Highlander 5x18 - Archangel

 

The run of awesome episodes is over, now we get a pretty bad one as an ancient demon awakens... it's an episode that should have been awesome. At least Richie is back. While I think that Fitzcairn is (was) Duncan's best friend, I think that Richie is the audience's best friend. He's pretty crucial to this show.

Aired May 19th, 1997. Which is worth noting because May 19th is considered a day of bad luck / evil in many cultures, the opposite pole from Halloween on the spirit calendar.

Legend of Zelda: Four Swords (Game Boy Advance, 2002)

 

It's dangerous to go alone! Here, take 3 more Links.

Highlander 5x17 - The Modern Prometheus

 

The end of "the best seven episode run in the entire series" as I keep putting it is this episode right here. It kinda stands alone after the last few, with a different filming style and weird disregard for everything Duncan might have learned in the episode right before this. It's one of those episodes that I didn't think that highly of at first viewing and then really appreciated what it was going for on repeat viewings. Also, the ending of this episode is what I thought was kinda the pinnacle moment of the whole show as a kid. It was a "the show really made it" moment. It's another episode that feels like it could have been a series finale.

Aired May 12th, 1997. I actually recommend stopping the show after this episode and jumping forward to the last three episodes of the series. That's right, I recommend skipping some ten or eleven episodes. We'll see if those episodes are better than I remember, but as of right now, I think they followed the best 7 episode run in the series immediately with the worst run of episodes. Season 6 is short and kind of mediocre.

"Forgive Us Our Trespasses" or "Duende" would have both been worthy season finales or maybe even series finales. Especially Duende, if it were a two-parter and made into a bit more of a movie. That way, the hours-long waltz of a final battle between Duncan and Consone could have been much longer.

Pokemon Platinum (Generation 4), Part 6 - Byron and Candice

Candice, master of Ice, is definitely one of the cuter gym leaders out there. Also featuring Byron, the FATHER OF ROARK. ...this never comes up again.

Dai Makaimura (Arcade/Supergrafx, 1988/1990)

 

Who is the most powerful character in this picture? Arthur, hero of the realm? The building-sized demon in the background? Nope, neither. Princess Prin-Prin is the most powerful character in this picture. Literally everything happening in the world of Ghosts n' Goblins / Ghouls n' Ghosts is happening around and because of her. She is the most hotly-demanded, intensely-desired character in this realm. It's easy to see why, just look at her. Wars are fought over her sick 'bod, while men and demons of all kinds line up to try and be the one who gets to try to please her.

As for the game, I heard there was a Supergrafx (Turbografx upgrade) version that was basically arcade perfect, and wanted to give it a whirl. Unfortunately, couldn't really get that going, so I ended up just going with the arcade version. It's readily available on Capcom Arcade Stadium for PS4/5. I've already played the Sega Genesis version of this game, and it was pretty good, but now I'm going straight to the source with the best version.

RIP Patrick Stewart

 

Late breaking: What a terrible week for Trek fans (and also fans of X-Men, Shakespeare, and everything else this very accomplished guy did). Glad he got to do one last show before he went.

Makaimura (Arcade, 1985)

 

The original arcade version of one of my favorite NES games: What became Ghosts n' Goblins. This is a vastly-better version of the game, both visually and control-wise, and probably the best way to revisit it at this point.

Ranking The Hardest Gym Leaders In Pokemon (The Gym Leader All-Star Game)

 

Pokemania continues with something a bit out-of-the-box. Rather than doing a boss difficulty ranking or something, which has been done a thousand times and is highly subjective/variable, I came up with something a little bit more interesting/different that I haven't seen done before. This is NOT a ranking of the eight toughest bosses overall. It's me figuring out who the toughest boss (across the series) is for each gym number, to pick the toughest representative for each number and put them in a set of eight.

I'll be going off of the original versions of each generation, NOT remakes that came later. Most of the remakes nerfed quite a few of their tougher fights, with one big exception of Gen 4 beefing them up. For this list, the regular or deluxe versions count for determining the overall threat level of each gym leader. It's very telling that all of these are from the earlier games in the series...yeah, the challenge level really fell off a cliff as the generations went by.

