Tag Archives: GoI

Metroid Dread — Issue 51

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Metroid Dread a return to form for vet­er­an series

That fore­bod­ing sense of … dread. The antic­i­pa­tion of walk­ing into an unknown room and pos­si­bly find­ing a secret. It’s the stuff many old-school gamers and Metroid fans like me cut our teeth on grow­ing up with Metroid­va­nia games. The orig­i­nal Metroid set the tone, but Super Metroid is the house of cards that every­thing in the genre rests on. And Metroid Dread, while an admirable attempt to recre­ate that nos­tal­gic feel­ing, is a few mis­siles short.

Don’t mis­un­der­stand me: I love Metroid Dread. It’s the return to form that we all expect of a Metroid game, and you can tell that with­in the first five min­utes. The open­ing cin­e­mat­ic picks the sto­ry up after Fusion where Samus Aran, the bad­dest boun­ty hunter in the known uni­verse, has simul­ta­ne­ous­ly solved the X Par­a­site threat and ush­ered in galac­tic peace once again. Despite that, the Galac­tic Fed­er­a­tion receives ver­i­fied proof that the X are not extinct and sends EMMI (Extra­plan­e­tary Mul­ti­form Mobile Iden­ti­fiers) to the plan­et ZDR to inves­ti­gate the mys­tery of why the X Par­a­site has reap­peared. Soon after the EMMI land, all con­tact is lost with them. Ms. Aran is sent in to inves­ti­gate their dis­ap­pear­ance, and short­ly after land­ing, finds her­self in com­bat with a mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure that resem­bles a Chozo. Giv­en that the Chozo oth­er than her­self are also extinct, it’s an even deep­er mys­tery that Samus is deter­mined to solve.

The sto­ry is inter­est­ing, and I was gen­uine­ly invest­ed in learn­ing about the EMMI and what they found on the plan­et. I was even more intrigued about the Chozo war­rior because I’m well-versed in the lore of Metroid and any­thing that calls back to Super Metroid and Samus’ ori­gin sto­ry is going to have my atten­tion. It also ref­er­ences Metroid Fusion, obvi­ous­ly, and parts of Metroid II: Samus Returns — which is the excel­lent remake of Metroid II: The Return of Samus. Lean­ing on the old­er sto­ry is a smart move because you’re prob­a­bly going to go back and play the old­er games and the remake, and you’re going to buy into the sto­ry of the cur­rent game a lit­tle bit easier. 

What isn’t a lit­tle eas­i­er, even on the easy dif­fi­cul­ty lev­el, is the com­bat. Lis­ten, I’m a Super Metroid expert and I can even claim beat­ing the orig­i­nal Metroid, but the first hour of Dread is hard. I got stuck on the sec­ond EMMI chase sequence and had to go watch a detailed demon­stra­tion of what to do because I just was­n’t get­ting it. And, yes, I love this about Dread. Metroid, at its core, is about explo­ration, prob­lem-solv­ing and fig­ur­ing out things by tri­al and error. I’m doing that in Dread, though my old-man reflex­es and patience are get­ting in the way. But this is what I want out of my Metroid game to a point. The oth­er side of this, how­ev­er, is that I did­n’t care for the mad dash away from an all-pow­er­ful ene­my in Metroid Fusion in 2002, and I don’t par­tic­u­lar­ly care for the mad dash away from an all-pow­er­ful ene­my in Metroid Dread now. That fran­tic feel­ing of not know­ing what to do in a sequence that means instant death con­stant­ly is not a good one, and I had hoped that it would­n’t return 20 years lat­er, but here we are. I’ll fig­ure it out and learn to live with it, I guess, but it’s not one of my favorite parts of the game.

One of the oth­er things I do love about Dread is the atmos­phere. The music hits the sweet spot of nos­tal­gia and new with leit­mo­tifs of Super and the orig­i­nal game mixed in, and the graph­ics are gor­geous. I’ve long been a fan of the music of Metroid, and this is just anoth­er mas­ter­piece in the long his­to­ry of the series. Also, Samus has nev­er looked bet­ter. She’s more fleshed out with mod­ern graph­ics, but my favorite hero­ine is sim­ply stun­ning even in the stripped Pow­er Suit. And while ZDR is no Zebes, it’s a deli­cious­ly dark envi­ron­ment that invokes the best part of brood­ing moody dark plan­et that fits right in Metroid lore.

