sdelfin

Revisiting games is sometimes just what is needed. Sometimes, great games don't land for me at a certain time, but trying again with a different mentality does wonders. Recently I played through Gauntlet 4's Quest mode which I couldn't get into previously, and had a great time with it. Years ago, I finally got around to playing Super Metroid and just couldn't appreciate the game it was, though I could see that it was well made. Exploration is not my favorite thing in games, so games like that really have to grab me in some other way, and I was getting lost in the game. But I revisited Super Metroid last year and played through it all, with some references to keep me focused and moving forward and I really enjoyed it. Revisiting games doesn't always work out, but I've had many experiences where a game was much better upon a second look.

As for Hollow Knight, I have not played it. I am aware of its good reputation. Just a week or so ago, I was looking into it and reconsidering giving it a shot. I also want to give credit to the developer for being open to feedback. I remember seeing clips of the game in the past and the effect of the screen shake seemed excessive, and that really bothers me. It bothered plenty of other too, so the developer thought it was a good move to add an option to (mostly) remove or reduce that, so credit to them for that. With a good Steam sale, it's probably worth a look even if it doesn't land for me.

For a moment, with it 50/50 at 1231 votes, I was the deciding vote. But that's in the past now.

I voted for Japan!!!

Seriously, I chose Europe. I think the NA cover is pretty good, but I think the Euro version accomplishes more as a cover. It appeals to me more. I like the slight low perspective looking up at the four stylish people who just look like they're adventurers.

@Laurenzio Yeah, I always loved the Lodoss OVA going back to first getting properly into anime way back. I got the VHS box set. Then I got the first DVD set. Then I got the blu ray/DVD combo back in 2019. I rewatched it some time last year and had a great time. That Combo pack also had the 1998 TV series Chronicles of the Heroic Knight(DVD only) and I just finished that last week. It is stuck in the OVA's shadow, but I thought it was also very good and might be worth a look as well. It was better than I expected. The only weird thing is the way it starts, as it's a bit of an alternate version of the later part of the OVA before it becomes its own thing.

I thought this looked like Team Ladybug. I do hope they make it so the screen shake is optional. That's a sticking point for me. But it does look well made.

Both approaches are valid and I think it really comes down to the balance in the end. You can have a boss fight that's too reliant on a set sequence of events that must be done to the point where it can feel gimmicky and tedious. On the other end, to make a more free-form boss battle challenging, it has to demand some amount of precision, and that can go too far. For example, the true final boss of Demon's Crest is just brutal. Now, I love that game, and since it's a secret final boss(hope that's not a spoiler...) I don't dock the game much for it. I do favor a more free form approach though, where there's no special requirement to damaging a boss, but avoiding damage is the real challenge, like with many Castlevania bosses.

Now that Atari owns the Intellivision brand, maybe Tommy and friends will announce a rebrand for their "totally real" device and call it the Fairchild Amico to mine that Fairchild Channel F nostalgia.

I don't like either one. The Euro one has cleaner composition, but I don't think it ended up looking good. The NA cover is messy and cluttered, yet more interesting and visually appealing relatively speaking. NA for me.

I've always disliked Zelda Twilight Princess due to it feeling too long and too stretched out. The early part of the game dragged, and it felt like a real chore towards the end. I tried the original PS2 version of Okami, and it's one of the most disappointing gaming experiences. The 20 minute opening stretch that can't be skipped was a bad sign of things to come. I definitely felt that the experience was going to be overly long and padded. I learned my lesson from Twilight Princess and bailed.

I have a preference now for the 8 and 16-bit eras. Games that are hard to master, but can eventually be beaten in 30-60 minutes are great to me. That's stuff like Shatterhand, Shinobi 3, Mario 2 3 &4, and arcade games like Metal Slug, and Knights of the Round. RPGs of the era like Phantasy Star 4 are a great length. Beyond that, 3D games like Metroid Prime, the Tenchu games and others that are around 10-20 hours feel about right for what they offer. Of course there are many examples and some of the other comments have covered other good ones. But for long games, the right length is going to depend on pacing.

Japan for me as well. The framing might be a bit too close for the western covers. I also think the depiction of the character isn't appealing enough for the market at the time too. The Japanese cover might benefit from being framed a tiny bit tighter than it is, but it's good. I like the background and setting details, plus it has a nice use of color.

Edit: I randomly was just thinking about Demon's Crest last night so it's quite a coincidence to see it in the morning for Box Art Brawl. I hope it's a coincidence....

