Creed Champions (Playstation 4, 2021)

 

This might be interesting for people who like the Rocky series. That's right, it's a Rocky video game and it's actually pretty good. It takes place after Creed II and gives you some story from that timeframe. The main draw here, though, is that you can relive fights from the rest of the Rocky series via character flashbacks. They're technically "telling the story" which means they have some leeway here to go in unexpected directions with what-ifs.

Highlander 4x21 - Judgment Day

 

Kind of a dramatic name here. I kinda doubt this episode is gonna be worth such a hyperbolic title, but we'll see. This is the first half of the season finale on the DVD sets officially, while in the original broadcast airing it was the sole season finale and the second half was held over to S5 to leave us on a cliffhanger.

Mortal Kombat IV (N64, 1998) + Mortal Kombat Gold (Dreamcast, 1999)

 

MK finally learns to count to four! This is the first one so far that I haven't previously beaten so I won't have any kind of nostalgia or bias.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 8 - The Legend of Welda

 

Next, our heroes climb to the top of the ice mountain to look for the Zenithian Sword. But what condition will it be in after all these years?

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 7 - Cayman Islands

Today on Dragon Quest VI: After a hiatus where I level-grinded in Spiegelspire during my spare time, we return to DQVI with a super powered-up party. Turns out it isn't hard at all to max out in a phone game that you can play whenever you want during random lulls in activity.

Also I just remembered that Dragon Quest VII has a Pirate class (tier 2) and it's very good. Well I'm definitely playing that now. Just need Sailor + Thief maxed to get it. Wait, the Alltrades Abbey in that game is like 30 hours in? FUUU-

Portable Mortal Kombats, Part Two

 

More forgotten ports: Mortal Kombat 3 for Game Boy (!), Mortal Kombat 4 for Game Boy Color (!!), Deadly Alliance + Tournament Edition for GBA, and the only game I remember EGM ever giving a zero to: Mortal Kombat Advance. Why am I doing this to myself?

Portable Mortal Kombats, Part One

 

That's right, today I'm going to take a look at some of the lesser-known games in the franchise, specifically portable versions of Mortal Kombat 1+2. Are any of these actually gonna be good?

Mortal Kombat Trilogy (N64/PS1, 1996)

For a long time I was under the impression that Mortal Kombat 4 was the first one where you could actually play as Goro. While that IS the one where Goro returns in story canon, there's another game before that where he's playable (this one). More importantly, this is 2D Goro, the one we know, and not a different 3D version like in MK4. MOST importantly, it also gives us playable Shao Kahn, Kintaro, and Motaro. How did I miss this game all this time?

MKT here had the potential to be the pinnacle of the 2D chapter of the series. At least, I'm sure it was intended to be. It's got pretty much everything from the first 3 (areas, characters, etc). Problem is, the PS1 version has terrible loading times that really slow down the experience, while the N64 version is missing a bunch of key characters, so you're boned by some preventable issue either way. It may be the most "definitive" early MK on paper, but it's hard to give it too many props with the issues it has.

All of that said, I'm mostly just playing this to finally play as the bosses, something Street Fighter II Turbo did ages ago. Unfortunately the bosses are kind of half-assed. They aren't balanced, their specials don't work a lot of the time, and they don't have any fatalities. So yeah. Anyway enough essay, let's get going.

Mortal Kombat III + Ultimate Mortal Kombat III (Super NES, 1995/1996)

Was never a fan of this logo. It's a step down from MK2 much like the game itself is. The dragon symbol is fine but it looks like the 3 is pregnant with it.

In any case, MK3 is where I start to think this series might be kind of overrated. Ultimate MK3 is a superior version and kinda what MK3 should have been from the get-go...well, in some ways. So I'mma combine the two here.

Mortal Kombat II (Super NES, 1994)

The biggest sequel since Terminator 2. And this time the Nintendo version has blood and guts. YOU HAPPY NOW, KIDS??

Mortal Kombat (Arcade/SNES/Genesis, 1993)

It's MORTAL MONDAY, and you know what that means.

