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softchassis · 10 months ago

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Re-breaking the Tumblr Ice with a "25 Games To Know Me" post!

Reasons why each game is important to me are under the cut.

Sonic The Hedgehog 2 -- I love Sonic in general. I think across the entire history of the franchise I can only really point to two games I dislike, or three if I'm feeling particularly uncharitable. But Sonic 2 was the first game I ever saw at a store and said "I want that one". As for how I feel about Sonic 2 itself, it's actually not my favorite Sonic game or even my favorite classic Sonic game--those distinctions go to Sonic Unleashed and Sonic CD--but without Sonic 2, I may never have given the blue hog a chance.

Spark The Electric Jester 3 -- The most recent game on this list certainly but it deserves to be there. It's so confident and unashamed of what it is. It *knows* it's a Sonic fan game underneath its yellow blorbo skin, but it never winks at the audience about it. You just get to do some really incredible, high speed 3D platforming and mix in some DMC-lite combos in there too. It's good, it's fun, it's sincere, it's beautiful. All the Spark games are.

Cave Story -- Before Cave Story I only had a vague idea of the concept of "single person makes game all by themself". I'd certainly played plenty before, from the Shareware era on DOS and Windows 95, but Cave Story made it feel approachable. Plus, on its own, it's just a great little game.

La Mulana -- Cave Story and La Mulana share the same space in my brain. It may be a little weird to say this, but I typically don't enjoy 2D Metroidvanias. The only ones I've beaten are Super Metroid and most recently Nine Sols. But something about La Mulana just tickles me. It feels like the entire map is one big Rubik's Cube I'm beating my head against, which is more satisfying to me than "I found the thing that lets me do the thing I couldn't do earlier."

DOOM (2016) -- I love the entire Doom franchise but DOOM 2016 is my favorite standalone experience. Otherwise I have played untold hours of classic Doom mods, my favorites being Reelism, Demonsteele, and Doom Infinite.

Sekiro -- A really great experience all around. I enjoy Dark Souls and appreciate its storytelling, but most everything in Dark Souls feels too distant for me to appreciate, whereas in Sekiro, the history both is recent and ongoing, and the Shinto and Buddhist mythology informs the story in real time. And It's just so fun to actually play. You never forget your first Lady Butterfly.

Dynamite Headdy -- Most everyone loves Treasure but to me no game is more Treasure than this one.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure -- One of the earliest plays on the RPG genre. A typical RPG hero is going around slaying monsters to level up, but that person isn't you. Instead, you go around reuniting the souls of slain monsters to revive them, and learn a lot about the heartfelt and unique world they once inhabited. A really beautiful and important game.

Worms Armageddon -- Still the best 1999

Avernum: Escape From The Pit -- A remake of Spiderweb Software's first game in the "Exile" series. Avernum tells a great fantasy story about an underground cave society, where undesirables are exiled by the empire who scorns them. Instead of laying down and dying in the caves, its new residents name it Avernum and create their own society... and they don't intend to take their punishment laying down. A really fun and atmospheric CRPG with great, Vonnegut-esque writing and a lot of heart.

Legacy Of Kain: Soul Reaver -- I played this one pretty recently and was shocked at how forward thinking it was for 1999. I played the entire Legacy of Kain series back to back, but Soul Reaver stuck out to me as the best one. If you can't tell by some of the other games on this list, I adore games that feel lonely and isolating but still have a distinct goal and stakes. Soul Reaver is incredible and finally contextualized just why I saw Raziel all over Playstation magazines as a kid--it's because he's fucking cool!

Marathon Infinity -- play the entire marathon series right now stop reading this

Lemmings -- Huh. What's that doing here

Pikmin -- The first Pikmin is the best one in my opinion. I love the time limit, I love the simplicity of the scope compared to the rest of the series, it's a fun game to just pop in once in a while and just blitz through. I also just love microworld settings. And the creature design! And the puzzle design! Ohh Pikmin there's nothing like you.

