Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

Oh... I've heard @Ralizah.

There's that one purple haired lady with the huge... tracts of land from that confusing mess (to me) that is the second lot of 3DS games. She seemed to get the brunt of the complaints from what I remember 😅

You have a point @KratosMD in that people should at least try any and all games before judging them... Especially for something like Death Stranding.

But people who weren't so hot about Sword and Shield are already ardent fans as it's been pretty much talked to death about already... I'd genuinely be surprised if there was any new fans whom were put off by the lead up to it's release from stuff like Dexit or reycled animations (which wouldn't really affect them in the slightest)

Maybe it's the cynic in me, the fact I'm more tepid about Sw/Sh anyway and maybe still a little raw about recent events that has me thinking negatively at the moment... But most of 'em would have a very similar number of pokemon games under their belt to me or you and I'd be shocked if SW/Sh really felt or plays any differently to the other games in the series.

I think with that much pokemon played you can quite easily make a rational and informed descision (I know most of the vitrol hasn't been so level headed sadly) that Sw/Sh aren't for you from footage and other people's thoughts post release.

Hell I'll admit that my initial reasoning for not wanting to play gen 5 and went off the series was a far more shallower reason (thougg considering the nature of the games it kinda isn't) of all the new pokemon looked flat out terrible to me in Black/White.

I did end up giving it a chance though years later (the list in my post was the order I played the games in if you didn't realise) and I ended up loathing it for reasons besides the naff pokes that I've already got into a number of times!

So... I guess I disagree to a point about your view that people really need to play Sw/Sh before making an opinion as the only people I've really ragging on it are life-long fans and it's pretty much what they've already experienced at least 3-4 times over...

... Certainly doesn't warrant any of the abuse or incessant wailing that's been happening though beforehand mind!

But that's just my opinion Kratos and I do get and agree with the spirit of yours for the most of it! For pretty much anything else, like your Death Stranding example, I'd flat out agree that it must be played to be believed

I am genuinely happy for you that Sword and Shield have rekindled your love of Pokemon! I wish I felt so estatic about it!

@KratosMD I kinda disagree with this logic. Trailers, pre-release information and reviews are useful for determining whether someone will like a game or not. It would be silly for someone to spend money on a game to see whether it's good if they don't think they'll like it.

The "should buy a game before having an opinion about it" logic just feels biased towards the positive opinions, as only the people that want the game will naturally buy it. If people don't want a game because of whatever reason, such as lack of content, or it looks boring, or there are some ridiculous microtransactions, or it was released in a buggy mess, then that's fine.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy lol Camilla was one of the few redeeming things about the Fates games. She's essentially the medieval fantasy anime version of Jessica Rabbit, and she's a princess who wields an axe and rides a Wyvern. Ridiculous? Sure. But still awesome.

Birthright was just sort of average, imo. It was Conquest and its inane narrative/character development that really drove the bus off the cliff, so to speak. I was put off enough by it that I never even bothered playing Revelations (the third campaign), which a friend tells me is somehow even worse in the writing department. From what I remember, IS brought in a manga writer to craft the plot of the three storylines, which was apparently a mistake, because, at its best, the writing is merely average, and at its worst, it's AGGRESSIVELY bad.

Thank god Three Houses came along and restored respectability to the franchise!

Title: Mega Man Legacy Collection

Platform: Nintendo Switch

What is it? A collection that contains all of the NES Mega Man games (that's Mega Man 1 - 6) along with extra features, modes, and bonus content.

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While I've never been what one would consider to be a Mega Man superfan, it has occupied a presence, off and on again, throughout my life. As a child, I was taken with Mega Man 3 on the NES. Mega Man 8 and X4 were among my first games purchased for the PS1. Over the years, I've played games in the series sporadically, often not finishing them, but at least tasting their flavor. I often told myself that the big thing keeping me from completing the games was the fact that most of them were only primarily playable on TV-tethered home consoles. Once ports of the collections were announced for the Switch, then, I knew it was time for me to give the series a proper run-through. Starting with the first game.

The original Mega Man is a reasonably rough production all around nowadays, and hasn't aged nearly as well as the game's sequels have. The menus, backgrounds, and whatnot are incredibly basic looking; there's a number tracking the player's "score," which seems to be a vestigial feature explained by Capcom's origins as a developer of arcade games; there are only six Robot Masters as opposed to the traditional eight found in future entries; Wily's Castle isn't really its own fully formed set of themed stages yet; the weapon upgrades you obtain from the Masters aren't useful through most of the rest of the game; and, worst of all, the levels are often plagued with frustrating and unfair design flaws that make the game a chore to complete.