Pokemon Platinum (Generation 4), Part 5 - Maylene and Crasher Wake

Her upper quarter and lower quarter are dressed for Winter! Her middle half is dressed for Summer! It's Dawn!

Pokemon Platinum (Generation 4), Part 4 - Fantina

 

It's important to free the nipple. Let them get fresh air. Let them BREATHE.

Today on Pokemon: I take on the second-hardest fight in the game. Fantina, mistress of Ghost-types, is formidable. At this stage of the game, options are very limited. Will I have an answer prepared in time?

Dragonball Z Kakarot Part 20 - -DAIMA- Adventure Through The Demon Realm PART 2 - Second Half

 

This is it, the culmination of Daima. The big final battle. Akira Toriyama's final gift to the world. Featuring his own version of Super Saiyan 4. That's right, it's finally canon in the DBZ to Super timeline.

Dragonball Z Kakarot Part 19 - -DAIMA- Adventure Through The Demon Realm PART 2 - First Half

 

Daima was the last thing Akira Toriyama left us with, and as weird as it is, it's a pretty cool final present for the fans. It takes place after Dragonball Z and has our heroes go on a new adventure, serving almost as a bridge between Z and Super. It would have made a lot more sense if it had come out in the 2000's, between the two shows, rather than recently when most people are just waiting for the Moro Arc. Regardless, I really like Daima, and it feels almost like someone mixed DB, DBZ, and DBGT in a bowl and added all the Toriyama-isms they could.

That said, it's full of plot holes and retroactively causes quite a bit of early DB Super to not make sense (wondering if the strangely-named "DB Super Beerus" exists mainly to smooth that out and explain why nobody uses their new abilities from Daima during the first arc of Super...eh, probably not)

Pokemon Platinum (Generation 4), Part 3 - Gardenia

 

Today on Pokemon, the important questions get asked. What is Team Galactic really up to? What's beyond Eterna Forest? And is Dawn about to go on a European Sex Tour like the woman in Pokemon Legends Z-A did? Amsterdam, here we come.

Highlander 5x16 - Forgive Us Our Trespasses

 

It's Monday night, you know what that means. This episode initially aired May 5th, 1997. Considering it takes place in Winter, it was airing pretty late into the year - they really found a way to make the shorter-than-normal Season 5 last. This episode is a complex story about war, the ethics of it, forgiveness for it, and so on. It's nuanced enough to not have "good guys" or "bad guys" and present two sides as both being right in their own minds...so the normal human state.

One of the best episodes in S5, this is an episode that basically emits pure atmosphere. It feels a lot like a "final episode" of a show, and could have been the final episode of this show easily enough. Maybe the show would be better off if it was. This episode has a ton in common with the actual final episode of the series; both have Duncan questioning whether he's done more harm than good. Or at least, too much harm.

Pokemon Platinum (Generation 4), Part 2 - Roark

 

Today on Plat: Dawn slays Roark. That's right, she killed him. She takes this Poke-battling stuff way too seriously. Hopefully she can get off with the "Juvenile Rage" defense.

Dragonball Z Kakarot Part 18 - -DAIMA- Adventure Through The Demon Realm PART 1

 

I thought Kakarot was done. This surprisingly deep action-RPG has had no less than EIGHT DLCs added to it at this point. Most of them are fairly lengthy, too, feeling more like expansions or standalone small games than mere updates. This is the biggest one yet (and might be the last, though they've said that before), covering the Dragonball Daima series. It's actually split into two DLCs (#7 and #8), costing $10 each (or $15 for both), with the first being the more RPG-like open world of the Demon Realm and the second being all of the major fights that occured near the end of the top-heavy Daima show. While the Daima Part 1 DLC is very middle of the pack for Kakarot DLCs, I've heard Daima Part 2 called the best DLC they've made.

Daima itself is a super ridiculous series full of plotholes, with a lighthearted plot and nothing really serious or dark happening. It was a fun thing to watch, even if I'm not really sure why it exists. Was anyone really demanding a mid-quel taking place between Z and Super at this point? And one that creates a bunch of plotholes in Super. Well, let's go.

Pokemon Platinum (Generation 4) (Nintendo DS, 2008)

 

Man, that is one ugly box-art. No wonder I never gave this a whirl in-era on the DS. Back in 2006 I found Pokémon Diamond to be an incredibly slow, molasses-like game, so for a long time it warded me off of the series. I didn't get back into the series until a decade later with Gen 7.

