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Games Beaten 2018
1. Letter Quest Remastered Switch eShop
2. Batman NES
3. Little Nemo: The Dream Master NES
4. Mickey's Wild Adventure PS1
5. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. 3DS
6. Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy 3DS
7. Nier Automata PS4
8. Legacy of the Wizard NES
9. The Legend of Zelda (starring Zelda) NES
10. Tobu Tobu Girl Game Boy
11. Rhyme Rider Kerorican WSC
12. Sonic Advance 3 GBA
13. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap PS4
14. Super Adventure Island SNES
15. Dynamite Cop DC *NEW*

Dynamite Cop



It’s time for a mini review!

Dynamite Cop is a Dreamcast sequel to the Arcade & Saturn game Die Hard Arcade, which was known as Dynamite Deka in Japan. It is a 3D beat ‘em up, where you can choose one of 3 different characters and one of three different routes through the game to fight through.



Each character has a selection of standard attacks and some unique moves, but the main focus on the game is more about making use of the selection of weapons available across the battlefield. This covers a wide swathe of options, with melee weapons like pipes, chairs and hammers, guns and explosives, and even oddities like frozen tuna and makeshift hairspray flamethrowers available to wield.



Rather than playing like a traditional 2D beat ‘em up where you walk along a continuously scrolling environment taking on enemies, Dynamite Cop instead takes place across a series of small fight arenas with cutscenes in between. These cutscenes feature quick time events where an instruction will flash across the screen – hitting the right button will allow you to keep moving, but failing will cause you to take damage or have to fight additional enemies.



Dynamite Cop is a fun experience, but it’s certainly not a deep one. Even compared to other beat ‘em ups it has a very stripped back feel, and in that way it’s also more of the same when compared to Die Hard Arcade. It’s no mind-blowing experience, but Dynamite Cop is a fun time, and the additional character and multiple routes make this one a bit more replayable than before. Pick it up and give it a go if you find it for a good price, but it’s not a must-own.


Recommend listening:
I can’t lie, I don’t remember the soundtrack of this one very well (I beat it in March… I’m slow at writing these) but here’s a fun track to enjoy anyway:

Click the image below to listen

Eventually I'll get caught up with these!

5/27: Atelier Escha & Lodgy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky (PS3)
There’s not too many series that I consistently enjoy playing, but the Atelier series is definitely one of my favourites. They might not be the most graphically amazing or fully polished of games, but they check all of the right boxes for me. In particular, Atelier Escha & Lodgy is now my favourite game in the series (at least so far).

The game stars two alchemists, Escha & Lodgy, who are assigned various tasks to help out the kingdom that must be completed in a set amount of time. To complete these tasks, they’ll need to manage their time well as they gather for ingredients, defeat monsters, and create various items with alchemy. There are these floating Unexplored Ruins that Escha has always wanted to explore, so creating a blimp that reach them acts as a sort of side goal (and I think is necessary to get the True ending?). Not much else happens in the game’s story other than that until the very end of the game, but I don’t think that’s the main draw for Escha & Lodgy. The main draw I think is the various character interactions between Escha, Lodgy, and the other party members and the alchemy system.

I don’t really want to go into a huge amount of depth into the alchemy system, since it does have a lot of little parts that I’m still not sure how to manipulate well, but two things that have been improved since previous Atelier games (at least since Atelier Meruru since it’s been a while since I’ve played Atelier Ayesha) is (1) the removal of item quality and (2) a new system that replenishes consumables. (1) is just really nice to not have to worry about any more, but (2) is a huge boon. How it works is that Escha and Lodgy each have a limited number of slots to equip various items. Each item takes up a certain number of slots (ranging from 1 to 5), and generally more powerful items take up more space. While you can only take a small number of items with you, if you use all the uses of a certain item, going back to town will replenish everything that you’ve used up! No more spending a huge amount of time just to make a ton of bombs or healing items!

