A remake of one of the most thought provoking games to come out in the past 20 years, Silent Hill 2 is firing on all cylinders.  The main protagonist is James who is drawn to the sleepy town of Silent Hill because of a letter he received from his dead wife.  He starts to notice that things are a little bit off with the town and starts getting into ridiculous hijinks with no explanation whatsoever.  The citizens are now crazed disturbing creatures and the world is a dilapidated mess.  It’s not really a survival horror game but more of a come-to-terms-with-reality-and-grief game.  It still is probably my favorite game in the series.

Visuals:

I really loved the way the original game looked.  The film grain made it look grimey and dingy back in 2001 which really wasn’t an aesthetic yet.  The remake seems to strip that out with the fidelity granted of modern systems but the atmosphere is still there.  The fog is dense and the world is super detailed.  No two places really seem to look the same.  I’m not really a fan of the character models since they look like CGI models come to life.  I feel they could have done better but it doesn’t take me out of the world enough to be a problem.  

Audio:

Good lord is the audio in this game something else.  Just walking around the town you feel the dread of the game in every location.  The music swells which makes you think something is following you only to drop off with no payoff.  I don’t know if I should be upset or not but my heart gets going.  The environments also give off the creep vibe pretty well with the enemies grunting and squishing everywhere.  Playing with headphones doesn’t help because now everything is directly piped into your earholes.  It really is amazing.

Completion:

I’m still working through it and got to the new apartments.  Everything kind of seems to be where you left it 20 years ago.  There have been a little changes here and there, besides the visuals, but nothing that’ll fuck up the story.  I’m curious to see how they’ll handle some of the weirder aspects but I’m gonna keep playing.  Like I said, this is my favorite game of the series and it still holds up.

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You control our titular characters in a sidescrolling…platformer…type game?  It’s not really either one, though, because there really aren’t platforms for you to jump on but rather you jumping over an INSANE amount of obstacles.  Everything is out to do you harm so you’re just constantly jumping/ducking to survive.  All the while you’re collecting money for you to use at the end to buy GWAR tickets, so you better start saving at the beginning.  There are health pickups to help mitigate the damage you take but if you have too much health, you and Beavis [or Butthead] crumple over and have to use the restroom.  There aren’t that many levels but they go on forever just because you’re constantly stopping to avoid death from every direction.  I can’t stress that enough!

Visuals:

The main characters don’t look bad, really.  You can tell they spent time on making Beavis and Butthead look and animate like their TV show counterparts.  It’s just everything else in the world looks bland as fuck.  The enemies are repetitive per level and the levels themselves are just a scrolling tapestry with there being no real landmarks for you to establish yourself.  At random moments you’ll get little talking head moments of them either insulting each other or saying something was cool.  It truly is random because I could not duplicate it at similar instances.  The shitting scene is pretty funny and a nice gag at having TOO much health.

Audio:

The audio samples and the Game Gear rendition of the opening song aren’t bad.  The rest of the audio is terrible.  The songs will loop on for way too long thanks to the length of the levels.  The enemies don’t really utter any noises whatsoever, but the pain they inflict on the main characters happens so so often which how many of them there are.

Completion:

I couldn’t finish the game on my playthrough.  Even though I was collecting all the money I found, I either didn’t find enough or the stuff I spent at the beginning [not knowing I had to save] caused me to not be able to afford the tickets to GWAR.  I got to the last stage and the bouncer killed me and gave me a Game Over screen.  Fuck that.  At least the Game Over screen had Beavis and Butthead fighting each other in a mud pit but what a terrible ending to a game.  

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A third person action game starring the Guardians of the Galaxy.  The bit I played had you taking the role of Peter Quill/Star-Lord as him and the bunch have to do missions to find loot or pay off their debts.  You’ll get plenty of time to interact with your fellow groupmates as you traverse the galaxy with plenty of upgrades and unlockables to bide the time.  Every now and then you’ll get to pilot your ship but those are few and far between.

