Jonnas

Holy shit, that's hilarious That has to be the best Trump impression I've ever heard. Though this one comes close:

My experience with PS exclusive titles is scant, but taking a quick look at the catalogue... MediEvil is a fun romp; Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is an excellent example of PS1 weirdness; I second Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue!; Siren is a cult horror game. In case you're in the mood; Natch, Resident Evil (PS1) seems to be there as well; Patapon is a PSP game, but the recommendation stays; Not really associated with Playstation, but Garou: Mark of the Wolves is a lovely intro to fighting games, if you're interested in starting here.

This 700$ monstrosity becomes 800€ in Europe??? That's not how that works! That's not how any of this fucking works! Taking into account the state of the industry and the economy, the mere thought of launching like this is absurd. The disparity in prices between regions is an extra disgusting cherry on top. Oh, and the fact that it doesn't even stand like in its own reveal without paying extra. Fuck everything about this. I was planning to ignore the PS5 Pro (more accurately, I wasn't planning to feel anything but indifference towards it), but this has now officially crossed my personal threshold of "I hope this product fails". Geez.

I tried starting it a long time back (the GOG version, the remaster didn't exist yet), but got stuck in this one boss that... I think you're supposed to lose in a specific way? Haven't returned to it since. It's marked as "Unfinished" on my backlog, and I definitely want to go back to it someday.

Japanifornia. Glen-i already explained it pretty well, but yeah, it's fitting a round Japan peg into a square California hole. It's hilarious. Incidentally, every reference to the United States from the JP version suddenly became a reference to "Europe" or "Germany" after localisation. It's wild. Funnily enough, the first game still contains one of my favourite instances of "this was clearly written in Japan". When the characters absentmindedly forget for most of the day that the 25th of December is a special occasion. Because it's such a minor holiday, you see. Another good one is when Athena only has a vague understanding of what Saké is, because she's too European. And then the entire American court berates her for her cultural ignorance.

It's great that you're discovering such a great series, but take care not to burn yourself out. I see you've played through two of these in a row already. ...That said, if PoR is next, I hope you enjoy the weirdest variant of Marco Polo ever: Charlotte Jonathan.

Huh, I hadn't noticed before that there was a thread for this game on N-E. I'll just say: I am 110% hyped. The 1999 Garou is one of my favourite 2D fighting games ever, and to see its legacy finally continued... what a sight to behold. Every reveal leaves me giddier and giddier with anticipation. In fact, here's my favourite reveal so far: Not only did it reveal that other classic FF characters besides Terry would return, but that those returnees would also see timeskipped redesigns. Billy Kane finally ditched his iconic bandana (just like Terry ditched his iconic hat), and he's looking pretty slick to boot. Me, on the other hand, I'm very happy that Marco finally gets to have a normal name. A snazzy character like him deserves to not be forever sabotaged by a localiser's whim. And besides, you just know they're going to reveal a character called Dong any minute now

Did someone say Freedom Planet 2? ...No? Well, that's a shame. Phoenix Highway is a fun, carefree level, with a funky track playing the entire time. Shade Armory is a sting operation on a terrorist base. Blood-pumping energy. Tidal Gate is the beach episode, and the music is feel-good in its purest form I'm not saying anything about Ancestral Forge. Just listen and enjoy.