In addition to the alchemy improvements, the battle system has also been improved. Instead of only having a party of three in battles, you can have a party of six with three in the front and three in the back. The backline acts as a sort of reserve, as they can’t do much attacking themselves but can switch with the front line if needed. Party members in the back slowly heal up HP and MP, so it’s useful to switch around party members in a pinch.

Some additional points!
- The music is really great as usual for Gust. There’s even some vocal tracks for a few bosses and cutscenes which I don’t recall other games including. The artist who does the Steins;Gate openings (Itou Kanako) also makes an appearance which I wasn’t expecting.

- The game is definitely not 100% polished in it’s localization. For the most part it’s fine, but I definitely recall some spelling/grammar errors. The most glaring error was a section in which Escha and Lodgy are told that a giant “slug” had appeared in the “slug” ruins, and that they need to deal with the problem. On first glance that seems fine, but keep in mind that there are no slugs in the game. The proper translation should have been “slag”, which is a sort of roboty creature. It’s not game breaking or anything, but it was quite amusing.

- Don’t expect too much of a challenge here, especially if you’ve played previous Atelier games. You’re given plenty of time to complete your tasks (and really only one task per period is required), so really the only way you could fail is if you intentionally tried to. The only portion of the game where I had trouble was the second final boss, which all of the sudden is super difficult compared to everything else. You really need to make sure you’re properly levelled with some good items to beat that one.

So overall Atelier Escha & Lodgy is a great game! Unfortunately, the Atelier series apparently kind of goes downhill from here, but I’m still going to be trying out the others anyway and hope that I enjoy them regardless. I just wish that Gust would take a little bit more time to work on each game since it makes it hard for me to catch up!

Games Beaten in 2018 So Far - 68
* denotes a replay

January (16 Games Beaten)


February (18 Games Beaten)


March (10 Games Beaten)


April (7 Games Beaten)


May (6 Games Beaten)


June (11 Games Beaten)


67. DmC Devil May Cry - PlayStation 4 - June 19
68. DmC Devil May Cry: Vergil's Downfall - PlayStation 4 - June 19



Admitting that you're wrong is hard. Despite that, here I am, about to admit that I was wrong about something. DmC is not a bad game. I've spent years blasting it for making Dante look like an emo bitch - which I still maintain - but the game itself is actually pretty good. It's not great, mind you, and it doesn't hold a candle to the first three Devil May Cry games overall, I gotta give credit where credit is due; Capcom did an okay job with this one and definitely a better job than I had been giving them credit for.



The most important thing to keep in mind about DmC is that it's an alternate universe Devil May Cry; it doesn't tie into the established series in any way except title and character names. The fact that Capcom recently announced Devil May Cry 5 at E3 rather than calling it Devil May Cry 6 sort of reinforces that. Different Dante, different timeline, different tone and style. Dante in this game is a much rougher, more vulgar sort of guy who reminds me a bit of a more serious version of Bender from Futurama. He's crude and a man whore who starts the game totally apathetic to matters that don't concern him directly, but there's a lot of character development for him in this game. His character develops so much, in fact, that he's almost unrecognizable from the Dante at the start of the game. Also his physical design sucks a fat one. Thankfully you have the option of using a model based on the original Devil May Cry's Dante which I used, so aside from a few cut scenes that bizarrely (and jarringly) use the default model no matter what, I didn't have to look at this stupid emo face and his stupid emo haircut.



Aside from Dante's stupid face and stupid haircut, I actually don't mind the characters. Kat and Vergil look fine, and I can dig their personalities (including Dante's) although Vergil got a bit irritating at times. The game's story is fairly straightforward - encounter evil demon boss, remember forgotten childhood, complete short string of events intended to create opening to attack evil demon boss, kill evil demon boss. Pretty standard. There are, of course, some more nuances than that, but that's really the basic of it while avoiding spoilers. Oh, but one hilarious part I can't not mention - they definitely have a news channel in the game based on Fox News, and their Bill O'Reilly lookalike is DEFINITELY a soul devouring demon. That's probably my favorite part of the game to be honest.