Similarly, for these posts there was a ten year break between the first three generations and this one. In the interim I did the two Legends games and the Gen 1 remakes, but that's about it. Picking up with 2008 here.

The good news is that Gen 4's deluxe/upgrade version Pokémon Platinum fixes a lot of the issues with Gen 4 and speeds things up quite a bit. This is EASILY the definitive version of Gen 4, and one of the best Pokémon games period. It started a bit of a renaissance for the series, being followed by Gen 5 (debatably the best one) and super-solid remakes of Gens 2 and 3. Platinum heralds a pretty huge turnaround considering how bad Gen 4 started.

Historically, Pokémon posts were always R-Rated and weird as hell. Read at your own risk.

Resistance: Fall of Man (Playstation 3, 2006)

 

I wanted to revisit something from the late 2000's, early-HD, Brown AF, Playstation 3 Generation. I mentioned this game a few times as being Sony's answer to Halo, so it immediately sprang to mind. It really doesn't have that much in common with Halo besides that they're both first-person shooters against an alien foe. Rather than a futuristic game with laser weapons and so forth, this is an alternate-history 1950 story, with era-appropriate weaponry. It posits the question: What if WW2 never happened, and everyone had to band together to repel an alien invasion instead?

It's an interesting game, and covers my PS3 era nostalgia well enough.

Pokken Tournament DX (Nintendo Switch, 2017)

 

Released September 22nd, 2017. So like, this very week. What better way to kick off a month of POKEMANIA. Fall always makes me think of the start of a new school year, and Pokémon, since as a kid I mostly played this series when other kids were playing it.

This game is something a little different. It's a revamped port of the Wii U version, which dropped in March 2016, and was in arcades for a bit before that. It's a Pokémon fighting game, combining elements of Pokémon with elements of the Tekken series. So of course I've gotta see this.

This is a first time playthrough from somebody who has no idea what to expect.

Ranking the Five AEW All Ins

Here we go, time for another wrestling list. This is an entirely subjective ranking, and anyone else could have a completely different opinion and be just as right. As a result, this was very difficult to put together, take it from me. Any one of these shows could lay a claim to being #1 on someone else's list for a variety of reasons, which I'm going to get into as well.

A couple years ago I did a Ranking the Top 40 Wrestlemanias list that took significantly longer than this, and remember thinking it would be cool to do the same for All In events. I just had to wait for enough of them to exist! Two All Ins later, I can finally do a ranking list. See you again for the Top Ten in a few years.

Ranking the Enterprises in Star Trek

For Star Trek's 60th anniversary, it seemed appropriate to do some Trek material. This list will be based primarily on the aesthetics and look of each ship. Not the power/capabilities (which would just put them in chronological order) or how much airtime they got or how well they were used. When it comes down to it, only a couple of these ships have really gotten airtime or had shows dedicated to them. So yeah, this is about aesthetics and how much I like looking at any given ship on TV.

Side note: I think that chart above is oversizing Excelsior a bit. I was under the impression it was just a little bigger than the Enterprise-A, and closer to that ship than it is to the C or D. It's just as likely that it's undersizing the Kirk Enterprises, though.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#736 - 756)

#736 Valkyria Chronicles 4 (Switch) – Fall 2018

All I played from this series were the first and fourth games; not sure if I missed much by skipping the portable entries. One and four were both solid enough, with nice hand-drawn graphics and Hitoshi Sakimoto music which is always a huge plus for me. Don't recall too much about this, and what I do recall, I'm not certain if it's from the first game or this one.

Toughest Part...in either this or VC1: The blue-haired super-woman that you have to snipe from a distance...I think she was in the first game, actually

Ranking Every AEW World Championship Reign: August 2019 - August 2026

 

The AEW World Championship (more recently the AEW Men's World Championship) has had one of the better, and more protected, lineages of any modern wrestling title. The first several years of that lineage were near-perfect and the title has remained prestigious ever since; being the sole World Title in the organization means that it's the undisputed top prize. Ten men have held this title - eleven if you count Bret Hart bringing the title out to begin with - and all of them were top tier talents in the industry. Today I'll be ranking these guys, and the rich history of title reigns in the company's short history.