So yeah, this announcement is friggin' awesome! I expected a Capcom vs SNK collection or remaster to come at some point (these two companies have been very chummy lately, right?), and I was kind of hoping that Capcom would do a "3D fighting games" collection at some point... But combining the two concepts? I did not expect that! Capcom vs SNK 1 is one I am not familiar with at all. I have heard about it, I have heard its presentation is fantastic, but I have never played it. I'm curious to try it out. Capcom vs SNK 2 is one of my favourite fighting games ever. Its Single Player content is basically non-existent (and this is the Arcade version, anyway), but what we do have here is an incredible roster, and one of the most unique concepts I've ever seen for a crossover: the Groove System, which essentially allows you to pick which game mechanics you want to work with (C-Groove replicates SFA 3 mechanics, K-Groove replicates Samurai Shodown mechanics, etc.). Oh, and a soundtrack that rivals MvC 2 as well. (Sadly, the one interesting console-exclusive feature is likely not going to be in this collection: the colour edit mode.) Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper was a content-rich version of the game that was released for the GBA and PSP. Due to their handheld nature, I thought for sure we'd never see the best version of SFA 3 ever again... I got my hopes up with this announcement. Turns out, "Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper" is also the name of an enhanced version of SFA3 released exclusively in Japanese arcades. Whelp. At least this version has Guile, T.Hawk, Fei Long, and Dee Jay. Power Stone 1 & 2 are worthy of hype. I never played them myself, but Capcom fans adore this series. Sounds pretty unique. Me, my only experience with this series is watching a few episodes of the cartoon Yes, there was one. Project Justice and Plasma Sword are fighting games I heard a lot about, but never played, so I'm looking forward to exploring these. I did find it odd that they're the 2nd game in their respective franchises (with the first entries being absent from any collection), but I guess that's a consequence of making a collection that's entirely based on the Dreamcast/Naomi systems. Capcom Fighting Evolution is an infamous Capcom flop, by all means, it's incredibly low-budget and unfun to play, and it's hilarious that it came back. A win for videogame preservation! Yeah, this is gonna be an awesome collection. CvS2 alone is worth the price of entry.

When I saw this mention, I wondered: could this game actually be dubbed in European Portuguese!? It's Brazillian Portuguese 😐 It's still cool (the voice actor sounds really good, actually), but man, my hopes got way up.

I just interrupted my holidays to say the following: (Full thoughts to come at a later date)