While keeping in mind that this is really just an upscaled PS3 game, it looks nice. The fast pace of the combat definitely benefits from the bump to 60 fps that it got when ported to PS4 and Xbox One, and the character models all look good even if they show their 7th gen roots. I didn't encounter any slowdown during my playthrough nor did I find any bugs or crashes, something that's not always a given in games these days. The highlight of the game is definitely the soundtrack. Although it can be a bit hard to appreciate fully with the sounds of gore and carnage, there's a fantastic metal soundtrack that plays when you're fighting. I'm generally a sucker for good metal, but it really fits a game like this where you're killing hordes of demons.



DmC Devil May Cry is definitely the outlier in the Devil May Cry series both in quality and in style, but it's honestly not as bad as I used to think. Yes, whoever was in charge of Dante's character design should be flogged and ridiculed, and yes, the combat gets a bit samey after a while, but I really did a good bit of fun with this game. It's not terribly long - I clocked in around eight hours - but it's got enough meat there to sink your teeth into. It's pretty cheap these days especially if you go for PS3 or 360, and while it's not going to amaze you, it's definitely a fun game.

~~~



Vergil's Downfall is the story DLC for DmC Devil May Cry, and it takes place immediately following the events of the main game. I'm reviewing it separately from the main game because it's set up as a completely separate experience accessible from the main menu rather than in-game. It's standalone in all except actually being able to run independent of having the base game installed. Anyway, this will be brief to avoid spoiling the base game, but you play as Vergil as he comes to grips with the way events unfolded at the end of DmC as well as getting a bit of a peek into his thought process.



Unfortunately given that this is a wholly story driven DLC, the story is...kind of crap. It feels hastily thrown together and is told largely through comic-style frames between levels, a format completely different from the base game. The story is also just kind of hard to follow. It makes sense if you pay attention to the very beginning and the very end, but it feels really separated and haphazard during. Fortunately it's not very long - only a few hours - but you're really not missing anything here. Even if you have the definitive edition that includes this DLC, I'd suggest just skipping it unless you're going for full achievements.

Games Beaten 2018
1. Letter Quest Remastered Switch eShop
2. Batman NES
3. Little Nemo: The Dream Master NES
4. Mickey's Wild Adventure PS1
5. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros. 3DS
6. Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy 3DS
7. Nier Automata PS4
8. Legacy of the Wizard NES
9. The Legend of Zelda (starring Zelda) NES
10. Tobu Tobu Girl Game Boy
11. Rhyme Rider Kerorican WSC
12. Sonic Advance 3 GBA
13. Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap PS4
14. Super Adventure Island SNES
15. Dynamite Cop DC
16. Pokkén Tournament Wii U *NEW*


Pokkén Tournament



Pokkén Tournament is a fighting game for Nintendo Wii U in which you can select from a variety of different pokemon and brawl it out in 1 on 1 battles.



The story of Pokkén, which is utterly forgettable, is that trainers can use some sort of headset to mind link with their pokemon and then fight in real-time as them. There’s also some sort of corrupted Mewtwo called Shadow Mewtwo that is outputting way too much of whatever the type of energy it is that lets people do that, and you have to figure out how to stop this. In the meantime you’re also trying to fight your way through the ranks to get to the top of the heap in the Chroma League, Pokken’s most prestigious tournament.



Basically none of that matters, because what it really means is that you have to do lots of fighting to get to progress. The fighting system in Pokkén is somewhat unique. Battles shift between 2 phases – the field phase, where pokemon can move freely in any direction, and the battle phase, which functions like a traditional fighting game, with the camera shifting to the side and pokemon moving back and forward on a single plane. Dealing a strong hit in either phase will shift pokemon to the other, and some pokemon are better in field phase than battle and vice versa, so managing this system is crucial.