Take Guts Man's level, for example. There's a notoriously difficult mechanic in this level where you have to jump onto moving platforms that travel back and forth along a rail of sorts. But there are gaps in the rail that make the platform dump whatever is on it until the gap is passed. The problem with this is that you have to time the moment of your jump almost perfectly, or you'll fall to your death before the platform rises back up and is able to hold weight again. I've tried to pinpoint the emotion that I feel when I try to perfectly time those jumps on the platforms, only for them to drop the second Mega Man's feet touch them, or for Mega Man to plunge to his death a split-second before the platform raises again, immediately robbing me of a life. Different words capture aspects of the feeling: frustration; anger; disappointment; unfairness. But there's still an aspect of the emotional experience missing. I think I've settled on this: these platforms make me feel like the Peanuts character Charlie Brown when he goes to kick the football, only for Lucy to yank it away at the last moment.

I tried jumping on that bottom platform...

I feel the need to point out one particular boss that made my time with the game a bit of a nightmare before I figured out how to deal with him. Near the end of the game, as you're chasing Doctor Wily, you'll encounter a boss called the Yellow Devil. This thing just sucks. He gives you barely any time to attack him before he splits his body and flings the pieces at you from across the other side of the screen. Rinse and repeat. Good luck beating this broken POS without using the thunder beam pause glitch!

With that said, despite the simplistic and sometimes aggravating nature of the original game, it must be granted that, for whatever its flaws may be, it got most of the basics of Mega Man right the first time.

Now we come to Mega Man 2, which is often regarded as one of the best games in the series and a classic of the action-platforming genre on the NES. While it's probably worth pointing out that a big part of this reputation comes from the game being such a massive step up from the original (and, in that respect, any subsequent game in the series would have impressed had it been called "Mega Man 2"), I don't think nostalgia from mid-to-late-thirties NES owners is entirely responsible for the game's legendary status in the industry.

One of the best innovations of Mega Man 2 was making the zone between boss gates short and free of enemies. It gave players a space to rest and prepare themselves for the battle ahead (unlike MM1, where the boss gates are longer and feature challenges/enemies before unceremoniously dropping you right in front of the level's boss).

Levels themselves are simply far more fun and well-designed than they were in Mega Man 1 and, just like every other way, Mega Man 2's more accessible platforming and explicitly themed levels were clearly the reference point future entries adopted for their own levels. It's probably worth pointing out that, in a notoriously difficult series, Mega Man 2 is probably the easiest entry in the entire series. Which isn't to say that it doesn't have its own difficulties, or that first time players won't struggle with it. But, going back and playing these games, Mega Man 2 was almost unique in how consistently free of aggravation it was, aside from a few specific levels and bosses (which I'll detail later).

Probably the biggest boon of this game over subsequent entries is that it's perfectly paced. You complete eight stages, one for each Robot Master, then go on to challenge Wily's Castle, which forms its own set of stages, complete with bosses utterly unlike what you fought before. Afterward, you have rematches against each of the eight previously defeated Robot Masters before going on to fight Doctor Wily. In a brilliant touch, there's a short, empty level, inserted purely for atmosphere, before you fight the final boss. It's a satisfying structure that makes you feel like you've gone on a journey of sorts. Importantly, though, it's just the right length for a single playthrough. When you know what you're doing, Mega Man 2 often taken just under an hour to complete. This, combined with the lack of constant frustration in the various levels, makes this a game that almost begs to be replayed over and over.

Lots of blur as Metal Man throws his saw-like Metal Blades at me.

I want to mention a particular weapon in this game: the Metal Blade. While I should probably mark it down as a negative, considering how overpowered it is compared to everything else in the game, it has to be said that this weapon, which you unlock by defeating Metal Man (who is the easiest boss in the game), is arguably the funnest weapon in the entire series. It's unbalanced in the same way that the whip in Super Castlevania IV was unbalanced: it's so versatile and fun to use that you don't want to use anything else through the rest of the game.

While the Mega Man series has been known for its catchy stage tunes, MM2 really is on the top of the pile in that regard. While its musical compositions aren't as complex as what you'd hear in most of the later NES games after Capcom figured out how to tap the full potential of the NES hardware, they're arguably some of the most iconic themes in the entire series.

