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TalkBack / Re: Ocarina Of Time Remake To Launch November 5

« on: September 09, 2026, 11:15:46 AM »

Seems like you still can't preorder. Anybody know what the price is?

$70 physical, at least until Walmart does its thing and then Amazon does its thing. Probably $60 on the eShop.

I saw a $60 preorder option at Walmart just now, but before I could check out it said it was sold out?

Yeah, you really want to be following Wario64 for this stuff. Amazon reverted their price as soon as Walmart sold out.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: September 08, 2026, 06:52:49 PM »

On the subject of Unfinished Business, let me take care of one of mine here that's been a long time coming but couldn't make time for it during the event:









Yes, I've finally platinumed Puppeteer on my PS3. I remembered really enjoying this game back in the day, and I really enjoy it now. IMO, Puppeteer is one of the best Sony 1st party games on the PS3, and that's saying something since that's when Sony still gave a damn about their 1st party games. It was also the last great Sony Japan Studios game before their dissolution, as their next major projects were the Knack games and assisting on other team's projects.

Puppeteer is an extremely simple 2D platformer, and a pretty easy one as well if you don't care about unlocking the game's secrets. At its heart, it's extremely similar to a modern Kirby game: your puppet Kutaro loses a head every time he gets hit and each head can perform a special action at some point in each of the game's 7 acts (3 stages each). Sure, if you just want to get to the end of the stages you won't find much difficulty, but unlocking bonus stages and special routes requires careful management of what heads you have equipped, which heads you're picking up; and making sure you're not losing any to enemies and stage hazards.

The game is presented as a fantasy stage play performed by a cast of mediocre actors and one hell of an effects team, with backdrops; props; stage lights; and an ever-present audience cheering on the proceedings. In some ways, Princess Peach Showtime felt like it captured some of the charm of this game, but IMO it didn't commit to the "bit" as thoroughly as Puppeteer does. Stephen Greif really ties the experience together as the omniscient narrator. Characters in the game will often turn to him, Winnie-the-Pooh-esque, to criticize how he's characterizing them or telling the story. Hell, there are times in the game where the narrator just completely fanboys out about certain topics like his love of giant robots or random trivia when you activate a bonus stage with a completely off-the-wall setup.

The game's main gimmick are the magical scissors Calibrus, which allow you to snip; slide; and tear your way across the backdrop like a cardboard-infused Yoshi game to close gaps and take giant bosses literally apart at the seams. If you can conceivably cut it, you can use it as a temporary platform, and the game uses that to great and surprisingly varied effect. It's pretty impressive how much variety Japan Studios stuffed into the game. One minute, you might be doing a top-down race against 2 boss creatures, only for you to pull a "gun" head in a no-guns zone; get arrested and sent to jail; and then do a timed stealth mini-game where you break out of jail to return to the race as the narrator reads off your crimes like a police dispatcher. And all to return to what's now become forced scrolling horse race where you take turns boarding and sabotaging a train.

That's all 1 level, btw. The boss fights are also surprisingly varied from each other, with each one taking advantage of different mechanics and gimmicks. Hell, 13 years later the Dragon General boss fight still feels genuinely tense and exciting.

I've got to say, this game much have looked amazing back in the day on a 3D TV, as one of the few Sony games built for it. Characters and objects are constantly being shot at or swooping by the camera in exaggerated fashion, not to mention that the levels are built as "sets" stacked back-to-front, with the sets shuffling around and rebuilding themselves as you trigger transition points. Boss fights will frequently have Kutaro snipping through them into the screen or out of it.

If there's one major knock I have against this game, it's that the humor is very much of its time. For every genuinely funny moment, you'll have something intentionally cringe that just gets drawn out in the hopes that beating the joke into the ground will make it funny. It reminds me at times of vintage Doug Walker humor, especially with its love of self-aware humor.

It's a real shame that this PS3 exclusive came out only a few months before the PS4 launched, so it was completely buried. Sony does still like to reference that this game existed from time to time, as expected mostly in the Astro Bot games, but it's never been ported or remastered on any other platform. You can play it on PS+ streaming if you have the Premium subscription for it, and I can see a game like this that doesn't really on split-second timing probably working OK that way...but it's a real shame that Sony never released this game on other platforms considering the trash they DID port.

If you've never played Puppeteer and you still own a PS3, I highly recommend it. The game is a love letter to the theater; imagination; and artistry. I mean, c'mon...the game features a lengthy homage to the Thunderbirds TV series, followed by a battle against a giant crab mecha that ends with a character remarking how they defeated a "Giant Enemy Crab". How could I not love it?

Original trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk-a7We07Bk

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TalkBack / Re: Ocarina Of Time Remake To Launch November 5

« on: September 08, 2026, 11:27:07 AM »

I'm not sure how to feel about this unveiling, now that we've finally seen what the game looks like.

What they showed seemed...fine, but not exciting in any way. TBH, the game looks like every "THIS IS WHAT ZELDA WOULD LOOK LIKE IN UNREAL ENGINE 4! DO NOT STEAL!" video I've ever seen. I could take or leave or leave a lot of the stuff they added, like manual jumping and the day/night cycle being even more annoying since the clock never stops now. The voice acting generally sounds good, which after how bad the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom dubs were is reassuring.

Still, I basically thought the same of the Star Fox remake when they showed that off, so I'll probably like this just fine as well.

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TalkBack / Re: Ocarina Of Time Remake To Launch November 5

« on: September 08, 2026, 11:23:49 AM »

Seems like you still can't preorder. Anybody know what the price is?

$70 physical, at least until Walmart does its thing and then Amazon does its thing. Probably $60 on the eShop.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: September 07, 2026, 07:22:45 PM »

My argument against the whole "RPG Book Club" idea is that we basically already have that with the "What are you playing?" thread.

