But with guns, cyber tech, and ogres. It’s Shadowrun.
Let me get this out of the way: Shadowrun is a hit or miss game. For me, it was a miss. However, I have to admit that Shadowrun is a game I fully endorse anyone playing. It’s more of an adventure game than an RPG, more point-and-click isometric shooter than turn based menu JRPG, and somehow more linear than any Final Fantasy.
In Shadowrun, you play as Jake Armitage. Probably. You start by kicking yourself out of a morgue after having your brain fried. The “doctors” run away, believing you’re a zombie, so they’re not very helpful in helping you find out who you are. But, rather than settle down and figure out where you live, you swear revenge and plan to finish whatever you were doing before getting fried. After tracing your steps and meeting some old friends, you learn you were attacked by someone named Drake and were supposed to deliver a program to the Aneki Corporation.
This requires a lot from Jake. Many investigations lie before him, which requires learning an ever growing list of keywords and finding an assortment of random people across much of 2050 Seattle. This feels like a needle in a haystack situation, as Seattle is full of people, many of whom are useless or fill a niche role. Can asking this person one of my thirty keywords help me? Usually not. In fact, even the correct combination feels like it doesn’t help much. The complete picture is beneficial, but the complete picture feels too hidden without a guide.
When he’s not being a private eye, Jake’s shooting… via a SNES controller. It’s as clunky as you’d think. Press "A" to bring up a crosshair, and then guide the crosshair to your target. All while being shot at yourself. You will always be down with this system. Enemies see you first, shoot you first, and then keep firing as you aim at them. And they can move! You cannot. More often than not, you're outnumbered, too, so this isn’t an exciting way to play a game. And you are constantly under fire. Just walking around the streets of Seattle will have gunmen leaping out of bushes or firing out of small peepholes. There is no rest. Not only is it clunky, but it’s repetitive and boring. No gun feels different, and the gameplay never changes. You do get magic later on, but most of those are utility or defensive. The only offensive magic is either worse than your gun or only useful against one target.
The last interesting mechanic involves hacking into the internet, called the matrix in game. And when you hack, you warp yourself into the net. This takes you to an ugly grid where Jake evades invisible enemies while opening grey boxes. It is, like the shooting, repetitive and boring. And it never grows mechanically. It starts boring, gets used too frequently at the end to pad, and ends up feeling like a chore. At least you get a rush of adrenaline when you kill a man in Seattle.
The presentation of Shadowrun is along the same lines. There’s not much variety in the game, either visually or sonically. It’s all streets, dirty buildings, basic bedrooms, and those awful matrix scenes. It feels like there are only six enemy sprites, as well. There are only fifteen songs on the soundtrack, and four of them are menu songs or story tracks. There are plenty of portraits of people you talk to and a number of unique NPC sprites, but that only goes so far. The mercenary shadowruners don’t add anything to the game, so who cares? The direction fits well, which adds to the one thing Shadowrun does well.
Nothing feels like Shadowrun on the Super Nintendo. For better or for worse, it is a unique game in a field of copies. It looks gritty and grimy, sounds gross, and even plays like it hurts to experience. And for that, I believe Shadowrun is worth playing. It takes some time to figure out where to go, so put your adventure game eyes on. Nothing about this is a traditional RPG, especially since it’s western, one of the few on the system. If you need something different, here it is. It’ll reset your palette and make you yearn for something. Will it be more Shadowrun or swords and sorcery JRPGs? That’s up to you. But it's just such an interesting experience that, while it didn't vibe with me, I think it needs to be played. Not before, nor since has any game felt so unique without being a total crap pile, at least.
Ultimately, I found Shadowrun to be a 28 out of 50 game. I just want more, which the Harebrained Scheme games do. I want to play Shadowrun Returns so bad all of a sudden…
Thursday, April 30, 2026
Saturday, April 25, 2026
Sometimes a bad game is just a bad game.
And it’s nothing to hold a grudge about.
Arabian Nights: Sabaku no Seirei-ō is one such game. Usually, when I play a game I didn’t enjoy, I develop a burning hatred for it. Seeing Lufia at the bottom of my games list soothes me. It is almost as though despising the existence of this piece of so called entertainment is now a core tenet of my personality. Sometimes that fire dies, but not always. Regardless, it’s a goddamn stupid mentality.
I don’t know if being sick again for the second time in two months broke me, or if there’s something about Arabian Nights that opened my eyes, but sometimes things that suck just suck.
But what about Arabian Nights sucks? The random encounter rate is the worst in the genre. Battles are so frequent that it makes exploration a chore, and you feel punished for playing. And it really takes something special to make me point out the encounter rate. I’ve skimmed it in other games with notorious encounter rates, but you can’t in AN. It is the prevailing mechanic of note. And it’s so bad that it makes other aspects of the battle system pointless.
There are two other things that, in theory, are worth talking about in combat, but I barely dabbled in them. The main thing is that you can use cards to change the element of the battlefield, sorta like Chrono Cross. A wood card will either restore your HP or do an elemental attack at the end of your turn, depending on the level of the card played. You gain a card whenever you’re not full up, so if you want, use them at your leisure. Enemies also have access to cards, so don’t expect to get the full rewards out of them. But because the encounter rate is so high, you’re rarely gonna use any cards. You’re gonna turn on the auto battle function and hold down the fast forward button. And this works great until you run into a green naga or an enemy team uses a card that negates all your physical damage. So the game presents a problem, gives you a bypass, but makes it dangerous to use. Do you see why this game wasn’t well received? And it’s not like battles are short bursts, either. Even jumping 2000 FPS, they can still go upwards of ten seconds. It’s just not a fun game. There’s also a summon system, but it suffers from the same problems.
Between the battles and the bland dungeons that are either mazes or Sylph Co. tile puzzles, it’s hella unfun.
