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Mega Man 3 - Retro Game Review

System: Nintendo Entertainment System Release Date: Nov. 1990 Genre: 2D Action Platformer Developer / Publisher: Capcom Playtime: 5 Hours (Real Time)

Story: I couldn't give you even the briefest summary of this story without pulling up a wiki article, so that should tell you everything you need to know. Moving on.

Presentation: Mega Man 3 is a decidedly iterative entry. Mega Man himself remains unchanged visually, but the environments and many enemies are noticeably more detailed. In addition, the garish color palettes of previous games have been toned down slightly, making for a more grounded world that still looks vibrant. As with most Mega Man games, the soundtrack is a bop. The title screen theme has been stuck in my head for over a decade (thanks in large part to this dumb old YouTube video), and most of the level tracks are a good listen, with Snake Man's Stage being a personal favorite.

Gameplay: The Mega Man gameplay formula has worked out well to this point, so if ain't broke, don't fix it. You still run, jump, and shoot through eight Robot Master stages with tight, precise controls and then run the Wily's Fortress gauntlet. This game's big innovation is a slide move, which allows you to cover ground quickly and duck underneath enemies and projectiles while grounded. It's a welcome inclusion to spice up Mega Man's simple moveset, and laid the foundation for the perfection that is the Mega Man X dash. The new inclusions make the Robot Master stages a good deal of fun, with Snake Man again being my favorite, but it starts to fall apart with the four Doc Robot stages that were added in between the Robot Master and Wily's Fortress stages. These Doc stages are remixed versions of four of the Robot Master stages, namely the ones with the most annoying gimmicks. Each has two boss fights with Doc Robot, who mimics a different one of the robot masters from Mega Man 2 for that fight. Not only are the remixed stages some of the worst stages in the NES-era of Mega Man, but the boss fights clearly haven't had any thought put into how the different weapons and arenas effect the fight, with the answer being "poorly". You also don't get a checkpoint before the first boss of each stage, so it's straight back to the beginning with each failed attempt, adding to the frustration. This isn't even mentioning the stage that soft locks you if you lose in the second half, because the required ammo pickups don't respawn. This iteration of Wily's Fortress is fine. I've never been a big fan of these gauntlets in the first place, but this one's only real shortcoming is the fact that you have a rematch against my least favorite Mega Man boss, Yellow Devil. Proto Man is here too, I guess. His multiple fights are easy and forgettable, but at least he's cool.

Conclusion: I think I've soured on Mega Man as a series over the years. There seems to be a very precise formula that the best games in the franchise (Mega Man 2, X, and X4, in case you're curious) follow perfectly, but minor deviations quickly turn a 9.0+ game into a 7.0-. I definitely wouldn't jump into the series here, but it's a good litmus test to see if you'll enjoy the many mediocre Mega Man games out there.

Score: 6.5/10

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest - Retro Game Review

System: Nintendo 64/Nintendo GameCube Release Date: Feb. 17th, 2003 Genre: 3D Action Adventure Developer / Publisher: Nintendo Playtime: 38.3 Hours (Real Time 100%)

Story: Ocarina of Time follows a young boy named Link. Link is called to action by the guardian of his home village, the Great Deku Tree, who has had a curse placed on him by the evil warlock Ganondorf. Ganondorf seeks the Triforce, a relic that contains the power of the three goddesses of Hyrule, Din, the Goddess of Power, Nayru, the Goddess of Wisdom, and Farore, the Goddess of Courage. Link is able to break the curse, but it's too late. In his last moments, the Deku Tree entreats Link to seek the Princess of Hyrule, Zelda. Upon meeting her, Zelda tasks Link with finding the three Spiritual Stones, which, along with the Master Sword, act as the keys to the Sacred Realm that protects the Triforce. Link successfully collects them, but when he goes to pull the Master Sword from it's pedestal, he is suddenly sealed away within the Sacred Realm for seven long years. In his absence, Ganondorf is able to enter the Sacred Realm and steal the Triforce of Power. Link awakens to find a Hyrule devastated by Ganondorf's terrible reign, but with the help of the mysterious figure, Sheik, he may be able to find the six sages that sealed the Sacred Realm long ago, defeat Ganon, and undo the terrible events of the last seven years.