@EarthboundBenjy Yeah, it's a very good game. At first I was mixed on it because it was obviously well made, but it was also tricky to know where to go. It's got a bit more exploration than I expected and more than I was looking for at the time. But I came back to the game when I was in a different mood, and could appreciate it more. In my opinion, it's one of the best looking games on the system. The organ music is a nice use of the SNES sound capabilities. The secret final boss is absolutely brutal. I thought "how much harder could it be?" and it turns out, insanely hard.

They say that often less is more. While there's definitely truth to that, for the Japanese cover, less is definitely less. Such a poor use of space.

The western cover has layout issues, but it's still a lot better. Mario has some suspicious paint, though.

I have no nostalgia for this one. With that said, I vastly prefer the western cover. I prefer the way Pikachu is illustrated looking determined as he prepares an attack. The Japanese cover is also really messy with its background.

I think it's worth mentioning that for the Kirby battle last week, the NA and Euro covers split the vote. As they were both the same concept with a different color, the overall concept of those two may be preferred to the odd Japanese one.

For this one, both covers are extremely busy. However, I voted for NA for what I consider to be vastly superior composition and more interesting visual choices. For the Euro cover, Mario's pose is odd to me, probably because he looks like he's jumping but his feet are together. Mario is featured prominently in the center, but there's so much extra stuff around him that it feels very cramped visually. I look at it and the cover feels crushed from the stuff from all sides. For the NA cover, all the clutter is at the edges. Mario using the hammer is more interesting. There's some breathing room in the center of the NA cover which I think makes it more pleasant to look at. I also like the choices for the various bits around the edges such as baby Bowser in that flying pod from SMW, the scissors, the sombrero, and the maneki neko(lucky cat), which all make it more fun to look at.

Metroid 2 was one of my favorite GB games and it was a real surprise as I had never played anything like it. I picked it up after a friend was raving about it and he was not wrong. I played it again last year and thought it was still great fun. One thing I liked more in Metroid 2 over Super Metroid was that it was more combat focused. Super Metroid is wonderful, but I had trouble getting into it at first and felt like it could have used a bit more action.

I've always enjoyed the first Super Mario Land. It's basic, but that's part of the charm. As an early game, the size of the ROM is tiny. I thought they did a good job taking the essence of the first Super Mario and creating a new game with that general feel. I didn't get into the second game at first because the bigger sprites make everything zoomed in due to the limited pixel resolution. This does affect the level design as a commenter above said. But I did have fun with it after a bit. Wario Land 1 is fantastic. I liked it when it was new and have played it a few times fairly recently. It's great.

I love seeing that Nintendo made more arcade-like games for the GB like Wave Race, F!, Solar Striker etc. Donkey Kong 94 was very clever and is Nintendo at its best in its purest form. That extends to the Mario vs. Donkey Kong game on GBA, Those games are a showcase of basic game design. I had Dr. Mario, and that was more fun than I expected as I didn't find puzzle games appealing. A couple of years back, I played Game & Watch Gallery and enjoyed that. Again, some very clever game design by Nintendo.

I saw the NA box and was underwhelmed. Not a fan. Then I saw the Euro box and was disappointed it was basically the same, but pink. I thought to myself, Japan can't be worse. And then I saw it. And somehow it was even worse. So this is a week where I choose the least bad of the three to my eyes. As others have said, the black background of the NA cover makes the gold elements pop more. However, this is a rare case when I think a cover border helps the overall package for Europe. The black border contrasts nicely with the pink background. Also, the lack of the corner tear in the upper right is better. That always detracted from the box art and it got way worse for N64. So Europe is my pick for least bad.

The US one isn't a bad concept, and it's executed fairly well, but the shift in the art style just doesn't work for Bomberman here.

People often complain that covers look too busy. Some seem to like minimalism so much that anything beyond a logo is too busy. I often disagree with that, but here the Japanese cover is definitely too busy. There's no particular focus on composition other than put everything possible on it in front of a busy background. In communicates little and doesn't really draw the eye anywhere specific. It's too much.

Europe has that awful border, though the NA cover isn't any better. But the art and composition are the best for the Euro cover, so that's my vote.

@Tayrailbridge "how do you even do that?!?"

I'm not sure what method they used or what was possible at the time, but one way to do it would be to use a multi-plane camera system like they used for cel animation. It's how they achieve a parallax effect. You'd have the images at separate levels with the foreground image on a clear animation cel. You could position the background layer so that it would be out of focus while the foreground one is in focus. Then you'd photograph that and end up with a composite image.