Freedom Planet 2 It's true, I bought the game as soon as it came out on the Switch. But it didn't take me 4 months to finish it, I've just been playing it really sporadically. I've kind of fallen into this bad habit where, if I don't have a full hour in a day to dedicate to a game I like, I just... don't. I end up playing something more simple and/or banal instead (which should explain the NSO list up there... and a couple of the ones before). For the past month, though, I decided to buckle up and actually find time for the game that I know I enjoy. SO! The first Freedom Planet, by GalaxyTrail, was a notorious Classic Sonic-like from 2014 that started out as a Sonic fangame before it evolved into its own thing. It featured talking animals, three distinct playable characters, fast-paced gameplay, and a saturday morning cartoon story (...with occasional moments of gruesome tonal dissonance). It started out on Kickstarter, and it infamously failed to deliver on two of its stretch goals: adding two extra playable characters (Torque and Spade). They were meant to be free DLC, but the developers claimed they couldn't make them work (whether they meant technical issues with their unique mechanics, or because their moveset didn't gel with pre-existing levels, is unclear). While that was happening, GalaxyTrail had already announced a sequel. They had a teaser trailer and everything, and they were clearly aiming for the stars. Progress seemed to be going smoothly, the game had a working demo as soon as 2017, aaaand several years went by, and the game only came out in 2022, PC only. Console versions would then take two extra years, only coming out this past April. I have no idea what caused such massive delays (I have to assume they prioritized quality over... everything else), but one thing's for certain: the game came out spectacular. Starting off with the art style, it very much feels like an improvement over the first game, in every area. They went from the chibi animals from the first game to... taller, more anatomically cohesive animals. Furthermore, many characters were redesigned for the better (Lilac no longer wears all-blue on her purple skin, going with a much better-looking white robe with blue highlights; Neera looks more like a panda; Milla saw a bunch of improvements to her outfit and mannerisms, etc.), and the new characters all look pretty dang cool. The spritework looks a lot more polished overall (no more jagged edges, no more sprites without visible outlines, every sprite in the game actually feels like they follow the same art style, etc.), and the animations have a lot more charm and character to them. Better use of colour overall, too, not just with the characters. I believe most of these improvements are thanks to Tyson-tan, the main Character Designer for this game, who apparently worked for free because he loved the first game so much. What a mad lad. Music may not feel like such a strict improvement, as the style feels very different from one game to the other. The main composer, Leilani Wilson, evolved a lot since 2014, and where she before worked on memorable compositions with "gamey" sounds, she's now much more geared towards ambient tunes with more subtle progression. Just compare Dragon Valley (FP1) with Dragon Valley (FP2) to see what I mean. For the record, I actually like the new soundtrack a lot more. It does a lot of heavy-lifting for worldbuilding, there's a lot of tasteful callbacks to the first game, and it's still super catchy. I just noticed that plenty of folk dislike the new direction, which is unfortunate, because I really dig this soundtrack, including the themes for the world maps and town hubs. But enough about presentation! The meat of the game is how it plays... it is phenomenal. Which shouldn't be a surprise, the first game was already immensely fun to play, and this game's engine was developed by Christian Whitehead, this was always going to be great. After so long without visiting the franchise, things did feel weird at first, a bit off. My muscle memory took a while to reawaken. Once I got into the ebb and flow of the game, it was pure fun. I imagine this is how new players will feel as well, learning the ins and outs of their character as the game goes on. Lilac's the resident speedster. Sonic's an inspiration for sure, but between a Sparkster-style boost, a fluttering double-jump, and a snazzy divekick, she's got plenty of options on moving fast and far. She's very similar to her FP1 self, her only new move being the ability to cancel her boost midway into a "burst" of energy; Carol saw some improvements. Compared to Lilac, she doesn't move as far, but her movement is more accurate, more refined (wall-jumps, multi-directional double jumps), and she's got a knack for dishing damage quickly, like a green Wolverine. Plus, she can still move fast with her motorcycle, which she can bring up fairly reliably. She now has a boomerang projectile, and can even roll like Sonic now, that's fun; Milla got significantly revamped. Not a naturally speedy character, she still double-jumps like Yoshi... but she now turns green blocks into ki, using it to fire bullets, strong energy blasts, or reflect enemy projectiles. She sort of feels like a Gunstar Hero that was tweaked to fit into Sonic levels. You can even use her blasts to propel yourself into any direction (either to gain speed, or downwards as a triple jump), but this is a tricky skill to master; Neera is our newcomer, and she's easily the slowest character, geared almost entirely for combat. She can fire powerful ice blasts in any direction, and even spread icicles on the ground. For mobility, she's only got a simple double jump and air-dash... or she can freeze enemies to jump off of them. She can also jump off her own ice spikes, but this is not a quick option. There's one new move that's shared between them: the dodge button. Think of it like an air dodge from Smash (except you can also do it on the ground), it's a nifty move to protect yourself from the occasional laser, or escape from a cluster of enemies. The specifics change slightly from character to character (Lilac can convert it into a dash, Milla also uses it to restore ammo, etc.), but as a universal move, it's very welcome for this kind of game. At any rate, these 4 feel incredibly distinct, each with a very unique moveset. It's mad that every level in the game works well for each of them. The levels are fantastic, by the way. In the first game, they felt long because they had 2 acts each, but FP2 does away with that, and each level goes by much quicker. Each of them has a distinct feel (in aesthetics, design, and even story) without relying too much in level-exclusive gimmicks (though those exist as well, of course). There are 25+ levels, and it's legitimately hard to