And it’s not like the story is worth digging into. You play as Shukran, a girl who stumbles upon a ring that holds Ifrit, the King of the Djinns. Shukran becomes his master because Ifrit was tasked to grant 1000 wishes by the man who sealed him eons ago. And wouldn’t ya know it, he’s at wish 999! All Ifrit has to do is bring peace to the world and stop the Deevs, who seem to be bugs. Along the way, we learn an old ally of Ifrit is aligned with the Deevs, so they need to seek counsel with the rest of the elemental djinns, fully restore Ifrit’s sealed powers, and have some pointless dude named Harty join them. So it’s just a collection quest with some exposition at the start and the very end that leaves me empty. So…Pokemon without the fun.
But what did Harty bring to the story? We met his whys, but we never experienced the results. His battle skills don’t affect bosses, and the auto battle won’t use them. He brings nothing to the story. And that’s all that can be said about him.
Ifrit’s special skills are magic and are unlocked by finding magical crystals. They’re flashy and work well, but fall off late game. You can beat up your enemies with bunnies, so the game does have some cool bits.
Shukran is a summoner, but there’s no point in using the summons for reasons already stated earlier. It’s all so confusing.
But there’s one more reason to malign the encounter rate. It makes the game too easy. You’re in so many fights that you’re over leveled. Bosses are a breeze, and there’s no tension in the game. There is a mod to lower the rates, which might make the game more interesting.
But you still have to suffer through the soundtrack. It’s the worst on the console! As you’d expect, there are Arabian sounding tracks, but for some reason, there’s also a lot of jazz fusion mixes, even in the same songs. Shukran’s overworld theme is the worst song I’ve ever heard, even worse than Grandia’s Biran Plateau. And there are a few other tracks that are just annoying to hear. It’s more baffling decisions, and I’m understanding how bad games get made.
But, hey, sprites look good. It turns out that making some four squares big adds a lot of detail to the world and makes the game pop. And those portraits! Too bad dungeons are bad, all mountains are the same, and enemies are palette swaps.
I liked that you can see Shukran in different clothes, but they’re for short lived, optional scenes, so whatever…
The best thing about Arabian Nights is that it’s short. The best ending takes less than fifteen hours, and it’s an easy task if you explore. Just make sure to free all the other djinns. But are the extra endings worth seeing? No. For several reasons.
If you lower the encounter rate, Arabian Nights is so milktoast of a game that it’s barely worth playing. But with this disaster of a design choice, it’s totally unplayable. At best, it’s just boring. I enjoyed some of the things, but AN was just forgettable.
21/50; Might have given me the flu again.
Arabian Nights: Sabaku no Seirei-ō is one such game. Usually, when I play a game I didn’t enjoy, I develop a burning hatred for it. Seeing Lufia at the bottom of my games list soothes me. It is almost as though despising the existence of this piece of so called entertainment is now a core tenet of my personality. Sometimes that fire dies, but not always. Regardless, it’s a goddamn stupid mentality.
I don’t know if being sick again for the second time in two months broke me, or if there’s something about Arabian Nights that opened my eyes, but sometimes things that suck just suck.
But what about Arabian Nights sucks? The random encounter rate is the worst in the genre. Battles are so frequent that it makes exploration a chore, and you feel punished for playing. And it really takes something special to make me point out the encounter rate. I’ve skimmed it in other games with notorious encounter rates, but you can’t in AN. It is the prevailing mechanic of note. And it’s so bad that it makes other aspects of the battle system pointless.
There are two other things that, in theory, are worth talking about in combat, but I barely dabbled in them. The main thing is that you can use cards to change the element of the battlefield, sorta like Chrono Cross. A wood card will either restore your HP or do an elemental attack at the end of your turn, depending on the level of the card played. You gain a card whenever you’re not full up, so if you want, use them at your leisure. Enemies also have access to cards, so don’t expect to get the full rewards out of them. But because the encounter rate is so high, you’re rarely gonna use any cards. You’re gonna turn on the auto battle function and hold down the fast forward button. And this works great until you run into a green naga or an enemy team uses a card that negates all your physical damage. So the game presents a problem, gives you a bypass, but makes it dangerous to use. Do you see why this game wasn’t well received? And it’s not like battles are short bursts, either. Even jumping 2000 FPS, they can still go upwards of ten seconds. It’s just not a fun game. There’s also a summon system, but it suffers from the same problems.
Between the battles and the bland dungeons that are either mazes or Sylph Co. tile puzzles, it’s hella unfun.
And it’s not like the story is worth digging into. You play as Shukran, a girl who stumbles upon a ring that holds Ifrit, the King of the Djinns. Shukran becomes his master because Ifrit was tasked to grant 1000 wishes by the man who sealed him eons ago. And wouldn’t ya know it, he’s at wish 999! All Ifrit has to do is bring peace to the world and stop the Deevs, who seem to be bugs. Along the way, we learn an old ally of Ifrit is aligned with the Deevs, so they need to seek counsel with the rest of the elemental djinns, fully restore Ifrit’s sealed powers, and have some pointless dude named Harty join them. So it’s just a collection quest with some exposition at the start and the very end that leaves me empty. So…Pokemon without the fun.
But what did Harty bring to the story? We met his whys, but we never experienced the results. His battle skills don’t affect bosses, and the auto battle won’t use them. He brings nothing to the story. And that’s all that can be said about him.
Ifrit’s special skills are magic and are unlocked by finding magical crystals. They’re flashy and work well, but fall off late game. You can beat up your enemies with bunnies, so the game does have some cool bits.
Shukran is a summoner, but there’s no point in using the summons for reasons already stated earlier. It’s all so confusing.
