Nintendo

Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure (GBA) Review

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I finally figured out how to get through my colossal Dragon Ball game backlog on this site: attach a game review with each movie / TV special review! Amazingly given how many films and specials the combined series has this was only JUST enough. That being said, let’s get the two Dragon Ball games I own out the way before sadly starting the Z games while still reviewing original Dragon Ball films, that’s just how much more popular the Z brand is,  and we do that with Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure (which I could’ve sworn was called “Advance Adventure”, but I guess I was misremembering…) I remember just being happy to see a game based on the original series at the time but as it turned out it was far deeper and more addictive than I had anticipated. Let’s see if it still holds up!

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Manga) Review

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As a new on-and-off review series I’ll be looking at the Legend of Zelda manga series as I brought the rather lovely treasure chest shaped box containing the hardback Legendary editions of the series (except the Twilight Princess series anyway). While I was tempted to put them in game-release order I decided to instead follow the series as it was released, therefore let’s start with Ocarina of Time! It’s odd to be covering the Manga of OOT when I haven’t actually covered the legendary game itself yet, but there you go! Let’s take a look at how good it is as a manga, as well as comparing it to its source material (ignoring obvious differences like Link talking, obviously…)

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Mario Kart DS (Nintendo DS) Review

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As Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s fifth wave of DLC arrives so does a review of a previous entry! Mario Kart DS was easily the DS game I played the most thanks to my friend having a copy and bringing his DS round so we could play multiplayer. Playing it now I still have to applaud both the level design and graphics for the handheld, plus the amount of modes on offer. It was certainly no throw away effort, that’s for sure! Let’s take a look…

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) Review

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Ah yes, another one of those “does the internet really need another review praising this game?” review. Still, I’ve played it a lot, want to talk about that experience and also have a review to link to when this game inevitably ends up on my Top 10 Games list for this year. So, let’s look at The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, shall we?

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Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GameCube) Review

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Another Mario Kart 8 Booster Pass release, another older game review! We’ve reached the full 3D polygon era of Mario Kart with Double Dash!! (Yes, complete with two exclamation marks!!) and with it a lot of things now associated with the franchise, especially the multiple drift levels and mini-boosts. It also came with a team mechanic where you choose two drivers for each kart and can even do co-op, something that has been dropped from later entries… let’s take a look!

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Mario Kart: Super Circuit (GBA) Review

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Super Circuit sits in a strange place in my Mario Kart history in that I played it at launch (ish) and played it a fair amount, but its difficulty curve and me not really being a big handheld guy meant I didn’t really get into it the same way as other entries in the series (beyond 3DS and Tour, which I just haven’t played at all) Going back to it now has only made the challenge even more, well, challenging, despite having a full screen and comfortable controller in my hand. Much like when I played Super Mario Kart for this blog the old style controls are just so… counter intuitive after so many years of the newer style back-to-back. Oh well, it’s another Booster Pass course drop today, so let’s look at another Mario Kart game!

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Mario Kart 64 (N64) Review

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While I’m off by a week or two it’s still time to look at the next Mario Kart game alongside a “Booster Pass” release, this time the second ever MK game (that just makes me think of Mortal Kombat… oh well!) that being Mario Kart 64. At the time the 3D graphics were a great addition to the game and made for far more varied maps to race on, but in 2022 its safe to say it looks a little worse for wear, as a lot of N64 games do. How does it play though? Let’s take a look…

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Super Mario Kart (SNES) Review

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When I saw six new DLC packs for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe I was really excited to play the new (to me, having never touched Mario Kart Tour) tracks and returning retro tracks so I thought about covering the old games those tracks come from, then realised that I’ve played (to death) six Mario Kart games not including 8 so my mind immediately made a marathon out of it, naturally! Each day a new “Mario Kart 8 Booster Pack” comes out I’ll throw up a review of a Mario Kart game, in order of release. Then I guess I’ll put up a review of 8 for completionists sake… Anyway! Super Mario Kart is one of those rare games that you can point at and say “This game innovated an entire genre” and to top it off it was great to play despite being the first of its kind. What it’s like to play now? Well…

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Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PC Engine CD) / Vampire’s Kiss (SNES) Review

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It’s time to admit something: I was going to review Rondo of Blood alongside it’s sequel Symphony of the Night last year given they’re packaged together but despite slowly but surely making my way through it I never did in the end because I lost the screenshots I took when I cleared the Symphony of the Night folder. Well, now with the SNES port of Rondo (known as Vampire’s Kiss in the UK, Dracula X in the US) on the latest Castlevania collection I thought “Perfect, I’d hate to leave it unplayed and now I have an excuse!” … Jesus, I was not prepared for the increase in difficulty found on the SNES version. So I’ll admit given I’d already completed a version of the game I spammed save states like some sort of bitch, whatever that means. So while most of the later game screenshots come from a “cheaty run” I can promise you I have played at least the original legitimately…

With that overly long opening out of the way: Let’s take a look at it/them!

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My Top 10 Games of 2021

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Another year, another Top 10 Games list that only JUST made it to 10. Well, actually if I’m honest Number 10 is a bit of a cop out I put in because “Top 9” just sounds stupid. Still, given I’ve played a lot of older games this year it’s no surprise that I nearly fell short… Anyway, with that out of the way (and another reminder that I’m not a professional outlet and therefore if a game you think should be best isn’t on here it’s more likely that I just haven’t played it yet, if ever, than I think it wasn’t worthy) let’s take a look!

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