pick a top 5. One cool feature from this game is that, for certain segments, the camera will seamlessly zoom out from your character, showing a wider view of the level. Tighter spaces remain "zoomed in", whereas open spaces with larger enemies can be "zoomed out". It's really cool, as it gives off a semi-cinematic feel to plenty of set pieces. (There's an option to keep gameplay "zoomed out" or "zoomed in" at all times, and... I'm not sure how to feel about that. It's handy, and it kinda works as "modular difficulty", but it also feels like something that should be only in the developer's hands. Maybe it's a topic for another day.) There are plenty of large, bombastic bosses as well. Such a big variety of complex, elaborate designs, that a handful of sidequests are focused on them. In fact, it can be sometimes easy to forget bosses in games, since so many are one-and-done affairs. I commend the developers for actually using their bosses for more than just their story fight. It's not all about level quality, the structure is also worth talking about. Unlike the first game, this game operates on a hub world (think Super Mario World, or Shovel Knight), which means you can replay any level you want, for whatever reason (better rank, searching for hidden items, speedrun practise, sheer fun, etc.). It also allows for Town areas! These are great, they're silly little explorable segments where you can talk to silly NPCs, visit shops for items and collectibles, play minigames, do some sidequests (including extra "challenge" levels), and sometimes advance the plot. At first, I thought these would be massive timewasters, but they really don't need to be (even the shops can be accessed without having to enter the town, if you wish), and they're lighthearted fun if you do decide to engage. And what are the items that can you get from these shops? This is the new modular difficulty system in FP2: the equipment. Before entering any level, you can equip any two items, and a potion of your choice (despite being called "potions", they're not expendable, feel free to use them as often as you'd like). Some items make life easier for you (increasing max health, starting a level with a shield, etc.) but decrease your rank and reward for completing a level, whereas other items increase difficulty (take double damage, start a level with 0 lives, etc.), but they increase your rank and reward for that level. Indeed, the difficulty level you pick at the start of the game only defines your starting equipment, you can alter it at any time. (By the way, level rankings in this game do NOT take speed into account. This isn't immediately obvious, but rankings only depend on A. Which items you have equipped; and B. How many lives you lost. In other words, clearing levels for Rank and for Speed are entirely different things) It's a really cool system, truth be told. This isn't just about difficulty, you can use these to customise your gameplay to some extent (like altering speed and jump height), and even come up with specific fun builds (shield-focused builds really change how you approach a level). By the end of the game, I was clamouring for even more variety than what we got. There's also a "ressuscitation" mechanic here. If you run out of health, you can spend some currency (and a life, I think) to revive on the spot, instead of going back to the last checkpoint. I can see the developers took @Glen-i's criticisms from the first game seriously, finding several ways to make the sequel more forgiving to play. I've noticed that there are way fewer instant-death traps in this game as well (making it shocking during the few times they do happen). The story is a Saturday morning cartoon. These can be very fun, especially in a colourful game and world such as this, and unlike the first game, there's no sudden tone shifts just to include a beheading or a torture scene (if you haven't played the first Freedom Planet, those are genuine things that happen there. There was also a scene where the girls have a sleepover and joke about boys having cooties, that's how hard the shift was). Regardless, the game does try to be somewhat mature about things, including themes like discrimination, political propaganda, and even genocide... I wouldn't say it goes too deep into any of them, only enough for the game to never lose its lighthearted feel. There's no "edgy" moments here. There are more story moments sprinkled into the levels themselves. Large robots tearing down chunks of the stage (such as buildings) as you run through the level, NPCs showing up to help clear obstacles, and even a level where two armies fight each other. This is some good shit. One thing that kind of hurts the narrative is that each character goes through every stage in the game. This is impressive, gameplay-wise, but story-wise, the characters aren't allowed to have levels, bosses, or story beats just for themselves (in the first game, Pangu Lagoon, Trap Hideout, and Aqua Tunnel worked really well narratively to establish each character's identity, without a single line of dialogue). But on the other hand, something that helps the narrative is the worldbuilding that the hub and towns provide. NPCs will often comment on events that happen through the story, you can now literally see where the different countries are, and cutscenes don't need to run long, because they can be broken up by towns and world traversal. And overall, yeah, I liked the story. It's fun, the various characters are likeable, and my main gripes lie more with certain plot points that weren't fully explored, rather than anything particularly egregious with the narrative. Not everything is rosey, though... only one reptile in the entire game. I counted and double-checked myself. Sorry, @Glen-i, feel free to leave a scathing review on Steam. As you've seen from my screenshots, my first playthrough was with Lilac, and I spent a good chunk of time collecting items, replaying levels, and learning the ins and outs of the game ("Stage Time" is the combined record across all 25+ stages, whereas "File Time" is the actual time I spent playing). This is absolutely the sort of game that's just fun to explore and replay. I purposefully avoided collecting every Time Capsule, in order to see "Normal Ending" first. Then, during the postgame, I collected the remaining 4, unlocked the "True Final Level", and got the True Ending. In retrospect, the "Normal Ending" feels more like an "Incomplete Ending", so I should've gone for the True Ending right away. I'll eventually play the other girls' campaigns, I just need a rest between playthroughs. So yeah, if my constant praise didn't make it clear, I adored this game. Easy 5 stars, this is the sort of 2D platformer that makes other greats in the genre feel like they're only 4 stars, it's that good.

