Romancing SaGa 2 Remake (Multiple, 2024), Part 1 - The Lion and the Sun

 

This is a really, really good remake. Wow. I think it flew under the radar to an extent. I really enjoyed playing the original version of this game and it's obscure enough that I'm surprised to see it remade. This is a bit of a hidden gem in the Squaresoft library, and the original RS2 is probably the best out of all the SaGa games outside of maybe SaGa Frontier. This series is very spotty, very hit-or-miss. Looking forward to seeing if this remake surges out ahead of Frontier to become the new SaGa best-in-series.

Rather than being HD-2D, they gave this one a full 3D makeover. It's different from most 3D remakes though, with a very distinct visual style that prioritizes light effects and really nice environments over framerate. On Switch you're stuck at 30 FPS or so, but damn, the visuals in this game sure do have a lot of personality regardless. I tried the PS5 version and that's at 60 FPS, presumably Switch 2 is also pulling that off. The visuals are so distinctive and classy that I didn't even particularly mind when it was 30. Anyway, I'm not going to cover this game for real until/unless I wrap up the SaGa series, but I'm down to check out the demo now and I might as well post it rather than leaving it for later.

Angry Video Game Nerd 8-Bit: Boss Fight Videos

 

Here we've got all the boss fights for AVGN's latest game. It's very 8-Bit indeed, but I definitely preferred the two old games of his (from about a decade ago) more.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - Booster Pack (Switch, 2022)

 

The Switch version of Mario Kart 8 ended up adding an entire game's worth of extra DLC courses, which is kinda nuts. Especially considering how they started adding this stuff 5 years after the game came out (2022 vs 2017) which was an entire 8 years after the Wii U game came out. This adds 48 tracks (yes, 48, as many tracks as the main game). These are a mix of real-world "touring" tracks taken from the Kart phone game, retro tracks from other Karts, and some entirely brand-new tracks (usually one or two for every wave).

Basically, this was a Mario Kart 9 in everything except name, and it got a staggered release like FFIV: The After Years. Now that we have Mario Kart World, I guess this pack is Mario Kart 8.5. Which begs the question of why they didn't just put this out as a new game and rake in coin. They could have easily sold this for $50 (instead of the $25 total that it costs), plus an actual release would have gotten some fanfare and people like me wouldn't have forgotten it existed, so it would have sold a lot better as well.

So how is it? Well, right off the bat, they missed a big opportunity by not having this add Booster from Mario RPG as a playable character. This caused them to lose out on numerous potential sales from Booster-enthusiasts and Booster-maniacs the world over.

Alright, here we go, 48 (Jesus) new tracks over 12 (Jesus) new cups. I better pack a lunch, this is gonna take a while.

Ranking the Post-Millennium RPGs I Finished

 

This seemed like a good way to wrap up this month of lists. Listlemania, if you will. It's the sequel to my ranking of pre-millennium RPGs, which is like a whole different world (mostly the 2D world versus the 3D world, mostly). We're picking up with 2001 onward here. If you missed the first list, it's HERE. Same general format, except it'll be over 23 and a half years instead of the 15ish that the first one covered. I don't want to take too much away from the 1000 List, which is still in-progress, so I'm not going to go too deep on most of these or include any fun stuff like "Toughest Part". We'll get some music interludes, though, when the aural pleasure of a game is just too good.

Contra: Operation Galuga (Switch, 2024)

 

Very cool little game here that probably could have been called "Contra 5" (or whatever we're up to). It's a total throwback in most regards, with modern HD visuals. Konami should do things like this more often. The only problem with this one is that it's hard to find and they only gave it an extremely limited release. Pretty much have to go buy it digitally unless you luck out and find it in a library or something.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake (Switch, 2024)

 

Funny coincidence here: In the past I played Dragon Quest 3's SFC remake at the same time as Romancing Saga III, and now history is basically repeating itself with me playing this while writing about RS2. In any case, this just came out for a bunch of systems, and I'm playing it on Switch. DQ3 is probably my #1 NES game of all time*, which is a pretty high accolade from me, so let's see how this remake turned out.

* - While DQ4 is a better game overall, I give this one the nod because you have more control over your party. Between that and the classes, this is the one I'm more likely to go back to.

Romancing SaGa 2 (Super Famicom, Nintendo Switch, 1993/2017)

 "And lo! Even as he laughed at despair he looked out again on the black ships, and he lifted up his sword to defy them. And then wonder took him, and a great joy; and he cast his sword up in the sunlight and sang as he caught it. And all eyes followed his gaze, and behold! upon the foremost ship a great standard broke, and the wind displayed it as she turned towards the Harlond. There flowered a White Tree, and that was for Gondor; but Seven Stars were about it, and a high crown above it, the signs of Elendil that no lord had borne for years. And the stars flamed in the sunlight, for they were wrought of gems by Arwen daughter of Elrond; and the crown was bright in the morning, for it was wrought of mithril and gold."

