zee-reviews

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Rugrats in Paris: The Movie (Nintendo 64)

First time?: No

This was a game I've had since childhood and have played many times, but I've never actually beaten it, until now. How would I describe the experience? Well, The Ramones put it best: My brain is hanging upside-down. (I don't really know what I mean by that, it just sounded appropriate)

For the uninitiated, Rugrats in Paris for the N64/PS1 is basically a mini-game collection. The mini-games are spread out over five different hub worlds (Main Entrance, Golf Park, Princess Castle, Reptar Island, and Ooey-Gooey World), and the objective is to play the mini-games to earn Gold Tickets. Once you have enough Gold Tickets, you can buy the Reptar Helmet, which lets you control Robo-Reptar for the final battle against Robo-Snail.

Oh, also, the overworld uses tank controls. For some reason.

The mini-games range from "not bad" to "why am I still playing this", my least-favorite among them being any of the various "throw stuff at a target" mini-games. My favorites are the jigsaw puzzles, mini-golf, and mayyyybe Chuckie Chan (only because that one is so easy).

So you can tell by my tone that I don't think this game is particularly fun. So why do I keep coming back to it?

Frankly, I just think the hub worlds are neat. Each of the five hubs feels like an amusement park, complete with little restaurants with patios and flies buzzing around the trash cans.

They also each have a distinct flavor to them: Main Entrance has a central shopping area vibe to it, Golf Park is all golf-themed (and also has a cool Employees Only section to explore), Princess Castle is all themed around Chinese iconography, Reptar Island has a tropical island/volcano theme, and Ooey-Gooey world is... ooey and gooey!

Speaking of Ooey-Gooey World, the music in this area is so weirdly calming and mysterious, I love it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMr6SIX9G9o

So in conclusion, the game isn't amazing, but it has strangely captivating vibes that keep me coming back more than it should.

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Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue (PlayStation)

First time?: No

I replayed this game on a whim testing the PlayStation core in Mednafen and ended up 100%ing it within a day.

If you're not familiar, the game is a collection-based platformer similar to Banjo-Kazooie, where you play as Buzz Lightyear and try to collect Pizza Planet tokens as your main objective. Five token per level, ten levels, plus five boss fights.

The game feels satisfying to control and the platforming is solid. The level design does a good job at capturing the areas seen in the movie, and it's also neat to see all the ways they contextualize mundane everyday settings and objects into obstacles and platforming challenges.

The music is one of the highlights; there's a lot of variety in the soundtrack and it's all excellent. The jazzy big-band soundtrack in Andy's Neighborhood, the Danny Elfman-esque soundtrack in Elevator Hop, the spaghetti western-inspired sounds of Al's Penthouse, and the synthy ethereal sounds of Airport Infiltration, just to name a few.

The only real criticisms to be had are that boss fights are easy and death is cheap (and yet for some reason, they make the few healing items per level weirdly difficult to get to). The game is also kinda short, given that I beat it in a day and I only barely remembered what I was supposed to do in each level.

Overall, a really good licensed game from the 5th gen, and I think if you're interested in collection-based platformers and haven't played this one, it's worth your time.

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Portal 2 (Steam)

First time: Yes

Playing Portal 2 immediately after playing Portal 1 was definitely an experience, 2 feels like such a glow-up in every conceivable way.

Immediately I was strucken with how much more polished the game looks and feels. The first moments of the game even before the actual gameplay starts are more spectacle than there was in Portal 1, and then you get into the game and see the overgrown Aperture Science facility that really make you realize how much more interesting the environments are going to look this time.

In fact, a lot of my favorite parts of the playthrough were outside of the testing areas, things like the cinematic escape sequences or navigating the large waterlogged area.

I really liked the story as well. Obviously, this game was hugely popular and I've had a lot of stuff spoiled for me through popcultural osmosis, but there were a lot of surprises even with the things I already knew. Like, I've heard Cave Johnson's lemon rant before, but what really made me laugh hearing it in-game was GLaDOS's reaction to it (he says what we're all thinking!).

OK I took a break between writing and I don't remember what I was going to say next but yeah it was really good, 3/3 game

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Portal (Steam)

First time?: Yes

Yes, believe it or not, I've never actually played Portal before now. Although, I knew basically everything about the game through popcultural osmosis anyway.

