Famicom Detective Club is a pretty niche series by Nintendo, with only a couple games that were only on the NES—though recently remade for Nintendo Switch.

Emio The Smiling Man came out in 2024, and it brings the formula to current times!

I first heard of this game a couple of years ago in an episode of Into The Aether, brought up by Brendon Bigley, and literally this past week, now that Stephen is finally playing it as well.

I decided to give it a go during my Summer Game Challenge, and it’s finally time to write a review for it here.

Story

The game happens in Japan, and it seems to be dated somewhere in the 80s or 90s. The story begins when a high school student is found dead, wearing a paper bag with a creepy smiley face drawn on it.

You take control of a junior detective—which you get to name! Jules Poirot in my case—working for the Utsugi Detective Agency and the police to uncover the truth of this murder.

The case is linked with the urband legend of Emio, the Smiling Man—it’s the name of the videogame, wooooow!—which mentiones a creepy man wearing a paper bag who approaches young girls crying and—unless they smile when seeing him—murders them, covering their face with a paperbag with a smiley face drawn. Matching almost exactly with the event that triggered the game and investigation.

At the same time, this murder is linked with a different case that went cold eighteen years ago, involving the serial murders of girls who died by strangulation too, although there are differences that need to be accounted for. You’ll have to research from multiple perspectives to find out the truth.

Besides your character, you’ll work with Ayumi Tachibana, another junior in the agency that will go through her own investgation with a different group of characters to question. Both of you work for Shunsuke Utsugi, the private detective that runs the agency and mentors you both. He follows yet another lead in the case and seems to have a history working on the previous murders as well…

The game will switch perspectives between both junior detectives as the plot unfolds, and feature separate cutscenes and sequences that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the end!

Gameplay

It’s basically a visual novel. You can Ask/Listen, Look/Examine, Think, Call with your cellphone, check your notebook and such.

During any talk with a character, the conversation won’t simply be fed into you, you’ll have to react to things in a way that sort of makes sense, and it’s not just about mindlessly pressing talk over and over. The game provides hints of what could be done next as well.

Sometimes you’ll have to think before talking again, sometimes a character will make a nervous face and you’ll have to look at them before continuing a conversation. There are a couple simple puzzles where you’ll look at the environment to figure out what to say next, and the like.

At the end of every day, there’s a review time, where you go through all you’ve learned, fill up some blanks and check notes of your notebook to link clues together.

Although the order in which you find out clues can change slightly, the game itself is rather linear, the reviews are a nice challenge for yourself, but getting something wrong doesn’t punish you much, it only leads to a correction later on to put you in the right track.

The overall gameplay is really simplistic, but it can get confusing sometimes, when a chain of dialogue cuts off suddenly and you have to figure out what to do next. Thinking often helps a lot if you need a hint, but there are definitely situations where I was like a whole minute stuck and making no progress.

You also have the Travel option, that shows up at the end of some dialogues, or while exploring the city. Most of these actions are pretty self-explanatory and will make sense as the game goes on.

Admittedly, tha game it’s rather linear, don’t expect multiple endings and such. It’s a mystery slowly revealing itself to you and it’s very much worth it!

Art

This game is absolutely beautiful, as long as you are okay with the anime artstyle. It is easy on the eyes, minimal in interface and features plenty of high quality animation as well, such as mouth movements, expressions, hand gestures and the like. This is not your regular visual novel or JRPG with drawings being swapped around. Blinking, changes in posture, there are details everywhere. It kinda feels like they are rigged characters, like some VTuber streamers and YouTube channels. Looks fantastic.

The backgrounds are also very well crafted, with a great amount of detail and many descriptions for you to find using the Look action. There are city streets, forests, the police station, and plenty of other environments, some of them featuring multiple NPCs in the background that have some small animations as well.

This is the kind of stuff that a big company like Nintendo can do within a genre often lead by indie developers and small budgets. The budget doesn’t reach the heights of a Mario or a Zelda at all, but it’s clearly superior to what most visual novels would get, and it really shows in the presentation here.

Music & Sound

The soundtrack of this game is fitting of the occassion, it has a nostalgic 80s vibe that makes me think of the origins of this series back in the Famicom, exclusively for Japan. The main theme already sets the mood of the whole thing, but it’s not all there is to it!

It will get tense and emotional, as well as happy, carefree and even comical! The game is not afraid to jump between high stakes moments and comedic relief, and this is perfectly showcased on its soundtrack!

Emio also features fully voiced lines in Japanese. This is absolutely wonderful stuff. Even though I don’t understand the language itself, the emotional expressions and tone is easy to pick up from the excellent performances, and they really enhance every scene during revelations and the like.

Overall

Something I really appreciate about this game is how well it manages the tone of its story. There are really gruesome implications and dark moments here, some stuff that I would have never thought Nintendo would even publish, but this game does handle things well.

There are also quite a few fun moments, the game is not afraid to play with your assumptions and use them for comedic relief. There are also a couple genuinely charming moments between the characters. The dialogue is quite fun and easy to go through (as long as you don’t get stuck in a dialogue trying to figure out what’s next!) and the writing of the whole thing is really marvelous, drip-feeding you information in the best of ways.

The final chapters and the build up of the big reveal is genuinely fantastic, and I really think it makes every little nitpick worth it! However, it did feel a bit rushed, and some things are not explained after the credits rolled, so make sure you stick until the end to see that side of things. Definitely worth it in my opinion.

At the end of the day, this is still a visual novel. If you don’t want to basically read and read and click on things, this game will not be for you.

If you want multiple pathways and different endings, this is also not the game you’re looking for.

However, if you are up for an excellent murder mystery story to read through and find out clues before the game gives them to you, this is genuinely fantastic stuff.

This is day 50 of #100DaysToOffload

This review is spoiler-free, and even so, I’d rather you go play the game right now instead.

There is something to be said about a game that can go on without you, where you can spend countless hours without reading a single thing and explore every nook and cranny there is, while at the same time, there is not giving you a reason to do anything at all. There is no quest, there are no pop-ups, and there is no rush.

All you have is your own resolve and your own hunger for knowledge and understanding, that will be your only pursue and reward.

Outer Wilds puts you inside a toy-sized, fully simulated solar system, where each planet is completely different from each other and has unique behaviours and mysteries to discover. It will work without you, and you will work within it.

The only caveat about the game is this: It is played in first person perspective, and the physics and orientation in zero gravity can cause dizziness. If you get motion sickness, this game is not for you, and I am incredibly sorry.

You can take control of a spaceship that will absolutely kill you with its sketchy auto-pilot system, dozens of times, however, it will also provide you with a pretty awesome sense of control and simulated physics all around, you’ll have to learn how to land properly, how your velocity works and how each planet’s gravity affects you in the void of space! (The auto-pilot is actually pretty good—just make sure there’s no obstacles between you and your destination.)

With only a few tools at your disposal, you are pretty much on your own. The game doesn’t feature any upgrades or unlockables, there are no level ups, no collectibles, and no storage system either.

One of your tools will be your Scout Launcher, a probe you can aim and shoot at anything. It can take pictures, be a light source and detect hazards around you. Shoot it through a hole in the wall you can’t access and see what’s on the other side!

Another tool is the Signalscope, which let’s you detect signals from outer space (or things that are right next to you) and also zoom in to things far from you that might peak your interest. Keep a look out for any interesting signals and sounds around you.

The most important tool is the Translator. In the story you will learn that you are the first astronaut from the village’s space program—fittingly named “Outer Wilds Ventures”—you are going to able to translate all the ancient writings from an alien civilization whose remains are spread all over the solar system. The knowledge found in them are what is likely to hook you into figuring out more.

There’s also a computer with a ship log, which keeps track of the information you’ve gathered, and let’s you pin certain locations on a map of the whole solar system. You can also pin any celestial body from the map to auto-pilot to it.

And this is about as much as I can tell you of this game, without ruining every surprise it has for you.

I am not going to explain what each planet has to offer, I don’t want you to know even a slice of what the story is about, I also don’t want to describe the encounters or discoveries you will make, I won’t even quote a single line of text in the game. Every single one of those things is unique for your playthrough, and you deserve to cherish each moment.

Outer Wilds doesn’t force you to do anything, it doesn’t tell you in what order you should visit the planets, it doesn’t tell you the main objective or why you are there. It does give you a push, it does give you leads, but no more than that!

It is all about exploration, all about curiosity, about wonder, making your own journey, and connecting your own dots.

Come up with your own theories, try the craziest of stunts on your ship, and learn how to master and move on the environment around you.

It is the kind of game you can only play once, the solution is right in front of you the whole time.

The game has a story, the game will hook you, the game has a motive, everything happens for a reason, the whole system is like a puzzle, but at the same time, it doesn’t need you, it’s alive and well and beautiful and horrifying.

The artstyle of the game is great, it is cute, it is mesmerizing, it is also scary, and it will fill you with a sense of awe. The game adopts a very interesting design language, where the things that matter are incredibly obvious, and the places that don’t will look rather empty, this is to lead you into areas with things you can see or interact with, keeping everything at a small, cozy scale. Funnily enough, the game will somehow pull off incredible landscapes and perspectives that will, as I already said, fill you with a sense of wonder, as you see how beautiful the universe can be.

The music is a masterclass of environmental storytelling, it will make you feel every emotion, sadness, hope, peace. It is an incredible work of art on its own, and it compliments every moment in a wonderful manner. You will grow fond of it, you will also dread it. Every piece carries a lot of weight, and it just hits at the right time. That soundtrack is a must-buy. Andrew Prahlow is a genius.

Well, honestly, everyone who worked on this game clearly gave everything they had on it, the writing is absolutely incredible too. It is funny and sassy, it could also fill you with hope, it may as well make you cry and care about something beyond you. I have already said enough.

Am I hyping it up too much? Perhaps I am, perhaps you will try it and get lost and lose motivation, perhaps you will get hooked for a couple hours and then get stuck somewhere and lose all steam. I played this game in two big moments. From January 6 to 23, and from August 7 to 22. I understand why you may stop, why it may look like things are not clicking and why you may want to move on, perhaps you were there already, and abandoned the game.

I implore you to return, start over if you must but I have a feeling you will get by just with the clues at your disposal and the knowledge you have gained already. Soon something will happen that will finally make things fit inside your head, and it will be smooth sailing from there…

Technically speaking, the game is marvelous, the features and mechanics of its underworkings are miraculous. I played it on my Nintendo Switch and the performance was not ideal, however, it is not a game that requires perfomance or a stable framerate to be enjoyed. I do recommend getting it on a more powerful device though. I still put 32 hours into the Switch edition, and I will soon play the DLC there too, a whole game of its own, from what I’ve heard.

Normally I would plague this review with screenshots, but I just don’t want to show anything else now, just stop reading this and give it a go.

Please, play it, and tell me all about it when you do.

This is day 27 of #100DaysToOffload

I will be saying this many times during the review, but it is simply true. Gris is one of the most beautiful games ever made. It combines watercolors, ink, contrast, shapes, angles, curves, everything. This videogame is a moving painting, it belongs in a museum exhibit, and it’s an absolute steal that someone can play something like this (and it’s actually on sale for Switch right now)

Perhaps I am exagerating a little bit, but barely! Every environment, every background, every character asset is made with purpose! And obviously most games put a lot of work into that, but well, I don’t know. I just love the style here, and regardless of the mechanics and the story, it is just super pretty to look at and listen to, of course.

Gris is a platforming puzzle game where we embark on a journey following a girl with blue hair and a black dress, after she falls from the hand of a statue shaped after a woman, on to a colorless world, a blank canvas with old ruins and structures, where she has to find her way against the terrain and the environment around her.

During the adventure, she goes through multiple challenges, restoring statues similar to the woman from the beginning of the game, and carving a path upwards among the stars—she actually has to collect some lights that become platforms for her. Gris also learns new abilities that let her reach new areas and solve different platforming puzzles. During all of this, she slowly revives the blank canvas, bringing back an explosion of colors one by one.

It is a very minimal game that can be completed in about five hours, and can even be considered more of a “walking simulator”, given the easy difficulty of the platforming and relative simplicity of its puzzle design.

There is no dialogue in Gris—there’s almost no text at all to be seen—so the story is inferred from other artistic elements; the animation work, the music and visuals definitely leave an impression, and become more striking as we reach new areas themed after the colors we unleash, with new platforming elements and mechanics.

The whole artstyle of the game is very unique and full of contrast, each color bringing new visuals, but the whole game kind of feels like a huge painting brought to life with watercolor and inks. Every asset is clearly hand-drawn and excellently made, the animation work is top notch and implements many techniques, with some cutscenes that felt extremely raw and probably rotoscoped, I couldn’t look away from the screen.

It is a game that transmits many emotions, such as grief, loss, hope, and melancholy. The score by Berlinist is sublime. As I said, it was the main reason this game was on my radar for years before I even acquired it.

Gameplay-wise, this is more of an artistic experience, where you explore through a moving work of art. There really is no lose condition, and you don’t even fall from platforms on to spikes or any dangerous elements. If you fail, you simply land on a lower platform and climb up to where you left off. The lack of challenge could be turn off for some people, maybe, but I don’t see a problem here given the intent of the game.

All of Gris takes place in an single interconnected world, there are no loading screens—or they are hidden behind beautiful animations or transitions—there are no levels either. The game is pretty linear, with a set of challenges to overcome, even though it may feel like a Metroidvania at times, there’s little to no backtracking, except for some rooms within a zone, when there are central hubs or locked doors with challenges around it, required to unlock the path forward.

Gris does not feature any ground-breaking powers, to be honest. However, they are beautiful interpretations of the usual tropes. The gound pound, the double jump, swimming and the like, are some wonderful upgrades that are used in plenty of creative ways, and they even manage to give each ability a certain emotional undertone, as they amplify a certain aspect of Gris’ journey, not just on the world, but her feelings around what’s going on, and are also needed during plenty of memorable ways.

I don’t know how I can explain it without spoiling much, but I guess the colors that bring life to the world also bring with them many feelings, both positive and negative, which is something that I found very interesting. There’s a particular ability in the game that, as simple as it is, hits really differently when you finally get to unlock it. Each power can really feel like an impactful moment for the protagonist, and not just as an unlockable for game progression.

I think the most similar game to this one that I’ve played before has to be Ori and the Blind Forest, without the Metroidvania elements, and perhaps a little bit of Celeste, without the difficulty, of course.

There are a couple of surprising sequences which increase the challenge of platforming sequences, as well as companions during some of the journey, that can help us solve some puzzles or overcome different obstacles. Each of these encounters was incredibly well made, usually accompanied by unique animation, striking scenes and an excellent score—like most of the game, to be fair.

Something I found really interesting is the sense of scale in the game, the camera is not afraid at all of making you look like a dot, only visible due to Gris’ contrasting haircolor and not much else. Some of the puzzles, structures or platforms can be quite inspiring with an ominous feeling to them that is weird to see, especially when most platformers have a fixed camera distance. I believe some games like Inside do play around with that too, though they do so in a semi-3D environment.

Not a lot of things to say. This is a small, personal journey, which can be finished in a day or two. It is something worth a visit, it’s the kind of game you give to someone who thinks videogames are for kids, to prove how a videogame can absolutely be a piece of art too.

Not the most ground-breaking innovative title in gameplay terms, but definitely made with passion behind it and absolutely stunning at every moment. I feel like I repeated myself a lot on this review, but who cares, go and play it.

As a sidenote, for the longest time all my videogame reviews have simply been titled after the game, this is the first time where I add a few words to follow it up. I feel weird about it still, but this game’s name is so short I figured I’d give it a go.

This is day 23 of #100DaysToOffload and day 17 of #Blaugust2026

One of their first titles was Transistor, a sci-fi themed action/tactics RPG hybird released in 2014—about four World Cups ago in case you are wondering. In it, we control Red, a famous singer in the city of Cloudbank. The story kind of begins with a murder mystery, as we find Red besides a corpse, stabbed with a giant sword, which we soon realize, has somehow absorbed the man’s consciousness. Red has also lost her voice for some reason, so the sword itself— called the Transistor—becomes Red’s companion and narrator throughout the game, as well as our weapon to weild throughout the adventure

Red has to weild the Transistor to defend herself against hordes of robot enemies, who we come to know as the Process. Slowly but surely, they are corrupting the city of Cloudbank, which up to this point had been a cyberpunk utopia, that could be modified and acommodated to the citizens’ taste.

