Thoughts on games

Mushihimesama Futari

Futari is probably my overall favourite shmup. I think there are other games that do certain things better than it but as a whole, Futari is pretty much number 1 for me.
Futari's artstyle has always stood out to me and some of the art made for the game feels sorta cinematic and I like that vibe.This art in particular comes to mind.

In terms of gameplay Futari goes along with the trend the Espgaluda games started with huge bullet cancels that feel really satisfying to pull off. The difficulty in this game is probably my only gripe with this game but thats probably a fault of my own. I have no experience with ultra mode so I'm basing my opinion off of maniac and original mode.

The games pretty much has a stable difficulty curve until the absolutely huge spike in the latter half of stage 3, including the boss to an extent. I'm playing on Xenia so maybe the input delay throws me off but nonetheless, that portion of stage 3 and the boss never fail to frustrate me. Stage 4 and 5 are fine and have a respectable difficulty given their place in the game. I'd say those two stages are mostly easier than the latter half of stage 3. Though I guess stage 5 boss outclasses everything before it in terms of difficulty, though she's kinda easy on maniac to be honest.

Not sure if this is a gripe or not but the shot types in this games are kinda unbalanced, in regards to their usefulness. Normal Reco and Abnormal Palm are basically the dream needle Reimu and Laser Marisa of this game, sacrificing damage for range and range for damage respectively.

But then there's abnormal Reco and Normal Palm. Abnormal Reco is truly abnormal since her focused shot makes her move super fast and you pretty much gotta get right in the face of whatever you're shooting at. This is mostly a problem during bosses since you're gonna be at the bottom of the screen for the most part and you aren't gonna remain focused since the speed makes it harder to dodge precisely. The unfocused shot is pretty alright but just does poor damage. And then there's normal Palm who is kinda just lacks damage overall and there's not real advantage to him because he doesn't have anything to make up for his low damage.

With all that out of the way though, all I have left to say is that this is the best ost Cave has put out by far. I won't even ramble about it here, just g listen to it. Every track is a banger.

Anyway that's all I have to say about Futari. This game is just top grade of it's genre.

Kirby 64

This one is probably gonna be short compared to the previous review. Kirby 64 is my favourite kirby game by a decent margin. It is not the best kirby game, far from it, but I just really like it.
I guess I'll start off by saying that this game has my favourite kirby soundtrack and overall vibe. Though the vibes are tied with dreamland 3 and I'd arguably say that 3 has a better vibe overall due to it's aesthetic but both games are sorta similar sounding in music if I remember correctly.

But anyway yeah, Kirby 64 has imppeccable chill cozy vibes because of the combination of its visuals, music and I guess the cast too. I like the little cutscenes that play inbetween worlds. I like just about every track in this game but my favourite is quiet forest. That stage in general is very cool, I've always been fond of it. Other tracks I like are that one song with the kickass drum solo, the cloud level song, all of the x-1 songs and not gonna lie as I'm typing this I just realised I was about to list all the stage themes, so you get the idea. I like the music of this game.

As for the gameplay, I love the mixing of abilities and it's my favourite iteration of copy abilities even if some of them are kinda useless. Even if they are useless, they are at the very least funny in one way or another. I'd say my favourites are lightsaber, firesword, mouth of an eldritch monster, the exploding shuriken, exploding snowman and the fridge. And i guess cuttercutter is funny because kirby turns just flings the majority of his body mass for that ability.



The level design though, I feel people tend to be more mixed about, from what I've seen. The levels themselves are fine, I like how the other characters show up to help up in some sections. The main issue comes from some levels requiring certain ability combinations to get some of the crystal shards and in most cases you will probably have to replay the lvel since you wouldn't know what ability to bring beforehand unless you search it up. Personally I am fine with it. I enjoy playing the game so I don't really mind replaying levels. Though I'd give them props for the level design on a visual level. The backgrounds have stuff going on in them which is cool. The giant spacecraft thing in world 2 appearing in the background comes to mind.

I think the bosses are cool, my memory of them if hazy to be honest but I remember them all somewhat fondly except for Miracle Matter because of how long it can be to fight it but maybe I was just playing poorly. Final boss is cool of course. 0^2 is pretty iconic among kirby bosses for bleeding and stuff Its theme is cool too, one of the few dire sounding songs in the game.

I think I've said all I want to say about this game. I like it despite some of it's problems. Yeah.