While I love a lot of Dread, there are some things that I don’t quite love. First, as a vet­er­an Metroid lover, I can’t help but won­der why it took so long to get a side-scrolling ver­sion of Metroid again and why it fol­lowed Fusion after so many years. Dread is fan­tas­tic, but Fusion was not exact­ly Super, and Dread tries a lit­tle too hard to make Fusion work. I’d rather Dread had its own iden­ti­ty aside from the cleanup of Fusion’s mess. 

And while we’re at it, Dread tries a lit­tle too hard to lean into Super’s lega­cy. It’s well-known that Super is our favorite game of all time. That is not a secret. How­ev­er, unless you’re going to give me a full mod­ern remake of Super, don’t tease me with some­thing almost there. 

Dread is a tease, a “what if we were to remake the great­est game of all time with mod­ern con­trols” exper­i­ment. To quote the awful Ronin in Avengers: Endgame, don’t give me hope. Don’t give it to me halfway and then be like, naw, you know what? Let’s just call it Metroid 5 and we’ll revis­it that Super remake lat­er. This tech­ni­cal­ly isn’t Dread­’s fault, because it’s an excel­lent game and it’s giv­ing me, the Metroid fan who did­n’t want a first-per­son shoot­er Metroid, exact­ly what I’ve been ask­ing for since Fusion. I’m not ding­ing Dread per se; I’m ding­ing Nin­ten­do for being a tease and a ter­ri­ble one at that.

Metroid Dread does almost every­thing right: The atmos­phere is Metroid, the graph­ics are Metroid, the sto­ry is Metroid and the secre­cy is Metroid. It’s a must-play if you’re into the series and even if you aren’t, you still need to expe­ri­ence it just to see how the grand dame of Metroid­va­nia does her thing and cre­ates per­fec­tion. It’s just that if you’re walk­ing into this think­ing you’re going to get Super Metroid lev­els of per­fec­tion, you’re going to be dis­ap­point­ed. It’s not Oth­er M lev­el of dis­ap­point­ment, but the lay­ers of Super haunt the out­come. Then again, let’s face it: Noth­ing is going to touch Super’s lev­el of nuance. And Dread is still fine for it. Dread near­ly hits on every lev­el, and it’s the side-scrolling Metroid adven­ture we non-first-per­son shoot­er fans have been wait­ing for. It’s just that you must be will­ing to look past the dread­ed com­par­isons to Super Metroid to see its true finesse.

Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge — Issue 50

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Nin­ja Gaiden 3 fin­ish­es comeback

Mod­ern­ized tril­o­gy finale falls short of masterpiece

I would be fool­ish to not acknowl­edge one of the most leg­endary nin­jas in video game his­to­ry. Ever since the appear­ance of the “Tec­mo Presents 1989” screen herald­ing the Nin­ja Gaiden series, Ryu Hayabusa has tak­en up his fam­i­ly’s leg­endary Drag­on Sword against many demon­ic foes and their lack­eys who desire Earth to fall under their rule. Through many 8- and 16-bit adven­tures, Ryu has con­quered many foes that were not just fuel that cre­ates night­mares but those who were sci-fi adja­cent with foes who were half-demon and half-tech. Ryu took a hia­tus and even­tu­al­ly returned to his role as a nin­ja guardian defend­ing his home vil­lage (and the world) through new adven­tures on next gen­er­a­tion con­soles. I was able to expe­ri­ence Mr. Hayabusa’s lat­est feat in Nin­ja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge.

In Razor’s Edge, Ryu, now the head leader of Hayabusa vil­lage, is called upon by the Japan­ese Self-Defense Forces to deal with a ter­ror­ist group known as the Legion of Alche­my whose leader has a deep grudge against the beloved drag­on nin­ja. When the LOA launch­es a bru­tal assault on the British prime min­is­ter’s home, Ryu responds and destroys the LOA’s foot sol­diers but arrives too late to save the prime min­is­ter and is attacked by the Regent of the Mask. The Regent of the Mask places a curse called the Grip of Mur­der on Ryu’s right arm, which absorbs the souls of Ryu’s ene­mies and takes the Drag­on Sword into his arm. To make things worse, the Regent makes a threat to world lead­ers to either sur­ren­der in sev­en days or be destroyed. With time of the utmost essence, Ryu along with long­time ally Ayane and JSDF agent Mizu­ki McCloud must stop the LOA to pre­vent fur­ther glob­al chaos.