As Red advances, she will encounter the remains of multiple important people of Cloudbank who were “integrated”—killed—and the Transistor will be able to absorb “functions” from them, which Red can use during combat as new attacks or enhancements. Each one of those functions also show information of the character they were absorbed from, their profile and motives, including story elements. As you use the functions in different ways, you can unlock new aspects of their backstory.

The combat is one of the game’s most defining aspects, extremely unique when compared to anything else in the entire genre. It is a polar opposite to Hades’ button-mashing style that needs quick reactions and attacks. Pretty much every movement is fairly slow—Monster Hunter’s Great Sword combat slow on normal combat—However, you have access to a special Turn() function which is the meat and potatoes of it all.

You see, when you trigger a Turn, the environment goes dark, and time completely stops. You can move in any direction, perform attacks, see how the resulting damage builds up, undo previous moves and then commit to perform them. Each move has a certain cost, so you can only “queue” a few actions before you have to commit. Once you finish a turn, you’ll return to normal and do all the attacks in one fell swoop, with the enemies simply taking all the hits you got on them.

You are pretty much programming a sequence, hence why the moves are called functions, and even named as such, like Turn(), Switch() or Spark(). This mechanic feels like a mix of turn based and tactics combat, as you have to think about plenty of parameters, like positioning, attack range and even enemy alignment.

One big caveat here is that not everything you do in your sequence may go as you expect. For example, if you chain multiple attacks without moving, the first couple may land well, but the last may miss, if the enemy was knocked back too far from the attack’s area of effect and you didn’t account for it. You will need to learn how some attacks affect the enemy, and take it into consideration during a Turn.

When it comes to story, the delivery of this one is rather obtuse. You follow a linear path from beginning to end, finding new characters and functions to use. You slowly see the Process integrating all of Cloudbank, alterating the environment and making it much more sterile, you also come to understand what caused the Process to get out of control, and how each person you find was murdered/integrated in the first place though the why is often obtuse.

There’s also terminals you can access all throughout the journey, which let you read news and reports of what’s happening in the background, this is also one of the few places where Red communicates, as she can type her thoughts there. The terminal access let’s you chat with certain characters too, though this is not something the player controls, just a way to progress the story and give us more information.

There’s a backdoor area of the game, separated from Cloudbank somehow, where you can relax for a while and also enter special doors. They are pretty much separate challenges that will require you to understand the mechanics and functions at your disposal.

Each challenge focuses on a different aspect, from speed to efficiency of moves, it’s honestly a very fun set of rooms to try and beat multiple times, since you can use them to practice and optimize your playstyle. Besides, it’s a way to unlock songs from the game which you can play at will during your stay there.

Oh right, the songs, the music, the score… Darren Korb is an absolute genius, something I discovered thanks to Hades and can fully confirm here as well. The soundtrack of this game is magnificent. It simply sparks joy, what else can I say?

The voice work too. Even though Red lost her voice, we get to see a few cutscenes of her singing, and of course, the Transistor, our narrator and companion, does a fantastic work throughout the whole journey. Later in the game some other characters with voice lines will appear, and I must admit, it’s really good stuff. All of them fit and you can feel the weight of each word similarly to Hades, they are excellently done.

The art feels very minimalistic and futuristic, it’s the same isometric view we can find in Hades (and most games from Supergiant), and here the artstyle is much more abstract. It kind of looks like everything is a painting, full of straight lines and angles, somewhat cell-shaded too.

The good

• An intriguing story and premise.
• A linear adventure where you can rarely get lost.
• Deep combat system that is easy to understand and fun to master.
• Excellent voice work and soundtrack.
• Well written script and characters.
• Fantastic artstyle and atmosphere.
• Does not overstay its welcome.
• It was a New Game+ mode.

The bad

• The story may feel a bit too slow to progress, like it’s dreep-feeding information.
• Sometimes an attack sequence may break or behave unexpectedly.
• A few of the enemies can be quite bothersome, but nothing too bad.
• A lot of screens with a lot of lore you may miss.
• Some of the events or dialogue may go above your head

Overall

This game was really enjoyable! I played it on my Nintendo Switch and finished it less than six hours, in the span of ten days, mostly during my commutes to and from work! I wore wired earphones for most of the story, though I also enjoyed it at home on the TV.

The performance was perfect and I really liked how the story unfolded, even if sometimes it felt like some dialogue contained a lot of words without really saying much.

The sci-fi setting was one of the most intriguing for me, I never really understood how it all worked, though I don’t think we are meant to. A part of me wondered if we even play as humans, or if we are just some super futuristic version of it all, given the powers we have and the enemy we face.

Anyway, I’m just theorizing at this point, it’s not really spoilery, I think, but yeah. It’s a game that gives you quite a bit to think about when it comes to reality and how we write our future as people. Definitely worth a play given its lenght, in my opinion.

This is day 7 of #100DaysToOffload and post 2 of Blaugust 2026

It’s really weird that I chose not to review this one when I rolled credits on it, because it really is a fantastic return to form for the franchise. Super Mario Bros Wonder is a game I completed with my friends almost completely. A title that became one of many choices to try whenever my friends were up to the task.

For so long, the Mario 2D platformers were stuck in a weird place. All of them since the original DS title that added the “New” to the name felt like a rehash of what came before. The artistic direction just didn’t age very well and looked rather basic.

I played some of the original on a borrowed DS back in the day, out of an R4 card, I obviously tried the Wii version, which was rather popular. I remember giving it a go during a birthday party, in one of those fancy birthday places you can rent that come with gaming rooms and giant bouncy castles. There was a Wii there and I shared controllers with random kids beating a couple of levels together.

Years ago I also tried New Super Mario Bros U. A friend of mine had it at the time, and it was a period of my life where I only had my PSP. I wanted some multiplayer stuff and both this and Super Smash Bros U proved ideal. I have a faint memory of playing New Super Mario Bros 2 on a 3DS actually… but not much.

Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3 look extremely different from each other, and the same goes for Super Mario World and Yoshi’s Island! As long as the moustache and overalls are present, all of them were recognizable and iconic Mario Games.

While none of the “New” Super Mario titles were bad—in fact, they all had excellent level design and very fun mechanics!—all of them lacked an identity of their own.

Super Mario Bros Wonder gives everything a fresh coat of paint, it is fantastically animated and it does not really miss. Every little detail is wonderful and whimsical and made with passion. It’s noticeable everywhere and I can’t help but love it.

Another thing I enjoyed where the extra power ups, I liked becoming an Elephant and breaking blocks left and right. I never fully understood the Drill Mushroom, but going underground and to roof tops was actually fun and felt great, the classic power ups are there too, and the animations for them are a joy to watch. Trapping enemies in bubbles was funny, not gonna lie.

The game was also very approachable in the way you could complete levels, and replayable too, thanks to badges which gave you extra moves or helped you out in some way, like the Parachute Cap, that allowed you to control jumps better, the Wall Climb that was a lifesaver when you could barely reach a platform, and of course the Dolphin Kick, to swim super fast on underwater levels. There were many others that were fun to use.

The multiplayer was chaotic in the best of ways, and the wonder seeds only multiplied that feeling every time. Some times we played the online mode, and seeing other people running around was a joy. Everyone was actually helpful and I got saved by strangers more than once.

I wonder how many people still run through it today, I should visit some of the levels I didn’t fully finish to see!

Definitely a highlight of the Switch library. I really recommend it!

This is post 3 of 3 for day 95 of #100DaysToOffload

This is one of those chill and cozy types, a photography game where there really is not a lot of pressure or challenge. It was the debut game from Something We Made and you are a young photographer who is tasked by mom (or grandma? can’t remember) to take a picture up a mountain of a phenomenon called “TOEM”.

To get to that mountain you have to take a bus, and to pay for the ticket you have get stamps, which you get by completing quests, all of them require you to photograph certain things in your current location, and the bus will give you a ride to a new place after you collect enough stamps.

This game was an absolute joy, it looks really nice, with a style similar to Paper Mario, where characters are flat and 2D, in a basic 3D environment. The whole thing is also in black and white.

I found the challenges to be extremely fun, the game has an isometric perspective, which you can rotate to reveal certain angles, and expose things hidden from plain sight. You can also use the camera mode to look in places the regular perspective won’t allow. For example, to photograph a balloon in the sky which is not visible otherwise.

There’s also a puzzle element aspect to things, with certain areas being unaccesible until you figure out how to get it. It often is as simply as bringing a photo of something, TOEM also features outfits, where you can style your character however you want, and of course, this is also a mechanic, of the game, where you will be required to disguise yourself, or to wear something specific to access an area.

The game is extremely short, but it really has a lot of charm, the dialogue is thoughtful and warm and the characters you meet, while simple, are still always nice to see. There’s some who you’ll see throughout the game, doing side quests with their own objectives for which they’ll often require your helps.

Since the quests are basically a to-do list, I actually felt compelled to do every single one of them, I got rewards and I felt great doing it. This is a game I got for free because of a Steam code, so I also played it on my laptop (a rare ocurrence) and got every single achievement for it, with some online help for the most obscure ones, not gonna lie.

At last, reaching the top of that mountain is definitely an wonderful experience you owe yourself to try, or maybe the journey is what it’s all about?

Highly recommended if you want a chill time, some nice music and a cozy vibe for a couple evenings, since it’s super short! This is post 2 of 3 for day 95 of #100DaysToOffload

This is honestly a game that I don’t know how to explain that much. It’s God of War, everyone knows how a classic God of War plays right? Probably not everyone I guess.

If you don’t, God of War is a button masher, however, it is a button masher with a lot of style and combos! The game is known for its epic battles against hordes of enemies and is basically a power fantasy. You are literally the God of War, after all.

Kratos is a very angry character, and he is also kind of cool. He is tasked by the greek gods to do many things—I think he’s not the God of War yet or something?—and has to kill every enemy that crosses his path.

I know I just called it a button masher, but there’s an actual science behind it, there really are a lot of weapons and movesets you will be unlocking as the game goes on. Different enemies require very different appraoches, some can only be damaged in a certain way, some can entangle you and you need to break free from their grasp, and there are many of them! You can upgrade your weapons and moves, as well as obtain new ones as the story continues. Keep the hits coming, and you will gain extra points and XP and fill up meters and all of that good stuff that makes your brain happy!

The game also features a lot of locations, both real cities from Ancient Greece, as well as locations from greek myths, such as Tartarus or the fields of Elysium. I should note that the game is extremely linear, an adventure on rails that I actually really enjoyed. Not having to worry or get too lost was nice to see.

Besides the combat, the game contains plenty of puzzles, some of them kind of ingenious, but I have to say I found them a bit out of place sometimes, especially because certain things were just kind of slow to do, such as pushing blocks or using certain levers. They kind of got in the way of the fast paced action during combat, and Kratos’s prowess was relegated to pushing buttons in a specific way (some actions were a bit hard to trigger).

The art of the game is incredible, and the fact that it’s all running on a handheld from 2005 boggles my mind, it just looks gorgeous, even if it has a bit of that “everything is brown” problem that some older “realistic” games suffered from. Enemy design, the animation of every attack and combo, the art and statues all over the place, the fiels of Elysium itself or the giant structures you’ll fight through. It’s all just fantastic.

Again, story-wise, it’s not really weak, but it’s not really that important. I have seen video essays about this game, detailing the story of Kratos’ journey and downfall for revenge, and I guess it is there, but this is also a PSP game that happens between some other games that I have never played, so I had no real stakes to care about. There was one scene that was actually really interesting though, so I’ll not spoil it as it’s rather nice to see.

God of War: Chains of Olympus still plays like a charm, though Ghost of Sparte, the second title for the PSP is technically superior in everyway, this is only noticeable once you compare them. I really had fun with it and recommend giving it a try. Do make sure to level up and get good at the combos though, and keep your health in check, some fights in some checkpoints can get very tedious if you are stuck in a bad state and have to reload a previous save further back. I guess that’s my one complaint, but it’s part of the challenge anyway, lower the difficulty and enjoy the power fantasy if you want that instead.

This is post 1 of 3 for day 95 of #100DaysToOffload

While I was aware of emulation from a young age, thanks to Ocarina of Time and Mario Kart 64, I never quite understood that there’s more emulators out there besides the old Project 64 until an older friend showed me his computer running them.

Along Pokémon Fire Red and Final Fantasy I & II, Metroid Fusion was one of the first ever Game Boy Advance games I saw emulated. Fusion andZero Mission were some of the first games I ever completed, and Metroid Dread was the first game I ever finished with 100% items.

Back in the day, when I was less than ten years young. My mom would visit a friend of hers, and they would talk about whatever moms talk about. Mom’s friend babysit me when I was a youngling, she was older than mom and had a son who was also older than me. He had a Wii, and would let me play games like Wii Sports, and even Super Mario Galaxy.

There was one title there that I had seen, featuring that orange armored bounty hunter that I had seen in Super Smash Bros Brawl too, Samus. I remember clearly reading Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and reading the back of the case a few times. It looked interesting for sure, but I never got around to even ask for permission to play it.

Alas, it was one of many titles back then, but as I grew familiar with the mainline 2D games, I was interested on seeing this side of Metroid too, obviously starting from the first game.

While there are many unofficial ways to play the original trilogy, I have a Nintendo Switch and knew that Metroid Prime Remastered was praised as the ultimate way to play the first entry of the trilogy. With this in the back of my mind, I visited my local physical store one day, saw it, and bought it!—then realized it was much, much cheaper to buy online, but whatever.

Years went by and my collection kept growing, I decided I would give this title a go for the Summer Game Challenge, and I’m happy to say: I have experienced a masterpiece.

Story

Metroid Prime Remastered begins with Samus investigating a Space Pirate ship orbiting the planet Tallon IV. After an encounter with some mutated life forms, Samus is forced to escape when the ship’s self-destruct sequence is triggered—something that usually happens until the end of every game—and her power suit suffers some damage, causing her to lose most of her upgrades.

As she escapes she finds a familiar foe, Ridley, flying towards the planet. As weakened as Samus is, she is still fearless, and chases after him, about to begin a new adventure.

Samus will find her way through many environments and locations, to find out what the Space Pirates are doing here. The planet once housed a settlement of the Chozo civilization, but only ruins remain. She will be able to recover her powers by overcoming every obstacle that comes her way, defeating different bosses, and getting a bit lost, from time to time.

The Chozo are an ancient species who raised Samus in her youth. they expanded all over the galaxy, but they suddenly faded away. The game will feature plenty or murals portraying information and a backstory behind everything going on. The same is true for the Space Pirates, who will have logs of their research and plans. As the story continues, there are also mentions of Samus’ arrival and the actions taken by the enemy to try and counteract her progress.

I really, really enjoyed the way this title’s backstory is exposed, it felt like what Outer Wilds—a game I’m yet to beat but played for 11 hours—does for its own exploration. Letting you catch glimpses of what happened, not always in the right order, and allowing you to piece everything togeter until you have a full narrative.

You can find and read all these during the game, but they are also easy to miss and pretty much optional. The way things develop during the game is also interesting, as you see the planet change because of what’s going on, you can tell the influence of the Space Pirates and their plans in effect.

There’s basically no dialogue throughout the whole game, Samus is isolated the whole time. The bounty hunter will face her destiny, and Samus is not here to lose.

Gameplay

Nintendo called this a “First Person Adventure”, where the focus is not on shooting, but exploring your way around the planet. There are many areas to explore, the Chozo ruins, Tallon IV’s Overworld, the Magmoor Mines, the Phendrana Drifts, and many locations within those regions. It’s just a Metroidvania in first person okay?

For exploration, Samus counts with a variety of movement options, that will let you reach different areas of the map. Upgrades like the morph ball and the grapple beam are classic at this point, smooth and satisfying to use. There are many more upgrades and some movement options. I would rather not spoil them as some of them are unique to Metroid Prime. There was a lot of thought put into how these powers would be brought to the third dimension. I’d say all of them were adapted perfectly.

Another unique feature of Prime is the visor. The developers put a lot of care making sure the player is inmersed into their role as Samus. When something explodes, for example, the light will reflect and you’ll see a glimpse of your own face. When there is sand, or smoke, the visor will be obstructed or foggy. There are other conditions which affect your vision, and these are a highlight of the game worth experiencing.

