Game Reviews Volume 26 From 2022 And 2023

 The last few games I beat in 2022 and the 1st ones I made in 2023. Some are longer or deeper as I had more to say

Just beat Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition on 3DS. Its a 2D Fighter with 3D Graphics and plays at an angle. The 4 DS Buttons are different attacks and you can use the Touch Screen for Super Movies without needing to spazz the D Pad and Buttons. You can do it on 1 3 or maybe 5 rounds but I did it on 1 and was able to beat it in under an hour. Its the usual Street Fighter rules of wailing on the foe til you or him drop and there can be a Time Limit which is 90 60 endless or maybe 30 seconds. Its also got carious difficulty settings like Easy, Very Easy, and Easiest, But I did it on Easy. Like al arcade games otta have, there's Infinite Continues and in here, after losing, you can choose a new character and outfit and win quote and fighting style that determines special moves. I used Blanka as he's my fave and only really lost to Cammy, the mexican guy and the Game Boss Seth. Seth was tough and I manages to spam the Touch Screen Moves to get him to a bit lower than me. But then he grabbed me and started the beat down animation, Good thing Time had ended and I won. Its got nice graphics and voices and music and controls pretty well. Its not too expensive and there's secret extra bosses like Akuma and Gouken but you gotta do special tricks to summon em. Kinda like in Mortal Kombat with Reptile. Its a solid game and has kind of a PS2 style to the looks. Glad I did this.

Just beat Shining Soul II on GBA. Its a top down game where you choose 1 of 8 classes like Archer or Ninja and go around trying to save the kingdom. A is Attack and holding it lets you charge up and do a Super Attack that's a bunch of hits. B uses Items, L opens your Weapon menu that lets you shuffle through em with L, and R does it for Items. Start opens the Menu for Stats, Items, Options or Save. Saving quits the game but you can go right back in. There's a Crafting System to Forge items with Materials and paying the blacksmith. You can buy and sell items and some need to be identified to be used. You equip your guy with armor and weapons to raise stats. When you get enough Exp you Level Up and can give points to stats like Strength for Damage, Dexterity for Evasion, Intelligence for more SP and Vitality for more HP. Using a Super Move uses SP that recovers gradually. Getting damaged by certain attacks raises your Resistance to it and Items worn boost it too. If you bite it, an Angel saves you and you wake up in bed healed but drop 1 armor and all money,. You can return to the Angel outside and reclaim it in the spot you fell. You can save in Dungeons and return to it but turning off w/o saving don't record the Dungeon Spot. The graphics are nice as is the music but sometimes the foreground covers things. The characters have heart and change what they say after each mission. Its kinda like Shining In The Darkness with their words and I like it. You unlock more areas as the game goes on and there's other things in here to unlock like a past dungeon from SS1. I saw this for 20$ in a used shop in the 00s and didn't get it as I heard it wasn't good. After getting it on a Multicart I did SS1  and went to do this but it froze in the opening. So I got a Repro that also froze. So I hunted down a Euro Ver for 63$ and did this. Glad I did. Its a great game. Pausing don't stop the game action and you can be attacked. Raising Weapon skills adds extra Super Attack Charge Bars.

Just beat Spider-Man: Mysterio's Menace on GBA. Itys a Side Scrolling Superhero game where you do several levels, 3 at 1st, and more after beating certain ones, then after all are beat, you get the last one. You get both Unlimited Continues and a Password System of letters and numbers and using all lives goes back to the level choice screen, but there are checkpoints in the levels if you have guys. A is jump and A in Air is Web Sling, B is attack, L is Damaging Web and R is Tie Up Web, Select shows what Power ups you got and Start pauses that lets you quit or w/e. You can cling to walls and sometimes go around corners but often its tricky. Also you can drop through floors but it don't always work right and you press Jump too much and Websling into enemies. Its got nice Graphics and music and seems like a better looking version of the GBC SM Games. Some missions are going to the Exit to fight a boss and others are collecting the right thing like captives or Artifacts before fighting him. Its got nice cutscenes and color but the control is a bit off. When using R it didn't always work right and I would take hits. also enemies would often gang bum you and you had to fight em off. I like how the cutscene shows a Yellow Ninja taking items and you gotta fight those to get em back. Its not bad but I think I preferred the Genesis ones. There's a lot of secrets to unlock if you know where to go but its not needed. Also enemies drop extra web and life refills and have armor that protects your life bar for a buncha hits. In the last level, I came to a wall and after wandering around, looked up a longplay and found you can go under it. I made it to the last boss but bit it on him until I made it there with some Armor and beat him with a hit or 2 left on me. I wanted to try this since seeing it on a 100 GBA Games in 10 mins list and its decent. Glad I did this one.