A Jonnas NSO Update As of late, I've been pushing through a game I've really been enjoying. But I am also often tired, and sometimes all I have patience for is The games I already figured I wouldn't like ToeJam & Earl is a game I did play occasionally as a kid (at my cousins') and I never understood it. Makes sense, I didn't know English back then. I have since heard about how the whole point of the game is co-op, and how the maps and items are randomly generated (making this the first roguelike to ever grace a console, I believe?). With that in mind, I decided to have a go at it, as an adult... and I don't like it. Credit where it is due, this kind of off-beat charm was rare back then, and I appreciate how unique the gameplay was for the time. I just don't enjoy actually playing it, it's slow, it's hard to strategise (the items effects are unknown until you open them)... The humour doesn't do much for me either. As a kid, I didn't get it, as an adult, I get that I don't like it. Mighty Bomb Jack is an NES platformer that I definitely didn't like when I first tried it on the NSO, a few years ago. I wanted to have a different go, see if anything changed... I understand the physics better now, I get that you need to double-tab the jump button to make hops. Other than that, the game is just overcomplicated. Too many mechanics for a game without a tutorial, and it straight up punishes you if you do too well? It also swarms you with enemies, which would be fine if the levels were straight-to-the-finish affairs, but from Level 3 onwards, you need to search for hidden destructible blocks, and I can't do that with the relentless enemies, man. I very much disliked this one. Stunt Race FX is a SNES marvel, made to showcase the FX chip. The art direction is lovely, these cartoony cars feel more expressive than Pixar's Cars. I also like how the wheels on the monster truck react to walls, surprisingly immersive physics. The real downer is the same as in Starfox: the game itself gives me headaches. I don't usually care for framerates, but the one in this game is so low, it's painful. Furthermore, the draw distance is pitifully low, you can't see entire chunks of track until you get close enough. Interesting experiment that I respect, but I physically can't stand it. Super Mario Kart is famous. But I famously don't care much for the series. Still, this game deserves a chance, and... sure, the physics are weird to get a grip on, and if it was just that, I'd do the main circuits and call it a day (like with Super Circuit). The issue is that this game is extra annoying, giving you only half a screen to work with, even in singleplayer. I hate it. Only finished Mario Circuit in 50cc and called it a day. Mario Golf (GBC) is a 2D Golf game, another type of game I don't like. I decided to try this one out in any case, and... over the course of an exhibition match, I started to understand the physics, little by little. Still hate the concept, I was dying of boredom by the 9th hole. Didn't even attempt the RPG mode. Mario Tennis (GBC) is a 2D Tennis game. I figured the limitations would also make me dislike it, but... I actually liked playing exhibition matches? I didn't fully understand how to shoot or aim, but I was feeling it. Finally, a game where my initial impression was wrong I decided to step into the RPG mode... and I noped out before an hour went by. There is something I fundamentally dislike about an action game where the physics depend on stats (I want to learn how to shoot properly, not put points into Power and Aim until my racket does it on its own), and it was obvious from moment one: half of the challenges in the training section were literally unwinnable until I leveled up enough. Mix that into an awful lack of tutorial (so many words to describe Tennis terms like I'm familiar already, and not a single peep about what the A and B button actually do) and Camelot's worst tendencies in script-writing (the characters go on and on about inane stuff that doesn't matter), and I'm just left wishing the entire game was just Mario characters with different stats having a grand old time with matches and mini-games. 2 stars, because I still like that exhibition mode. --------------- Well, that was some negativity. But next time, I'll post about a game I figured I'd like a lot, and I did.

Jesus, that is too young. Rest in Peace, Rachael Lillis