#just... idk... just go play puyo tetris 2 or something...

[moonsidesong]

ok ive finished puyo chronicle. dont play puyo chronicle. if you want to see puyo chronicle just watch the precise museum video uploads of it and ignore the fact they dont have eyebrows because its in citra. im gonna talk about puyo chronicle now.

absolutely miserable slog of a video game. every single open area is nearly completely empty and full of dead ends. every chest is full of lame rewards that i almost never got use out of and i eventually just stopped opening them so i wouldnt have to fight mimics anymore. you dont want to explore anything because there's hardly any reward for it and your movement speed is so slow there's even less of an incentive to go out of your way to trek to a random corner of the map for 200 coins that you wont use.

the final gauntlet, which is a 15-story tower, comprises of like, three stories where something happens and the rest are completely empty and only occupied by common enemies, which by then you will be tired of fighting and actively be avoiding encountering. the devs made a bunch of maps and said thats enough game design for today<3

and then, at the end of it, you fight a final boss that had literally nothing to do with anything else up until that point. rafisol really had the potential to be an extremely cool antagonist if she had been involved in the plot from the getgo but instead she shows up having not at all been foreshadowed prior, you do the same lame fighting style youve been doing for almost every encounter up until that point, and the only saving grace of it is a really cool battle theme. its pretty bad presentation to just watch this supposedly UBER powerful absorption themed final boss just float there menacingly and occasionally throw a line of nuisance puyo at you. rafisol has a lot of cool animations, i dont know why you'd rob her of the chance to show them off in a dramatic way!!!! aaah!!!! its all really disappointing because she's the only female final boss character besides doppelganger arle and shes stuck attached to this soggy sad nothing burger of a video game. i want my evil women INVOLVED sega

puyo characters have never been the most complicated to figure out but they are NOTICEABLY flatter and more annoying. you can see it the most on sig and ragnus who refuse to talk about literally anything other than "bug!" or "im the hero from videogame world!" respectively. the plot spends all its time being completely aimless other than the vague idea of "if we find these stone pedestals, something will happen questionmark???" up until ally randomly starts getting sick when rafisol starts ready to hatch from her evil egg or whatever. the plot's idea is that satan modified this story because he wanted to go on an adventure with arle. and well chroni writers i have to say you guys arent really doing a good job of conveying that when the only places you see satan are at the very beginning and very end of the game.

hey speaking of characters hanging out with arle. theres. too many. of them. i think they were just trying to make the whole skill battle team thing make sense in universe but i think itd be a lot easier to just focus on like. the A trio and Ally and you only hang out with the other characters in the areas they're actually relevant. and they just go "well arle ill be there to help you if you need me!" but they dont physically come with you and then we just pretend that makes sense.

anyway despite it all i still like ally and i still like rafisol despite both of them having terrible haircuts god bless but i wish they were in a video game that didnt suck absolute egg!!!!!!! like i said earlier rafisol couldve been extremely cool if she was involved early on and wasnt just some unrelated problem girl. ive been playing around with a few re-write(ish??) ideas that ive been sharing with my friends to keep my sanity while trudging through this videogame and i might share some of those some other time.

until then please look at this picture again. my favorite part about this game is when accord holds popoi like this. every time popoi was on screen i briefly forgot how much not fun i was having

[linklinkado]