Klonoa: The Door To Phantomile -- I have a lot of fond memories of this one, but specifically of playing the demo over and over on a Playstation Magazine demo disc with my sister. I wouldn't actually play the full game until much later, on an emulator. I did later rent Klonoa 2 and finish it before that though. Klonoa is good.

Rayman -- I love this game. I love how fucking mean it is while looking so bright and poppy and silly. I first played it when I was like 8 years old and it was a really humbling, eye-opening experience. But jokes aside it's just a really good game. But yeah, it's hard. If you've never played it before and don't want to tear your hair out, you should play Rayman Redemption, a fan remake of it that makes it a bit more approachable. If you ask me though, you should try the original first.

Ecco: The Tides of Time -- I also played this one when I was really young and it was also a humbling, eye-opening experience. I just liked dolphins, I wasn't expecting to have rented the hardest game in the entire fucking store. Having revisited the Ecco series many times since then, though, I think Tides of Time is the best one. It's just gorgeous and both versions of the soundtrack are amazing. I prefer the CD one though, except for Moray Abyss and Tubes of Medusa.

Splatterhouse -- Kids love horror and kids love forbidden things, so when I saw a Splatterhouse ROM on a romsite as a kid and was immediately told I wasn't allowed to download it, of course I fucking did when no one was looking. And my brain was altered forever

Earthbound -- I very briefly had a stepbrother who had a SNES and Earthbound and I wasn't able to play it myself (no open save slots) so I just watched, but I was fascinated by it. I would eventually play it myself later on good ol ZSNES. I have nice warm memories of watching the snow on the ZSNES menu while it snowed gently outside, in between bouts of playing Earthbound and Yoshi's Island.

Yakuza -- Okay the PS2 boxart is here as a stand in, I love the entire Yakuza series dearly. I did own Yakuza and Yakuza 2 when they were new, but lost them when our PS2 and all of its games got stolen.

Sonic Robo Blast 2 -- Another Sonic game? But this one's special. I've been playing SRB2 for over half of my life at this point. I've played countless mods for it and have watched it grow from a basic little Doom platformer into a great platform for expression. It's also just fun.

Bomberman 64 -- The 3D bomb-stacking and bouncing stuff in this game is so cool and is the exact kind of finicky, almost-accidental-seeming mechanical depth I love in video games. I can't believe they only made one of these.

Psychonauts -- Kind of a stand-in for Double Fine and LucasArts in general, but definitely the best game still out of both companies. I love 3D platformers and I love what this game does. There's still not much out there like it.

Rayman 2 -- Another Rayman game? Well yeah, I can't say I love 3D platformers and just not put the best 3D platformer ever made on this list. Not an exaggeration!

Final Fantasy XIV -- I get to play as a hot lion woman now. Have you seen her? Well, now you have

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zel-shadedreviews · 3 months ago

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I won’t exaggerate, people; this is the animated worst movie that I ever had to force myself to watch. Anyone could have ignored this, but I didn’t as I had to see the reasoning behind the livid outbursts from a crab-obsessed YouTuber. I should have learned from its awful marketing by poisoning our eyes and love for the original film with its painful display.

Before I can say why this is the worst, allow me to go through a brief list I made back when I reviewed Christmas in New York, the most excruciating experience of my life. How can I prove my point on how this is the worst animated movie I’ve ever viewed in my entire life? Well, it’s simple as others either had something close to redeemable or made me feel an impact.

I’ll explain;

- Chicken Little had every amount of potential to be riffed on, thanks to its sporadic story layout and jokes.

- Belle’s Magical World echoed everyone’s criticism of Belle loving abusive monsters, but there’s the classic “derp face” to keep you going.

- The Pebble and the Penguin is nothing but romantic trite with horrible songs and a despicable main character, yet Tim Curry did what he could.

- A Troll in Central Park had children more undeveloped than foetuses and a terrifying ending, but there’s some fun with the villain.