Despite it's simple appearance, it was surprisingly difficult to summarize Ocarina of Time's story. Maybe it's because of how important it is to me and to video games as a medium, but leaving out details felt like doing it a disservice. The game manages to evoke so many feelings, excitement, longing, regret, without its protagonist saying a word. Everything feels so optimistic as a kid, Link travels the world, meeting all kinds of people, and helping them overcome their struggles. As an adult, the world is often bleak. The people who Link impacted have spent seven years trying to survive and rebuild, and seeing Link feels like seeing a ghost. He's simultaneously the embodiment of their lost past, and their hope for a better future. Each major character attaches a different feeling to Link, and I think each player does as well.

Presentation: Hyrule is a varied place that lets the game show off a lot of, at the time, groundbreaking visuals. Most of it has held up decently well, but the game's visuals ends up in this weird liminal space where, in your memory, it looks exactly like Twilight Princess does, a little bit of stylization, but pretty gritty and down to Earth, but in reality, it looks about as gritty as Super Mario 64. It doesn't help that Ocarina of Time 3D has been out for longer than the original had been when OoT3D released, and its subtle but massive graphical changes have colored that perception. That being said, what it is in reality is still a game that has tons of memorable locations, cutscenes, and music.

Gameplay: This is where I can get into the changes that actually constitute Master Quest. Right off the bat, everything outside of dungeons is completely unchanged. I understand that it would have been a pretty massive undertaking to do so, but it's a little disappointing that 50% of the game is exactly the same. It doesn't even mirror the world like the 3DS iteration does. It's probably a good thing at the end of the day though, because the changes that the game does make are pretty rough. The flow of most dungeons is thrown completely out of whack. Small keys are hidden in really dumb ways and places. Inside Jabu Jabu's Belly is the worst offender, with a bunch of cows being stuck into the walls haphazardly that you have to shoot with your slingshot to activate things for some reason? On top of that, many of the new puzzles utilize these blocks that require you to play the Song of Time to make appear or disappear. Block puzzles are already bottom-of-the-barrel puzzle design, but tack on every attempt involving 30 seconds of ocarina playing, and you've got a recipe for frustrating dungeons.

Conclusion: Master Quest feels like an official romhack. The things that are changed have that little bit of jankiness and obtuse design you'd get from an inexperienced fan developer, but everything that isn't changed is still the same Ocarina of Time that earned it's place in the pantheon of video game history. If you're looking for a new way to experience OoT, then this is a decent way to do it, but it's undeniably a worse experience than the original.

Score: 8.5/10

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Final Fantasy (GBA) - Retro Game Review

System: Nintendo Gameboy Advance Release Date: Nov. 29th, 2004 Genre: 2D Japanese Roleplaying Developer / Publisher: Square Enix / Nintendo Playtime: 23.8 Hours (In-Game Time)

Story: Final Fantasy follows the four "Warriors of Light" who arrive in Cornelia, where the king's daughter has been kidnapped by a former knight, Garland, and taken to the Chaos Shrine. They quickly dispatch of Garland and begin to hunt down the Four Fiends, who have tainted the crystals that govern the elements and thrown the world into chaos. After completing this mission, they discover that the energy the fiends siphoned from the crystals coalesced at the Chaos Shrine, and was used by Garland to travel 2,000 years in the past. There he unleashed the fiends, setting the events of the game into motion, and creating a time loop. The Warriors of Light return to the Chaos Shrine, travel to the past, and confront Garland, who absorbs the energy of the Four Fiends and becomes Chaos, but the party is able to overcome him and break the loop. Their heroic deeds are lost to time, but it's a small price to pay to ensure a better future for the world.

While the story sounds pretty interesting, the part that comprised less than one sentence of that summary, defeating the Four Fiends, makes up about 90% of the game. What we do get is two great cutscenes bookending the adventure and a weirdly heady premise for what is, at the end of the day, an incredibly basic game.

Presentation: The Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls version of the game looks like a completely different game at first glance. Most elements are brought in line with the aesthetics of the other Final Fantasy GBA ports, meaning bright color palettes, detailed sprites, and cute but basic combat animations, a far cry from the NES's black backgrounds, ugly overworld, and static combat. It's a good fit for FF1's simplistic story and gameplay. The music is really what elevates this game to it's legendary status. It really can't be understated how revolutionary Nobuo Uematsu's score was and remains. The game's "Opening Theme" is, in my humble opinion, the greatest piece of music ever composed for a video game. Hopeful and triumphant, yet warm and reflective. I can't help but tear up when it plays over the cutscene of the Warriors of Light looking back at Cornelia Castle.

