#ajvark

The Xbox has its own private Superman game that has not been ported elsewhere. It isn’t even backwards compatible with future Xbox consoles. And is it any good? No! … Sorry for the spoilers. Superman: The Man of Steel 2002 Circus Freak / Atari Xbox Available Superpowers: Flight (unlimited) Super Strength (lifting/punching things) Frost Breath Heat Vision X-Ray Vision Telescoping Vision Super…

If we were tackling this project before 2021, examining what was dropped since Metroid Fusion would be easy. Despite multiple Metroid titles being released since Metroid Fusion’s 2002 premiere, nearly all of those games ignored much of Metroid Fusion. The “new” Samus of Metroid Fusion was squishier than ever before, and the lack of an ice beam radically altered the heroine we all knew and loved.…

It is not a Metroid game, but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was the closest we got between 1994 and 2002. C:SotN was a curiosity and dramatic change for the Castlevania franchise at its release (or a return to the old ways). But looking at it from a historical perspective in 2024, it blazed the trail for the other half of the “metroidvania” moniker. Three years after Super Metroid,…

Here is where things get… complicated. As the story goes, Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams (aka Street Fighter Zero, the original/Japanese title that explains why all the characters are obsessed with the letter Z right from the end of the first intro) was a project that was hastily assembled from pieces of Street Fighter 2, Darkstalkers, and the Street Fighter anime. After what felt like…