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Saturday Morning Scrutiny: Captain N: The Game Master (Season 1)
Back in the 8-bit era of video games, a lot of imagination was required to fill the gaps between a game’s box art, and the low-detail, pixelated mess that was on screen. Even the box art wasn’t always reliable. Mega Man’s North American box seemed to imply that the title character was a helmeted, middle-aged man in the midst of…
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Review – Dragon Warrior III
It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t so long ago that I didn’t think I could possibly get through a late 8-bit JRPG without, I don’t know, lapsing into a coma from boredom. I wasn’t a fan of the genre at its best, so I certainly wasn’t going to be able to get through a game from a more archaic…
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Review – Legacy of the Wizard
The NES library is rather cluttered with obscure, Metroid-like sidescrollers contained within interconnected worlds, from Goonies 2 to Rygar, and I’m still surprised by how often I turn over a rock and come across a new one. Legacy of the Wizard was something I bought years ago with the intention of playing immediately, only to have it languish on my…
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Review – Sin & Punishment
Every once and a while, you may hear me gush about Japanese developer Treasure, creators of such treats as Gunstar Heroes and Ikaruga. None of their games crack the loose inventory of my favourite games, but every time I play one, I’m always stricken by the sheer imagination that’s always on display. They’re weird, but not necessarily in a quirky…
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Review – Yume Penguin Monogatari
While we got some decent Konami games over here in North America, we didn’t get to see the sort of brand unity that they had in Famicom. We really got ripped off, not seeing a hair of the Ganbare Goemon series until the SNES, never really getting a look at Parodius, and even getting snubbed for Gradius II. I’d have…
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Review – Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes
I can’t account for my fascination with the character of Travis Touchdown. He’s a womanizing, awkward, selfish, and overall pathetic character, but I find him difficult to fully hate. Even in terms of his characterization, he’s inconsistently written to the point where it’s sometimes hard to peg whether his pseudo-intellectual musings on the topic of bloodlust are sincere, or just…
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Review – Super Dodgeball
I absolutely love the Kunio-Kun series. Over here, we got about 5 titles on the NES, all confusingly branded differently, whereas over in Japan, they got about a dozen, all confusingly branded differently. The unified artstyle, the cartoonish violence; the Kunio-Kun series is a special series for me for quite a few reasons. Super Dodgeball is also pretty special to…
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Review – Resident Evil 2 (2019 Remake)
Things have changed a lot with me since Resident Evil 2 on the N64 was giving me nightmares in grade school. What I once viewed as a thrilling and tantalizing mystery that drove my imagination into dark territory, I can now see as the hilariously campy schlock it is. The plausible reality of a zombie virus now feels like the…
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Review – Silent Hill
I think this was, like, my third attempt to complete Silent Hill. I was, for a time, a giant wuss when it came to horror games, but a few years ago, something clicked and now I find that games can’t frighten me. I’ve had a sudden craving to play old horror games, so I thought it would be a good…
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Review – Onimusha: Warlords (2019 Remaster)
Around the time of Onimusha Warlord’s release, I was still firmly a Nintendo Fangirl. It would be a few years before I finally branched out and embraced all games, regardless of what filthy console they’re played on. I saw Onimusha’s commercials frequently enough at the time that it stuck in my mind, but I never played it. Years later, I…