Gameplay: Being foundational inevitably means being basic to modern sensibilities. It's not the most barebones combat I've ever seen in a JRPG (that award probably goes to Phantasy Star), but there's not much to sink your teeth into either. The dominant strategy is spamming the attack command and using some buffs/heals in boss fights, something that this version fortunately makes easy by letting you hold the A button to input attack commands. Character progression is pretty satisfying with new equipment and spells coming at a good clip, and level ups feeling meaningful for the first half of the game. The mid-game class upgrades were a great include, but they also marked the point where my brain turned off. Maybe it was just because of the fact that I didn't run from many battles and got lost a couple of times, but I was already ungodly powerful. My party wiped exactly once in my entire playthrough, and it was to an optional GBA-exclusive boss. It doesn't help that replacing the original's spell slot system with MP lead to out-of-combat healing being insanely accessible, rendering the resource management aspect of dungeon-delving completely null. At least they also fixed the original's mind-numbing amount of bugs and nonfunctional systems.

Conclusion: While Final Fantasy is a foundational game in the JRPG genre, this first entry has aged so poorly that even playing 90% of it on a 4x fast forward didn't keep it from being a slog. The Dawn of Souls version (and the Pixel Remaster) are definitely huge improvements over the NES original in most ways, but this game is mostly for the diehards who want to see where it all started, in which case this version won't give you that authentic, crunchy experience.

Score: 6/10

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Koudelka - Retro Game Review

System: Sony PlayStation Release Date: June 29th, 2000 Genre: Horror Role-Playing Developer / Publisher: Sacnoth / SNK & Infogrames Playtime: 10.6 Hours (In-Game Time)

Story: The year is 1898, Nemeton Monastery, Wales. The story follows three people who have arrived there for their own reasons. The titular character, Koudelka Iasant, a Romani woman with psychic powers, was called to Nemeton by an unknown woman's voice. She soon joins with "adventurer" Edward Plunkett, a thief who came in search of treasure, and Catholic bishop James O'Flaherty, on a mission from the Vatican to recover the stolen "Émigré Document", a tome said to hold the secrets to life and death. The trio face off against monsters and spirits as they uncover the secrets of Nemeton's past, it's current occupants, and the woman that links them all together.

Koudelka, Edward, and James are all people of very different backgrounds who are only working together out of necessity, and we see how their pasts effect the way they interact with each other and the people they meet. Koudelka and Edward are something of kindred spirits, having both had to steal and kill to survive, but this understandably leads them to be distrustful and closed off, not to mention that Edward chose that life, while Koudelka was forced into it. James, on the other hand, has led a privileged life and looks down on the other two as godless heathens. Koudelka is a story about learning to let go of the past. The inhabitants of Nemeton are shackled by their regrets. The ghost of a young girl, unable to move on to the next life because she feels she was robbed of this one, a former boat captain who loses his sanity because he can't handle the guilt of the passengers who died in an accident he caused, a man who resorts to murderous rituals in an attempt to revive his wife, whose death he feels responsible for. The main trio are only able to escape with their lives by not falling victim to the same mindset, overcoming their preconceived notions to work together and move on to a better future (depending on your ending).

Presentation: Koudelka is a game of high highs and low lows, fortunately the game's presentation is (mostly) one of it's strengths. Battles are where the few flaws stand out. They always take place on flat planes with black voids for backgrounds that make for a very dull experience. Besides that, there is a weird technical issue related to attack animations. Whenever an animation starts, anything besides the attacker and the defender will be unloaded to avoid getting in the way of the camera, but after the animation the game will stutter and everything that was unloaded will pop back into existence one by one over the course of a couple of seconds. The enemies that you face in these battles do look stunning though, featuring some incredibly evocative designs with body-horror elements straight out of a Resident Evil title. The quality of the 3D models is great across the board, with animations that are very fluid and lifelike. This goes double for the playable characters, all of whom were motion captured by their voice actors. These motion captured performances really come alive outside of combat thanks to the fact that every line of dialogue is voice acted. Voiceovers were all originally recorded in English by actual stage actors, and it shows. It's certainly not the best voice acting I've ever heard, but the performances are on par with the actors you might see at a local theatre, rather than the usual "low-budget '90s anime dub" quality of most PS1 games, elevating the experience above its peers.