Visuals:

Hot diggity dog does this game look fantastic.  The environments are vibrant and unique with each one of them giving sweeping vistas complete with weather effects or just life that’ll make you stop and look around.  The character models also look terrific as well with all of them looking extremely believable.  The animations can be a little stilted or showing too much teeth, but that’s a small nitpick.  The flashback scenes are also lovingly done but I just feel it’s a orgy of evidence to be like “Look!  It’s the 1980s!!” that so many pieces of media do when trying to establish a time period.

Audio:

You will get a TON of dialog between the Guardians.  So much so that there is just too much to keep up with that you don’t know which thread to follow.  Not all of it lands but that’s a small portion of it.  The banter between them is very context sensitive so they’ll be ridiculing you every chance you get so you better not take it personally.  Like the visuals, the 1980s soundtrack is very front and center with none of it becoming too repetitive but it does wear thin after a while.  It’s not the game’s fault since that’s how Marvel has been posing the GotG crew for a while.  

Completion:

It seems like there really is so much to do in this game.  I completed chapter 4 where I was trying to pose Rocket as a world ending being but had to escape the broker when shit went south.  The fights are pretty grandiose and screen filling with bosses having multiple phases.  All the while this is going on your team is just quipping away at everything.  It truly is overwhelming for me.  I may come back to it but I think I got my fill for the time being.

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Kind of the same again, just more lazy.

Visuals:

Step back from the previous entry and looks more generic.  Outfield play has changed perspective but still plays the same.

Audio:

Different music and that’s about it.

Completion:

kicked my ass with home runs and bad play on my part.

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More of the same, again,

Visuals:

Looks a little bit better, animations are smooth.

Audio:

A more contemporary soundtrack and less of the same tunes you always hear,

Completion:

Got my ass kicked in the bottom of the third,

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More of the same baseball, but now you have to control the direction of your swings.

Visuals:

Looks like a baseball game for the NES.  Not really much to add.

Audio:

Sounds like a baseball game for the NES.

Completion:

I was losing and I decided to end it because the game was long gone

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Aiight, lemme tell you about Chrono Cross.  It’s a sequel to one of the most beloved RPGs from Squaresoft which deviates from its predecessor in every form.  Chrono Cross is a 3D game that utilizes prerendered backgrounds with polygonal characters getting into battles.  These battles are sweeping vistas with three of your characters engaging enemies in turn based combat.  The catch is that each element you use adds to a bar on the top right.  Depending on how many of the bars of the same color it will enhance the power of elements of the same color.  Rinse and repeat.  Outside of battles, you’re exploring a vibrant world and meeting a TON of unique characters all with very hard to understand dialog.

Visuals:

I’m arguing with myself over here because 16 year old me was all about this game.  I loved how different it is from the Final Fantasy games and how it was just charming.  Me, now, can kind of take it or leave it.  The characters are super over done and there are just so many characters that I really lose track of everyone.  The characters also get mixed up with the backgrounds because of everything being super colorful and they just blend together.  Looking at the battles with a new lens I really get annoyed with the transitions.  The sweeping camera angles and overall presentation is just overdone.  Sometimes you can go simple but this game doesn’t do it.

Audio:

Likewise the audio is a mixed bag with me.  I loved the music when I was a teenager and still jam to it but, now, I feel it is just too much.  Hearing the callbacks to Chrono Trigger is always nice to hear but it really makes the juxtaposition between the two games so readily apparent.  You can just hear the difference between two styles and it just makes you miss the first game.  That said, the opening intro music is still a fucking banger.

Completion:

I’m working on this game and feel it’s going to be a bit of a slog.  I have a save from my first playthrough and it would be quite an undertaking trying to figure out just where I was or what I was doing.  On my new playthrough I just met Lynx and Kid got messed up.  I’ve probably played for a few hours so my quest has just begun.  I’m trying to move through it but, even then, I’m thinking this is going to be a few dozen hours until I complete it.  I’ll keep you up to date!  I’m kind of enjoying it but I really want to beat it just so I can take it off my list finally after decades!