Consider, for example, the theme for Wood Man's stage:

Or the CLASSIC theme that plays in the first stage of Wily's Castle:

Or consider the iconic opening: after a brief text scrawl setting the stage for the game to follow, you pan up a skyscraper, see Mega Man standing on top, hair blowing in the wind, and then the previously slow music kicks off into a fast and exciting composition:

All is not perfect, though. At least one of the stages, the one where you fight Quick Man, is pretty horribly designed. You descend from the top of the stage to the bottom while, in many sections of the stage, giant, instadeath lasers blast out from the sides of the screen to swallow up the player. The problem with this is how little time to the player is given to orient themselves before being assailed by these instadeath stage elements. Actually, in certain segments, if you aren't anticipating the proper direction to run, you'll die even if you are quick once you hit the ground. Granted, you CAN freeze these lasers with Flash Man's time-stopping weapon, but the problem here is twofold: once you activate the weapon, it freezes time until the weapon energy runs out, which makes it incredibly wasteful when you're just using it get past a particularly difficult section of the level, and, if you activate it early, you're forced to fight Quick Man without using his weakness to Flash Man's weapon unless you tediously farm for weapon recharge items in the middle of the level. It's just not a well-thought out level at all.

My big gripe, boss-wise, is with the Boo Beam Trap, one of the end-stage bosses in Wily's Castle. It's a series of wall-mounted orbs that shoot projectiles at you. The only way to damage them at all is to use the Crash Bomber weapon. Unfortunately, the Crash Bomber weapon ammunition is EXTREMELY limited, meaning it only takes one slip-up or wrongly placed bomb to run out before defeating all of the units and automatically failing the fight, wherein the game forces you to return a checkpoint beforehand and desperately scrounge for ammunition so that you can defeat the thing.

Mega Man 3 starts off well, I think, with a moodier, more intense title theme that immediately sets its identity apart from that of Mega Man 2:

I won't talk extensively about this game (or the other sequels), really. It feels, in many ways, like Mega Man 2+. It's a longer, more challenging, more visually and musically complex game than its predecessor was. It was my childhood Mega Man game and, in many ways, I do think it is better than Mega Man 2. What this game got wrong, though, and what a lot of future games got wrong was the pacing. For example, in this game, not only do you have rematches against the Robot Masters, but, in Wily's Castle, you fight against boss enemies that have attacks similar to the Robot Masters of Mega Man 2. This wouldn't be an issue if you had a similar set of weapons, but you don't know to expect this going in, and you're forced to experiment with different weapon weaknesses all over again in order to defeat these bosses that quite literally don't belong in the game. It feels like padding to make the game longer, it's frustrating, and it messes with the pacing of the adventure. Mega Man 3 is probably the most innocent offender in this regard, as future games would continue to feel more and more padded, which meant, unlike Mega Man 2, I didn't bother replaying them after finishing the game.

Mega Man 3 also started an interesting trend that would continue into the next game by making Mega Man a more versatile character. In MM1 + 2 all you could do is jump, run, and shoot. Now, I happen to think that this is all Mega Man NEEDED to be able to do in these games, and that the simplicity of his movement was a part of the charm of these games, but MM3 does something interesting by giving the Blue Bomber the ability to slide a short distance. Certain stage sections narrow into tunnels forcing Mega Man to use this ability, of course, but it's more interesting insofar as it allows the player to be more flexible when it comes to dodging enemy attacks.

One thing that should be mentioned is that Mega Man 3, in a stroke of brilliance, introduced the character of Rush to the series. Rush, of course, is Mega Man's robotic dog companion, and is known for transforming into a variety of vehicles to help Mega Man navigate through stages. Giving the generic tools from Mega Man 2 that were use to create new platforms, allow Mega Man to jump higher, etc. (which were given generic names like Item #1, Item #2, etc.) a personality and names that reflected their use was a stroke of pure brilliance. When you hear "Rush Jet," or "Rush Coil," you almost instantly know what those Rush modes do: Rush Jet turns Rush into a flying item that jets across the stage; with Rush Coil, you can bounce off of your friendly robotic companion to reach new areas you couldn't before. These functions aren't NEW, insofar as the items from Mega Man 2 accomplished the same thing, but they're easier to remember (the name Item #2 tells you nothing about what it does) and gives another chunk of the game that much more personality. Rush also gives you a new function in this game: he can turn into a submarine, which allows you to more easily and safely navigate watery environments.

Another touch I really like is that, starting in MM3, on the boss selection screen, Mega Man's face sits in the middle square of the screen, and his eyes will actually move in the direction of the boss you choose to fight. Small thing, but very cool.

