Kill Screen Cinema

The Battletoads explode onto the Super Nintendo with Battlemaniacs, developed Rare and published by Tradewest in 1993. In the game, you once again play as either two of three 'Toads, on a quest to rescue their fellow 'Toad, who has been kidnapped by the Dark Queen and taken to a virtual reality world. What's up with the Battletoads always getting kidnapped by the way? This would be like playing a TMNT game where you can only play as one of turtles trying to rescue the other three. It's kind of lame and one of my constant complaints with all of the Battletoads games (except Battletoads/Double Dragon where you can *finally* play as all three Battletoads).

Other than that, the game is a pretty solid beat 'em up, although with all of the bullshit and cheap difficulties one comes to expect from a Battletoads game - and yes, that means the treacherous speeder bike zone that halted the progress of many a child in the original NES game. They actually have the nerve of smashing the speeder bike level with a bonus level where you are riding a checker piece across a giant chessboard. So while you're trying to keep your eyes from falling out of your head from that level, now you're expected to ride the speeder bike! Give me a break!

One of the few earliest memories I have of being disappointed in a game was when I played Battletoads/Double Dragon back in 1993. As a fan of both properties at the time, the concept of them teaming together was mindblowing and I could not wait to play this game. What I ended up getting was an incredibly cheap, difficult slog.

The game's story begins with a mysterious ship entering Earth's orbit, alerting the Battletoads, who insist that they they cannot repel this attack without the assistance of Earth's mightiest martial artists - the Lee brothers!

Before you begin the game, you can choose which 'Toad or which Lee brother you want to fight as, which is a welcome option seeing as how you're stuck with whatever default 1st player character you get in both Battletoads and Double Dragons. Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter who you pick as they all control the same and don't really have any special moves or stats to make them distinct, which is a huge point in the minus column for this game. Everyone knows a proper brawler by this point should feature characters with distinct attacks and strengths/weaknesses - hell, even Jaleco grokked this concept. So Tradewest/Rare's decision to slack on that aspect makes the game feel as woefully dated as the first Double Dragon game.

That isn't to say the battle mechanics is bad per say, just very stiff and very cheap insofar as it goes when enemies stun lock you into oblivion. This brings me to another issue with the game - it's way too difficult and cheap. If you spam the ram attack (or in the Lee brother's case, running jump kick), you can make it through the first three stages or so, but once you get to the platforming sections of the game, say good night Gracie. Also, no surprise, you get only three continues before it's game over.

In the game's favor, I will say the soundtrack is pretty great. I absoluteness love the pulse pounding intro music, which sounds like something from Def Leppard. Then the first stage music is a nice mellow 90s-as-fuck tune.

Axelay, developed and published by Konami in 1992, is both a top-down shooter and a side scrolling shoot 'em up, which already makes a unique game in my mind. Another aspect that makes it unique is the top down portions utilize the Super Nintendo's Mode 7 chip, making it feel somewhat 3Dish.

The story is the usual "aliens invade and your ship is the only thing that can stop them" fare, although the game does a great job of telling the story cinematically in its intro. You beat back the alien horde with the choice of three different styles of weapons, which you can equip at the beginning of each stage and switch between with the shoulder pads as you play.

Axelay is pretty decent shooter, and probably one that doesn't get nearly as much love as it should. That might be due to its brutal difficulty. You get only three lives and four continues to make it through the challenging onslaught of aliens. Personally, though I gave it my best try, I couldn't even get past the first stage (although I probably could if I played the game more rather than get frustrated and rage quit).

Aladdin, developed and published by Capcom in 1993, is one of those games I was obsessed to play back when it first released. I was a huge fan of the movie, and was envious of my Sega Genesis friends who got to play Aladdin for that system (which looked amazing to me, despite being a die-in-the-wool Nintendo kid).

So I was excited to get an Aladdin game for the Super Nintendo, and was doubly excited it was actually good! You play as the titular character, and the game's story follows pretty closely with the movie's, except for an odd bit of filler where you must pursue Abu through an Egyptian pyramid, I guess because the game come in too short? Either way, I guess I can't complain about more of a good game.

Unlike the Sega version, Aladdin is not equipped with a sword (unfortunately), but instead throws apples at enemies to stun them before jumping on their heads to take them out. It works fine, and the tight controls make it functional. Still a sword would have been... cooler. You navigate through the levels, always going right, collecting gems and occasionally a golden scarab that opens a bonus wheel at the end of the stage where you can win extra lives, continues, or health.