Gameplay: Here is where the lows are their lowest. Honestly this game shouldn't have been an RPG, it could have been an amazing Resident Evil clone, and it's noncombat gameplay is very similar to Resident Evil, but instead it's shackled to one of the worst combat systems and least satisfying character progressions I've ever seen. Combat is a turn-based affair, taking place on a small square grid, with your three characters facing off with at most three enemies. Characters can use melee weapons, guns, or magic, but magic is head and shoulders above the other options. It deals more damage, can easily exploit elemental weaknesses, and is tied to an easily replenishable resource, especially since the stat that's it's tied to also raises magic defense. The other options are both reliant on limited resources like weapon durability and ammunition availability and offer other drawbacks like low range or turns wasted reloading. Ranged characters also get to stay back in safety since neither you nor your enemies can move past the furthest out character, and only a couple of enemies use their own guns, with most opting for magic attacks that can be almost completely nullified by raising the already useful Piety stat. As mentioned previously character progression is a mess. Equipable items drop infrequently, but each one is an incredible spike in power, providing tons of bonus stats. Leveling up also provides bonus points that can be invested into any stat. Between the two, it's impossible to have any bad stats if you plan ahead even the slightest, especially since leveling up happens all the time. By the end of the game, it was more frequent to have a battle that resulted in at least one of my characters leveling up than one where they didn't.

Conclusion: Koudelka is a game with a fantastic story, marred by gameplay that is somewhat ironically stuck in the past. As someone who really appreciates video games as an art form, know that I don't say it lightly when I say, Koudelka would have been better as a film. Fortunately, its a brisk adventure so it only barely overstays its welcome.

Score: 7.0/10

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Super Mario World - Retro Game Review

System: Super Nintendo Entertainment System Release Date: Aug. 23rd, 1991 Genre: 2D Platformer Developer / Publisher: Nintendo Playtime: 5 Hours (Real Time)

Story: Mario Mario must once again rescue Princess Toadstool from the clutches of the evil King Koopa, but this time he has some help! Yoshi joins our hero to defeat the Koopalings and save his own kidnapped friends.

It sure is a Mario story.

Presentation: Super Mario World is a great looking game. There are some elements that don't quite match visually, looking like they could've come straight out of Yoshi's Island, but outside of those, its bright and colorful aesthetic keeps everything looking clean and easy to read. Music is definitely one of the highlights here. The iconic Athletic Theme is one of the greatest video game tracks ever made, and the rest of the soundtrack is no slouch either. I appreciate that they didn't just rest on the laurels of the franchise's already amazing music and do nothing but remixes of previous soundtracks.

Gameplay: The real meat and potatoes of any Mario game, and the area where I have to be a contrarian. Super Mario World kind of shoots itself in the foot when compared to it's predecessor, Super Mario Bros. 3. Mario's momentum caps out too quickly, but he also comes to a stop a little too slow, making general movement feel more slippery, while hitting max speed feels less challenging and exciting. The P-Speed mechanic in particular feels totally out of place since Mario doesn't naturally ramp up to max, instead just getting a sudden boost that often sends you flying past your intended destination. P-Speed also ties into one of the game's other weak points, the power-ups, and especially the Cape. The power-up system is quite literally a step back, bringing back SMB1's unsatisfying system where one hit makes you small, even with a fire flower or other tier 2 power-up. It's one that even Nintendo realized was a mistake, since they never went back to that style in any subsequent Mario game. There are multiple systems that skirt this, namely Yoshis and the stored power-up, but both are awkward half-measures that lead to panicky moments that cause more deaths than they prevent for beginners. On top of this, the Cape power-up is just kind of broken. Almost every stage has an easy space to get P-Speed, and doing so allows you to trivialize 90% of stages by just timing your cape flutters correctly, akin to SMB3's P-Wing, but usable in every stage at no cost. The other new mechanics like Spin Jumping, vertical throwing, etc., add some much needed complexity to Mario's moveset, but are largely superfluous unless you're making a romhack.

Conclusion: Super Mario World is important to video gaming history, it holds up well, and I'm glad to have finally finished it, but every time I pick it up, I can't shake the feeling that I'd be having more fun playing Super Mario Bros. 3. In fact, I'm gonna go play Super Mario Bros. 3 again.