Current champion as of press time (shortly before All In 2026) - Kenny Omega (2nd reign)

Gradius Gaiden (Playstation, 1997)

 

This game is hands-down the best Gradius series game I've ever played, and at this point I've played pretty much all of them. It was only released in Japan, making it basically the Rondo of Blood of this series, and for some inexplicable reason it has never been put on any of the Gradius collections since then (besides the now-obscure PSP one). Hardly anyone seems to know about it; I sure didn't until very recently.

Be warned though: As good as this game is, it can also be so hard that it makes Dark Souls look like Kirby's Dream Land. Then again, a lot of things make Dark Souls look like Kirby's Dream Land. Dark Souls really isn't that bad, especially compared to its own sequels. I should rank Fromsoft games by difficulty one of these days. Regardless. if Dark Souls moved any more slowly, it'd be turn-based.

Highlander 5x15 - The Stone of Scone

 

It's Monday night at 7 PM on the USA Network, you know what that means.

Aired April 21, 1997. There was a two-month space of time between Duende and this, which normally would have contained four new episodes, but with Season 5 being abbreviated there just weren't any new ones to air. I'm guessing they ran reruns during that timeframe; wonder what episodes they did. Presumably reruns aired throughout the year when new episodes weren't available (which would have generally been the middle six months of the year, or so).

It's just as well that I took a break after Duende, because this year was nonstop difficult life stuff between watching that episode and this one. Getting back to this as things begin to approach something resembling normal / nice again.

Adrian Paul was already halfway out the door and the studio was trying to hold things together and keep it going. I still wish, to this day, that they would have just seized the opportunity to focus on some other characters. S5's missing four episodes could have focused on Methos, given Richie or Amanda a solo adventure, etc. Bring back a loose end like S1's Kiem Sum or Joan Jett.

And of course, S6 should have been used to transition to a new lead midway through. My vote is that S6's back half, and S7, had Methos as the main character. Bring back Duncan for the finale and so forth, of course, but let Methos carry the show for a season and a half. Peter Wingfield was definitely up for it.

I just wish this show had a full seven seasons rather than the sputtering conclusion it has. Either way, we're still in the midst of the best seven-episode run the show ever had, so let's go!

Elden Ring: Nightreign Boss Fight Videos

 

With the Duskbloods network test starting today, it's a good time for another compilation of boss fight videos from a game. I'm hugely into these Fromsoft games and their boss fights, which tend to be great duels that are often incredible-looking to boot. Each fight here includes liner notes about the fight., as usual. This is a super fun game if you bring your own group of friends and communicate via some third-party chat program; a bit less so if you only do randomly generated runs - with no communication - as the game intends.

Nightreign is an interesting game that I wish I liked more. Found it very tedious and difficult because of how hard it was to make any gainful progress off of unsuccessful runs at levels. You're also very reliant on how experienced your teammates are. It was nearly impossible to beat a level with a randomized group in the first week the game was out, but later I was able to go back and do more once the playerbase had more experience (that or all the noobs had quit by then) and managed to beat the game in about 12 hours.

Do yourself a favor and avoid the DLC though. Waste of $15 and the underworld levels are a real pain in the ass. Had I just quit after the main game concluded, I would have had mostly positive memories. So this is only covering the main game.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#729 - 735)

 

#729 Dragon Quest XI (Playstation 4) – Fall 2018

After a regression in DQIX and a game nobody stateside could play in DQX, this game finally gave us the follow-up to DQVIII that people waited ten years for. This ranked very, very highly in my Post-Milennium RPG Ranking - out of all those games, it was essentially in a three-way tie for second place - and deservedly so. This takes everything that makes the DQ series, well, DQ, and cranks it all up with modern QOL and 3D visuals. It's done in a smooth graphical style that probably won't age, either.

Killer Instinct (Super NES, 1995)

 

Not to be confused with hit 1990's movie Basic Instinct. There's no connection. At least, I don't think there are any scenes where Fulgore crosses and uncrosses his legs seductively. Sabrewulf and Spinal are both nude though. Actually a bunch of characters are nude. Regardless, this is easily one of the best fighting games on the Super NES, even though I've never been very good at it.