A couple of posts back in my Soul Blazer review, I mentioned my brother having bought a SNES reproduction cartridge full of 120 roms. I am going to attempt to review all of them here, leaving out games I have already covered or rom hacks that were included in the cart.

First up is A.S.P. Air Strike Patrol, developed by Opus and published by SETA, was released for the Super Nintendo late in its life cycle in 1995. In the game, you play as a pilot during the Gulf War and you take on a number of missions that involve finding enemy strongholds, destroying certain targets, and doing it by a certain time limit. The gameplay is isometric, which leads me to my first and most major complaint - the controls are *terrible*. Trying to get your plane to simply turn feels like a struggle, meanwhile you're being hammered by enemy projectiles and missiles. Also, good luck mounting much of an offense with these controls as well. I spent most of the first mission frantically firing missiles at my targets before limping off the map to repair my jet (which costs you time).

Speaking of the map, that's my second complaint - the map sucks. I was grateful to even have one, but your position is not indicated on the map, making you spend most of the mission just trying to properly orient yourself, but you'll most likely accidentally fly off the map entirely, costing you precious mission time.

When I was a kid, Ninja Gaiden was a revelation of storytelling in gaming. Ninja Gaiden II, developed and published by Tecmo in 1990, took it to another level while also improving upon the gameplay of the original.

A year after the events in the first game, Ryu Hayabusa is attacked by thugs before he learns from a new ally named Robert that the minions that attacked him are commanded by a warlord named Ashtar, and that they have kidnapped Ryu's girlfriend(?) Irene.

I remember playing this game at my best friend's house and being amazed at how vastly the improvements seemed over the first game. The most noticeable change right off the bat is that Ryu can now climb walls, as opposed to the more cumbersome flip-climb. He also has some new ninja tricks up his sleeve such as a fireball that he can shoot at enemies below him (more useful than you'd imagine) and the ability to accumulate ninja clones that follow you and mirror your attacks. While the game is still difficult as fuck (as advertised on the box, though... not in those words), these new abilities definitely help to give you a much needed edge. However, it's a shame that they took away Ryu's most formidable skill from the first game - the jump slash, a move so powerful that it could 1-2 shot most of the bosses.

Ninja Gaiden II holds a special place in my heart as well because it was the first game I ever played where a character gets killed... or so I believed. At one point in the story, right as Ryu is about to save Irene, Ashtar stabs her in the back with the Dark Sword. She falls to the floor, horribly wounded, but as you find out later, she manages to survive. As a kid, this moment was SHOCKING, and I never got far enough to find that out she was okay. As far as I knew, Irene got murked and that was that.

My brother recently bought a SNES cartridge with 120 games in it from a thrift shop in Las Vegas and this game was one of them! I had always wanted to check out Soul Blazer, as well as the rest of the Quintet trilogy: Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma. Unfortunately, those two games were curiously missing from the cart, and yet it contained games like James Bond Jr, Captain Novolin, and Super Solitaire. Who was this person?

In Soul Blazer, developed and published by Enix in 1992, you play as a nameless Hero dispatched by a godlike entity known as The Master (presumably the same benevolent god from Actraiser and not the evil Time Lord from Doctor Who) to bring the world out of the ruin left by an evil being named Deathtoll. You do this by destroying monster lairs, which free the souls of the world's previous population and brings them back to life.

This premise is part of the Soul Blazer's game loop and is what makes it an interesting playthrough. Each portion of the world you visit consists of a village area that you are working to restore and a dungeon area full of monsters. The objective is to hunt down every monster until their lair is terminated, which makes another person or building appear in the village area. While some of the villagers you free are useless NPCs who thank you for saving them, others will actually help you in your quest by giving you important items or reveal the location of a secret treasure. Part of the fun of the game is checking back in with the village you are rebuilding to see what treats you may get or new areas you have unlocked.

The combat is straight forward and satisfying - just top-down, Zelda-like combat. Along the way you find new swords, armor, and magic spells that you can use to aid in your fight. The game's graphics are satisfactory, especially considering how early in the SNES's life cycle the game was released. Speaking of which, for an action RPG that came out during the Super Nintendo's first year, Soul Blazer is a damn solid title and one worth playing today if you're into these types of games.

Mario Kart 64, which released for the N64 in 1996, was one of the games I recall being hyped for with the console back then. Partly because the N64 suffered from severe game drought due to lack of decent 3rd party support, but also mostly because it was the first new Mario Kart game since the original for SNES!

