as the three versions of Street Fighter III. It's a decent offering, although I would've quite liked Street Fighter IV thrown in here, but I guess having all versions of SFIV would've taken too much space, plus, the PS4 version of USFIV was poorly received. 

 So where does this collection come apart? Two words: Arcade Perfect. These are perfect conversions of the Arcade versions of these games, which is great for Arcade pundits, but... Most of these games received fantastic console ports with a bevy of additions that are sorely missed. There are 0 extra modes, no Survival, no Varial Battle, no Training, nothing but Arcade Ladder or VS player. And online, if you're into that. Street Fighter Alpha 2 had an upgrade, Alpha 2 Gold, that added Cammy, but that version of Alpha 2 isn't here. Alpha 3 is fantastic, but the console port added the missing SF II characters, like Guile and Blanka as well as a few others, but they are nowhere to be seen. Heck, even the PSP had the Alpha 3 Upper that included the bonus characters from the PS1/DC port, as well as the GBA bonus characters as well as Ingrid from Fighting jam. All the bonus unlockable colors from Street Fighter III? Tough luck.

 It's not just that, the games didn't even get tweaked just for convenience sake, having to go through dumb codes to pick the bosses in Alpha 1 is so dumb and archaic, was it too hard to add new slots to the character select screen? The fact that you can't map all three Punch and all three Kick buttons to a single button is downright offensive, considering pretty much every single Street Fighter home port had that option to make up for the joystick's button arrangement. Options for each game are very limited as well, you can only change the difficulty and sometime increase or decrease the damage or speed multipliers. You can't fiddle around with amount of rounds or time per round, which is frankly quite disappointing.

 And, by the by, the Switch is the least ideal console to play this game. The joycons just aren't up to snuff. Trust me, I've played the GBA and PSP versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3, I'm used to less than optimal controls, but the Joycons are easily the worst. I love having so many versions of Street Fighter on the go, and I can put up with these controls, but dang if they aren't wonky, I never struggled so hard getting super moves to go out.

 It's not all bad, y'know? The game offers a fairly extensive gallery, filled with art and information about every game and every single fighter, including being able to see the sprites for each of the characters' super moves. If it was up to me I'd have given access to the full sprite sheet for each character, but it's still a neat extra.

 Here's the thing... this is an average collection of a TON of great games. If you are into the competitive scene and grew up with Street Fighter on the Arcades, then this is everything you'd want and then some. But while I played a bit of Street Fighters on the Arcades, most of my experiences with the franchise came through the fantastic console ports. And while you could argue that the point of the collection was to bring Arcade Perfect ports to the consoles, I'd argue that they could've easily fit some of the console conversions in this pack. So, yeah, it's alright, and if I ever want Street Fighter III on the go I can simply pop this cart on my Switch and enjoy, but I think I'll stick with the PS2 ports otherwise.

7.0