The visor also has upgrades to unlock. The scan function allows you to investigate targets in your field of vision. This is essential to find clues to defeat enemies, translate writings on walls or decrypt computer logs. They are key to interacting with machinery, disabling enemy barriers and many other uses. Future visor upgrades will let you see behind walls or trace heat signatures.

The remaster features dual stick controls akin to Halo and modern FPS titles, but there’s also layouts that mimmick the original Game Cube or Wii. I played with the modern control scheme during the whole game.

As enemies can attack from every angle and come in a variety of sizes, there is an automatic lock-in system built into the game. Unlike regular shooters, trying to aim yourself is not really worth it. Instead, exploring your surroundings is encouraged. As you backtrack through areas, simply avoiding enemies becomes easier than trying to kill them all everytime, like classic 2D Metroid.

There is no denying this: Samus is slow as a tank, jumps are floaty and somewhat difficult to get used to. In Metroid Dread you can pretty much fly through the whole game at max speed and you feel like the most agile being in the galaxy, sliding under obstacles and running at fast speeds. Not here. However, upgrades will at least help you optimize some routes.

As an old title, some mechanics can put off players used to modern quality of life features. There is no autosave, there are no retries for rooms or boss fights, there are no quick travel options. The world will connect to areas and have have multiple ways to access them, but the trips won’t get any shorter. Some areas in the game will be true challenges, with barely any save rooms in between constant enemy fire. This game really wants to test your skill to make sure you are ready for the final moments, if you can’t make progress through those, you probably missed a lot of health or missile upgrades you could go search for.

The map is interesting. A full 3D representation of the world, divided in regions and then more detailed maps for each. You can see your location and your direction, as well as all the doors you’ve accessed and their colors indicating what unlocks them. The map will also show hints from time to time, indicating you where to go next, but you may not be able to get there yet, and you won’t know the exact path to take. This is a great feature in my opinion. The one miss here is the lack of any indication when a room has been fully explored and all the items in it have been taken. A bit annoying when hunting for upgrades and not knowing where they are.

Boss fights in the game were a bit of a mixed bag, because of the lock-in shooting, most of them are built around waiting and waiting around and avoiding attacks until a weak spot is exposed. Some weak spots will be invisible unless you use a special visor mode, and some of them require you to use a specific beam attack or missile. This requires constant switching around of the beam and visor modes, and it was part of my main struggles with the controls scheme of the game.

In Breath of the Wild switching weapons or equipment freezes the screen and lets you take choose what to do at your leisure. In Metroid Prime, you have to switch beams and visors while on the move, and there will be an animation of a few seconds between each change. I never quite learned the button combinations until the very end, and even then it was still a bit of a mess. The worst of this happens when the door to the next room also requires a different beam to be opened. Most 2D titles in the franchise stacked beam effects on top of one another, or would let you toggle them in the pause menu.

Honestly, I don’t hate this decision. There even are occasions when multiple enemies will appear that will require different beams to be beaten. Each encounter requires you to pay attention and be efficient with your attacks—or run away to the next door and ignore everything trying to avoid as much damage as possible. The mechanic is fun, I just wish the controls were a bit better. I am not sure what I would have done myself.

Overall, the classic Metroid gameplay was adapted to perfection to the 3D world, there’s a reason this game was the best sold Metroid until Metroid Dread came along. I loved playing through it, even if traversal especially because of backtracking, was a bit annoying.

The art and music

Despite all this, the truth of the matter is that exploring Tallon IV is an absolute delight.

Metroid Prime came out in 2002, and it already featured incredible graphics for the time. Metroid Prime Remastered manages to do the same in modern times, offering an incredible level of visuals and performance that I never thought possible on the Nintendo Switch. This is easily the best looking game I’ve played on the system, it runs at 60 FPS without any struggles at all.

This smooth as butter movement and camera controls were a blessing I didn’t expect, and I’m thankful for them.

Another highlight has to be the HUD, the interface around Samus’s helmet looks amazing. I already talked about how it reacts to the environment, but the overall design deserves a lot of praise as well. The stylization of the visorts is excellently done.

Same goes for the music. The score of this game has been familiar to me since 2012, when I first saw some of those YouTube playlists with a title like “Relaxing Nintendo Music to Study and Work”. When Nintendo released their Nintendo Music app, their Tallon IV Exploration playlist quickly became a favorite of mine. I recognized it as soon as the game booted up, and I was incredibly surprised at how much it fully immersed me into this world. When I first visited the Phendrana Drifts, I stood there in awe as the music played.

The score contains reinterpretations of classic Metroid soundtracks. It is very fitting and iconic to this day. This soundtrack is simply beautiful, some of the best atmospheric music ever.

The Remastered version also let’s you access a ton of extras. 3D Models of the characters and enemies, conceptual artwork of the original Metroid Prime and the Remastered, and the soundtrack can be unlocked too!

The good

• The music is fantastic and very immersive, fading perfectly as you traverse the world.
• The visor, the effects around it, its interface and everything truly make you feel like Samus.
• The power-ups from the classic Metroid are expertly brought to the third dimension, and new powers that work great because of this.
• If you are lost, there are helpful hints that trigger after some time, letting you know where to go next, but not how.
• The lock-in shooting let’s you deal with enemies swiftly while strafing around them.
• The world design is great, it’s fun to realize how everything connects.
• The story shown through scans and logs is very interesting and adds a lot to Metroid’s lore.
• Performance is smooth as butter, and mastering the movement and controls is satisfying.

The bad

• The movement can be hard to get used to and feels slow at first.
• Switching weapons/visor modes can be confusing and annoying in the heat of combat.
• No quick travel options, backtracking can take a long time.
• Scanning every room and looking for clues can be annoying.
• No easy way to mark locations to remember any dead ends you may want to return to.
• Some boss fights amount to waiting around a long time until you can shoot at a weakspot.
• There are no indicators for rooms with missing items or upgrades.
• You can only save via save rooms, no auto-save. This could be a positive for people looking for challenge

Some tips and tricks

• Be ready to accept your defeat when you are far from a save spot. Also make sure to check for any enemy spawning areas to recover health easily.
• Make sure to spot every door and truly analyze your surroundings. There are areas you can reach very early which you may still miss.
• Screenshots! The Nintendo Switch let’s you easily take screenshots. Take one of your view and then the location in the map.
• Each room in the map has a name! If you don’t fancy screenshots, just save a note somewhere to return there.
• Be ready to shot at weird looking walls, and especially pillars! There are a few things that can be hidden there.
• Keep scanning everything you see! There’s a progress percentage of your scans and a lot of story to read.
• There is a difference in your jumps when you are targetting an enemy and when you are not, one is faster and to the sides, the normal one has more heights.
• Most attacks are actually very easy to avoid, just stay at a safe distance and figure out patterns first.
• Seriously, scan every boss you face. It will give you an idea of how to defeat it. Also scan any suspicious things in the arena itself, it might give you hints too.

Final thoughts

I loved this game so much! However there is a grave mistake I made that cost me hours of playtime. Make sure to always remember to look for every door. I already mentioned in the tips and tricks. But there was this area that exposed me to a lot of the early story, that I completely missed for like ten hours.

Most playthroughs of this game are about 12 hours long. Mine was 18 hours, and my playtime on Switch was about 25 hours.

To be clear. I loved pretty much everything about it. But having to drag myself across already visited areas because I missed some pretty obvious clues with items I needed to collect could have been a bit of a chore. Again, I was happy to do it, because I loved the movement by the end and the control I had of Samus and knowing my way around the world, but you may end up very annoyed by it all, or not as thrilled about the slowness of it all.

This game features the best graphics on the Nintendo Switch, the best performance, one of the most fantastic atmospheric music of all time. One of the best transitions to the third dimension in a franchise ever. The familiar sense of progression in the series that started its own genre. I am baffled I didn’t play this sooner, but I am extremely glad I did.

Yes some boss fights are meh and missing out on some scans is annoying. Backtracking will never be for everyone and the lack of a run button may cause some people to riot. Nonetheless, this is amazing stuff.

The original title has a score of 97 in Metacritic, while the remaster has a 94. No matter how you look at it, this is one of the greats! I highly, highly recommend giving it a go. It was a fantastic journey that gripped me the whole way through.

I’ve been able to play and focus on individual games lately, and I’m not sure if that is a change in my own mindset, or if the games are just that good. In any case, this was a blast. A contender for my favorites of the year.

This is day 82 of #100DaysToOffload

Hades had already made a name for itself, as a title that redefined the genre and the medium, in manners that only a few get to do. It happened with Ocarina of Time and 3D action combat, with Halo’s controller layout for FPS games, with Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, giving birth to a genre that has flourished with iconic titles known to all. It’s a work that left a mark this decade already.

Roguelikes have been around for ages, and I have tried and played a fair share of them, even if none have quite landed for me until now, I could appreciate what they do. I wrote a bit about roguelikes a while ago if you want some more thoughts about them. Some interesting comments on that post as well!

Alas, Hades is very different.

A roguelike is a game where you have to complete without dying. If you do, multiple elements of the game will be randomized and procedurally generated. Item locations, rooms, enemies. Every playthrough is unique, every death permanent.

Most roguelikes are very much focused on forcing you to get better at the game. Something like Spelunky will rely on your ability to understand its mechanics a little more run after run, the rooms and levels may change, but the way the world works is the same always. You have to help yourself, improve yourself, try things and learn as much as you can so if you die, it will be a bit easier and you will have mastered the game enough to complete it, earn the victory yourself. This is the same for many other classic roguelikes, like Dungeon Cralw Stone Soup, Shattered Pixel Dungeons or Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead

Something like Ember Knights, Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy will feature meta-progression. Items that will ease each run, with things like extra lives, more speed, better weapons, or regenerative health, benefits present in other roguelikes, but often lost forever by the next run. Some times those games may mix those benefits with caveats that add variation to each attempt too, and I’m sure others have tried to balance the game in similar ways.

One style can be way too difficult and repetitive for some players, while providing a true challenge and a real sense of getting good at it to others. While it can be unfair to lose hours of progress in a run, a game you will eventually complete because you keep unlocking new permanent upgrades and enemies don’t get any tougher, can end up feeling just as pointless.

Hades features meta-progression, choices and multiple paths to take so you can build up your moveset and make your way through rooms until you reach the end. But how does it justify this?

The story.

Most roguelikes have a very mild sense of story. Since you often die quickly, it doesn’t really matter, you just try again for no particular reason. This can be a deal breaker if the mechanics are not enough to hold your interest. This happened to me in the case of stuff like One Step From Eden, where I feel no reason to go through it, while others absolutely love the depth of its mechanics and nods to other games.

Hades has a story, where we follow Zagreus (or Zag), the son of Hades, ruler of the Underworld, as he attempts to reach Mount Olympus to reunite with the rest of his family. Going through every level of the Underworld, an endless maze of shuffling rooms and enemies that no mortal can escape from.

This is the basis on which everything is justified. Zag is escaping the house of Hades, everytime he tries to run away, the gods of Olympus aid him with boons: attack effects, better stats, more movement options, etc. There will also be rooms that reward you with weapon upgrades, or with different currencies to get permanent benefits.

Each god has something to say when giving you a boon, and each god will offer certain powers that can even synergize with those from other gods. They all have a different character and you will get to meet them better, as the story continues. Understanding the family dynamics of them all. Making for a really interesting form of story-telling.

Mechanically, each god is different too. Athena focuses on deflecting and defense, Poseidon can push away enemies with waves, Zeus has lightning chip damage that bounces through enemies, and the like.

There are plenty of other characters in each level of the Underworld, muses, fallen kings, forgotten warriors, people who will aid you in different ways. And of course, boss fights! I’ve already spoiled enough.

You can not actually die. Each time you lose, you are carried away by the Styx river, back to the House of Hades. And this is where the things get interesting. Since there is no fighting in the House, you can just interact and know characters there better, some who want to help you, some who are there to stop you.

These moments between runs are where most of the story will develop, where you will know why Zag wants to make it to the top, why the Olympians are aiding you at all, and understand more about the complicated relationship between Hades and his family. You can get to know and unlock more lore about each character, as well as obtain certain benefits by offering something to them in the game.

All of this is aided by some of the best artwork I have ever seen. Each character is portrayed in a fantastic way, and all of them are really cool. There is some fantastic voice work too, the talent and the effort put into all of this is amazing.

Featuring half a dozen weapons and a rather versatile moveset, each run is never the same, while at the same time, it kind of is. Here’s where Hades can make or break it for a player, as it essentially is a bit of a button masher when it comes to its gameplay…

You got your Dash, Attack, Special Attack and Cast, these are the four moves you get to do, each one varies depending on your weapon and there’s some combos for each, also affected by whatever weapon upgrade you may get during a run. The truth remains the same, most of the time you’ll dash dash attack, dash dash special, dash dash attack, cast cast cast, rinse and repeat.

This is not a bad thing by itself. The game will hook you and get you in a focus state where you will evade your way through everything and anihiliate everyone and you won’t even realize it. But that’s if you get good…

The game is also quite difficult. There are no one-hit kills or anything, but the environment and traps and constant damage will eventually get to you if you are not careful. This can be really rough, and will stop a lot of people on their tracks. It took me about thirty runs before I finally reached the end, and no, I did not win that final boss fight until later.

The game features one helpful feature for this: Godmode. A tickbox in the pause menu that increases your defense by 2% each time you die.

Of course, Hades wants you to die multiple times to keep seeing more of the story, and accepting each defeat as part of the cycle is kind of important. This is a game where reaching the final boss fight is not really the end goal. Even after you win, there will be reasons to keep going, and more interactions to be had after each death or victory.

The story is full of revelations and very interesting developments, there are also other side plots that make you care about some of the side characters you meet along the way. I reached the end of some of them, but not all, before I reached credits, and it’s one of the things that I am interested on returning to, if I’m honest.

Just like the artwork, the music is outstanding as well. A very epic score that gets the heart pumping during those epic battles. Where screens are full of enemies and projectiles fill up the screen. The game is excellently optimized for Nintendo Switch, running at 60 fps despite the amount of assets loaded up. It has a hiccup here and there, but nothing significant.

The bad

• The gameplay can feel repetitive if you don’t change up weapons or strategy.
• The difficulty can be really high if you don’t enable Godmode.
• Difficult cannot be manually configured, no difficulty options.
• Button mashing can end up actually hurting you if you go too hard with it.
• Not all strategies and boons are as good as others, some runs will be just bad.
• Meta-progression can be a deterrent for some people.

The good

• The gameplay can hook you and get you into a flow state.
• The challenge is always there and can be amped up later to counteract permanent upgrades.
• Godmode allows you to ease the burdens of the game over time as you continue to experience the story.
• The characters, writing, artwork, animation, music and overall production of this game is top notch.
• You can choose a variety of weapons catering to different styles of play.
• Meta-progression and Godmode ensures you can eventually get to the end of the game with some persistence.
• The story is simply fantastic and worth experiencing.

Some tips and reminders

• Athena’s boons are awesome, use them
• Try every weapon, one is bound to be great for you, my favorite was the bow
• Talk with everyone every time you die, you can technically skip this, but why would you deny yourself the awesome interactions?
• If a run is bound to be bad, try to focus on resource gathering! It will often help you more.

Final thoughts

I played through the game in a span of three years, so even though I was never fully hooked by it, I was interested on trying it and getting to complete it, and I am glad I gave it the time. Even during the span of times where I didn’t touch the game at all, it remained in my memory, and every time I returned to it, I would often spend two or three hours in a day, making progress, it was just that sort of game for me.

What is there to say about Hades that hasn’t been said? It is a roguelike with excellent mechanics that are absolutely justified within the story, and because of that, it was never tiring for me to go through the motions. The gameplay did hook me for hours at a time, always going for two or three runs whenever I had the chance. I was not helplessly addicted to it like some people who played it like 400 hours, but I got about 40 hours of playtime myself before I finally reached the credits, and saw the conclusion of the story.

There is still an epilogue, it seems, that will tie up some more knots, and side plots I would like to conclude, but I am fine writing about the game by now. It was a wonderful time, and I really recommend giving it a go!

This is day 81 of #100DaysToOffload

I am not as attached on it as I am on Resident Evil. I did not spend countless hours watching video essays about Metal Gear, or Hideo Kojima or the history of it all.