So by this point there's an absolute ton of Neo Geo games on the eShop. I'm a big fan of obscure old fighting games so I've wound up with half of the fighting games they've released so far. I feel like I don't see enough love for these games on this sub so I wanted to rank out my favorites and recommend em. I only have 7/14 and plan on getting Fatal Fury Special soonish, but most of the other ones I've skipped out on are different versions of King of Fighters or whatever, that said if I passed on anything great let me know!Starting with the worst of the bunch: Galaxy Fight: Universal WarriorsThis one's just bad... It's one of the earliest of the bunch and you can really feel it.Pros:Good graphics (this is what lured me in on the eshop)The characters, the cast is pretty unique due to the space setting, sadly they're not in a better game.Cons:My god it's so clunky.There's only one bar, and it's the health bar. This game has no supers.The Neo Geo only had 5 face buttons if you count start. Most of these games assign taunting to start. This one doesn't, so besides only having 3 buttons for attacking unlike all the others one of the face buttons will lock your character in place for a few seconds. Perfect.I really wish this game was good, of the group it's the only one I regret buying. I basically only bring it out as "the bad one" between the other games. Skip it unless you're dead set on catchin' em all.Next up: World Heroes PerfectSo this one is actually ok. It's another early one so it's a bit clunky but that's ok. This one has 3 punches and kicks unlike most, and every character has a unique action that ranges from shrinking your opponent or catching a projectile to throw it back.Pros:Interesting roster based on historical figures (and some fictional characters).One of the only 2 so far that let you change your character between rounds.Cons:Kinda clunky.The graphics aren't great.All in all I'd recommend this one if you're ok with something that's a little weird and a little clunky.Samurai Shodown IVThis one's pretty neat. Roster is nicely varied, all the characters feel pretty unique. Everyone has 2 move sets as well because of the Slash/Bust mechanic. Every character uses a different weapon which they drop when hit with certain moves, unhanded fighting is cool though ineffective. There's a cool swooce behind opponent move and a disarming counter that every character can use and it's pretty neat. Instead of 2 punches and 2 kicks, there's 3 slashes and 1 kick which is interesting.Pros:The universal dodge and counter moves feel good to use.Good roster.???s:The damage seems all over the place? It seems like a lot of the time a regular slash is going to do a lot more damage than your projectile. Not necessarily bad but it's something I noticed.Cons:Graphics are a little sloppy, but for the most part the characters look fine.Extra Tidbits:You can kill yourself by doing back, forward, down, start, I mostly end up doing it as a joke but it does actually fill up your rage bar in the next round.If you push start 3 times you'll taunt and drop your weapon, good if you wanna fight unarmed anyway.I'm not sure which of these next 2 are better, but King of Fighters 2000 just came out so I haven't played it as much yet so it's here.It's King of Fighters, you know what you're getting for the most part. The only real problem I have with KoF is that I feel like the 3v3 rounds drag on too long, luckily you can change it to 1v1s. 2000 added in the striker feature that lets you call in other fighters MvC style for an attack a few times per match. The roster is huge at 35 characters, but you have double the options for strikers (a lot of em from other SNK games).Pros:Striker system is coolThe option to choose between 3v3 teams and 1v1s is great.This is the other game that lets you change your character between rounds.Cons:Having to input the code to play as Kula EVERY TIMEWho's Kula? She's the cutie with blue hair you can see on the thumbnail on the eShop, and if you expected her to be playable, you'd be right, but since she's a secret character you'll unfortunately have to put in a code on character select anytime you wanna play as her.The code has you press start while highlighting 6 characters in a specific order (Whip, Vanessa, Seth, Maxima, K', Random) then press up then down. For your convenience here's the quickest input: starting from Whip: start, down, start, left, start, right x 3, start, right, start, right, start, up, down after that she should show up under Random. Have fun doing that every time.King of Fighters '98Its King of Fighters, you know what you're getting for the most part. Like I said, it's 3v3 but you can change it to 1v1s. The roster sits at 38, making it the biggest on the list. Despite many of the characters being the same between '98 and 2000 there's characters unique to both and even characters who are in both have some different moves (which really messed up my Ralf going from 98 to 2000). There's really not too much to complain about here y'know?Pros:Huge roster.Choice between 3v3 and 1v1.Cons:The win screen art kinda sucks? Idk I'm reaching here there's not much wrong here.Honestly it's a toss up between this or 2000 for me, apparently this one is well regarded though. Oh yeah, I should probably mention that the in game manual for the KoF games are pretty half assed, there's so many characters that they wind up leaving out a lot of moves so you're better off looking up a guide for those.Waku Waku 7This is the good shit right here.Waku Waku 7 was one of the first Neo Geo games they slapped on the eShop and I got it back then and kinda hated it. "There's only 7 characters? Gross" is probably what I said, but I went back to it with a friend after getting some more controllers and it's a blast!There's so many moves that eat meter in this game it's insane, your special moves can all be powered up into supers by pushing both buttons, and you can power up into super mode by mashing all the face buttons at once. Every character also has EX attacks and Hara Hara attacks, EX being your standard fighting game super and the Hara Hara move very blatantly announcing itself while charging before blasting off an incredibly strong unblockable. Strong moves can send your opponent flying across the screen and if they kick off of the wall they'll come flying back, it's very chaotic.The graphics are so bright and colorful, probably the best of the bunch, and the character designs are all pretty cool too. Again, the fact that there's only 7 characters really hurts here. There are 2 boss characters who are playable in the home release, but unfortunately they're not playable in this arcade version.Pros:So much fun to play.Best graphics of the bunch imo.Top notch characters.Cons:Only 7 characters, smallest roster on the list.If you passed on this one for some reason I highly recommend it!And finally: Garou: Mark of the WolvesThis games a dang masterpiece, probably. Everything in this game feels great, supers are easy to pull off and feel devastating, specials are flashy and impressive and T.O.P moves are neat too. The T.O.P system lets you choose a section of your health bar to be powered up during, and defending at the right time can let you regen health too. For how simple the game seems there's a lot going on here when you dig a little deeper. The graphics are great, there's some sick pixel art on display here. Roster is a good size and even has 2 extra hidden characters you can play as. I don't really have as much to say about this one, it's just really really good.Pros:Very good game feel.Good sized roster.Very good graphics.Extra Tidbits:Wanna play as Grant? Hold Start while highlighting Dong Hwan and press up, up, down, down, up, down.Wanna play as Kain? Hold Start while highlighting Jae Hoon and press down, down, up, up, down, up. (Way easier than Kula, huh?)Just buy it, even if you're not interested in any other Neo Geo titles, if you like fighting games you probably won't regret it.Well that's it for now I guess. I'll probably do another one of these once the Neo Geo games stop popping up on the eShop. Hopefully this has been a good use of my time seeing as how there's not too much talk about these games on here and I feel like you might be missing out if you ignore them entirely. If I missed any good ones be sure to let me know!Bonus shout-out to Magical Drop 2, it's not at all a fighting game but it's the only other Neo Geo game I have so far. If your friend group likes Puyo Puyo Tetris at all this might not be a bad addition to your library. It's a really fast paced color matcher and its pretty frantic and fun. via /r/NintendoSwitch