sdelfin

"...and if you disagree, well, let's just say...that's very understandable and I respect your opinion."

That's some of my favorite trash talk I've heard. The thing with more of the same is there's always a segment of an audience that might be driven more by novelty. So more of the same won't appeal to them. Some people just have their fill after a time. This is especially true for larger games. But I also think that more of the same is great for great games. Even then, games that do more of the same still often have small differences. I think it's one of those things where that's something reviewers need to point out, and then people have to decide whether that's good or not. Just for clarity, I say this as someone who never gets tired of arcade beat-em-up games and modern games of that sort, so I love me some sameness.

I expected Europe to be quite a bit worse based on the build up in the article, but it is definitely bad. So bad it's good, perhaps, but not "so bad it's good enough to vote for" which is a saying I just made up.

I'm going to assume Japan's cover isn't as washed out as it appears in this image, and other images I've found seem to back this up. So purely on layout, I think Japan's is better. While having the title at the top is fine, I think it works better on the bottom. Japan's also manages a few more characters, which isn't always a good thing. But the NA cover fumbles with the additional logos at the bottom corners. Japan's logos don't get in the way of anything. Japan is my pick.

I finally had a look at this. I like the look they achieved. They did a good job of keeping the lines as minimal as possible. Bold, sharp outlines are a common element of digital art, but that has a tendency to make things look flat and disconnected from the backgrounds. Old anime, and old animation in general, especially stuff that was more serious in tone, tended to minimize dark outlines for the most part. Also, the lines they do have in this art are broken and uneven, and I point that out as a good thing, which goes further in giving it a hand-drawn look despite it possibly being digitally made. For that, I give them a lot of credit for the look of it.

@N64-ROX it's reminiscent of what Sega did in the 1990s with Thunder Force 4. Here was a series of shooters successful enough to reach a fourth instalment, and is considered one of the best games on the Mega Drive/Genesis, so someone in the US had the bright idea to change the title to "Lightening Force". Not only is it likely a misspelling of "lighting", but there's no indication on the cover that it's a Thunder Force game. And if "lightening" was indtended, then that's even more baffling.

I don't think either is particularly good, but I think the western cover is particularly bad. Japan's actually has some decent composition, despite being cluttered with questionable art direction. The eye is drawn where it is supposed to be, to the title and the characters. On the western box, Fox doesn't look important. His ship is off center. The other ship draws the eye away. The mess of logos and borders squeezes the art making it worse. I say it often, but that red side strip and the corner peel make N64 boxes among the worst overall. It amazes me that the N64 box design was conceived by professionals. Japan wins for me.

Been a good week for retro reveals with seeing a proper demonstration of this game along with Neon Inferno. Looks very good to me and I think the art style fits pretty well. I love beat-em-ups so if they incorporate combos into the gameplay as it looks like they have, I'll probably like it. The Shinobi series has always added things with each game, so that would be in line with the series as well.

I've been hearing the debate about OLED vs. LCD for a long time now in phones. I like OLED but it's a non issue for me. In fact, as far as I can tell, I am one of the people that has some kind of sensitivity to OLED flicker. I found myself getting extremely drowsy a few times while using OLED early on. That feeling ceased as soon as I switched to an LCD device. I've also spoken to a contributor on Time Extension who said he got headaches every time he used the OLED Switch, but not the LCD Switch. Back to me, I've found a way to cope with my OLED devices, which is to jack up the brightness to 100 percent, and then dim the screen with an app. That works out very well for me, but I lose adaptive brightness. That wouldn't be an option on any Switch unless Nintendo provided it themselves, and they won't.

I'm the person in my family that sets up new phones for people that don't know how or can't be bothered with that. My mother has a mid-range phone from a few years ago that I've spent plenty of time with. It has an absolutely fantastic LCD screen to the point where I've found myself thinking "Wow, what a great screen" and the reviews for it pointed that out too. Other than the true black of an OLED, it can stand up to any OLED I've used. And I'm sure there are better LCD panels out there. But for me, and leaving any sensitivity out of it, the difference between OLED and LCD is tiny and not clear cut.

A couple of additional things. Back to the sensitivity issue, I've heard and read that there are some screens that have a higher rate of flicker(in this case a good thing) or other methods of dimming. I would like to try one of those screens at some point to see if I can feel a difference. I've heard good things. As I don't really consider OLED clearly superior, at least in terms of image quality, I wouldn't even bother with an OLED TV. Plus, from what I've observed, TVs tend to have the worst panels when it comes to pixel degradation. All the best OLED panels I've heard of in that regard were for mobile devices, including the Switch.

