📉𝙇𝙤𝙬-𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙮 📈𝙃𝙞𝙜𝙝-𝙍𝙚𝙨

Apologies for no uploads today, struggling with lots of stuff these couple of days so hopefully will get back to posting in a few days.

One of the game's bosses, a very tall and huge caveman fellow with a narrow yet tall head, a mighty ginger unibrow and a face only a mother could love. He's wearing a Tiger skin vest and loincloth, though a good portion of his chest and arms are also covered in velvety natural man-fur. He's wielding a club almost as big as him, with deadly spikes with just a tinge of blood on them. The words "CLOSE UP View" are written in the lower right corner, because we get a nice close up view of this gorgeous gentleman.

A bonus level set in a rainy forest at night with a dirt road right in front of you and some trees and rocks past that, with the purple night sky in the distance beyond. The bonus level is set in first person view where you're holding a crossbow and the goal is to shoot as many bouncing wooden barrels to keep adding seconds to the timer and points to your score.

It's a catapult already loaded and ready with what looks like a lava rock or something. I couldn't tell ya how or why I decided to take a screenshot of this catapult but that's about all there is on the screen. I guess it looks kinda neat!

A very grumpy looking shopkeep wearing a red shirt and a brown apron, nevertheless greeting you with open arms. He's missing one eye and has visible scars over it, so no wonder he's a bit grumpy. This is the shop screen you see after every stage where you can buy certain upgrades, restock on life or get a weapon while a cover of the Irish ballad Star of the County Down plays in the background.

Legend (PS1) (1998)

2/2

One of our heroes, Axel, looking like a young Ray Wise with a narrow backwards-spiky black hair, sporting a nice armor that properly shows his bare shoulder, the other one covered hefty pauldron. He's carrying a pretty hefty axe but the blade is so thick and kinda chunky/bloaty that it looks more like an inflatable toy axe.

Just a very naked pig man doing pig man things. He does have nice diapers with a huuuge belt holding them up (thank god). Mr. pig man is standing on some kind of wooden bridge in front of a castle and he's looking kinda drowsy with his eyes closed and his head turned in deep sleep or disgust, not sure.

Another thug, this time a spitting image of one Arnold Schwarzenegger with a warrior helmet, some nice purple pants and brown boots. He's very awkwardly holding a poleaxe almost as if he's holding a broom, trying to shoo off a seagull or something.

Another one of our heroes, the warrior Tara. She's got long-ish blonde hair tied in a ponytail, wearing some kind of a warrior dress, almost like a Chinese qipao dress (similar to Chun-Li's for example) with short sleeves, fully black with bright red rims. She's also wearing thigh-high white leggings for that extra 90s female character design. She's in a very battle-ready stance, about to gut the first thug with her very wide and flat sword. However the most striking feature is her face that looks like a flat surface stuck with a photo of a woman's face that was then painted over in Microsoft Paint for some extra eeriness.

Legend (PS1) (1998)

1/2

Another one of the hunter enemies, this time a dude with a very serious face slapped onto his face, wearing a baseball cap, a green shirt and poopy brown pants. He's very close to you (physically, not emotionally) and he's swinging his large machete upwards, just a few inches from your face.

Aww it's just a lovely deer eating some grass and lifting their head to look at you. They've got a cute triangle tail and little triangle ears, and a very squishy lovable pyramidal face. <3 Turok is holding a gun but don't worry, he wouldn't hurt the deer.

Finally an actual dinosaur in this dinosaur game! It's a mean looking raptor doing a rawwwr and holding its little hands in a Dracula-like fashion. It has a little metal plate on its head with a very sharp spike sticking out of it. I'm sure it's purely a cosmetic detail, he looks very friendly.

A couple of ancient warriors, natives of the Lost Land with their entire bodies painted to look like a full on skeleton, so they're set for their Halloween costumes. They're quite tall and are wielding these double bladed sticks, like they have blades on both ends and also it's two blades per end, so double double blades!

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (N64) (1997)

2/2

The titular Turok, trying to target the top of your temple. It's a scene from the intro where Turok, with his shirtless bod and impeccable aim (even in thick fog) is drawing an arrow with his trusty bow, aimed right above the camera.