But yes, the longer nature of RPGs and the general dead air that is November and December these days (watch Nintendo put Ocarina out in November just to spite me) is why I was eying those 2 months (it helps that both months have "-ember" as their suffix, so the name still works). GTA 6 basically killed all releases after October, and I don't care about GTA so that's 2 months free for me.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: September 06, 2026, 07:59:17 PM »

Broodwars suckered me in good when he told Mop it up that there were like 16 Sonic Game Gear games and he wouldn’t be able to match that total. Yet, now he had found a way to hit 22.

In my defense, when I said that I meant it. I did the mental math and saw that Mop was going to hit 18 games if she cleared all the games in the collection. I think at the time I was still around 9-10 and I wasn't seeing how I was going to top that and still play stuff I wanted to play like those games I listed as honorable mentions.

And as it turned out, I didn't. I ended up falling into the rabbit hole of digging through my PSN and Switch libraries looking for stuff I could knock out quickly. I originally wasn't going to play Star Fox 2026 for this event, as I figured it would give people ideas that there was a recent game they probably all owned that they could "beat" in a half hour. 

Considering I was playing crap like Elea and the Jurassic Park collection after that just to try to catch up to where I thought Mop and you would end up, I would say I rather suckered myself. And I had to heavily de-tox from gaming with anime binging for several days when it was all over. 

As for your 2 last games, I have no issues counting them, though I'm surprised you only cleared Super Mario Bros. U when you had New Super Luigi U right there as well. I would have counted that game as well since it's individually select-able in that collection. 75 completed games is a nice round number for something like this.

Looking ahead, I think if we end up doing the RPG event in November (incidentally, I do plan to count Adventure games in that event), I think I'm going to forego the whole leaderboard thing unless people really want it. I don't seem to remember Shocktober using one. Seems to generate more stress than it does excitement, though it does look like we surpassed the views on 2024 and are making good progress on overtaking 2025's numbers.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: September 05, 2026, 12:36:29 PM »

At this point, it was getting to be late and I'd only beat 3 games and with one game very close to the finish line. I'll admit Broodwars number of 22 had deflated my enthusiasm.

Yeah, that is pretty much the reason I held that collection in reserve for so long. Well, that and the games in the collection being bad. There were comments early on in the thread about people feeling deflated at the prospect of catching up on the leaderboard, and I didn't want to kill morale any further.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Field notes: what Japanese amiibo actually cost in 2026

« on: September 04, 2026, 06:33:58 PM »

I'm glad that computer parts have soared in prices just so this thread could exist.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: September 01, 2026, 09:21:53 AM »

Well, that's another Backlaugust come and come, and assuming that everyone's games are in we currently stand at 70 games completed. That makes it not only the most successful Backlaugust so far, but one with more games completed than the last 2 years combined.

Wow. I'd like to thank all our participants this year, whether you contributed 2 games or far more. It's been a pleasure hosting this year, and I wouldn't mind doing so again in the future if no one else wants to take the reins. As I said before, though, I think I'll leave the leaderboard chasing to others, as it was fairly draining trying to keep up with the likes of Khush and Mop.

Some games I would have liked to have completed if time had permitted:

- Puppeteer - Maybe I'll save this one for Shocktober, as it somewhat fits the Halloween vibe.

- Marvel's Midnight Suns - The XCOM turn-based strategy game you play with cards. Also might work with Shocktober.

- Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate Remastered (PS3) - Ebenezer ended up taking this game's spot, but I remember liking the Vita version and for some reason I never finished the PS3 version, judging by my trophy list.

- Escape Plan (PS4) - I dabbled with this one for a few hours, but despite liking the Vita version the PS4 version's controls just weren't working for me as much.

- Freedom Wars Remastered - Put a few hours into this one and was slowly warming up to it, but this was looking like a long one so tabled it for the competition.

- TMNT: Splintered Fate - About halfway through this one. Considered gunning for the credits to complete the month, but just wasn't up to it.

- The Rogue Prince of Persia - Still need to finish the Platinum on that one, but wasn't sure how many more runs that would take.

- Cronos: The New Dawn - A definite Shocktober candidate, and a game I wasn't particularly enjoying the last time I played it.

- The Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection/Dragon Quest 1-3 HD-2D remakes - Have had the former for a while now, and just acquired the latter. Maybe later this year.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 31, 2026, 01:55:44 PM »

69. Tails Adventure - Mop It Up

Backlaugust 2026 Total: 69 Games

...what? Were you expecting something else? 

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 30, 2026, 10:37:41 PM »

Next up is a quickie: Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues (Game Boy)





Ah...THERE'S the completely phoned-in, generic 2D licensed platforming action I was expecting from the 1st Game Boy game!

There are 8 fairly large open levels, and Grant must wander them collecting dozens of key cards that literally fall from the sky at times in order to open a big magnetic gate at the end of the stage. You shoot, you jump, and you swim to victory. Completely harmless and enjoyable enough for what it is, with the possible exception of the 2 auto-scrolling T-Rex chase levels where the level design can sometimes **** you over by goading you to take a wrong turn that turns out to be an unavoidable dead end. There are 4 boss fights as well, all with very clear patterns and obvious telegraphs.

A very competently-made generic licensed game. Not much to say about it. Ironically, it may be the best game in the collection by default.

Which leaves our last entry, Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues (SNES)









So...this one's a weird one. Like Ocean's other Jurassic Park SNES game, this one is fairly ambitious for its time, but in different ways. It foregoes a linear structure and the open world of the previous SNES JP game for something akin to a Mega Man game. You pick from a list of missions, after which you run through gigantic open mazes killing enemies and completing objectives. After completing a given level, you're assigned an "emergency" mission where you have to run through another maze under extremely strict time limits. Wash, rinse, repeat for 6 sets of levels, plus another 2 for the game's true ending.

Like the other JP sequels, this game has absolutely nothing to do with either the Lost World book or the movie that'd later be loosely based on it. Instead, Biosin (Lewis Dodgson's company. You know them? We have Dodgson's company here! See? No one cares) has deployed an absolute army to Isla Nublar to take over the park, and John Hammond responds by deploying Rambo...err..."Grant" to kill them all and protect the dinosaurs.