Snake Man's stage is cool. The entire level is like a giant, coiled mechanical snake, and you fight these giant snake head minibosses throughout.

Other irritations I didn't mention about the previous two games:

• Sniper Joes in Mega Man 2 and Hammer Joes in Mega Man 3. It sucks having to wait for an enemy to decide to expose itself for a few seconds before it hides itself behind its shield or otherwise become invulnerable again. These encounters can often last up to 20 seconds, depending on how good you are on timing your shots. The waiting game isn't fun or challenging in any engaging sense, and it just destroys the pacing of a level.
• The Sniper Armors in Mega Man 2. These guys are huge bullet sponges and will mercilessly hop toward you. Mega Man unloads countless little buster shots into their bodies, but it almost always turns out that they'll still ram into you at least once before you're able to take them down, making the encounter infuriating all around. Considering how much damage you take from contact damage with them, it's usually better to have them shoot you and then quickly clip through them during your invulnerability window.

Mega Man 4 innovates in two ways. First, in Twilight Princess-esque fashion, it attempts to set up this entirely different character as the Big Bad of the game, Dr. Cossack (before revealing that the true bad guy was Wily at the very end, at least). Unfortunately, Dr. Cossack is very much a worse version of Wily insofar as he doesn't possess Wily's mad scientist charm (a lot of this is through his character design; he looks like a normal dude, and is missing the crazy hair and exaggerated bodily features of Wily). The other way it innovates is, again, by making another permanent change to Mega Man's arsenal of moves. From 4 on (until MM9 went back to basics, at least), Mega Man has had the ability to charge up his buster weapon. It was another smart addition to the series that expanded the range of strategies a player could adopt when beating enemies, and has also become a staple of Buster-only runs in games where's it's supported.

While it's not a bad game, by any means (especially considering the visuals and stage themes and layouts continue to become more complex and interesting), the game's Robot Masters and weapons are forgettable, and the game's pacing continues to grow more bloated.

Pharaoh Man's stage is a highlight of MM4: large sections of it are set in an underground tomb with robotic mummy enemies. Very creative and thematically appropriate.

Starting with Mega Man 4 a bit, but becoming more prominent in 5 and 6, was the sense that the formula was becoming stale. This is particularly true in these last two NES games as the series started struggling to figure out how to change things up without messing with the golden formula that made the series so legendary in the first place. The series kept adding content to bulk the games up, adding setpieces to make levels feel more unique, adding collectibles and unlockable paths and secrets and whatnot in an attempt to make these new games feel like an upgrade. But, in some respect, this piling on of complexity betrayed what made Mega Man 2 (and 3, to a lesser extent, so fun in the first place). The games were becoming too complex and bloated with gimmicks and mechanics as the series attempted to stick close to a pre-established design (Capcom would later very successfully innovate on this formula with Mega Man X and blow it up completely with the entirely unique Mega Man Legends).

They're, again, not bad games. Mega Man 5 is one of the best-looking games on the NES and features some very cool level ideas. Mega Man 6's rush adapters (which turns Rush into different forms of equippable armor that, for example, allow your attacks to do more damage at the cost of some speed, or allow you to fly) are a very cool mechanical addition to that game. But the games feel like they're striving for something new to do. They're not organically evolving because Capcom was scared to stray from its pre-established formula.

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Over time, one of the biggest discoveries I made regarding Mega Man, and which has sort of lessened my interest in the series as a whole since, is that I really find the process of figuring out what order to beat the bosses in to be obnoxious. This is a problem on multiple fronts for me. If I go in blind and just test out bosses, hoping to discover the one that is weak to my default buster shot, it becomes an exercise in wasted time and frustration: bosses are often so challenging and they take so little damage from my default weapon (unless, of course, they're the fabled gateway boss that's weak to the default weapon) that playing the level beforehand is effectively a waste of time, considering how unlikely it is that I'll even be able to beat them. Thus begins this irritating process of fighting boss after boss, hoping to stumble upon someone who'll go down to my default weapon. Eventually, of course, I'll happen upon them, but, after gaining the new weapon, I'll be subjected to the same tedious process of elimination again.

Now, you might say: why not go online and just look up the boss order? And, indeed, I can do that. But considering the design of these games, it feels like cheating, and affects my enjoyment of the games. It's also irritating to have to constantly reference the internet when I just want to play the games themselves. Figuring out the boss order is unquestionably part of the experience, and looking that up robs me of that process of discovery. So, for me, the very design of the series is foundationally flawed.