Just beat Fantasy Zone for Sega Master System on my 100 Master System and Game Gear Games GBA Cart. Its a bright colorful Shmup where you gotta take out the 6 or so Generators in each of the 1st 7 rounds, then face a boss. Round 8 is a Boss Rush before the last guy. You get coins from popping enemies and can buy Power Ups by going into the Red Shop that comes in at certain points. But each time you buy a Weapon or Extra guy, The Price goes up. 1 button fires the Peashooter and the other fires arcing things for more damage but have less range. You bite it in 1 hit and there's no Continues but the game can be beat in like 15 mins. Its pretty hard and some bosses are kinda impossible without Power Ups. Also there's Engines to buy that change speed but the top 2 Engines are kinda too fast. The screen loops going left or right and there's tons of enemies firing at you, but you can walk on the ground to avoid some. The Weapon Power Ups only last a few seconds but if you get all 4 Speed Boost Items and a Weapon, it lasts til you bite it. On the Blue Level where all the bases are on the ground, the Spread Shot doesn't work on those. There's also 1 hit kill shots called the Heavy that's a 16 Ton Weight right outta Looney Toons with the Secondary Weapon that even end bosses, but it gets expensive and you can only have up to 9. Its a hand game and I used a Autofire thing So I wouldn't wear out my Thumb. Its even got connection to Space Harrier. I'm glad I beat this but its kind of an ordeal. Oh and if you bite it, you lose ALL Power Ups, Even ones not Equipped. And biting it on a boss don't let you access to the shop, except on the Boss Rush. So you gotta do it w/o Power Ups. The hardest one is the Turtle on Round 6 as he only sticks his head out sometimes and has a Rain of Doom that is tough to avoid. Plus if the Turtle Head isn't poking out, the 16 Tons don't work. Got graphics and music and nice colors though. And the Controls vary but with the right Engine its good.

Just beat Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS. Quite an ordeal. A/B is Jump and Y is use Suit Power or Hold to Run. L/R is crouch and go down Pipes and the D Pad  shifts the Camera a bit while holding it. The Analogue Stick moves Mario, you can Wall Jump and can do a Butt Stomp by being off the ground and pressing L/R. The game is in a 3D style but with a fixed Camera, but the depth perception is kinda bad and I keep going into pits. Enemies are hard to jump on and its tough to line up where to land. Using his Fursuit lets you Hold Jump to fall slower but often I walk off a cliff and find I'm slowly going down with no way out. Also in every level is 3 Special Coins to get, and while you don't gotta get em all in 1 go, you gotta get to the end with em and biting it returns the ones gotten after a Checkpoint. Its not too hard and Extra Guys are common, but often I keep dying to things I couldn't stop or know was coming. Mario can't jump. If going w/o movement, he goes like a foot and falls. If while running you have less control and the distance isn't easy to judge. Its more of an Attrition with you biting it over and over until you get good or lucky. Many Levels need you to have X number of Special Coins to unlock and that includes a few needed to beat the game. So I had to go back and slog through the levels searching for 1 Special Coin I missed. It doesn't remove coins to Unlock em but I didn't go to any of the Locked Levels. This game got me mad. Biting it over and over to things I couldn't control. The bosses usually fall in 3 hits and the Bowser levels is avoiding him as he attacks and getting the Switch at  the end. It saves after every level and tells you to take a break if you play too long. I don't regret buying this but I have no plans to play it again. Good music and graphics but the gameplay is bad. Oh and you can save 1 power up on the Touch Screen for later use get an extra hit each for Big and Suit Mario. Mario 3 had more Suits/Suit Spaces Worst one since 64.

