What makes a moveset great!

 

The start of something truly special!

I don’t really need to do some intro to the game here, it’s Super Mario 64, one of the most famous games ever made. A monumental leap in gaming history, a game that cemented itself in history as soon as it was released, and a game that fostered a community that thrives even to this day. When I first played it, I remember not really liking it much, finding its control and camera system too dated for me to really enjoy, but the more I replayed it, the more it started to click for me, to the point where I can now confidently call this my favorite 3D mario game! Sure, it can be a slog if you don’t know what you’re doing, but with enough time and dedication, you can experience something truly special,

Bowser has once again returned, this time stealing the power stars that power Peach’s Castle, sealing her away, and filling the worlds within with his evil. It’s up to our favorite plumber to once again put a stop to this turtle menace. It’s the same simple Mario plot you’ve gotten used to time and time again, and it serves its purpose well so I won’t really go into too much detail about it. It’s everything else surrounding this game that I find fascinating. There’s a specific feel Super Mario 64 brings in me, something that no other game really has been able to recreate, this strange feeling of unease. The castle plays this peaceful tune for sure, but the halls are mostly empty, Bowser’s influence clearly being felt in every corner. Graphically, the game is a tad off, which makes sense considering it;s one of the earlier 3D platformers, but it still creates a strange disconnect with the game, leaving you a little uncomfortable as you roam through these worlds. The levels themselves even feel strange, being these weird pieces of geometry stitched together, it’s an interesting feeling, and while I wouldn’t ever call this game horror, it does strike a certain creepiness to me that I always felt each run through, and it’s an aspect that I feel adds a lot of intrigue to what this game has to offer.

Gameplay first is Mario’s goal though and Super Mario 64 is no different. The basic structure is you jumping into one of the 15 levels in the game, running around exploring it looking for stars, and repeating this until you get the 70 needed to beat the game! There’s 120 total stars to get, 7 per level and a couple of hidden stars in the castle, so you have a lot of leniency in what stars you want to get, leading to a lot of variety on what stars you want to go for on each playthrough! In terms of obtaining the stars, most are pretty fun to get. Having you defeat a boss, or complete a short platforming challenge, or even find a couple of hidden secrets to unlock the star it’s fun! WIth the game having so many stars though, they got a good few that are just utter garbage to obtain no matter the run, and those stars are the ones I look the least forward to getting in an 100% run. The two main ones are the eight red coins and the 100 coin stars, these are just plain annoying to get no matter what. Eight reds isn’t so bad, but it just feels repetitive, and the spots to find them are never really that though besides one or two, so it just feels like a bit of a slog running through each stage desperate to find each coin. 100 coins are easily the worst though, these ones just SUCK, and while some stages are more generous than others with coins, there's a handful that are just horrid with the coin counter, making you really explore the whole stage for the single, tiniest coin you can find in order to get what you need, it just plain sucks! The other stars I don’t like much are the cap stars, Mario 64 has a few caps you can obtain for Mario to expand his moveset with, being the vanish, metal, and wing cap. These feel really useless most of the time, and all 3 are not used enough to be memorable besides maybe the wing cap. That one lets you basically glide in the sky, it feels weird to control, but once you get the hang of it, it can be pretty exhilarating, and I do look forward to using it whenever I can. Vanish cap is only used for three stars in the game and that’s it, it's a wasted effort and easily the worst cap in the game. I’d say metal is the worst considering it’s only used by two stars, but you get a cool song to go along with it, though I never really get to hear it since I just get the stars it needs without it, since it’s not too hard to learn the tricks required to do that. The other castle hidden stars are pretty fun and don’t take too much effort to find so they become a good pace breaker if you’re getting tired of the main stages, I like them!

As I mentioned above, there are 15 total stages here, and each one is pretty unique to each other. I enjoy them quite a bit! The intro stage Bob-omb battlefield is pretty great, having you dodge a literal warzone to get each star, it’s a good intro, and while it can be a little repetitive with how much you have to climb up the mountain, it’s a good level to get your gripes on how Mario controls. Whomp’s Fortress is one of my favorites, it’s a tiny contained level that has a ton of mini platforming challenges to it, it’s exhilarating running through it! Jolly Roger Bay is one of my least favorites, same with Dire Dire Docks as they are both the water levels of the game and Mario’s swimming just isn’t too great, once you learn fast swimming they just feel like a waste of time, I always skip them on replays. Cool Cool Mountain is alright, I like the slide section, but besides that there isn’t much to the level and it’s over before it even gets good. Big Boo’s Haunt is another one of my favorites, the small mansion space lets you nab each star quickly, and there’s a ton of opportunities to pull off some really cool walljump, it's a blast! Hazy Maze Cave is also the same, though the 8 red coins are really annoying here, but they make up for it with the funny little dinosaur they have at the bottom! Lethal Lava Land is alright, it used to be one of my favorites, but the more flat level design means Mario’s moveset doesn't get much use here besides like the dive so it’s a little boring because of it. Shifting Sand Lands sucks on the outside for similar reasons, but the pyramid itself is really fun, there’s a ton of cool ways to grab each star there, and I always like to try out different ways to do them each. Tall Tall Mountain just isn’t that great, a lot of the stars just involve you climbing up to the top, it’s a bit of a slog, and the only real saving grace is that you can clear it quickly once you learn some pretty simple tricks. Wet Dry World is incredibly fun, you don’t really have to engage with the water at all once you’re good enough, and the walljump feels cathartic here, I adore this. Tiny Huge Island is one of the worst by far, it seems like a decent idea on paper, but on execution it;s way too easy to slip off into the abyss, I hate this level. Snowman’s Land is alright, it’s once again too small to really be memorable, so it never really sticks in my mind too much. Rainbow Ride is really fun at first, but once you have to start engaging with the carpets, it becomes terrible, it's just boring autoscrollers! Tick Tick Clock I’m also mixed on, in terms of how it uses your moveset it’s a blast, but every star is just you climbing to different points of the level, it gets super repetitive quickly. The Bowser Stages are great here, no comment on them, they’re just really solid obstacle courses to go all out on, I always look forward to doing each one!