Update: 04/19/2026

I FINISHED THIS GAME! After 25 years or so I finally sat down and played through it to completion. I felt that the opening 2/3rd of the game was kind of middling with extreme amount of setup and lore building while the last 1/3rd or, heck, maybe even the last 1/10th of the game really being amazing. The story finally all clicked together and the environments were amazing. I don’t want to say that it had to ride on Chrono Trigger’s coattails to be amazing, but once the two games started to intermingle is when it started being coherent. The emotional parts hit and the revelations were well deserved. I’m happy that I’m done with this juggernaut of a game and I was happy with the time I had with it!

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A Final Fantasy that never originally came to the United States, FFV tells the story of four individuals on a quest to try to save the planetary crystals from shattering.  By this point this is familiar ground with a lot of the same types of tropes appearing.  Appearing also in this game are the job system which allow you to assign roles to your characters to suit your play style.  The Pixel Remaster series takes the original sprites and brings them to a higher resolution while still maintaining the charm.  There are little flourishes here and there but, for the most part, they remain true to the source material.

Visuals:

I love the way the Pixel Remaster did up the game.  I love the sprites from the original but seeing them much crisper with the little touches to the backgrounds makes this feel super fresh.  The bad thing is that the PR uses a lot of the same sprites from game to game so they look very much the same as the other iterations.  

Audio:

Gawdang!  The remastered score is amazing.  All of the songs are bangers with some of them just going hard with the score.  I really don’t know what more can be done for these games but Square Enix hit it out of the park.

Completion:

I’m still working on it and have been for quite some time.  I’ve been trying to get 100% on it but I don’t think it’s going to happen.  I did just defeat Exdeath [first time?] so I’m ready to explore more of this world.  I’m loving the game.  The translation is amazing.  The music is amazing.  Everything is amazing.  

Update: 04/07/2026

I FINISHED THIS GAME! What a lovely and amazing experience. I’ve been saying that each one of these I complete is my new favorite Final Fantasy game but they just keep outdoing one another. The story, visuals, music, writing, emotional strings pulled, and the fights are all superb.

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That old rascal Dracula is at it again.  He’s causing havoc and only one man can stop him: Nathan!  This is in the new style of Castlevania with you leveling up, collecting items, and exploring.  New in this iteration is the card system with different combinations giving you buffs to help you on your mission.  Along the way you’ll battle all sorts of enemies and bosses while trying not to get lost.  Eventually you’ll stumble upon upgrades to help you traverse the world.  It’s a pretty beefy game for the Game Boy Advance but that is what the system really was known for!

Visuals:

I’m kind of torn with the way it looks.  The images are super crisp and the world looks amazing.  The sprites are little, for the most part, but that’s to help make the environment huge.  The thing that irks me the most is the animation.  Nathan moves so stiffly and with like three frames of animation.  The enemies are nicely varied and different with each one of them being annoying and unique in their own rights.  It’s a solid visual experience and fits in the new style of Castlevania.

Audio:

I love the way everything sounds.  The music and sounds throughout the game is just an experience for your earholes.  It does get a little repetitive with the way enemies die but that’s only because you’re killing them over and over again.  But the music sets the bar super high and it’s nothing short of a masterpiece.

Completion:

I’m working on it!  I’ve been playing it for about an hour every night and I’m working my way through the castle.  Nathan has been upgraded quite a bit and I’m able to move around much faster.  I’m also stronger so enemies really don’t hold a candle to me.  I’m not a fan of traversing the castle because I’m having to go from one opposite end to the other while battling weak enemies who do nothing but impede my speed.  I’m loving the vibe though and I can’t wait to see where it takes me!

Update: 04/10/2026

I FINISHED THIS GAME! It was a pretty good Castlevania game but the combat was fucking horrible. It’s been a while since I played one of these so I wasn’t used to having to be more deliberate with your attacks. Nathan attacks SO SLOW so every time I was trying to get my final hit in, I’d get knocked back and fall off a platform. It was quite annoying. Regardless, it was a hell of a game!

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• SNK Neo Geo Pocket Color – Light Blue – IPS Mod

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