Another issue I have in the series is the way robot master themes are often recycled. For example, in three different games, you have, respectively: Fire Man, Heat Man, and Flame Man. You have Air Man and Wind Man. Ice Man and Blizzard Man. I could go on, but you get the point: at some point, it becomes difficult to start telling all of these robot men apart from one-another. As the series went on, the Robot Master names went from generally being elemental or basic in some capacity (Fire, Metal, Ice, Elec(tricity), Bubble (water), etc.) to more specific or weird (Skull, Dust, Napalm, etc.), which made it harder to carry them in the memory.

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Regarding the collection itself, the added challenges in the Legacy Collection are more interesting in theory than in practice. In theory, they drastically increase the playtime of the game by giving you a series of challenges to master after you've completed the main games and know the level design fairly well. In my head, I pictured NES Remix-esque challenges that mixed and matched elements of the different games to create unique experiences. In practice, Capcom just took a bunch of level segments from the various games, bolted them together, and then slapped an arbitrary timer on them.

If this sounds like a good time to you, though, then you should know that using a Mega Man amiibo unlocks an additional series of challenges. It'd be cooler if the challenges themselves didn't feel like a boring, last minute addition to make the collection feel more substantive than it actually is.
There are a few optional border illustrations you can enable in each game, as well as a few different display options to choose from: the game in the original aspect ratio that’s somewhat small in handheld mode, a larger version of the image that basically maintains the ratio, and then a full screen image that stretches out the image and looks terrible (don’t do it!). You can activate “TV” or “Monitor” settings that add a bit of grain to the image (less gaudy than the scanline options in a lot of retro collections). There’s also supplemental “Museum” material such as box art scans, manual scans, concept art, etc. There’s a music player which is… what it sounds like. It’s a nice set of features: not packed to the gills with supplemental stuff, but hardly barebones, either.

Also worth mentioning is the “Turbo” CPU option that presumably removes slowdown from the game. I’ve often found these unforgiving NES games feel like they’re built with some slowdown in mind, though, so I never enabled the option.

Far and away the best feature of this collection, though, is being able to remap the controls pretty much any way you like. This allows the games to be playable across a wide range of controllers, including 8bitdo's Sega Saturn-esque M30 controller.

One other big addition that should be mentioned is the addition of a "Rewind" feature. Basically, the games allow you to rewind time at pretty much any point in the game, meaning, if you abuse the feature, you never have to face any consequences for your actions, as you can undo them immediately. This is similar to a feature in Nintendo's own NSO NES/SNES catalogues, which also allow the player to go back in time whenever they wish to fix mistakes.

On one hand, I suppose this totally alleviates any of the frustration associated with cheap deaths in the game. On the other hand, if death is meaningless, then so is any sense of challenge associated with it, or the sense of achievement that comes from besting a difficult boss or area. I wouldn't mind it being an unlockable thing, but I'm not sure how I feel about this being easily accessible with a button press.

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Conclusion: The games vary in quality, but, if you’re looking the best way to re-experience these classic games, the Legacy Collection is the way to do it.

I won't bother rating the individual games, but this collection gets a 9/10 for its superior features and functionality.

That was a read and a half! Now I know what it's like when I put down one of my reviews!

Rather nice read as usual @Ralizah

... There's some seriously unthreatening villians there though like Pharaoh Man, Bubble man, Plant man, Gyro man...

But Top Man? Ooh err! I wouldn't wanna meet him in a dark alley! 😅

Snake man sounds dumb as a villain too but that level design sounds/looks really fun and unique!

Plus there's good music there. The Dr Wily Stage one and the Mega Man 3 theme are pretty nice!

Confession time though.

I've never played a Mega man game in my life... In fact the only thing I know about it is Mighty No' 9 is a pure junk version of it!

Ok I know the american versions had awful box art and it's got a different name in Japan? That's really it for my knowledge on it though... still ya learn something new everyday!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I knew the post would be a bit of an epic once the Google Keep document I was writing it in started warning me of an imminent upcoming character limit. But having the freedom to post giant, rambling memoirs about the video games we've played is why this thread exists in the first place.

Oh yeah, the Mega Man games are really quite goofy, when you get down to it. Top Man looks like a robotic monkey with a top on his head who flies up in the air and shoots top projectiles at you. The level before him is filled with enemies who shoot tops at you and spinning top platforms you have to jump across! He's always my first stop in that game because of how simple the stage is and how easy he is to fell with the default buster weapon.