Mario’s moveset is the star of the show here and it’s what makes this game my favorite 3D Mario by far. This is easily his peak, and I find every moveset after takes away a lot of what made this one great, and while it can be really hard to fully grasp, once you practice it enough it becomes exhilarating with how amazing the acrobatics feel! You got a basic triple jump here, that one’s fun enough to pull off, but you also got a long jump and a dive letting you cover a ton of ground when used correctly, especially with the dive. I love this move so much. It’s incredibly fun hitting a jump and diving at just the right frame in order for Mario’s body to get the height needed to knock him up the ledge, it never gets old. You got a backflip which I truthfully never use, and also a sideflip which is super useful, letting you basically get the height of a backflip without needing to kill your momentum. Then there’s the walljump, easily the best moveset in your arsenal, and what I consider one of the best walljumps in gaming history. It can seem super unfair at first, Mario can easily smack into the wall and fall down, but that’s because this wall jump actually requires a ton of timing to it! One issue I have with so many modern walljumps is that they aren’t real walljumps, it's just magnetically clinging to a surface or attaching to it and sliding down automatically with you being able to jump whenever with 0 skill attached to it! It feels less like a valid move in your arsenal and more like an easy adjust button when you mess up a jump! With Mario 64, there’s actual skill behind it, you have to time your jump when you connect to the wall, and it’s always consistent when you hit it, so it’s about learning that timing and best applying it to any situation. When that timing is learned, you can use it basically anywhere, it’s such a useful move letting you scale up so many walls, the game feels designed around it at many points, and the way it rewards your dedication to learning it by giving you faster ways to get each star is cathartic, it changed my entire perception on how Mario 64 played! You can hit a wall with a walljump and have so many different combinations on how Mario leaps off of it depending on your timing, it’s incredible, I love this walljump so much and it really opened my eyes to how important a moveset can really be a platformer, it can make or break one for me at this point!

I adore Mario 64 a ton, it’s got some small issues that can hold it back in some areas, but Mario’s moveset and the variety in what stars you can get more then makes up for it. He just feels so fun to chain move togethers with, and there's a big reason why Mario 64 has such a large hacking and speedrun community behind it compared to the others, they just hit the ball out of the park with this first entry! Every replay of it has me mastering it more and more, and my time spent on Mario 64 romhacks is too high to count at this point. This was the game that really made me fall in love with platforming, and I’m so glad I was able to figure out just what made it so great!

The Return of the Jedi!

“Look, the Order’s gone, it’s time to leave it behind. And I know what I want now.”

The next Star Wars game has arrived in the marathon, Jedi Survivor, the followup to Fallen Order! I quite enjoyed my time with Fallen Order, it had its problems sure, but overall it was a fantastic game, and it was really cool seeing how it all tied into the universe that I grew to love. Despite that though, I was a little wary getting into Survivor. It’s not that I thought it would be bad, I was just nervous Fallen Order was a one off hit considering EA was behind it. At first, I thought these fears were justified, but the more I played, the more the game started to open up, and I suddenly found myself unable to put it down.

Five years have passed since the events of Fallen Order, and the crew of the Mantis have long split up since then. Greeze went off to start a Catina business, Cere went off looking for forgotten knowledge about the Jedi, Merrin set off to explore the galaxy, and Cal formed his own ragtag crew to try and stop the Empire. Things seem to be looking up for Cal until a job suddenly goes wrong and most of his team ends up dead. Lost on what to do, Cal heads back to reconnect with Greez to help repair his ship, and ends up releasing another Jedi survivor known as Dagan Gera. This turns out to be a mistake however as Dagan Gera has grown to despise the Jedi Order, believing himself to be betrayed by them, and sets off to a place called Koboh, a supposed safe haven from the Empire, and wants to use it to assert his rule. Now it’s up to Cal to put a stop to Dagan and bring the galaxy to peace once again. At first, I kinda hated this plot, it felt too disconnected and Dagan barely had a presence, kinda just appearing at random for a boss fight before disappearing from the narrative. It’s not a good first impression at all, and it’s one of my biggest criticisms for the game, it does a horrible job of dragging you in at first! It’s only later on when the plot actually picks back up, as we get more and more introduced to other characters, and the plot starts to finally get a better structure. The finale especially is fantastic, it feels so much better than Fallen Order by the end, and it only made me wish the game was like this story wise from the start, it’s so frustrating that it wasn't! I loved seeing how the former Mantis crew had to evolve since the events of Fallen Order, I loved seeing what they were up to now, I adore these characters a lot after all! I find that Survivor expands the Star Wars universe incredibly well, there’s less planets this time, but only one is a returning planet, the rest are new ones for the series, so we get to actually see more of the galaxy instead of exploring a lot of returning ones instead. The fanservice is pretty great here too, there's a ton of returning enemies I didn’t expect to show up here, and they’re used super well, it was incredibly cool seeing characters like the Separatist droids again, and some of the side quests feel like clear love letters to the series, it was hard not to have a smile on my face each time I beat one! The gameplay makes up for this too, this game feels like such a fantastic follow up to the 1st one it was so hard to stop playing it!