Razor’s Edge’s graph­ics are like cur­rent hack-and-slash games on the mar­ket but also have sub­stance. Team Nin­ja devel­oped each stage with care and kept ele­ments that make Nin­ja Gaiden a fan favorite. Start­ing in Lon­don the roads are instant­ly rec­og­niz­able as are the back­drop of Big Ben and the Knight bus­es instead of a copy and paste insert­ed stage. The cut scenes, stage start, and recap areas are beau­ti­ful­ly done and add pol­ish to all char­ac­ters with­out going too far to explain who’s good and evil. A small gripe about the pre­sen­ta­tion and graph­ics is that the stage start/recap areas were too sim­i­lar to the Met­al Gear and Tom Clan­cy series where it’s a bit too dra­mat­ic in some areas and they don’t allow the awe­some graph­ics to set the tone. 

The con­trols to guide our hero are sim­ple but need prac­tice in some areas that require park­our-type jumps to get to oth­er parts of some stages. In some parts of the game where Ayane is called upon, she is a lit­tle more flex­i­ble than Ryu, but that does­n’t make the con­trols more dif­fi­cult. I did have a few issues with con­trols regard­ing bat­tles with boss­es that require more focus to strike var­i­ous spots. Also, when Ryu is required to use his kunai to climb, tim­ing to focus on climb­ing is need­ed while var­i­ous ene­mies fierce­ly attempt to elim­i­nate you. It taxed my patience and was kind of tedious. 

The music is paired per­fect­ly with each stage and has a bal­ance from slow-ris­ing to ener­getic when fac­ing off with var­i­ous ene­mies. The LOA muse­um is my favorite stage; while bat­tling through the stage, ene­mies, includ­ing attack dogs, pop out to attack you with fierce music. When defeat­ed, the music goes back to a light rock style. The game music is excel­lent all-around, and the voice act­ing is per­fect with Troy Bak­er as Ryu and Ali Hillis as Mizu­ki. The cast includes well-known voice actors such as Yuri Lowen­thal, Stephanie Sheh, Jan­ice Kawaye and Michael McConnohie. 

While I enjoyed Razor’s Edge, I do have a few dis­likes. First, its tar­get­ing sys­tem for Ryu when he uses his nin­po has hit and miss accu­ra­cy, tak­ing out some ene­mies while miss­ing oth­ers. My oth­er prob­lem is that while the game has var­i­ous dub and sub­ti­tles includ­ed, the Eng­lish sub­ti­tles were not timed well with its audio, which made the sto­ry dif­fi­cult to fol­low in some cut scenes. Notic­ing that, It was­n’t a deal­break­er, but it was disappointing.

Nin­ja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge breathes new life and new adven­tures into a leg­endary nin­ja in video games. Ryu Hayabusa is a prime exam­ple of being able to teach an old dog a few new tricks and they suc­ceed. The third game in the remake series puts the Hayabusa name back at the edge of greatness.

Soulcalibur VI — Issue 48

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A new stage of history
Soul­cal­ibur returns to its roots

It’s been a long time since Soul­cal­ibur was good. And I mean, real­ly good, where it’s about the fight­ing and the locales and the sick char­ac­ter designs. Because make no mis­take, Soul­cal­ibur hit a brick wall right about the time of the fourth entry. Seri­ous­ly, no one asked for Star Wars draped all over Soul­cal­ibur, yet there we were with Yoda and the gang mak­ing them­selves at home in the series known for its sword and sor­cery. But then some­thing hap­pened: Some­one on Project Soul said, “you know what would be great? Return­ing back to the thing that made us suc­cess­ful in the first place: Soul­cal­ibur.” And here we are with the sixth entry and it’s a return to form.

Soul­cal­ibur VI is essen­tial­ly a retelling of the sec­ond game in the series, Soul­cal­ibur. The evil sword Soul Edge has fall­en into the wrong hands through­out his­to­ry, and it has now found its way into the embrace of one Siegfried. Sigfried, hav­ing lost his ten­u­ous grasp on san­i­ty and real­i­ty in gen­er­al, has trans­formed into the Azure Knight, bet­ter known as Night­mare, and begun wreak­ing hav­oc on the world in this demon­ic pos­sessed guise. There are those who seek the sword for right­eous rea­sons and those who seek it for greed and glo­ry, but the sword must be stopped. Because it’s a retread of Soul­cal­ibur, not too much has changed sto­ry-wise. The entire cast of the game has returned with some new folks sprin­kled in for good mea­sure. This is fine because that cast was leg­endary and set the stan­dard for future entries.