Score: 8/10

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Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millenium - Retro Game Review

System: Sega Genesis Release Date: Feb. 1995 Genre: Japanese Role-Playing Developer / Publisher: Sega Playtime: 13.3 Hours (Real Time w/ Fast Forwarding)

Story: Phantasy Star IV takes place in the Algol Star System, once a thriving place whose peoples enjoyed space travel and other advanced technologies, but in the 1,000 years since Parma was destroyed at the end of Phantasy Star II, technology has regressed dramatically. The story opens on the planet of Motavia, following guild hunter Chaz Ashley and his partner, Alys Brangwin, as they take on a job to investigate monster sightings at a nearby university. Their simple job turns into a quest of galactic proportions as the clues lead them to Zio, a charismatic dark wizard, who acts as the herald of series antagonist Dark Force. Along the way to defeating Zio, and eventually his master, Dark Force, they join forces with a wide cast of characters including university professor, Hahn, native Motavian, Gryz, the enigmatic wizard, Rune, the gentically engineered "numan" Rika, the ancient androids Demi and Wren, the Dezolisian priest, Raja, and the esper, Kyra.

Phantasy Star IV's story is a fairly simple affair, just a tale of defeating an ancient evil, but it dresses it up with a lot of stuff. Like most JRPG's from the era, the overarching plot is driven by the need for there to be new stuff to show the player, rather than the want to tell a concise, purposeful story. Where Phantasy Star IV shines, is in the character writing. The mentor-mentee relationship between Chaz and Alys feels believable, with her showing how much she cares for him despite her seemingly aloof personality. Demi, Wren, and Rika's enthusiasm to finally meet each other, after having communicated for years in isolation through ancient computer systems, is relatable to anyone who's ever met up with an online friend, it's just small moments like these that really make these games tick, generic plot be damned. It's also important to note that the game can definitely be enjoyed as an entry point into the series, there's definitely a lot of connections to Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star II, but nothing that will leave you baffled.

Presentation: This game is gorgeous. Having come out in the latter years of the Genesis' lifespan, and being the third game in the series developed for the system, the developers clearly knew how to push the hardware to get what they wanted. The art style is heavily anime-inspired, which means you don't get as much detail as some of the best looking games of the era, but it's a vibrant color palette and unique science-fantasy setting that really comes alive in the games' cutscenes, which feature large, detailed panels that collage across the screen as the scene plays out. The cutscenes all have a great sense of timing and framing, and are what really sets the game apart, with many of them being burned into my memory in a way that the scenes of Final Fantasy VI or Chrono Trigger could never be. One small "issue" with the visuals are that they really need to be experienced on a CRT screen, as many sprites, especially those of the overworld tiles, make heavy use of their unique pixel blending. The other part of the game's presentation that is much more divisive is the music. I personally adore this game's soundtrack, with Behind the Circuit being a favorite, but this and many other tracks are very heavy on the unique electronic sounds of the Genesis' sound chip, which are apparently very grating to some. I'm just glad to have a soundtrack that isn't generic.

Gameplay: The game uses a pretty basic turn-based combat system that provides little in the way of customization or depth. It's a very on-rails experience all around. The only thing that feels like a chore is vehicle combat, which is just the regular combat but worse because your options are even more limited. The game never asks you to grind and there aren't any difficulty spikes that I could remember, so if you'd rather put your nose to the grindstone and just get to the story, you're in luck. This game doesn't exactly offer meaningful choices, and there's only one moment that stuck out as good gameplay-story synthesis, but the gameplay at least has the decency to get out of the way of the story.

Conclusion: The directorial debut of games industry icon, Rieko Kodama, definitely doesn't disappoint, and while it can't match up to Square's SNES magnum opus(es), it is one of, if not the best RPGs on the Genesis. An easy recommend to anyone who enjoys JRPGs or appreciates the quirks of the Genesis hardware, and a game that's pretty special to me.

Score: 8.5/10

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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - Retro Game Review

System: Nintendo Wii Release Date: Nov. 5th, 2007 Genre: Tactical Role-Playing Developer / Publisher: Intelligent Systems / Nintendo Playtime: 54.3 Hours (In-Game Time)

Story: Radiant Dawn is a direct sequel to 2005's Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and follows many of the same characters from that game including Ike, his Greil Mercenaries, Elincia, her retinue of royal knights, and the newcomer protagonist, Micaiah. The game is split up into four parts. The first part follows Micaiah, her confidante (and former Greil Mercenary) Sothe, and the Dawn Brigade, as they fight for an independent Daein, which became an occupied territory of the Begnion Empire following the Mad King's War. Part II follows the newly crowned Queen Elincia as she navigates the internal power struggles of Crimea, which lead to a civil war. Part III mostly follows the Greil Mercenaries as they try to discover the cause of Begnion's aggression against the Laguz nations, eventually breaking out into an all-out war. Part IV follows the combined cast, as the Laguz-Begnion War finally awakens an ancient power, with potentially world-ending consequences.