One of the enemies in the first level, a jolly looking fellow, showing off his pecks being all shirtless with arm pads and brown poppy pants and aiming at you with a machinegun. His face is clearly a photo of one of the developers, tacked on a few polygons and kinda squished a little bit with some red paint on his forhead and sporting a dumb smile with a few missing teeth. It's probably one of my favorite enemies in the game.

Turok looks upwards to the sky as a tall tall tree fades behind the clouds. A few vines hang scattered around and a neat looking palm tree, and of course the thick blue-gray fog that permeates the entire game.

A dark rocky scene with a lava pool covering the entire floor and a few purple triangle pickups are floating above, adding even more to the surrealistic look of the game. Turok is holding some big ass high-tech gun, and nobody to shoot it at. Aww :(.

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (N64) (1997)

1/2

The same Japanese town with our other hero Michelle who is sporting a purple beret, blonde hair in a pony tail, sporty black shirt and green military pants, looking kinda similar to Cammy from Street Fighter II in style and stance.

A cute pup pup running around the same aforementioned street, seems like it might be a German Shepherd, doing a hop and a jump and just being cute.

Another one of the boss fights, this one's called Gorilla. It's a gorilla. But he's wearing huge chains as suspenders for his brow/green shorts and he's looking kinda mean. There's a blonde ninja in a red outfit standing on one leg and getting ready to pounce. Or maybe Gorilla the gorilla stepped on the ninja's toe and they're hopping around in pain.

A bit of a run down subway where Tetsuo, our kung-fu hero is getting ready to kick one of the black-and-red dressed troopers with another female fighter trying to turn around and get back to Tetsuo. He just dashed past her and is gonna kick some ass, he's that fast.

Gekido: Urban Fighters (PS1) (2000)

2/2

Travis, a private detective hired to find a kidnapped girl is roaming the streets at night with his red hair, white shirt and jeans and shoulder gun holster, doing a squat and charging up his electric powers to land a devastating blow to crime.

One of the bosses in this decrepit neighborhood is Generale, a buff dude with a blue beret, eyepatch and moustache, small black shirt and red pants. I had to zoom in a bit even though the gun in his hand is huge, it just looks like a gray cylinder so I don't know if it's a pipe, a cigar or a gun (it's a gun).

Another boss, Kobuchi, a muscley weirdo with a receding hairline, a devilish grin and a face texture that's a bit too stretched wide so it makes him look like a humanoid monster with a mask with a man's face printed on it. He wields Wolverine-like claw blades on his right arm that also extends pretty far to deal a little bit of tickle damage.

A closer back shot of Travis on a more Japanese looking street with a few thugs running at him. By the way, none of these screenshots of this game show the actual camera perspective which is a more classic sidescrolling brawler, so it's kinda nice seeing this game with it's sometimes impressive graphics being seen from a different perspective, almost like a more modern third person shooter.

Gekido: Urban Fighters (PS1) (2000)

1/2

A little more of that tropical resort race track with a nice deep blue water, waves flowing through and a few sand patches scattered about and a wide rocky formation on the right, due to the low polygons it almost looks like if the Pentagon was covered in rocky and grass textures.

A front look at the Mountain Dew racer rushing through a muddy swamp track. It's our first glimpse at what the racers look from the front with their motocross like helmets (that kinda looks like Master Chief's helmet due to the green decals and low polygons) and the extremely pixely face texture that's just :-|

Another front closeup of the racer, this time their other side and set on the snowy mountain slopes that are kind of broken and abstract because the game probably occludes some polygons once you drive past them but camera hack don't know that so we can see the sides of the track being all transparent and showing the cloudy skies behind them and I only just noticed that as I was writing this alt text.

A drone shot of one of the later tracks, a futuristic metal road with lots of side lights and railings with the night metropolis visible over them in the distance. The track itself looks like it's been built from hundreds of separate iron blocks that are kind of flimsily bent and half-rusted.

Jet Moto (PS1) (1996)

2/2

A wide four-lane race track littered with over a dozen hovercraft bikes set on a wonderful tropical resort with some cliffs and a large hotel building in the distance. Smack in the middle is the starting line with a huge ad for Mountain Dew which also sponsors the racers so a bunch of them area wearing the green red and white suits and decals on their hovercraft. Kind of a funny thing how the LOD (level of detail) works in this game, since there's a large number of racers on screen, the LOD is very aggressive and pops in very close to the player so at least half of the racers are in lower detail but they're made of just a couple of flat planes and textures so it's very jarring.