If you’ve played Fallen Order, you should be able to adjust to the combat here pretty easily. Cal keeps a good majority of his moveset from the 1st game, and you have a  good majority unlocked from the start, so it’s pretty easy to get yourself back into the groove again. Parrying still feels as great as ever, platforming is a lot smoother this time, with Cal traveling across surfaces a lot faster, it’s more of Fallen Order, and considering how fun that game is I’m not complaining that it’s back here. Of course, it’s not all the same here, there's a bunch of new mechanics that Fallen Order didn’t have here, and this is where I start to get a tad mixed on stuff. To get the good out of the way, I really adore the new stance system here. If you recall from the first game, you could get different lightsaber type that changed how you approached each situation. That returns here, but there’s a lot more the game has this time, such as the Crossguard stance and the Blaster stance. Blaster stance was my least favorite, it gives Cal a gun that you refill its ammo for by hitting enemies with the saber, and it just feels kinda bad to use. I couldn’t really find much use for it in any combat situation, and I ended up neglecting it most of the game because of it. Crossguard is my personal favorite, it’s basically Kylo Ren’s lightsaber, exchanging speed and dexterity for strength. The blade is slow as hell to swing, but it destroys enemies guards like its nothing and can shred any opposition if utilized correctly. It was incredibly fun slaughtering entire enemies with it, making me feel like a Sith lord taking down a Jedi army, Jedi Survivor really nails that power fantasy Star Wars can give you, and the combat being as fun as it is helped a ton! Force powers also get a few changes here, and like lightsabers, this is also where I’m a tad mixed! The returning push and pull are still fantastic to use here, no complaints on that, but we also have two new ones with lift and slam. These ones are fantastic, even if you get them a tad late, and it’s incredibly cathartic lifting an enemy up into the air and slamming them down at full speed, killing them instantly. I got a ton of uses out of slam especially, for a lot of enemies you can just kill them in one shot after you slam them, and it’s incredibly satisfying slamming down a whole bunch of enemies at once, making armies feel like in the face of your power. My issue comes from how slow is utilized here. Instead of being a power you can utilize whenever, it’s now been relegated to an ultimate attack, used only once when the bar is full, and it makes slow feel near useless. Enemies break out slowly after one hit, and since it’s not free use, it’s really only useful getting one hit on some enemies sometimes, instead of utilizing force power to get multiple hits on someone. It just feels like such a weird step backwards, and it makes what was originally a useful power feel just useless. There’s a new perk system as well, and it just feels super underutilized. You can go the entire game not using them, and they feel like a massively undercooked part of the gameplay loop. Then there’s the structure of the game itself.

Jedi Survivor decides to change up how levels are formatted here, where instead of being a couple decently sized planets that mix linearity with openness, you instead have two giant sized open world planets, and a few smaller, linear based ones. In regular gameplay, this is fine, there’s still a ton of exploration to do, and secrets are plenty, with each planet feeling properly distinct from one another. It’s the side content where things start to take a problem here, as Jedi Survivor feels a lot like the worst of an open world. There are so many collectibles to nab here, too many honestly, and it makes gathering them feel like an utter chore. You got plant seeds, health and force upgrades, skill points, perks, data guides, Jedi Temples, Force Tears, it’s so MANY and clearing out each area takes an agonizingly long time to do! So many of these collectibles feel like they were just added for the sake of it, and while Fallen Order could get into that territory a little bit, it wasn't overpopulated with them, there was just the right amount to where collecting it all felt satisfying. Here it feels like a Ubisoft game, bloating the game for the sake of it in order to drive up game length, and it made areas feel so repetitive to run through during post game! I just got super burnt out, and I opted to just get the achievements instead of everything by the end, I just couldn’t take finding the same collectibles over and over again to drive a number up. This game is also an unoptimized buggy mess. I always play PC versions of games, it just usually gives me the best results, and it’s always fun messing with mods after, I prefer it for a reason, but Jedi Survivor is horrifyingly buggy on PC. I started the game and got a crash 10 minutes in due to a major memory leak issue that had me changing settings on my PC IN ORDER TO FIX??? EXCUSE ME??? This never solved it either, after a few hours of playing the game will just stutter like crazy before crashing due to lack of memory. It's terrible! I also just got a baffling amount of glitches here, too many honestly, and while they were funny, it blows my mind that a game was allowed to be released in a state like this. Shoutouts to the amazing flying [Stormtroopers](https://x.com/TerraRose87/status/2035067492549206217?s=20)! Why the hell did they do this! It drags so much of the game down, and while they were in Fallen Order, it never got to this point! The game’s been out for years too, it baffles me none of this has been fixed, I hate EA!!!

Overall, I enjoyed my time immensely with Jedi Survivor, and while a lot of stuff can feel pretty undercooked, the gameplay loop more than makes up for it, and I really loved playing through this. It takes so many steps in the right direction for this franchise, and I grew to love these characters even more than I have before, it was incredible seeing them all back again. It’s a shame the game is as buggy as it is, it’s the one big thing I think really holds this game back, and I hope the upcoming third game fixes these technical issues. Still though, I’m glad I finally got a reason to play this, and I can’t wait to keep continuing this Star Wars journey!
 

The Return of the World's Greatest Gentleman!

 



“The sun rises when you and I meet, and when the wind blows, you will know my heart.”

I enjoyed my time with the first Professor Layton, even if I found it could be rather repetitive at points. The puzzle variety was just lacking, and the mystery was one I didn't care for that much. Still though, I had a pleasant time, and it made me curious to see how the other games hold up, and hopefully improve upon the pretty fun gameplay loop of Curious Village. Released about 9 months after the 1st game, Diabolical Box once again sets the stage for another mystery with our favorite gentlemen, and I was quite excited to dive into it. Video game sequels most often then not improve upon the original, so I had high hopes on what this game was gonna do. While it didn’t improve too much, it still was a pretty good time, and I think I can officially call myself a Layton fan now!