Radiant Dawn's story is much larger in scope than it's predecessor's, and suffers greatly for it. Not only do we lose most of the boots-on-the-ground perspective that made Path of Radiance amazing, but the cast, especially the new characters, feel hollow, due to the game stretching it's runtime incredibly thin. The returning support system doesn't even provide relief from the lack of inter-party dialogue, as it's been completely gutted. Lengthy one-on-one support scenes have been replaced with one or two lines that don't have an ounce of character. Micaiah is the one bright spot in the story, since the game actually gives itself some time to explore her relationships and the complex emotions that come from her sense of duty to Daein and it's people, but it's far from enough to salvage the story.

Presentation: Where Path of Radiance represented a radical departure from the series' past, Radiant Dawn is a simple refinement. Every area, from 3D models, to battle animations, to music, is an improvement over it's predecessor, but never in a way that wows. The biggest upgrade to my experience was in the CG cutscenes, which have less of an uncanny valley appearance, and feature tolerable voice acting and audio mixing, to where I can actually hear the dialogue. Not much else to say in this department.

Gameplay: Miserable, just miserable. Where every aspect of Radiant Dawn's presentation is an upgrade over it's predecessor, ever aspect of it's gameplay is a downgrade. The problems are numerous, but can largely be summarized as the story taking precedent over the gameplay in unnecessary ways. The first and most obvious way this manifests is character progression. Due to the story's four part structure you don't get to stick with a group and build up characters in a satisfying way. They'll join at weird levels, be playable for 4 chapters, and then without any warning, they won't be playable again until 20 hours from now. Radiant Dawn also introduces 3rd-tier promotions, which leads to underutilized characters falling even further behind. Then in Part IV you get access to the entire cast and have to split them up into 3 parties. All of a sudden you have to have enough good units to carry 3 teams, and the Greil Mercenaries will most likely be the only ones strong enough. The game does give you some additional powerful units here, but it's difficult to use them since they eat EXP from your other characters, and you have no idea if that might come back to bite you 10 hours from now when the game decides to switch things up again. Finally the Endgame asks you to pare down your now 30+ good units, to just some preselected story characters and 10 more units. Inevitably you'll have to leave behind some characters that you have grown attached to, and many supports will be useless. It's just a mess from the moment you finish Part I until the end. I could go on about how many preselected units every map makes you take, and plenty of other issues, but I like to keep these reviews a reasonable length.

Conclusion: This game just isn't very good. It was such a letdown after Path of Radiance elevated my expectations of what a Fire Emblem game could be, and almost every problem is self-inflicted in the name of telling a story that doesn't go anywhere. If it were a short experience, I might be able to recommend it, but as the game exists today, I can't recommend it to anybody, especially not fans hoping for a satisfying follow-up to Path of Radiance.

Score: 6.0/10

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Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance -Retro Game Review

System: Nintendo Game Boy Advance Release Date: Sept. 17th, 2002 Genre: 2D Metroidvania Developer / Publisher: Konami Playtime: 6.7 Hours (In-Game Time)

Story: In Harmony of Dissonance you play as Juste Belmont, grandson of legendary vampire hunter Simon Belmont, 50 years after Simon's quest to break Dracula's curse in uhh...Simon's Quest. Juste's best friend, Maxim, was recently found injured, and suffering from memory loss. What Maxim does remember, is that his and Juste's mutual friend, Lydie, was kidnapped and taken to a mysterious castle. Juste and Maxim head out to save Lydie and vanquish her kidnapper, but as they venture into the castle the questions surrounding Maxim's lost memories, Lydie's disappearance, and the appearance of the castle begin to pile up until things reach a boiling point. The barebones plot is a relic of the franchise's old school style, as even its best games have little in the way of story, but even compared to it's contemporaries it's a snoozer.