Just beat Killer Instinct on Game Boy. Its by Rare when they used to be good. Its a 1 on 1 fighting game with digitized art of 3D things but toned down to 8 bit. The graphics are pretty good and its got nice music. They did a good job getting it in 4 shades of green. 1 button is punch and 1 is kick and you can change em in options. Start pauses and Up is jump. Using the D Pad and buttons do different moves and theres a combo system that can do heavy damage but its tricky to pull off. I did it once with spazzing on the buttons when close. you go Mortal Kombat style of a Tower of going up to the final boss and facing everyone in your way. I used Glacius as I wanted to do his Liquidate move but couldn't pull it off. It can an Easy and Very mode and probably some harder ones I didn't see, but I did it on Easy. Its actually quite good and I was abler to get by without using most of the moves, except when I accidentally pulled em off. You seem to get Unlimited Continues and it counts how many you used at the end (I did 4). Air attacks are often countered and some levels are uneven with a bend in em for slightly higher ground. Its a best of 3 round match and after 1 guy's bar runs out, he gets his 2nd and the fight continues without refilling the other guy. This can be good if you play right. Combos can be broken out of if you know what button to do and there's finishing moves. Often I did a Sweep Kick or spammed Punch over and over to cheese em. There's a good story with the bad guy being a Corporation and the Final Boss being Eye-Dol is a ref to real world groups and their activities. He's all roided up hard, doesn't flinch easy and hits like a truck but can be beat with skill or Sweep The Leg. Overall I'm glad I played this and its a pretty decent 8 bit version of a 64 bit 90s game. If only they did Voltage fighter Gowcaizer on Game Boy. We got World Heroes and 2 Samurai Shodown and Battle Arena Toshinden. Oh and Eye Dol can be played as with a code.

Just beat Wario World ion GameCube. Its by Treasure and is sorta 3D. You play as Wario and go through 4 worlds of 4 Zones and a 3rd for a boss. you collect coins and these are your lives as when you bite it, you can pay 100-500 Coins and continue right where you fell. A is Jump and B is punch or grab and throw guys when they are seeing stars. L makes you suck in coins like Kirby and R is Charge but is Butt Stomp in the Air. Some enemies can only be beat by a Throw or Grabbing em and Jumping then Hitting R to Pile Driver em. You got colored switches to hit that summon Treasure to collect and getting all 8 in a zone unlocks a GBA Micro Game to collect and download. There's 8 gold pieces of a Wario Statue in each and getting em increases your Life Hearts max by 1 half a Heart. In the levels are these black trap doors and the ones with a Band Aid on can be Butt Stomped into but the others you need to Pile Driver an Enemy on it to open. In here you have a Puzzle Room to get this Red Jewel and maybe a Gold Piece or Sprite that the more you free, the better the ending you get. They also give hints. If you fall in a pit on these you can try again at no penalty. Falling off a cliff in Main Game sends you to a dark room to break boxes to find a Spring to get out. The C Stick can change the camera but its usually only left and right but in Puzzle Rooms it can do more. Its a pretty forgiving game and can be beat in a few hours. It plays better than ANY 3D Mario Game I EVER played but some parts with the camera in the Puzzle Rooms can be irritating. Its quite good as it IS Treasure and cost me 150$ Canadian to get. I like the Graphics and its got nice color and life and fun and its mostly in a sorta 2D thing from the side. There's various things to do like Spinning the A Stick when holding a guy to turn things and clinging to Yellow Spheres and jumping from them. Its quite a grand game and pretty forgiving. Good music and voices too. I usually prefer Wario games over Mario ones.