I first came in contact with the series when Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain came out back in 2015. I remember I saw the first part of a let’s play of some Spanish YouTube creator and was very intrigued by the idea of stealth, and the graphics.

It didn’t take long for me to find out about Peace Walker for the PSP. I eventually tried it out, but I gave up on it after 4 hours or so, when one of the boss fights proved too much for my teenager brain who refused to look up a guide. It was one of the first games I tried on the system based on internet recommendations, no friend of mine had talked about Metal Gear to me before!

Nowadays, the franchise seems to be back on the spotlight with the Metal Gear Solid 3 Delta remake, and with Konami more active in the gaming world overall—they are going to release a new 2D Castlevania soon!—so I thought I may as well check this game. After all, if I beat the archaic Resident Evil games, a PSP title shouldn’t be that hard, right?

I played it on original hardware, no save states or fast forwarding was used for this title, yay!

Story

In this game we follow Snake, or Boss, or Big Boss (again, confusing story or something), a highly trained soldier/spy/agent who has abandoned his allegiance to any nation, and decided to form his own military organization: “Militaires Sans Frontiéres” (Army Without Borders, MSF for short) with the goal of providing aid to smaller nations and do good things overall—as much good a private army can do at least?

Anyway, the story is set somewhere in the 70s, and begins when a mysterious professor and a teenage girl called Paz (Peace in Spanish) ask him for help to uncover a military operation in Costa Rica. While Paz is oblivious to the situation and is genuine in her pursue for pacifist ideals, Snake and his friend Kaz can tell the “professor” is has some ulterior motives at play here. Alas, they agree to help out given Paz’ enthusiasm, and because there’s something fishy going, and Snake wants to seek answers.

As Snake makes his way through enemy terrain, finds new characters, and learns more about the secret military activity in the region, we will realize that there are nukes in Costa Rica, unmanned AI technology, and worst of all, a Metal Gear, a bipedal weapon able to deliver a nuclear bomb from any position in any terrain, called the Peace Walker, powered by an AI built on the image of Snake’s very own mentor. Snake’s mission is to do everything in its power to stop a nuclear launch that would send the world into disarray.

Explaining all that in just two paragrphs feels like a diservice to the game, honestly.

The story is full of twist and turns, revelations, betrayal and ethical dilemmas. I cannot stress enough how strong the writing and plot development of this game is. There are a couple of things that go on a bit of a roundabout way, but I found the conflict to be extremely interesting, and I loved the characters that we met along the way.

There are also lots of cassette tapes with extra dialogue before every mission, which contain story and information about the characters, areas, history and concepts mentioned within the game. These are fully voiced, so it never feels like you are just reading a whole encyclopedia of each character. I listened to all the tapes and it was very entertaining.

Snake’s development is great too. He has a cool demeanor, but we’ll soon see that there is a lot of regret and trauma in the things he has done in the past. Either way, he has a lot of great moments and fun interactions with the characters during cutscenes and on the cassette tapes, doing his best to inspire others and command the situation.

The rest of the cast is not far behind, Kaz is cool, Paz is inspiring, we’ll meet other characters like Amanda, who leads los Sandinistas, a resistance who want a revolution to free themselves from the americans and corruption, and are happy to join you to achieve it. There’s more characters and they have a lot to say, but no need to mention it all here.

Overall, I really loved it all, the dialogue, the discussions on nuclear deterrence, the political intrigue, plenty of conversations about AI and its military use. All of it is handled quite well and it even holds up and feels familiar with some of the things going on today, 16 years after the game’s release. Good stuff.

Gameplay

The game features two phases, which reminds me a lot of something like Fire Emblem, normal missions, and base building management.

The missions are done in a map divided by section (similar to old school Monster Hunter), each section with enemies patrolling in a certain pattern, carrying weapons and ready to alert everyone as soon as they spot you.

Snake has a variety of equipment: rations, radar, grenades, sleeping guns, assault rifles, and heavier weaponry which can be picked before each mission. One of the main items is the Fulton Recovery System, which let’s you take unconscious enemies or rescue prisoners, to recruit them to your team.

The movement set is great, you can walk or or crouch, lay down, hang from ledges. You can hide behind walls, knock to call an enemy’s attention, use close quarters combat (CQC) to incapacitate enemies, among other things.

As the adventure progresses, enemies will get tougher too, wearing better armor (which make the sleeping gun less effective) and be more resistant to CQC in general. Even then, most of the missions can be completed without ever having to fight or alert the enemy, this is the case even for some of the boss fights.

When a mission is complete, you return Mother Base, where MSF manages its operations. You can assign personnel to different teams, such as Combat, R&D, Medical, Mess Hall and Intel. The members of each team affect different parts of the gameplay. The most noticeable is the R&D team, which will let you unlock new weapons and level them up.

As you recruit more people, the base will grow, and members of the MSF can be sent to missions. The game has a CO-OP element similar to Monster Hunter, as many missions can be done in multiplayer as well, there’s also PVP modes. I didn’t engage in any of these though.

Boss battles in the game are pretty great. However, the limited controls of the PSP are a big negative. Aiming weapons is not ideal in any of the available control schemes and some of the boss fights will need some precision.

There are a few different styles of battle. Some are against military vehicles, which are accompanied by infantry. These can often be completed with pure stealth, using smoke bombs and approaching enemies from multiple angles to get rid of the infantry and make the captain come out of the vehicle, confused as to what’s going on. Of course, you can just dispatch enemies with gunfire if that’s more of your style. All the vehicles can be seized for your use in MSF, so the less you damage them the better.

The boss battles against AI machinery are different. They unmanned weapons are much bigger in size and feature a variety of attack patterns. However, the weakspot on them is pretty clear and you can make use of different equipment to stun them and allow you to deal a lot of damage.

The game features plenty of items to aid you on your way, but they can run out as well, so being mindful is important, although requesting aid is also possible with certain equipment you unlock later in the game.

All in all, I enjoyed the constant cycle of mission -> manage base -> listen to debrief files -> repeat.

There are also lots of side quests to train marksmanship, recover files or kidnap recruit more members for MSF. You can also replay any mission and get more resources like that.

As you recruit more personnel, the base will grow and you will be able to send them to their own missions, which will let you level up faster and the like. You can eventually develop your own Metal Gear, but I didn’t delve deeper into that mechanic, since it requires grinding boss fight missions to acquire materials to build it, and I didn’t feel like doing so.

There is one big, HUGE bummer featured in some parts of the game though… the absolute worst quick time events ever. Many are pretty easy and normal, but some are truly horrendous stuff. For example, if you are knocked down, you’ll have to move your analog stick like a maniac to stand up again. There are also cutscenes featuring sections where you’ll have to press the same button AS FAST AS YOU CAN, and there will be some that just have a very very short time frame to perform. This is the one really big miss of the game, as there’s no accesibility option to disable these. Some people will never complete this game because of that terrible mechanic. Don’t feel bad about using the Turbo function of your emulator if that’s how you plan to try this game.

Art

The art direction is top notch. The game has incredible 3D graphics that are truly at the top of what the PSP can manage, shoulder to shoulder with the God of War games on the system. All the characters, weaponry and vehicles are modeled with incredible detail. The most impressive feat of course is the size and the scale of some of the boss fights, which rival Monster Hunter’s Ancient Dragon quests, with textures and character models similar to Portable 3rd.

Maybe the comparisons make no sense to you, but seriously, it’s mindblowing. The game is as close as it gets to PS2 quality, and with the small screen it’s just perfect. The performance is also fantastic, without any noticeable performance issues other than the loading screens which could be a bit long for a modern day gamer.

Every action of the game has animation work to match, when you walk, faster or slowly, the way enemies react and change behaviour, etc.

Huge props to the UI design as well. I found managing the base became a breeze, with a very practical UI that hasn’t dated a single day. The menus were cool and there was something to read or learn at any time.

Most of the cutscenes however, are not done with 3D animation.

Instead, this game features comic-style cutscenes, with dialogue bubbles and a scrappy-looking artstyle that looks absolutely awesome! I must admit that 16-year old me was very, very dissapointed by this for some reason, but reality is that the style holds up excellently to this day, and allows for some absolutely thrilling panelling and action shots. There are also some very emotional scenes, flashbacks and quiet moments that feature strong silouettes or changes in the color palette that are incredible to see, and realistic cutscenes wouldn’t be able to compare.

Music & Sound

The soundtrack has a very military style to it. It is actually very similar to what Into The Breach does, mostly staying in the background, but pretty present when you are managing Mother Base.

During missions, usually set in forests, swamps, jungles and military facilities, a lot of the sound will remain atmospheric, the chant of birds, the steps and hums of the enemy, the crickets singing, and trees swaying will be most of what you hear. Sound is another of the factors to take into account when making your way through each section of the enemy territory.

All the sound design is excellent too, and rather satisfying.

Music is affected by the actions you take, of course. If an enemy manages to get a glimpse of you, you’ll definitely hear the “What’s that?”, as the music becomes more suspenseful and you feel the enemy getting cautious as it walks in your direction.

If you are completely discovered, the surprise sound that made the series iconic will play, and music will start to be more stressful, alarm bells will sound and the enemy radio will request for backup, as they go into an alert status. All of this is perfectly made clear with audio queues and I honestly love it.

The sound of the AI enemies is also worth bringing up. Each of the bosses has a certain character to it, and they will also “sing” during cutscenes and during the fight against them, all of this is also a hint to get familiar with it, of course. It’s all rather excellent.

There’s nothing but praise for the voice acting as well. David Hayter is Snake, simple as that, and this was his last game before Kojima became kinda obsessed with getting a hollywood star to play the rule. Konami, for all its mistakes, brought him back for the Delta remake, so that’s fun.

The rest of the cast is equally amazing. All the extra story and details shared via cassette tapes is so fun to play through. I listened to all of it, it was really enjoyable.

Overall

What can I say? This is a fantastic title with excellent production and passion behind it, it plays like a miracle on the PSP and is only really limited by a couple of dumb decisions, and a little bit by the hardware itself. I loved going through all of it, but here’s a list with some good stuff, bad stuff and other thoughts about it:

The good

• Story, voice acting, graphics, sound effects, music, UI design, it nails it.
• The writing, the intrigue, thought provoking moments and suspense.
• Artwork and cutscenes with a comic book style.
• Missions are rather short and self-contained, perfect for portable gaming.
• The cast of characters and the interactions with Snake are interesting.
• Base management and some customization to upgrade equipment.

The not so good

• Quick time events that are super obnoxious.
• Limited controls due to the PSP’s lack of a second stick or L2 and R2 triggers.
• Annoying button mashing and stick wiggling mechanics.
• Loading times can be a bit annoying, nothing unusual for a PSP game.
• Way too many extra missions can be repetitive.
• Base management can feel like a grind sometimes.
• There’s an extra ending that requires dozens of hours of grinding.

Some tips and reminders

• You need to keep the arsenal in check for every mission, some things are only useful against bosses and the like.
• Just use turbo button controls if you emulate, save yourself the button mashing headache.
• Get familiar with the available control schemes of the game, some are better for boss fights such as “Shooter Mode”.
• Don’t forget to use the radio for extra tips! You can also get extra info from enemies under your grip.
• Try to kidnap recruit everyone and there will be tools later to see which enemies are worth recruiting more later too!

There’s a couple more things I could say but I’ll leave it here for now. This game is truly awesome, I was on the edge of my seat multiple times and I really jaw-dropped at some of the moments and the fact that all of this was running on a PSP in the first place.

You can get this game on the PSP of course, but there’s a new release of it coming out in the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.2, which will release on August 27th 2026, so maybe waiting for it will be best!

Give it a try either way, it’s worth a shot.

This is day of 63 #100DaysToOffload

When I played RE2, I thought going to the original may be kind of a drag, that I would have more difficulty getting used to it, that it would be clumsier, unfair, and outdated.

I heard everywhere that Resident Evil for the PS1 was not worth playing when the Remake for it—originally released on the Game Cube—exists. Most people said it was too archaic and not as fun in comparison.

That was not my experience at all.

You should be aware though, that I’m someone who—thanks to the sequel—is completely on board with prerrendered backgrounds, fixed camera angles and tank controls. I completed RE2 and have never even touched RE4 or anything after it. So, giving this game a try for the first time, I have to say I had a great time, so, here’s my review for it!

Everyone is aware of the Zombie-apocalypse trope by now, popularized in the late 60s by Romero’s Night of the Living Dead—a fantastic film that holds up well even today—which became a franchise of its own, and explored different facets of the idea.

Those films inspired and changed the landscape in the industry. The film took itself seriously, and it showed. Watching the original, during that news report explaining the situation with that monotonous news presenter voice so common at the time, the challenge the characters faced was made clear. When the story continued and that ending sequence happened, I could only watch as history was made in cinema.

However, not every horror movie gets to be Night of the Living Dead. Even the good ones still had plenty of caveats, and even some of the later entries in Romero’s franchise, as great as they were, would inevitably contain a certain element that is always present in those old horror films: they are campy.

My native language is Spanish, words like “camp” weren’t really in my vocabulary for most of my youth. But once you learn what they mean, you just know it when you see it.

This game pretty much let’s you live through an 80s horror movie, and it delivers. Although it’s relevant due to its unique setting and memorable characters, it’s the bad writing and the absolutely horrendous yet charming voice acting what has made it a culture icon, and source of memes and references that have stayed with us to this day.

You control either Jill Valentine (my beloved) or Chris Redfield, members of S.T.A.R.S, a special team of Raccoon City’s Police Department, investigating some mysterious murders and dissapearances in a nearby forest where a previous team had already been sent and lost contact with. However, you and your team is suddenly attacked by wild beasts, who chase after you, until you come across a strange building and manage to get in, with only a few other members of your team, trapped by the dangers outside.

Not an infested city, a scary cabin or an abandoned mall. You are in a mansion, a huge place that felt lived on until recently. Here’s where the horror begins as these characters start to speak, and the writing and voice acting make their appearance. Truly horrifying stuff, they didn’t even try! But even so, I love it.

After you are sent to investigate and look around, you will encounter your first enemy. You see a bald headed creature eating something, you hear the sounds of bones and flesh tearing, a dead body with its head chopped off—one of your teammates. The creature turns, its pale face looks at you, its eye popping out, no consciousness to be seen, and now, it is walking towards you…

The introduction of the first zombie remains in the memory of anyone who got this back in the day. I looked it up, and the instruction manual doesn’t even feature the word. The original game cover features some distressed guy with a military uniform in a room with strange shapes and some giant spiders.

As an aside, the game cover gets weirder the more time you see it. half of the guy’s face and body language is ready for action, while the other half shows him absolutely terrified, it seems like the cover was meant to emphasize that. Even the gun held by each hand is different, but merged in a weird way. It ended up looking rough, but it was definitely eye-catching. Still, there was a real chance that someone picked up this game and didn’t even know it would be about zombies (fine, the back of the game makes it very clear, but anyway).

The very early CGI of the FMV may not be that scary today, but the audio design is still more than great. And the scene itself is well done.

However, Resident Evil is Resident Evil.

Right after the horror, the stressful music, the creepy atmosphere; it is time for the campiness and bad voice acting of the game to take over. Jill runs away back to Barry—one of your teammates—who quickly deals with the zombie—“Let me handle this”, he says—voice lines performed by people who clearly were not in the same room, probably not even directed, simply read aloud. And after such a traumatic experience, what does Jill have to say? “Anyway, let’s report this to Wesker!”

You may think that such a contrast ruins the atmosphere and tarnishes the story and characters. The bad voices, the terrible script, not even giving some time for the characters to grieve the loss of a teammate or just be silent for a bit.

So what do we do instead? We go back to the dead body of our friend and pick up a couple of clips for our hand gun out of him, we backtrack a bit to see another cutscene, and then we learn how to save the game, yay!

Resident Evil as a series is not afraid to say something that a lot of modern videogames fear more than a zombie: It’s a videogame.

This game is absolutely focused on its gameplay, so much so the formula barely changed from here in the first three games. Go from room to room in some labyrinthical space, unlock doors with keys hidden all over the place, solve puzzles that nobody would conceive in real life—except the paintings one, that one is masterful—avoid enemies by taunting them to attack where you are not, get a couple of jump scares and even some FMV cutscenes out of nowhere. Have fun!