Haunted Castle Revisited (Switch, 2024)

 

This is, believe it or not, the first new Castlevania game in like ten years. The last one was also a remake of an early game with Castlevania Adventure Rebirth. This uses basically the same engine and is similarly barebones with mostly left-to-right 2D stages. That said, it's a new Castlevania game. That alone is a big deal. Even though it's another 30 minute long game, it's another nice bonus on the new collection and a vast improvement over the original arcade game.

Super Mario RPG Remake: Postgame Uberboss Strategy

This was a pretty cool remake that did everything it needed to do and had everything it needed to have (except Queen Valentina's boob-jiggle). It pretty much could have just ended at the normal end and I would have been happy with what we got. So it was pretty awesome when it turned out to have a bunch of postgame fights. Here's how I beat them.

Double Dragon Gaiden (Switch, 2023)

 

A new Double Drgn? I didn't even know about this. Double Dragon Neon was pretty good, so maybe this one will be decent too. Couple things concern me about it: The graphic style is iffy and it's touted as a "roguelike" which isn't really what I want from a DD. We'll see how it goes.

Most importantly, it has PLAYABLE MARIAN and she's looking gooooood.

Freedom Finger (Playstation 4 and Switch, 2020)

 

This is the single craziest space-shooter I've ever seen. It's a parody of American foreign policy and a bit of an indictment of the Establishment with its many victims. It's also completely nutso. I had no idea what I was getting into until I played this with a friend over one afternoon. We expected a pretty basic space shooter and what we got was something else entirely.

In the immortal words of William Shakespeare: F*** it let's just do it.

Pokemon Legends: Arceus (Nintendo Switch, 2022)

 

It's 2/22/22, you know what that means.

Editor's Note: Reposted for closeness to the rest of the game, which is now being worked on for additional posts.

River City Girls (Switch, 2019)

 

On the 7th Day of Christmas, it's time for some Season's Beatings. I've always wanted to play a beat 'em up type game where instead of rescuing the princesses, the princesses grab some brass knuckles and just beat the hell out of everybody. Now we have that game! It's on a few systems, but I played it on Switch.

Live-a-Live Remastered (Nintendo Switch, 2022) Pt 1 - Prehistoria

 

Got a pretty sweet 2D-HD remake thing goin' on here. After how good the SaGa Frontier remake was, I had high hopes for this one. It still shows its age, but it's worth a play. They fixed some of the issues the original had, and the new visuals are great.

Going to be a bit more concise with this remake since the original had a massive amount of posts. One scenario : one post. It's different enough to be worth covering all over again. It even got an "RPG of the Year" nomination which is pretty awesome. Then Elden Ring rolled over it like the HK tank rolling over the skulls in the Terminator movies, but Live-a-Live was there. It was there.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 (Lots of systems, 2020)

 

This one is scary because they cranked the difficulty way up. It's like going from Mega Man 10 to Mega Man 9, roughly. While the first Curse of the Moon was intended to tide people over until Ritual of the Night was finished, the Kickstarter for ROTN was so successful that they did a second retro throwback side-game after it, and here we are. The purpose of this one seems to be to just obliterate people.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Lots of systems, 2018)

 

Time for me to finally take a dip in the Bloodstained series. These games look and play just like the Castlevania games, only a bit modernized. This is because they were made by the same guy, via crowdfunding. And the series has been very successful, much more Shovel Knight and less Mighty No. 9. The main goal was to create the game Ritual of the Night, and the crowdfunding overachieved enough that we also got a couple of NES-style spinoffs including this one. Starting with the shortest and easiest of the games, let's get to it.

Carrion (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

 

WHAT HAS GOD WROUGHT?

This is a John Carpenter's The Thing inspired game where you play as the creature. In Soviet Russia...bug hunts YOU.

The Rest of TMNT: Shredder's Revenge

 

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE.

HERO IN HALF SHELL. TURTLE POWER.

TMNT: Shredder's Revenge (Lots of systems, 2022)

 

There's a new Ninja Turtles game, so of course I had to get it and check it out. Let's kick, and I quote, shell.

Double Dragon Neon (Lots of systems, 2012)

 

Another retro revival of the series, though more in the vein of Streets of Rage IV in that it's modernized and all the better for it. Modernized or not, it's also 80's (and metal) AF, and a MUCH better usage of your time than Double Dragon 4, despite this launching years earlier. Let's go.