At what point is a game unjustly maligned? When is a Flawed Gem merely a stone? When we say a game was brave and experimental... was it? Or was it a predictable failure of the times it was made? Does a failed product need to be secretly kinda good, or important, or influential to deserve respect?
No. And while I am unsure exactly how I fall on Castlevania 64 and it's strange seque-xpansion, I walk away respecting these games. I find myself dwelling on how people try to rehabilitate flawed titles like these. Because does a game need to be good to be enjoyed? Does it have to be good to appreciate the high level of skill that made into making it? Does a game have to be good to be under appreciated?
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I think I'm going to do it this time and actually keep it short, but I've been doing more replays of games I haven't played in like 10 years, so here we go.
Mega Man X
I'll be honest, I don't really like Mega Man? No fault of the games, but over time I've realized my taste for shooty games is more in the area of Contra or Metal Slug(much more high damage, low health, volatile games(Oh wait this is why I like Shmups even though I'm bad at them)), so I tend to go back to them less.
Some people might be like "IWBTG is basically megaman, you have like the same type of movement and shooting!" but let's be real, how much did that gun actually do?
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I think I'm gonna save the "Game Journal" moniker for more informal posts where I don't have a real thesis and I'm not proof reeding like crazy. Me just trying to jot down my thoughts. You know, like a journal.
Future me: I failed and wrote too seriously. Next time will be different, I swear.(It won't)
Mega Man Legends
Missed this during it's era. It was a bit too... modestly successful for me, a kid who could only afford a handful of games. Also it's past Mega Man X, and why would you wanna play the dumb, dorky blue Mega Man when you could play as the cool, super hip X? IDK, kids are stupid. It'd been on my radar for years due to the art style, but some conversations(Thanks, Big Iron!) during a Guilty Gear stream made me dive into it this weekend.
This game has everything going against it. All the little bits are off. Controls are flakey, Dialog is painfully, gameplay is sporadically paced... Stuff like turning with the shoulders, dodgy aiming, pre-Ocarina of Time dungeons that feel more like Wizardy maps... and don't know, it fucking rules? The definition of a 6.5/10 10/10 game.
No one needed to make any of this
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Going to try and keep this one as a reasonable, to the point Game Journal(Spoilers, I failed), but I'm glad I could play both these games after finishing that tome of a Metroid Dread review. At the end of this I'll have my "Dread Review Debriefing", but before that, let me talk about some things I actually enjoyed.
Metroid II gets better with age, and better when you come to it as a willing participant
My palette cleanser after Dread was Metroid II. I ended up using so many Metroid II examples that it felt appropriate to give it a quick play through. This time I played with the EJRTQ Colorization, which I quite liked. I kinda wished I played with Azurelore Korrigan's color Patch(you should read this page and other things she wrote, even if you're not planning on using it) as she's maybe Metroid II's #1 defender, but the patch I had did the job fine. Metroid 2 doesn't need color, but I've played it monochrome enough to justify a little experimentation. I felt like it actually added to the game and it made it clear that the world wasn't actually just the same grey tiles, over and over again? I think a case could be made that being less confused is actually a downgrade, but I think I was confused enough!! 😭
...Aesthetically though there is something about the pure monochrome look. Probably the best way to do a first play through.
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This will not be a Feel Good story about Metroid: Dread finally correcting course. I am here today to be a hater.
Not a hater out of spite, or to be a contrarian, or even to shame people for liking the popular thing. Metroid: Dread is many people's(Even John Cena's) favorite Metroid game. The game is a critical and commercial darling. I'm not here to try and make you feel stupid for liking a game I don't enjoy. My values are likely very different from yours and that's fine. A lot of folks I respect deeply enjoy this game. I've lived through enough forum arguments like "Is Metroid Fusion a good game?"(It isn't 😒) to care about winning the Video Game Opinion War.
I'm writing this because my feelings come from the heart. Because 2D Constructed Worlds get into my fucking soul. I can't help but to feel very strongly about them. If I just think a game is bad, I simply stop playing it(Bad is kinda a weasel word here. Bad for me usually means 'Boring' and I love some bad, awful TRASH games). I walk away. Hate happens when I care and I find Metroid is especially good at getting me to care a lot.
I don't want you to hate Metroid: Dread, I wan't you to understand why someone would.
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