@-wc- It was actually the GBA version. I was planning to play SNES version sometime when I'm in an RPG mood. It will be interesting to see if a different version and with some time passing will change some of my views. It wouldn't be the first time that happened.

I didn't play FF6 when it came out. I heard so many people talk about the opera scene. Sadly, it just did nothing for me. As was stated above, it felt like it slowed things down too much and got in the way of things. I do recognize that many people love it, so I'm not knocking it beyond that. I was never the typical RPG player, so that's a part of it. I always appreciated game mechanics and brisk pacing more than spectacle and narrative elements.

Both covers are flawed. For the Japanese cover, I am not fond of the focus effect that has the background characters blurred. However, the layout and art style are vastly superior. The turtles look very nice.

The western cover is a mess. It's a terrible layout for a box cover. The dynamic match up between Donatello and Shark+guy+thing is tiny and not posed for a cover shot. The giant disembodied head is also a poor concept. As for the tag line, let's just say that game enthusiasts have never seen cynical marketing or pandering like this.

Japan by a mile.

Europe's is not bad, but that blue strip is too big and takes away from the cover art. I get that it helps explain what the game is about, but I think they could have and should have included that message in a less intrusive way. I don't know if I'd pick the European cover without that, but it would be a closer race. This week, the NA is the easy winner for me. The perspective is really nice, as is the concept of Max busting through the paper. Plus the pencil is funny looking.

Not to leave the third cover out, Japan's cover is also there.

I wasn't able to play Super Metroid back in the day. I had a bit of trouble getting into it. I'm not as into exploration and I was probably in the wrong mindset when I first tried to play it. I should add that the Castlevania games in that style are my favorite approach to the Metroidvania genre. But I decided to revisit Super Metroid about a year ago. I used maps and videos to help when I got lost, but I did do a lot of the exploring myself, but that help enhanced my enjoyment. It's very good, though I don't rate it quite as highly as the game's super fans who might say it's the best game ever. But it is excellent. If I had a complaint, it's that it's less combat heavy than I expected or would have liked. As far as atmosphere, it would be hard to find many 2D games that can match it in that regard.

"he looks happy enough about it, at least" Does he though? Some might say Mario's expression is that of someone in a psychotic fit of rage with the intent of beating whoever is in front of him over the head with that club.

In all seriousness, add me to the bandwagon of Japan's cover for the same reasons mentioned above. The sketch look is really nice for this one, and it shows the other players. On top of that, it benefits from more breathing room. I like the composition more for Japan's, and a lot of that is because the logo is better judged. The western cover has Mario dominating the whole lower half. The image is arguably too zoomed in as far as the composition goes. But the logo dominates the upper half and I think it's too big and just crushes everything visually.

Just to get this out of the way, the whole thing of "underrated" and "overrated" comes down to simply having somewhat of an outlier opinion. For a game to be "overrated", a lot of people have to like it, and vice versa. I think Mario 3 is one of the best games of all time, but there will always be those who just don't get it for one reason or another. On the flip side, I hate Mario 64 and Sunshine.

But a underrated goes, the first game that popped into my mind is Super Mario Land. It's a short game. It's a small game(data size). The sprites are tiny. The control feels different. But I also think it was a fantastic effort on shrinking the gameplay of the first Super Mario game while adding new ideas. I had a ton of fun with it.

And I can agree with Super Mario 2 being on there. It was a huge deal when it came out, but I think it got hugely overshadowed by the third game. For a while, it seemed there were more people who didn't like SMB2 as much as they did back in the day. I was one of them. For me, part of the issue was trying to get back into it via the GBA. I revisited SMB2 a few times because it wasn't clicking. It finally did. The SNES Mario All Stars version of that one is a really good way to play it too.

Japan is too minimal for my taste. Minimalism like that doesn't work for Mario, in my opinion. The knock against the US/Euro cover will be that there's too much going on, but it's so well done that I think it overcomes that issue. US/Euro cover gets my vote easily.

The baby versions of Mario and Luigi are weird looking with no mouths.

How unexpected. Though I was drawn to anime pretty early, I did not like Toriyama's style at first. It seemed so simple and the character designs were not what I was used to. I only include that to say that I came to appreciate it very much before too long going so far as to buy some of the original manga in Japanese just to admire it. And then it's not just about the art on a page, but also the story behind it. Looking back, it's not surprising that I heard his name so often when I asked people, Japanese and American, who some of their favorite comic book artists were. And I enjoyed his style applied to video games as well. Sad to hear this news of a legend gone.