One thing I'm liking about the Inti Creates-developed Mega Man games in the second collection is how explicitly they lean into this heavily tongue-in-cheek aspect of the series.

The American box art for the first two games is NOTORIOUSLY bad, although it improves by the time Mega Man 3 releases.

Compare:

and:

Versus:

The American illustrators took the "Man" part of the title too literally. He looks like run down middle-aged dude in ridiculous 60's sci-fi cosplay in the covers for the first two games (and, for some reason, he's straight up packing heat in both). His face is still a bit... ech... in the box art for MM3, but it's still a dramatically more accurate illustration.

EDIT: Looking at the second game's cover, Dr. Light is either hiding behind Crash Man or is rubbing his thighs. I'm not sure which.

Yup... That american Mega Man one cover is just as awful as I remembered it @Ralizah 😂

The europe box art for the first is a fair bit better but...

I have no idea what the hell they were thinking for megaman 2! That's disastrous! He's got a bowling pin for an arm! And he's silver too for some reason! As for the random floating cat face... I'm truly stumped 😁

At least in the american version it's nicely drawn and coloured aside from him being a late 30's guy in some cheap looking costume...

I look forward to the next MegaMan collection review... You piqued my interest on the next collection leaning on the goofier side of things and the whole series in general...

Man, I COMPLETELY forgot to mention the Rewind feature in the collection. Had to go back and edit in a discussion of that, making the whole post that much longer.

@RogerRoger Thanks! I actually had your posts in mind when writing this: I enjoy how they're about your personal, subjective experiences with the games you play, and a bit of that approach (I don't really possess your knack for imbuing words with an omnipresent wit) seemed more appropriate for old games that really don't benefit from a more dispassionate analysis.

It's undeniable that, in many respects, the instant accessibility and gratification we can obtain from the internet robs certain aspects of life of a mystique and performative comfort. When I was little and had to buy strategy guides to uncover hidden things in games I liked, it definitely had a charm to it. It was the product of personal investment and passion. It was research. I couldn't go on Youtube and find a thousand people showing off every single inch of the game in question.

I do think this is probably just a universal reaction to growing older and seeing the the world change around you, though. I imagine that, when air travel first became accessible to the public, it probably felt like it was robbing domestic and international travel of some of its charm as well. It used to take days, weeks, or months to get to far-off places, but now everywhere was accessible within periods of hours or days! The sense of a personal journey had sort of evaporated. But I doubt any of us would seriously go back to a pre-air travel world if given the choice. And, in the same way, while I have hazy, rosy feels associated with my childhood, when the net was younger and convenience wasn't the order of the day, I'm... not sure I'd want to go back to a pre-modern internet era. It's almost unthinkable, really. That week or two every year when I go on a digital sabbatical with my family... it's fun, but not having access to the internet for immediate answers to my questions makes me feel like I'm missing some vital part of my body.

With that said, when it comes to my hobbies, I don't mind occasionally giving in to my nostalgia, when time and the tools available allow. If I had the strategy guide for a game, I'd absolutely pour over that instead of bothering with GameFAQs or Youtube. And this is also a big reason why I often play games on their original hardware. Emulation is an amazing thing, but there's nothing that replaces the experience of actually playing an old game on the hardware it was originally built to be played on.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Those covers are lovely. You're right, the...silver?...bomber in that box art for the second game straight up has a bowling pin for an arm. I mean, I can see what it's supposed to be, but I can't unsee the bowling pin. It really makes you wonder if these illustrators even knew anything about the games they were doing the box art for. Although it's so out of touch that there's a quaint charm to it all. Probably why the digital promo art for 9 and 10 are done in a similar style.

In fairness to those pieces of box art, though, Mega Man at least has an arm cannon. He's not just some middle-aged dude with a handgun, like in the American covers.

The second collection will be an easier time to talk about. They're more modern (1 SNES game, 1 PS1 game, and two PS3/360/Wii era games) and are pretty radically different from each-other in terms of game design (not always to their benefit, but at least they won't kind of blend together in my mind like the later NES Mega Man games).

Been reading the reviews I've missed the past few weeks. Brilliant work everyone who's posted, I've enjoyed reading them all - particularly ones about games I've haven't played.

@Thrillho Guacamelee 2 is very enjoyable and doesn't take itself too seriously. I really liked the opening "recap" of the final boss fight from the first game with the Symphony of the Night references. However, at times it felt like the game maybe piled too many ideas on the already intricate puzzle-platforming, with a lot of things to keep track of. This was largely in the optional areas so maybe I was a masochist for doing them.