I only played the main campaign and haven't touched the bonus levels yet so I'll keep this short.

Overall I thought the game was fun and very challenging. Even though I knew the game's story, I thought the execution of it through environmental storytelling and the character of GLaDOS was very engaging regardless.

I did play the game with a controller which is maybe not ideal since it made being able to fire portals precisely difficult at times, especially with some of the faster-paced momentum puzzles.

Weirdly there actually was cake at the end. I was lead to believe that it was fictitious.

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Cavern of Dreams (Steam)

First time?: Yes

[Note: this review will be as spoiler-free as possible, though some minor things from later in the game may be brought up in passing.]

If you're not aware of what Cavern of Dreams is, it's an N64-inspired exploration platformer by Bynine Studio. I've been following the creator on Tumblr for a while and this game has been on my radar since it released, and now that I've finally played it, I can honestly say I enjoyed it a LOT.

The plot of the game is that you are a young dragon named Fynn, and you are trying to rescue your siblings (who are eggs) from a bat artist named Luna. The cavern's guardian, Sage, helps you out by watching over your rescued siblings in the hub world, and giving you new powers when you reach certain milestones.

One of the game's defining traits is that there is no true "combat", to speak of. There are hazards, and you have attacks that interact with the environment, but there's no enemies or bosses to defeat, and no health or lives system. This works out well, as the focus of this style of game is exploration and platforming, so the experience doesn't feel lacking for the omission.

The movement in the game is somewhat unique, as Fynn doesn't quite have the jumping prowess that a Mario or a Banjo would have. However, he does have a roll ability that allows him to go very fast and even ramp off of sloped surfaces like Sonic. The roll controls similar to the roll in Yooka-Laylee, or the Spongeball in Battle for Bikini Bottom; it can be a little tricky to control, but you can carry the momentum into your standard run when you need more precise movement at higher speeds.

Fynn does get more abilities later on, such as a tail whip to slap objects, a glide, a bubble projectile, and perhaps most usefully, a bounce ability that can not only attack the ground, but also gives you more height than your standard jump. The sense of progression you get with each new ability is very satisfying, and towards the end of the game, you'll find the movement to be very complex and rewarding.

Now for the aesthetics. This game was designed primarily by a visual artist, and my god does it show. The game is GORGEOUS, and does a great job at paying tribute to the bold colors and lighting of games like Banjo-Kazooie or Spyro while also having a unique artstyle of its own. Different areas can have different moods; a wooded lake area in a cozy autumn sunset, the metallic interior of a sentient airship, the creepy black-and-white basement illuminated only by the occassional lightning strike, and so much more. I have so many screenshots just of areas I thought looked visually interesting.

My only criticisms of the game are nitpicks, really. For one, the sound design could be underwhelming at times. According to the credits, many of the sounds were grunts made by the people working on the game, or were sourced from freesounds. Nothing was egreiously out-of-place or anything, and it is a passion project by a very small group, so it's easily forgiven.

The only other thing is that I had my camera set to inverted, but the camera in first-person mode was non-inverted, and it would throw off my muscle memory when switching. Though, there aren't a lot of times where you need to switch to first-person mode, so it was never that big of a deal.

This isn't a particularly long game, it's maybe 2/3rds the length of a game like Banjo-Kazooie, but there's still a lot here to enjoy, especially considering the game is only $13 on Steam (even less if you get it in a bundle). I would HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who's even a little interested.

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Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Booster Course Pass (Switch)

First time? …Kinda?

So first of all sorry I made a blog about reviewing games and then didn't play any new games for months.

Now that the MK8DX DLC is over, I've been replaying the courses trying to get all the three-star trophies and I feel like I've got a good idea of how I feel about the pass as a whole by this point. This'll probably be a shorter review since I'm just talking about the new content and not MK8 as a whole (also I have a hangnail and typing hurts).

Early courses were criticized for being notably worse graphically than base MK8, as well as the returning courses being fairly uninteresting and not utilizing any of the level gimmicks like antigravity. This is something that definitely got better as the pass went along, with most of the later courses looking really nice and having interesting level design. Of course, it also makes returning to those earlier DLC courses stand out even more. I know they got slight graphical updates later on, but they still look a little too simplistic.