The main problem with Chaos Continues on SNES is that the game is really goddamn hard, and the collection requires you to play the game on Hard since that's the only way to access those 2 final levels and the final fights with the T-Rex and the Biosin chopper. Despite having video evidence saying otherwise, I refuse to believe anyone beat this game legit back in the day. Enemies respawn almost immediately upon death, decent ammo is very limited, and Grant dies in seconds under sustained fire (literally, in the case of the frequent flamethrower troopers). It's a Contra game with the sensibilities of Super Ghouls and Ghosts. It's absurd. And if you don't know EXACTLY where to go during the timed emergency missions, you WILL run out of time because the time limits allotted give the player barely any wiggle room, even if they're mainly just jumping over enemies.

On top of that, the developers decided to get cute and give the player 2 sets of weapons: lethal weapons triggered by the L button and non-lethal weapons triggered by the R button. The former is meant to be used on humans, and the latter is meant to be used on dinosaurs. Non-lethal weapons will do barely any damage to humans, and killing dinosaurs with lethal weapons incurs a penalty. For some...bizarre reason, the devs decided to give the dinosaurs a lives counter. When you kill one with a lethal weapon, the counter drops by 1. Over time, that number will slowly tick back up as the dinosaurs repopulate, but if you're not careful you can deplete that meter extremely quickly.

It's worth noting that raptor deaths, thankfully, do not contribute to the dino death counter, as raptors are not dinosaurs. That's just hard science right there.

This is just a bizarre game. It's quite polished for what it is, it still looks good, and if for some reason you really wanted to play a Jurassic Park-themed Contra game, well...there you are. But it's beyond unfair that the developers constructed these massive & extremely similar mazes, give the player NO indication of where to do and little idea of what to do, provide very rare health and ammo pickups, and then often slap a strict time limit on top of it. It's just needlessly frustrating.

And with that, that's the collection. If I had to rank the games in order of quality, I'd probably have them as such from best to worst:

1. Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues (Game Boy) - It's nothing special, but it also doesn't have any serious issues.

2. Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues (SNES) - It's hard as hell, but there's a solid idea in here for a decent game.

3. Jurassic Park (SNES) - It can be tedious and boring at times, but with a guide nudging you in the right direction there's a unique experience here, especially since you can save your game now.

4. Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition - Terrible level design and frustrating combat encounters, but it's playable enough.

5. Jurassic Park (Game Boy) - The terrible Game Boy hardware ironically sands down some of the edges of the NES version.

6. Jurassic Park (NES) - Boring, tedious, and absolutely unfair in its design.

7. Jurassic Park (Genesis) - What the actual ****?

And now...it's your turn.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 30, 2026, 09:56:25 PM »

Next up was a game I'd heard a lot about as a kid and the first of the games I had to beat twice: Jurassic Park (Genesis).







Yeah, I lost my screenshot from when I cleared the game as Grant. As you can tell, I was stockpiling a lot of them at the time.

As I said before, if I didn't have save states and rewind, the NES game would be the worst game in the set. However, I DID have them in this collection so THIS piece of **** was definitely the worst one. I have no earthly idea what all the Genesis players were smoking when they were hyping this trash up back in the day. Sure, the SNES game was cryptic and frequently boring, but I'll take that over this ugly; cheap; and barely functional garbage.

This was the game that was hyped way back when for having 2 campaigns: 1 as Grant trying to escape the park, and another as a raptor pursuing Grant to kill him. In hindsight, maybe instead of the devs creating 2 mediocre experiences with bad implementation, they should have focused on 1 halfway decent experience because this game is a mess.

Let's start with the controls, which make Blade Kitten look responsive. Grant plays more like the Prince in the original Prince of Persia or the dude from Out of This World than Mario. Everything about his movement is extremely slow and requires utter precision. If you want to climb a ladder, you have to be in a VERY specific, pixel-perfect position. Meanwhile, you're getting ganked by dinosaurs who can move twice as fast as you and can kill you in a few hits. And there are so many instant kills, from falling into water on a tricky jump you just barely missed...to the T-Rex breaking through the background with a hit box that is at best a suggestion

Then there's the Raptor. Yes, he is much more responsive than Grant, if still slightly clumsy due to his size. He also has 3 times as a big of a hit box, and he can only hit in melee in a campaign full of humans with guns.  It doesn't go well. You basically spend the campaign spamming your lore-accurate double jump tail whip, which only sometimes actually connects with your target.

Yeah, that's definitely one big ol' disappointment. Good thing I never have to play that ag-

Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition





SONOFABITCH!

Yeah, OK, I actually played the other Game Boy game first, but how could I not do that bit again when Rampage Edition basically just feels like a level pack for the first Genesis JP game? 

I'll give Rampage Edition this much: it IS better than the first game, mainly because Grant now moves like a normal 2D action character of the time and the Raptor can go into an invincible rage mode if you collect 3 lysine containers. Strangely enough, the plot isn't based on either the Lost World book or the (terrible) movie. Instead, it has Grant returning to the island to stop InGen from capturing dinosaur DNA, and then escaping from the T-Rex as usual. Meanwhile, the Raptor runs around killing things until you eventually kill another boss raptor and escape on that damn boat that pops up in all these adaptations. With rewind and save states, it's perfectly playable, just frustrating and dull.

The level design is basically nonexistent. You start in a huge open area, and run wherever in the maze the game allows you to run until the game decides you've suffered enough. Sadly, this won't be the last Jurassic Park sequel that does this. There are collectibles you can grab around the maps in order to "save" their respective specifies, but that doesn't seem to actually have any impact on anything despite the game tracking it.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 30, 2026, 09:34:02 PM »

Moving on, here's the one game in the set I not only have played before, but used to own and would regularly beat as a kid: Jurassic Park (SNES).







I don't know how I did it back then, because this is one of the most confusing, cryptic games I've played in a while.

