Reviews

At first glance, Metroid II can look (and at times be) overwhelming, and it comes with quite a few problems but it also manages to give a satisfying playthrough and challenge.

Starting from the beginning, your mission is to hunt down 39 Metroids scattered through all the planet, pretty simple and straight forward. At first, you'll find weaker Metroid forms but when you progress you'll find harder ones that ads a lot of challenge. The map is open and up to you to go wherever you like or at least on the surface it goes that way, in order to get to new areas, you need to hunt "X" quantity of Metroids, once you hunt them down, a new area will be unveiled (pro tip, whenever an earthquake happens, it means that you have a new area to go), this progression stays with you through all your playthrough. The bad thing about the exploration is that you don't have a map and the areas are massive and pretty vertical (you need to do a lot of jumping), also, you have to relay a lot on your memory to map every zone in your head, this at first is way too frustrating but as you navigate through the map, you'll find yourself familiar with your surroundings so it depends on how you view this limitation. Another issue is the double jump, halfway you'll find an ability that gives you the power to maintain Samus in air when done it right, the problem is that it needs rhythm and it can be tricky and a lot of the final areas require that you navigate through them doing this jumping, so it can be very frustrating when you go to the top of area and then you fall, it can happen too much and can be very dishearting at times. Lastly, the music is the biggest offender, excluding the final area and the title screen, the soundtrack feels more like random uncanny sounds collection, which is pretty disappointing since the original game had great music.

Although it may seem that I have a bad time playing this game (and at times it was true), I enjoyed quite a lot the challenge and the atmosphere within it, the fact that you feel lost in this uncanny and hostile planet simply added more to the feeling of loneliness and hardship, also it was so rewarding after you discover a secret area and find a Metroid wandering around. One thing is for sure, this game can be tough at times, HP and missiles are way too scarce and sometimes you'll be farming them, so keep that in mind. Maybe the thing that I liked the most was its narrative, there's no single line of text but you see the story through your gameplay, and some brilliant musical cues and animation in the ending, it may have my favorite ending in all the Metroid Series.

It is hard to recommend this game since it has a lot of rough edges, but if you're a Metroid fan I'm sure that you'll find the shine in this raw diamond.

At first glance, KOF 94 looks like a deep fighting game with a lot of variation but it turns out it is stiffer than it wants to be.

For starters, KOF 94 is a crossover fighting game for several SNK IPs like Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, Ikari Warriors, etc. maybe I'm wrong but it is like the Smash Bros. of its generation, one can select a preestablished team of three characters (no variation) and have fun figuring out different styles within the team. So with all that pedigree one would think this game is the peak of the genre, and at some points maybe it is, as the sprite work for characters, animation, and stages, they're all beautiful, by themselves is just worth to play the game to see them. My main problem is the fighting itself, every character feels quite different and have different command inputs to their special moves, which is nice, what is not nice in the combat is the combo system, maybe I did play wrong but it seemed to me that the combos were way too stiff or precise to pull them, also playing vs CPU feels cheat, there's no correct way to approach your enemy because a lot of the time they will hit you nevertheless, this happens a lot more with the final boss, which is simply unfair and unbalanced, and in order to beat him, you have to "cheat battle" him, which is not fun. As for the local multiplayer mode, I think it works best and is the preferred way, it has the same stiff learning curve of the combo system but at least your opponent reacts more naturally to your attacks.

All in all, for its time, KOF 94 was a fun game and still is in some regards, its graphics have aged so well but not its combat, which is a shame because its a fighting game.

A lot of great ideas that are held back by the shortfalls of the medium. In the end, this is a glorified dating sim.

The conversation system feels natural. It's the best part of this game. But it's still plagued by two of the worst issues of the genre: scripted sequences cutting off your conversations prematurely and your intentions never coming across correctly. For example, you choose "Wow, that's rough" and your character starts to mock your companion, never once showing any empathy. You'll be in the middle of some important conversation, walking along the beach when the conversation suddenly stops and you're now talking about something completely different.

The sound design is all over the place. The heavy 80's synth is used very well in the effects and soundtrack, but then there's instances where you're forced to listen to a 30 second badly looped sample for 5 minutes while you very slowly walk across the map, all the while frustrated that your character is so socially inept that they can't just say what you tell them to.

The visuals are hit or miss as well. The sci-fi horror sections had fantastic presentation, but again, we underused and underdeveloped in favor of focusing more on the conversation system and "relationship" systems. 

It had a very clever "multiplayer" integration that was underdeveloped. It was just subtle enough though, so kudos for that. Would not recommend unless you're a fan of teenage romance and Stranger Things. The mystery was over explained and pretty shallow to begin with. It's obvious that it was just an excuse to make you try to be as "close" to each character as possible by the end of the game due to choices that you didn't know you were making or just didn't want to make.

A lot of improvements have been made from the last entry of Fatal Fury, the combat has a faster pace and it seemed that the developers tweaked the combo system a good chunk in order to make it more accessible for more people, that is a good thing for me but I can see how it would be a bad thing for others, that will depend on your view I guess

 The character selection is good but, as for today's standards, it may seem more like a little expansion than a sequel, so you will be seeing a lot of familiar faces. One thing that I didn't like was the lack of "story" after you beat the main antagonist, you'll have some lines of the character you finished with and some funny and lighthearted "scenes" with some characters when the credits are rolling, the scenes are nice but aren't enough for you to try to beat the game again in order to see new ones, that gives this game more focus on the competitive multiplayer mode which I think it would be a lot of fun, even more than the last game.

Another thing that I liked quite a lot is the sprite work, the characters look better than before but what gives a lot of mood are the stages, they're so different and picturesque by themselves that you'll just want to get to the next rivel just to see their stage.

This game sure has some tweaks and improvements, if you're going to play it for fights with your friends or people, it will be an amazing time, but if you're going to play it by yourself, don't expect a lot of replayability.