Gaming off the Beaten Path

It's been a long time since we've stepped into the ring, but it's time to dust off the gloves grab our fight shorts and get ready for a heavyweight battle. Well, since we are comparing two handheld games, maybe they are fighting for the bantamweight title? Maybe flyweight? Regardless, it's time to look critically at two Game Boy Advance titles that absolutely brought the heat, both of which I played during my mini series on GBA Metroidvania games. And in this battle, we will pit team Metroid vs. team 'vania. Both Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Metroid: Zero Mission were revelations when I played through them earlier this year. I was genuinely shocked to find two games of this breadth and scope that were original GBA titles, but I'm sure glad I did. Because both of these titles were absolutely incredible. I actually gave them the same scores and they are both going to be in contention for game of the year. So I figured, why not get them in the ring now? Why wa...

Sometimes a game's reputation proceeds it, for better or for worst. And today, we are going to focus on the "worse." I have heard quite a bit about Ballz 3D, a fighting  game released for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis late in the lifecycle of both systems. As we all well know at this point, that can be really good, or really bad. A lot of games released late in a system's lifecycle take full advantage of hardware that developers have had quite a bit of time to figure out. On the other, the end of a console's lifecycle is prime territory for developers dumping half baked, low effort titles onto a console just to say they did. That was especially true of fighting games, which were all the rage at the beginning of the 4th generation but starting to lose favor by the end of it. Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Fatal Fury had established the right way to do these games and the days of just slapping a license on top of a random tournament fighter and having it s...

It's been a long time coming, but we've finally reached the end of our GBA Metroidvania mini series. Well, I guess it hasn't really been that long, it's been less than a year since I started this whole thing. I usually  take a lot longer to finish stuff like this, if I finish it at all. It certainly helps that almost all of these games have been vey good, but the Quintet Trilogy games were all really good and it took me damn near two years to finish all of those. Sometimes, I don't finish these mini-series at all. But I've successfully worked my way through the Metroid and non-linear Castlevania games on the GBA and it's time to wrap it up with the third and final 'Vania title on my list. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow was released for the GBA in May or 2003, a rare example of a title that actually hit the shelves in North America before it did in Japan. It wasn't by much, but it was still a rarity. Even though it's the last game I'm covering ...

Last week, we started our look at Albert Odyssesy: The Legend of Eldean, a traditional JRPG for the Sega Saturn. The story was pretty solid, if a bit uninspired, and the characters were much the same. But what about the gameplay? Well, for the first time in what feels like a long time, I think the gameplay pretty much matches the story in terms of quality. AO was absolutely in line with exactly what you would expect from an RPG that came out in the middle of the 5th generation: gameplay with firm roots in the 4th gen with the console's newfound power used more to make the world bigger and bolder. If the story here was almost directly in line with a traditional JRPG, then the gameplay pretty much traces that line directly. With almost not exception, AO is about as typical as a typical JRPG can be in terms of party growth, combat and exploration. That may come across as a negative, and it may be in some respects, but I actually think it's quite positive as well. Simp...

It's time to check another console off the list, because I finally got my hands on a Sega Saturn. It's been a long time coming, I've always found myself fascinated by Sega's 5th generation offering. Even when it came out, something about it's look and lineup of games piqued my interest. The problem was, I was just a kid and there was absolutely no way I was ever going to be able to afford more than one console. At least I didn't think so. Being a SNES kid, I got an N64 on launch day, it was the first thing I ever bought with my own money. While it had some great games, it was also a wasteland for RPGs, which were quickly becoming my favorite genre. Believe me, when I first saw screenshots for Final Fantasy VII, I was incredibly upset I would never be able to play it. Again, so I thought. Thanks to a massive sale on top of a price drop, I was able to pick up a PlayStation in early 1997 for a surprisingly miniscule amount of money. But the Saturn still eluded me...

Back in the 90's, we were far too edgy and cool to spell words the correct way, becuz everyone nu that spelling korrektly was boaring. I think there were more Zs used between the years of 1989 and 2003 than there were in the entire rest of the history of the English language. You better believe that if you could swap out a boring, lame-o S for a Z, you were doing it. And Cs? Who needs those when you have Ks. The video game world was certainly not immune to this trend, I have legitimately met people that truly believed the word 'combat' started with a K until they were in their teenage years. We may not have been paying attention in school, but we were certainly focused on playing round after round of Mortal Kombat, battling each other tooth and nail while seeking out a bevy of secret Kharacters to battle. Mortal Kombat might have been the most popular game franchise to decide properly spelled words weren't cool, but it was far from the only one. Which brings us to Ske...