I'll give the SNES version this much: it's certainly the most ambitious of Ocean's Jurassic Park games. Instead of a level-based structure, you have a small open world populated by dinosaurs and dungeons shaped like buildings. Outside, it's a top-down shooter. It's an Ocean Jurassic Park game, so you're looking for dinosaur eggs as well, and you're required to find all of them to beat the game. Inside, you're playing 3D Doom at 5 frames per second as you wander through absolute labyrinths looking for keys and consoles to interact with.

I remembered next to nothing about the actual progression of this game, other than that I needed to start by entering a utility shed to get a keycard before going into the visitor's center.

Pity I forgot that there are 2 utility sheds, the 1 you want is pretty well hidden, and I spent an eternity in the wrong one looking for a keycard that wasn't there. That then made me think my memory was bad, so I went to the visitor center...where I spent an even longer eternity looking for anything I could interact with and kept running into warnings that I needed keycards I didn't have in order to proceed. What a comedy of errors.

Once I started pulling up guides to point me in the right direction, things went more smoothly, but I can't stress enough what an absolutely cluster**** navigation is. Ocean had a love for mazes that bordered on the psychopathic. All of their JP games featured them, and none more than this one, and you're expect to remember where locked doors are and what keycards you need to open them later. The entire back half of the game expects you to crisscross the entire map 4 times over the course of clearing 1 dungeon, as you obtain keycards on the boat that allow you access to an area of the visitor center you need to reach to give yourself security clearance so you can explore the rest of the boat.

Then there's taking out the raptor nest, an absolute nightmare of identical corridors and walls you can very easily glitch through to get stuck in the void. At least the game is kind enough to remember what dinosaurs you've killed, as only certain raptors in the overworld respawn. And the collection does have a master map of the overworld that is quite handy, though sadly NO maps for the interior mazes that would be VERY helpful.

Where it isn't kind, and this is a big benefit of the collection, is with the game's save system. It doesn't have one, and it can easily take 3-5 hours to beat this game if you don't know what to do, and you're expected to do them all in one sitting. Again, I don't know how I routinely managed this as a child. Because the collection has save states, this game is way more playable now than it was back then.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 30, 2026, 09:16:52 PM »

Let's start things off with Jurassic Park (NES):





If it weren't for rewind and save states, this would be by far the worst game in the set, and that is saying something considering how bad these games are.

The game comprises 6 top-down levels with a handful of additional boss fights, and like many of the other games in the set it takes its general look and iconography from the movie but the plot from the original book, meaning the focus of the story is largely on stopping the boat carrying stowaway raptors from reaching the mainland and tracking down all the rogue raptor eggs.

I sure hope you love collecting eggs, because that is 90% of the gameplay. You roam fairly large outdoor areas, collecting every...SINGLE...egg in the area in order to cause a card key to drop that opens a door...somewhere. The game doesn't tell you where. You're just supposed to check all the doors in the level until one does something. Once you get into a building, it's time to collect eggs again in order to trigger another card key drop that leads somewhere else. Wash, rinse, repeat. Shoot dinosaurs with a grenade launcher inbetween.

Good god, this gets monotonous, and weirdly enough it's not the raptors that cause the biggest annoyance, but all the swarms of Compsognathus that eat your ammo and can easily outrun you. The dilophosaurus are annoying in their own special way, too. The only way to take them out without taking damage is to constantly change directions and fire at them before they've instantly pivoted to your new location. And all the dinosaurs in this game respawn if you even slightly move off-screen.

Later levels add their own annoyances, such as the boat stage with its tesla coils that spit electricity in all directions at extremely odd intervals that require pixel perfect precision to avoid. Then there's the stage where you have to set timed C4 charges in raptor nests and then escape under extremely strict time limits before they explode. Then there's the stage where you have to turn on all the computers scattered randomly around a large building in a specific order the game never discloses. More on that later.

But the things that makes you tear your hair out and hug the rewind button are the 2 boss battles against the T-Rex. In both, you're playing escort duty as the T-Rex stomps around the environment. You can only damage him when he's charging with his head down to the ground. If his head touches you, you instantly die. If his head touches Lex or Tim (who joins in the 2nd battle), you instantly die. The NPCs will follow you as you move around the arena...sometimes. I never figured out what the trigger was to get them to move, which is all sorts of fun. Amusingly, the T-Rex stepping on them is NOT an instant kill.

Overall, this is a very bad game, and I'm glad I never have to play it ag-

Jurassic Park (Game Boy)





SONOFABITCH! It's almost an exact port of the NES game! Why?! Why couldn't it have just been a generic 2D platformer like every other Game Boy licensed game! 

Well, everything I just said about the NES version applies here, too, although oddly this is a considerably easier version of the game...mostly, and that's largely because of what a complete PoS the original Game Boy hardware was. Weaker hardware means there are way fewer dinosaurs onscreen, and for some reason Grant moves at what feels like double his speed from the NES game, which means that you can easily outrun the dinosaurs in this version. It's almost pointless to kill dinos in this game unless they're directly standing in your way.

Where things get different are in the boss fights. The Triceratops stampede with Tim and the T-Rex fight with Lex are still here, but they're not repeated like they are in the NES version. And the T-Rex fight works way differently and is much easier...if you know how it works. Instead of a traditional fight, you fire rounds at him to bat him away while triggering Lex to very slowly follow you to the exit at the far left of the arena. Lex can't get insta-killed, either. The catch is that if you don't enter this fight with a huge arsenal of ammo from the previous levels, it is impossible to clear this chase because there is NO ammo in the arena. That also means that you really need to be keeping count of how many rounds of each ammo type is sufficient to drive him away for a few seconds.

While playing this game, however, is where I noticed that LRG stuck an option in the collection pause menu that allows you to pull up a map of whatever level you're in at any given time. Very useful...



...except when it's a total lie. That is NOT the order you trigger the consoles in the Game Boy version. I believe the order in THIS map is the order you press them in the NES version.

Overall, I have and did see worse than this.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 30, 2026, 08:41:43 PM »

"Ah...we have a 3-way tie for 1st, and the PSN Blackout is over. That'll do!"