I played the ever loving crap out of the game too and have a vivid memory of finally completing it, earning the alternate title screen in the process, at a friend's house during a sleepover. It's an enduring classic that I would argue is even more beloved to this day than the original game (for better or worse). But does it still deserved that adoration?

Short answer: yes, with a "but"... in that, unlike a lot of the N64 library, the graphics still mostly hold up and the gameplay is still solid... on two player mode. The single player-campaign is probably responsible for a lot of broken N64 controllers and single-handedly responsible for why those controllers are so rare today (just kidding - I know it's really because they were shoddily manufactured, terrible controllers). The reason being because the computer controlled opponents are notoriously tenacious and the game boosts their speed to always ensure they are always merely a few feet behind you no matter how many items you lob at them. It can be aggravating when you've been in the lead the entire race on a long course like Wario's Stadium, only to have 1st place stolen out from under you by the computer that you've so consistently pounded into submission with turtle shells you should have been lapping them by then. Maybe I just don't have the right temperament for racing games.

Ever since Persona 5 was originally released by Atlus in 2019, I've heard nothing but rave review after rave review. When even a video game critic like Yahtzee Croshaw, who famously (or infamously, depending on your view) hates J-RPGs, gives the game high praise, it began to be clear to me I needed to check this out.

I'm not familiar with the Persona games and am only vaguely aware of the Magami Tensei series from which the games are spun-off. However, I will change that, at least insofar as the Persona games are concerned at least, because believe the hype - Persona 5 fucking rocks!

You play as a nameless protagonist, who later adopts the codename "Joker", that is sent to a new school after getting in trouble with the law. While there, Joker discovers that he has the ability to enter the "Metaverse" (no, not Facebook's VR), which is a mirror universe that reflects the cognition of everyone in the world. Think of it as the collective unconscious made manifest. In the Metaverse, Joker can enter Palaces, which reflect the distorted desires of their owners, but if the Palace treasure is stolen, it will effectively change the personality of the Palace ruler and make them remorseful for their bad deeds. As Joker gathers more allies and friends who also have the ability to traverse the Metaverse, together they form an organization called the Phantom Thieves, whose mission is to take down evil adults who have thus far avoided punishment for their foul actions.

One of the most interesting aspects about Persona, besides it's stylistic as hell presentation (honestly, it's one of the coolest looking games I've ever played on the PS4) and it's amazing soundtrack, is how its gameplay weaves together a social simulator and J-RPG so seamlessly. You'll spend a majority of your time managing your time and balancing your social life than navigating through Palaces, but it's actually very enjoyable. It helps when the characters are so well developed and interesting. Sure, it can get a little redundant, especially considering how long the game is, but the compelling story always finds a way to keep you hooked for the long haul.

Now, as the title of this review implies, I played Royal, not the original Persona 5. As far as I can tell, the only difference seems to be additional characters and an extra Palace after beating the original final boss, leading to an extra final boss fight, but only if you manage to max out your bond with a particular character and pick the correct choices along the way. Is it worth it? Ehhh... not really. I didn't care for the extra mission, which felt superfluous and tedious. It felt like a party guest who was really fun the night before, but you wake up and they're passed out on your couch with no sign of ever waking up and leaving. I've heard that Royal also boasts some quality of life changes, like some tweaks on boss fights that were cheap or irritating in the original game, but I can't attest to that. I will say most of the boss fights aren't terribly difficult until you get to one in particular that is bullshit and believe me - you'll know which one I'm talking about when you get there (hint: it involves robots).

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for WarioWare games, not only because I love Wario as a character, but because the absurd nature of the mini... I'm sorry, "micro"... games appeals to me. I'll always remember the first time playing a WarioWare game was Smooth Moves for the Wii at a party. I was the only person playing or paying attention the game, but I was having a ball and laughing my ass off at the humor. Meanwhile, everyone else around me was drinking and getting laid. Go figure.

When the first Mario + Rabbids game was announced, gamers everywhere rolled their eyes at the prospect of Nintendo's most iconic characters meeting up with Ubisoft's equivalent of the Minions. What could this possibly be other than an abominable attempt at cross licensing not unlike the mediocre Mario & Sonic Olympic game?

Imagine everyone's surprise when Kingdom Battle turned out to be a fantastic turned-based tactics RPG! Oh sure, it sucked that you were forced to use Rabbids characters in your team and it was weird to see Mario using a gun (albeit a sci-fi zapper that looked like a futuristic price gun), but the gameplay was solid, decently challenging despite also being "baby's first tactical game", and often times fun! So a sequel was a no brainer.

Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope, developed and published by Ubisoft, was released last year for the Switch and picks up a little later after the events of the first game. The Rabbids are getting settled living in the Mushroom Kingdom when suddenly everyone is attacked by a hostile intergalactic entity named Cursa, who is hunting powerful beings known as Sparks. Fearing what may result should Cursa get what they want, Mario and company blast off on a galactic adventure to save the Sparks and stop Cursa's evil designs.

While the core gameplays remains the same, there have been some changes, with the biggest one being the addition of the aforementioned Sparks. Whenever you save one, you can equip them to a character to grant them an extra ability to use in battle. Equipping the appropriate Sparks for every battle can mean the difference between victory and defeat, as most enemies are vulnerable to certain elemental attacks that Sparks can provide. Sparks can also provide certain defensive or healing boosts that can make all the difference.

Other improvements include a better overworld system that isn't as much of a pain in the ass to traverse as the first game and the elimination of gridbased movement in favor of every character having a certain range of movement. While all of this improves the quality of life for the game, don't think for a minute it makes the game easier. Sparks of Hope still has enough of a difficult edge to give the battles a satisfying challenge, especially the optional "Golden Pipe" bosses, which you can unlock on each world after collecting a certain amount of Sparks. There are also plenty of side quests, which involve battles that have different conditions for victory that aren't always necessarily defeating all of the enemies. There are some battles like the "Survival" fights (my least favorite) where you have to survive endless waves of enemies for a certain amount of rounds.

I will say that it took awhile for the game's charm to hook me, as I struggled at first to get into it. To be fair, I was completely consumed with playing Persona 5 Royal at the same time as I started this, but nevertheless it still took me a little while to get into it. I was also shocked by how buggy the game is. There were a couple of instances where the game locked up midbattle, causing me to have to restart, which is infuriating when you're this close to sewing up a particularly difficult fight. It didn't happen often, but it happened enough to surprise me considering Nintendo is usually known for nothing if not the polish of their games (although I am aware that Ubisoft made the game, but still, you'd think Nintendo would have insisted on rigorous quality control).

Overall, if you liked the first game, you'll probably enjoy this one as well!

Ristar, developed and published by Sega in 1995, features an anthropomorphic star who travels the galaxy to rescue his legendary hero father from the clutches of an evil alien named Greedy.

Ristar's main move is that he can stretch his arms in most any direction, to grab objects, ladders, or even enemies, who he can then viciously headbutt with his star face. Occasionally bars will appear that allow Ristar to twirl in a circle and release with such force he flies around the screen, bouncing off walls with temporary invincibility until his momentum runs out. Disappointingly, there's not much else in the way of power-ups or moves that Ristar can do. I wish at least one of the moves in his arsenal was to run, as his laid back walk can feel a bit too slow at times.

Doomsday Warrior, developed and published by Laser Soft in 1992, is a terrible, bland fighting game attempting to capitalize from the popularity of Street Fighter II. In it you play as one of seven... Doomsday warriors...? The main protagonist is "Sledge", who looks like a hybrid of Ken from Street Fighter and Ryo from Art of Fighting. The only story I can discern from the game is that you are a warrior of Earth, attempting to thwart an evil sorcerer named... Main. Ugh.

God, and I thought it was bad when my dad, tasked with renting Street Fighter II for SNES, accidentally rented Tuff E Nuff when I was a kid. At least he didn't come home with this piece of shit. I knew I was in trouble when the title of the game laboriously zooms in from the background no music or fanfare whatsoever. Besides the generic presentation, terrible characters, and lack of story, the worst aspect of Doomsday Warrior are the awkward controls. There's a button for jumping, instead of simply pressing up like in competent fighting games. The shoulder buttons are devoted to blocking, instead of simply pressing back, which you will do out of reflex because, outside of Mortal Kombat, that is how you expect the controls for every fighting game to be.

The frame rate is also kinda crappy, making the controls feel even more clunky than they already are.

The one point I will give in Doomsday Warrior's favor is how you are able to use any leftover health after a fight to improve your character's stats. That's a kind of neat idea, although probably not altogether practical for a fighting game.

So I'm in the middle of playing Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (review pending), when I get a notification on my Switch that the NES Online has updated. Despite being burned so many times before, I'm a sucker when it comes to immediately wanting to see what the new update for any of these retro services. I boot up the ol' NES Online, click on the new game, and it's... Xevious. I've never heard of it, and from the look of the box, it's a top down shooter. "Okay, well, maybe it's fun..." I think.

No. No, it's not fun.

