There have been times on this blog where a marathon has led me to having to review something that makes me go “What new can I possibly say about that?” This is one of those times. The original Super Mario Bros. is iconic, addictive and its influence on the industry can’t be overstated. Even in 2019 the game is still fun to play, a joy to listen to, and has charming sprite-based graphics… In other words, the polar opposite of the film version (reviewed here!) Let’s take a deeper look anyway.
The Wrestling Game Rundown finally reaches the N64 AKI Engine games, my personal choice for the “Golden Age” of wrestling games. WCW vs. n.W.o. World Tour blew me away back when I first got it, it was a more solid and impactful feeling “Vs. The World” but with four people in the ring! Between this game, its sequel and Goldeneye, I was stuck on the N64 pretty solidly for a couple of years… So let’s take a look! Continue reading
After completing Circle of the Moon it wasn’t too long before I made a start on its sequel, Harmony of Dissonance, dropping in and out of the game as I played other things. HoD is technically better than Circle in pretty much every way, with the exception of the background music… and possibly having too much content? Let’s have a deeper look and see if I can make my mind up!
One of my goals for this blog this year is to get rid of the “Coming Soon!” bits in the tab pages above, and to get that goal started, let’s add a Game Boy Advance game to the back catalogue! Thanks to the hype surrounding Castlevania being added to Smash Ultimate, I was in the mood for a Castlevania game beyond playing Super IV for the Smash rundown, so I decided to start with the first of the GBA games, killing two birds with one stone, plus leaving me open to play the others ones down the line… Let’s have a look then!
It only feels like yesterday the mammoth marathon counting down the days to this game’s release started on this blog, but now it’s been over a month since its release and it’s time to review the game itself! Ultimate is certainly a fitting subtitle as not only does it have every previous character playable (plus new ones!) but it has a mode where you can collect “spirits”, and each of these 1,000+ spirits are based on other characters and concepts from games from all over gaming history. It’s just one giant celebration of gaming, and thankfully it’s damn fun to play as well! Let’s have a closer look then…
So here we are, after 28 days we arrived just one single day away from the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and what other way could we end on other than Mario? So the hard part was choosing which Mario game to go with, the original Super Mario Bros. due to it’s all-time classic status? Mario Galaxy for arguably being my favourite? Mario Odyssey for the being the one I played most recently? In the end, I went for none of the above, and jumped into Mario 64, as much like the first game, it was a truly revolutionary experience, and just as worthy of a choice as the others, especially in giving me something to write about in the “Thoughts Then” category… Let’s take a look then, and end this lengthy countdown…
Donkey Kong Country was a game that always looked great to me, again being a Mega Drive owner. My brother never got it, so I was left with memories of seeing how “amazing the graphics were” when it was reviewed on Bad Influence (old British Gaming TV Show…) So once again, like a lot of these final reviews in the Smash marathon, it’s something I can’t talk about how I liked it back then, but I can tell you how it holds up now! Let’s find out…
Back when I did the Top 10 games list last year I remarked about missing out of Breath of the Wild due to not having a job in the middle of the year, therefore not buying a Switch until Super Mario Odyssey came out, and that I hoped to play it during the middle-of-the-year lull this year… Well, I did! Also: it’s great! Unsurprisingly. Anyway, rather than put up a second Zelda game I decided to make this the game review for the franchise in the Smash countdown, after all the Link in the game is based off of this one! Let’s take a look then, at Nintendo going proper open world…
This was a tricky decision for me, as I actually played the original Metroid when I was younger, but I didn’t like it (it was too hard, as many games were for me at the time, though to be fair in the case of the original Metroid it’s still extremely difficult for me now!) where as I really wanted to play Super Metroid but never did thanks to that old chestnut (on this blog) of the fact that I owned a Mega Drive while my brother had a SNES, so I was at the mercy of his game choices. I ended up going with Super Metroid because even though I won’t be able to add a “Thoughts Then” part of the review, it’s such a good game that I just wanted to play it again after giving a proper go for the first time a few years ago. So… let’s take a look!
It seems as we get closer and closer to the end of this marathon, we’re hitting key Nintendo franchises I never ended up playing at the time of their release. In the case of Yoshi’s Island it was due to it being released around the same time as the PS1, which had caught my eye early thanks to being featured on Bad Influence (UK Gaming show…) combined with the fact that I had a Mega Drive, my brother had a SNES and he just never brought it (probably for the same reason) Still, I did regret not getting to play it at the time because it’s simply really good, if not great! Let’s take a look…
Hogan Reviews 