A racer zooming off a ramp and flying through the air over a sandy beach with palm trees and red buoys designating the edge of the track. The ocean stretches into infinity and you can see a few fluffy white clouds scattered around the clear blue skies. Man I need a vacation.

A closer chase cam behind a racer in a stripy yellow and black outfit, very bee-like, zooming over a swamp with the water splashing under it (the splash textures are pretty effective especially for the PS1 era) with a few broken and rotted trees scattered about and it's all nicely reflected onto the surprisingly clear (though black) water of the swamp. A towering ad for Pepsi World just over the next racing gate.

A racer rushing through a curvy oval tunnel lit with yellow night lights, looking very nice and moody and in stark contrast at the end of the tunnel is a glimpse of the snowy mountain range the race is set on.

Jet Moto (PS1) (1996)

1/2

Kincaid in a very awkward "I pooped my pants" posture with his back turned to an enemy trooper who's covered in armor with a distinct POTUS-orange tint of skin color, green goggles (or eyes?) and a breathing mask. The trooper looks like he swung his arm at ol' Kincaid, hitting him in the back, which is probably the reason for his sciatica-ridden posture.

A sexy? closeup of Plague, a robotic half (well mostly) skeleton lady with a big bun of a hair and half her face all decayed as is most of her body wielding a curvy blade. I'm gonna be honest, her chest looks very weird and hilarious, because her skin goes down just enough below her neck to kinda form a cleavage but then it ends into her actual ribs, but they're kinda modeled to support the idea of there being boobs maybe under the ribs because maybe the ribs are like a metal bra or something, it's hard to tell. She's also wearing spiky stilettos. Now an interesting fact about this character - she's voiced by Poe (Anne Decatur Danielewski), the singer / songwriter / producer that was more active in the mid to late 90s and who made a comeback in Remedy's Alan Wake II with the haunting "This Road". If the surname sounds familiar from somewhere else it's because her brother is Mark Z. Danielewski, the author of House of Leaves who also directed the music video for Control, Poe's song featured in the game soundtrack, alongside System of a Down whose live concert footage you can watch and listen to on a jumbotron in the city streets ingame. Did I mention this game was developed by Neversoft who would make Tony Hawk's Pro Skater just a year later?

A crumbling city drowning in lava with a road/platform/bridge thing in the middle and an absolutely towering giant horseman (War) with giant abs and giant pants and a giant shoulder cannon that has like 3 other cannons on top of it, raising his fist in the air and carrying a giant katana blade. At first glance you don't really notice Kincaid in this screenshot but if you look closely on the left near War's right leg you'll see a little stickman Bruce Willis looking very tiny.

This screenshot just shows the current political climate in the United States. It's actually the crumbled interior of the oval office with the POTUS rug and seal on the floor with ruins all around and the horizon is just filled with the fires of hell and a thick wall of smoke rising from it. In the center stands the transformed POTUS, turned into his true form, The Beast himself, a giant red demon with a thousand abs, goat legs, downward bent horns and jaws full of sharp teeth. The Beast is raising his hands up in the air in a gingerly and joyful manner, doing a "weeheeee" and Kincaid is joining in on the fun with a happy jump himself. It really is a lovely, fun scene full of joy. By the way, the Beast (and War before him) are voiced by Tom Wyner who's done many many voiceovers for famous anime characters including the Puppet Master in Ghost in the Shell and M. Bison in the Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.

Apocalypse (PS1) (1998)

2/2

Our hero, Trey Kincaid, voiced by none other than Bruce Willis (who provided his likeness for the character as well, here on full display in all his action hero glory. Kincaid is standing in a narrow hallway in his short sleeve brown shirt and green pants with a grenade belt around his thighs and a sort of metal exoskeleton/boots around his lower legs. He's weilding some kind of futuristic machinegun.

Kincaid aiming at the crotch of a hulking robot guardian with a sort-of a Transformer kind of face, a large yellow pauldron over its right hand which is just a slab of incoming pain, and a large yellow star on his chest. Is he the sheriff of this town? Probably, with a tin star the size of his head.