I've mentioned before that I had a collection of bad games I had been playing, but I'd set them aside to play stuff moderately more enjoyable, Well, it seems the time has come to Farewell this thing from my backlog...



For my last major contribution to this event, I present the so-called Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection:



I picked this one up some months ago when it was on heavy sale just before its pitiful 2 year movie license expired and the game met the fate of all games in the Shiny Digital Future. This game contains 7 NES; Game Boy; and Sega Genesis Games, and while they are on the shorter side I would only consider 1 of them simple. And you have to complete them all for the Platinum, twice each for the Genesis games, and once on Hard mode in the case of one of the SNES games.

I think the movie itself best summed up my views on this collection and Limited Run Games' decision to make it.





This is going to be a long one, so I'm going to break this up into multiple posts for easier reading. Hold onto your butts!

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 30, 2026, 08:09:30 AM »

I’ve really just come to the sobering conclusion that most of the games I purchase are either procedural hellscapes or “feature length experiences,” which for my preferred genre tastes (RPGs) is twenty hours on a good day. The exceptions are few and far between, and when I do get those exceptions, they tend to be the first part of my backlog that I fridge clean. This is worrisome, of course, considering I am very aware of at least ten RPGs in my backlog at the moment. At least ten.

I've been mulling over creating a separate forum event for RPGs in the future, but unfortunately the only month with a name that fits the topic is "ARPGust" (August), a month that is definitely already taken. "JRPG July?" Maybe we just go June -> August with "RPG Summer", since those are months where basically nothing comes out. I dunno. Open to ideas, because this is definitely the last Backlaugust where I'm going to be to shotgunning games like this. RPGs make up the vast majority of the backlog I care about as well, and they don't suit this format.

Edit: Been mulling it over, and what about "Rolevember"? Set it across November and December, traditionally dead months these days.

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General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 29, 2026, 08:13:09 PM »

Been busy running family errands and chopping up fallen trees today to post or play anything, but I might as well add this one now that I've been working on for a few days and finally finished:







It's been a while since I played a Far Cry game, and even longer since I played Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. A few years ago, Ubisoft released a "Classic Edition" remaster on modern consoles that was widely criticized for running at 30 FPS. Well, as Ubisoft is wont to do, they recently put out an update to unlock the other 30 frames, so I've finally gotten around to playing this remaster.

The setup is simple enough: you are Michael Beihn, a cyborg supersoldier, and you're tasked with taking out a rogue cyber commando who has taken over an island with his army of cyber soldiers, cyber dogs, cyber sharks, and the deadliest creatures of all: the laser-spewing Blood Dragons. Perhaps you're sensing a theme here. You wander the island, capture garrisons, do brief missions where you take out enemies with particular weapons or free hostages. There are only 7 story missions, so it's a quick ride if you want it to be. I, of course, had to run around collecting all the VHS taps, CRT tapes, and complete all the side missions.

Overall, it's still a good game, though it's worth noting both that this game was made during the height of the 80s nostalgia boom and Ubisoft's "subversive" era. As such, the theming of the game can be a bit overbearing at times, and the humor can be both pretty tired and depressing at times...considering a lot of the jokes are at the expense of Ubisoft game design, which has not improved in any meaningful way since Blood Dragon's original 2013 release. It doesn't help that Michael Beihn was never the greatest actor, and he seems to alternate between completely phoning his lines in and just being...Michael Beihn.



It's not funny when modern games are basically just doing that now.

Blood Dragon walks a very careful line between absolute sincerity to the bit and absolutely no shits to give, particularly in the retro cutscenes. And the game is basically over once you unlock the explosive rounds for your sniper rifle, as nothing in the game can stand up to a semi-automatic sniper rifle shooting grenades. If you're not a fan of 80s movies, you'll find this game's style grating.







What does absolutely elevate this game, though, is Power Glove's outstanding soundtrack, which was clearly inspired by the likes of the original Terminator, Predator, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHcFO7pUi9Y&list=PLu6_FOgZp3ehDEMebGB4uDbN5yMYOthnP&index=25

This game also has one of my all-time favorite game trailers. Say what you will about mid-2000s Ubisoft, but they definitely had the passion at the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dofacvjRkc

I wouldn't get too comfortable at the top of the leaderboard there, Khush. I still have a card or 2 to play before this is all over. 

18

General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 28, 2026, 12:40:37 PM »

Against my better judgment, I next tried out Sonic Drift for the Game Gear. I played and won all three of the GPs which rolled credits, so I s'pose that's a completion for this title. Why is Sonic in a car? Wouldn't he be faster without it? I guess he needs to make it fair for everyone else.

I think Sonic would prefer we forgot about that time he did a racing game without a car. 

https://youtu.be/k6vgKfRsmI0?is=N1vNyNKnryeFYTnN

Also, Sonic All Star Racing Transformed and Sonic Racing Crossworlds are great, and he uses a car in those.

19

General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 27, 2026, 01:44:11 AM »

How about one more to finish out the night? Might as well finally let my PS3 get in on the action:









Blade Kitten is a 2.5D action platformer published by Atari in 2010, and it's apparently based on a webcomic series I've never heard of starring an anime catgirl bounty hunter.

I'll give Blade Kitten some props at the start for its visual style, which has aged extremely gracefully in the last 16 years, even if Kate Ballard (the catgirl) looks like she's going to try to sell me some Esurance every time the game goes into a cutscene. The environments may be drab and uninteresting, but those character models wouldn't look too out of place in a modern Indie game. The game is also fairly competently voice acted (not a guarantee in 2010), and there's a pretty strong emphasis on exploration with all the hidden collectables and the platforming tricks you need to reach them.