But what if you want­ed to do a lit­tle some­thing dif­fer­ent this time around? The excel­lent char­ac­ter cre­ator has every­thing cov­ered. This mode is so well done and such a time sink. I spent at least two hours mak­ing a rea­son­able fac­sim­i­le of the Cap­com’s Ruby Heart — my favorite pirate — and it was pain­less and easy to do, even with the default offer­ings. This cre­ator mode has been around a long time in Soul­cal­ibur — since the third game — but here it’s refined and pol­ished. I spent more time here than any­where else, and what I want­ed to make was only lim­it­ed by my lack of ideas.

Despite lack­ing in skill with Soul­cal­ibur over the years, I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised with the ease of jump­ing into fight­ing. I have had an extend­ed absence from the series, but I could still pull off moves and com­bos with old favorites like Mit­su­ru­gi, Cer­vantes, Ivy and Vol­do. The fight­ing felt pol­ished and clean, much like old­er entries, which is crit­i­cal in draw­ing in some­one like me that has­n’t real­ly played much since Soul­cal­ibur II.

Anoth­er good nos­tal­gic draw was the pre­sen­ta­tion. Soul­cal­ibur as a series has nev­er lacked in the aes­thet­ics depart­ment, and this game is no dif­fer­ent. It looks nice, with good char­ac­ter mod­els and entic­ing back­grounds. Because it’s basi­cal­ly a remake, the back­grounds are ref­er­ences to pre­vi­ous stages but with a more mod­ern cleanup job applied. I absolute­ly loved the orig­i­nal Soul­cal­ibur’s look and still do, and this ver­sion does good in remind­ing me of why that is. While not quite as ground­break­ing in its graph­ics as the arcade and Dream­cast port were 25 years ago, they’re still quite breath­tak­ing and beautiful.

And, there isn’t too much to dis­like about Soul­cal­ibur VI. I’m not fond of the AI dif­fi­cul­ty, which seems a lit­tle too spot­ty. A few match­es felt like rub­ber band­ing in the sec­ond round if I won the first round, but then if there was a third round, the AI would just stand there and let me wail away. That’s weird in a fight­ing game, but then again, most Soul­cal­ibur entries felt that way in the begin­ning of the series. I just wish that was fixed by the sixth game.

Over­all, Soul­cal­ibur VI tries to make up for the mis­steps of the past with a sol­id re-imag­in­ing and return to its roots. Though it’s been five years since release and no new con­tent has been on the hori­zon, it’s a still a viable fight­ing game for those who haven’t dived back into the world of souls. The soul still burns in this rehabbed and reformed sequel.

Capcom Fighting Collection — Issue 47

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Give this col­lec­tion a fight­ing chance

Cap­com tends to tread a lot of the same ground these days. Whether it’s “get­ting back to their roots” with Street Fight­er’s mod­ern ver­sions or return­ing to the past with a lot of upgrad­ed col­lec­tions, Cap­com sure has a way of remind­ing you that, yes, they made Street Fight­er and a bunch of oth­er fight­ing games. The ques­tion is do we care? Yes and no, if this cur­rent col­lec­tion is to be judged.

