January 2024 Media Log

Somic Frontier (01/01)

Ever since this game was announced I've been hyped for it and bought it on release in 2022 to play at the same time as some of my online friends. I ended up having to buy this game twice because I first bought it on Steam and the game had a lot of trouble running and was basically unplayable with how slow it ran on my almost decade old computer from 2014 but I enjoyed what little I played of it at the time. Sadly I played the game for more than 2 hours and was unable to get a refund on it and had to pause my playthrough of the game while everyone else managed to blast through it in like a week. I got a PS5 for christmas that year and eventually caved in a few months later and bought a used copy of it on that and started my real playthrough. I got through world 1 really quickly and loved every second of it. Open World Sonic with serious writing reminiscent of the comics and really fun movement, it kicked ass. World 2 and 3 are where this game started to drag for me and I kept putting this game on hold because those worlds were designed in a way that wasn't fun for me. World 1 was just a pleasant grassland with ethereal vibes and intentionally doing pointless stuff was fun to me there but in the 2nd world which was a desert, there was too many lower level canyons which were kind of obnoxious to get out of and world 3 which was a volcano level involved getting to a lot of objectives which were located on really high floating islands which were really hard to find the series of rails and jumps that lead you there. One path involved going underground which took a lot of time to find and was only aware of that because my darling girlfriend who was watching me play and already beat the game herself told me this. I almost dropped this game here because for the last few play sessions I had of this game towards the later half of last year I was not making any progress in any of them because a lot of the design of world 3 was throwing you through locked in 2d segments that lead you nowhere. After giving the game one final shot in a voice call with friends I managed to power through this game and finally passed through the parts that weren't fun. The final world of the game kicks ass and is peak and like the first world but even cooler and has so many nice land marks and cool views. This game is peak on the parts that are good but the parts I don't like I think are worse than most of the bad parts of previous 3d Sonics. I think this game was worth beating in the long run because the finale ruled and the soundtrack for this game is really good even for Sonic OSTs which already have a track record for being top notch. I'll probably come back and play the DLC at some point but for now I consider the game finished.
My Backloggd Review

Popful Mail OVA that never happened (01/02)

I've only briefly played Popful Mail one time and never got far, most of my experience with this game is the one time I watched maedotmkv stream it. With the little experience I have with it though, I adore it and have a deep appreciation for it's vibe and style since I'm a bitch who loves 90s fantasy anime and Mail as a character. I wasn't aware an OVA existed or was going to exist until I watched a video on Popful Mail by an acquaintence of mine, Maria's house (good video and channel btw) where it was brought up. All that became of this OVA was a Music Video for a Megumi Hayashibara song that was used as a pitch for it showing several scenes that probably would have been in the OVA. I love everything about this! The style is the exact style of anime I love combined with the music and the reverse Isekai premise this has of putting Mail in a 1990s Japanese city, This is peak anime. Mail is super expressive and I love the colorful city in the night. I really am sad this never got to be a full anime, it's only five minutes but it's peak.
My Letterboxd Review
The Music Video on Youtube

Capcom Fighting Collection (01/12)

Bought this collection on release back in 2022 and was pretty excited about it. I played a lot of Darkstalkers and the game is much harder than I remembered it, my only real experience with the series was the PSP collection for it, Chaos Tower. Beyond the five different Darkstalkers versions on here, the rest of the games on here were also really good and the fact that they all have rollback on each game is great but sadly it's a ghost town and wasn't able to find anyone else playing in 2024. Only real problem I have with the collection is that Cyberbots doesn't have all the characters from the console version since it uses the original arcade version instead. This was a common problem with that Street Fighter collection released a few years back as well, only having the first arcade versions of Alpha 2 & 3 and not having the later better ports with more content. Red Earth being on here is super cool though since it's never released on console, that game kicks ass and is a really interesting idea for a fighting game rpg hybrid. A big chunk of the creatures you fight in it all have unconventional designs and movement for a 2d fighting game, it's great. I loved finally being able to play as Tessa since I've only known about her through cameos in other games and the closest we've ever had to Red Earth being on a console was Capcom Fighting Jam on PS2 which was kind of an underwhelming game and was only remembered for being able to play as a dinosaur. The origin game Red Earth though is really cool and I can see myself coming back and replaying it several times for fun. I suck at Puzzle fighter but it's cool that it's here, I appreciate that game from afar, Gem Fighter on the other hand is my favorite game on the entire collection. Love all the cute moves and references all the characters do. I love that Tessa turns into a silly dinosaur as a special. Easily one of the best collections Capcom put out in recent years.
My Backloggd Review