But there’s one more reason to malign the encounter rate. It makes the game too easy. You’re in so many fights that you’re over leveled. Bosses are a breeze, and there’s no tension in the game. There is a mod to lower the rates, which might make the game more interesting.
But you still have to suffer through the soundtrack. It’s the worst on the console! As you’d expect, there are Arabian sounding tracks, but for some reason, there’s also a lot of jazz fusion mixes, even in the same songs. Shukran’s overworld theme is the worst song I’ve ever heard, even worse than Grandia’s Biran Plateau. And there are a few other tracks that are just annoying to hear. It’s more baffling decisions, and I’m understanding how bad games get made.
But, hey, sprites look good. It turns out that making some four squares big adds a lot of detail to the world and makes the game pop. And those portraits! Too bad dungeons are bad, all mountains are the same, and enemies are palette swaps.
I liked that you can see Shukran in different clothes, but they’re for short lived, optional scenes, so whatever…
The best thing about Arabian Nights is that it’s short. The best ending takes less than fifteen hours, and it’s an easy task if you explore. Just make sure to free all the other djinns. But are the extra endings worth seeing? No. For several reasons.
If you lower the encounter rate, Arabian Nights is so milktoast of a game that it’s barely worth playing. But with this disaster of a design choice, it’s totally unplayable. At best, it’s just boring. I enjoyed some of the things, but AN was just forgettable.
21/50; Might have given me the flu again.
Sunday, April 19, 2026
This was an RTS.
Maybe an RPG-lite, but why did I play it?
The real questions are, did I enjoy Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (yes), and is Ogre Battle actually good (no).
As I said, Ogre Battle is not a traditional RPG. There are stats and mechanics like turn based battles, exp, and equipment. But you don’t actually control characters. It plays as an RTS game, so think Command & Conquer or Age of Empires. The only resource you need to pay attention to is money, so you don’t need to construct additional pylons. Select a unit and send them out into the world to claim towns and temples away from an evil empire. Along the way, your units, squads of high fantasy groups that you put together, fight against enemies of a similar assortment who want to claim your base. It’s just that simple. What’s novel is how the battles function. It’s AI vs AI. You can give orders, but you don’t have direct control, even over the unit your player character governs. Your only input is directing your groups around the map and popping tarot cards (which are just magic spells) to give an edge to your teams in battle. It’s very simple, but it also makes gameplay a tad stale. You can make the teams before you head into battle, but the AI does all the busy work, so get that fast forward button ready.
Creating the teams is an in depth experience. Where you place your group leader matters. Setting them in the front row leaves them vulnerable, but allows them to use their full strength. Unless they’re a mage, so put them in the back. But do you put them with physical attackers or magic users? 1-4 line or 4-1? Or something in between? What about monsters or undead? Make use of their movement skills? Can you find the secret ones? What gear are they equipped with? Jobs can also evolve and grow, which can be a double edged sword, too. Those job growths are based on alignment and charisma, both of which are a pain to adjust. Just don’t let a leader die, or that squad is gone for the rest of the battle.
But not only is the basic war gameplay kinda boring, but there are several mechanics that actively work against you. If you’re too strong, your alignment goes down. Alignment is the stat that governs whether you’re a good and just warrior or an evil tyrant. Good natured leaders work better during the day and worse at night. They also get “rewarded” more when liberating a city. There’s also a separate sort of gauge for your army as a whole, and that’s where my biggest problem with Ogre Battle lies. It is so easy to lose karma but feels nigh impossible to regain. Losing control of one city undoes four battles worth of gains. Certain story beats change depending on your karma, so losing it over something you have little control over or one simple mistake feels overly punishing. You’re not allowed to be wrong in a game about choices. Low karma results in a boring game, but high karma creates options, new party members, and an actual deep narrative that the game tries to rob you of. Alignment is also vital for job growth, so you might lock a mediocre warrior or mage into something because their squad got ganged up on in a city they were guarding.
And good luck training up squads you didn’t/couldn’t want to waste money on. Enemies have set levels and don’t respawn, so you’ll need to get your squads right off the bat and hope none fall behind because they won’t catch up. They’ll just die, and let the city they were guarding fall. RIP your karma.
Music is warlike. It certainly fits the setting, and there isn’t much variety. It’s only thirty minutes long on YouTube, and both chill tunes sound the same. The only others get played during character creation. Good quality, though.
Visuals are along the same lines. Brightly colored plains are the primary biome of this planet. And they are very bright. Like, excessively sometimes. Layouts are varied, of course, but this sameness is also a double edged sword. Nothing is exciting to look at, but you do pick up on things like the location of hidden cities. It creates cohesion in the game. And the sprites follow suit. You know what your enemy team is, and even their leader, by the world map sprite. Bosses, I think, have unique sprites, but I wasn’t paying too close attention. Those fights are stressful.
The world is…odd. You get a home base for every map, but where did we get that base from? As much as I hated Fire Emblem, being able to puzzle together an entire world map because your base is the same base you just captured in the last battle was hella rad. Ogre Battle’s world, though, is incoherent and strewn about. NPCs are, shockingly, along the same lines. Most aren’t named, and the ones that are are optional. Exploration is here, but it feels random. Buried chests are scattered around the world, but there’s rarely an indication of their location.
But I have to reiterate how punishing it is to lose a town. It totally messes with the flow and goal of the game.
To wrap it up, Ogre Battle is a flawed game, perhaps one of the most so. But I’m also having a lot of fun and kinda want to keep trudging on. I’m curious about the story beats and the enemies that join our team. I’m just gonna cheat. There are twelve different endings, with each having minor differences based on who’s on your team, too, which is huge! And yet, Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen is only a 26/50. It’s the lack of variety and conflicting mechanics that drag it down. I’ll give it some pity points and say it’s the second best 52% game I’ve played.
The real questions are, did I enjoy Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (yes), and is Ogre Battle actually good (no).