There are things I like and dislike about each one. The Japanese one is well executed, but I find it hard to get into the concept of making the box resemble a gold bar or something like it. It's a bit much. I don't love the renders on the western cover, but the concept and composition are good. I vote for the western cover this week.

I wasn't familiar with this developer or their previous game. This looks very nice visually. The character designs seem good and the stages have sort of an impressionist or watercolor vibe to them. It works pretty well in the screens and teaser. I'll have to make a note.

Motion control, or at least the option for it, seems like a good fit for Okami's brush system. Whether it is actually accurate and responsive is the important part. I've heard a lot of mixed things about that, but many people seem to be fine with it and that version overall. I had some real problems in that regard on the PS2 version of the game, which I also wouldn't recommend to anyone. I've heard the HD versions of the game fix up some of the game's issues. It sounds like his issue is mostly that the port was outsourced.

I agree about the reveal being basically a sneak reveal. It was an acknowledgement of its existence and a tease of new features. I didn't think much of the reveal because I don't like that style of video. Leaks didn't really hurt things, in my opinion. Just as a reveal, I thought it was disappointing. But the Switch was so successful, and Switch 2 looks like it will be another good product that I don't think the reveal matters because it will likely sell itself. Plus there will likely be a much stronger software reveal before too long.

The Japanese cover is awful. I could stop right there. The western cover is odd. The composition is decent and the positioning gives them a convenient place to put the title without it feeling forced in there. However, the platform they're on is so high in the frame that it leaves a lot of empty space at the bottom. While they use it for the various logos, it doesn't change that it feels like a terrible waste of space and isn't well judged. Still, it's way better than the Japanese one.

The timing is an issue sine many people who otherwise might like these will wait. But the Switch sold so many units and may even persist as a value offering like the PS2 did that there may still be a good market for these controllers. Especially with hall-effect sticks, this could be something that those who intend to stick with the original Switch would consider as a long-term fix for JoyCon issues.

My favorite thing about the NA cover is that entity(the god of thunder, perhaps) riding the cloud in the center while playing a drum set, though both covers have a version of him(it?). What makes the difference for me is the anime style of the time for the Japanese one. The main characters look quite a bit better there compared to their lumpy-faced counterparts on the NA cover. Overall, Japan's box is more appealing to me as a result.

These three year olds need to suck it up and git gud!!!!

Okay, in all seriousness, I think the difference for those of us that grew up with difficult games of the 8-bit era is that those were all we had. They were made to be appealing, but they also were the best we had at the time. Now there are so many games from different times. I can't begrudge a kid for preferring to play in a big 3D world with a character that looks like it did in the movie, or something like that. It also highlights how tricky game design can be these days. Not every game should be accessible on difficulty, but a lot of them can be, but then how much is the right balance?

I was very lucky to pick this one up on GBA when it came out. I kept up with GBA news and reviews very closely back in those days. I didn't know much about the game ahead of time, but knew it was the style I was looking for, so I checked the review right away. Even the review alluded to the fact that the game was likely to get lost in the shuffle, so I knew I should not wait too long. I picked it up a few weeks later. While I did keep a few of my GBA boxes, I didn't keep that one. I was very happy that I picked the game up, and that's just for the gameplay and not the collector value, which is just a nice bonus. But I'm glad the game will be more widely available for people.

No hesitation for me, the western art is way better. I am not fond of the general design of N64 boxes with the side strip and corner peel(which the original release of this game has). Luckily, that's barely a factor here and the composition for the box art is excellent and takes that into account. Mario is the focal point and having his head right next to the strip was a great choice as it leaves plenty of room for the background characters, with plenty of breathing room so it doesn't feel cluttered. The low angle of the perspective works and makes it very dynamic. It's really well executed.

On one hand, it is a bit unfair that various partners have to keep the secret, but then some reveal it early. Though the leaks seemed so small that it didn't really harm anything and probably won't be of much benefit to the leakers anyway. And the fact they did leak could convince Nintendo to find new partners down the line. On the other hand, leaks are common and should be expected. Nintendo had to have expected them. The leaks ended up building some more hype anyway, so it might have been free advertising, intended or not.

I might have a similar opinion and rant towards someone who directs a PS2 game where it takes about 20 minutes of gibberish before you can actually play the game. But that's another matter entirely.

I didn't think all that much of the reveal trailer itself. The original Switch reveal was much better. The actual Switch 2 concept and improvements are very good, though. I'm sure when we see more, it will be more exciting.