Fighter's History (Super NES, 1994)

 

Looking at an oddball Data East fighting game that made its way onto the SNES. This wasn't exactly King of Fighters '94 or anything. The lack of SNK fighters on the SNES is weird, but it left some room for games like this to try and compete with the MKs and SFs of the world.

The box art shows off the game's highly-unappealing roster of characters. The giant head in a turban is the villain of the game, Karnov. This is basically a clone of Street Fighter II while also borrowing heavily from the aformentioned KOF series (going for realism, etc). It's on the Switch Online virtual console as we speak, mostly just taking up space.

Someone out there likely has this as their favorite game, though.

Fighting Vipers (Arcade/Sega Saturn, 1995)

 

Going to continue to step outside of my wheelhouse here, with something I've been meaning to check out for 30 years. Back in the mid-90's, 3D was starting to become all the rage, and systems like the Playstation and Saturn seemed really high-tech to those of us "stuck" with a Super NES. I always liked Virtua Fighter, but I remember hearing that Fighting Vipers was the REAL hardcore Sega fighter. Well, today I'm going to find out, by leaping to THE THIRD DIMENSION: The Wave of Tomorrow!

Detana!! TwinBee (TurboGrafx-16, 1992)

 

TwinBee is a series of Konami shooters that didn't get much attention, with the Gradius and Salamander series grabbing most of the hype. This is possibly the best game in the TwinBee series from what I've heard, and started life as an arcade game before getting a direct and accurate port to TG-16. There were other TwinBees on console before this, but none of them captured the aesthetic the series was going for until this one. Character designer Shujiro Hamakawa drew inspiration from Akira Toriyama's Dr. Slump while working on this. The soundtrack was composed by Michiru Yamane (who would go on to the Castlevania series) so that adds a lot to the game as well.

The TurboGrafx-16 is a system that didn't get much attention, with the Super NES and Sega Genesis grabbing most of the hype. I really need to spend more time with this system...if only there were reasons to that I haven't already played. This can be found on the Wii Virtual Console, and there's a two-player mode that makes the game much easier. You can do some weird and unique stuff, like have the two characters lock arms to increase their firepower (one character's controls become dominant temporarily). Not sure about playing this on modern systems; the Switch has kinda balked at Turbografx-16 and Neo Geo VC-ing last I checked.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#713 - 728)

 

#713 Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (Xbox One) – Summer 2018

High-res remake of the original that looks great. This was a big killer app for the XBox One S when it was making a big comeback suddenly. I got the system for free due to running a store, and it seemed like it was really outselling the PS4 for a bit there. Everybody was popping in to either get this game or an XB1. I think this might have also been a pack-in with the system, not sure. I didn't have time to actually play it until after the game store era was over, but it was high on the list for summer games to plow now that I had more free time.

Today on the list: The XBOX ONE ERA.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#701 - 712)

 

#701 Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS) – Fall 2017

Not a fan of the MercurySteam Metroid games. It is what it is. Metroid 2 is one of my favorite games from when I was a kid, and needed a remake. So this was 50/50 for me. On one hand, I could definitely recognize that it was Metroid 2 under the redesign. They added some really interesting new elements that made the game feel a lot more modern and streamlined, but also the difficulty went up considerably from the original and it lost some of that 1991 Gunpei Yokoi charm. I think me and a lot of other folks were really just hoping for a Zero Mission 2.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#680 - 700)

#680 Persona 5 (Playstation 4) – Spring 2017

One of the early games I played on an LG OLED, and a very worthy game for that. With high contrast and lots of black and red, the color palette of this game was perfect for seeing what the new TV could do. I got more into this one than the others, but it was just a one-and-done playthrough while the others were multiple time events.

The 1000 Games I've Beaten (#662 - 679)

 

#662 - Pokemon FireRed (Game Boy Advance) – Winter 2017

It's crazy how long it took for me to really get into the Pokemon series. I played Gen 1, took off for a decade, returned and bounced off Gen 4's terrible initial versions, took off for a decade, came back and played everything retroactively in the late 2010s. This series is basically comfort food, as far as games go. They're never all that demanding or difficult. The gameplay is simple, to the point, and you feel like you're getting somewhere every time you play.