The "ninja" thing for European releases is so funny. "Ninja" is much too violent, but if we call it "Shadow Warriors" that is somehow much less violent.....please pay no attention to the word "warrior"....no violence to see here.

The NA cover is decent, but it is also a rehash. The Japanese cover may not be the best layout for the purposes of cover art, but it has something else going for it. It's anime!!!! Needless to say, I'm voting for Japan.

Worth mentioning that the connection to Shadow of the Ninja for this comes from the fact that Natsume developed this one instead of Tecmo and it has elements of both. On Gamefaqs, they have an Asian title for it as well, "Ninja's Skyscraper Fight" which is somewhat amusing.

I loved that youtube video on the development of Micro Mages. It was very informative, but easy to understand. I eventually picked up the game on Steam and thought it was very good. I missed the memo at first that there was a second quest released and finally played that last year. I agree with the sentiment that Micro Mages would have stuck out and been a hit back in the early days of the system. The game likely would have had good word-of-mouth. But, as they said, the tools available now are better than back then. Also, it would have been hard to market the game's graphics with such tiny, albeit good, sprites. Games back then went with bigger sprites for more visual appeal, especially for marketing screenshots. It's impressive how nice the sprites are on the game given how tiny they are. I need to make a note to check out Morphcat's other games.

Europe is easily the best one here. It's very well executed which is not something I can say I think applies to the other two. While the Euro cover has a similar border to the NA one, it's black so it doesn't draw attention away from the art. The red side borders on the NA N64 covers tend to detract from the cover, and the corner peel is just obnoxious.

I don't know how since I check the site every day, sometimes compulsively on bad days, but I totally missed the announcement of this title. I checked and didn't comment on the original story. I was totally unaware of this game. Great story behind it and it great that it has been picked up and finished. A shame sales considerations stood in the way back in the day. Of course the original didn't sell well due to the timing of its release.

Yeah, even the standard edition is expensive. Still, I've seen a number of modern regular Game Boy and Game Boy Color releases on cartridge reach $50 or so. It's more than I'd want to pay for a cart of this sort. Perhaps the big Shantae fans will go for it. My splurge cart was Mad Stalker for the Mega Drive a few years back.

Whenever a rare game of the past finally gets a modern release, especially with digital availability so print runs are not a factor, it's a wonderful thing. This is one of the games I've specifically been hoping would be made available for people. This is one of those rare games that miraculously didn't pass me by on the GBA. I was pretty regularly checking IGN back then for news and reviews, and GBA was my primary interest, so I was aware of this one and closely read their review. It was clear it was the kind of game I'd like and I got the impression at the time that the game would be hard to get if I waited too long. I ordered a copy within a few weeks and still have it. It's a great little game and I've played through it a handful of times.

I kept a few of my GBA game boxes, but that's not one of them.

As my mother taught me, always follow the crowd no matter what, so I'm voting for the western cover. Also, I think it's a lot better. The action in the background is really well done and the concept is just well executed. The concept for the Japanese one is more interesting in theory than the execution of it with the flat reddish background and that the minis are identically posed.

I think both are good in their own way. While the Japanese one is a bit cluttered for having all those characters, it doesn't feel as cluttered as it could be and the art itself is pretty good. But I do prefer the reduction in featured characters for the Euro cover. I like how additional characters are in the upper background and I prefer the logo being above rather than below in this case. So I vote Europe, but I like the Japanese one too.

The Game & Watch collections are really good. Didn't expect to like them, but Nintendo's game design was strong enough to make most of their LCD games more interesting than the competition. I went back to Mario 64 a couple of years ago and I came away from that experience unhappy. Some people say it has not stood the test of time, and I would agree. The controls were among my complaints, so if the DS version is worse in that regard, then that sounds painful. I get why it's on the list, though. Super Mario All Stars is a good compilation, but it's also very sloppy, in my opinion. Hackers have made it a better experience. But the games themselves are super strong, so even a sloppy compilation is very good. (Doki Doki)Super Mario 2 is the best of the remakes on there, that I agree with.

@LikelySatan Ha ha. I almost tacked that onto the end of my comment via an edit.

For those who must attempt to pronounce Gynoug, and that is probably a bad idea, but if one must, it is jee-nog, with the o probably being more of a long vowel sound.