Attacks are somewhat limited – the y button deals projectiles in field mode and weak attacks in battle mode. X is a homing melee attack in field mode – it makes you rush towards the opponent. In battle mode, it’s the strong attack button. Finally, the A button is the special moves button in both modes, although which moves it does vary by pokemon and mode. Different attacks can be utilised with different combinations of the 3 attack buttons and the control stick. You can also jump with B, block with R, deal a counter which has super armour frames with X+A together and grab and throw with Y+B.



As well as those basic attacks, you can bring support pokemon into battle too, which deal specific attacks upon pressing ZR, but require charging over time to use. These aren’t actually too strong, but can be used independently of you own attacks, so they’re good for comboing or breaking guards. Pokemon also have a super meter which, when filled, can be triggered with L+R, making the pokemon stronger and faster whilst it lasts. Pokemon with Mega forms also Mega evolve and that normally comes with a whole new moveset. In super mode, hbitting L+R again will trigger a short range super attack for massive damage, but this ends super mode, meaning it’s normally best to this towards the end of your super guage.



The pokemon playable in Pokken are an interesting selection, although it does unfortunately focus on bipedal pokemon which is a shame, as I think the variety of sizes and shapes in the pokemon series could have made for a very interesting roster. Instead you’ll be using the bipedal Machamp, Garchomp, Charizard, Blaziken, Sceptile, Lucario, Braixen, Gardevoir, Gengar, Weavile and Mewtwo, the smaller Pikachu and Pikachu Libre, a solo quadruped in Suicune, and the most unique fighter of the bunch, Chandelure, the chandelier pokemon, who is who I favoured. Chandelure’s combat is focused around deal damage at range in field mode, whilst inflicted debuffs, before finishing up with his hex move, a mid range throw which deals more damage the more debuffs the opponent has.



Pokken’s combat is fun, but the small movepools of each character can mean that fighting the computer over and over can be tedious – the fun is in how to use your movepool against human opponents. This is an issue, because working through story mode requires fighting dozens upon dozens of computer opponents. In addition, the small roster size in the game means that you’ll often be fighting the same opponents over and over to boot, so there’s a lack of diversity there too. Add in the fact that there’s no special challenges or gimmicks to any match, and the difficulty never differs greatly from start to finish, and the story mode of the game becomes an exercise in tedium.



Pokkén is a fun game, and if you can find someone to play it with, it’s worth playing, even if you’re not that big on the Pokemon franchise. However, as a single player experience it’s just not worth it – it quickly becomes more work than fun. Also, if you want to play it, get the Switch version, as it adds 5 additional characters which helps the roster situation somewhat. One of them is a penguin. This is a well made game, but your mileage on this one will vary depending on how much time you commit to playing with others.


Recommended listening:
Magikarp is a pretty lame pokemon. It flops about uselessly, and is incredibly weak. Look at that screenshot below - if you were to write a music track for a stage themed around this pokemon, what would it be? Something really goofy probably.

It probably wouldn't be your first thought to make some hardcore euro-dance track with a japanese dojo aesthetic, but that's what they went with, and it is awesome

Click the image below to listen

That Magicarp Festival track is a banger!

I liked the gameplay of DmC. I hated the tone pretty much the entire way, including the faux-O'Reilly boss. I'm glad they're shifting back to the series proper, although I suspect that decision was made for them when DmC proved so divisive. I have no doubts they would have continued down that road if it had performed better.

Oof, finally caught up on my reviews. I'm almost as bad as aj. I need to just post as I beat.

1. Antarctic Adventure (Famicom)
2. Nuts & Milk (Famicom)
3. Commando (Atari 2600)
4. Binary Land (Famicom)
5. Devil World (Famicom)
6. Disney's Aladdin (SNES)
7. Popeye (NES)
8. Super Mario Land (Game Boy)
9. Ys: The Vanished Omens (Sega Master System)
10 Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter (Famicom)
11. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (SNES)
12. Lunar: The Silver Star (Sega CD)
13. Otenba Becky no Daibouken (MSX)