My favorite stages are mostly the returning stages. Waluigi Pinball is always appreciated, and the way some of the SNES/GBA tracks like Riverside Park were reinterpreted is really cool. Yoshi's Island is one of the standouts of the new original stages, being such a charming love letter to the original game with so much attention to detail.

My least favorite stages tend to be the Tour stages. They may work well for the mobile game, and I do like the gimmick of every lap taking a different route, but I find them a little confusing to navigate and some areas can feel cramped. I'm also not a fan of Sky High Sundae; it's very glider-heavy and there's a couple moments where it's hard to see the track beneath you.

The music is mostly pretty consistent with base MK8's quality as well, lots of really nice arrangements. However, not every song got a full-on live-recorded arrangement and some simply got enhanced variations of the originals. They still sound good but I wish every song could have gotten the premium treatment.

As far as the new characters, Birdo is absolutely my favorite. She's become my new main, replacing Toadette. I'm also really happy for the return of Diddy Kong and Funky Kong, and I'm happy to see Kamek in a console Mario Kart at last. Everyone else, I'm just OK with.

Overall I think the Booster Pass is pretty good and I'm having a lot of fun with it, even if the quality isn't quite as consistent as I'd like. Honestly, I'm mostly just happy that Birdo's back, I've been waiting so long for her return.

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Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64)

First time?: Yes.

CBFD has been on my backlog for like ten years and a couple days ago I was like "fuck it. Why not now?"

I knew certain things about the game already, like the blood, poop, and swearing. I also knew how the game ended, though that honestly just made me more interested to play it to see how that came about.

First impressions, I'll be honest, weren't good. The controls took a while to get used to. They weren't as tight as something like Super Mario 64, nor do you have quite as many ways to manipulate your momentum as something like Banjo-Kazooie. It feels weighty and slippery, and fall damage seems to happen at much shorter heights than you'd think. It doesn't help that your main attack, the frying pan, is fairly slow with less range than it looks.

Fortunately, the game isn't really about the platforming so much. There's platforming segments, but really the game feels more like a linear puzzle-adventure that happens to use platforming mechanics simply as your means of navigating around the world. Instead of the progression being locked behind collectibles like some other platformers of the time, I would say Conker is a more story-driven platformer. Events that happen in the game's plot are the main thing that drive progression.

The game's tone and humor are the main selling points of the game, and as the M-rating suggests, there's a lot of toilet humor, black comedy, and swearing. Often, there'd be a joke that felt too mean-spirited to laugh at, or something particularly cruel that you had to do to progress. Also, the gross-out humor got to be a little much (there are TWO whole levels made of poop). At the same time, the dialogue is almost entirely improv, and there were a few moments that I thought were actually funny.

The visuals and soundtrack are both gorgeous. Given that this was one of the latest N64 games, Rare had gotten quite good at making levels look detailed and aesthetically pleasing. And the soundtrack by Robin Beanland is fantastic; the overworld theme is infectious and I was actually taken aback by how beautiful the Uga Buga theme was and how hard Rock Solid goes.

Final thoughts before going into spoilers: I think the game really won me over by the end and I think the last three or four chapters are were the game is at its strongest. It's definitely an interesting game, and I think even if the subject matter doesn't interest you, it's worth experiencing at least once. Fortunately, the game is so story-driven that you could get 90% of the experience from a cutscene compilation on YouTube (95% if you watch a Let's Play).

Spoilers below the cut.

The last three levels are what sold me on the game, and where I feel like the game used its Mature rating to something actually mature.

The Count Batula level is dripping with spooky atmosphere, the zombies are actually genuinely scary to fight (well, at first. Once you get to the point where you don't actually have to kill them and you realize you can always outrun them…).

The War level is also genuinely unsettling, in a very different way. The whole thing is an homage to Saving Private Ryan, but played mostly straight, showing the horrors of war in the context of cute fuzzy animals. The difficulty of this chapter, frustrating as it can be, just helps sell the idea of fighting for your life behind enemy lines. I finished this chapter right before bed and it actually made me uneasy trying to fall asleep. It's going to stick with me, I think.

Side note; I love Rodent so much. He's adorable and I was so happy when he survived.