The Top 13 Worst Square Game Areas

This started out as a "worst RPG areas" list, but I was drawing a blank on non-Square entities so it became a Square list. Not to dump on Square here, as they're my favorite game developer of all time (with Konami and From Software essentially tied with them, but yeah). These are worst areas, so not limited to dungeons. Can also be overworld zones, provinces, etc. Because I'm limited to Squaresoft, the whole list won't be dominated by Phantasy Star 2 dungeons. Also, this list won out over the competition, "Top 10 Thiccest Dragon Quest Maous" so there we go.

Previously posted December 2024 as a top 11, now reposted with two new entries (the top two)

SNK Vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos (Neo Geo, 2003)

 

This is the much lesser-known SNK version of the mashup. That's right, SNK did this one instead of Capcom, so it's considerably stiffer and more difficult than the two previous games from Capcom.

I think Mai and Chun-Li might be about to kiss.

Capcom Vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (Arcade, 2001)

 

In Japan, this game is called "Millionaire Battle 2001". Weird, most of these characters don't seem like millionaires. I'd be surprised if Terry Bogard is a thousand-aire, guy seems like he's barely scraping by. Released a year after the other one, this is a huge improvement much like Marvel vs Capcom 2 was over the previous game.

The Top 17 Bosses That Were Tougher Than The Final Boss

Time for another list. This features a lot of RPGs. Only main story, required bosses count. No uberbosses (Ruby Weapon, FFVII), postgame bosses (Nemesis, FFX), or optional fights (Warmech, FF1) and that also includes DLC bosses for newer things. The only criteria for this list is that it's a main story boss in the main game that exceeds the final boss in difficulty, or at least causes more grief for the player than the last boss. Also, one boss per game.

Previously posted January 2020 as a list of 12, now with five new additions

Ranking all 160 Super NES Games I've Finished

In celebration of the 250th birthday of the United States, it seemed like a fitting time for a GIANT LIST.

This will be the last of these wacky, overlong, Jason Graves style lists. I was going to try to do N64 as well, but the earlier lists didn't get enough views/comments to justify the work. SNES I was doing regardless just for the fun of it. The SNES is what I consider the last true "classical era" system, the height of 2D's artistic development before 3D came rolling in looking terrible and dominating everything. It took until 2020 with Demon's Souls on the PS5 for me to finally feel like 3D had reached the level of artistic merit that 2D had by 1996.

Way more games on this list, so I'm going to be keeping the blurbs for each game very short, in the interest of getting through all 160 (Jesus...) in a timely manner.

Don't take the placement TOO seriously on here. Any given group of ten could basically all be in a statistical tie with each other. Ranking these based on how well they hold up now.

Prehistorik Man (Super NES, 1995)

Time for a BLAST FROM THE PAST. They made Game Boy and SNES versions of this game, but it's safe to say the SNES version is the one to play. While the Game Boy version has five of the levels, this one has all of them. In other words, this is Prehistorik Man: Definitive Edition.

My Top Twenty Tedious Boss Fights

 

Today I'm looking at a bunch of tedious boss fights. These are fights that gave me varying degrees of grief, not necessarily because of the difficulty, but because of their tedious elements. You know the type of fight, the kind you want to skip every time you replay a game.

Note: Originally posted in 2024, this was a top ten of mostly RPGs. I was doing a new list with non-RPGs and then decided to just combine it with the old one to make a Top 20. So about half of this is new. New content is in BOLD.

Capcom Vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 (Arcade, 2000)

 

The turn of the century was a pinnacle time for fighting games, at least from Capcom and SNK. You had Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Marvel Vs Capcom 2, and this game right here, for starters.

Best of all, it's available on the Switch now via Capcom Fighting Collection 2, so you can play it on the go when your wife's boyfriend wants the TV, or when they kick you out of the house.

Capcom Fighting Evolution (Arcade, 2004)

 

Interesting mash-up of a bunch of different Capcom games here, as CAPCOMANIA continues. Just mash-ups upon mash-ups this past month. Sometimes Capcom mashes up with Marvel, sometimes Capcom mashes up with SNK. Sometimes Capcom mashes up with both of them! Marvel isn't allowed to mash up with SNK on their own though, Capcom would fly off the handle. This despite that Capcom would mash up with LJN if the money was right 'cause Capcom's a total slut. So you can do it but I can't, huh??

