Them! (1954)

 

Time for some Monster Madness. Been wanting to cover this movie for like five Halloweens now and never get around to it. It's a legendary horror classic about rampaging giant ants. If you haven't seen it, you've probably heard of it.

Also, fun fact: This movie inspired Aliens quite a bit. That's right, it's Proto-Aliens. That alone makes this a bit of a historical artifact.

Legend of the Mystical Ninja (Super NES, 1992)

 

On the sixth day of Halloween I'm looking at Goemon for the Super NES. A lot of people love Goemon. This is the first one I've gotten to check out. And all I can say is..... What horrifying box art. And is that Jack Black?

This game and I go back a long way because I was always intrigued by it, but never enough to get it or emulate it. Didn't see it for rent anywhere either, seemed kinda rare. 15 years or so ago I met this cool girl who had a small SNES collection we tooled around with, and this was the only game she had that I hadn't finished (or played). She wasn't a big gamer and only had a few things, all classics...and this. Ever since then I sorta made it this quest to eventually get to it. Turns out it's really short (I thought it was a beefy RPG) and can be finished in 2-3 hours. Will it be everything I hoped for?

Also, the box says ten levels, but Nintendo Power says nine levels. Someone is lying.

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Playstation 2, 2006)

 

This is the end of the PS2 trilogy and also the end of the original series. The next game is a what-if and the one after that reboots the continuity. That's right, this is the culmination of the original MK story and it's for all the marbles.

Not to be confused with that MK Annihilation movie, but I could see people mixing them up. In short: This game is good, that movie is a turd.

Mortal Kombat: Deception (Playstation 2, 2004)

This game has a cool logo. A good sign! This is one that I really didn't pay any attention to when I was younger. I may not have played MK4 and Deadly Alliance but at least I was aware of them and what they were about. For all I knew this one was some kind of spinoff. Well, nope, this is technically "MK6" by another name and it advances the PS2 trilogy. It's also a substantial improvement over the previous game (and MK7 would improve even further).

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (Playstation 2, 2002)

It's day 3 of the Twelve Days of Halloween and it's time for more Kombat.

This one dropped five years after MK4. Which means that while took them a few years to count to 4, it took them even longer to count to 5. And make no mistake, this is "MK5" in everything but name. Notice how the background of the title is a somewhat camoflaged "V" symbol.

I probably would have paid a lot more attention to it in 2002 if it had been called that, but as it is, this is my first time playing it. This was the first MK to go straight to consoles instead of having an arcade version first, likely because arcades unfortunately declined in popularity after the 90's ended.

This one is the first to go full 3D, and begins a trilogy of sorts on the PS2 gen. This culminates with MK Armageddon (AKA MK7) which is basically the end of the series as we know it. But not to worry, it gets rebooted (...twice) after that.

In any case, this one has Shang Tsung and Quan-Chi teaming up to form the DEADLY ALLIANCE. Only question is, which one's the bitch and which one's the butch which one gets to be the final boss?

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.