For the NA cover, the main Klonoa is a pretty good render for what it is. The cover itself is just a boring concept with middling execution. It's the worst of the three.

With Japan and Europe being similar, it's going to come down to minor things. Europe's is cramped and gets clipped on the side. Japan's is also cramped, though slightly less so, but gets clipped on the bottom. I think the illustration of Klonoa comes across better with the clipping on the left, but showing the leg. The clipped leg of the Japanese one detracts from the character pose, I think. Europe wins for me.

I can't deny that many people love RE4 so it succeeded in that way. My experience was negative, but I'll be brief because I don't want to drag anything down. I thought that the early stages of the game were great. At roughly halfway through the game, it felt like things changed and it became a slog to me. I despised the QTE knife fight and had some other issues. Not everyone will like the same things, and that's how it goes sometimes. From the sound of it, the remake sounds like it fixed various issues and credit to Capcom for making some changes to things that maybe didn't work so well or did not age well like the aforementioned QTE-heavy stuff. If they ever take the additional DRM out of the PC version, I'd be willing to give the remake a shot.

This week's batch provides a good lesson in composition. The framing of the European cover is too tight and the frame is cramped. Crash feels too close to the viewer, in my view. The secondary racers are squeezed in and it feels that way. The logo is crushing everything. The checkered flag background is either badly judged or poorly implemented and only makes everything worse.

The Japanese cover makes most of those same mistakes. The framing is way too tight. Crash is way too tightly framed for what the art is trying to accomplish(for example, it's not dynamic at all). The other racer is practically right on top of him. The logo is crushing them. The clock behind them is also crushing everything, making the framing feel more cramped. The blurring of the background is probably meant to minimize that a tiny bit, but it barely helps anything.

North America's cover, whether it's good or not, is easily the best one here. There's actually a little bit of breathing room and I can feel it immediately. It is simply more pleasant and more coherent visually just for having a tiny bit of space, along with some other elements that show good judgement. Crash is front and center without feeling right on top of the viewer. The secondary characters are clear, but are better placed not feeling like they're right on top of Crash. The extra space makes it so the logo doesn't feel overwhelming. In addition to the background being an actual background, which is itself nice, the color enhances the little bit of breathing room making the composition even more pleasant.

I have no love for the gold boxes. They stood out at the time for being different, but as far as actual box art it's quite boring. The Japanese one is pretty generic as Zelda art goes. It looks like extra promo art that was meant to be in the manual. Still, it wouldn't take much to beat the gold box, and the Japanese cover is enough to win out for me.

An interesting battle this week as we have the typical anime/manga style of the time vs. the typical western comic-book style of the time. And I like both styles, though I gravitated more toward the Japanese style as more anime became available in the US. I did spend some years collecting comics and do love that style when it's done well. The particular western art for this one isn't bad to me, but I've seen better. I think the background characters all look pretty good. "Rastan"(that's who it looks like to me) up front looks overly inked to me. The black areas don't feel entirely well judged, in my opinion, and detract from the finished product. This is not the kind of inking that I love, especially in the style of books in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. This has more of a typical mid-90s look. It actually gives me Valiant Comics vibes, as all their books had a different look from the norm. I do want to give credit to the western cover art for making very good use of the landscape form factor of the box, which wasn't so common.

The issue with the Japanese cover is that it's another jumble of many of the game's characters. But it's boring because it does work, though not every time. What carries the Japanese cover is strong character designs and just a good execution of the art. Japan wins for me.

I had to think about this one for a bit. They're both quite good. The blue background in the western cover is nice. I like the sun being up top, and the curve of the sun goes with the curve of the top banner. For Japan the way the wolf is posed shows off more elements beyond just looking like a white wolf. And of course, the background is really nice for Japan. Eventually, I decided to vote for Japan, but the other cover is very strong too.

@Tempestryke To be clear, I took issue with the game's pacing, not the size or length. Also, when I played Okami, I was hoping for something that felt like Wind Waker, which had a pace I liked, but it was not that for me.