Presentation: Harmony ain't a looker. The GBA Castlevania trilogy are some of the biggest offenders of brightening their color palettes to make up for the GBA's notoriously dark screen, and this game suffers the most for it. Almost everything is garish, especially Juste with his bright blue outline and shadow, killing the potential for gothic moodiness that the setting offers. Ignoring the color issues, the game's visual design is still the art equivalent of gruel, bland and utterly uninspired. Even Ayami Kojima's usually stellar character designs fall flat here, though the game's promo art is some of her best work. Audio-wise, everything is perfectly fine. Nothing stood out as particularly bad, but some sounds could've used a couple of variations due to how repetitive they get. Music is likewise just fine. The track that plays in the castle entrance is kind of a banger though.

Gameplay: At this point in the review I've run out of ways to say "bland" that don't sound like I'm reading from a thesaurus. Harmony successfully replicates the Symphony of the Night formula that led to the "-vania" part of "Metroidvania", explore around, level up, unlock new areas, etc. Much like it's predecessor, Circle of the Moon, the game eschews a varied array of weaponry in favor of the stalwart whip (with subweapons). It makes sense given the Vampire Killer whip's importance to the Belmont clan, but it's an undoubtedly boring decision. The game has two features that separate it from other Castlevanias. First is the spellbook system, which allows Juste to cast different spells depending on which spellbook is active and which subweapon he's holding. There are some incredibly overpowered combinations, including one that allowed me to tear through the secret final boss in about a minute. The other is the game's dual castles. The castle has two "layers" that you can switch between in certain rooms. The big problem is that the the two layers use the same layouts, which weren't that good to begin with, with only minor changes. It all feels like something that could've been spat out by Dead Cells' procedural generation.

Conclusion: While I have almost no good things to say about it, Harmony of Dissonance isn't bad, it's just being hard carried by the efforts of it's predecessors. It would've been impressive to have a mini-Symphony on the GBA when the game launched, but not only is that not enough nowadays, Aria of Sorrow would launch on the system less than a year later, and that game is better in literally every way. Skip this one unless you're looking for some slop to fill your time with.

Score: 6.5/10

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Mega Man Legends - Retro Game Review

System: Sony PlayStation Release Date: Sept. 10th, 1998 Genre: Third-Person Shooter Developer / Publisher: Capcom Playtime: 7.5 Hours (In-Game Time)

Story: Mega Man Legends takes place in a world covered by oceans, with humans eking out a living on small scattered islands. You play as MegaMan Volnutt, a young boy who works as a "digger", someone who scavenges ancient ruins. MegaMan is joined by his "spotter", Roll Gaskett, her grandfather, Professor Barrell Gaskett, and a robot monkey named Data, as they fly across the world looking for ancient treasure. The story of the game starts after their ship is damaged and forced to crash land on Kattlelox Island, a small island with a mysterious past, that is under siege by the Bonne pirate family. From there, MegaMan must defend the island and it's inhabitants from the Bonnes while uncovering it's secrets and trying to find a way to repair their ship. Though it might not seem like much, this game's story is wonderful! It's so full of heart and charm, reminding me of all the best parts of old Pokémon episodes, including a few serious moments with the kind of pathos that you'd see in the Pokémon movies. Throw in some surprisingly well written jokes, and a classic JRPG-esque twist, and you've got a story that'll keep a smile on your face throughout.

Presentation: Carrying on from the story, the voice acting in this game is a pleasant surprise. Considering the caliber of voice acting that Capcom's other PS1-era games had, like the cheese factory that is Resident Evil and the spectacularly awful Mega Man X4, the fact that there is any good voice acting is a miracle. The main trio all being solid, and Tiesel & Tron Bonne being kind of amazing, makes this game a beautiful anomaly. It's not all perfect though, many of the side characters and some main cast lines are rough, and a handful of voices, including the final boss', are mixed far too low, making them difficult to hear. Graphically, the game is peak PS1. While most models are very low-poly, the texture work throughout is fantastic at making the game look like it just came off the TV screen. A lot of shading is baked in to these textures as well, bringing some much needed to depth to what is otherwise a fairly flat game. Character faces in particular use some great tricks to make it look like the models are much more complex than they are. The biggest disappointment is definitely dungeon design. The game's underground sections tend to blend together, which is a shame given you'll spend about half the game gallivanting underground.