14. Metroid (Famicom Disk System)
15. Mahou Kishi Rayearth (Game Boy)
16. Wabbit (Atari 2600)
17. Kirby's Dream Land (Game Boy)
18. Warpman (Famicom)
19. Final Fantasy (NES)
20. Transformers: Convoy no Nazo (Famicom)
21. Arcade Archives: Moon Patrol (Switch eShop)
22. Gremlins (Atari 2600)
23. Arcade Archives: Ninja-Kid (Switch eShop)
24. Shining in the Darkness (Genesis)
25. Johnny Turbo's Arcade: Gate of Doom (Switch eShop)
26. Front Line (Atari 2600)
27. Donkey Kong 3 (NES)
28. Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (Game Boy)
29. Exerion (Famicom)


Exerion was a pleasant surprise. Usually when I describe a game in such terms I'm discussing something relatively unknown, something that gripped me right away and kept me playing until completion. This case was different; I didn't care for Exerion when I first popped it into my Famicom. Subsequent attempts had me feeling the same way. The game was tossed onto my shelf, destined to gather dust and become a mere "collectible." Then one day, on a whim, I gave it another go and something clicked. This is a fine game, a damn fine one. It's an unorthodox title, undoubtedly, but it's unabashed experimentation is the source of its success.

Exerion is a single-screen shooter, originating in the arcades in 1983, developed by Jaleco. It received three major ports back in the day: MSX, SG-1000, and Famicom (with the Famicom one being the most common, naturally). Exerion is also the first game in a loosely connected trilogy. The second, Exerion II, was an MSX exclusive, while the third and final, the Nichibutsu-published Exerizer, was left marooned in arcade-land.

Stop me if this sounds familiar. You're a spaceship that can shoot bullets and goes pew pew when it does so. "Waves" of enemies swarm down from the screen's top, firing their own pew pews. When a wave is defeated a bigger and badder one takes it place. This goes on and on until your brain melts. Yes, Exerion continues the classic tradition established by old-school space shooters like Space Invaders and Galaxian. But with some tremendous modifications. First of all, the ship of Exerion is not locked into an x-axis and can thus fly all around the screen. Freedom! This changes the enemy-dodging strategy, as it's often advisable here to fly to the top of the screen or swoop around in figure eight patterns. And this epic battle isn't waged in space, but super-space. In the background is an ever-scrolling proto-mode 7 sort of "grid" displaying all sorts of trippy stuff as the game progresses through ten "levels" -- canyons, clouds, pyramids, futuristic cityscapes, and of course Moai heads. It looks fantastic, vaguely reminiscent of Space Harrier and Tobidase Daisakuse. And while the game mostly lacks music, the title screen theme is quite the earworm.

Alien hordes are vanquished with two types of weapons: a single shot and double shot. The double sounds superior, but it's very slow, two heavy missiles lobbed across the battlefield. The single shot fires rapidly, but with a catch: an ammo gauge. This is depleted rapidly, but replenished in tandem with points earned (by shooting down enemies). Rapidly alternating between the A and B buttons will create a sort of wave of alternating single and double shots; it's perfect if you find yourself in a corner and start panicking. Not saying I know from experience.

Now, the most "controversial" element of the game, and what initially threw me for a loop. The element of inertia. If the d-pad is released, the ship of Exerion does not stop on a dime. Instead it will coast for another second or so. It's tough to get used to, to say the least, and during my first few attempts at paying I was soon greeted with a stark Game Over. This is a game that requires considerable practice, to learn how to handle the ship and get accustomed to the gunfire system, but the high expectations it places on the player make eventual success that much more rewarding.

Apparently an NES version of Exerion was planned, but ultimately scrapped. A shame, as this would have been a great addition to that library. As it is, the Famicom cartridge is quite cheap and there's no language barrier issues whatsoever. Anyone who cut their teeth on the Golden Age shooters of old should find something to enjoy here. It might just take a little digging.

February
1. Metal Slug 3 (Vita)

March
2. My Name is Mayo (PS4)
3. The Walking Dead (Vita)

April
4. Killzone Mercenary (Vita)
5. Rivals of Aether (PC)

May
6. Metroid Samus Returns (3DS)
7. Pokemon White (DS)
8. Mirrors Edge Catalyst (PC)
9. Consortium (PC)