I've been playing a lot of Tenchu recently, and the franchise has an interesting history in that Acquire developed it with Sony Music publishing in Japan and Activision in the US. As I understand it, the franchise rights went to Activision and then to From Software. Acquire went on to develop a new ninja franchise in Shinobido before developing Tenchu Shadow Assassins which unfortunately I didn't enjoy. Interesting to see how things have ended up with regard to Tenchu developers and how both Tenchu and Shinobido are under the same umbrella now.

@NintendoDad I think you may be onto something there with the fisheye effect. I think that can mess with the mind because of the inconsistency of the background. The way I describe it is it feels like a difference between what the brain expects and what it sees. I have a similar issue with excessive screen shake. A lot of modern games, including 2D indie games have a lot of screen shake. Most old games did not, or only did it a little bit. It wears me down. I also notice issues with 60fps live-action video. Not only does it look unnatural, but it makes even the tiniest camera movement feel strange to me. It took me a while t figure out a lot of these things, but noticing the difference between third-person games, and first person games was a big one. Pay attention to what works for you and what doesn't. You'll probably notice certain patterns like what I mentioned.

Good piece, Ollie. I do hope you updated your mother on the situation and you told her you misjudged the game. I had a similar experience with Castlevania Circle of the Moon. I wasn't super excited for it at first(I didn't hate it, though), and I was a bit bored at first, but it started to click after a bit. There was a necessary period of adaptation and learning required, even though I was already somewhat familiar with the type of game. But once I did adapt, I was having a great time and would play for hours. It's kind of like playing shmups. You have to expect to die a lot, which isn't very much fun, and then you suddenly realize you're not dying all the time anymore it's fun. There's an adjustment with some kinds of games.

I last revisited a bunch of Metroid games about a year ago. My opinion on the GBA games remains the same as it was, that Fusion is the better of the two. It's something about the setting and level design. But Zero Mission is also very good, and some of the technical improvements are wonderful. Samus' sprite, for example, is great.

It's always weird to hear when people say they enjoyed Metroid Prime, but Resident Evil 4 eclipsed it for them. I hate that game(though, some hate scanning in Metroid Prime, so fair play there). It starts out well enough, but devolves halfway into a narrative and QTE mess. For me, Metroid Prime was way better, and probably the best on the system, but that is, of course, subjective.

This piece highlights something important, that first impressions are often wrong, and that applies to so many things. I have revisited games I didn't get on well with at first. In quite a few cases, I ended up having a drastic shift in view with some even becoming among my favorites(sorry, not you, Resident Evil 4....go away).

@NintendoDad Yeah, the 2D games are good to get that Metroid experience if you can't play the 3D ones. I've never been especially prone to motion sickness, but I have noticed it with some games too, especially first-person. I don't recall experiencing that with Metroid Prime, but I haven't played it in a while. It may help that Prime doesn't move as fast as other first-person games. I've noticed I experience that with games and videos where there's a focal point in the foreground, but the background moves a certain way, so that describes a lot of first-person games, a lot of SNES Mode 7 like the overhead parts of Contra 3, and a lot of smarthphone selfie videos.

I find third-person games to be much more tolerable, though I have noticed that for racing games, if the camera is basically locked to the back of the car, then that's not good for me.

@Dpullam When I played the Gamecube original, I also got a bit bored or distracted toward the end my first time around. I think part of that is that the discovery part of the game is mostly over as is the building up of Samus. And maybe the game's length is a part of that. I also had distractions outside the game. I had a great time up to that point and started over some months later and did finish the game and loved it. That's how it goes sometimes and it's funny how we both had that similar experience.

I think the NA cover has pretty good art. The problem is it's so cramped due to the big logo obscuring one of the featured characters, along with the Virtual Boy logo and the border. Skeleton guy might be crouching, or he might be on the verge of getting crushed between the two logos. The Japanese cover is much simpler. I might not have picked it if the NA art wasn't obscured and crushed. But Japan's ended up working better for having more room to breathe. It just worked better. Japan it is for me.

I think the NA cover just doesn't succeed in what it's trying to do. The concept is for the cover to be a moment of action and energy. For me, it doesn't do that and is visually messy. Why? I think Rayman's lack of actual limbs makes a dynamic pose like that just not work. I get no sense of motion from his hands and feet(or gloves and shoes) just hanging in midair. They feel haphazardly placed, even though it's true to the character. The Euro cover is okay, but the concept simply works far better to me.