That said, this is an action platformer, and the combat was awful even by the standards of the time. Kate has a sword that follows her around in the air at all times, and you can mash a button to spam swings in front of you. There's also a grab with the sword the game really forces you to use in the 2nd half to remove enemy shields. That's about it for the combat, which wouldn't be too big an issue if the game didn't have quite so MUCH of it, and if the collision detection in this game weren't fundamentally broken. Sure, you CAN pounce on enemies at times to throw them in the air and you CAN also slide into enemies, but the timing on the aerial grab is really finicky and the slide doesn't play well with the Dualshock 3's analog stick. In the end, it's just more efficient to spam the attack button, the BORING way. And meanwhile, enemies just swarm all around you, beating you to death. Even with regenerating health, Kate is extremely fragile and it makes the levels way more frustrating than they need to be.

Things don't get that much better with the platforming. Being a catgirl, Kate can climb walls and ceilings, as well as lock jumps onto certain small platforms, and that's basically how every secret in the game will be hidden. What's frustrating about the platforming is that there IS more to it but the game never forces you to use the full depths of your kit during the main progression of the levels. For instance, Kate can plunge her sword into walls she can't climb and then use her sword as a springboard to fling herself up higher. The game NEVER tells the player they can do this in normal play. I only discovered this was a "thing" when I was rummaging through the menus and found the in-game manual that detailed how to perform this move, and I can definitely think of some early game chests I couldn't figure out how to reach that I needed that move to get to.

Unfortunately, there's a much bigger issue with the platforming that that: it's extremely unresponsive. Kate moves more like a Sonic or Bubsy than a Mario, feeling more like she's skating along the ground rather than running. This makes every level feel like an Ice level, where you're slow to get moving; suddenly start running extremely quickly; and then skid to a stop several feet from where you intended. The game's poor performance certainly doesn't help things there, either, especially in the game's 2nd half where the enemy count starts tripling and they ALL start chasing you through the levels without stopping. It also doesn't help that this game's environmental collision is a joke, and several times resulted in game-important characters getting pushed through geometry into areas they're not supposed to be in and which you can't get them out of.

And Christ, the levels drag on forever. "4-5 hours" my ass, "How Long to Beat." This one took me probably closer to 8-10, 2 full nights.

The story is also a mess. It starts simple enough: Kate comes to a planet to hunt a bounty and a fellow bounty hunter steals essentially her ID. Kate chases after her and shenanigans ensue. Unfortunately, after the opening level I completely lost track of what was going on in the story because everything kept diving into tangents and sudden inconveniences. I'm glad the game took a moment to remind players that the final boss was the bounty Kate came to hunt, because the entire "bounty hunting" story hadn't been brought up since literally the beginning of the game and I had no idea why I was suddenly at odds with this one woman.

So, why did I pick up this game? I actually do remember this one. For a while, I worked in QA for EA, where I primarily tested on 360 at first. Back then, Microsoft allowed developers on its platform into a little backstage XBLA for uploading test builds of games, and EA realized too late that that meant that anyone from any company could download builds of anyone else's game.

I played so much Space Invaders Extreme that way. 

In any case, one of the other games I kept seeing on there was this Blade Kitten game. At the time, it was good-looking, and I'm a fan of both anime and platformers so it looked like a fun time. Figured I'd give it a play once I had one of those shiny new 360 and PS3 machines for myself.

Well, I'm glad that I finally played through it in any case, even if the game was at best mediocre. It reminds me of those Sonic Boom games on the 3DS at times, a Bubsy game at others. Funnily enough, you may have noticed the "Episode 1" tag in one of those screenshots. Well, this isn't another Elea situation. There actually WAS an Episode 2...on PC. Apparently, the rights to the game were in limbo for a few years when Atari went under for a while, but the original devs managed to get the rights back and put out their 2nd episode...which looks identical to the 1st game despite being made 5 years later.

Yeah, I'll pass on playing Episode 2 on PC, thanks.

20

General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 26, 2026, 08:51:37 PM »

Well, after work, went to the movies and saw The End of Oak Street. And then I came up home and wrapped up another game. Khush can't stop!

What Remains of Edith Finch - I've been semi-aware of this game for years. I'd seen a lot of positive reviews about it but never really read up on what it was about. Constantly would see it on sale on the eShop. For whatever reason, I decided to finally get it on a recent sale a couple months ago. My take from the screenshots I'd seen of it was that it seemed like a possible point and click adventure in which you go through an abandoned house to solve a mystery which, for some reason, I thought was the case of a missing person called Edith Finch. That's not really what this game is. In fact, it really stretches the definition of a game. Sort of like how Phoenix Wright is sometimes referred to more a visual novel, to me WROEF is more like an interactive movie. Or maybe a theme park ride or museum tour. There's very little gaming to be done. You're mostly just moving the main character along a linear path and being given their thoughts on this journey as well as encountering some stories/histories of the people who lived in the house which often have a brief gameplay element tied to them but I wouldn't really call much of that gameplay as fun or engaging. The story has a pretty heavy feel to it which is probably why I felt like taking some breaks from the game instead of trying to finish it all in one go. In the end, this idea just didn't work for me and I could probably get into a bit more detail on that. For now, I just want to check off that this game has been beat and complete and am moving on to the next one.

I quite enjoyed What Remains of Edith Finch, though I think BAFTA giving it GOTY nods was more than a bit contrarian for a "game" that slight. That said, I really enjoyed some of the stories, particularly the last one with the son working in the fishery. That's the one that really felt like it took advantage of the gaming medium to do something unique.

Oh dear, it seems that Kushrenada has caught up to me. Well, there's only 1 thing I can say to that...



Yeah, I've been putting this one off for a while. Just really haven't been in the mood to commit to Star Fox (2026), especially since I really didn't like the handheld experience in the demo. But I found myself finally with time to kill at work and nothing but my Switch 2 to do it with, so I thought I'd finally give it a go.







Between that 1 playthrough at work and the 2 I did after work tonight, I feel like I've seen everything I wanted to experience of this game for the moment. Between those playthroughs I saw every level in the game except Titania, and given how absolutely idiotic the requirements to access that level are I didn't care enough to do a 4th playthrough just to see the level you reach when you really suck at the game.