We once again find ourselves following Professor Layton and his assistant Luke Triton. This time, they’ve been instructed to do research on a mysterious box by Layton's old friend Andrew Schrader. The box, which is rumored to kill anyone who opens it, ends up being stolen by a mysterious assailant however, with the only clue left behind being a mysterious train ticket. Wasting no time, Layton sets off to discover whether the rumors of the box are true, and to find out just who exactly made off with the box and for what purpose. Much like the 1st game, the plot’s alright and the characters aren’t anything crazy besides Layton and Luke, but I found myself more hooked on it this time compared to Curious Village. You find yourself in a lot more locations this time around, having you explore a train, an ancient castle, and even a mysterious town shrouded in darkness. Each area is still rather small, but the variety helps a ton in keeping things fresh, and you usually move onto the next location before you get bored of the current one.  The story itself feels a tad weaker in some aspects, the mystery is more interesting for sure, but the big Layton twist is even worse then the 1st game and you really need to suspend your disbelief to enjoy it properly. I feel like this series’s over reliance on these twists really harm the games more than anything, they just feel a tad too far from ridiculous to really feel in place with the semi grounded nature of the world, and I think they just need to strike a better balance in terms of how these twists are presented.  At the very least, the presentation is a lot better here, it still shares the same graphics as the first game, but there’s a lot more animated cutscenes this time, and the audio doesn't feel as compressed here, leading to a much more pleasant experience overall, and I was even able to enjoy the soundtrack more because of it. In terms of gameplay though, this is where I’m a tad mixed on!

The same gameplay loop is once again present here, having you explore different areas, collecting hint coins and solving puzzles along the way before eventually hitting credits. I suppose I don't fix what isn’t broken, but it can feel like a slog sometimes with how slow it can take to progress to some plot points, and I just wish the pacing was better. The side quests are better this time at least, they take some more thought this time around, and the minigames are pretty fun, having you brew tea, exercise a hamster, and solve some spot the difference puzzles! I especially enjoyed the hamster minigame, it’s a lot of fun figuring out just where exactly each item needs to be placed in order to get the steps needed to lose the hamster’s weight. In terms of the regular puzzles themselves, there’s way less of those “trick” puzzles the 1st game had, but I still felt the variety could be a tiny bit better. There’s a good few puzzles that have 4-5 variants that are just a little harder than the previous one, and those just got tedious too quickly. Still, I had to use my brain a lot more here, and I found that to be way more refreshing than the 1st game, where I felt like I just had to figure out the weird wording then actually solve a puzzle. The post game returns here as well, being the exact same as the 1st game, having you solve a lot more challenging puzzles as a final test, and it’s pretty good here, they get your brain working just the right amount and it was a great reward for doing everything in the game. It’s not too big an improvement overall, but it’s enough to where I noticed the difference, and I found myself more motivated to finish the game overall!

Diabolical Box isn’t the craziest sequel in the world, and it probably would have benefited with more time in the oven, but it still was a good time overall, and it was definitely an improvement over the rather mediocre adventure of the 1st game. Puzzles feel a lot better and are better integrated into the story more, the story is more gripping, the presentations better, it’s a pretty solid sequel, and I had a great time going through it. I’m now even more excited to check out what the rest of the games are like, and I’m happy to call myself a proper gentlewoman now!

The Return of a Legend

 

SCOTT PILGRIM IS BACK!!!

I’m just gonna be fully upfront here, I’m a major Scott Pilgrim fan. I adore the comics, the show, the movie, the game, I just love Scott Pilgrim, so of course I was extremely excited when a new game was announced! I had to wait a week for the proper funds, but now it’s finally here, finally in my library, and I ended up binging this game hard. For the past two days I locked in immensely, doing nothing but binging it until I had full completion. I wanted to experience every aspect, every detail, everything, because of how much I love this universe. The fun I had with this game was incredible, and I don’t regret my time spent with it, Scott Pilgrim is finally back.

Taking place after the comics, Scott and friends are enjoying their life, playing music in their band, hanging out, just having a good time, until that peace is interrupted when a mysterious being known as Metal Scott shows up, disrupting their peaceful way of life to cause some chaos, taking away all of Scott’s friends and banishing them to parts unknown. It’s a standard plot full of the same stuff you’d expect from Scott Pilgrim, but the game makes up for this simplicity with how detailed it is. The sprite art here is incredible, it’s such a step up from the 1st game, and everyone looks great here seriously, every level is just gorgeous. There’s so much detail packed into every area, so many references to not just gaming as a whole and Scott Pilgrim, but even some of Mallary’s other works like Seconds, it was extremely cool catching each one and realizing where they were from, there's a lot of cameos here form characters who barely show up in Scott Pilgrim like Lisa Miller and Jason, it really feels like a celebration of the franchise as a whole. The soundtrack is also phenomenal, Anamaguchi returned again for this one and it’s even better then the 1st games soundtrack. From the title screen, to the final boss, and to my personal favorite One More Summer, there is not a single miss here music wise, and I even find myself jamming to the OST on spotify as I type this up.

Gameplay is just as important here, and I’m happy to say that EX is mostly pretty fun! It controls a lot more smoothly here, moves flow into each other a lot more, it’s easier to juggle enemies and deal massive damage, combat just feels great here, it made every single encounter a blast to go through, as I chained together my moves and dealt those killing blows. The selection of characters here is pretty great too, you got Scott, Ramona, Gideon, Roxy, Lucas Lee, Matthew Patel, and Robot 1! Unfortunately though, these are the only characters you can play as which, for a Scott Pilgrim game, confuses me? The rest are regulated to just summons or side characters, and I just found it strange you couldn’t unlock more. In the 1st game you could play as Knives, Kim, Wallace, even Stephen, so not having them here at all just feels like a strange exclusion, especially with Robot 01 being a character, which while cute, sticks out for just how minor their role is in the series (besides the show I guess). In terms of structure, EX handles things a little differently, going for a more open world approach then level to level. You’ll be granted various quests that you have to go fulfill, with combat encounters and bosses to defeat along the way. It seems like it could get repetitive quick, but thankfully the map here is rather small, so it doesn't take too long to explore everything, and quests usually take 15 minutes at most, so the pace stays quick and quests go by fast, meaning any quest that you don’t enjoy usually ends before it gets too much. Despite the small size of the map, it’s packed with a lot of secrets to find, usually in the form of some fun sidequests known as events here that can net you some level ups and cash, it’s pretty fun trying to find them all! The stat system returns here as well, and this time it’s not as annoying to grind up. Encounters feel a lot more balanced around it, and shop items feel a lot cheaper, letting you more easily raise your stats up while not really needing to go out the way to grind too much. It helps so much with the difficulty and pacing the first game had, they really refined a lot of the issues with the first game. Bosses are also really fun here, each one has pretty easy to learn attack patterns, and can all be managed pretty well, so it’s always fun facing them. The only one I really disliked was the train fight and the 1st phase of the final boss as they feel like a pace killer that takes forever especially with how many enemies each one throws at you, it’s kinda just unfun.