- Ferngully 2: The Magical Rescue was nothing without the kangaroo mother’s delivery of screaming for her baby.

- Pokémon the Movie: Destiny Deoxys had a decent beginning which is something compared to its slog of an entirety.

- Earwig and the Witch became Studio Ghibli’s ugliest mess, but there’s the Mandrake.

- Felix the Cat: the Movie was a feature-length CD-i cutscene with a decent soundtrack.

- Home is a living insult towards children and made me despise the Sheldon actor even more than it already had, but I could see what they were doing with Tip’s character.

- Turbo was a strangled breath out of anybody who thought that this was a solid movie pitch, but it gave us a cringeworthy montage.

Then, you have films that have been hated so much to the point of flogging dead fly-ridden horses;

- Norm of the North was clearly made without a thought; where it’s even that fruitless to list all of the reasons to hate it.

- The Emoji Movie had the same impact, where id even go as far as to say that the live-action Smurfs movie had duller and more dated features.

- Foodfight! had the largest mistreatment of all, but coming from someone who even watched it twice, with the second for riffing purposes, I see the potential for a horror flick.

Now, we get to the films that I would personally shove endless amounts of Golden Raspberries right where the sun won’t even dare to shine;

- The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2 clearly ignored the original book ending by rehashing its same formula.

- Monster Family embraced abusive families with horrible English dubs and fart jokes.

- The Sandy Cheeks Movie replaced the Hillenburg charm with scenes dedicated to the sponge sniffing manure.

- All three animated Titanic movies were bad their own way with the first as a genderswapped Disney ripoff, second as the cost annoying and third was by far the sleepiest of snorefests imaginable.

- The Addams Family 2 legitimately animated a deranged boy falling for a humanised pig which had the same impact as being sick in your mouth and then swallowing it.

- Christmas in New York I’ve already forced out a review that burnt me out from ever ranking it.

- Where the Dead go to Die, the most repulsive and regrettable experience with its sexual segments and maggot displays, I’d rank not as worst as the latter as it had an anthology direction.

I can officially give this the trophy for the sloppiest, horribly-animated, most tormenting waste that was ever conceived out of a human’s mind possible. I don’t think it’s as disgusting or close to turn into a bucket and gag, but one that managed to smack every button of pure anger in my own system.

The only positive aspect I retracted from this mistake was how they had the testicles to feature a clip show of its overlooked predecessor; clearly, you could have watched such an amazing take on a superhero formula rather than this, which was exactly what I did so. The momentum was as heavenly as I thought it’d be, yet I had to force myself to watch what people thought what was the long-awaited sequel could be. I mean, this was made by the same director as The Barbie Diaries and a few episodes of Daria, so what could possibly wrong?

Everything.

The beginning of its painful descent occurs with the Doom Syndicate easily breaking out of prison in order to reunite with their old friend and leader, Megamind. However, since this was set after the first movie, they don’t seem to know that the alien himself isn’t a villain anymore, causing a greater dilemma somehow stronger than fighting an unstoppable supervillain, where Megamind has to pretend he’s back to his old ways. Meanwhile, other enemies that he previously fought try to expose him, Minion goes to pursue a career in doughnut-making and Megamind is brought to the most difficult situation of stopping all four friends at once.

First off, let’s just acknowledge that someone implemented a whole backstory to Megamind’s past where he suddenly had these friends who remembered how evil he used to be. These new supervillains were never mentioned by Megamind or Minion at all during the first movie, so why in this case that they became the main focus of the sequel? In what dimension do the makers want to convince the viewers that Megamind has friends in prison? This was an atrocious way of incorporating additional characters into sequels since these weren’t built up or had any impact on the main hero.