I've never been a big fan of those original NES boxes with the pixel graphics on them, so that's my least favorite. The Japanese one is interesting, but it doesn't feel like it works as a cover with the composition it has. I can picture that one on the back of a box with screenshots filling some of the empty space. The European one is interesting. The art isn't the most detailed and it's not especially dynamic, but I like the way it all comes together. The weird action shots by Samus' legs are weird though and don't add anything good. The US Classic Series box is the same key art from the Metroid 2 cover which is kind of disappointing, but it's still what I would consider as the best box here.

This is beyond physical vs. digital. Digital distribution has had many problems in its short existence. Things are delisted without notice in many cases. There have been cases of things being removed from people's libraries despite being purchased. And I know it's not considered "owning" it, but they are happy to make it seem like it up front. For gaming, one major reason they want this subscription model is it lets them find yet more ways to monetize games with digital "items" and such. As far as distribution, I think digital makes a lot of sense for games because of how many games are incomplete, even on disc, and how many updates there are. In my experience Steam and GOG have been very good platforms for distribution and are a good example in that regard. I know DRM-free isn't appealing to big companies like Ubisoft.

I was open to the idea of digital distribution of shows and movies early on. The idea of not having to deal with the clutter was appealing. Once I saw the sudden delisting and other shenanigans, I decided to change course. I now buy more physical media than ever before, though much of it used(another reason companies love the subscription model).

Lastly, these comments by this Ubi guy is a good demonstration of what not to do when it comes to PR. Telling people what they need to be doing, which has far more benefit to the company selling them a subscription service, is tone deaf and arrogant. Reluctance on the part of consumers is likely because they have observed the downsides of digital content services and the fact that the fees often get jacked up down the road once the alternatives are gone.

When I saw the NA cover, I immediately thought I'd be voting for Japan. Then I saw the Japanese cover and was surprised by what I saw. My vote immediately swung back to NA. I'm not fond of the Japanese cover. It looks really amateurish, or like a young kind who only recently started to discover their artistic talent but has a long way to go made it. The posing, the thick black outlines, the coloring all look unprofessional. Or as @Vyacheslav333 said, it looks childish. It's not that it's the cartoon style. It's the execution.

The NA cover is a decent piece of comic-style art. I don't like it as a cover. It doesn't have good composition for that. Too messy. Raphael's placement is odd and I think drags it down. The quality of the art is good, though. It looks professional because it is. The layout, inking, and coloring look great. Easy choice this week. NA by a mile or five.

When I saw the NA cover, I was not into the 3D-rendered characters. Then I saw the Japan cover had the same thing. As such, this comes down purely to composition. NA wins that easily for me. It's dynamic, and clearly depicts golf. The other looks like a bunch of youngsters taking a group photo to remember the good times with the golf items in the shot so easy to miss.

@VoidSeraph I know I'm not the person you tagged, but I've played a lot of Strider this year, mostly arcade and PS1 Strider 2. I played the NES version a year or two ago. I tend to love that type of game on the NES(Shatterhand, Batman, Power Blade, etc.). I liked some of the ideas for NES Strider, but it's also a buggy mess, which is a shame. There was still some fun to be had there. It would be cool if, officially or unofficially, the game was fixed up so it doesn't remain forever unfinished.

Japan! Hard to beat the fun Nintendo characters. With that said, I like the western cover, mostly for the angry blocks. Not horrible considering what they had to work with.

For me, the Japanese cover is the worst. There's no background. Joe's pose is......weird. Joe and Sylvia are jumbled together and it lacks visual clarity in terms of composition. Europe's is better, but Joe's pose is....weird. For me, NA is easily the best. The background is nice. I like the composition the most. And I like the poses for both characters, especially Sylvia.

@Warioware I feel mostly the same as you do. I wasn't interested in bullet-hell for a while, but eventually gave it a chance, but found it wasn't for me. I was impressed with some of the design elements like the tiny hit boxes as it made things more fair than they looked. But the small hit box just messes with my mind. I didn't find it as enjoyable to be bogged down by giant bullet patterns compared to older style shooters where I'd have room to move, but the bullets would come much faster. I'm glad I tried bullet-hell, but it never landed for me as my mind is wired for the older-style games, like those Toaplan was making before it morphed into Cave.

@wrath7007 You are correct that the Switch is a little bit ahead of the pace of the PS2, so it is beating it in that regard. We'll have to see if Switch sales can be sustained as long or if they drop off as many consoles do. The flip side is that the PS2 wasn't available in as many regions as the Switch is, which was a sign of the times. It's hard to account for that, but one could argue that the PS2's numbers would still be more impressive. But there are many other variables like computers, smartphones etc, so it will never be a direct comparison. It's interesting to think about though.