As usual, I don't really know what's going on or what I'm doing with these fighting games. So this is a mash-up of a bunch of things I don't get, creating a vortex of "I don't get it" inception. Playing this on Capcom Fighting Collection 2.

A Controversial Ranking of the Nine Quentin Tarantino Movies

 

Just what it sounds like, ranking the works of Tarantino. Him keeping count of his movies kind of elevates all of them, like numbering WrestleManias. Looking forward to the tenth and final one, Kill Beatrix or whatever it ends up being called. Actually, "Kill The Bride" has a clever ring to it from a marketing perspective.

In b4 everyone finds out this weirdo spent a bunch of time on an island

Ranking Highlander Season 1

Since Season 5 is shorter than it should be, and I, you know, want to delay the last episode because, you know, S5's lifespan gets cut short in such a thoughtless way by, you know, giving it 18 episodes...... it seems like a good time to do a long-overdue episode ranking. Also, a note on Season 1's DVDs: The Watcher Chronicles spoil WAY too much. First-time series viewers would do well to stay FAR away from those. They get a lot better at only covering up to the current episode later; not sure when, though. Season 3, I think.

I'll be throwing some ratings at the end of the entries, as well, but don't put too much stock into this. While the rankings are well thought-out, the number ratings are off the top of my head, and graded on the curve of this show specifically. So a 1 isn't the worst thing ever made or anything like that. 1 is the worst tier of episodes this show has and 10 is the top tier of episodes this show has, the rarified air of the top ten or so best of the best episodes.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite (Playstation 4, 2017)

 

The final game in this series, this one is a step back in a lot of ways. Ultimate MVC3 is the way to go if you want a modern one, and MVC2 is the way to go for the retro series.

This one reminds me of Mario Kart World taking a step back in most ways from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (another "Ultimate" version, too). That game changed too much for its own good, like adding highways leading up to the actual courses. Well, this game also changes too much for its own good, like going back to two-character teams despite trios working so well.

Presumably this game will involve the Infinity Stones, given the name and the fact that it came out during the leadup to the Thanos movies.

Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (Playstation 3/XBox 360, 2011)

 

Here's the back half of MVC3. The finished version. Seriously though, two game releases in one year, with one being an incomplete version of the other? MVC2 was definitely the high point of this series. This here is probably the second highest point, and an effort to capitalize on the popularity surge of the MCU. Either way, MVC2 was the pinnacle, they let it languish a while, and then they brought it back to make some money. It is what it is.

All in all this was a really fun series to do, so I regret nothin'. Two left. Also, right now this game is $4.99 on PSN. Why the hell are things still .99? We got rid of pennies so retailers would stop inconveniencing people with the deceptive pricing of putting a .99 at the end of everything. Apparently none of them got the memo. Regardless, this game normally goes for five times as much as it's on sale for right now, so that's a steal.

Double Dragon (Neo Geo/Arcade/Playstation, 1995)

 

Double Dragon: The Movie: The Game is the first Neo-Geo game I've ever beaten. How is that even possible? Well, it's what the list says. This is an arcade fighting game that I'm long-overdue to take a look at. This game should have gotten a lot more respect from consoles. Hard to believe that the far-inferior Double Dragon V was the fighting game that most consoles got. I played that one on the SNES and it was one of the most mediocre games on the system. Then again, this one might be a little too advanced for the SNES. Outside of the Neo-Geo, as far as systems that people actually had goes... it did get a PS1 release. In Japan. I didn't even know this game existed until a few years ago.

Strider (Arcade/Sega Genesis, 1989/1990)

 

This is the 200th action game I've covered on here. My God. 200. I have a feeling that if I'd grown up as a Sega Genesis kid instead of a SNES kid, this would have been one of my most-liked games. I probably wouldn't have been able to beat the game though. As usual, not sure what I'm getting into here, this is a first-time playthrough of something I've only heard of, on a system that I haven't done enough with.

There's also a stripped-down, scaled-down NES version, but it pales compared to the Arcade and Genesis versions. They can be played on a TV easily enough today with the Capcom Arcade Stadium and Nintendo Switch Online respectively.