A look at a city street completely split open with a river of lava underneath it, like the city of Venice but IN HELL! Kincaid is standing on the roof of a taxi hovercar with a few other taxis flying in front. The design and idea is very obviously inspired by The Fifth Element, another Willis joint.

One of the four horsemen of the titular apocalypse, Death, seen from a very low step-on-me angle. Death looks very ethereal, basically a glowing skeleton with a ghostly cloak, giving off a genuine Scare Glow vibe to him and his right arm turns into a scythe at the end. He is voiced by Joe Frank, the voice of the computer in Galaxy Quest.

Apocalypse (PS1) (1998)

1/2

The Professor in his lab with Natalie, standing in front of his megacomputer and some keyboards, shouting at a Twitch streamer for not playing the game properly and being angry that they've been banned for backseating.

A pterodactyl mama flying around her nest atop a mountain, looking horrified because all the eggs look to be cracked open and to add insult to injury, there's a damn monkey hiding under one of them.

A volcanic region with red skies and even redder lava pool and a big green t-rex running around it with an ape riding its tail.

The evil apetagonist Specter, an albino monkey that accidentally put on a helmet that boosted his intelligence and has let the other monkeys loose. He's sitting on a fancy throne with his legs crossed and hand on chin like he owns the place. It's basically the plot of The Lawnmower Man.

Ape Escape (PS1) (1999)

2/2

A science facility overrun with apes... who've escaped! They're very silly and have bulging googly eyes and metal helmets with red alarm lights on them. They're confused, chaotic and ready to cause mayhem!

The Professor (that's his name, just like The Doctor) and his granddaughter Natalie aka Katie aka Natsumi depending on where you live, tied up to the wall, looking shocked while witnessing the inhuman atrocities the apes are committing off-screen (I'm guessing they're just flinging poop at each other).

Our hero Spike aka Kakeru, with his spiky hair, red and white shirt and blue shorts showing off by doing a one arm handstand. The scene is set on a grassy meadow with some rocks and cliffs in the distance with a big rocket with Specter's face decal on its side (the main apetagonist) lodged in it. A single cheeky monkey is standing on a rock, looking all dandy.

A closeup of a Zooka, an ungodly monstrosity out of time and space. It's basically a googly-eyed green thing with puffy pink cheeks and a sexy, sensual puckered mouth. We only really see its head as it pops out of the ground to shoot rocks out of its sexy, hot mouth.

Ape Escape (PS1) (1999)

1/2

Ardus the Skeletal Warrior. He's a bad skellyman bent on revenge. He's got a cute circlet with a red ruby on his head, spiky armor and chunky gauntlets and wields a morning star (not seen on the screenshot). He's got a bit of a friendly face, or maybe it's just that all skeletons have that damn charming smile on them.

OK so the way I take these screenshots sometimes employs a camera hack to get a better look at the models or make a nice composition at a cool angle, but some games go all weird with the camera, geometry and perspective, and this is one of those cases that I left in because it looks hilarious. Kaurik the Warlord vs Stellerex the Wizard (bwob bwob bwob dubstep starts playing). Kaurik is just an insane, murderous inbred noble (I ain't even making this shit up) with a black rag on his head with some cut out holes for the eyes. He's fully nipple naked with a spiky belt and some loincloth and sort of pants and wields a nasty flail. He's looking a bit upwards and very surprised because... Stellerex the Wizard is towering over Kaurik as a giant (due to forced fucky perspective) with his hand gingerly hovering at him as if he's Kaurik's dad and he's gonna grab his hand and take him home because he's been naughty and can't play with the other kids anymore. Even though we kinda only see Stellerex's (bwob bwob bwob) back, he's very much got that Merlin design from the 1981 epic Excalibur with the metal skullcap. He's also wearing a blue shirt with a hoodie with a black armored shirt over it.

This poor sod is Nym Pymplee the Goblin (that's his name, don't wear it out!). He's a goblin. He wears a red hat. He wears a nice brown shirt and pants with suspenders. He uses two jagged blades as weapons. His face also looks like if Marty Feldman, who played Igor in the Young Frankenstein, burped, is tripping balls and also popped his pants, all at the same time.