Sonic Rivals (01/13)

Played this during a voice call with friends because it's a game that is overlooked a lot and is the first canon meet up between Sonic and Silver since the events of Sonic 06 undo itself from ever being and Sonic wouldn't remember them. This game is a skungfest, it is an obvious PSP game, it just has that vibe and it's not really that bad. It's just a 2D Sonic game but the twist is that your always racing another opponent and you have goofy little static image visual novel style cut scenes in between each level. They look silly, like a fan game and I find it charming. The game got pretty hard pretty quick though but I managed to get through a big chunk of it until I hit the boss in the ice world and was physically unable to damage the boss. The problem was that I was playing the game on an emulator and that game has emulation issues making your jumps pathetically low which prevent me from progressing the game. This also meant the game wasn't as hard as I thought it was, I was playing with a handicap that was against my favor. I do own this game physically on original hardware and never got around to playing it so I will have to restart the game at a later point to properly playthrough it. Also I played as Silver because me and the friends who were watching me play think Silver is just inherently funny as a character.
My Backloggd Review

YS I (01/17)

I've sampled a handful of ports of this game over the last year since I've wanted to get into this series and eventually settled on commiting to finishing the remake on Steam. This game rules, the bump combat is so funny and honestly really satisfying. It also is surprisingly violent seeing the enemies just explode into bloody messes as you mow them down while running really fast across the map. The 2013 YS Chronicles+ remake has really good visual improvements keeping a lot of it's PC88 swag that wasn't present in many of the old console ports of the game while also looking decently modern with RPG Maker looking sprites (positive connotation, I like that aesthetic) and it's variation of the soundtrack is also entirely bangers. The overall game is a very simple, short and sweet RPG. Enjoyed this game alot and wouldn't be opposed to replaying it again through an older port to see it in a different lense but for now, I look forward to jumping into YS II.
My Backloggd Review

Tekken 8 (01/31)

I enjoyed the hell out of this game, played through all the single player content and while it's not the strongest compared to other entries in the series, I'm thankful it atleast has a pretty substantial amount of it to last me for almost a week. The roster of 8 is an extremely solid line-up, extremely happy that my favorite girl Jun Kazama is back after she's been missing since Tekken 2. I was devastated when I first played Tekken 3 & 4 to find out she didn't return and while Asuka is cool and is her replacement from 5 onwards, I still prefer Jun as a character so it's cool to finally have her back. Asuka is still the one with Jun's old moveset from 2 and Jun now has a much newer moveset that has a lot of variations of her old moves, I'm still down and she is my main. In terms of new characters Reina is one I think is cool, She's real fun to play and her design and color scheme is neat. I like that there is a Mishima that's a cool girlboss, she was a bit overhyped though and didn't really play any big role in the story as you would have expected. She's more of a side character that scared Jin and Kazuya in her fights with each of them because she mimicked moves and quotes heihachi has said but she's basically sequel bait. The story mode is executed the same way Tekken 7's story mode is but with a few little fun things on the side like choosing who wins each fight in the tournament or one level that is a warzone minigame that is a throwback to the scenario campaign of Tekken 6 (which I liked). Loved the stories ending, glad to see a conclusion to some character arcs that have been going on for decades, I've been a fan of this series story for a long time so I got a lot out of it. One grip I have with the game is the Character Episodes, they were definitely way better than Tekken 7's and they are decent 5 stage campaigns but it is kind of tiring that almost all of them take place in the same arena. There were some really good interactions and cute little ending cut scenes though just like in the old Tekken arcade modes so I'm happy, they aren't too long to get through and did them for most of the roster in one night. There is also Tekken Ball which was the silly volleyball mode from Tekken 3 which is neat and glad it's here, they really don't do anything more with it than what Tekken 3 already did. Lastly there was the Arcade Quest mode which is just the newer style of arcade mode that Tekken 5 and later entries did but this time made into a small out of universe single player campaign where you play as an xbox 360 looking custom avatar and talk to and play Tekken against a bunch of other xbox 360 looking avatars in various arcades you walk around in. It's ok, pretty whatever, none of the characters have anything interesting to say other than stuff that's along the lines of "I really like playing Tekken with my friends" but I beat it pretty quickly and you see a silly Harada avatar at the ending tournament. The online play worked pretty fine for me, tiny bit of slowdown I had in one match and also I really love seeing all the custom outfits people make for characters. It's really funny how you can easily make a lot of accurate copyrighted characters Namco doesn't own with the items like Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil. Overall Tekken 8 is a great game, I'll definitely be playing this online more for fun on the side.
My Backloggd Review