Kingdom Hearts 2

This might be a long one. So I guess I`ll preface this by saying that, When I say I'm a kh fan, I mean I like Kindgom Hearts 2. The rest aren't bad or anything but I have an irrational amount of nostalgia for 2 and even ignoring that, I just think it's in a tier of it's own among the other kh games. Also I'm basing this review on my most recent playthrough on critical mode on the ps2 final mix version.
I'll start by talking about the intro section of the game before getting into my opinions on the gameplay and stuff since the game really starts once you begin playing as Sora.
So you start the game as Roxas after watching the opening, that is taking an incredible amount of restraint for me to not gush over, and begin the lenghty tutorial.
People tend to not like this section of the game because of how long it is and I agree to an extent. It could have been trimmed down a bit but I don`t find it unbearable.
You just go around doing normal young teenager stuff as Roxas whilst slowly realising nothing around you is real and you've been living a lie as far as you know. On this playthrough it kinda felt like a psychological horror. When you put yourself in Roxas' shoes, the entire situation is just depressing because he has 0 idea what is going on and everyone around is vague about everything except for Namine but for some reason Roxas thinks he will disappear despite Namine telling him he wont disappear but whatever.
Anyway after a Walking through a fight with Axel you go ahead and finish up the tutorial as Roxas becomes one with Sora.
I really like this cutscene because it feels doesn't feel like Roxas is really coming to terms with the situation but more like, just reluctantly accepting his fate. To be honest though if it weren't for the fact that he looked like Ventus, maybe his story would have played out differently. If he looked like the person he actually stemed from maybe he'd be cool with it but we never really have another nobody appear in the same circumstances as Roxas so I guess we will never know what that kinda situation would be like. They'd just be a doppelganger I guess.
Got a little off topic with that tangent but anyway, After the tutorial you can start playing as good ol' Sora again, along with Donald and Goofy and whatever party members join in their respective worlds. I guess I'll talk about the gameplay now since I won't get too into every story detail.
This game is definitely a button masher especially on lower difficulties but less so on critical, that is to say that you can get away with button mashing for most of the game save for times where you have to look out for a rection command. For this playthrough I stuck to making my combos as short as possible just for stagger consistency and to avoid getting my combos interrupted.
On critical I believe your max hp is lowered so you've gotta be careful, especially in the beginning when you aren't decked out with magic.
I will say that afte a certain point the game became really easy save for 3 boss fights, Xaldin, Xigbar and Roxas. For the entirety of the 2nd half of the game, those are the only bosses that I was stuck on.
Generally though, critical mode wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it'd be but it didn't take away from the experience. I'm not gonna lie though, reflect absolutely breaks the late game and is probably the sole reason it was as easy as it was. I'm pretty sure I skipped a phase of Xemnas's last fight because of it lol. The drive forms are cool. I only really used wisdom and limit form. Valor lost its use for me and master was just kinda there and I'd just use Wisdom form instead. Then Final form, I only really used for grinding to get the glide ability. I don't think I actually used it in any bossfights.
I don't know if this is worth mentioning but I stuck with the kingdom key for the majority of the game, only switching to oathkeeper during the midgame and then back to the kingdom key near the end. I didn't feel like it made the game any more difficult though, I just like using the kingdom key because it's neat you know?
I think reaction commands are pretty alright, I don't have much to say about them other than that it feels really cool to finish a boss off with them.
That's about all I have to say about the combat, it is cool. Now going onto the in-game environment, It is definitely lacking in some worlds. I don't really mind this whenever it is noticeable but I can get the disdain for it. Kh1 had a lot more intricate platforming even if it wasn't the most innovational thing ever.
Despite that I don't mind the lack of level design because it's not like the spaces are designed poorly, they just prioritised making the environment a place to move around and fight in. On the topic of movement, I really like it, once you've gotten all the drive upgrades at least. Without then it's just ok but then again, why wouldn't you use them unless you're doing a challenge. Though as I type that previous sentence I realise that giving you an option to turn your abilities off at all is a plus and should be appreciated.
The worlds are neat and I found myself enjoying them more than I thought I would. I don't have any notable complaints on them. I guess I found the gimmick of port royale a bit annoying and that one room with the falling tombstones in halloween town but that was about it. Atlantica was fine too, I honestly just found it endearing in a roundabout way. My favourite worlds are Space paranoids, Timeless River and 100 Acre woods.
I also wanna say thati like how Sora interacts with everyone. Something about his attitude just makes me feel happy. There's this immense earnest aura to him that I cannot help but appreciate. The cutscene with Riku and him just before you fight Xemnas again is the go to example that comes to mind.
Okay so, since I last edited this, I have been making progress through the cave of rememberance and I'll say that my previous opinion on the level design has changed, even if it only applies to one area. I really like how the cave of rememberance takes advantage of the drive movement skills. Being able to move around so smoothly and quickly in more complex and layered areas feels cool. Yeah.

Cont...

Sonic CD

To be honest Sonic CD is, to me, that one game which has flaws that make people that didn't play it as a kid hate it but if you did play it as a child you can cope with it like its nothing. After my recent playthrough and can say for goddamn sure that my extreme bias towards this game makes me tolerate certain aspects of it that annoy me. Most of the things that do annoy me are usually the result of tedious hazard placement when I'm trying to time travel but other than that I'd say the level design is alright considering CD is more focused on exploration. The only stage I can confidently say I hate is Wacky Workbench, I just do not enjoy playing that stage at all. The music is good though.
Anyway that occasional questionable level design choices are the only bad thing I have to say about it, the rest I either think is alright or really darn good. Backgrounds for all the stages are amazing even and make good wallpapers. The music is just amazing, especially given the time the game was released. I personally prefer the jp soundtrack for its grooviness, makes me feel happy and whimsical at times or I'm bopping my head to some of the stage themes.
There's not a single track in this game I dislike, they are all quite good and if anything some can be short which would be the only downside. I like finding the time generators and the metal sonic projectors to get the good future since there's more of an incentive other than just getting a slightly different ending screen. I kinda feel bad whenever I don't do it so i always end up 100%ing the game. Just seeing the good futures on act 3 makes me feel honestly, 10x more satisfied than getting a super sonic transformation in any of the other classic sonic games, but s3&k is close with its true final boss.
I also appreciate this game having opening and ending cutscenes that do a really good job of protraying Sonic's character with no words. Seems like a cool headed, slightly introverted guy with the way he's protrayed, not too in your face just there to do what he deems as right and then be on his way. The music for the cutscenes are also absolutely amazing, especially the ending, the beginning part of cosmic eternity feels me with such a deep melancholy that is blown away when the tone of the song shifts and it hits hard every time. That's all I have to say about it for now, maybe. Just a game with vibes and music that I really enjoy and makes me tolerate the things that frustrate me within the game.