As I said, Ogre Battle is not a traditional RPG. There are stats and mechanics like turn based battles, exp, and equipment. But you don’t actually control characters. It plays as an RTS game, so think Command & Conquer or Age of Empires. The only resource you need to pay attention to is money, so you don’t need to construct additional pylons. Select a unit and send them out into the world to claim towns and temples away from an evil empire. Along the way, your units, squads of high fantasy groups that you put together, fight against enemies of a similar assortment who want to claim your base. It’s just that simple. What’s novel is how the battles function. It’s AI vs AI. You can give orders, but you don’t have direct control, even over the unit your player character governs. Your only input is directing your groups around the map and popping tarot cards (which are just magic spells) to give an edge to your teams in battle. It’s very simple, but it also makes gameplay a tad stale. You can make the teams before you head into battle, but the AI does all the busy work, so get that fast forward button ready.
Creating the teams is an in depth experience. Where you place your group leader matters. Setting them in the front row leaves them vulnerable, but allows them to use their full strength. Unless they’re a mage, so put them in the back. But do you put them with physical attackers or magic users? 1-4 line or 4-1? Or something in between? What about monsters or undead? Make use of their movement skills? Can you find the secret ones? What gear are they equipped with? Jobs can also evolve and grow, which can be a double edged sword, too. Those job growths are based on alignment and charisma, both of which are a pain to adjust. Just don’t let a leader die, or that squad is gone for the rest of the battle.
But not only is the basic war gameplay kinda boring, but there are several mechanics that actively work against you. If you’re too strong, your alignment goes down. Alignment is the stat that governs whether you’re a good and just warrior or an evil tyrant. Good natured leaders work better during the day and worse at night. They also get “rewarded” more when liberating a city. There’s also a separate sort of gauge for your army as a whole, and that’s where my biggest problem with Ogre Battle lies. It is so easy to lose karma but feels nigh impossible to regain. Losing control of one city undoes four battles worth of gains. Certain story beats change depending on your karma, so losing it over something you have little control over or one simple mistake feels overly punishing. You’re not allowed to be wrong in a game about choices. Low karma results in a boring game, but high karma creates options, new party members, and an actual deep narrative that the game tries to rob you of. Alignment is also vital for job growth, so you might lock a mediocre warrior or mage into something because their squad got ganged up on in a city they were guarding.
And good luck training up squads you didn’t/couldn’t want to waste money on. Enemies have set levels and don’t respawn, so you’ll need to get your squads right off the bat and hope none fall behind because they won’t catch up. They’ll just die, and let the city they were guarding fall. RIP your karma.
Music is warlike. It certainly fits the setting, and there isn’t much variety. It’s only thirty minutes long on YouTube, and both chill tunes sound the same. The only others get played during character creation. Good quality, though.
Visuals are along the same lines. Brightly colored plains are the primary biome of this planet. And they are very bright. Like, excessively sometimes. Layouts are varied, of course, but this sameness is also a double edged sword. Nothing is exciting to look at, but you do pick up on things like the location of hidden cities. It creates cohesion in the game. And the sprites follow suit. You know what your enemy team is, and even their leader, by the world map sprite. Bosses, I think, have unique sprites, but I wasn’t paying too close attention. Those fights are stressful.
The world is…odd. You get a home base for every map, but where did we get that base from? As much as I hated Fire Emblem, being able to puzzle together an entire world map because your base is the same base you just captured in the last battle was hella rad. Ogre Battle’s world, though, is incoherent and strewn about. NPCs are, shockingly, along the same lines. Most aren’t named, and the ones that are are optional. Exploration is here, but it feels random. Buried chests are scattered around the world, but there’s rarely an indication of their location.
But I have to reiterate how punishing it is to lose a town. It totally messes with the flow and goal of the game.
To wrap it up, Ogre Battle is a flawed game, perhaps one of the most so. But I’m also having a lot of fun and kinda want to keep trudging on. I’m curious about the story beats and the enemies that join our team. I’m just gonna cheat. There are twelve different endings, with each having minor differences based on who’s on your team, too, which is huge! And yet, Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen is only a 26/50. It’s the lack of variety and conflicting mechanics that drag it down. I’ll give it some pity points and say it’s the second best 52% game I’ve played.
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
The floor.
I should have kept my word and not played this.
When I started this task, I had hoped to find some true hidden gems. Hell, maybe I’d find a new favorite game or something that could rival Chrono Trigger in its excellence. I knew I’d discover some wacky and different ways to play RPGs. I also expected to play some absolute duds that never should have been made. But I couldn’t expect something like this.
Not only have I just dropped the worst game I hope to play on the SNES, but I just dropped the worst score I’ve given. A 0 out of 50.
How does a game achieve this fabled score? You’d think it would be a lot of bugs, but I didn’t find a single one. From my short research, no one’s talking about bugs, so I assume there aren’t any. So the problems are intended! Let’s begin with the charm, if you want to call it that.
The game is on rails, with no exploration. Maybe some additional dialogue if you bring two people together, and want to waste a turn, but that’s it. And none of that is cute. There isn’t anything neat to look at either. And even if something bad happens, like the girl who was the key component of the inciting incident, the story won’t change. It’s a fifty hour game, with every chapter taking three to four hours (or at least the first two), so to hell with replayability and length. The world is wholly connected, and I assume that at least a few side characters among the eight million NPCs are important. So that’s 2 points.
The game in question was released in 1996. So why does it look like an NES+ game? There is no variety in units. Your allies are slightly different, but I still accidentally had my archer take to the frontlines too often because she looked like my cavalry units. And they did all look the same. And every enemy, generic or named, is an exact copy of each other. Oh, but the weapon changes! Whoopty do! Spells are rare, so the only animation is swinging your weapon. But at least the landscape looks good… 1 point.
