Brickman

Kiki Kaikai Advance (GBA) I’ve always heard good things about Kiki Kaikai (known as Pocky & Rocky in the west) but have never gotten around to playing it. I was excited to give this one a go but was disappointed to discover the GBA game was poorly received. Still, I had to see for myself if that was indeed true. Unfortunately, it was. There’s a lot wrong with this game and little that feels right. Firstly, the difficulty is almost negated by the fact that you can either easily avoid enemies or just wave your stick around and kill just about every enemy (only a few are immune to it). The powerups are also rather powerful so you can easily take down bosses. The last level you can literally hold down forward, wave your stick, collect the key and reach the boss. The enemies are repetitive and lack variety with their attacks. The game is rather short. There are a total of 7 levels and they’re rather small. There is a harder mode unlocked once you beat the game which adds a few more enemies and changes up the bosses, it’s really not enough to make the game more interesting though. The level designs are rather bland, they capture the Japanese aesthetic well, but they just don’t feel very inspired or too different from each other. The soundtrack is well done though. What carries this game are the bosses. The patterns are simple to learn but they are pretty fun and each boss does feel unique. There is also a high score board if you want to 1CC the game, however there’s no battery so you can’t save the scores. I really wish I could rate this game higher, but it sits smack in the middle and is a pretty mediocre game. 5/10

Any chance you could expand on this? That seems like a really long time. I thought you beat it over 7-8 years for some reason.

I’ll check it out next year. One thing I didn’t like about Slay the Spire is how random it could be. People here and in reviews commented how random it can be to beat the corrupt heart. This put me off and I never finished the game. Is this game like that? I don’t mind a bit of RNG but not if I’m going to spend more time fighting against it.

First RPG for my backlog done. Tomato Adventure (GBA) A little under two years before AlphaDream released the Mario & Luigi series, they created a game called Tomato Adventure. This game is essentially a precursor to those games, and it really shows. It was unfortunately never released outside of Japan. The story is rather simple because the game is aimed at a younger audience, it is essentially based around saving your friend who has been kidnapped, but it does have some funny and touching moments throughout and it’s the journey and people you meet that really makes this game. The art style in this game is nothing short of beautiful, it’s colourful and crazy. Every dungeon feels unique and sometimes utterly bizarre, like Mt S.Cream (hands down one of the coolest dungeons I’ve played in a game). The music is solid, but the battle music never changes. It’s thankfully a catchy tune but can wear thin by the end of the game. One thing that sets it apart from other RPG’s is the battle system. You slowly acquire items called Gimmicks that give you a new move. When you select the move, you need to perform a certain action or do something on the screen in a certain amount of time. For example, one move has you pushing the left and right button to fill a meter, another has you pushing the same buttons that show on the screen, another has dots moving across the screen and you need to push B every time one is in a small box a certain amount of times. Another great feature is you can increase the speed and difficulty of these required actions which will boost the damage the Gimmicks do. The tradeoff is that if you don’t perform the move successfully, you do very minimal damage. This battle system really keeps you engaged, especially when fighting trash mobs in a dungeon. Where this game falls a little short is just how easy the game is. Even with adjusting the Gimmick difficulty, you still can smash your way through pretty much anything. The bosses can add an interesting twist and require some planning, but you shouldn’t run into too much difficulty. The game also could have used a bit of a trim. Some sections and dungeons drag on a little bit too long. It isn’t a very long game for an RPG (clocked in at just under 20hours for my playthrough) but it gets very repetitive and doesn’t have a strong story to carry it through the slow sections. This game now has an English patch for it, so if you have been curious about it, I recommend giving it a go. 8.5/10

Pretty much this, debate over Season 1-2 are not seasons I watch very often but I recently re watched them and there were way more 8-10/10 episodes than I thought. I think my perspective on these episodes has changed the older I get. I always find it funny that every few years I read an article saying that the old Simpsons are back and they describe the episodes and they sound awful. Someone must be watching it though because it’s still going after all these years.

5 for since you’ve been gone but a solid 10 for rainbow in the dark. Great Dio song and one of my favourites from him \m/

It’s insane how amazing Science Fiction is. Hands down my favourite musical song.

Great read Hammer. I’m going to check out the Hunter book, read quite a bit of his but not that one. Hell’s Angels (and of course Fear and Lothing) have been my favourite. Have you read any of Charles Bukowski’s books? I think you might like him, check out Post Office and Ham on Rye.