Personally, I don’t even see Megamind as the type to have an enlarged group of friends, as it’s his childhood bullying and ostracisation that caused him to limit his ties to only Minion. In fact, it’s always been the two of them where they were more than just friends and coworkers but pretty much brothers at that point. I really could be blasting the whole idea even more, but then you had to realise that the sequel thought that they could go one step beyond their mistreatment of the first movie by including another character that made an impact across Megamind’s life. Right at the end, we’re introduced towards a new villain named Machiavillain, a brain that explained how he was originally Megamind’s teacher. I liked to acknowledge that from a baby, Megamind’s own caretakers were the prisoners who decided to show him the ways of right and wrong by befriending the life of crime and having the authorities. Megamind never even acknowledged his own teacher, so why did the sequel have to jump over their sharks?

Remember the enlarged stakes that Megamind had to face when stopping the tank of Titan back in the first movie? Do you recall in how physically outmatched he was to his godlike strength that he had to rely on his weaponry and last attempt at quick wits to finally put an end to his murderous rampage? Well, what we have here is a complete moron who couldn’t muster up any sort of intelligence in order to stop four tame supervillains. Since there was a running time at a feature length, Megamind had to play along with the painful consequences of making him look bad in front of the civilians.

To really think about a certain weapon called the dehydration gun is fatiguing as someone loudly elaborated on the lack of using such. It would have been the better solution if someone had destroyed the gun or if one of the supervillains found out his plan and managed to keep it away for a bigger challenge. Had Megamind used the dehydration gun on them, my only guess would be whether it could work since two of them were humans, baring water inside their bodies for the function to work.

I was more baffled at how the prison facility was that clueless to allow four armed criminals to free roam as opposed to leaving the titular character in his own private cell. In what way would the officers would ignore the fact that those armed with powers were less of a threat than a mastermind with outside weaponry and gadgets galore. The way how the heroes fought and defeated them in battle felt so insultingly-easy, relying on everyday objects such as tennis ball guns and meagre distractions. All of this build-up of pondering how to defeat four not-so-threatening supervillains were wasted on a mere rough and tumble, all after an annoying shopping montage to really amp up their arsenal.

To go with an implausible plot were some horrible attempts at humour, relying more on weak one-liners or those that they thought were suitable for children. I really tired to find any sort of substance to chuckle or even smirk towards, only to find the same description of this embarrassment of a sequel; nothing. Every joke they threw out of their rears had no thought behind them, such as one line relating to Mongolia, which I swore was one of their examples of first-draft writing. I couldn’t stress on how much I had to sit through something which was nothing but of pure boredom that never sparked any sort of laugh from me. This is a prime reason why I placed this as the worst as I would have wanted to be grossed out or had these annoying characters yell nonstop than something that was boring.

If I really had to use my desperate fingernails to claw and scrape the bottom of the barrel, then I could recall pondering if a scene involving the villains assaulting a password-locker door, only for one of them to easily knock it over afterwards. The result of said joke made me exhale through my nostrils that wasn’t from frustration, anger or any emotion of negativity. I actually felt that this was the only joke in its series of pandering baby humour that managed to get a reaction out of me that wasn’t anything close to depression.

Other lines, when they weren’t being spewed out by the additional character, were primarily written for kindergarteners. Want an example? There’s one line where a supervillain made fun of how one of them spoke for no real rhyme of reason, only to make a preschool mimicking scene just because. Grown adults wrote that in, folks; grown adults who brought a simple childish joke back in a film in 2024.

There’s even a joke involving one of them adopting a teddy bear which then annoys the other villains in his choice. What was the actual point of constructing a joke made out a simple toy? You would have expected the villain to use the toy as a weapon or pretend that he’s a sidekick through their battle, only to ignore the very bear and treat it like a waste of animation, which deeply echoes everything about their own quality.

To make the sequel missing the same quality that the first movie had which was “presentation”, this wasn’t even close to satirising a superhero movie, nor was even telling the same substance we’ve seen before. Instead, it’s just a plethora of absolute boring nothingness.