The mechanics of this game would only be minimally revamped on RE2—they control virtually the same. You have eight inventory slots, you get different weapons as the game goes one. I only played as Jill, and she can use a lockpick, letting you unlock many rooms that aren’t available to Chris without a key.

The way you save the game is a game mechanic in itself, this game introduced the Ink Ribbon, an item that let’s you use a typewriter to save your progress. This is a limited resource, it should be used sparingly and takes up a slot of your inventory.

The mansion is an huge place, with a lot of rooms, and I am truly amazed by how easy it became for me to know where I was in most cases. Every room in the game is pretty different, and besides the main building, we also explore a courtyard, an underground area, a guardhouse and—beginning of a long-standing tradition in the franchise: an underground laboratory.

There’s a map, but it does lack a couple of features that RE2 would implement. You don’t see an arrow pointing to where you are facing, the doors aren’t marked with the color of the key that opens it, you have to select the map that you want to see, instead of opening the one of the area and floor you’re already on; switching between floors needs you to go back and select it, instead of pressing up/down. All of these are nice to have, but they are also not a must. Using the map pauses the game, so it didn’t really hinder my experience, it only took more time to do things.

The enemy variety is pretty good, but later entries would improve on the designs, as most of the zombies look exactly the same. The other enemies are fun though, there are zombie dogs, mutated plants, and zombie crows and a couple more as the story continues. such as the Hunters, which actually chase you, ramping up the difficulty once introduced, with one of the most scary but also campy FMVs in the game, showing they are smarter, faster, and can open doors—even if they never do it during the game itself.

The back and forth in this game is quite big, some puzzles take place across multiple rooms and even multiple areas. You will need to keep the inventory in check, or you’ll end up stuck. You can’t drop items, but you can combine herbs, and even waste ammo if you need an extra slot. Every choice matters here, as your survival and progress will be at play. One thing that is used very well in the inventory is item-checking. You can inspect and rotate items in 3D to see what they are and even find something inside it. In RE2 you can check an item, but they can’t be manipulated in 3D, although the mechanic has been implemented in plenty other games.

I really enjoyed the puzzle design, even more than the in the sequel—which focused on more action. There are some rooms in RE2 which will have four or five zombies in one passageway, but in RE1 there will only be one or two, and it’s likely that only one of them notices you, while the others are far away. I was able to save ammo better—but this is also thanks to my experience on the other game—and plan routes easier, which helped given how many puzzles or keys are used throughout the many areas.

The bosses aren’t very good, lackluster when it comes to battle design—you only need to move to some good location and shot away until it dies—however, due to the status of the game, they are memorable as set pieces, and often move the plot forward in interesting ways. For example, you can end up quite hurt, with some character taking you to another location to heal you; or the way to the boss can contain certain puzzle elements beforehand, to make the eventual battle easier.

As the story continues, there will be plenty of encounters with different characters of the game, depending on who you play as. These are in-game cutscenes, and I need to say, as cringe and badly acted as they are, I always found them rather charming, and it was nice to always get a new sense of direction, or a new useful weapon, or a plot twist here and there. Sometimes, the game atmosphere was rather tense, or I was low on health. Which makes getting to new rooms rather nerve-wracking at first, so I was always glad to see a cutscene that made things more chill.

A cozy cutscene is nice, but there is nothing quite like finally hearing that sweet sweet melody that let’s you know that you just made it to a lovely, beautiful save room. Even better when it contains an item box, which allow you to store away items you don’t need, and recover them from any other item box in other rooms of the game—yet another unrealistic mechanic that Resident Evil shoves away because gameplay is more important.

Honestly though, all the music and ambiance in the game is stunning. There’s plenty of tracks for different rooms and sections, as well as action moments, reveals and similar, all of it is very well done and maintains the atmosphere perfectly. So long as you are not playing the Dual Shock’s Director Cut, or that there’s not some cheesy dialogue happening at the same time.

Things get real creepy with the audio design as well, every step, every grunt, the sounds of the water flowing and the dogs howling, I can’t praise it enough. Also the effects when moving on the game’s inventory/map/status screen is just as satisfying. The doors opening and closing, the screech of an old door, the elevator going up and down. The sound department of this game did wonders, and thanks to the PS1’s usage of CDs instead of cartridges, the quality is top notch. The sounds of the guns shooting and reloading is also a pleasure.

Animation work is also remarkable, even if it lacks some of the polish RE2 introduced, like character animations to indicate health status. It’s still pretty good and the models are awesome for the time. The way all the different items come with 3D renders you can inspect is also appreciated, every gun, herb, key and the like has a nice amount of detail to it.

There are other 3D models during game besides the characters, like interactable objects and items, making them easy to notice against prerrendered backgrounds (which are unfortunately pretty low-res for modern screens, but still charming). This is useful to solve block-style puzzles—like moving a shelf to reach something behind it, or finding green plants to restore health.

All in all, as cheesy as all the dialogue is, as arcane as tank controls may seem, as slow as it may be to aim guns as Jill. Everything is just part of the course. Every obstacle or hiccup, is only one more challenge for your survival inside this mansion. There are plenty of resources for Jill to take, the amount of enemies is more than manageable, and there aren’t that many bosses in the first place.

This game, like its successor, is pretty much a 3D Metroidvania game with zombies, and I am extremely amazed at how well it still runs. The gameplay from start to finish was a pleasure to experience. The utility of most items is made clear rather well, and my instincts started to develop soon enough. Judging when an item may make sense to keep or not, or when it was better to backtrack to an item box when I could feel that I was about to get a lot of items soon became second nature somehow.

Resident Evil gives you all the tools you need, the designers really want you to beat it, it is only a matter of understading its mechanics and everything will become clear. I am looking forward to a second playthrough of this one as Chris—even though I hear is much tougher—because the game has taught me all I need, and it trusts me so much. No tutorials, no GUI other than the status screen that gets out of the way when you don’t use it. It is a rather cinematic experience.

As someone who grew up with no nostalgia for these games, who wasn’t even aware they were games until 2015 or so and only knew of the franchise because of the Milla Jovovich movies—which I didn’t even get to watch because they were way too violent and my parents wouldn’t allow me to—I am really starting to love this series more than I thought, slowly taking on my top 3 alongside Halo and Metroid.

This is just gameplay and mechanics perfectly executed. A game meant to be played over and over, to be mastered. Learning techniques, optimizing routes, avoiding enemies, everything is so clear and the controls are so fluid when you get good at them. Once a run is done, you get your credits and a final screen showing you the time and the amount of saves you did. There’s a challenge and a goal there. How fast can you do it now? How well do you know your own skills? Not to mention unlockables!

There’s plenty of speedruns out there, but I found this particular walkthrough to be fascinating—great if you don’t plan to play the game even after all the praise I got for it—since the player simply walks most of the time, not running from enemies, and being as efficient as possible with the inputs. It’s such an interesting thing to watch, as you simply get into a state where you are aware of everything and no longer fear the creatures anymore.

If there’s a problem with starting with the first game instead of the other two from the original trilogy, is that it will train you very well to what’s next. The whole formula is already here, and it’s excellent. I am kind of looking forward to Nemesis now, and how that game will mix things up a bit. I played the game on my Anbernic RG35XX SP without any issues.

By the way, make sure to play the PS1’s Final Director’s Cut romhack to get the best version possible of the game in emulation. Of course, you can also acquire it via GOG or Steam—but the latter is DRM protected.

This somehow becamse my longest game review, so I’ll stop now. Play Resident Evil, it’s very good.

This is day 49 of #100DaysToOffload

I have lots of memories of watching speedruns, challenges, reviews and retrospectives of the Resident Evil games, I have to say I’m just not sure where the interest for the series came from, I never had a friend with a console who played them, and they never figured in the list of games I’d emulate when I got introduced to that world.

It wasn’t until I had my PSP and realized that I could play PS1 games on it, that an interest on the franchise developed, so I got them for the system. This was the case for Resident Evil 2, a game that I actually tried out years ago, even mentioning it as one of the many games I just left abandoned when I tried playing it on my PSP, as other titles simply stole my attention from it.

I was seriously kind of enamoured with the lore of the franchise, and I had an interest on Zombie movies, like George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead films, I think Parasite Eve played a role as well at the time, since I even read the novel back in 2020.

The point is, despite it all, I never gave the games a fair shot until now.

Resident Evil 2 was picked for February in the Low Key Game Club from the TWG Discord—which is also the reason I played Jet Lancer and Soul Reaver—and for some reason it just felt like the perfect time to actually play this title and survive through Raccoon City myself.

Story

The story of this game is presented in a great way, letting you experience two different points of view and two alternate stories. While playing as two different characters in the game.

Leon Kennedy is a rookie cop who got a job to work in Raccoon City’s Police Department, where as Claire Redfield is currently looking for his brother, Chris—one of the protagonists from the first game—who is currently missing, but worked as an agent in the STARS division of the police.

Each character will see different moments of a single narrative, and there are moments where you’ll encounter and see the effects of what the other character did on their side.

These characters meet while trying to survive the zombies running rampant in the city. However, they end up separated in the chaos, and the game lets you choose who to play as. The characters planned to meet at the Police Station, so now you have to find your way there, where the adventure truly begins.

As the story progresses, you will find reports and documents detailing the events prior to the game, unlock doors, solve puzzles and survive against enemies that want to eat your brains. You will also meet new characters as you venture deeper into the police station, and even meet companions during certain parts of the story that you’ll get to control as well, slowly uncovering the truth behind the virus spreading through Raccoon City.

Gameplay

The gameplay that makes the original trilogy so special—and controversial among new players who want to get into them—are the tank controls and the fixed camera angles. These two features limit both movement and vision, and while they can be hard to get used to at first, they are essential to the original experience, and they don’t really take much effort to understand, after half and hour or so of playtime.

This is the franchise that coined the term survival horror, and these limitations and lack of agency challenge the player as they try to survive and explore the environments of the game. The limited ammo and items you can carry with you, means you’ll have to be strategic about the path you follow as you try to make progress.

Of course, multiple rooms will be overrun by zombies, and other enemies like the lickers, or worse. However, enemies don’t respawn, which makes killing them worth it to make traversal and backtracking easier.

When it comes to horror, it really isn’t that scary, yes, the atmosphere is amazing, but it’s kinda campy and other than some jump scares, it really won’t mess with your mind that much.

All of the Police Station is a giant escape room, and it is where the game shines most, as it is basically a sort of Metroidvania.

The game features no interface during gameplay, something that heightens the cinematic camera angles. You can know your health based on the character animation while standing and walking. You can find herbs, ammo and other items scattered in the game to help you out. There’s a menu you can access to see your items, combine them, and check them for clues, there is a section to access files and documents you’ve collected, as well as a map screen, which shows the doors available to you and the color of the key needed to unlock them.

Saving your progress is limited too. You can only save in specific rooms with a typewriter, and you need ink ribbons to use it, occupying an extra item slot too. Save too often and you’ll run out of ribbons, putting your progress in danger until you find more of them. You can also find item boxes in some save rooms where you can store items and access them in other item boxes in the game, very handy to free up your storage.

I honestly think this game is designed masterfully. It makes you feel powerless at first, and you are scared of the dangers around each turn of the camera, but if you explore more and take risks here and there, you can be rewarded with more resources and weapon upgrades, which are useful against stronger enemies and bosses later in the game.

There are bosses, but they just sponges that require you to shoot them with your strongest weapon and nothing more, making them kinda meh, and unfortunately they will deal tons of damage, so a lot of healing items are required as well. The bosses go through different transformations and are definitely cool to see the first time, but the boss battle design isn’t great.

The game is also very replayable, thanks to the different scenarios you can play, and the unlockable modes it features. The game featurs the zapping system. A fantastic mechanic that let’s you perform actions that affect the other character’s scenario, for example, you can take a weapon as Leon which will become unavailable on Claire’s side.

Each scenario changes the route, features very different puzzles and also exclusive bosses and characters you meet on them, it’s really amazing stuff that expands the game while cleverly reusing some assets.

In my case, I only went through the Leon A and Claire B scenario, but the story plays out differently if you do Claire first. I will probably replay this game at some point starting with her, just because it is that fun.

Art & Music

The amount of work that went into these games is just incredible. As stated before, the game features fixed camera angles, making use of incredibly detailed prerrendered backgrounds that allow for the game to look extremely nice. The areas of the game, especially in the police station, really feel like a place that went through a lot, as everything looks messy and real, with most rooms being rather memorable, even if they can feel a bit croweded sometimes. Everything blends in perfectly.

It is important to note, that these graphics were made for the PS1, at a 240p resolution, and they don’t look nearly as well as they would on a proper CRT display, like was common at the time, and that often blended things together, smoothing out the pixels beautifully. The images shown in this review are edited with some blur and a filter to mimmick the effect.

There are some great fan projects out there that upscale those backgrounds for the bigger screens, such as RESHDP, but I think they all look way too smooth and shiny compared to the gritty look of the original art. I feel like using a CRT filter is the best way to play these if you don’t have a proper display.

I played the game on my Anbernic RG35XX SP, which features a 480p 3.5 inch display, and given the size and pixel count, I enjoyed the game on the go without complains.

Besides the backgrounds, the character models of feature a ton of detail, we see faces, although not many expressions, and the textures change as the story continues if the character gets injured. There’s also some outfits you can unlock.

The music is also amazing, I played most of the game wearing earphones, and the atmosphere was awesome and very terrifying. There are many tracks in the game that fit very well, like the beautiful yet melancholic melody that plays when reaching a safe room, or a character theme playing when you meet them . Other themes build up the tension or get you hyped up during a boss fight or action sequences, and everything just works.

Audio is actually a core part of the gameplay, as it often signals enemies that can’t be seen on screen due to the camera angle, so staying alert is very helpful to avoid getting scared by a zombie popping up around the corner. Gunshots, steps sounds varying due to the floor surface and the like are very well done, so much detail has gone into this, it’s unreal for the time.

This game also features voice acting for everything, there’s actually no subtitles for them, which is a little annoying at least on the PS1 version. Still, the voices are iconic at this point, even if the delivery is cheesy and a bit over the top, it works really well and I found it really enjoyable and it kept me invested on these characters quite a lot. Don’t expect something on the level of Soul Reaver, but it fits the vibes of watching an old campy horror film and it’s perfect from that perspective.

Overall thoughts

The good

• The background art and character models look amazing.
• The map design for the police station is very good.
• Cinematic camera angles and sounds that keep you on your toes.
• Lore scattered in files and documents that is intersesting to read and find clues.
• More than enough resources to complete the game if you manage items well.
• Lovable characters and voice acting that is charming, if dated.
• The zapping system and events where decisions affect your next playthrough.
• Short playtime and lots of replayability.
• Lots of extra weapons and different modes to unlock and try out.
• Great side characters that we can control in some sections.

The bad

• Bosses are average bullet sponges and not cleverly designed.
• Sometimes the camera angle will be messy, when hit by enemies or due to weapon recoil.
• Item management is part of the deal, but backtracking to organize it can be annoying.
• The game gets more linear as it goes on, this is good for me but maybe not you.
• Poison status is a thing that exists, although it’s not common.
• The puzzles are not as complex as other classic RE games, I didn’t mind though.
• Turning around completely with tank controls is a pain, fixed until Resident Evil 3
• It’s not really that scary, don’t expect to be traumatized or anything, just jumpscared.

Some tips and reminders

• There is more ammo and healing items that you may expect, just explore and clear out rooms with zombies freely, you’ll get all you need.
• Since the backgrounds are prerrendered, most interactable objects stand out quite a bit, keep an eye on things out of place.
• Overall you can just inspect every corner of a room and there can be a variety of messages or at least fun texts to describe things
• You can usually find the big weapons at least twice, so if you can’t carry (or decide not to) carry a certain weapon, you can often find it later, or you can do without it anyway.
• It’s great to feel the weight of your own actions, don’t just reload a save if you feel like you did bad, try to keep going and you may surprise yourself.
• Or you can just be lazy like me and use save states because you worry too much, you’ll end up with plenty of extra ammo in the end, by the way.

Finishing words

The game is currently on sale until March 3, 2026, excusively available for PC on GOG, you can even get the whole original trilogy there, in case you want to give them a go! I’ll stick with my emulation handhelds though.