@KratosMD Nice one mate. I don't have much of a viewpoint on Pokémon Shield just yet and know that for some fans it seems to be a controversial entry. I've just reached the Wild Area and am liking the presentation and music thus far. The music doesn't sound like something you'd typically expect from Pokémon, so that's been a very nice surprise. I also like the new Pokémon so far. The fox one and psychic geometric ladybird are cute.

@Ralizah Brilliant and informative Mega Man review. Missed the collection in the recent PSN sale unfortunately, but it is reduced quite often. I don't have much of a personal history with Mega Man as I was a SEGA kid, and although I've wanted to get into the franchise for some time it's one of those gaming things I've never got round to. His inclusion in Smash Bros. has definitely resparked my interest in the character; it's been great learning from your review what entries his Smash Bros. moves have been borrowed from.

Going back a little further The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince has rather stunning art. Knowing me I probably would tear up!

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Another really informative and fascinating review. Soul Reaver sounds pretty amazing for its time.

@RogerRoger I'm not much of a Beer drinker so think I'll be drinking pineapple juice when I eventually get to the Star Wars party. 😂 Neat Bond reviews too!

Batman: The Telltale Series

Like I said..

Completion: 100% with the platinum as aways in Telltale games. Probably around 8 hours total.

Standard Bats moodiness

Gameplay: If you've played a Telltale game before, you know what you're getting with the standard four option dialogue choices and occasional two option big decision.

As is often the case, it does feel like most of these decisions don't actually make that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. I think there was only one main decision which affects things as you choose which villain to go after (but then swiftly dispatch the other in the next episode anyway) but the one you choose to go after does have a meatier bit of gameplay to it.

Cliche bar brawl scene

Combat is obviously a big part of a Batman game and features quite heavily here. The vast majority of this is still via quicktime events but you can mess up (or simply not bother pressing anything) in about 90% of cases and the action still happens anyway; the rest will just make you replay the scene.

The one unique part to the combat in this game is that a few scenes allow you to plan your attack beforehand. This is quite cool but ultimately just lets you decide whether you're going to hit an enemy over the head with an object or throw them through a table etc. before then going into the QTEs to pull each move off.

A few scenes also see you having to link up a series of clues found in a region to figure out what is happening/has happened which works well but can get a bit annoying having to slowly walk around the area to click on one object to wander to the other object it needs to be linked to.

A highly original episode name

Story: This is the main crux of these games and it holds up pretty well. The first episode is a bit of a plodder but beyond that it's relatively engaging. I know Batman mostly through the games and recent films where the backstory is fairly well established (if mentioned significantly at all) but this game goes a bit off piste.

Obviously, the Wayne parents still get killed but in this universe Thomas Wayne is a pretty shady character who is as corrupt as many of the people Bruce is taking on This makes for a fairly unique take on the standard story and sets up a lot of what goes on in the game.

The ensemble cast includes Harvey Dent, Catwoman, Penguin, plus a few extra characters who are all a bit different to other stories I've seen them in. The acting is a little wooden and there are a few glitches in the game when it flits between a unique bit of dialogue based on your decision and then back to the main dialogue.

More lowlight moodiness

Overall: Maybe I'm just a bit bored of the Telltale setup now but I found this a bit clunky and uninspiring on the whole. The story does well enough to keep you interested but the art style feels a bit dated now, the dialogue choices feel like they don't really matter, and the QTE combat can be ignored which also makes it feel all a bit futile.

I'm glad I got this for free on PS+ a while ago but I won't be rushing to purchase the second series anytime soon.

@RogerRoger I'm looking forward to your next piece.

@Thrillho Yeah... I liked TWD when season one first released in 2011 or so, but I was very quickly over it with Telltale games. And the more time goes on, the less impressive their games seem in retrospect. I guess what I appreciated, and still appreciate, about them is showing that adventure games aren't a dead genre.

@Ralizah The Wolf Among Us is well worth your time as it's such a fun universe the game is set in. I'm gutted there won't ever be a second series.

Tales From the Borderlands is great if you're into the Borderlands games as it nails the humour perfectly and the Telltale art style works well with the Borderlands cel shading.

@Thrillho I enjoyed Batman although Telltale's games had kind of lost any surprise for me by that point. I think it depends what order you play them in. I liked Telltale's Penguin, he was quite interesting.