You know it, I know it; the animation was nothing to ogle over. The studio refused to work on this sequel, only giving it to their label, DreamWorks Television Animation, where they went with a low-poly Cocomelon quality. That meant their expressions weren’t anything like what we’ve seen from their superior first movie, or how the action amounted to comedic situations. Every character model was plagued with incredible loose and disjointed movement that it was painfully obvious the makers didn’t care about their animation. Even the Doom Syndicate themselves had such generic designs that they felt like reject villains of the week from Miraculous Ladybug or unused Fortnite figures. Their designs looked worse than those video game adaptations, only that they had the slight exception of the lower quality; this wasn’t a video game, but an actual movie that people had to pay Peacock to watch.

The trailer highlighted some horrible physics such as the tennis balls sporadically shooting out of the guns, while the body movements were that loose that Megamind arm looked that it was exiting his socket. The background characters stood ever so vacantly, like there’s not even an occurrence that could bother them, before the film had to make them move all over again for the apparently-greater panic since Titan.

A larger gap between what the first movie had was how it portrayed its characters, where they focused more on their gimmicks and less on any progression from before. For example, they expanded the apparently-idiocy on Megamind, making him way more immature to the point where he’s a man-child, and squeezing him dry from any sort of charm or likability. He couldn’t use the power of rational thought and cook up a way to get rid of any of his old friends, where all he had to do with a godlike incel was utilise the only weaponry to defeat him. The only weapons he could really think up of was the dehydration gun that he used on three bad guys and a laser cage that malfunctioned twice. He couldn’t muster up any funny dialogue or make any half-baked decisions that could make the audience laugh at him; what we’re given is a moron and I despise the idea.

A large disclaimer but I personally felt insulted that they made Megamind dumber in comparison to his original portrayal, as when looking back, he’s labelled as autistic by longtime fans. Here and especially the television show made his intelligence lower than the depths of the ocean, such as not knowing how to work a toaster. Megamind wasn’t an idiot but was rather smart; the only flaw was how he didn’t bare the common sense to foresee the worse. For some strange reason, they made Megamind more of a narcissist who cared more about how he was the real superhero around Metro City, while acting rather rude towards Minion for some reason, or so we thought that was his current name.

Now, in this somewhat sequel, they changed Minion’s name to Ol’ Chum as there was a cease-and-desist order from an in-universe food chain establishment titled Mr. Minion’s Meatsicles. While the name was a public domain noun, there wasn’t any significant resemblance between the chain’s icon and character’s appearance, but there could be a larger explanation than simply that. When the first movie came out, some people who obviously never paid that much attention to its storyline by labelling it having a similar concept to Despicable Me; I mean, you have a villain redemption where the character had an assistant called Minion, but there’s virtually zero resemblance between the two at all. The makers probably got the heebie-jeebies by thinking that Illumination would have sued due to their fourth instalment being released on the same year.

Besides that, Minion strangely received his own subplot where he grows tired of Megamind’s strange mistreatment of his contribution and then opened began his career at a doughnut shop. They managed to win him back ever so easily so there’s no reason to spark such a subplot in the first place.

What also really bothered me was how Megamind refused to properly acknowledge Roxanne as his girlfriend, where I thought they were aiming for that trope by the first film’s ending. Well, Megamind acts as the deranged adult son who wouldn’t leave his mother’s basement right in front of Roxanne, which I had to question that why would she even bother saving his blue butt. Even Roxanne’s storyline felt forced as all she needed in her arc was to take charge of a panic-filled situation and then is suddenly running for the mayor after the current one reveals his truly-cowardly nature.

The new character they had is one of the worst I’ve seen in fiction, portrayed as a modernised, phone-clinging, slang-using and insufferable influencer called Keiko. Acting as the number one fan of Megamind, she attempts to gain popularity while helping him out of sticky situations. I mean, she wasn’t horrible towards him, but it’s the way how she reeked of cringe-worthy youthful beginners who attempt to come off as cool and popular all by using their mobiles. She wasn’t even a satire of influencers, but the actual icon of them which wasn’t a good sign at all.