Gameplay: Legends is a typical 3rd-person shooter of the era, featuring clunky non-analog controls, and heavy auto-aim. I recommend not trying to change the controls too much. It's very tempting to try to modernize control schemes when playing on emulators, but the game will work a lot better if you learn to adapt to it, rather than the other way around. The basic gameplay loop ends up feeling surprisingly similar to a Zelda or Metroidvania experience. You'll explore around the surface, solve a puzzle or two and gain access to a new underground area. Once underground you'll explore further, filling out your automap and finding money, weapon parts, and items that can be taken back to Roll to give you an upgrade that allows you to access new areas and new bosses. The game's early sections, as well as it's bosses tend to be the most difficult parts, but if you spend some time clearing out the underground, you'll eventually get strong enough to turn the latter half of the game into a bit of a cake walk. With the game's cozy atmosphere, that's mostly an upside.

Conclusion: Mega Man Legends is a joy of a game. While it might not have the tightest gameplay, the best graphics, or the most grandiose story, it's a game that's full of 90s charm, fresh ideas, and plain old fun. I highly recommend the game to anyone who can handle a little bit of PS1 jank, whether you've ever been a fan of Mega Man or not.

Score: 9/10

[alysretro]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - Retro Game Review

System: Nintendo GameCube Release Date: Oct. 17th, 2005 Genre: Tactical Role-Playing Developer / Publisher: Intelligent Systems / Nintendo Playtime: 32.7 Hours (In-Game Time)

Story: Having recently finished it's direct predecessor The Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance's story was a massive improvement. Character writing has always been where the franchise shines, so giving characters extra scenes without having to use the archaic "support" system allows the writers to show off that great work, while also weaving the main story's narrative in with individual party member's. Path of Radiance provides a huge breath of fresh air to said main story by having the main character, Ike, not be an aristocrat, a first for the series. The first third of the game really shines as Ike and his band of mercenaries rush to stay ahead of the invasion of their home country, witnessing the uncaring nature of those whose lives have yet to be effected by the war. This ends up being one of the game's major themes, as we also see this same attitude in the elites of Begnion, and many of the distant Laguz tribes. The story's handling of racism, prejudice, and the propaganda of both, is surprisingly subtle, paralleling Jim Crow-era America, as well as Japan's own imperialist history.

Gameplay: The pacing of the campaign is fairly breezy, although it does start to drag after it's false finale. Level variety is great, with a number of new gimmicks, varied locales, and new clear conditions adding some much needed life to the aging Fire Emblem formula. Battles have a nice flow to them, and as with many other strategy games, it's easy to keep thinking, "one more turn", until it's 2:00AM. Later chapters rely quite heavily on siege weapons/spells to disrupt your game plan, which can be very frustrating with the zoomed in view. You think you're all set until your Pegasus Knight eats a ballista bolt. Despite this, the game is fairly easy. You have all the information before you have to commit to any actions, but making any mistakes or getting bad luck can be very time-consuming due to the series' signature permadeath.

Presentation: This is decidedly the game’s weakest area. The CG cutscenes are wooden and fall into the uncanny valley of neither being realistic nor committing fully to an anime aesthetic. On top of that the audio mixing on them is atrocious, rendering the poorly dubbed characters nearly inaudible. Having stylized, anime-esque cutscenes like Three Houses would've been ideal. The 3D graphics for the map and combat are serviceable, but undoubtedly lack the charm of Fire Emblem 6-8’s gorgeous pixel art. The combat animations feel especially lacking compared to the electrifying animations of those games. Speaking of combat animations, I ended up playing most of the game with them turned off, as the small load times before each one cratered the pacing of battles. The last presentation style the game has are visual novel-esque dialogues that take place in between chapters. The character portraits here feel flat compared to Sachiko Wada's previous work. This style ends up being functional as the conduit for the stellar story, but definitely reflect the game's transitional nature.

Conclusion: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is among the best that the franchise has to offer, and among the best strategy RPGs of all time. It’s an easy recommendation to anyone that has even a passing interest in either category, and a great entry point for series newcomers. I'm personally excited to move on to Radiant Dawn in the future!

Score: 8.5/10.0

[alysretro]

Howdy!

Welcome to my requisite "welcome to my blog" post. My name is Alys and I'm a lifelong retro game enthusiast! I've been playing and collecting games that came out before I was born since I was in middle school, and my history with game emulation started even earlier. My goal with this blog is to write a review for every game that I beat, to provide some guidance for those looking to get into the wonderful world of retro gaming.

P.S. Check out my HowLongToBeat profile to get a quick overview of what I've played recently, and see the games that I beat before I started this project!