It’s so great to have a new Scott Pilgrim game again, the first one is a good time, but this one really improves upon everything that one did great. Better soundtrack, better combat, better pacing, better structure, it’s just an upgrade across the board, and it’s so easily replayable I find myself craving another run right now. I love Scott Pilgrim, the comics were such a formulative part of my high school experience, and the show was such a breath of fresh air. This game makes me so happy, and I hope we get more from this, the game could benefit so well from some DLC. For now though, I’m pretty happy with what we got, and I can’t wait to drag my friends along to play it with me!

We're all connected, no matter the distance.

 




Earlier today, I watched a youtube video simply known as the Gmod stream. I knew it was a horror series going in just due to being told about it before, but I didn't expect it to invoke such raw, primal emotions in me. It reminds me a lot of I Saw the TV Glow with the emotions that it instilled in me. It starts off relatively simple, being about a group of friends playing Garry's Mod together, but it turns into a nightmare by the end, as things slowly start to get more and more deranged. The main horror comes from an entity called the Redman who ends up possessing our main protag, putting them in a hivemind with other people who have suffered the fate of the Redman. From an outsider's perspective, the Redman comes off as an evil entity, stripping people away of who they are, and robbing them of the bonds they have, but the more I think on it, the more I think the Redman may not be as bad an entity as I thought. A major theme of the video is isolation and online friendships. It's stated earlier that the friend group had a trip planned out, but due to a lot of bullshit it ended up not happening. It's around here where Redman starts to show itself off and I think that's because he was attracted to that isolation. He's brutal yea, its an excoriating process, but it ultimately brings this group together. The video depicts this so so well, that growing feeling of isolation, the unease between groups, the desperation to see each other, questions being ignored as the mood gets worse and worse, eerie silence taking the place of joyous laughter, before culminating in a fight that leaves people devastated. As someone who's spent most of her life on the web, this series hit hard in ways other horror series haven't. I've been in these exact scenarios before, I've lived these exact circumstances. I've watched friend groups slowly tear itself apart fro the inside, I've longed to meet the people I consider my closest. The internet has brought me so much joy, so much love and happiness, but also so much agony, so much heartbreak and fear and pain. Most of my bonds are online, most of my relationships are, I'd do anything to be able to see the people that I love up close, but I know just how hard it can be, and it leaves me feeling so alone at points, so isolated. Accompanied with the video is a neocities page that essentially serves as a creepypasta for the story and it goes into so much of the same feelings. I don't really have any in person friends anymore, I haven't in awhile simply due to who I am, who I want to be. Coming out as trans really exposed just how bigoted my friend group was, just how awful they could be, and it cut me off from a lot of people I adored. I had to retreat online fully, had to start meeting more people like me in online spaces, it's how I discovered I'm poly, how I discovered some of my closest friendships, my greatest relationships. My life would be ruined without the internet, I'd just be so alone, so isolated, I owe the internet so much, and I just desperately wish I could be there with the people I grew to love. I'm so tired of being touch starved, I'm tired of yearning for a better life, I want to be free, I want to be happy, I want to be withe he people I love so desperately, and I wish there was just something I could do about it. I can't stop thinking about the Redman, the way he brings people together physically, the way he helps with the distance. In my own twisted psyche I think I wouldn't mind living this fate as long as it means I don't get to be alone anymore. I'm so tired of losing people I love, I'm tired of being separated from the people who are important to me, I just want to be happy, I want to be held, I want to be FREE from this isolating hellscape that is my existence. This video awoke so many primal emotions in me, awoke so many fears, so much heartbreak, so many primordial thoughts. I miss so, SO, many people that I lost, people I still love whether it be exes or old friends, I can't take much more anymore. How could a simple Gmod stream awaken such primordial fears in me, such raw emotions? This is now one of my favorite videos of all time, a video that hits hard in so many different ways, ways most piece of media hasn't. I'm so grateful for the people I have now, I'm so grateful for the people in my life, I will never take them for granted ever again. I love them all so much. I will never stop missing the rest. God I'm so alone. 

The Bonds of Fate that Entrap my Heart!

 

“Even if this wasn't my fate, I’d still choose to be with you. ”

My taste in video games has always been… esoteric if I’ll be honest. Sure I enjoy a lot of the simple stuff like some platformers, or a fun first person shooter, but lately as my gaming palette has expanded, I find myself adoring the more strange and out there stuff. I’ve always been of the mindset that I’d rather play a game, try something new and fail, then do something safe, but it is boring because of it. This is where Little Goody Two Shoes comes in, a game recommended by my good friend Mirai, and one that I’ve had my eye on for quite awhile. Everything about it just seemed to scream strange and weird, and its art style immediately drove me in. Deciding it was finally the time, I booted it up and was met with one of the most Susie made games of all time.