Xenobia the Warrior getting ready to kick some ass. She's sporting a classic female armor with showing too much skin and not being nearly as effective, with a corset-like armor and red underpants(?). At least she's got a mighty sword and shield that look more than effective enough to slice and dice her enemies.

AD&D: Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft (PS1) (1996)

2/2

Luthor the Paladin looking like he's got lines of coke sprinkled on his eyebrows and nose (it's just pure white pixels) and weird enlarged pupils like a YouTube thumbnail from a few years ago. He's sporting a white and blue armor with golden crosses (well they're really plus signs, he's really into math) and wielding a huge zweihänder. This game has a very peculiar, early PS1 western dev style where the characters have unusually high polygon detail on unnecessary things like the pieces of the sword handle or even Luthor's hair, where the artists were probably used to different high-poly techniques and not taking advantage of the texture work to carry some of the detail. Because the textures also look extremely plain and amateurish compared to other PS1 games of 1996. Growing pains and learning how to make the most of the hardware has certainly contributed to this game having pretty gnarly art direction.

Balok the Black Knight vs Togo the Dwarf set upon a platform of concrete and and red runes on its sides with meadows, mountains and a huge castle looming in the distance. Balok is an evil dude with spiky dark armor and a helmet with two front protruding horns, very much like the classic Marvel Loki design. He's wearing a shield and a vampiric blade that controls him. Togo is your classic dwarven warrior with red hair and beard and a massive hammer and a curious helmet with one big horn protruding from the front, almost like a Rhino. Just two horny guys looking deeply into each other's eyes.

Sasha the Werewolf, doing a scary squatting "I'm gonna get ya" stance with her claws under the pale moonlight. First of all, I love the little twist of having the werewolf character be a lady for once. Second of all, she's got like a stripy brown shirt showing her cleavage and best of all, she kinda looks like she's wearing lipstick in this shot (although that might be dude to some polygons overlapping and being more visible due to the high resolution.

Shinesta the Elven Princess. I think this is her alt color with brown hair and green outfit (she's blonde with a purple colored shirt and pants). She's an elf lady sporting a quarterstaff and has a thirst for knowledge of the arcane and magical. Also apparently she's not an actual princess and "the title refers to her stubborn and haughty personality". Well excuuuuuse me, princess!

AD&D: Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft (PS1) (1996)

1/2

A look through a little window with prison bars between your cell and the next. You can see a man with short blonde hair and a purple cloak sitting on the floor, leaning against some crates, looking really tired and just ugh.

An underground cave with a small body of water in the middle and a dark passageway beyond it. There's a skeleton just lying there on the floor with his head turned sideways, looking very tired and just ugh. Everyone's just tired in Shadowgate 64.

A slightly annoyed looking ghost of a man in a green shirt and brown pants with some neat medieval boots and a knife on his hilt, floating about the aforementioned water in the aforementioned cave next to the aforementioned tired skeleton. This must be the skeleton that was once a man that decided to lie down for a bit and then forgot to eat.

Grimy looking living quarters that were once probably pretty cozy. Wooden beams cover the walls and ceiling, with a stone floor and a green carpet with a table (with some nasty looking tablecloth that was once white and two chairs. The opposite wall is covered in shelving with books, a couple of small boxes and an angelic statue. There's also a wooden rocking horse next to the shelf, nothing creepy about that.

Shadowgate 64 (N64) (1999)

2/2

This game is dark and murky with subdued colors, caves, dungeons, and castle hallways so it's got a certain vibe and look throughout all of the screenshots here. Though this one has a bit of color as well, we see an antechamber of a castle (probably?) with red and blue tapestries, a chandelier and a central hallway leading deeper into the castle a a door on the left (there's one on the right as well, off screen).

An ancient crypt with ornate walls with a big stone plaque with some blurry symbols or runes on it. There's a passage with some stairs behind the plaque and a big shield crest above showing two intertwined dragons.

A hulking brute carrying the hero's unconscious body on his shoulder, walking through a dungeon hallway lit by lanterns on the ceiling and just about to through your sorry ass into the brig.

A dungeon sewer with some broken and bent metal grating on the ceiling. I could've said this is like an underground river or something but that ain't water and it ain't fresh.

Shadowgate 64 (N64) (1999)

1/2

Flying close to a massive cyberpunk building with spotlights shining from far below and a swarm of half a dozen cop hovercrafts rushing towards the Einhänder.