10. Mass Effect 3: Citadel (PC)
11. Mass Effect 3: Omega (PC)
12. Mass Effect 3: Leviathan (PC)

June
13. Need for Speed: The Run (PC)
14. Tomb Raider 2013 (PC)
15. CounterSpy (PS4)
16. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4)

1. Jungle Book (SNES)(Platformer)
2. Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge (SNES)(Light Gun Shooter)
3. Might and Magic VI (PC)(RPG)
4. Revenant (PC)(RPG)
5. Neo Turf Masters (NGPC)(Sports)
6. Fatal Fury: First Contact (NGPC)(Fighter)
7. Pac-Man (NGPC)(Action)
8. Golden Axe (Genesis)(Hack and Slash)
9. Blood and Bacon (PC)(FPS)
10. Gain Ground (Genesis)(Strategy)
11. Flicky (Genesis)(Platformer)
12. Zombie Shooter 2 (PC)(Top-Down Shooter)
13. Phantasmagoria (PC)(Point and Click)
14. SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighter's Clash - Capcom Version (NGPC)(Card Game)
15. Toonstruck (PC)(Point and Click)
16. Riven (PC)(Point and Click)
17. Dragon Wars (PC)(RPG)
18. Dungeon Hack (PC)(RPG)
19. SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium (NGPC)(Fighter)
20. Portal 2 (PC)(Puzzle FPS)
21. Goat Simulator: Waste of Space (PC)(Action)
22. Goat Simulator: Payday (PC)(Action)
23. Goat Simulator: MMO Simulator (PC)(Action)
24. Goat Simulator: GoatZ (PC)(Action)
25. Goat Simulator (PC)(Action)
26. Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis)(Beat 'Em Up)
27. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (PC)(Action Platformer)
28. Deadlight (PC)(Platformer)
28. Antichamber (PC)(Puzzle FPS)
29. S.C.A.R.S. (N64)(Racing)

S.C.A.R.S., which is an acronym for Super Computer Animal Racing Simulator, is a racing game which borrows a lot from kart racers of its era but doesn't quite want to delve into that arena. I played through the Nintendo 64 release, and it's a mixed bag for me. I admit, I am not a fan of racing games; it's a take-it-or-leave-it genre, not disliked like platformers, but not loved like survival horror. With that in mind, there are a few racing games that I enjoy, and they typically begin with the words "Mario Kart." S.C.A.R.S. isn't quite there in design, but it is trying to be.

In S.C.A.R.S., you play as a car based around some idea of an animal...which doesn't really mean much other than that each car has different stats of the usual variety, such as acceleration, max speed, turning, etc. You start out with access to about half of the cars of the game, but by playing through the various cups and completing challenges, you can unlock the others. It's a simple system for progressing, and it openly gives you a goal to strive for.

As for the racetracks, well, here's where I start taking issue with the game. The first cup I ever went for involved three races, two of which were on the same track at different times of day. So in reality, it was 2 tracks for an entire cup, and after I came in first on it the first time, I sure as hell came in first for the second run. Cornering isn't easy in S.C.A.R.S., and some of the tracks have some nasty turns in them. However, I got really irked by the geometry: you can go up on walls, but the game will then flip you over and move you back onto the course, slowing you down for a few seconds and causing you to lose precious time. This seemed to occur at random times, and it forced me to have to watch corners that I thought I could blaze over. In short, it threw out some of the strategy I was hoping for in a 3D game and forced me onto the generally flat road surfaces.

To add to this issue with course design, some of the tracks have multiple routes, and you better know the shortest one, because the AI sure does and will only be using it. I still managed to do well once I figured out which turns to take, but I realized this was a problem when I went left at a split and suddenly dropped from 2nd to 5th place in an instant. That was annoying.

There are also a variety of weapons and boosts to be found on the track, and while many of these are similar to the variety of weapons you'll find in other traditional battle racers, a few had some nice touches. Some form barriers of varying sizes, which you can jump over. A couple give blatant projectiles, and you can tell when you're being targeted by one because crosshairs suddenly appear over your car. One of my favorites was a countdown timer which then blows you up and costs you precious time. If you end up with the timer, you can use the Weapon button to send it to someone else. Keep on your toes though, because they might send it back, and suddenly getting the timer back with a second left totally sucks! I liked the way this weapon was implemented, because suddenly I was racing the clock in a game of hot potato as well as my opponents on the track.