Just beat Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance on GameCube. Its a 1 on 1 Fighting Game in 2D but with 3D turning into the fore and back ground. Its the 5th in the story and shakes things up with removing Liu Kang and Shao Khan. There's a lot of hints for the next game, MK Deception if you look. You get unlimited Continues and gotta win a best 2 outta 3 matches with options for Time Limit and what buttons do what. You have a difficulty level to change and Kan earn Koins to unlock Koffins in the Krypt to get info and things on the characters. If you pause you can see a list of moves to do and there's you can switch between different Kung Fu Styles  in the game with a button. You use the D Pad to move and I like it and there's a block button and a Power up Button to make your next attack super strong. The Graphics are pretty GameCube and I like it and its got nice Music and it voiced. Some parts have Dark Graphics that don't show up on my TV even at full brightness. Using Sonya I found if you jump towards em the right way and  use Kick in the Non Weapon Kung Fu, you can loop em with kicks to the chest and if done right, can keep em from doing anything. It works on all except the Monster named after a Bible Daemon who =isn't knocked over(and gave me the most trouble). The Game Bosses Shang Tsung and Quan Chi were fast and skilled but I used the loop to cream em as I got good at it. There's Mini Games like Test Your Might to spam buttons to raise Ki to break stuff and Test Your Sight where its a Shell Game to find the right one. Hitting A/B/X/Y on it makes Might go better. Years ago a neighbor Brandon brought it over on his PS2 and my D&D friend was grossed out by the neck snap in the intro, which never bugged Ore Samma. I used like 21 Continues to beat it and it was a pretty good game. Also I noticed that Sonya wears a Leather Thong thats peaking out of her pants. Glad I played this.

Just beat Sonic Lost World on 3DS. Quite an ordeal. Its the worst Sonic game I ever played. It goes for a Mario thing which is like Mazinger trying to be evangelion. A/B is Jump and Double Jump and again in air is Homing Attack, Y Spindash but you gotta hold to for a bit to charge or you only scoot a bit, also hammering it don't work like in the GOOD games, But in the air its bounce but when it feels like it, is a flip kick like Guile in Street Fighter you need to stun enemies or attacking them hurts you. L centers the Camera behind you, which don't work well when using some Whisps, R is held to Run, but its hard to control, like Mario, Start pauses and you can restart or quit or use Options, and there's bad Gyroscope controls where you gotta tilt or turn the 2DS to do what a D Pad/A Stick can better. Good graphics and nice music, but not as nice as Good Sonic Games. The best thing is the Story about facing some Oni who are like the colored things in Pixar's Inside Out and each has a trait its based on. You can use the D Pad or A Stick but it don't control well and most levels are over pits so you die often. If you run outta guys you can redo the level with 10 at no penalty. If you die 5X in 1 Level: power up comes that auto kills any enemy and makes you invincible. Basically saying "Ur a loser! Here's baby mode!" Which you Can turn off with the Touch Screen, but it takes a bit to do so. Running into a wall lets you run up it for a bit and you can Spindash to boost, or hold left/right and Jump to scoot when running up to  move. You can go around corners and keep running or jump between walls using the D Pad/A Stick and jump and keep running. the homing attack hardly works. Often it don't lock on, or it attacks several enemies at once, Or only 1. There's Whisps to unlock and they help sometimes but some parts they control bad. The Drill Whisp has up/down reversed when going forward and the Purple one has floaty controls. There's 5 level types: 2D like Sonic Rush, Forward Facing 3D where you go ahead and has bad depth perception, All Range where you gotta do gimmicks like rolling snowballs like Billy Hatcher., Bosses which are easy but some parts are annoying, and Chaos Emeralds which is collecting colored Spheres by turning the 3DS to move. The Emerald ones you reach by ending a level with 50 Rings and you can Restart as much as you want, but if you run outta time or quit, you gotta get 50 rings to retry. These are annoying and one of the worst I've dealt with. Its not that hard, its just badly done and annoying. I often do em standing up and pausing to realign myself. There's big ? things that tell you what to do and each time you hit 1 you gotta read it all over. 1 boss is on a circle and you go on the outside, but holding Left only goes so far and then you stop, unless you press down to keep going. But normally, you are used to the game following orders so you find yourself standing there as you watch the enemy.  There's plenty of extra guys plus getting 100 rings is 1, but that is there to band aid the bullethole of bad game design. I like it more than Mario though, and the 2D levels are kinda good, but the rest of the game is a mess. 1 reason I never got the Wii is I hate motion controls, and some Whisps need them to get from 1 area to the next. Plus there's a Snow Level with a Snowball chasing you that freezes you on touch and when you break out, it refreezes you in a loop until you get lucky and escape. Eventually you might figure out to flip kick it and homing attack to bust it and climb it after its grown. Each boss has its own gimmick and its got decent acting and animation but some of these Whips powers are tricky to use. Its the kind of game that would be executed for not following orders in The Military as it doesn't do what you want it to. Some levels were not as bad the 2nd or 3rd time but I mainly did a level once and didn't return as it was not fun. I got all but 1 Chaos Emerald. Glad to be done it.