The music… fine. I kinda enjoyed two songs, both of which front end the OST as chapters two and three. For some reason, though, they’re not fitting with the story. These are relaxing songs in the middle of a war. Most of the game is just jingles when your characters attack or heal, so most of that doesn’t matter. I’ll be nice and give this portion 5 points.
We’ll save the gameplay for last, which means we’re talking about the story. So this game has a lot of characters. You get twenty four of them in the first half. None of them are particularly fleshed out or feel relevant outside of the twenty minutes after they join. And the enemies are much of the same. Just orange/brown swabs. The second half appears to nearly double that. I can’t possibly care about that many. And I doubt the game does too. It’s just bodies for the sake of breeding.
The plot itself is filled with melodrama, almost to the point of comedy. You’re dragged into war, with several other nations as well. You have a reason, but other countries are just opportunistic nonsense. During all this killing, you’re betrayed and branded a criminal, even in your own country, apparently. In exile, you fall in love with a fairy, but she’s eventually kidnapped and forced to marry your rival. She’s brainwashed and given amnesia. Your rival then kills you and all your friends and has two children with your wife. Fortunately, all of your friends had kids at the same time, so your son eventually raises an army with all those other kids to reclaim what’s yours and kills your rival’s son. Good thing one person survived to tell you all of this. There’s some nonsense about a cult and crazy incest along the way, too. Turns out the big bad bad, your half brother, is also an incest baby. Some of those twists seem silly to me, but I didn’t get very far in the game, so maybe the story is better than I believe. Still isn’t doing much to help the characters... Ultimately, it has disguised depth with convolution, which is a serious sin to me. Once again, I’ll be generous and say the overall plot gets a respectable 6 points. How did your son survive the massacre?
But let’s talk about the main interactivity of the game: the battle system. It’s an SRPG with far too large battlefields. 32x32 fields. They take forever to traverse, and the bland combat doesn’t help. That in and of itself is boring! The prologue chapter took me three hours to get through, and chapter one looked like it would be something similar. I have to imagine later battles will be even longer because of epicosity. The areas themselves look different, but there’s no variety otherwise. So the basics are troubling, but then they try to get fancy with it.
Transferring inventory items costs money.
Weapons degrade with every use; one for every swing, with a max of fifty.
And there is perma death. Every action can result in a stupider story, a weaker party, and less fun. And there isn’t much fun to be had here anyway.
There is very limited healing in battle as well. At most, you can heal two units a turn. One way uses a staff’s durability, and the other involves paying a church because god needs money.
It’s all an exercise in tedium. In total, the game has 17 points of negativity.
For those not doing math, I lied. This game doesn’t get 0 out of 50. It actually has -1. A negative score! I know I gave Magic: The Gathering Arena a negative score, but that is a digital game meant to recreate a tabletop card game. It’s different than this one. This negative one feels truly damning. But I’m apparently the only person who thinks this, as the game in question has decent review scores.
But enough tattling around. What game gets a negative score? Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of Holy War. I told myself I wasn’t going to play this, but I did. And I’m filled with regrets. But FEIV has everything I hate about the subgenre. The battles are too large, there are too many characters, perma death, and inventory nonsense twice over. The melodramatic story about using long lost half siblings is creepy, and everyone existing simply to mate is silly. What happens if everyone dies and there’s no bloodline to make? The idea that a game could unfun itself is awful. I know I only played five hours of FEIV, but I’m already so bored. I probably could take a few more points off, but I’d rather just move on and forget I ever played this garbage.
Enjoy your -1/50.
When I started this task, I had hoped to find some true hidden gems. Hell, maybe I’d find a new favorite game or something that could rival Chrono Trigger in its excellence. I knew I’d discover some wacky and different ways to play RPGs. I also expected to play some absolute duds that never should have been made. But I couldn’t expect something like this.
Not only have I just dropped the worst game I hope to play on the SNES, but I just dropped the worst score I’ve given. A 0 out of 50.
How does a game achieve this fabled score? You’d think it would be a lot of bugs, but I didn’t find a single one. From my short research, no one’s talking about bugs, so I assume there aren’t any. So the problems are intended! Let’s begin with the charm, if you want to call it that.
The game is on rails, with no exploration. Maybe some additional dialogue if you bring two people together, and want to waste a turn, but that’s it. And none of that is cute. There isn’t anything neat to look at either. And even if something bad happens, like the girl who was the key component of the inciting incident, the story won’t change. It’s a fifty hour game, with every chapter taking three to four hours (or at least the first two), so to hell with replayability and length. The world is wholly connected, and I assume that at least a few side characters among the eight million NPCs are important. So that’s 2 points.
The game in question was released in 1996. So why does it look like an NES+ game? There is no variety in units. Your allies are slightly different, but I still accidentally had my archer take to the frontlines too often because she looked like my cavalry units. And they did all look the same. And every enemy, generic or named, is an exact copy of each other. Oh, but the weapon changes! Whoopty do! Spells are rare, so the only animation is swinging your weapon. But at least the landscape looks good… 1 point.
The music… fine. I kinda enjoyed two songs, both of which front end the OST as chapters two and three. For some reason, though, they’re not fitting with the story. These are relaxing songs in the middle of a war. Most of the game is just jingles when your characters attack or heal, so most of that doesn’t matter. I’ll be nice and give this portion 5 points.
We’ll save the gameplay for last, which means we’re talking about the story. So this game has a lot of characters. You get twenty four of them in the first half. None of them are particularly fleshed out or feel relevant outside of the twenty minutes after they join. And the enemies are much of the same. Just orange/brown swabs. The second half appears to nearly double that. I can’t possibly care about that many. And I doubt the game does too. It’s just bodies for the sake of breeding.