Xevious (or Xevious: The Avenger, as it also goes by) was released by Bandai for the NES in 1984, is a port of the arcade game. In it, you play a starship fighting off an alien horde over an environment that looks like it was made on Microsoft Paint. The enemies are generic, there are never any bosses, and your only weapons are dual projectiles and a bomb for ground enemies. There are no powerups and no other levels besides Microsoft Paint land, that goes on until you die, max out your points, or you quit the game out of boredom. The latter scenario is the most likely.

Slay the Spire, developed by Mega Crit Games, was released in 2017 and is a deckbuilding roguelike dungeon crawler. You play as one of four warriors that you can eventually unlock who want to, well, slay the spire? I guess? The story is rather vague and not terribly relevant, as the excellent, addictive gameplay absolutely supersedes it.

There are three main areas of the Spire and you must plot out your course through them using a helpful map. Along the way you'll encounter a variety of enemies, all of whom drop gold, sometimes a potion, and a choice of three cards to add to your deck. It's up to you make sure your deck is balanced offensively and defensively before taking on each area's boss. Along the way you'll also encounter merchants; campfires where you can choose between healing or upgrading a card; or mystery encounters that vary from being a scenario to an enemy that you must fight.

Like I said above, Slay the Spire is a FANTASTIC game. I played the mobile version, which is probably the perfect way to play it as the touch screen controls suit it well and it's a great way to kill time without getting too invested. The game is very challenging, and overcoming the real boss and getting the real ending is nigh impossible. There's just too many aspects of gameplay that rely on pure chance and luck. If I have any other critiques, it's that the graphics suck - I personally hate the cheap Flash animation look of the game. It's what kept me from playing it for so long. I understand it's just an easier, more accessible way to handle animation and graphics but it also looks like shit. So there's that.

Chained Echoes, developed by Matthias Linda and published by Deck13 across all platforms in 2022, is a loving homage to J-RPGs of the past, such as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Xenogears, but with it's own spin.

The story takes place on a fictional continent named Valandis, which is enjoying a tenuous peace for the first time in years after enduring brutal intercontinental wars between rival kingdoms. However, when a powerful weapon capable of leveling whole cities is discovered by the powerful kingdom of Tormund, tensions rise with a new war for dominance on the horizon. Of course, not everything as it seems, and as the story progresses, you find out that a more existential and ancient threat is pulling the strings.

When I started Chained Echoes, at first I was worried it would pay homage to the abovementioned RPGs to the point of being derivative. However, it doesn't take long before it paves its own way, with a dense, but not overly complex, story of political intrigue, forging one's own fate, and redemption. The characters are well realized, even if I thought the main character, Glenn, was a bit of an insufferable wiener.

The combat system is interesting, utilizing what's called an "Overdrive", which is set up as a meter that steadily increases with each action that is taken by both your party and the enemy. The ideal strategy is to keep it in the green, the benefits of which being that you save TP, or "Tech Points", whenever you use skills. If the meter goes into the red, though, it can be a disaster as enemy damage then doubles. I've had many a battle go south because I wasn't paying attention to the Overdrive meter, it went red, and I got wiped out by an area attack. It can be easy to get swept up by the fight and let the overdrive go out of control, which brings an interesting dynamic to the battle. Sometimes you'll need to heal your party, but if you do, it'll put you in the red! It definitely forces you to make interesting choices.

That being said, my only critique is how the game highly encourages you to use skills, rather than normal attacks, which make normal attacks kind of... pointless. Maybe it throws me off because I'm so used to primarily using normal attacks and reserving my magic or skills for tougher fights so that I don't deplete my tech points. In Chained Echoes, though, your HP and TP Is refilled after every battle, whether you win or run away, so there's no reason to conserve energy. It took some getting used to, but I eventually got the hang of it.

I do really like the level up system, which amounts to getting something called "Grimoire Shards" after every boss fight which unlock either new skills or stronger stats. You also get points after every fight that you can use to upgrade your skills, but the benefit of this system is it gets rid of the need to level grind!

The graphics of the game are a throwback to 16-bit RPGs of yore, which is nice, but it often felt like I was playing a mod of Stardew Valley, which was a little distracting. Also, the movement of my characters felt so floaty and the environments lacked texture. It's hard to explain, but something about the graphics just wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as I usually find pixel art graphics to be.

There's also a point in the game where you start your own clan and have to build up membership by recruiting new members. I hope a sequel will build on this concept and give you more clan management options, as that would be a fun diversion from the normal gameplay.