A closeup of a big dropship-like vehicle with a big green light in front of it and an even bigger gatling gun on its top. These might be cops again. Man, future cops are bastards as well.

Flying through a dimly lit tunnel with soft red lights, making the whole scene very moody while the Einhänder is chasing a few small hovercrafts. It seems like the lights themselves were painted with a bit of a gradient or blur on the texture itself, giving them a soft look and significantly adding to the illusion that you're flying very fast through this tunnel. Very neat!

The Einhänder (I just love typing out "Einhänder") vertically descending a giant cylindrical tube covered in sci-fi panels, markings and little bleep-bloop lights and a big clunky mess of a robot seemingly descending from the top from a blue laser line, sort of like a spider. The robot itself looks nothing like a spider though. It's more like if someone stacked the front of a bullet train with a flamethrower, a detachable camera flash and a giant lighter with a little robo head on a swivel with a blue projection light shining on the Einhänder.

Einhänder (PS1) (1998)

2/2

The Einhänder, a spacecraft vaguely resembling a bird shape with two huge thrusters on the top and grabby grab legs, in this case carrying a large cannon. The ship is flying through an urban nighttime cyberpunk backdrop with tall skyscrapers and lit windows, with a large banner on the side of one building that says "Legend of ⭐ Super Powers". Not sure if the star goes after "of" or "powers", but there's a star in the corner. Maybe just to add to the coolness of the PowerPoint presentation style of the banner.

A couple of yellow and green hovercraft with their emergency lights on, possibly cops, flying over a highway at night with the dim red lights of the city in the background sparkling under a cloudy night sky.

The Einhänder rushing head on into a bipedal tank boss with a green and brown military camo paint and the number 09 on its side. Could this be... Metal Gear?

Another boss fight inside what looks like a high-tech industrial tunnel with a giant spider bot clinging on the side walls with its spidey legs. It's got that yellow and black stripes construction site paintjob, armed with cannons and missile launchers and green neon V-shaped lights on its legs. The neon lighting suggests this might be a gamer spider-bot.

Einhänder (PS1) (1998)

1/2

Akuji standing next to a huge green dodo-like bird, looking all confused. It's like if a western artist designed an edgy, undead version of a Chocobo.

A look at a massive broken stone bridge with monolithic pillars on its sides and a waterfall on the right, with eerie green streetlights illuminating the bridge. Even the underworld has traffic infrastructure issues.

A closeup of a zombie-like creature with both arms chopped off at different points, looking pretty mean. A stone wall covered in blood splatters can be seen just behind the creature. Looks like the zombo had a rough night.

An eerie but beautiful graveyard littered with stone crosses and gravestones with a crypt entrance on the left, sitting silent under a beautiful blue starry night sky.

Akuji the Heartless (PS1) (1999)

2/2

A closeup of the titular character Akuji, a voodoo priest and warrior, having his heart ripped out (on his wedding day!) and cursed to wander the underworld, which is made of old ruins with blue and green lighting (very moody). Akuji wears a peculiar spiky bone mask and is voiced by Richard Roundtree aka Shaft.

A closeup of Kesho, Akuji's bride to be, looking as blue as a daba dee daba die (she's spiritually projecting to the underworld to warn Akuji). She's basically just wearing a bikini with some arm and leg wrappings and a loincloth with three little skulls on it. Peak 90s female character design.

A dungeon hall with large paintings of creepy skeleton things.

Rocky cliffs surrounded by a dark green mist and a a massive ornate blue and silver portal structure with a statue of one of those aforementioned creepy skeleton things standing there with open arms.

Akuji the Heartless (PS1) (1999)

1/2

A closeup of Engetsu, a very burly and oversized monkey that looks more like a Wookie than anything. He's very Journey to the West's Sun Wukong styled, but very very buff with furry puffy cheeks and big muscly arms. Apprently he's very loving and friendly and is a pacifist but when fighting demons is at stake, he's up to the task.