I will admit that, despite being a strict Mor­tal Kom­bat old head, I am inclined to speak up about my favorite genre in fight­ing games and how it relates to Cap­com. This col­lec­tion, filled to the brim with noth­ing but Cap­com fight­ers, aims to show that Cap­com had some hits and mem­o­rable prop­er­ties. Fight­ing Col­lec­tion fea­tures 10 entries: Vampire/Darkstalkers 1–3, Vam­pire Hunter 2, Vam­pire Sav­ior 2, Cyber­bots: Full Met­al Mad­ness, WarZard/Red Earth, Hyper Street Fight­er II: The Anniver­sary Edi­tion, Super Gem Fight­er Mini Mix/Pocket Fight­er and Super Puz­zle Fight­er II Tur­bo, with the North Amer­i­can or Japan­ese ver­sions avail­able for play. In all cas­es, these are arcade rom ver­sions gath­ered togeth­er in one spot and you can freely switch between them on free play. Col­lec­tion-wise, this is a top-tier pack­age for those who love fight­ing games made by Cap­com. Main­stream mon­ey mak­er that’s still around today? That’s Hyper Street Fight­er II. Obscure weird fight­er that no one even knows that Cap­com made it? Take your pick from Cyber­bots and WarZard. Cutesy, chibi fight­er that unabashed­ly mocks its mak­er? Puz­zle Fight­er and Pock­et Fight­er have that on lock. Defunct series that should still be a thing, but Cap­com does­n’t pay atten­tion? All of the Vam­pire you can pos­si­bly shake a stick at sat­is­fies that require­ment. There is lit­er­al­ly some­thing for every­one here. But the ques­tion is, do you want it, espe­cial­ly now that you know what’s avail­able here? As ear­li­er, yes and no.

While the pre­sen­ta­tion is top-notch, the actu­al assort­ment of the games involved is a mixed bag. Gen­tle read­ers, I just com­piled and cre­at­ed an entire issue devot­ed to Vam­pire (Edi­tor’s note: That’d be Issue 46. Go down­load it now if you haven’t.) and its inner work­ings and the his­to­ry behind the series. Know­ing that, please explain to me why I have Vam­pire burnout and why I had it before I did that issue because of this col­lec­tion. Cap­com does this song and dance every sin­gle time Vam­pire is whis­pered some­where by some unsus­pect­ing gamer who loves the series and wants to see it once more have its day in the sun. I wrote an entire col­umn in that pre­vi­ous issue dis­cussing the need for a Vam­pire revival — a new game, not an old rehash — and how we were nev­er going to get that because Cap­com does the series dirty constantly. 

Well, would­n’t you know it, Cap­com pulled a skunk out of their hat by includ­ing all of the Vam­pire games here. It’s like they said, “Well, you asked for more Vam­pire. Here, be sat­is­fied that we released all of them final­ly in North Amer­i­ca and shut up.” You know, I’m slight­ly hap­py but I’m more offend­ed than any­thing else. Because, as you should have read by now gen­tle read­er, Cap­com is nev­er going to give us a new Vam­pire game with­out there being some weird­ness attached. And because this col­lec­tion sold “OK,” — not great, just OK — you know we aren’t get­ting a new game. Because it did­n’t set the world on fire in sales does­n’t mean the demand isn’t there. But I digress. Every­thing else in this col­lec­tion has been released in some way, shape or form in either region, so it was­n’t nec­es­sary for their inclu­sion, either. 

What I would have pre­ferred to see are Rival Schools, Project Jus­tice, Star Glad­i­a­tor and Plas­ma Sword. These are defunct Cap­com series that they also like to act like they did­n’t cre­ate. Rival Schools and Project Jus­tice are espe­cial­ly egre­gious because while they’ve been port­ed to PlaySta­tion Net­work, we haven’t got­ten a full, unal­tered port of either game. A mod­ern trans­la­tion of the board game and sim­u­la­tion mode in both games is not that hard, but I digress again because we know we are nev­er get­ting it. It’s a shame because this col­lec­tion as pulled togeth­er in 2022 could have used some bet­ter curation.

While I love Cap­com fight­ing games, I’m OK about this col­lec­tion. It’s nice to have these in a mod­ern pack­age for mod­ern con­soles but I’m not enthused about the behind-the-scenes fool­ish­ness that could have been avoid­ed with bet­ter curat­ing on Cap­com’s part. There are some heavy hit­ters that could have been includ­ed imme­di­ate­ly that would have made it a bet­ter pack­age, and the extras includ­ed could have been bet­ter also. How­ev­er, it’s not a ter­ri­ble pack­age and is infi­nite­ly use­ful and valu­able to the fight­ing game pop­u­la­tion so it’s not a total wash. Cap­com could col­lect bet­ter, though.

TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge — Issue 46

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Shred­der’s Revenge served hot in sequel

As a con­nois­seur of most things relat­ed to the Teenage Mutant Nin­ja Tur­tles, I find that the first two movies, the comics and the first ani­mat­ed show are worth my time. In addi­tion to those men­tioned, cer­tain games are accept­able uses of my hard-earned scril­la. I am a dis­cern­ing fan, and my dol­lars and time are pre­cious. So, it is with great joy and ela­tion that I spread the word that TMNT games have recov­ered slight­ly from the Dimen­sion X por­tal that the fran­chise fell into and the lat­est game, Shred­der’s Revenge, is proof of this return to glory.