Oh, one more thing: you have a "boss" for the cups. This is the vehicle that will likely place first on every course if you don't, so you have to knock them down a peg or two. Even if you don't net first place, you can still gain a bonus point for getting the fastest lap time, so get through quickly and don't fret to make your way onto the podium. I did, and first place sure feels sweet.

Still better than Diddy Kong Racing. Come at me, bro.

5/29: Steins;Gate 0 (Vita)
Steins;Gate 0 is a continuation of sorts to the amazing Steins;Gate that explains what happened to make the True ending possible. If you haven’t played the original Steins;Gate, definitely play that first before playing 0, as 0 completely spoils the original. Unfortunately, that means that it’s basically impossible to talk about the plot without a huge spoiler box but talk about what I can.

- The story and characters are just as good as the original. It’s hard to say whether it’s better or not, as it requires knowledge of the original story and will reference it a lot, but I enjoyed it from start to finish.

- Steins;Gate 0 is a lot darker in tone than the original. It definitely gets to the punch a lot quicker, so if you weren’t a fan of how slow the original’s beginning was, you might like 0 better.

- The choices are a lot clearer than the original. The original required certain responses to random text messages at some points, and I found it difficult to figure out which ones were necessary and what were just filler. Steins;Gate 0 makes it a lot more obvious what choices are important. It still doesn’t use choice boxes like many visual novels do, but it’s hard to miss the important choices versus the non-important ones.

I’m not sure what else to say unfortunately, but if you like visual novels and haven’t given Steins;Gate yet, play that first! The opening may be a little slow (I personally love it but I know others don’t), but it’s a very gripping murdery, time-travelly story. If you have played the original, Steins;Gate 0 is definitely worth a play!

6/6: Pokémon Rumble (WiiWare)
I’m not a big Pokémon fan, but I have enjoyed some of the spin-offs in the past so I decided to give Pokémon Rumble a shot when the Wii Shop Channel was closing done. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from the game, but I think it ended up being alright.

Pokémon Rumble is a top-down beat-em-up styled game where you play with various Pokémon toys. Each Pokémon either have one or two attacks to fight with (which you can change with money), and you have 8 different stages (plus one battle arena stage) to fight other Pokémon in. Each Pokémon you defeat has the chance to be added to your Pokémon roster, which you can use in future battles or trade in for money (and potentially a different Pokémon).

So, the game is fairly simple and that’s fine. It plays fine, sounds fine, and it looks fine too (how the Pokémon look is probably the best thing about the game for me ha). The big problem I have with the game though is that it gets repetitive very fast. While the game does have 8 different stages, you have to repeat them quite a few times to beat the game. If you want to get all of the Pokémon (which I didn’t), then I hope you like repeating stages because you’re going to have to do a lot of that! The stages themselves aren’t even very different from one another and are mostly just different in the Pokémon you’ll see and how the stage looks. You don’t really change up your strategy much other than just using different Pokémon on each stage (like you would probably use a fire Pokémon on the grassy stage). By the end of the game I was pretty tired of it. There is another mode you can play after you beat the game which allows you to catch more Pokémon (instead of just Gen 1 Pokémon), but the stages are still essentially the same.

Overall, I probably would only recommend this to huge Pokémon and/or beat-em-up fans. It might be fine if you were willing to play in very short bursts at a time, but it’s hard for me to recommend this to anyone else.

6/7: Pu-Li-Ru-La (Arcade)
Pu-Li-Ru-La is a very short, but extremely wacky beat-em-up that I played for this month’s Together Retro. I don’t tend to be a huge fan of beat-em-ups, but this one was short, simple, not too difficult, and very strange. There’s not too much more to it than that, but I really enjoyed going through all of the levels. It’s worth a play-through, especially since it will take you less than an hour to play.