Ahau vs Sasa, set on some kind of brick plateau with a kind of unidentified (or uninformed on my part) temple, kind of a mix of Mesoamerican and maybe Central African architecture and style with big stone steps, red and gold carpets and gargoyle-ish statues, surrounded by green forests, hills and mountains. Ahau is an easygoing and friendly warrior from the Congo who loves dancing (so this is probably his stage), he's got a big friendly smile though he looks like he'd pack a mean punch. His opponent is Sasa, an artificial being created in a US lab. She's basically a plant lady with pale gray skin and a flower on the top of her head instead of hair. She's very Poison Ivy coded.

Nanase vs Kyohya, set in what looks like a hotel lobby. Nanase is a teenage girl with a brown ponytail hair and a denim jacket and shorts. She's Jin's childhood friend and seems to love denim as much as him? She's doing a jumping downward kick with excellent technique and style, about to hit Kyohya who basically looks like a typical Japanese salary man, just young and handsome with sleek brown hair and glasses. Kick that yuppie's ass Nanase!

A closeup of Verny, a French model and dancer who is secretly descended from a line of demons and kills people in her free time. She's got short-ish blonde hair, big blue eyes and a little bit of a vertically smushed face, wearing a red jacket with puffy shoulders, a black corset with a pretty exposed cleavage, some flimsy loincloth and lacy leggings with golden metal leg pads. Them devs were horny I tell ya.

Heaven's Gate (PS1) (1996)

2/2

Jin vs Dulffer (with a backwards R like a Russian "ya" sound so it's more like Dulffeya). The battle is set on some kind of blue and yellow marble platform with the same texture for the low ceiling (lots, but not all, arenas in this game have low ceilings) and you can see waterfalls and old ruins and shrubs set on a dark background. Jin is our hero character with full on denim vest, exposing his chest and arms and jeans, red headband and spiky black hair, doing a left hook with an explosion at the end. On the receiving end we have Dulffer, a skinny pervy weirdo covered in leather and metal pieces and spikes and wearing a metal muzzle akin to Hannibal Lecter's mask. His main weapons are two knives that he likes to slice people with.

A closeup of Jin. His denim jacket is kinda reminiscent of Kenshiro's leather jacket, with even more exposed pecks.

A closeup of Dulffer. His bio says he's in the British special forces, is very good with knives and loves killing people with them. Charming bloke. He gives off major Voldo from SoulCalibur vibes.

A closeup of Kyosuke looking very dastardly with his handsome evil face and flailing his tonfa (batons basically) around. Apparently he's a good guy and has a family and kids and whatnot according to his bio but he looks like your typical handsome anime villain with long-ish hair, beautiful long eyes and an evil smirk. He's dressed kinda like Alucard from Symphony of the Night - the stereotypical anime look of a German 18th century gentleman.

Heaven's Gate (PS1) (1996)

1/2

A closeup of a twice-born, a zombie warrior very similar to the skeleton shamblers but with more (green) skin on his bones. He's wearing a more viking-like armor with the classic cartoony helmet with two side horns and wielding a battleaxe.

Drake standing on the sandy ground in front of a massive entrance guarded by two soldiers. It's a reddish-brown gateway with a symbol of a mask with light rays shining from it's top and the entrance itself is made out of two massive vertical cylinders that rotate to reveal a passage inside. It's kinda like walking into a carwash. (yeah!)

A stone statue of Celestia, the leader of Crusaders with her left arm lifted up in as if she's greeting any passers by. She's still wearing the same exact impractical armor.

The beautiful armor shopkeep of the Crusaders, wearing a green shirt and purple dress over it with some golden ornaments and buttons and a golden necklace. Her long black hair actually casts a shadow on her face, making her look slightly more photorealistic than your usual PS1 game. It's impressive that all of this is done just with the textures, it's quite clever and looks very good. She has the same hand-on-hip posture as Celestia.

Crusaders of Might and Magic (PS1) (2000)

2/2

Our hero Drake, sporting a brown and blue medieval shirt and leather armor and wielding a mace (the medieval kind). He's also got a very distinct patch of white hair on his right side. Drake has been captured by the undead army and imprisoned in a dark castle so this is his attempt at an escape.

A long tall castle hallway with torches lighting up the walls and a couple of skeletons waiting to be crinkled to death (again). They're very fancy for a pair of skeletons, wearing some leather shirts, crotch cloths and some tied up fabric for their arms and legs. Much fancier than your run of the mill naked skeleton.