Con­ceived as a trib­ute game of sorts, Shred­der’s Revenge takes every­thing we found awe­some about TMNT II: The Arcade Game and TMNT IV: Tur­tles in Time and ramps up the awe­some lev­el. The sto­ry con­tin­ues Tur­tles in Time, which was a wise choice. The Tur­tles find Rock­steady and Bebop and their adja­cent vil­lain asso­ciates guard­ing Krang’s exoskele­ton head in var­i­ous loca­tions includ­ing Man­hat­tan and Dimen­sion X. Appar­ent­ly, Shred­der is alive and kick­ing again after being top­pled on top of the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty in 1992. In 2022, he wants revenge for the Tur­tles stop­ping this par­tic­u­lar plot of may­hem of using Lady Lib­er­ty to take over the world. Because they’re used to Shred­der’s fool­ish­ness — bear in mind this is 1986 car­toon Shred­der, not com­ic book Shred­der who was­n’t a major vil­lain — the Tur­tles and their friends and fam­i­ly band togeth­er to stop the revenge plot once and for all.

Adding April O’Neil, Casey Jones and Splin­ter along­side the Tur­tles was a smart move. It’s almost incon­ceiv­able now that we were nev­er able to play as those three sup­port­ing char­ac­ters in a Tur­tles beat-’em-up before, and it has to be allowed in future games. Once you get going with a char­ac­ter cho­sen, the lev­el-up sys­tem is quick and easy to learn. And learn you will because there are so many ways to dis­patch Foot Clan sol­diers and oth­er ene­mies for points that work with­in the sys­tem. It’s almost too much to keep up with, espe­cial­ly in the heat of bat­tle where know­ing the cor­rect way to dis­patch a boss is impor­tant. Hav­ing some pre­vi­ous knowl­edge of Tur­tles in Time helps tremen­dous­ly, and there are in-game instruc­tions and a tuto­r­i­al, but it’s nigh over­whelm­ing. Though, to be fair, I’d rather have too much than too lit­tle. The game is giv­ing me a feast and thank­ful­ly, the con­trols are easy to grasp and clean as you romp through 16 gor­geous levels.

The game looks just as fan­tas­tic as well as it con­trols. The art imme­di­ate­ly dips into the nos­tal­gia of the orig­i­nal after­school show and had me hum­ming the super ’80s theme song. This is the area where that trib­ute comes into play. If you’re a fan of the show, you will love every­thing about how the game looks, feels, and sounds. Well, almost. 
While the sound­track is also fan­tas­tic, we can’t not men­tion the atro­cious remake of the theme song. Of all of the music cho­sen to remake, the theme show is the one track that you don’t mess with. It is a rev­er­ent piece of pop cul­ture his­to­ry and is sacred to most Tur­tle fans, includ­ing myself. My 42-year-old adult self knows the words by heart and has it in dig­i­tal form; it’s on that lev­el for me. So, hear­ing the theme butchered as it were in Shred­der’s Revenge had me tak­en aback. I was griev­ous­ly wound­ed but the soul still burns in this old Tur­tle girl. Because the rest of the sound­track is great ’80s cen­tric pop, tunes snatched direct­ly from the ear­ly sea­sons of the TV show, and beau­ti­ful voice­work from the orig­i­nal ani­mat­ed cast, I can let the remake theme slide, but it bet­ter not be in the sequel.

My only oth­er gripe here is the dif­fi­cul­ty lev­el. Even on the eas­i­est dif­fi­cul­ty, there were a lot of arcade rip-off ten­den­cies going on. Tac­tics like ene­my AI gang­ing up on char­ac­ters with already low health, not-so-clean hits from off-screen ene­mies that you can’t see and los­ing health rather quick­ly ran as ram­pant as those Stone Sol­diers that Krang employed. Any lev­els involv­ing vehi­cles and fly­ing are impos­si­bly hard and feel designed to be annoy­ing­ly frus­trat­ing. Boss fights, I’m fine with; they’re sup­posed to be hard. But reg­u­lar lev­els beyond the first stage were like this on easy dif­fi­cul­ty, which is obnox­ious. It was like try­ing to play TMNT II: The Arcade Game all over again and watch­ing the cab­i­net steal my mon­ey out of my pock­et. It feels unfair and set up to be against the play­er, which is unfor­tu­nate. Know­ing that going into the expe­ri­ence now makes it a lit­tle eas­i­er to nav­i­gate but is a detraction. 