Two Shoes places you in the shoes (heh) of Elise, a young woman who resides in the town of Kieferberg. Life is rather boring for Elise, and she dreams for something more, a life where she’s rich and powerful, a life away from her town, but she knows that this will never happen, and has grown to accept the dull monotony of the life she lives now. Things begin to get weird though when she encounters a girl known as Rozenmarie, as her appearance seems to cause a bunch of other weird things to happen, including a presence haunting Elise simply calling itself Him. He promises Elise whatever wish she desires as long as she grants His desires. Wishing for a better life, Elise sets out to fulfill whatever this demon wants, no matter what the cost may be. It’s… pretty simple plot wise, but Two Shoes really had me invested just due to how strange everything gets. I’ve always been a sucker for stories that involve witchcraft and dark rituals, and Little Goody Two Shoes does this extremely well, making you collect objects in order to please an evil spirit. You aren’t given too much info about Him, but it’s enough to make you really curious just what this presence is, and I found myself not wanting to put the game down just to find out more info about this evil being. On top of that, the cast of Little Goody Two Shoes is great, there’s a lot of dates that you can go on with 3 different girls and it’s amazing finding out everything about them, having me genuinely grow and feel for them, making whatever incoming despair happens hurt all the most. This is also backed by one of the most beautiful art styles I’ve ever seen, seriously this game is just gorgeous. It feels so much like an old storybook my parents would have read to me, or an old obscure anime OVA, it’s really striking, and the various cutscenes that happen throughout just look spectacular, it made me forget I was playing a game at certain points. All of this blends together to create a wonderful feeling experience, and it’s backed by an incredibly engaging gameplay loop that, while not for everyone, hit all the right spots for me.

Resource management is the name of the game here, with Lil Goody Two shoes forcing you to manage your health, hunger, and sanity. The way you refill these is by purchasing various supplies from the different vendors, which you get the cash from doing different minigames each day. The issue with these minigames though is that doing them passes time, and if you aren’t careful enough, you can get softlocked and have to restart the entire game. Now truthfully, I don’t feel qualified enough to judge if this is a rather difficult thing to manage, as I have massive experience with games in this genre, but I will say, Two Shoes didn’t feel that bad to manage. You get a rather generous amount of coins from each minigame, especially if you get the higher ranks (which aren’t that bad to obtain), and the game loves to throw a lot of free supplies at you, meaning that by the end I was overflowing with supplies to the point I just had nothing to worry about. It’s still stressful enough overall to be engaging at least, and it makes this a pretty easy gateway to jump into if you’ve wanted to try out a game with these mechanics. On top of that, there are various dates to do with 3 girls, and this is very important to the story of this game. I’ll just be upfront, if you don’t romance a girl enough here, you will be locked out a good majority of the endings, so I really recommend focusing on one to love. You also have a suspicion meter to manage, where if it gets too high, you get burnt at the stake as a witch, and while that isn’t too bad to handle if you know what to do, it can still be a pretty major stress point, and there was a point where I wasn’t careful enough and just had my game ended. I find the witch stuff to be immensely interesting though, especially in regards to its themes of queerness!

Two Shoes is not afraid to hide the fact that it’s queer, it’s very upfront with it, with your only romance options being women, and it's an identity each one takes with pride. For a plot so open about it, I find the connection with witchcraft to be a fascinating aspect, with Elise and Rozenmarie constantly being suspected as a witch just for being strange and out of place. One of the other romance options is also a nun girl, who questions if being a child of God is truly for her considering her position in the church. You have to hide who you really are to a lot of people, you have to bury a part of you deep down even if it hurts in order to be alive, and I think having that connection to its queer aspects really puts into the place the weight you can feel being queer. It makes the witchcraft feel way more then backdrop, it adds a sense of thematic urgency that has you desperately hoping to make that right choice, hoping that people don’t realize what you align with, what you are, what you may be, and with Elise wanting to be free of her mundane life, you can see it as her wanting to be somewhere she can finally be who she is, someplace where she can live a life as her, away from the constant fear, away from the judgement. She knows she’s a witch, she knows that she's a daughter of sin, and she’s just so tired of hiding it, she wants to be free, she wants to be herself with someone that she loves, and you can see that desperation in you in the game, you can see how much she’s willing to sacrifice to get there, no matter how low the odds are, it’s an incredible journey to witness, and I found myself rooting for Elise no matter what, hoping that she finally gets what she desires, even if she has to make a deal with the Devil to obtain it. Witchcraft is as important to the game as its queerness, and this is even prevalent in its gameplay, with each day ending in a Witching hour!

At the end of each night, a witching hour starts, which is where I feel the main meat of the gameplay is. During these events, you’ll be tasked with solving various puzzles in order to obtain one of the many items needed in order to appease Him. It starts off rather simple, just having you gain 5 easy to locate keys in a small room, dodging some enemies occasionally, but by the end you’re sorting out the right code, you’re watching your health bar slowly get lower and lower, and you’re praying that the section ends before you’re met with a bad fate. For the most part, I really enjoy these sections, they are my favorite part of the game, and each one has its own unique mechanic to handle and learn in order to obtain what you need. These can get rather tricky too, you really gotta stop and think on how to progress for some, and some of these enemies can be brutal, it can genuinely be tense as hell, I found myself dying a ton during these segments, and it's here where I found my resources starting to dwindle. I say mostly for a reason though, I wanna call out the one aspect of this game I disliked. Thursday night’s witching hour seems fine on paper, but in practice, it feels incredibly unfair and left me struggling way longer than I should have, making me anxious for any further replay of this game due to this segment. The whole idea of it is fine, you’re forced to contend with an incredibly fast enemy that can only be stopped by standing in specific safe zones, but my main issue was just how suddenly they can attack you? The area can be rather dark and is blocked by a lot of foliage, so sometimes while I’m trying to figure out where to go, I’ll suddenly get attacked with 0 time to react to it simply because I couldn’t see them off screen. It felt incredibly unfair and out of place, especially since no other segment in the game is quite like this, and I just kept getting more and more frustrated the more I died. It’s only one part of the night too, the rest of the night is super simple to get through, so having this one part suddenly be unfair just felt awful, and it left a pretty sour taste in my mouth unfortunately.