@Gremio108 Same here, I've got the second season to play when i fancy something a bit different.

Good job @Thrillho!

... I've never actually played a Telltale game through myself. Only tried demos for the first episodes of a few series.

Shame batman felt rather stale for you

Oh and cheers @mookysam!

Glad you enjoyed reading my Soul Reaver Review! It was quite impressive for the time indeed and it's a shame I didn't get on with it more despite that and the rather nice opening hours

S'not going to be a review seeing as I only played it for 6-7 hours and it doesn't feel quite right reviewing something I only partially played recently (the save was started over two years ago)

However I finished Demon's Souls last night, putting in an extra hour of game time to beat the remaining three bosses of Maiden Astrea, King Allant and the real King Allant inside the old one

I think it's safe to say the Souls games are probably my most played game series at this point alongside Pokémon.

• I sunk over a hundred hours in this originally when I first played it for reason's I've gone over plenty times already.
• I've played Dark Souls through twice (and I'll be getting Remastered to play it through again soon).
• Dark Souls 2 three times (The original PS3 release once, Partway through the second playthrough of the PS4 Scholar edition)
• Bloodborne twice.
• Dark Souls 3 twice.

And you know what?

Demon's is bit naff after all that.

It's ridiculously unpolished.

• Whilst there's still the nice set pieces and art direction that the Souls series are known for... there are some truly awful PS1/PS2 era textures and graphics in this that even for me are too garish to ignore.
• The balance is rather out of place with the healing items actually being rather plentiful and almost a bit too good. Especially if you're playing entirely at half health with how the tendency system is. Plus the Second chance miracle (I used it only once before dropping it) makes the game a joke with a half health auto revive.
• Whilst the Tendancy system was and is a good idea on paper... It's horribly executed. Who thought that having enemies getting a power increase whilst simultaneously lowering player health was a good idea if the player keeps dying in human form? Being at half health is a penalty enough already in soul form.
• The crystal lizard drops being random chance and only appearing five or so times before disappearing forever was a horrible descision that means your weapons are probably not gonna get upgraded to full at all unless you know where every one of those sparkly buggers are... and the upgrading system itself is again rather borked and unpolished with needing a ridiculous amount of stones.
• The enemy AI really isn't quite good at all for that matter, it's rather easy to cheese them if you like (Hell it's easy to even if you aren't) and the combat as a whole feels particularly quite clunky.

Still there is some good points.

• The Tower Of Latria (well the first part at least) is very well designed. The "Prison of Hope" is still genuinely spooky with the Cthulhu headed guards roaming the halls and the prisoners that you can't quite trust as they'll either shiv you or fall to their knees in thanks of freedom

There's some good bosses too

• Maiden Astrea (more so for the moral quandry) whom became a demon just to help and comfort the poor citizens of the valley of defilement and you either kill the mostly defenceless Saint or kill her bodyguard which causes her to give up .
• The Dragon God for all it's glorified set peicing/puzzleboss-ness is still better then the Bed of Chaos from Dark Souls (though it's way too easy),
• False King Allant is a pretty good final test.
• The Old Hero, Adjudicater, Fool's Idol and Phalanx also stand out of the earlier bosses.
• (The Old Monk was one with the whole face someone else as the boss until the servers shut down years back, the generic phantom offline is far too easy)

All in all though I'm a bit disappointed revisting this... even if I did jump back on it halfway through.

I'm actually hoping that Bluepoint aren't working on a remaster for this... or that if they are... they overhaul it completely.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yeah I was watching a youtube video of it recently and I was surprised at how shonky it looked (I've not played it since around 2011). When Bluepoint came out the other day and said it will be their "proudest achievement" it made me wonder about it. If it is Demon's Souls, then how much work have they done to make it their best remaster? It would almost have to be a different game entirely.

@Gremio108 @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Yeah I'm hoping it more like a remake than a remaster of Demon Souls. The one game in the series that I've not played due to not having a ps3.

Thanks again for all the kind words people. It felt a bit more of random thoughts for this one as there really isn't much to talk about.

@RogerRoger I am intrigued by the second part and what they do with Joker in particular but it won't be anytime soon.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy I haven't seen anything of Demon's Souls but I can't say I'm surprised it feels a bit dated now. For a first foray into such a game though, they must have got something right to be able to come back with Dark Souls. But seeing as each game would have tweaked and improved on the last (mostly), it's not surprising to hear it's a struggle to go back to.

I can't believe there was ever a Souls game that was overly generous with health though!