Despite a try-hard col­li­sion sys­tem that keeps it from obtain­ing leg­endary sta­tus, Shred­der’s Revenge is a nice love let­ter to old­er TMNT fans who were around for the orig­i­nal craze. The quirks are notice­able, but Shred­der’s Revenge tries real­ly hard in every oth­er area, and it suc­ceeds well. Let’s call it a Cow­abun­ga for now.

Jet Grind Radio — Issue 45

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Jet Grind Radio sets cool standard

Bom­bas­tic yet cool. This is the dichoto­my you encounter in the atmos­phere of Jet Grind Radio. There’s noth­ing quite like it — except its sequel — and that’s a bless­ing because I don’t think the world could han­dle any­thing else. It’s quirky, futur­is­tic, stun­ning, and unde­ni­ably cool when you get down to it: Jet Grind Radio is the future.
Set in a futur­is­tic Tokyo, Jet Grind Radio fea­tures a wide cast of rollerblad­ing graf­fi­ti gangs vying for suprema­cy and strug­gling against an ego­ma­ni­a­cal mad­man and his con­glom­er­ate, which are attempt­ing to take over the world. The sto­ry­line serves its pur­pose but it’s the char­ac­ters that are the draw here. Each char­ac­ter — includ­ing the unlock­able — has an inter­est­ing look and sto­ry going on. They are the lifeblood, and it’s fun to learn about them and their motivations. 
While we’re lov­ing the char­ac­ters, let’s also give love to the art style that brings them to life. The art style is gor­geous and still holds up after 23 years. The graf­fi­ti cel-shad­ed look has aged well; graf­fi­ti nev­er fails to be awe­some and impact­ful, and Jet Grind Radio looks phe­nom­e­nal. It’s the first game to use this tech­nique, and it set the stan­dard in 2000 in terms of pre­sen­ta­tion. The back­grounds are also well done and inspire runs through the game. It’s clear­ly an ear­ly 2000s game, but that only por­tends good things about the Dream­cast and what it was capa­ble of.
And as good as the game looks, the graph­ics almost don’t hold a can­dle to the sound­track. This is one of the best sound­tracks ever done, and it will have you bop­ping while you’re run­ning around on inline skates. This is one of those sound­tracks that you put on while work­ing and you get some of your best work done. Funky and pop-cen­tric, the sound­track has so much going on the­mat­i­cal­ly that there’s bound to be some­thing for everyone. 
And in terms of appeal­ing to mass con­sump­tion, the con­trols are a com­mon denom­i­na­tor kind of sen­si­bil­i­ty. The imme­di­ate com­par­i­son here is Tony Hawk, which isn’t sur­pris­ing since the Hawk­man had just released his first game — Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater — a year ear­li­er to crit­i­cal acclaim. Jet Grind Radio does­n’t nec­es­sar­i­ly grind on Hawk’s coat­tails, but you’re bound to say to your­self at least once, “These con­trols sure feel famil­iar.” And you would­n’t be wrong. That’s a good thing, because it plays like ear­ly Tony Hawk, you know when it was good.
While every­thing is great in terms of pre­sen­ta­tion and con­trol, I’d be remiss in men­tion­ing that there is one both­er­some flaw with Jet Grind Radio. While the con­trols are eas­i­ly anal­o­gous to ear­ly Tony Hawk games, it was­n’t easy to pick up the game and know what’s going on imme­di­ate­ly. It’s a lit­tle too inac­ces­si­ble at first, like it’s ask­ing you to have some in-depth knowl­edge ahead of play­ing for the first time. You may not be famil­iar with the con­cepts the game is throw­ing at you, and it’s the game’s respon­si­bil­i­ty to ease you into the fray. Thank­ful­ly, the sur­round­ing game is so good that you’ll come back to get more in-depth with the trap­pings of Tokyo-to.
The Jet Grind series has last­ed into the mod­ern era with re-releas­es and a rumored reboot, and the orig­i­nal game details exact­ly why. Easy con­trols, var­ied modes, an engag­ing cast (love Pots, Piran­ha and Beat!) and pop­ping sound­track make for an imme­di­ate­ly unfor­get­table expe­ri­ence. Get in-line to get down with the fan­tas­tic Jet Grind Radio.