Everything this game tries to do, is done perfectly well. Maybe the difficulty is not as high if you have already played other survival horror games like Signalis, as the item and ammo is actually plenty, but what makes it difficult is not being familiar with how these games should be played—exploring every nook and cranny to trigger as many checks as possible.

Also, yes, the bosses are not great. After experiencing the immaculate boss design of Soul Reaver, these bullet sponges that deal a bunch of damage and can make you lose a bunch of progress really didn’t do it for me, they were just a matter of healing items and ammo rather than actual skill.

Other than that, I really loved everything about this game. I played it on my commutes to work, like 20 or 40 minutes at a time, and I always managed to do some good progress and find something new to explore in those sessions. Even if it was not a game with portability in mind, it really lends itself well to it perfectly, at least thanks to the autosave and resume feature of my device when closing its lid.

The game holds up and is perfectly playable today, and very close to taking a position in my personal Top 25 Games, something I didn’t expect to happen so quickly, especially with a title I had abandoned before. Highly recommended!

This is day 23 of #100DaysToOffload

I don’t have a huge history with the Streets of Rage series, but I am quite familiar with multiplayer games, and this just happened to be one of the popular ones when I looked at lists online. Still, I never prioritized it as much when I had plenty of other options, and I also wasn’t a big fan of the artstyle from the screenshots, since I really preferred the pixelart style the series had had during its original trilogy on the Sega Genesis.

In any case, I saw the physical edition of Streets of Rage 4: Anniversary Edition for cheap online, I lost control again, and by the time I noticed I had the game on my collection and pretty much played from start to finish with friends on a weekend.

While this is a fantastic game I will return to many times, I didnt’t have that much to say about it and it’s not like I am incredibly passionate for it—or so I thought. I almost didn’t feel like writing a review and sharing it because I don’t think I add anything new to the conversation, as someone who isn’t super familiar with beat’em ups and such.

However, I write whatever I want here so that’s irrelevant :P

The story is simple and to the point. The children of Mr. X (a villain from previous games) started their own Crime Syndicate and have brought the city to chaos once again, so it’s up to you to save the city once again, venturing into the streets of rage to clean it up from the criminals raoming around.

The gameplay is great! it’s a beat’em up after all. It’s fun, it’s easy to learn, but there’s a high ceiling to master especially if you are chasing high scores. You basically have regular attacks, throws, and Blitz moves. A new addition to the series are some special attacks, which will lower your HP, however, succesive attacks will let you recover it, unless you get hit, providing a great risk-reward balance that I enjoyed a lot. There’s a variety of characters, some new ones and some old ones, all of them with their own unique styles. Tanks, lightweights, etc.

The art was neat. As I mentioned before the franchise started and stuck on the Sega Genesis, and never went through an early 3D graphics phase or high-res pixelart like other classic series did. This new entry—a couple decades after the previous one—went for hand-drawn character art, which looks absolutely incredible. At first I wasn’t a fan, but as soon as I started playing it, the animation work did its magic. It works perfectly and the lightning, shadows and other visual effects make the whole thing amazing. The locations and background art is good too, some of it is inspired by old stages from the original trilogy , but most are brand new ones that fit right in with the overall aesthetic. Every boss and enemy has pretty good animation and attack patterns too.

The soundtrack of this game is as amazing as it gets. It fits perfectly with the rest of the franchise and it’s one of the main standouts of the game. This will hype you up like nothing else and get you in the mood to go to the streets and punch some criminals and corrupt policemen. Seriously though, it adapts depending on the action going on and is something I’ll definitely listen to while going to the gym or running around.

Some other cool things this game offers are a Roguelike mode, which comes included in the Switch version (both physical and digital) and some great extras like concept art, pixel art, character profiles, a PvP mode, etc.

Overall, this game was a fantastic experience to go through. This review was made after a single playthrough of the campaign and a couple of runs of the roguelike mode, I think there’s quite a lot of other things yet to experience, and I kind of want to get better at it on the Roguelike mode.

I thought it was some kind of Zelda at first, I had only seen another older friend playing that on his computer before. However, this felt much more mature, given the violence of it all. Both games looked incredible to my eyes.

At some point we moved to another city, and years passed. We visited those friends again, but it had been a while and, although I have a very faint memory of asking for the name of the game, and writing it down, I probably lost the note and forgot once more, and asking the same thing felt extremely ridiculous to me.

Despite it all, that blue character with an edgy haircut and an awesome shredded cowl stayed in my memory, and years later, it would finally return to me.

Back in the day when I was all in on the Miyoo Mini Plus, I was looking for some PS1 games to add to my SD card, and many of the greats like Final Fantasy VII, Parasite Eve and Metal Gear Solid showed up. Checking some lists online, I immediately recognized it: Soul Reaver. That was the game I had been looking for, that I had never known for more than a decade.

And then, just a few months later, the Remastered edition was announced, containing the first and second games, and I knew it was only a matter of time before I got it.

Earlier in the year in the TWG Discord community, the Low Key Gaming Club opened submissions for games to play in upcoming months, so I nominated it, and it was selected! The game was chosen for October, and I finally got to experience what I never could during my childhood.

Story

The game happens in the land of Nosgoth, a regiond ruled by Kain and his brethren of vampires, with Raziel, the protagonist of the game, serving as second in command. However, as everyone awaits the evolution of Kain to a basically divine status—after a thousand years of ruling over Nosgoth—Raziel evolves first. He grew a pair of wings before his master, and for daring to do so, he’s thrown to the depths of the Underworld.

Burned, ravaged and disfigured, Raziel is waken up hundreds of years later by an Eldritch being, an ancient god who has chosen him to be the Soul Reaver, to fulfill a purpose, set in motion from the very beginning. As a Soul Reaver, Raziel now has the ability to absorb souls, and to traverse both the physical and the spiritual realm, which becomes a game mechanic used throughout the whole journey.

Raziel will discover a world in even worse condition than his own, abandoned, in decay, invaded by abominations descended from his own clan and his brothers’ as well. The whole region is filled to the brim with environmental storytelling, of endless war, desperate tactics and mutual destruction.

As the story continues, facing threat after threat and overcoming every obstacle and dungeon, Raziel will face against his fallen brothers, and Kain himself. Each of these duels begin with a dialogue that leaves place for plot twists, revelations, and arguments from each character that will let us understand motivations, relationships and the story of how things ended up like they did.

Soul Reaver is actually a sort of sequel for an earlier PS1 game: Legacy of Kain: Blood Omen, where Kain is the protagonist, thousands of years before. There is a lot of imagery and a couple of characters that are borrowed from the previous game, but given the timespan between the entries, the previous story itself may be considered a myth and history of its own, and it’s not really necessary to enjoy this. Most of it amounts to interesting references, some areas getting redesigned and changed by the time, and of course, Kain himself being the antagonist this time around, engulfed by a greed for power and dominance over everything.

Simply put, there is a lot of story to enjoy here, and you should check it out for yourself.

Gameplay

This game is a masterpiece of its time, wonderfully designed and overcoming many limitations that even PS2 games still struggled with, in very clever ways.

You are Raziel, on your quest to explore the land of Nosgoth and uncover the truth of what happened, after centuries of war and despair under Kain’s empire. The game revolves around one main mechanic, switching between the physical and spirit realm. You can go to the spirit realm anytime, but you can’t turn back to the material world unless you are on a special portal and at full health. You can perform a limited set of actions on each realm, and different enemies will spawn as well. You can also jump and hover around, using your broken wings to reach far away platforms.

The physical realm and material realm also completely change the layout of the environment. If you are surprised at the “rotated” rooms in Ocarina of Time, this will blow your mind. They somehow seamlessly modify the polygons and textures of the game in subtle, but effective ways. Some platforms are unreachable in the physical realm, but get closer in the spirit realm—this must have been a completely mind-boggling effect on the PS1. Observation is key, use the camera controls.

The traversal mechanics are interesting too, other than regular platforming and moving around, you also have teleportation gates. These are one of the most impressive feats of the game. Modern Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight and The Lost Crown, have the same thing, however, only Soul Reaver pulls off seamless teleportation with no loading screens to be found, in fact. There are no loading screens anywhere—except when you boot the game. This is absolutely ridiculous for a title in the PS1, and yet it’s here. Not even Monster Hunter got this on the PS2.

The combat in this game is rather simple, you can focus on an enemy and throw punches. There is no parrying or timing or combos. Most enemies are vampires who cannot die by regular means. You have to impale them with a weapon, throw them on fire, or in water, and absorb their soul afterwards. However, you can also just run past a lot of the enemies, or switch to the spirit realm, where enemy spirits can be beaten and absorbed. Eventually you will unlock a weapon that you can use while your health is full, but other than that, you are on your own, using the surroundings to defeat enemies.

Another mechanic of the game that is present from beginning to end, are block puzzles! which can also be found in some Zelda games. But don’t sleep on them. Some of the puzzle design here is equal to the most clever shrines in Breath of The Wild and the dungeons from Ocarina. I was in awe at how much my head was working to solve these, and once they click I felt like new neurons were growing in my brain.

You will unlock many other abilities later, that will allow you to pass different obstacles in the game, all of them interact with the mechanic of switching between realms and pushing blocks. For example, eventually you get the ability to go through walls—only in the spirit realm—which gives you access to some rooms, you will also gain the ability to move blocks at a distance—only in the material world—which expands the possibilities for puzzles. A couple more abilities are unlocked, which are implemented wonderfully in the dungeon design.

Here is another surprise, the boss fights are puzzles themselves. Even if the bosses look like something out of Dark Souls, you can’t kill them by throwing punches or hitting them with weapons—okay, a couple will need that. The boss and its environment are one. You will have to look at its behaviour and the surroundings to realize how you can beat them, and once you do, they are not that difficult, to be honest.

I’d say the gameplay here is fantastic. However, it is still and old game, everything here will be kinda janky and kinda clunky. Movement will be kinda slow and the camera will be kinda confusing. There’s also a water level, which is as great as any game at the time. Nothing unusual if you ever played Ocarina of Time.

Art & Music

If there is one thing where this game has not aged a day, it would be the art, especially the voice acting.

There is some incredible talent that worked on this game, some of which you may have heard in films and media of the time. The dialogue scenes, conversations between Raziel and his brothers, now enemies, a mysterious woman spectre that offers guidance, along the ancient deity that brought you back to the spirit realm, all of them possess an incredible gravitas and power to them.

I can’t say it enough, the conversations happening before every fight or when a new area is visited are just great, the animation, and the shots, while simple for today standards, work to convey the story and give a dramatic tone to every scene, it was a pretty cinematic experience overall rivaled only by Metal Gear Solid.

As I said before, the game features some incredible storytelling told through every environment. Even if the polygons are rather simple, The world of Nosgoth feels truly alive (or rather, dead?), it was pretty well represented and I found myself admiring the design of the areas and attention to detail. Even if some puzzle design is only serving the gameplay, I thought the contraptions were interesting and I truly wondered “what was the purpose of this when the place was not a wasteland”.

The textures of the PS1 graphics, while obviously low resolution, work amazingly to make this game stand out above the rest, managing to look like a PS2 title, especially when viewed through a CRT screen.

The Remastered version, which is what I played, features updated, high-res textures that add more detail and retain the original feel and vibes of the game. You can freely swap between original and updated graphics by pressing the R3 button (the analog stick), on the Switch version. I genuinely thought I was just looking at the game in the way it always looked to me as a kid.

While the texture work of the environments saw an uplift, the biggest change has to be the implementation of higher resolution 3D models. Pretty much every character in the game got a complete remodel with updated textures and a higher polygon count. All in all, it’s just fantastic to look at, although some of the models look a bit more bulky than the PS1 counterparts, which is a bit weird. I was genuinely suprised at the designs of the bosses, they wouldn’t feel out of place in a modern Soulslike.

The music of this game is excellent as well, it offers a vibe that no other soundtrack quite has, with a very environmental style to it, which feels like a mix between ambient sound, drums, strings, screams, and chants. I don’t know how to explain it, it just works. The music also adapts to whatever is going on screen, rising in tension when you get into combat, and going back to normal after a victory, without missing a beat. Just listen to it

Overall

Well, let’s just finish things off by listing the good and the bad this game has to offer!

The good

• Fantastic art, music, and voice acting.
• Deep lore and engaging story with great writing and scenes.
• A linear progression of the game.
• Fantastic puzzle, dungeon and boss battle design
• There are no unfair deaths or areas, other than platforming.
• No loading screen, seamless gameplay between realms and areas.
• Extra goodies if you return to previous areas with new powers!
• The game is short! And the Remaster comes with the sequel included.

The not so good

• Clunky, old school camera and movement controls
• Kinda slow walking speed and action animations.
• Platforming sections not aided by the camera and movement.
• The map in the Remaster is basically useless (there is no map in the original)
• Some areas may feel empty or confusing to traverse
• Enemies respawning in puzzle areas are annoying
• A couple of obscure puzzle mechanics (not many)
• The game ends in a cliff-hanger (just play with the sequel immediately though)

Some tips and reminders

• You can avoid most of the platforming struggle by crouching and walking at once, crouching won’t let you fall off platform borders.
• The Remaster has tooltips to know if you can interact with objects, this is apparently not a thing in the original so keep it in mind if you want to emulate.
• Keep using the camera view, it will save a lot of confusion, there is a lot of verticality in the puzzles, look up, down and behind you.
• If you see no path forward, try switching realms since the shape of many things will vary and open new options.
• Once you can shoot projectiles, you can also aim with the camera view.
• A couple puzzles will requires trial and error, it’s not complicated but it’s also not as logical as others.
• Keep looking at your surroundings, all the clues will be there—except for the trial and error puzzles.

Final thoughts

All in all, I absolutely loved this game. All of the “bad stuff” I mentioned barely affected me at all, I just point it out in case it might be an issue for you. I think this game and its world are just incredible, I really enjoyed it a lot.

Raziel is such an awesome character, and Nosgoth is a very unique setting, I really want to see what is next for the sequel and the series. It is such a shame there has been no new games in a while, I really hope someone greenlights more adventures with Kain and Raziel at some point.

I am definitely going to be playing the sequel to see how the story evolves, I have so many games in the backlog though, so we’ll see.

This one is a bit of a special case, I actually completed it in a pretty different way to other games, I simply played it with a friend!

Hyper Light Drifter came out in 2016, almost 10 years ago at this point, a great indie game with a sucessful kickstarter campaign. I heard of it all the time since its release, and it was one of the biggest reasons I grew interested in game development and pixel art, and the only indie game I ever obtained through alternative methods—until I felt guilty about it and deleted it after 20 minutes. I was just a teenager so, yeah.

You get the drill. I’ve been aware of this game for a while, and for some reason, I took a long time to finally get around to it.

It wasn’t until I bought my Nintendo Switch that Hyper Light Drifter became one of the first games I purchased for the console. However, among so many games I had to try out, I shoved it aside.

If you look at my log journal, you’ll see I played this game for a grand total of 6 days. Two times in December 2023—the month I bought the game for Christmas—one time in July 2024—where I somehow played it for 3 hours—and three times since September 2025—where I finally completed it. All but one of these sessions were done in multiplayer with the same friend. I could’ve beaten this game in a couple of weeks if I had focused on it, but I felt like I had to complete it with my friend—it’s also a good way to excuse myself.

But really, the game has an awesome 2-player co-op mode, uncommon for titles with an actual story and a world to uncover, with a sense of wonder that gets you to actually challenge yourself, think about what it’s trying to say, and uncover the secrets hidden everywhere in the map, pretty rare and unique, honestly.¹

So, whenever a friend came over and we felt like playing something a little bit deeper that required more than just smashing buttons or pushing each other off of platforms, Hyper Light Drifter became the go-to.

The story

Hyper Light Drifter is not very explicit on its story telling, there is pretty much no text other than the instructions of the game itself. NPCs don’t have any dialogue, and only some of them will tell stories in the form of graphics and drawings depicting what happened to them.

You are The Drifter, and you have some sort of disease that weakens you and makes you cough up blood. You journeyed to this place looking for a cure—although the game doesn’t really tell you that. Your goal is to collect the modules required to raise four pillars, located at each cardinal point of the map, for something to happen that may give you the answers you are looking for.

The world is kind of rotten, there are bodies in many places, after some sort of event, or a series of events, occurred on these lands.

Most of this I got from the wiki. The game is really obscure on this. What you actually know is to collect the modules and get to the bosses shown on the map.