@Tempestryke I don't know what you're even getting at. That would make more sense is I just played Okami recently and knew what I was getting into, but I played it years ago and didn't expect certain things. I've played other adventure games that I thought had much better pacing if that's what you mean(I loved Wind Waker, even the sailing). Plenty of people like the game. Good for them. I'm just sharing why it didn't work for me. Incidentally, I've spoken to fans of the game who acknowledged my complaints were valid. Just saying something is sprawling doesn't mean anything. If you make a game big enough and long enough, you're going to lose some people that want things to go somewhere. Also, back then reviews weren't all that helpful as far as determining if there were elements in the game that weren't to someone's taste. I don't remember the PS2 box advertising "unskippable cutscenes and lots of talking", "mandatory 20 minute intro (with a story they tell you twice) before you can play" or "gets good in the second half"(again, paraphrasing what an actual fan of the game said). Note that I acknowledged that the remakes apparently improved some of those things which I give them credit for, and I'm hopeful enough that the sequel will be good, both for fans of the original, and even those that may not have liked it. And that's because several of the things I mentioned were trends in game development at the time it was made.

I bought Blasphemous earlier this year, but haven't gotten to play it yet. The pixel art is fantastic in it and it looks fun. This also has nice visuals in game. It looks like it will be quite a bit different from the NES games, with lots of new abilities. It almost looks like they combined Ninja Gaiden, Shinobi, and Hagane(which Moonrider did as well, as I recall). And that's fine by me, though I wonder if it will feel like the NES games in some way. This is a case where I think moving forward from the NES games makes sense, whereas in Shinobi I think the closer they stick to the Genesis games, the better. I'll be looking forward to learning more about this.

I wanted to like Okami, but it had too many issues in the PS2 original. There's the intro that is nearly 20 minutes long and cannot be skipped. The gibberish language got tiresome as well, especially since the game is overly verbose. I found the "brush" to be unreliable(sometimes inexplicably so) which led to having to repeat annoying set pieces. I know the later versions fixed certain things. That's why I'm hopeful that the developers avoid some of the worst elements from the first game.

@LadyCharlie I know what you mean. Okami was not a game that respected the player's time all that well. I once came across someone who said that those who were bored in Okami should hang in there because the game got good after the first 20 hours or so. And I thought to myself, I think I'd rather play a game that's fun from the beginning.

First off, the "only for" nonsense in the lower-right corner of both western releases is terrible and a huge waste of space. Also terrible? The entire composition of the Japanese cover. The logo and text ruin that cover because you can see that there is a background, but you can barely see the background making it pointless. It's not good. The NA cover is far better due to the layout and visibility. However, I prefer seeing the different Wario versions on the Euro cover, especially Bat Wario. Europe is my pick this week.

Reminds me of the crossing of the Bridge of Death in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Those that could not successfully answer the five questions(three questions!!) would be cast by magical forces into the Gorge of Eternal Peril much like those emoters did in the video. That's probably the most I can say about Fortnite.

I don't really like either one very much. Both have issues, in my opinion, of elements being undefined. I had trouble figuring out what I was looking at. On the US one, the main character's lower half gets lost in the background a bit. Also, his stance is very odd. I get what Japan's cover is going for, but the main character just looks unclear to me visually. In this case, I vote for the western cover.

Japan's background is just lacking to me. I like the overall composition and concept of the western cover more. Plus, Kirby looks suitably furious, as he should.

This is an interesting comparison because both covers have good elements, but also their fair share of issues. The western cover probably has better composition, and the red background is nice. The cover is also more accurate to the game. With that said, I think the overall art is superior for the Japanese cover. I also love Fist of the North Star/Hokuto No Ken, so I find the Japanese cover more attractive. For those reasons, I vote for Japan.

I always preferred the first one. The second has some improvements, but some elements that felt like a step backward. I didn't find the light and dark worlds all that interesting. I thought the first game had the better difficulty balance. Part two had some tougher regular enemies which made things tedious in spots.

One thing I really liked in part one was that there were no pits anywhere. It made the world seem a bit more believable. The second game had pits. If you fell in, the game put you back on the ground but you took damage. That's not a bad way to do it, but it did lower the immersion for me compared to the first. With that said, I would like to replay the second game at some point hopefully soon.

Regardless of the annoyance of splash screens, the thing that jumps out at me is the claim that GSG provided patches and that Rockstar sat on them this whole time.

If only there was a way to play such a game on the go....

I would assume they were anticipating a slow day and had few appointments. And I suspect that's not the kind of thing that would get a lot of walk-in patients. So it may have made a lot of sense to close early anyway. Maybe some of the potential patients decided to do the same and play through the pain for DQ3.

I thought his first iteration of Link was a better match in terms of scale to the dungeons and the objects within. I did like the room transition he decided on. It was also interesting learning about his process. It's an interesting exercise in game design since it re-imagines something so many are familiar with.