Monster Hunter: World — Issue 44

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A whole new world awaits

Lush, breath­tak­ing, com­pli­cat­ed, try­ing. If you weren’t a fan of Mon­ster Hunter as a fran­chise until you played Mon­ster Hunter: World, con­sid­er your­self miss­ing out on some­thing won­drous. Mon­ster Hunter: World is as close to per­fec­tion as an action RPG can be.

Every­thing begins with you. You begin your adven­ture as a hunter join­ing the Fifth Fleet on an expe­di­tion to the New World. You are tasked with explor­ing the vast wild in search of infor­ma­tion and sci­ence. You’re sup­port­ed with an assis­tant — Pal­i­coes — and oth­er offi­cers of the Fifth Fleet, who help with hunt­ing the flo­ra and fau­na in the wide unknown so that you may inform the Research Com­mis­sion of your find­ings and pos­si­bly stop the extinc­tion of vital drag­ons. The sto­ry is engross­ing, well-writ­ten and eas­i­ly digestible with hints of more to come as you explore every nook of the new land. 

And explore you will because that’s the name of the game here: Hunt­ing. You, the hunter, go into the world to hunt mon­sters of all sizes. Dur­ing your hunts, you’re using your wits and the envi­ron­ment to your advan­tage, care­ful not to faint too many times while work­ing to take down a crea­ture so that you may get new parts to craft gear and weapons. The craft­ing aspect is fan­tas­tic. The vari­ety of gear and equip­ment that can be gen­er­at­ed is off the charts, and there is noth­ing more sat­is­fy­ing than tak­ing down a new ene­my and obtain­ing new, more pow­er­ful gear. Cap­com knew the essence of the high that comes from win­ning a hard-fought bat­tle, loot, craft bet­ter gear and repeat. And they’ve cap­tured that essence mas­ter­ful­ly here with increas­ing incen­tives and nuanced pac­ing. Fight­ing nev­er feels weird, and it quick­ly becomes sec­ond nature to swing your sword and make waves in bat­tle. My only gripe here is that there is so much to learn with the bat­tle mechan­ics and item craft­ing and usage that some­times it gets over­whelm­ing. Tak­ing your time to read the tuto­ri­als and work through sce­nar­ios in train­ing is the way to com­bat that. I’m pleased with this set­up because I’d rather get too much infor­ma­tion than not enough.

While on your expe­di­tions or even at the hub, stop a moment when you can and admire the beau­ty that Cap­com has cre­at­ed. The game is one of the most beau­ti­ful I have ever seen. I fre­quent­ly stop to watch the scenery and take in the detail of the sur­round­ings. And, I want to espe­cial­ly high­light the impres­sive char­ac­ter cre­ation suite. If I can cre­ate my own char­ac­ter in a game, I want bold and accu­rate tools to do so. Mon­ster Hunter: World gave me that and more. I spent two hours with it alone and I still want­ed to spend more time there. The wealth of options is out­stand­ing, and I’m extreme­ly impressed with the diver­si­ty found with­in. I can make a char­ac­ter that accu­rate­ly looks like me with gor­geous options for hair­styles … or not. But I love the options giv­en, and I can’t praise that fea­ture enough.

The sound­track is anoth­er stand­out in the pre­sen­ta­tion. It’s fun, fast-paced and engag­ing. No track is out of place and it’s well-scored with so many dif­fer­ent instru­ments that it puts almost every oth­er adven­ture title to shame. This is big-bud­get music and it shows in every sit­u­a­tion you’ll find your­self in every envi­ron­ment. Also, the Pal­i­coes’ sound effects are some of the most adorable cat rep­re­sen­ta­tions I’ve ever heard. If you love cats like I do, you’re going to be say­ing “Aww, how adorable!” every five sec­onds and it’s not going to ever get old. That’s the mark of good audio, honestly.

Mon­ster Hunter: World is a mas­ter­piece in adven­ture. No short­age of things to do, a wealth of options and sto­ry and great mechan­ics come togeth­er in a majes­tic mag­num opus of craft­ing and sur­vival. The hunt for per­fec­tion is over with Mon­ster Hunter: World.