Nice write up. I had this for the Wii and I enjoyed the style a lot but it was almost impossible to die in that game. If you fell down a hole it would just send you back a little bit. So I never finished it. I've been collecting 3DS and have wondered about this updated version, it's good to hear that they have added a harder mode. This game is also quite hard to find for the Japanese 3DS because I think it was the last (or one of the last games released for the 3DS there). I searched for this in Japan and couldn't find it. I've seen it go for around $90-100, so not too far off the US price.

I have never played bases loaded but what does a 100% mean to you for that game? Imo 100% a game means unlocking everything, getting everything in the game and seeing everything. Unfortunately that definitely means beating the game with every team imo. If you just finish it with 1 team you are only seeing the ending for 1 team. That’s good enough for a clear but not good enough for a 100% full clear imo.

I saw the ad for this non stop in Japan. It looks ok, nothing I will go out of my way for. If it’s cheap later down the track I’ll pick it up.

Back from Japan and found a few things over there. I was really hoping to find more GBA and N64 stuff but it was mostly stuff I already had or was insanely priced. I went to a lot of retro game stores and Book Offs and for me Hiroshima and Kobe had the most reasonable stores. Tokyo is just ridiculous and more of a thing to do to laugh at how crazy the prices are. If anyone is going to Japan and needs a list of stores just let me know. The best deals were the Xbox360 games. A lot of them go for $1-5. The shmups were around $25 and in essentially new condition. I wasn’t collecting 360 before I left but I guess I am now The switch games were well priced and with tax free they were even better. I was happy to finally find a decent copy of Doraemon on N64. This one always seems to be trashed when I am looking for it. The other N64 games were well priced and once again tax free made it even better. Also got the Zelda TotK pro controller which was like $30 cheaper with the tax free vs what it costs here so I was happy to grab that for a good price.

Great topic idea and I love the story. I think for me the two most common are being too trigger happy and not fully checking the condition on BIN items and the other is not consulting my list and just winging it only to find out I do have the game. Never heard of this thing but after a google search I see it is huge! Do you have this set up in your house? It must take up a lot of room.

Just looking for the Japanese version for now but will hit you up if I need any. Thanks

I’m back from my holiday which means it’s back to gaming and backlogs. Finished off Hoshi no Kirby Yume no Izumi DX for the GBA (aka Kirby’s Adventure). Several times I’ve tried to beat this game on the NES but end up getting distracted and play something else. I stuck with it and really enjoyed this game. It is an insanely easy game, which I guess is just Kirby games in general. I added some challenge by avoiding any health items but it didn’t add too much challenge. That aside, the graphic upgrade looks nice on the GBA and it has one of the best Kirby soundtracks imo. The levels are fun and offer some alternative paths to discover. Overall, a game worth playing if you haven’t and need to fill some time with a cruising game. Just gets over the line for an 8.

Check out The Mexican Runner videos too. He has beat every game, but not 100% either.

Tough question. Ikaruga is obviously one of the greats imo. I love bullet hells so enjoy games like Mushihimesama, Deathsmiles, dodonpachi, espgaluda etc. But I also enjoy the old school shmups like gradius, r type and salamander. My preferred system would be to have the arcade boards and an arcade but I don’t have the room so whichever system is most accurate is the next best thing.

The only thing that has really changed for me is I keep saying to myself that I won’t start another library of games and this is it. Then I go and find some good deals and I’m all of a sudden collecting another set I’ve found so many great Xbox360 games for cheap in Japan that it looks like I might go for a 360 set now

Come on Fester’s Quest!

Not my thing but it doesn’t really surprise me. The older the NES gets the more the console gets dwindled down to the popular series that everyone knows and items that started a popular series. They will be the things the mainstream collect imo.

I didn’t go for a 100% so maybe that‘s where the difference is. I enjoy the challenge of 1 but I overall find the levels in 2 to be more enjoyable. The environments look better and the gameplay is mixed up just enough not to feel tedious (like 3). The soundtrack is also the best. For me it goes 2-1-4-3.

I have played all of those and 2 is the best of them all. Definitely found the right balance with 2.

2 was definitely the best in the series even if it wasn’t quite as hard. They took what worked and made it more fun. Peak Crash imo. 8/10.