Celestia, leader of the Crusader Knights standing at her throne with her hand on her hip all "you don't impress-a-me much" like. She's wearing a very videogamey impractical female armor showing a lot of cleavage and skin. Also her hand on her hip is releasing pink sparkles around it, I don't know what that's about. Maybe it's a hidden compartment/button on her armor that does this sparkly magic just because it's cool.

A large wooden castle door guarded by an evil dark knight (not Jedi related), fully covered in sick black armor, wearing a helmet with a red visor, all Robocop-like, holding a sword and shield. His lower armor design kinda looks like he's wearing a garter and leggings made out of metal. Hot.

Crusaders of Might and Magic (PS1) (2000)

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Eiji vs Kayin, the endless rivalry, this time set on a flimsy wooden platform with rocky hills and a waterfall seen in the background.

Sofia vs Rungo, he's the burliest of the fighters, described as a "strong yet kind-hearted American miner", kinda looks like if young Vanilla Ice took a giant stone club and got He-Man powers.

Duke B. Rambert (not a typo), a French knight who wants to get his revenge on Eiji for loosing to him in the past. He's got long green hair, a purple attire under a pretty hefty metal armor and swooshing around a big two-handed sword.

Ellis, apparently a "cheerful and kind-heated Turkish orphaned dancer", the most anime of characters with green hair, puffy white mesh dress, a beautiful red and blue necklace and wielding two deadly knives. She looks pretty angry as she's trying to shiv the French knight Duke.

Battle Arena Toshinden (PS1) (1995)

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A closeup of the main hero character Eiji, sporting a white and red uwagi (the jacket part of a martial arts uniform), a white headband and signature brown spiky hair. Eiji's weapon of choice is a katana.

A closeup of Kayin, a red-haired, silver jacket wearing friend and rival of Eiji. He's the Ken to Eiji's Ryu. Kayin wields a traditional longsword.

Sofia, a Russian whip-wielding private detective with a dominatrix-style latex leotard and blondish-green hair with a ponytail. Also the most Windows 95 skybox with blue cloudy skies can be seen in the background.

Fo Fai vs Mondo, seen from the side of Mondo's back, looking at Fo. Fo is an elderly Chinese magician with Wolverine (or more adequately Vega's) claws who is secretly a cold-blooded serial killer. You wouldn't guess it from his hunched posture. Mondo is a Japanese ninja warrior with a naginata as a weapon (long metal pole with a curves blade on one end).

Battle Arena Toshinden (PS1) (1995)

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A pitch-black stage with the spotlight lighting a fancy purple haired young boy named Malus, playing the violin.

Our other protagonist, Carrie Fernandez, a girl with magic powers running past a couple of bipedal lizard fish people wielding axes and swords, going all Firestarter on them.

Reinhardt, in the rain, kneeling down to inspect a decaying corpse while a closeup of a skeleton lying on the ground implies the skellyman might just be taking a nap and might wake up soon.

A closeup of a burly tiger man slowly walking towards you. He probably just wants to have a little chat.

Castlevania 64 (N64) (1999)

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The spires of Dracula's castle loom high beneath a black night sky with a massive blood red moon dominating the skyline.

One of our heroes, Reinhardt Schneider, the most German ginger man there ever was, seemingly running past some big wooden beams in what looks like a big sawmill structure.

Reinhardt, in the forest, in the rain, holding his hand by his chest, perhaps his hardt can't take all this rein falling, it's his only weakness. That's probably the worst quip I've written yet.

Reinhardt surrounded by a couple of human-sized skeletons as well as a huge towering skeleton boss with a hole in his skull where possibly a third eye was once socketed.

Castlevania 64 (N64) (1999)

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Jedi Padawan Jalopy doing a little squat behind a railing that doesn't offer any tactical cover whatsoever, looking at what appears to be a huge control center with big monitors and Roger Roger droids being useless as ever.

One of queen Amygdala's servants wearing orange-yellow robes and having very thin stick arms.

Darth Blart Mall Cop looking all evil and showing off his double extendo laser blade.

Liam Neeson being a menace, destroying some Nazi equipment with his laser sword, causing a big pink laser to shoot out of the ground through a floating metal ring platform. It makes sense because it's Star Wars.

Star Wars Episode I: Jedi Power Battles (PS1) (2000)

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