It's funny. My intention on my 1st playthrough was to play through the "easy path" levels first and get the false ending, and then do the "true ending" path on my 2nd and 3rd playthroughs. Unfortunately, my memory of SF 64 is a bit fuzzy and I forgot that Sector Z and the venom section after it were considered the "hard path" to the True Ending, so...I got the True Ending on my 1st playthrough by pure accident.

Overall, Star Fox 2026 is a superb remake of a game that really, really...REALLY didn't need another one. Aside from Solar (which REALLY looks "early Switch 1"), this is a gorgeous game with a strong emphasis on detail & lighting. Unfortunately, this can also be a bit of a negative at times, as the game is much less "readable" than the N64 original. It can be difficult at times to even SEE what you're shooting at, particularly if you can't lock onto it. It can similarly be difficult to see and hit the weakpoints on the new boss designs. Aside from that, though, this is still Star Fox 64 at its heart so the gameplay is as excellent as ever...even if I think the Star Fox team feels way more fragile in this version than in the original. It's nearly impossible to beat Venom 2 without at least 1 team member going down. I had to restart that mission so many times to finally take out Leon or Pigma before they took out their counterparts.

The major new content in this version are the new CG cutscenes, though, which are very well-done and do take into account minor differences in your playthrough, such as whether you'd been to Aquas before going to Macbeth. Even the montage of areas in the ending credits is based on the path you took to get to Andross. And while the script is generally very faithful to the original game, it feels like there's a lot more banter between the team as the levels play out. Just hearing more interactions between the team is very much appreciated. As lovely as the cutscenes are, though, I was slightly taken out of the experience by boss kills immediately jumping into pre-scripted cutscenes instead of fully playing out in-game.

Special shout-out to the music, by the way. The new orchestrations (particularly Aquas' theme) are outstanding. I'm very mixed on the new voice acting, though. In general, it's higher quality than the original game, but the performances are so much less expressive and passionate. It's a very "business-like" dub. No one's especially bad (aside from the train guy on Macbeth, which just...could you please give a ****?), but no one's especially putting in a great effort, either.

Well, aside from the guy they had voicing the pirate captain on Zoness. THAT guy understood the assignment.

Overall, I really like this remake, but I wish there was more "new" to it besides additions around the edges. This version could have used some whole new levels.

On a side note, I find it hilarious how absolutely cutthroat team Star Fox is about getting paid in this version, considering how continually terrified Nintendo is of allowing Samus Aran to be a Bounty Hunter seeking bounties in HER games.

And with that, my backlog is finally free of Switch 2 games. I've cleared all the ones I've bought so far.

21

General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 25, 2026, 02:35:56 PM »

Back again now with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 for Game Gear, which I believe is also a port of the Master System version. And I've gotta... puke! This is easily the most difficult Sonic game I've tried, and not in any way that a sane person would dream up; they must have really been worried about people beating this one as a rental! I appreciate that they needed some gimmicks to make this stand out from Genesis Sonic 2, but the janky minecarts and hang gliders were not the play. One of the final levels is a stretch of pick-a-pipe which often have spike pits waiting at the end of incorrect choices, long before Mario Maker made it cool. Full disclosure, I had to abuse the mop outta save states to make it through this one, I don't think there's any way I could beat it legitimately. I'll leave it up to the panel of judges here if it should count. Also, I'm preeeeeetty sure that the devs mistook Tails for being a girl...

I'm not going to judge anyone for save state usage here. I save that for the likes of losers like DarksydePhil, the self-styled "King of Retro". You put in the time and enjoyed the game to whatever level of satisfaction works for you.

22

General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 24, 2026, 11:39:06 PM »

OK, wow...saw this thing in my PSN library, was curious about what it was, so I spent an evening diving through it. Well, you know what they say about Curiosity and Cats...





Elea is a first person...psychological horror...walking simulator...adventure game? Google describes it as "exploring strange, mind-bending events that test human reason, memory, and the meaning of life."

BULL...****. Oh yeah, I'll give them the "strange" part, and getting through this game sure tested my human reason, as well as making me dwell on the meaning of my life devoting 4 hours of my limited time on this planet to playing this broken piece of ****. But clearly NONE of that was intentional on the part of the developers.

It certainly doesn't start well when you hear some of the worst, barely English voice acting you've ever heard in your life before even hitting Start on the main menu, followed by this very...slowly...scrolling up the screen:



Ah, excellent. We're taking our storytelling notes from Uwe Boll, though at least he used a readable font size in Alone in the Dark. Once that screen finally passes, the player is blasted with THIS:



Because, you know, nothing quite says "easing the player into the experience" quite like shoving a one page summary of the manual in the player's face they need a microscope to read before they've even DONE anything.

What this "game" is is an excuse to have players wandering around looking at crap until the developers decide to start flashing lights in the player's eyes and cranking the sound effects up to 100 decibels. Sure, it starts out kinda ok, with you playing as a pregnant mother (no, that isn't redundant here) wandering around a house turning on lights and interacting with objects. Then...the game intentionally completely breaks with visual glitching and hitching and starts doing some Inception nonsense, revealing that this entire first 1/3 of the game is a broken memory simulation of the MC's past.



The rest of the "game", you wander around a ship clicking on stuff (or, more accurately, "try" to click on stuff, because the interact buttons rarely work and often cause the screen to freeze for several seconds) and waiting for the plot to happen. Apparently, you're looking for your husband. If I didn't know that from the title summary online, I couldn't have guessed. And if you're me, you're dreading this screen:



THIS screen was the bane of my existence. There's a part in the game's 3rd act where you have to climb into a medical chamber, at which point you have to control the character monitoring you FROM the perspective of your character in the chamber. In the dark. With a heavy glass effect obscuring your vision. With several objects in that character's way that you can't see.

And if you take too long to navigate a character you can't see who moves with tank controls from a 2nd person perspective, the game will not only hard crash your PS5 but also set you back a good 10 minutes of game time to the last auto-save.