The story itself is kind of a mirror to the experience of one of the devs working on the game, who suffers from a heart disease and has dealt with it constantly throughout his life. This changes the outlook of the game immensely.

Overall, the game mostly consists of visual storytelling, via flashbacks, characters sharing their experiences and the environments around you, who are in a state of decay and abandonment. It’s not very clear but it doesn’t have to be.

The gameplay

Your main weapon is a sword, made of solid light, you can also dash, and use guns.

The game plays like an old school adventure game like The Legend of Zelda, it features with minimal dialogue and text, you are supposed to explore the world and collect modules, keys, skill points, as well as lost technology that can help you get stronger, unlock doors and new paths.

The world is divided in four regions with different climates and enemies, and also different types of challenges while traversing the world. Falling platforms, spiked floors, moving obstacles, projectiles, gauntlets and puzzles are going to be present along the way. The variety of enemies is quite big too.

The combat system is simple, but difficult. You have a sword combo and you can dash to get close or away from enemies. There is no parry system. Once you unlock more abilities, you can shield certain attacks or redirect projectiles, as well as get more attack combos.

With skill points, you can learn new sword or dash techniques, such as charged attacks, or chain-dashing. You’ll also be able to unlock more slots for your gun ammo, and grenades to target groups of enemies.

The chain-dashing ability lets you dash in sequence, and can be performed forever, similar to bomb-jumping in Metroid games. However, it needs a certain rythm to perform well, and it’s kind of annoying to master. Thankfully, you can complete the game without it, but it’s nice to get a feel for it especially to make traversal faster—unless you crash against every wall like me.

Each area will also contain bosses. I think the boss design is pretty good, but some times the attack range felt too short, and there are moments where I would get hit and stun-locked after multiple attacks. Hit-boxes are slightly wonky, but nothing too bad.

The art

Hyper Light Drifter is probably one of the best showcases of modern day pixel art that I have ever seen. There really is no other way to put it. The game looks absolutely gorgeous, one might say the whole budget of this game went towards making sure everything looks as slick as possible.

During the covid lockdown, I clearly remember having screenshots of the game side by side while designing pixel art for my own projects, it is so inspiring and beautiful to look at.

The character animation is simply immaculate. I absolutely love every little detail about it. From attacks to movement to the simple idle animation, it is extremely well done.

While there are not many regions in the world, each of them is distinct and familiar, and one can’t help but wonder at what their original purpose was, and how they ended up on the state they are during the game.

There will also be incredible animated cutscenes with unique and mind-blowing visuals, in a similar style to Neon Genesis Evangelion, although I must admit, it feels like too much flare and not enough meaning, or at least, it’s just confusing overall after a first playthrough.

The music

The soundtrack of this game is simply magnificent. It is instrumental, environmental, with a mix of electronic sounds that merge seamlessly and provides the game with an atmosphere unique to it. Elevating it above and beyond and giving a certain grávitas to the quietest of moments. I simply cannot imagine this game without the music here!

A few songs of the soundtrack were on my now defunct Spotify playlist for relaxing videogame music, years before I even got the game, it was just that good, and yet another reason I wanted to play this so badly—but not that much given how long it took me, I guess.

Panacea, one of the main tracks of the game, deserves a listen, along the rest! You can also get the album on Bandcamp too.

The sound effects for the environment, item collecting and others were also quite good, although it’s mostly just checking the boxes rather than doing anything too special. In fact, sometimes the music would (welcomingly so) take over every other sounds of the game and play regardless of what was happening on screen (usually during battles or cinematic moments) and it was just fantastic.

Finishing thoughts

There is a lot to like here. It is one of those indie games that really does everything right, and has managed to build an identity for itself.

In modern days, there are others that have surpassed some of its elements and design choices, but I think it deserves a playthrough nonetheless. I also think there are not many action adventure games that keep things as simple as this one. No complicated builds or charms or anything like that is here, just a small selection of weapons and a small moveset focused on combat.

The game is difficult, but not as much as something like Hollow Knight or Silksong. However, some of the bosses and hitboxes can be a little janky, so there will be some times where you will get hit when it looks like you avoided the attack, and there will be times where the attack is touching the enemy, but they don’t lose hitpoints.

The chain-dashing mechanic is rather finnicky and annoying, and there’s some challenges that are a pain to do, but they are never essential to complete the main game, so I think it’s alright.

Overall, I am glad I finally got to play this game, and given how short it is, I am probably going to revisit it and try to beat it by myself sometime.

Hollow Knight. The indie Metroidvania to rule them all, the game that redefined the genre for the modern era, inspiring many developers for years to come to follow on its footsteps.

This is one of those modern games that I thought weren’t really that big of a deal. I wasn’t much into gaming other than whatever ran on my PSP. For a while I was happy with emulating Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, but well, I thought it would be nice to get into some more modern games, so I decided to buy it on Steam, alongside CrossCode and Axiom Verge—two games I’m yet to properly play.

So, I played it on my laptop for a while, up to 9 hours of playtime, more or less. I even used my PSP as a controller with it, and it worked well enough.

However, playing it on my laptop just didn’t work that well for me, so I abandoned it in the end.

It wasn’t until much later, that I finally bought my Nintendo Switch, and well, I finally felt like giving it a go! I started the game in November of 2024, and I finally beat it a couple days ago!

You are the Knight, an explorer that ventures into the fallen kingdom of Hallownest, a dangerous endeavor, especially when your only weapon is a nail with the smallest hitbox ever.

As you explore, you will find obstacle after obstacle, and enemies that will make traversal difficult, especially in the early hours of the game. However, soon the kingdom will open itself to you, as you unlock new abilities that will let you reach new areas, face against difficult bosses, go through platforming challenges and uncover every corner of this region.

This game is available on every modern platform, I own it on Steam and Nintendo Switch.

There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s get into it!

The story

The story of Hollow Knight is not crystal clear, it is not necessarily the focus of the game, as it’s more of an adventure done in solitude.

However, there are a lot of events and lore that you will uncover throughout your quest. Some of it is difficult to understand, hidden in poems and strange texts scathered throughout the lands. The story of how Hallownest ended up in ruins, is something that the player uncovers as the game continues, and it’s actually very interesting.

Every character in the game will have something to say, some of them will follow their own personal quests, and you will find them multiple times in different areas. Some times you can even help them out, or save them from certain demise.

Other characters will tell you stories when you give them antiques or certain items. Even some of the bosses will have something to say, from dialogue, to just their name alone, they will spark questions and make you wonder how everything ended up as it is.

It feels like everything has some meaning, why is this boss attacking like this? What was the original purpose of this area? Why certain enemies only spawn here?

So many clues, riddles and thought-provoking moments can be found. And character moments that might not seem like much at a glance, but are charged with meaning and melancholy.

I found the story here, the lore and the characters to be simply amazing.

The gameplay

This is a Metroidvania, borrowing heavy inspiration from Dark Souls when it comes to its difficulty and world design choices.

You can move around in the map and attack with your nail. There are some hidden mechanics as soon as the game starts, so I won’t spoil them here, it’s nice to discover your movement options naturally.

The health system is interesting. You can recover health by “focusing” soul. Health is represented by masks, and you can increase it by collecting mask fragments. There’s also a container for soul, which you use to focus and recover health. You can gain soul by dealing damage and defeating enemies, as well as destroying statues filled with it. Soul will come handy to use for spells, a variety of extra attacks that will allow for long range and area-based damage, for example.

Health is a valuable resource, unlike games like Zelda or Minecraft where you might lose a quarter or half a heart, here each mask is a full health point, gone as soon as you are hit. And as the game progresses enemies will be able to deal more damage. Your attacks cannot be rushed or just spammy, there’s a timing to how you should move and to how enemies do.

Over time, you face difficult bosses, which you will have to defeat, to unlock more abilities or just get through an area. You can learn more skills with the nail itself later on. Expanding the offensive and traversal possibilities.

The most important aspect of the gameplay is exploration, the areas available are pretty open from the start, but with some sections you can’t reach yet, because you’re missing some skill here or there. The game features a cartographer, that sells you a map of the area you’re exploring, which gets filled as you explore every room within that portion of the map.

The platforming mechanics might be one of the deal breakers for many. Movement speed is pretty slow, and the jumping physics feel weird compared to other games. This is because the jump is slightly floaty (sort of like in Super Metroid) and the jump height varies depending on how much you hold the jump button. Once you get used to it it’s not bad at all, and again, the movement options will expand over time.

The game also features Charms. They are essential to customize your gameplay style and add some variation to the game. Basically, each charm will boost certain stats, or give you a different skill. From more health, wider range of damage, quicker soul focusing, faster attacks, etc. You have a limited amount of slots, so you can only wear so many charms at once.

The save system is based on benches, which are scattered throughout the world, and will replenish your health, also respawning the enemies you may have defeated in the area. Benches are a rare sight, and sometimes their placement can be annoying, especially when a boss fight is far away, and you have to get past all the enemies in the way there after dying.

If you die, you respawn in the lastest bench you were on. However, you will lose all your Geo, the money in the game. You have to go back to the place you died, and defeat your own soul (it only takes 2 or 3 hits) to recover it. However, if you die again before recovering your soul, you’ll lose the Geo forever.

There are a couple of fast-travel options in the game, that will let you backtrack between sections of the map. Some can only go back and forth between areas, and others let you go to any area you have access to.

The art

This game is absolutely gorgeous!

It’s not pixel art, it’s not 3D models or environments, everything in Hollow Knight is hand-drawn, and it looks completely amazing to this day. The game features a few animated scenes, although they are pretty uncommon, when they happen, they are rather cinematic, if simple in execution compared to some titles working with higher budget.

The animations during gameplay are equally fantastic. The Knight’s design and animations are simple and clear, without many flourishes to it. The enemies are also quite simple for the most part, but where Hollow Knight excels is in the boss designs. All of them have pretty cool designs, and their movements and patterns are well animated. Not everything is perfectly telegraphed

There was no game like it among the indie scene in 2017, the details, the animations and design behind everything on it is commendable. Almost a decade later, the game still looks fantastic and dare I say, timeless. Although other indie games have catched up in the art design department in modern times, the way everything fits together in Hallownest is still really well done.

Seriously, this is one of those games where you can tell “That’s Hollow Knight” just by looking at a screenshot, and it’s just as easy to tell “that’s inspired by Hollow Knight” on every game out there that borrows from it.

The soundtrack of this game is absolutely superb, with orchestral and environmental elements to it, words cannot describe it well enough. If you’ve listened to any sort of videogame media, it’s likely you’ve heard to Hollow Knight’s soundtrack. There is an air of melancholy to it, but it’s also pretty elegant, it really is an instant classic.

Finishing thoughts

This is a beautiful game, that introduced a lot of people into the Metroidvania genre, and is considered a masterpiece by many, including myself.

The wonderful yet desolate Hallownest, the diverse regions, and fast-travel mechanics made traversal fun for me, accompanied by the occasional lore drop in statues, structures and characters found along the way.

The power-ups, nail arts and charms really let you customize the Knight to fit a few different playstyles, you can focus on casting spells, or just dealing raw damage, or if you only want to focus on quick traversal and grinding for Geo, you can do it as well.

The music is awesome, and I also enjoyed the sound design of everything, it was eerie and immersive. Enemies have their own sound effects, and character dialogue is accompanied by charming and memorable voice acting (“sigh… Bapanada”).

This is an excellent game to get fully immersed into, it’s a difficult and challenging quest, and there will be many roadblocks and no handholding, but if you can stand until the end, you will have gone through an experience like no other.

The way the world slowly opens up and reveals itself, both in the paths availabe, as in the way the story unfolds, is seriously quite masterful. I really loved this game, and I look forward to a replay, a few years from now.

Compared to modern games, like Metroid Dread and The Lost Crown, and even some older titles in the genre, there are a few annoyances, and missing quality of life features that Hollow Knight doesn’t have. For example:

• The distance between boss fights and benches can be cumbersome, no “retry button” or possibility of reloading a save file.
• The loss of progress when you die twice in a row, while on purpose, can be pretty annoying at some points.
• Death due to environmental damage isn’t uncommon in other games, but paired with the scarce benches, it’s painful.
• The map system pales in comparison to Dread’s, even more so with Prince of Persia’s built-in screenshot feature.
• Some attacks lack any indication whatsoever, or the window is extremely tight, no difficulty options are available
• No life bars. I’m not annoyed by this since I’m used to Monster Hunter, but some people like them.

Basically, it all boils down to how much you are willing to deal with the mercilessness of a Soulslike, in the gameplay style of a Metroidvania game. Honestly, I didn’t mind it at all, and I had a blast playing it, but, as you can tell by the span of time I took to beat it, I had to take breaks and focus on other things from time to time.

In any case, Hallownest always managed to entrap me within its setting and mystery, and I’m happy it did.

The game also comes with a lot of extra bosses and DLC, I completed it to a 100%, but that’s taking into account some of the DLC. The real percentage is 112%, which I did not go for. However, I am more than happy with all this game has for me, and I may try out the rest of the extra content later on.

Jet Lancer follows the journey of Ash, a mercenary pilot of an experimental jet, tasked with dealing with the Sky Pirates, some evil doers who bring terror to the skies.

From there, you’ll end up uncovering some ancient giant weapons that will head to the city and put everyone in danger, only you are capable of defeating them before they destroy everything, while also uncovering the mystery behind them and what is actually going on.

The story is actually much more interesting than that, a shooter with an actual plot is not common, and a shooter with an actually actually quite good story even less so! Still no masterpiece of storytelling, but I actually looked forward to the all the cutscenes between the missions and the dialogues during the gameplay itself.

Speaking of which, the gameplay here is amazing. It is an “aerial combat shooter” with tight controls and frenetic gameplay. You can fly through the air in every direction—unlike classic on-rails space shooters—dodge enemies, boost and use special weapons to survive. It has a very simple set of controls, but a really high skill cap, and it gets highly addictive whe trying to go for a damageless level clear.

The game is mission-based and you can move through every level in an overworld, although a selection menu is available later on to quickly get to previous levels.

The art during gameplay is mostly pixel art sprites, and it looks rad, it is pretty simple, but full of colorful and contrast, so it’s easy to distinguish everything around you, including the different kinds of enemies and the like. I really loved the whole aesthetic of the game. The overworld where you pick the levels is in a low-poly 3D style but it doesn’t feel out of place at all.

As the game progresses, you’ll be able to unlock upgrades to your Jet that will make life harder or easier, depending on your choices. From auto-dodging, shields, more fuel and other power-ups. You only have a limited set of skill slots, so your build will vary, and some levels will be easier depending on the upgrades you equip.

The game features 38 levels, 11 of which are boss fights, that are definitely a highlight of the game, I felt great when I finally managed to pull off a victory. You have to be in the zone at every moment with the frenzy going on, but everything somehow just flows and you end up feeling like a complete Ace in the sky.

Another aspect I’d like to point out is the absolutely glorious sound design and soundtrack. It is so incredibly cool and it gets your heart pumping the whole time especially with all the action going on in the screen. The sound of the engines and the shooting and explosions, especially after you beat a boss, chef’s kiss.

A very good thing this game has too, is accesibiliy features, from expanding the dodge window, taking less damage or disabling it altogether, turning off screen-shakes and the like, you can tweak your experience to your liking and feel just as awesome.

It was the game of the month for July in the Low Key Game Club on the TWG Online server, so I’m glad I got to finish it! If you are up for an awesome challenge and a fast-paced gameplay experience that will make you feel like the best of the best once you get the controls, this is it! It even features a New Game Plus mode with harder AI and new upgrades to get, but I think I feel satisfied with my experience. Check it out!

Fire Emblem is a franchise that I haven’t played very much, I wrote about the series in the past, and this will be the first one I actually complete.

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade was the first game of the series to come out overseas, after being released exclusively on Japan for years. It is a tactics RPG series that has remained popular since the apparition of its characters in Super Smash Bros Melee for the Game Cube.

On this game, you control a variety of characters who can move inside a grid-based map, and attack enemies. These attacks are done with melee weapons, of which there are three of them: swords, axes and lances, that best each other, like in rock, paper, scissors. There’s also cavalry, archery, mages, and other classes with different uses in the game.

One of the defining factors of this series is perma-death. If a character dies during a battle, they cannot be used during the rest of the playthrough. In-story, they may just be incapacitated sometimes, but it’s practically the same thing.