Besides that awful part though, I really enjoyed my time with Goody Two Shoes, this felt like a game made for me in so many ways. The way it handles its themes of queerness and how it connects it to the witchcraft, the resource management that, while simple, was still a blast to plan around, having me write down notes on what I should prioritize for each day, whether I should do a task or date, whatever I need to get done. I especially adored the puzzle sections at the end of each night, having me use my brain a little bit in order to move forward, forcing me to adjust to new mechanics that are simple to learn but hard to bypass, it’s a fantastic feeling. Backed by an incredible art style too, Lil Goody Two Shoes is phenomenal, easily one of my favorite releases of the year, and a game I will find myself thinking about a ton. I’m amazed it took me so long to hop on it. It really feels made for me, and I can’t wait for the various replays I’ll do of it in the future, this game is simply incredible. It may not be for everyone, it may scare off a lot with just how strange it can be, but this game just hit all the right notes for me, and that’s what ultimately matters at the end of the day. Despite everything about it, I’ll keep recommending it until the day I die, and it’ll stick in my mind as one of my favorite gaming experiences this year. I’m so glad I got to play it!

The tails of two!

 



The transformation of an icon.

Sonic 1 was a pretty big success all things considered, big enough to where a sequel was set to be put out immediately, one year after the release of one, as Sonic fever started to take over the world. People started to adore this blue guy, especially in the states, and the marketing was aggressive as all hell for the 2nd game. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though, Sonic 2 infamously suffered an awful dev cycle, with so many aspects getting cut by the end. The game was crunched to hell and back, the devs in Japan and the states couldn’t interact well with each other, it was a mess to put it bluntly, and it’s honestly kind of a miracle that Sonic 2 came out as great as it actually did. Still though, the game is arguably Sonic’s most famous adventure, a game that most Sonic fans will cite as his best, and a game that I heavily enjoy a ton, one that I can go back to anytime and have an utter blast!

Dr Robotnik is back once again, this time utilizing his new base of operations, the Death Egg, in order to take over the world. Joined by his new pal Miles “Tails” Prower, Sonic sets off once again to put a stop to his schemes. The first thing I want to compliment here is the new sprites, Sonic looks amazing here. It’s not much, mostly Sonic being a little brighter, but it helps add a lot more flavor to the little dude already, and I think the new color scheme fits a lot for what Sonic sets out to do! The whole game in general looks great, every zone looks amazing here, each having its own varied theme like an industrial plant, a giant cave system, and a city from the depths of hell. It helps that each one is backed by an incredible soundtrack, seriously there is not a single miss here, it’s just constant bangers. Special shoutouts to that ending theme especially, it’s such an earworm, and it perfectly captures the end of the journey Sonic 2 has you go on.

Gameplay has gotten a substantial upgrade this time around, it feels so much more fattest then the weird balance Sonic 1 had. While Sonic 1 had this issue of stopping you too much, 2 strikes a better balance this time, focusing a lot more on speed compared to careful platforming. There’s not a lot of precision in this one, you’re just zooming fast, and the skill mainly comes from how well you can keep that speed up, clearing each level in faster and faster times. Helping you out with this is Sonic’s new ability, the spindash! Anytime you crouch, you can spam the jump button in order to charge up a speedboost, letting you immediately gain any speed you need whenever you want, making the game flow so much better this time around. Chaos emeralds are also back, though they are simultaneously better and worse this time around. The method of getting a special stage is better, basically having you get 50 rings and hitting a checkpoint, meaning there’s a lot more opportunities to get an emerald this time around, with less stress on getting to the end, but the special stages play a lot worse, having awful draw distance (at least on genesis) making you have to memorize the placement of rings in order to win. At the very least, the reward gained from the emeralds is better this time around, granting you Super Sonic, letting you go invincible once you gain 50 rings, shredding everything that stands in your way. Really there’s hard to find anything outright bad with Sonic 2, besides maybe a bit of the back half, it really is something of an incredible accomplishment!

It’s hard to really go into what makes Sonic 2 so great anymore without repeating stuff, basically everyone’s called it amazing, but it really does live up to the hype! It feels like the perfect sequel for a video game, and it helped to put the Blue Blur into the position he’s in now! While Sonic 3 may be my favorite, this is the one I can recommend you start with the most, it just goes nonstop, and you can’t really go wrong with this game no matter how you play it. It’s the game that made me such a huge fan of this guy in the first place, and I’ll be singing its praises till the end of time!

Microspeed!!

 



Sometimes smaller can mean better!

I’m not the biggest fan of the original Sonic 1. I don’t think it’s a bad game perchance, but I don’t really find myself coming back to it often, especially compared to the other Genesis titles. When Sonic 1 released though, it didn’t just release as a genesis game, it also released as a master system/game gear game. Now, usually when there’s an 8 bit version of a 16 bit game, it’s usually a lot worse then the 16 bit just due to the lack of resources. It’s also usually done by a smaller team and the effort usually isn’t as high. Going into this, I expected the same, but I actually came out a little surprised by how fun this little adventure was!