The plot itself is filled with melodrama, almost to the point of comedy. You’re dragged into war, with several other nations as well. You have a reason, but other countries are just opportunistic nonsense. During all this killing, you’re betrayed and branded a criminal, even in your own country, apparently. In exile, you fall in love with a fairy, but she’s eventually kidnapped and forced to marry your rival. She’s brainwashed and given amnesia. Your rival then kills you and all your friends and has two children with your wife. Fortunately, all of your friends had kids at the same time, so your son eventually raises an army with all those other kids to reclaim what’s yours and kills your rival’s son. Good thing one person survived to tell you all of this. There’s some nonsense about a cult and crazy incest along the way, too. Turns out the big bad bad, your half brother, is also an incest baby. Some of those twists seem silly to me, but I didn’t get very far in the game, so maybe the story is better than I believe. Still isn’t doing much to help the characters... Ultimately, it has disguised depth with convolution, which is a serious sin to me. Once again, I’ll be generous and say the overall plot gets a respectable 6 points. How did your son survive the massacre?
But let’s talk about the main interactivity of the game: the battle system. It’s an SRPG with far too large battlefields. 32x32 fields. They take forever to traverse, and the bland combat doesn’t help. That in and of itself is boring! The prologue chapter took me three hours to get through, and chapter one looked like it would be something similar. I have to imagine later battles will be even longer because of epicosity. The areas themselves look different, but there’s no variety otherwise. So the basics are troubling, but then they try to get fancy with it.
Transferring inventory items costs money.
Weapons degrade with every use; one for every swing, with a max of fifty.
And there is perma death. Every action can result in a stupider story, a weaker party, and less fun. And there isn’t much fun to be had here anyway.
There is very limited healing in battle as well. At most, you can heal two units a turn. One way uses a staff’s durability, and the other involves paying a church because god needs money.
It’s all an exercise in tedium. In total, the game has 17 points of negativity.
For those not doing math, I lied. This game doesn’t get 0 out of 50. It actually has -1. A negative score! I know I gave Magic: The Gathering Arena a negative score, but that is a digital game meant to recreate a tabletop card game. It’s different than this one. This negative one feels truly damning. But I’m apparently the only person who thinks this, as the game in question has decent review scores.
But enough tattling around. What game gets a negative score? Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of Holy War. I told myself I wasn’t going to play this, but I did. And I’m filled with regrets. But FEIV has everything I hate about the subgenre. The battles are too large, there are too many characters, perma death, and inventory nonsense twice over. The melodramatic story about using long lost half siblings is creepy, and everyone existing simply to mate is silly. What happens if everyone dies and there’s no bloodline to make? The idea that a game could unfun itself is awful. I know I only played five hours of FEIV, but I’m already so bored. I probably could take a few more points off, but I’d rather just move on and forget I ever played this garbage.
Enjoy your -1/50.
Monday, April 13, 2026
Isekai the game!
This was almost a joy…
The Magical World of Wozz, or Chou-Mahou Tairiku Wozz, is a cute romp through a world of magic and war. You play as Leona, Shot, and Chun, three humans from the real world who are mistakenly warped to Wozz to prevent a tyrant from taking over that world. The elder of Wozz, Sullivan, meant for one great hero but accidentally called forth three kids. He was just as shocked as the kids were. But they’re here, and they’re stuck, so they might as well hero it up. If they want to return home, they need to defeat Balam!
Sullivan gives the three their first task: stop the Fear Rain from turning people into monsters. This hits rocky ground early as Shot is focused on the main task and runs off to do that. And this is our introduction to another of the game’s neat mechanics of branching storylines. Each of the three main characters gets a slightly different view of the world. These times are short lived and infrequent but are welcome nonetheless. They find the culprit of the Fear Rain and end that, but now they need more power. And the best way to do that is to find the magic fairies!
Our next bit of divergence is how the three play. Chun, the shy Chinese boy, is the resident mage and gains new spells by finding the eight elemental fairies. Bomb is an element. Meanwhile, Leona, the Japanese genius, is an inventor who creates new weapons for everyone and even alternative ways to traverse the world, like an elephant tank. She allows us to reach the final dungeon when she constructs the airship. I weirdly enjoyed warping around the world, buying the materials, and turning them into new things. And then there’s the American Shot… Shot shoots things. But with a bow!
Along the way, they’re joined by an assortment of fourth party members who fill out the battlefield. They range from the short term important to the “why are you here?” types. Ceramic did not need to be here, but Elise and Ramue could have been expanded. Ultimately, they’re all just generic units to be switched out at any phone booth at your leisure.
It’s cute, humorous, and low stakes, but is, most importantly, a lot of fun. I spent thirty five hours in Wozz and enjoyed thirty of them. The last five were fine enough, but I think the worst thing Wozz does is it Necron’s itself. The real final boss didn’t need to be here. There was little foreshadowing for him, and the tone of the game shifts. Body horror and generic experimentation kinda kill the vibe. But it’s short, relatively easy, so maybe you won’t mind as much as I did.
The music adds to the whimsy of the world. It’s filled with fluttery, airy notes that make me think of wind and other fairy aspects. But there’s the occasional earthy bass underneath some tracks. But all that goes out the window when battle starts or when the scene gets heavy. Or when the villages are filled with zombies, skeletons, and ghosts.
The artwork is consistent with these vibes. High quality sprites and spell animations (eventually) show off the power of magic. Enemy sprites are reused frequently, but our playable cast, the main three especially, shine and can be compared to some of the best on the system. But maybe I just have a weakness for legs. There aren’t a lot of lower body garments in the world of Wozz.
But I can’t get over the twist at the end. The painfully slow walking speed is also a drag. There is no running through towns in this game, which turns getting from the phone booths to the shops and then to the workshop four times longer than it needs to.