In the game, you become the strategist for a group of characters, helping them achieve victory battle after battle. You join forces with three main characters, Lyn, Eliwood and Hector, all of them have multiple goals throughout the game, from finding lost family members, to uncovering a conspiracy against the kingdom, to saving the whole world from calamity itself.

I think the story is pretty great, but not the highlight of the game, at first it seemed like filler to me, but as it kept progressing, I grew interested in these characters and I wanted to know what was next, the last third of the game really elevates the stakes quit a lot, and I really enjoyed the dialogues and the character developments more than I expected.

The game is divided into chapters. Unlike other traditional games, you don’t traverse a map from town to town or get into random enemy encounters. Every chapter will show some story bits, with character dialogue and scenes explaining the story. After that, you will have a preparation phase, where you can select which characters to use, equip them with weapons and items, and position them in certain tiles of the map. Once ready, you will start the battle and do your best.

Each battle consists of multiple turns, a player phase and an enemy phase. You can move and interact with as many characters as you have, and after your turn ends, the enemy will do the same. As the amount of enemies grows, this can be a bit tedious, but it’s no big deal. It’s actually a way for the player to realize the consequences of each move. Positioning, attacking, healing. Everything you did during your previous turn will affect the outcome of the enemy phase.

The Blazing Blade came out for the Game Boy Advance, which influences its design in a couple ways, given it’s a portable device with a focus on pick-up and play, the maps aren’t too large and it’s very easy to suspend and resume a session if needed. I think this makes the game a perfect point of entry to the series.

This game looks absolutely gorgeous in 2025. It is one of the best looking games in the platform, and it is hard to find pixelart as good as this one even in modern games. Just look at this sweet critical hit:

I do have some caveats though, which are not really a big deal.

I am sorry to the fans of the franchise, but I couldn’t really stand the permadeath for the most part, I must confess I absolutely abused emulator save states to avoid losing characters, multiple times. I replayed the same bits over and over trying to get the outcome I wanted.

This however didn’t make me hate the game or anything, it actually turned it into a bit of a puzzle game. It was almost like playing minesweeper or something, I would do multiple variations of a turn, trying to attack enemies in the right order to avoid a character dying during the enemy phase.

Also, during a battle, enemy reinforcements will show up sometimes, and if I left a mage in relative safety, a knight could spawn right beside it from off-screen and kill them, so I’d end up restoring to a previous state and moving that mage away from danger pre-emptively, or leaving other characters to intersect the new enemies.

I much prefer how other games do it, where death only affects during the battle itself, but in the end you get all your characters back for the next battle. This is the case on Jeanne D’Arc, Triangle Strategy and The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy. But again, to each their own.

Besides, it was only annoying when a character dies for a really, really dumb reason. There will be times, when everything seems lost, when I made so many bad choices for a long while and it is not worth it to go back, that I will come to terms with letting someone die, by making them fight and deal enough damage so that one of my other characters can do the final hit.

It’s in moments like that when the game actually succeeded in making me care about them, the noble sacrifice for the greater good and moving forward when everything seems lost.

Again, it really is kind of neat and helps create your own story sometimes, but many times, a random enemy would just one-hit kill a character I had been leveling up for a while with full health and all, which was really, really annoying.

In 2025, this game is very easy to emulate, it can be done on the Nintendo Switch via an Online + Expansion Pack subscription, or you can use a GBA emulator on your phone or laptop. I played part of this game ages ago on my PSP, but played most of it on my Anbernic RG35XX SP, which was a faithful recreation of the experience I would’ve had on real hardware, but with better screen brightness!

The music was great, the art was awesome, the animations are absolutely a feast to the eyes, the gameplay loop is solid, I don’t know if I need any more words, pretty much everything in this game holds up today, even more so if you don’t mind the challenge of permadeath.

All in all, this is a really cool game and it’s worth playing it today.

1000xRESIST can be described as a story-driven 3D adventure game with a bit of platforming. While technically correct, I would be doing a disservice to what this game manages to achieve, way beyond the constraints of the artform.

This game was developed by a group of theater actors who didn’t have a lot of work to do during the pandemic, so they teamed up to learn game development, and started working on this game as their first venture into this artform.

I am writing this, without doing something I really wish to do right now, which is to find every piece of writing, video or audio from people who have played this game before. I already listened to many of the episodes of Into The Aether that brought it up, including their 2024 Game of The Year Spectacular

Right now I just want to write down my thoughts on my own mind, which has already been altered by a lot of external influences anyway so whatever, bias and all that.

Story

1000xRESIST tells us a story of a dystopian future where all of humanity has been wiped out by a deadly virus, that came along an alien species (more like, cosmical entities beyond our understanding) known as The Occupants.

The last remains of Humanity can be found in a society of clones, all from a single girl, Iris, who is immune to the virus, and cannot perish or age. Overtime she became a sort of deity among her clones, and came to be known as the ALLMOTHER.

The clones are divided in groups, they can’t die of age either, but they are not immune to the virus, having to wear special facemasks and suits. Each of them is led by a Sister. There are six main Sisters: Principal, who is in charge of the whole thing, Knower, in charge of the library and keeping archives, Healer, healthcare, and looks for a cure for the virus, Fixer, who maintains the infrastructure, Bang Bang Fire, in charge of defense and monitoring the Occupants activity, and Watcher, whose job is to look, and observe. Each of them, named after their function.

The rest of the clones are “shells” and they are also assigned a function at birth, and train constantly so they can, one day, become a Sister too. All of them are living in an underground structure known as The Orchard.

When a Sister is deemed worthy, they are called via train to join the ALLMOTHER on the Other Side. The train tracks are a circle with no beginning or end, the track to the Other Side is only revealed to those who are chosen.

The game begins when Principal asks Watcher to perform her First Communion. This is a process where she can experience the life of the ALLMOTHER before she became their deity, she will learn how her past unfolds, and slowly realize that things are not what they seem.

Gameplay

The game is divided in chapters, most of them represents a Communion with a different sister. Before a communion, you can wander around in the Orchard and catch up with the shells and other Sisters, they will talk about a lot of things, all of them interesting in their own right. I genuinely can’t think of another game where I wanted to talk to absolutely everyone just to see what new piece of data I could use, that could help me figure out the puzzle of what is even going on.

Inside a Communion, everyone around you will see you as Iris, and each memory is a bizarre retelling of the past. You can move around, do some platforming sections, and complete simple tasks, like finding certain people to talk to, or reaching a destination.

I feel like when I type it out, the game sounds boring as hell, like it’s nothing but a walking simulator with a couple extra things. You can think that, if you want. This is not a challenging platformer, it’s not filled with insane action moments, it doesn’t require constant trial and error or feature the best animation ever, it does not feature skills or leveling up or anything a regular game might have.

There is a couple of interesting mechanics here. During some gameplay sections, you can move across time in the same room, this is useful at first to get pass some obstacles that might be present in in a certain moment, but not in the future. This is also a narrative tool, that will let you progress through a memory and live it through and connect certain bits with others found in a different time.

The most common platforming mechanic is a sort of long jump that can be performed when focusing on some points in the environment, this is a way to traverse quick in some events, but also to avoid falling on bottomless areas where you have to perform these jumps multiple times.

There are other aspects to both of these mechanics and some others that I’d rather not mention much, since they are heavily intertwined with the story and themes of the game.

Art

The game features a cell-shaded look for the most part, but the art direction goes to absolutely crazy places some times. The design of the main hub, the design of the clones, the different camera angles, the different points of view of the character, everything is done on purpose.

One of the few things some might find annoying, is the lack of animations, for the voice active, or at all. Multiple times the characters will just be still, with no motion, and you might be lead to believe this is just because of money constraints or something like that. Honestly, that’s probably a reason, but after you accept that, you will notice how all the positions and the ways the developers worked around every limitation, ends up enhancing the experience in a different way

I played the Switch version, and it is definitely not the best way to play the game. Some parts of the game had weird aliasing, and the framerate was not consistent sometimes. I honestly didn’t care at all, and totally enjoyed my time with the game, despite a couple slow load times.

The whole game is a work of art.

Audio

The voice acting is fantastic, I really, really enjoyed it. It is a very raw and personal style, which will contain some mumbling and some weird performances from time to time, but they will fit the narrative at hand every time.

Honestly I couldn’t skip any of the dialogue, it was just so well timed, and it felt like it added so much character and gravitas to even the simplest moments of the plot.

The sountrack proved to be incredibly well made, at first it seemed like it was just going to be some perfectly serviceable atmospherical themes, but there will be more variety once the story moves forward and it completely hit me in the feels many, many times. The sudden changes in some of the chapters are handled incredibly and the music enhances the whole thing. I am glad I wore earphones the whole time.

There are also some songs with lyrics, and poems performed by some of the characters, and they hold a certain significance to them in the context of the story. It’s just incredible stuff.

Final thoughts

Each chapter has something that will simply leave you thinking, each line of dialogue is just, so quotable, something worth savouring and reflecting upon. Every shot, camera placement, lightning choice, the voice acting, everything just feels like it was tweaked and planned to perfection, to emote a feeling, to leave a mark.

The game will deal with a variety of topics, and you can tell just by the plot alone, it is about the covid pandemic, about religion, about resisting authority, about memories, seeking freedom, leaving the past behind, promises, authoritarian regimes, about existence itself.

It explores pretty much every facet of the human condition.

I want to write more, there is so much more, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so, this game is just, so worth playing. You should just experience it yourself, I don’t want to ruin the incredible moments, the plot twists, the most shocking visuals I have seen in ages, the psychological aspects of the whole ordeal. It is just, ugh, I don’t know, I run out of words to describe it without spoiling it.

It is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

I will be thinking about this game throughout my life, I can just tell already. I had already thought about it a lot even before playing it, because I kind of wanted to avoid it, for some reason, but now that I played it, it will just keep showing up in my thoughts constantly.

Now it’s time to listen to that 5 hour long dotzip episode!

This is day 86 of #100DaysToOffload

IF YOU WANNA DISCUSS ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT THIS GAME PLEASE CONTACT ME AT ONCE

SPOILERS AHEAD, PLEASE DO NOT READ, RANDOM THOUGHTS ABOUT MULTIPLE PLOT POINTS INCOMING

Still, the series remains alive thanks to its legacy, contributing to the birth of the Metroidvania genre after the release of Castlevania Symphony of the Night in the late 90s.

Aria of Sorrow builds upon what Symphony does—although I must be clear and say I haven’t played it myself—and streamlined the experience into a pocket-sized adventure for the Game Boy Advance.

In context, this game is absolutely awesome. I can totally picture myself being a 10 year old kid with a GBA SP, and with this as the only game I own. And you know what? I think I’d be the coolest kid at school.

Think about it, the other kids have cutesy little Yoshi’s Island throwing eggs around, or they catching Caterpies in some forest on Pokemon Fire Red.

And me?

I am a super cool white-haired demon killing vampire hunter, exploring a huge castle filled with hundreds of enemies and epic bosses. I can extract their souls and use gain their powers to get even stronter. How epic is that?

Even if you are not 10 years old anymore, just go give it a go, it’s barely 7 hours long, stop reading and play it. The only excuse not to, is if you want to play Ys: The Oath in Felghana first.

But if you stay, let’s go into some of the aspects that might let you know if this game is for you, or not!

The story

You are Soma Cruz, a new character to the franchise actually, and, somehow, you are transported to Dracula’s Castle, and cannot find any way to escape. You end up there with another friend maybe it’s your girlfriend I didn’t read oops but she’ll stay in the entrance and heal you when you go check up on her sometimes.

Anyway, since there’s no exit found, you gotta explore inside the castle and see if you can find a way out. The place is full of monsters, however, after killing some of them, you realize you can absorb their souls and acquire special abilities from them.

You will face many traps and dead ends, and soon meet up with other characters that will reveal more of the story and show up during important plot events. Soon the mystery of the castle, the awakening of your powers and the motives behind the characters you meet will start to unfold, as Dracula awakens once again.

The gameplay

If you have played a Castlevania before, or the Metroid games for the GBA, the gameplay is quite similar to that.

Aria of Sorrow is a 2D side-scroller adventure game, you explore a castle, that features a variety of environments and enemies.

Like any Metroidvania, you will find locked doors and unreachable platforms that you can only access by using different skills and power ups that you can find in the game.

The limited controls featured on the GBA make this game quite easy to parse, simple button combinations allow for a variety of moves, such as performing attacks, dodges, skills, jumping and the like. Some moves are unlocked later in the game, that allow you to perform slide kicks, double jumps and other abilities I’d rather let you experience by yourself!

Here’s the killer feature of this game, every enemy has a soul ability that you can get after killing them. However, to do so is a matter of chance. Some of them can be really hard to get, while others will be obtained on the first try. This can be a bit of a mixed bag for some players.

You can complete the game without unlocking most abilities, you will be fine, it is more of a thing you can do if, like I said above, you are a 10 year old kid who owns a single videogame. Later in the game you can still find every enemy and get strong weapons that will allow farming them super simple anyway, so I don’t think this is a bad thing unless you’re a completionist.

There are a lot of different environments inside the castle, and they are quite easy to distinguish from one another, it is actually kind of surprising. There’s a library, a clock tower (classic Castlevania staple), floating gardens, an arena, the sewers, and plenty of other areas. I actually can’t recall feeling lost at any point.

There were plenty of save points, although I honestly just abused save states for this one. You can also find teleporting rooms, which were extremely useful to traverse the castle.

The map helped quite a bit, it is rather clear, even if it lacks some “quality of life” things like markers for missing items; it shows the available pathways, save rooms, teleport rooms and your current location, as well as the percentage of the map uncovered. It was instantly accesible as well by pressing select, which I appreciate.

I think the boss fights on this game are pretty good, all of the bosses had some pretty nice and simple patterns you could learn, except for a couple exceptions that would end up being quite annoying.

The sound

The GBA’s sound chip was not the best in general, and a lot of poorly programmed games and ports were kind of average at best. However, in many games they put a lot of effort into making something fitting of the handheld, and Aria of Sorrow is really one of the best in that regard.

It was great for the time, and it still sounds awesome today, if a little retro—the kind of retro indie games seek to emulate today—it is so fun and it keeps it interesting all the time. I kept bopping to the music during my playthroughs. It can be a bit repetitive sometimes, but that’s not really an issue.

There is also a bit of voice acting to be found from some characters, it is only a line or two, but it adds some charm to the thing.

The art

This game looks incredible to this day. It is so good, the pixel art is really high quality, it looked fantastic while playing it on my Anbernic RG35XX SP.

The game is in 2D and the colors just pop when played on modern screens. At the time, I imagine this was done with the purpose of improving the contrast due to the low visibility of the original GBA, but it works really well anyway.

While most of the game is basic 2D assets and sprites, the game features a few pseudo 3D elements, in some bosses and background effects, that look quite good for the time, and work well today as well. At no point does anything look out of place.

I think there is only one area in the game that looks way too bright for its own good, but even then it’s no big deal, I just felt like it had some filter on top while playing it, as the character still loked the same if it was there or in a more saturated spot on the map

The character art featured in dialogue scenes is rather nice, and seeing the contrast with the NPCs on screen, it really makes you appreciate how well designed those sprites are too. All the enemies are instantly recognizable and have great animation loops, I really gotta give props to the designers!

Final thoughts

This game is instantly replayable, as the collectibles are plenty and they are also quite easy to find, it’s just a matter of exploring around.

Games like Metroid will feature some incredibly difficult puzzles based on precise movement and that’s something that will not be present here, you can take your time and explore, instead of practicing a button press combination and perfect timing trying to get some missiles—not hating on Metroid at all, I did 100% of the items on Metroid Dread after all, but they can be a bit annoying lol.

Anyway, this game is one of those that you are just going to complete, as long as you try stuff out. There is maybe two really obscure secrets that you will be unable to find unless you think the right way, but again, no big deal I’d say!

I completed the game in about 6 hours, although I did use some save states for a few of the boss fights, I am only taking into account the in-game timer. I played the game in 10 to 20 minutes long sessions before my work schedule began.

In the end, I think this game is worth playing, and I think I will be replaying it sometime next year as well, it’s definitely on my roster alongside Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission now! It’s always fun to keep improving my times and playstyle.

This is day 79 of #100DaysToOffload