I consider myself lucky in that I don't feel a strong pull from such bonus content. I understand why some are compelled to do everything in a game. I do feel it too, but it's not a strong feeling for me. I've long ago approached Zelda games with the mindset of only doing side quests that aren't ridiculous and sticking with the main quest as much as possible. It may be because I always had a strong preference for straightforward arcade-like design. I have only vague memories of this figurine section, but that's because once I realized what a slog it would be, I simply didn't bother. I have reminded myself that optional bits are optional. I have absolutely no problem with finishing a Zelda game with missing hearts.

Is the Japanese cover a mess? Yes, but it's a glorious mess. I love it. It's so '90s in the best way. It also just looks fun, like they're throwing a party for the hats. That's in contrast to the decidedly un-fun NA cover. The "What is it?" on the Japanese cover really put it over the top for me too. I couldn't vote for Japan fast enough, both because I hate the NA cover, but also because I genuinely like it.

This is an odd coincidence as I just bought these a few days ago after randomly thinking about them one day. I ended up looking them up for PC and saw they were on sale both on Steam and GOG. I ended up going with GOG so that they are mine forever(maniacal laughter). I haven't really had much time to game lately so I haven't played beyond the opening sequence of Asylum but it seems cool and it was just nice seeing it running since I'm not running Windows which makes things a bit less straightforward.

From the review, I'm leaning toward getting this one and will look into some more reviews and videos to learn a bit more, especially more about the secondary weapons. The pixel art is very nice. While I think grab moves tend to make beat-em-ups better and most of the best games in the genre have them, I have played plenty of very good ones without them, with both Konami Turtles arcade games, the 16-bit ports of them(different enough to be worth mentioning), X-Men arcade, and Knights of the Round coming to mind right now. All of those I enjoy quite a bit. They also each have other signature features that counter the loss of grabs. So it's not a deal breaker to me, but it is worth knowing.

As others have said, the comic-panel thing doesn't really seem to matter here. Also, the comic aesthetic isn't as striking or distinct now, due to digital art and coloring, as it was back in the day when they used the four-color process. That was a case of a limitation that shaped the product and became its signature look. As such, Comix Zone looked more authentic, unique, and inventive in terms of presentation.

I always liked Nintendo Karen and her fictional thought process. To be fair, that rooftop party was probably pretty boring before she got there. I also thought the casting was well done and that whoever played Karen did a good job in her role. She had good expressions, but also seemed natural.

I don't think either cover is especially good, but just like another commenter above, I also don't like the upside-down character for the Japanese cover. The yin-yang concept seems better in theory than in execution on the cover. It just doesn't work for me. Because of that, I chose the western cover as the better of the two.

@KingMike That's a pretty good response, creatively speaking. I have to give you credit for that one.

None of these are what I would consider good. The NA black-box design, even when it's silver, is terrible in my opinion. Also, why is there a magnifying glass as part of the "Password Pak" banner? Europe is better because it doesn't use the pixel art, which is especially bad for the game's NA box compared to other games, but it's still not a great layout. And that leaves Japan as the winner! I don't think it's all that good — just boring, really — but it's the one I think is the best of this bunch.

I had Croc when it was new on Saturn but didn't like it due to the camera. I found out years later the PS1 version has a better camera setup. I had an odd urge to revisit Croc several years ago(PS1 version). I was specifically in the mood for a basic 3D platformer with d-pad/tank controls. I ended up having a good time with it. I'm glad to see Croc remastered. There's value in improving it by adding a modern control option, along with offering the original controls, along with other updates.

I also revisited another 3D platformer some time later, a much more famous and popular 64-bit platformer featuring plumbers(supposedly), and I had a miserable time with it. I'm only speaking for myself, but I just did not enjoy it and I mention just for the sake of contrast. I look forward to this, though I wonder if I'll be able to run it on the old GPU I just bought(I truly am retro!).

@ITAFTRS First of all, thank you for the correction. I saw a listing for the game showing the pixel art that was stated to be Norway and/or Scandinavian. I don't know if Norway got a different box from Sweden. It's also possible the listing I saw was just totally wrong. Looking further into it, it appears it may have been the French box.

@Daniel36 You're definitely right that there were sub-variations of the boxes within Europe. I just wanted to correct that one thing as Nintendo was still refining their US box designs. I think there's a bit of editorial discretion that applies with these for the sake of making a better poll/brawl when it comes to selecting the European boxes.

In doing a quick check on this one, it looks like the Scandinavian box was also the pixel graphics like the US box.