Before I give my final score, I want to talk about a new review system I’m dabbling with. I’m not gonna stray far away from my usual fifty rankings because it’s nice and simple, but I’ve worked on a weighted system. I’m probably using that word wrong, but whatever. I’ve expanded and added more qualifiers, so it’s now out of 200 points. I’ll skip the meat and say that, with that new system, The Magical World of Wozz gets 142.83 points and ranks in at twenty two on my SNES list. But it could be more. If we could run through towns, and the game ended at Balam, it might be a top ten. Instead, Wozz wallows with an official 34 out of 50 points.
Wozz is a low stakes game that’s more fun than anything else, which is really all that matters at the end of the day. It’s a solid experience with few downsides that I’d recommend.
The Magical World of Wozz, or Chou-Mahou Tairiku Wozz, is a cute romp through a world of magic and war. You play as Leona, Shot, and Chun, three humans from the real world who are mistakenly warped to Wozz to prevent a tyrant from taking over that world. The elder of Wozz, Sullivan, meant for one great hero but accidentally called forth three kids. He was just as shocked as the kids were. But they’re here, and they’re stuck, so they might as well hero it up. If they want to return home, they need to defeat Balam!
Sullivan gives the three their first task: stop the Fear Rain from turning people into monsters. This hits rocky ground early as Shot is focused on the main task and runs off to do that. And this is our introduction to another of the game’s neat mechanics of branching storylines. Each of the three main characters gets a slightly different view of the world. These times are short lived and infrequent but are welcome nonetheless. They find the culprit of the Fear Rain and end that, but now they need more power. And the best way to do that is to find the magic fairies!
Our next bit of divergence is how the three play. Chun, the shy Chinese boy, is the resident mage and gains new spells by finding the eight elemental fairies. Bomb is an element. Meanwhile, Leona, the Japanese genius, is an inventor who creates new weapons for everyone and even alternative ways to traverse the world, like an elephant tank. She allows us to reach the final dungeon when she constructs the airship. I weirdly enjoyed warping around the world, buying the materials, and turning them into new things. And then there’s the American Shot… Shot shoots things. But with a bow!
Along the way, they’re joined by an assortment of fourth party members who fill out the battlefield. They range from the short term important to the “why are you here?” types. Ceramic did not need to be here, but Elise and Ramue could have been expanded. Ultimately, they’re all just generic units to be switched out at any phone booth at your leisure.
It’s cute, humorous, and low stakes, but is, most importantly, a lot of fun. I spent thirty five hours in Wozz and enjoyed thirty of them. The last five were fine enough, but I think the worst thing Wozz does is it Necron’s itself. The real final boss didn’t need to be here. There was little foreshadowing for him, and the tone of the game shifts. Body horror and generic experimentation kinda kill the vibe. But it’s short, relatively easy, so maybe you won’t mind as much as I did.
The music adds to the whimsy of the world. It’s filled with fluttery, airy notes that make me think of wind and other fairy aspects. But there’s the occasional earthy bass underneath some tracks. But all that goes out the window when battle starts or when the scene gets heavy. Or when the villages are filled with zombies, skeletons, and ghosts.
The artwork is consistent with these vibes. High quality sprites and spell animations (eventually) show off the power of magic. Enemy sprites are reused frequently, but our playable cast, the main three especially, shine and can be compared to some of the best on the system. But maybe I just have a weakness for legs. There aren’t a lot of lower body garments in the world of Wozz.
But I can’t get over the twist at the end. The painfully slow walking speed is also a drag. There is no running through towns in this game, which turns getting from the phone booths to the shops and then to the workshop four times longer than it needs to.
Before I give my final score, I want to talk about a new review system I’m dabbling with. I’m not gonna stray far away from my usual fifty rankings because it’s nice and simple, but I’ve worked on a weighted system. I’m probably using that word wrong, but whatever. I’ve expanded and added more qualifiers, so it’s now out of 200 points. I’ll skip the meat and say that, with that new system, The Magical World of Wozz gets 142.83 points and ranks in at twenty two on my SNES list. But it could be more. If we could run through towns, and the game ended at Balam, it might be a top ten. Instead, Wozz wallows with an official 34 out of 50 points.
Wozz is a low stakes game that’s more fun than anything else, which is really all that matters at the end of the day. It’s a solid experience with few downsides that I’d recommend.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
The best 5 out of 10 game.
What happens when you mix Fallout, Xenogears, and Dragon Quest, but it’s wrapped in the cloak of 1995? Metal Max Returns!
The remake of the NES’ Metal Max remains an open world, post apocalyptic, life simulator JRPG with no real plot or characterization. The world is yours, assuming you can get there. And that’s the only real blockade in your path of being a hunter. And your lack of a tank at the start. To say nothing of your dad kicking you out of the house…
Travel the ruined world, dispatching outlaws and weirdos along the way, exploring what remains, finding new friends, and maybe even discovering remnants of the old world. Buuuuuut, if you ever want to, you can come home whenever you want and end this journey. Surely, your dad won’t hold a grudge?
Why is this review so weird? BECAUSE NOTHING HAPPENS IN THIS GAME!!!