It's been 30 years since Mortal Kombat landed on home consoles in the memorable day known as Mortal Monday. When I was a kid, this was a huge day, and all anyone could talk about for the entire school week was MORTAL KOMBAT. We'd go out on the playground at recess and act out MK fights, yelling "Get over here!" while pantomiming spears and freezes.

This really was a moment in time, and if you weren't there...well, I'll tell you all about it. While further posts will focus on whatever version of the game I played, this one's gonna run down all the home releases of Mortal Monday and hopefully give a sense of the lightning in a bottle that this game captured in 1993.

Dragon Ball Z Kakarot Part 16 - The 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament (B-Side)

 

It seems like a lot of DBZ games count these last few episodes of DB (with older Gokou) as part of DBZ. The Super Famicom fighting games generally start with this fight, for example. I'd say this DLC is actually a really good place to start Kakarot, rather than the beginning of the main story, so it's kinda like the game got a new and much more exciting intro chapter.

In any case, here we go, last Kakarot episode...until they put out the final DLC.

Dragon Ball Z Kakarot Part 15 - The 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament

I'm still doing these? I'm still doing these. The latest (and 2nd to last) DLC for The Best DBZ Game is the only one to actually go outside the realm of DBZ. The first couple DLCs were based on movies that could be "Dragonball Super movies" or "Dragonball Z movies" depending on how you want to measure them. This, though, is a retelling of the last few episodes of the original Dragonball series. Since Gokou is older in those episodes and there was a time jump, lumping them in with DBZ works for me.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 6 - Spike Gets Fired

 

Man, this game is GORGEOUS when it wants to be. The original Super Famicom version is too, as it came along in that late-era, Chrono Trigger timeframe.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 5 - Alltrades Abbey Class Rundown

 

The game gives you basically no clue where to go next, and some players would be forgiven for thinking the game was over at that point with us on the victory lap. However, warp to the Dream World at this point and it drops you in front of Alltrades Abbey, which is NOT destroyed there like it is in the Real World.

This was originally the second half of the previous post. I wrote the whole thing on an airplane with no connection, so I couldn't open a second post and had to keep writing in the first, then kept it like that. It was way too long, though, so I'm splitting this off like it was supposed to be.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 4 - Brawl Out

 

Huge episode of Dragon Quest VI today as we slay Maou Mudo (again) and unlock class changes. Lots of class-change discussion here and in the next episode. I think I might just stick with the remake and see it through from here on out, then go back to the SFC version and sweep that up.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 3 - All In

 

This is hands-down the best hero design in this entire series, IMO. It's kinda too bad that such an awesome design was spent on one of the more middling games. Regardless, time to get in-depth and try to make some sense out of this game's convoluted plot.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 2 - Welcome Back, Spike

 

I'm afraid I have some bad news. A phone reset wiped out my powered-up DQVI save. That's right, my level 13 overleveled character has poofed. So I had to start over, and this time I brought back the old DQIII Buffy motif and went with Spike. (Had a perfect chance here to go with Serge and didn't)

This isn't the worst thing in the world, because I wasn't that far into the game. I went ahead and overleveled again, and this time I was out for REVENGE. Overleveling like this with one character: Kind of dumb? Yeah.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (iOS/Android, 2015)

 

This is the only official U.S. version of the game, and it took until 2011 for it to get a Nintendo DS release. I'll be playing the phone version, which is the Nintendo DS version with nicer visuals. Looking forward to this one because it's got some great character designs and we get much better looks at them than we do in the SFC version. Though I will say the SFC version's visuals have their own appeal and charm and I don't think this version obsoletes it.

Rockman & Forte 2 - Mirai kara no Chōsensha (Wonderswan, 1999)

 

It's the most dynamic team up of two guys who hate each other since Hobbs and Shaw. This is wild though: With all the Mega Man that I've played over the years, and me trying to cover all of the classic and X series, I somehow missed this game entirely. I thought I'd finished the entire series and was done. Nope. This game was hiding in a cave somewhere like the guy from Highlander III. Considering I never even heard of it until recently, I have no clue what to expect.