Just beat Amazing Island on GameCube. Its kinda like Spore with Mini Games to actually use your monster. You play as a blue haired kid of either gender and gotta get the 7 Chaos Marbles or w/e they call the orbs, by playing these mini game courses. You get 2 Continues per run and not making the min points gotten per game means you lose. Its mostly simple things like a race or timing button presses and sometimes there's a fork in the road that leads to a different Orb. Its by Sega and Ancient and Yuzo Koshiro did well with the music. After beating 6 rounds, you face a Badminton round of knocking a fireball back and forth until you or the bad guy gets nailed 3x. There's Potions to boost stats  to buy in shops or win from getting a not too high passing score. The higher your score, the rarer the item gotten and if its around 2000 you get a Monster Card. Some courses with branching paths  you gotta start over to get the other routes but still gotta play the 1st games over and over.  The games ain't too hard once you know what to do and if you run outta continues, you keep the money you made from the games you won. There's a GBA Mode to connect to it and play a game on it with the Monsters you make. As you get Orbs, you unlock more frames to build monsters off and the way you design the monster has an impact on its stats and how they do in Minigames. Its got nice GameCube Graphics that are colorful and fun and the C Stick and L moves the Camera while R puts it behind you in near 1st person view. the Game Boss is tricky as he barfs fireballs at you and you catch em and throw em back, but each catch can wear off the platform you're on. If you pause and unpause you can kinda cheese it to get closer to catching it better, but if you catch it as it reaches you, you instant counter and not lose ground. It can be beat in a few hours and has multiplayer. I liked it and its kinda pricey but is a decent game worth doing. Glad I did this one. I didn't really create monsters though.

Just beat Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar for NES on my DS R4. Its an RPG where you gotta become a paragon of virtue by doing things like giving blood or not sealing to raise your points in the 8 Virtues. You gotta get the 8 Runes to access the 8 Shrines and meditate for 3 Cycles when your Virtue points are full. If you do something like run from a fight with evil foes or lie then you lose points and gotta redo the things, You get armor and weapons and start the game with a personality test that chooses your class and you gotta recruit the other 7 classes as well as get the 8 colored Stones as well as getting the 3 Keys by combining the Stones in the altars underground. There's also people to talk to and unlike the Sega version, its more like Phantasy Star where they say the same 1 line instead of options of topics. Also is Dungeons where its 1st Person like Shining In The Darkness and some classes can use Spells that use MP that recharges with walking. Enemies random attack every few bits of time and there's moon gates that Warp you to other towns bases on what the Moons are like. Its best to use a Map online to see where the cities are and the various items you need are. With Magic you gotta know the Spell or have the Magic Town guy write it in your book and it uses Herbs automatically, but you can only have 99 of any Herb, so instead of making the spells and having the Herbs, you put em together, which can make you run out of a herb you need for other things. If you bite it you return to Lord Brittish's Area and have 400$. Its more streamlines and simple than the Sega ver but it also loses some of the charm and uniqueness. Nice graphics and music and it controls wee and in dungeons there's battle rooms where you gotta beat the enemies and  sometimes, go to the righty square to open a hidden door. The final puzzle is simpler too and the Questions are going left>right Top>bottom. There's an Auto option that doesn't work well and often has you walk toward a foe when you only have a Bow. You can also get a Hot Air Balloon and boat and sail the sea. The map loops so keep going 1 way and you come out the other side. I like how Lord Brittish calls you Friend and it adds some heart. You CAN do evil like steal and cheat blind shop owners but it penalizes you for it. It has that NES look with the colors and music and some enemies are tough to decipher what they are. Also enemies never run from you and you only need 1 Key to unlock doors and don't need food. Its a more simplified Ultima 4 but that works in some areas. I liked how the Sega and NES vers were different and did their own thing. Both have good traits and do things differently. This one is easier and I like how you don't bring the party to the final dungeon. I preferred to go solo and not use other party members. Also there's no traps in the Treasure Chests. Glad I did this. My net friend wanted me to do this and I'm glad I did. Oh and you can only save in Hotels or w/e where as I think you could save where you wanted in the Sega ver but not in Dungeons.