Metal Max Returns can be a lot of fun, but you need the right mindset. Everything happens because you set it off, but everything is also optional. The other two characters? Not important. Gathering tanks, hunting criminals, walking through destroyed skyscrapers? Only if you want to. You’re able to get to the final dungeon instantly, presuming you know the map and the proper paths. The concept is tremendous, but that’s all it is. You’re a silent protagonist just living his own dream. The game even ends whenever you want it to; you just have to apologize to your dad. Does that come after your first death, your first kill, or when you take out the strongest foe? That’s the only story here. 2/10
Gameplay is where it’s at. You take your tank and customize it however you want. Flamethrower and armor piercing cannons, or a group barrage fitted alongside something that shoots lightning? You’ll need to upgrade your engine to carry all that weight, but it’s doable. You also have to do that for the characters themselves. Hell, I’m wondering if it’s possible to totally askew tanks and go it all on foot? Probably not, but if you’re good enough… Along the way are a handful of minigames, if you want to seek them out, along with ancient tech to help you out. Apparently, you can find New Vegas’ Euclid’s C Finder somewhere. 8/10
The music might be the best part. It’s shockingly upbeat, but in a way that compels even me forward into the dangerous world we now live in. There is plenty of variety despite being only forty five minutes long. The biggest problem is tied to the lack of story. There’s one sad song because there is no reason to be sad. It hinders the variety and mood. 8/10
The artwork is problematic. Since we’re all tanks shooting at each other, most of the animations are bullet storms or shell launchers. Occasionally, you’ll see something like a Tesla Arc, or the enemy will have a cool, unique animation, but the game is usually kinda bland. And the excessive pallet swaps and dungeon tileset reuse help the visual monotony. There is one rad cutscene, though. 6/10
The charm is also muted by there being zero story. The cities often interconnect in some way to form a larger subplot, and the single main NPC gets a rollercoaster of an experience, but I found myself asking “why am I doing this” too often. 6/10
Sadly, inventory management rears its ugly head too frequently. Equipment doesn’t fill up item slots, thankfully, but the game throws stuff at you to fill up your backpack. And the lack of in game help tooltip to explain what this is is damning even further. Will this small rock help me somewhere like MMR is a secret adventure game, or am I just having a lark? -2
Metal Max Returns is a faithful remaster of a regular Nintendo game. And it shows. Get ready to menu your way through twenty hours. There is no reason games need a separate button to talk to people and inspect something. And a talk button being the cancel button is asking to repeat dialogue. -2
I think I liked Metal Max Returns. The mid game difficulty can be a wall, and the lack of anything to sink your teeth into makes me think I won’t be finishing it, though. I’m just…why am I doing all this? For the thrill of adventure? That’s rad and all, but give me some stakes. Dying isn’t even punishment. You just end up back at home, in the lab of a necromancer… I just want more out of a game. 26/50. Probably the best pallet cleanser between longer RPGs.
The remake of the NES’ Metal Max remains an open world, post apocalyptic, life simulator JRPG with no real plot or characterization. The world is yours, assuming you can get there. And that’s the only real blockade in your path of being a hunter. And your lack of a tank at the start. To say nothing of your dad kicking you out of the house…
Travel the ruined world, dispatching outlaws and weirdos along the way, exploring what remains, finding new friends, and maybe even discovering remnants of the old world. Buuuuuut, if you ever want to, you can come home whenever you want and end this journey. Surely, your dad won’t hold a grudge?
Why is this review so weird? BECAUSE NOTHING HAPPENS IN THIS GAME!!!
Metal Max Returns can be a lot of fun, but you need the right mindset. Everything happens because you set it off, but everything is also optional. The other two characters? Not important. Gathering tanks, hunting criminals, walking through destroyed skyscrapers? Only if you want to. You’re able to get to the final dungeon instantly, presuming you know the map and the proper paths. The concept is tremendous, but that’s all it is. You’re a silent protagonist just living his own dream. The game even ends whenever you want it to; you just have to apologize to your dad. Does that come after your first death, your first kill, or when you take out the strongest foe? That’s the only story here. 2/10
Gameplay is where it’s at. You take your tank and customize it however you want. Flamethrower and armor piercing cannons, or a group barrage fitted alongside something that shoots lightning? You’ll need to upgrade your engine to carry all that weight, but it’s doable. You also have to do that for the characters themselves. Hell, I’m wondering if it’s possible to totally askew tanks and go it all on foot? Probably not, but if you’re good enough… Along the way are a handful of minigames, if you want to seek them out, along with ancient tech to help you out. Apparently, you can find New Vegas’ Euclid’s C Finder somewhere. 8/10
The music might be the best part. It’s shockingly upbeat, but in a way that compels even me forward into the dangerous world we now live in. There is plenty of variety despite being only forty five minutes long. The biggest problem is tied to the lack of story. There’s one sad song because there is no reason to be sad. It hinders the variety and mood. 8/10
The artwork is problematic. Since we’re all tanks shooting at each other, most of the animations are bullet storms or shell launchers. Occasionally, you’ll see something like a Tesla Arc, or the enemy will have a cool, unique animation, but the game is usually kinda bland. And the excessive pallet swaps and dungeon tileset reuse help the visual monotony. There is one rad cutscene, though. 6/10
The charm is also muted by there being zero story. The cities often interconnect in some way to form a larger subplot, and the single main NPC gets a rollercoaster of an experience, but I found myself asking “why am I doing this” too often. 6/10
Sadly, inventory management rears its ugly head too frequently. Equipment doesn’t fill up item slots, thankfully, but the game throws stuff at you to fill up your backpack. And the lack of in game help tooltip to explain what this is is damning even further. Will this small rock help me somewhere like MMR is a secret adventure game, or am I just having a lark? -2
Metal Max Returns is a faithful remaster of a regular Nintendo game. And it shows. Get ready to menu your way through twenty hours. There is no reason games need a separate button to talk to people and inspect something. And a talk button being the cancel button is asking to repeat dialogue. -2
I think I liked Metal Max Returns. The mid game difficulty can be a wall, and the lack of anything to sink your teeth into makes me think I won’t be finishing it, though. I’m just…why am I doing all this? For the thrill of adventure? That’s rad and all, but give me some stakes. Dying isn’t even punishment. You just end up back at home, in the lab of a necromancer… I just want more out of a game. 26/50. Probably the best pallet cleanser between longer RPGs.
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