It took me 3 tries to clear that section without crashing my console, by which point I was just playing out of pure spite. I haven't had to put this much effort into clearing a bad, broken game since the last Bethesda game I played.

So you do some stuff without ready explanation of why, you do a shitty chase sequence concluded by a button prompt that didn't work the first 5 times I tried it (leading to an instant death), you hit an escape pod, and...the game stops.

You see, Elea has another name on certain other consoles: Elea - Episode 1. This piece of **** was planned to be an episodic game. Well, Episode 1 came out in 2018. I'll just look forward to Episode 2 around the same time Blood & Bullets gets its 3rd episode. Oh wait. I LIKED Blood & Bullets.

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/elea-episode-1/BNJL0X82JT46?wfExp=382CT

**** this game. I have no memory of having bought it or why, though considering the game is a whole $1.50 right now on PSN, I think we might have solved the mystery, Gang! 

I've played some bad games this year, but I don't think I've seen such a shining example of utter incompetence. The story is so fragmented and poorly told that you can't enjoy it as a narrative experience. The gameplay borders between being barely existent and barely functional. At least it did me the small mercy of being short.

23

General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 24, 2026, 07:21:55 PM »

I noticed you've often posted pictures of the games you've played and never really thought anything about it. Just that it seemed like you were doing your own mini-review and including some shots of the game for that. However, on reading this, I realize that you were also posting to show a trophy and sort of prove that you beat/finished the game. Never thought about screenshots or proof before like that with Backlaugust. I've always accepted it as a word of honor premise. Plus, it's always been a hassle to make screenshots or photos from a game to a post on the forums that I'd rather just not bother. I don't know if it is something that people should do moving forward in future events when participating in this but it's something I'll probably look into particularly if I'm going to put in a challenge for the leaderboard like I am this year.

Little of A, little of B. The images add a bit of color to a sea of text, so I like using them. Plus, it helps me put my own spin on the process and might lead people to checking out the sometimes obscure **** I play. Plus, it's pretty easy to just screenshot on PS5, kick it up to the app, download from the app, post to Twitter, and then copy & past the image link over here.

Well, simpler than it sounds, anyway.

Seriously, would you believe a fairly notable Christmas Carol Metroidvania existed if you hadn't seen it for yourself? 

A pity I can't really do that with Puppeteer right now. I started my playthrough last night, and that game still looks gorgeous 13 years later. I don't think I'll have it done by the end of the month because I'd like to really take my time and savor that one, but if you have a PS3 and haven't played it, you should. It's a real shame that game is trapped on the PS3. It came out 2 months before the PS4 released and just got absolutely buried. It's the last truly great game Japan Studio made and oozing with charm.

Besides, I'm usually posting my Platinums on Social Media anyway, just to show that I went to the effort of 100% a game.

This is definitely the last Backlaugust where I'm going to make an active effort to chase the Top Spot. It's a fun novelty and it's definitely lead to me playing some stuff I wouldn't have gotten around to for a very long time (and other stuff I have no earthly idea when or why I bought it), but it does mean I'm actively avoiding playing longer stuff I would otherwise be playing.

24

TalkBack / Re: Cult Hit RPG Terranigma Reportedly Making North American Debut In 2027

« on: August 24, 2026, 05:59:02 PM »

An absolute classic that definitely deserves the remaster treatment, though I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't have liked to see Illusion of Gaia in this project as well (and yes, I know there's Soulblazer as well, but c'mon...these are the 2 Quintet games people know). I wonder if they'll make any QoL/balance changes to this version, as the original Terranigma has a real grind problem for exactly one dungeon before it never being an issue again.

25

General Gaming / Re: Backlaugust 2026 - (Splatoon) Raiding the Backlog

« on: August 23, 2026, 04:14:35 PM »

Picked this one up as a PS1 Classic on my PS3 a few months ago when Sony announced they were shutting the store down. Always heard good things about it (it's a series that Sony seems especially proud that they published), but never got around to trying it. As it turns out, Sony also ported the game to PS4/PS5 as a PS Classic, so I also got that version.









Jumping Flash! is a PS1 1st Person Platformer, and if just hearing that phrase makes you instinctively convulse considering just how bad First Person Platforming was back then, I hear you but this is the rare exception. I had a blast with this one. It's also one of the more surprisingly "happy" games I've played in a while.

The game's setup is as dumb as it is simple (and presumably spelled out in the manual, because I had to go online to find out what the plot was. The cutscenes do not in any way tell you): a mad scientist has stolen chunks of planets to form his own resort, so you (a robot bunny) have set out to kick his ass.

The game's broken up into 6 sets of 3 levels, with the last level of each set being a boss fight (aside from the last set, where the last 2 levels are boss fights). In the normal levels, you explore a relatively small area looking for carrot-shaped "jet pods". Once you collect all 4, you run to the exit and you're done. The levels are timed, and you get point bonuses if you collect the pods in the right E-X-I-T order, but for the most part that is it. Along the way, you can blast or jump enemies Mario-style, as well as collect special weapon power-ups that are extremely necessary for the boss fights. There's even 1 power-up that turns the screen all rainbow flashy as you become an invulnerable killing machine for a few seconds, very Mario Power Star-y.

The platforming in this game is so similar to what we'd later see in Metroid Prime I would be very surprised if folks at Retro hadn't been studying this game while they were prototyping their most famous one. Your character has a triple-jump, and much like MP as soon as you do that first double-jump the screen angles down to let you see where you're going to land (including a helpful shadow). Combined with that 3rd jump, this gives you an exceptional degree of control and confidence over your jumping once you get used to the controls, even with just a Dpad to work with.

Where I think the game substantially falters is with the boss fights. In general, they're pretty bad bullet sponges, able to take you out in a handful of hits while it takes you the better part of several minutes to whittle down their health. And they don't have the downside of a very slow turn speed when you try to dodge or jump past them. These are pretty much what you save your special weapons for, and even they will usually only take out 1/3 - 2/5 of the boss' health bar.

Overall, I quite enjoyed that one. I miss the days when Sony would put out games like this.