Extensive Docs 🇨🇦

Splash art for Mario Party Advance.

Mario Party Advance: Jank, tedious and a bit of a mess, but...

Some of the most personality we've ever seen in a Mario spin-off. The sprite art is great, and the writing is wacky.

I played next to my wife and it was like a good B movie: funny and fun.

I'm so glad that Thwomp found a friend.

It's the cabinet art for salamander.

Salamander: It's Gradius, except they painstakingly took everything I liked out of it and cranked up the difficulty.

The worst change is the continue system. Death is recursive here.

I'm a big fan of the gross themeing. I don't know if I've played a game before with so many engorged kidney stones.

The arcade poster for Gradius.

Gradius (Arcade): Holds up wonderfully to modern scrutiny.

It's biggest strength is the pacing. I think this is the only shmup I've played that treats its bosses as a denouement rather than a climax.

As usual I love the capsule system, it remains relevant even when you're at max power.

The box art for Puyo Pop on the Game boy advance.

Puyo Pop: I bought it second hand and it already had high scores. I had a lot of fun trying to destroy AAAAA on the leaderboards.

It's lucky the scores were there, because the difficulty has plummeted. Even on hard it's trivial. High scores were tough because my opponents kept killing themselves.

I'd guess it's because of the size and contrast of Pichu in the thumbnail?

The box art for Metroid Prime Hunters.

Metroid Prime Hunters: NST managed to nail the look and feel of Prime on the DS.

Unfortunately, the game is rough. It lacks upgrades, it frequently reuses content, and the story is an underdeveloped retread.

Combat overly relies on spawners, and fast-moving targets that are annoying to fight.

Splash art for Kirby air ride.

Kirby Air Ride: A fun racer with cool implementation of 3D movement.

I wish they had more time to make event matches instead of using achievements to drive progression.

Please Sakurai bind spin to a button in the sequel. So many of my time trials have been killed by misinputting spin.

The Dreamcast box art for Puyo Puyon

Puyo Puyo~n: Supposedly the black sheep, but it's my fav so far.

Supers are overpowered, but are largely unique and give characters distinct playstyles.

Enemy supers increase the difficulty enough that I had to train and get better. I now consistently get long chains without relying on stairs.

The box art for star fox assault.

Star Fox Assault: First time going for all the medals.

I enjoy the on foot missions a lot more when engaging with the combo system. Some of the stages have complex routing decisions when you want to preserve combo.

The standard levels are all great, cold take but I wish there were more than 3!

I'm playing this horrifying game, I destroyed this man's house and then ripped his head off and used it as a surfboard.

Donkey Kong is a pretty messed up guy.

I love Sunshine, it has perhaps my favorite character controller of all time. This combined with the incredible jank in some shines and goofy VO makes it a great comedy game.

What is the piece that doesn't work for you?

I spoke too soon, I have achieved infinity ♾️.

I just started playing Nubby's Number Factory.

Looks at this stupid build I found.

It's a good game.

The box art for super Mario Strikers.

Super Mario Strikers: A solid arcadey sports game.

I love that defensive choices affect the item system.

However, it's frustrating playing a competitive game where you are reliant on AI on both sides for success.

The game frequently rubber bands and it makes both success and failure feel empty.

The box art for mega Man X4.

Megaman X4 (X): It's rare for me to replay a game immediately, but here we are.

I would say Zero's campaign is better in every way. I especially enjoy the balancing of the bosses more, with and without weaknesses.

X gets some cool upgrades, but he unfortunately trivializes a lot of the game.

It's a picture of Zero trying to kill the logo for mega Man X4.

Megaman X4 (Zero): A fantastic and gorgeous X game.

Zero has a sick moveset, but is treated like a 2nd class citizen. He has significantly less collectibles than X.

The difficulty curve here is smoother than normal MM games. The stages are missing BS difficulty spikes, so I'm excited to replay.

The box art of hey Pikmin

Hey! Pikmin: An inoffensive puzzle platformer that succeeded in offending everyone.

Personally, I think it's cute and clever but Olimar moves much too slow.

It captures the spirit of the series, and would probably have been better received if they dialed up the difficulty.

Splash art for Lorelei and the laser eyes.

Lorelei and The Laser Eyes: A set of fairly simple puzzles that gain complexity due to the scope of the open map.

It's akin to classic adventure games. The puzzles are usually external to mechanics or about connecting multiple pieces of evidence.

It also has a serious vibe.

The box art for Sonic Riders.

Sonic Riders: A very steep learning curve gives way to a wonderfully complex and satisfying racer.

My favorite part is GP, I really enjoyed trying to get perfect runs.

I love a mission mode, but these ones are overly repetitive. I think you could include half and have a much better experience.

I'm playing Sonic Riders and it's wild how much it captures the spirit of 3D Sonic.

The first few hours are filled with trial and error, showing off all its rough edges and jank. Through replay it becomes an amazing showcase of routing and execution.

I think it may be my fav Sonic racing game!

I've been playing some racing games post Mario Kart World and I keep finding myself pressing down on the d-pad to rewind whenever I make a mistake.

For some reason it's not working. 😔

The box art of Bayonetta.

Bayonetta: Origins made me replay the OG.

DMC inspired with a focus on increasing accessibility over its predecessor. It does a great job and at the time was the first character action game that hooked me.

I love Witch Time, so it's too bad the higher difficulties put strict limitations on it.

Splash art for Sonic the hedgehog Sega Ages

Sonic 1 (Ages): My favorite classic Sonic!

This is my first time beating it without the spin dash. Surprised to find the game plays mostly the same.

For all the flak origins gets, I like its physics a lot better.

I'm tempted to make a mod which adjusts the areas I don't like.

I just finished my first Mario Kart World speed run in my favorite category: playable Cataquack%.

My current record is 25 hours, has anyone beaten that?

The splash art for the Sega ages version of Puyo Puyo 2.

Puyo Puyo 2 (Sega Ages): The best of the first three Puyos.

Offsetting ratchets up the intensity in end games and makes comebacks possible.

Much improved kinesthetics over the original, and no sun blocks.

Different opponents have unique playstyles, so the enemy selection is meaningful.

The splash art for fantasy Zone.

Fantasy Zone: I had no expectations to enjoy it this much.

It has layers upon layers of strategy, impressive for a game of it's vintage.

Ages version has level unlocks and a coin bank. A perfect way to hook beginners.

I only wish you could switch your loadout on the fly. Hopefully there's a mod!

The splash art for Puyo Puyo Sega ages.

Puyo Puyo (Sega Ages): I always thought Mean Bean was Puyo 2, but I guess it's an enhanced port of this game!

Playing Puyo without
offsetting is rough. Coming back from a deficit is very difficult since the opponent can just execute you.

Still Puyo was always fun and this one is fun too.

The box art for metal Gear on the MSX.

Metal Gear (MSX): An '80s masterpiece.

A stealth Metroidvania that's almost modern. Not sure why it's glossed over when people discuss the series.

The back half is weaker than the front due to an excess of '80s moon logic and ballooning inventory.

Consult a guide, and you'll have a great time.

I legitimately thought it was Wrinkly Kong in the YouTube thumbnail at the end.

I'm happy with the result but now I'm dying for them to add Wrinkly.

Splash art for Castlevania Order of Ecclesia.

Order of Ecclesia: My favorite portable-vania.

The separated level structure makes it stand out from the rest, and I love the high difficulty.

The difficulty encourages you to experiment with your loadout and I used most of the glyphs. It's probably the closest Metroidvania gets to Classicvania.