I’d also question her own placement in this setting, as while this was intended to be a sequel set not so long after the first film, Keiko spoke like any hokey selfie-obsessed kid would; was this film set in its intended year of 2010, considering that the civilians used flip phones to film Megamind’s ascent into dictatorship, where did the sudden use of today’s manner of speaking and smartphone usage come from?

The Doom Syndicate I’d even ponder were worthy of being titular threats as they posed ever so little from their appearances, presence, roles and lack of remotely-incredible powers. Ironically, but their overall team name spawned from deleted characters that were meant to star in the first movie, only to resurface as part of the video game line of bosses. Their appearances were vastly different to their official on-screen debut: there’s Lady Doppler, the bringer of thunderstorms, who had a pointless backstory and grudge against Roxanne as she was originally the weather reporter; Lord Nighty-Knight, a reanimated suit of armour who can summon weapons out of the dark; Pierre Pressure, a dated French stereotype with the power of hypnosis; finally, there’s Behemoth, a lava golem and that’s all there is to say.

All of these villains were written to be as stupid as everyone around them as they couldn’t see past Megamind’s ruse that he’s lying to them. There’s one part where they all plan to rob a bank, only for their apparent leader to stage one all by himself, delaying the whole procedure with nonstop talking to Keiko. You’d expect such a feeling of rising suspicions but none were even that competent of housing a single brain cell in their noggins.

There’s also these new side-villains that were men dressed as fish, who Megamind managed to defeat with his weaponry, before they show up as an attempt to expose him. They weren’t funny or at least tolerable, coming off as reckless and poor excuses for incompetent obstacles.

All of the characters are dumb, that’s all I can say. I couldn’t give a toss about their new actors as they couldn’t recapture the same talents behind Ferrel and Cross.

I’d also add a disclaimer that I’ve never seen the series that’s set after the movie, as I couldn’t give at least two manures about it. I��ve seen the reviews and knew what I had to; I scowled nothing but dated humour, Megamind treated more like an idiot and reused bad guys, only for the new ones to consist of another influencer and the new villain to have such an ugly design. I do acknowledge that the second season has included more characters onto the fray and managed to write the main character more in-line than how he was before, but the damage was already done. I could give the slightest credit that they didn’t revert Music Man to his former glory, so there’s at least the minuscule amount of respect for one of the characters.

Well, I’ve reviewed it and probably won’t consider mentioning it ever again in my overall existence. This is the overall equivalent of the monkey’s paw effect, only for it to throw manure at your face. We were hoping for a sequel and then we received one.

However, it’s really not that difficult to conjure a sequel to Megamind, as there’s already a short film titled the Button of Doom; I recalled watching this, where the former villain comes into contact with a backup AI version of himself that takes control of a giant robot. Had they expand more on that, then it could have been a passable feature-length follow-up in its own.

If I really had to think up of one, then I’d suggest replacing the Doom Syndicate with the same prisoners that raised Megamind, where they attempt to manipulate him onto their side. Another solution could be including new characters consisting of alien businesspeople that are part of a council that check in on any villain across the galaxy. An important story on its own could involve Megamind’s own judgement of himself as only he became the hero by the very end. This could extend from his aggressive reaction to the crowd’s praise towards his heroic deed, as perhaps there are some people who still doubt his own change of status. The series’ second season may have touched upon that element but it’s too late to excuse its existence thanks to a satanic start.

To call this worse than Where the Dead go to Die and Christmas in New York isn’t an overstatement or an understatement at all; the former completely disgusted me to the point where I had to turn away, while the latter caused me to scream into pillows and spill real tears. I don’t consider them exaggerations, but how would I personally react from such trash fires.

This promised us a sequel to a film that barely anyone took notice of and degraded its legacy. Sure, more people are returning to the first movie, but mainly because something so horrible caused a whole branch to respect it.

I’ll just give it nothing out of anything. Why should I really bother? Even the director didn’t seem to mind of its worldwide hatred.

#zelshadedreviews #dreamworks animation #dreamworks marathon #megamind vs the doom syndicate #megamind vs the doom syndicate review

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