And also, gotta talk about the downer ending. For all the asinine things that happen in this game, having Conker lose the one person he cares about most, have the opportunity to bring her back, and getting so caught up in a power trip that he forgets to do so and now has to live with his regret for the rest of his life despite getting everything he's ever wanted. I love a good phyrric victory ending and somehow this goofy game about an alcoholic squirrel sells it for me.

To recap: I went into the game not even sure if I wanted to finish it but came out of the experience really liking it. I'm glad I finally decided to play it. I don't know if I'll play it again.

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Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X (PSP)

First time?: Yes, but I've played the original Mega Man X before.

Immediately after beating X2, I decided to revisit the first game again, but this time in the form of the remake on PSP called Maverick Hunter X. Being fairly familiar with the first game, I thought it would be interesting to see what stayed the same and what changed.

Gameplay wise, it feels very faithful to the original. It feels just as much fun to dash around and maneuver the levels as it does in the SNES original, which is probably the most important thing to have gotten right. The PSP's screen is fairly small with a widescreen form factor, so the real estate of the screen is cut down a bit vertically. The level design tries to accomodate for this change where it can, but since it also has to follow the original levels fairly closely, this still inevitably results in the occassional blind spot and leap of faith.

One interesting change is that, while all the armor upgrades are in the same locations, the contents of the upgrades have all changed. For instance, while you originally got the boot upgrade in Chill Penguin's stage in the SNES version, this version has you get them in Flame Mammoth's stage. Chill Penguin's capsule instead has the helmet upgrade. Since all the other collectibles are in the same places as their SNES counterparts, this change just seems strange.

The music is a point of contention for some. While the SNES version has a very rock-inspired soundtrack with a very distinctive set of samples, Maverick Hunter X opts for more techno-rock style arrangements. I personally think the arrangements are quite good; no replacements for the originals, but very solid tracks I don't mind jamming out to.

The Sigma stages are also completely reworked, bearing very little in common with the original level designs, as well as changing the order you refight the Mavericks. Since I don't often revisit the Sigma stages in the original, I don't have much of an opinion on these changes, but I thought it was worth mentioning that they were still noticably different regardless.

I guess I should also talk about the cutscenes and voice acting. The FMV cutscenes are professionally animated and look great; I'd like to see them in a resolution higher than what the PSP natively outputs, but still enjoyable. The voice acting is mostly OK, X's voice actor does a good job, and while I think Vile doesn't really sound how I imagined, I do think it's funny whenever he tells X "I hate you!"

Overall, Maverick Hunter X was a good remake. Worth playing over the original? Probably not, but it's an enjoyable experience if you wanna revisit the SNES game while still getting something new out of it.

There's also an unlockable mode where you play as Vile but I tried it for like 5 minutes and found him hard and confusing to use. Maybe some day I'll invest more time to that campaign, but not now.

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Mega Man X2 (SNES)

First Time?: No

I recently replayed MMX2 for the first time since like, 2011? It's still really good and holds up super well. I think it's a shame that this game doesn't seem to get quite as much love as the first game since I think it's at least just as good and probably even better.

Like the music is particularly something I love about the game. While the first game's music feels like it fits in a little better with classic Mega Man, X2's soundtrack feels a lot more energetic and experimental, doing a lot of interesting stuff with time signatures and generally weird rhythms. Even the more "normal" sounding songs have a sort of prog metal quality that I really love, and it's something they haven't ever really done again with the X series.

I also felt like this game takes the concept of "weapons interacting with their environment in different ways" from the first game and does so much more with it. A really good example is the weather controllers in Wire Sponge's stage changing the weather in the stage to different things depending on which weapon you hit it with (something that Cloud Man's stage in Mega Man 7 also lets you do...).

My main criticism, if you could call it that, is how hard it is to get some of the collectibles. Some of them are brutal, the heart tank in Crystal Snail's stage being a notable example. These are all optional of course, so it's fair to make them as difficult as you want, it just feels like you have to dump at least a few lives into trying to get some of these things before you even understand what you need to do to get them (if you even have the ability to do so yet), so it can be a little frustrating in that sense.

Overall, a great game. If you liked the first MMX game and you haven't played this, it's absolutely worth it.