From an outsider’s perspective, Sonic 8-bit just seems like a less powerful 16 bit version, but it’s actually a lot different than you’d expect. Only 3 zones return here, being Green Hill, Labyrinth, and Scrap Brain, so already half the game is super unique. In terms of new zones we have Bridge Zone, which is okay but the 2nd act is an autoscroller which holds it back a lot. There’s Jungle Zone which features a lot of vertical movement with you running across logs and vines, leading to a pretty exhilarating and tense experience. Finally you have Sky Base zone, which is easily the hardest zone in the game, having you travel across storm clouds on precarious platforms, dodging lighting strikes as you pray you don’t slip off into the endless abyss. It leads to a good amount of variety zone wise, and the only one I really disliked was Labyrinth, since it was somehow worse then the 16 bit counterpart due to the way slower water physics in this one. In terms of control, Sonic feels pretty great here. He isn’t as fast as he normally is, but the level design is a lot simpler to compensate for it, and he feels a bit tighter when jumping in this one, leading to a much better feeling of precision platforming. The 3 act structure still remains here, though the act 3s are just the bosses this time around, you’re not even given rings, so they go by a lot faster than they usually do. Not like rings don’t matter as much here, you lose them all upon being hit, and you aren’t even allowed to collect them after, making some parts a bit tenser than they should be. You can’t even collect past 100 rings this time, your counter resets to 0 whenever that happens, so I would find myself avoiding that amount in order to stand a better chance of survival. Stages are smaller this time, you can beat most in a minute and a half, and the game is over in like 40 minutes. Special Stages are still here, but they’re just for extra lives and continue this time. There's no real point doing them unless you care about points basically, I was ok without them. Emeralds still remain though, with them just kinda being scattered around in random spots throughout the stage. None of them are really too taxing to get, but you only get one shot at each, unlike the multiple opportunities you get in the 16 bit variation. Really, it’s just way simpler than Sonic 1 with a couple of changes here that make it a much tighter experience, it genuinely surprised me the difference here.

I was pretty surprised at how much fun Sonic 8 was! It’s nothing too crazy, it’s a rather simple 8 bit version of the blue blur, but for what it is, I had a pretty great time, and I can see myself playing this again whenever I’m bored. I may not be the biggest fan of the original, but for this one, it’s pretty great, and it’s nice to see that this had a lot more care put into it then most 8-bit ports tend to have.

Now this is Sonic Speed!

Now this is the power of boosting!

I have fond memories of Sonic Rush, it was one of the first games I ever got for my DS, and I remember playing it all the time, trying to get all the S ranks and do everything I can in this bite sized Sonic adventure. It was a game I could easily replay growing up when I needed something to kill the time, and the soundtrack is still something I find myself listening to frequently. Randomly, I got hit with the urge to try it out again, curious on if the game holds up as fondly as I remember it, so I booted up my DS and popped it back in, and while my memories definitely make it greater than the game actually is, I still had a pretty great time here!

Sonic Rush has us following the perspectives of two heroes this time, Sonic the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat. Both are setting off to gather the Chaos Emeralds/Sol Gems from the hands of Eggman/Eggman Nega, who want to harness the power of both in order to take over the world. Blaze is our newcomer here, hailing from the Sol Dimension who accidently ends up transported to Sonic’s world, same with her nemesis Eggman Nega. Each journey will follow our heroes gathering their respective gems and fighting one of the Eggmen along the way, before finally putting a stop to them once and for all and saving both dimensions. It’s a pretty standard Sonic plot, but I do like the characterization done here a lot, and Blaze’s journey and friendship with Cream the Rabbit is a dynamic that I’m a pretty big fan of. You get to see her go from this rather aloof, isolated woman, to someone who can trust in her friends and knows not to face everything alone. It’s simple but for Sonic it works, and the cutscenes are enjoyable enough whenever they appear. Really, my only issue with this game presentation wise is that I’m not the biggest fan of the models used in this game. I get that it’s the DS, but the 3D models here haven’t aged the best, and when in levels, they look really off, taking me off guard a lot of times. It’s a shame too because the stages themselves look great here, it’s just the character models themselves that don’t look well. The credits have cool sprites,why can’t we just use those ya know?

Sonic Rush follows the formula of the other classic 2D games, having you go through 7 zones of two acts each, collecting Chaos Emeralds from special stages along the way, and ending in a boss fight at the end of each zone. Level design is pretty great here, though this game does suffer from having some sudden slow parts that don’t feel great in Sonic, like some combat arenas, and autoscrollers. It’s not enough to ruin the game, but it is something that I noticed, especially in certain zones like Mirage Road and Huge Crisis. Boss fights also suffer from this as well, taking forever to defeat as most fights are just waiting for them to show off their weak point to get a single hit in. It just makes each one drag on forever, and it’s easily some of the worst fights in the series. The base final fight is especially egregious, taking ages to kill while also just being way too hard for a Sonic game. In terms of the special stages, it’s the half pipe again, but it’s at least some of the easiest versions of it, as you control Sonic via the touch screen in them which allows an insane level of precision compared to the other half pipes. I was able to easily first try each one, so I didn’t really mind the inclusion of them this time around. In terms of the stages themselves, they follow the basic Sonic formula, but introduce two new systems to spice up the gameplay here. The first is the trick system, which lets you spam a button while going up a spring or down a rail in order to gain more points for your score, letting you more easily obtain those S ranks (even if the S ranks are some of the easiest in the series.) Points aren’t the only thing tricks get you though, you also gain boost for your boost meter, which is the main new mechanic here. Now, most people know the boost from the 3D games, but it started in Rush, and it functions about the same here, just in 2D. You simply press a button and gain an insane amount of speed that destroys everything in its path. Now you could argue this makes a lot of the level design feel way too straight forward, but thankfully Sonic Rush has a lot more careful platforming this time around to where this never really feels like an issue. You can’t just boost through everything and win like Forces, you have to actually put some skill into it, so I don’t really mind the boost here, it works really well for what the game wants to do!

Sonic Rush was a pretty comfortable time returning to it, and while I didn’t find it as amazing as I did growing up, it still was a really fun time, and a great break from the hell I’ve been going through with Bubsy. The stages are a blast to go through, the soundtrack is incredible (thank you Hideki Naganumra) and it introduced Blaze the Cat, one of my favorite new additions to the cast. It was even good enough to get two sequels, which I’m pretty excited to delve back into again! If you’re looking for a good, bite sized Sonic adventure to go through, you can’t go wrong with Sonic Rush!