Mark's Reviews

     Turtles in Time the Arcade Game is a blast and a huge improvement over the still great yet flawed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Game.       While still quite hard its much more fair and manageable the original Turtles Arcade game. It also looks and sounds better and has a more interesting time-traveling theme as well as more varied and interesting levels. Its awesome! Love it!     Of course like most Turtles games its family-friendly with mild bloodless violence basically for all ages.     Its amazing and so much fun! Still not as good as Shredder's Revenge though but most games aren't. Its still S+ tier and 10 out of 10.

     Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game is a fun but tediously difficult Arcade game that I played on Nintendo Switch 2 via the Cowabunga Collection.     Fortunately this version doesn't suck up your quarters but its still quite frustrating. Fortunately, the ability to give yourself infinite lives and rewind takes away a great deal of the frustration. It looks great and sounds great and I love the fun voice-acted lines. Its pretty fun but I believe I prefer the NES port Turtles 2 over this game. Its still good.    Its a family-friendly beat em up game with animated violence and no blood.    Its good but not great in my opinion. Still, I think its an A and 9 out of 10.

    Shredder's Revenge is one of the best beat em up games I ever played. Its probably one of the best non-rpgs games I ever played for that matter.      The game is a lovingly crafted homage to the popular turtles cartoon show of the late 1980s and 1990s with tons of characters and easter eggs from the shows but more than that, its an absolute blast to play.      It features excellent, balanced, and exciting gameplay, vibrant retro-style graphics with extremely expressive and colorful characters,  and an amazing rocking soundtrack. I don't see many flaws in this game and it has so much extra content to unlock and collectibles to find its extremely replayable.      Its also very family-friendly. Sure, as you would expect from a beat em up, there is violence buts its very mild and bloodless,  making Shredder's Revenge appropriate to everyone and great for parents who were fans of the show to play with their children.  ...

    Originally a SNES game, the version of Super Star Wars I played on PlayStation 5 was released in 2015. It had very few differences as far as I can tell from the original version. However,  it did add save states which came in handy considering how hard this game is.     It's a wonderful game. Very fun and exciting and looks great for a 16-bit action platformer originally released in 1992. And the sound effects and music are spectacular and taken mostly from the Star Wars films. Great stuff! It's particularly based on the first film, A New Hope.     While difficult throughout, even on the easiest difficulty setting, most of the game is balanced and fair, especially with save states. Then the game starts to get mean, especially the last two stages, which, in my opinion, are more frustrating than fun.     This is a family-friendly game with mild violence and no blood. It's for all ages, but probably too tough for young players.    ...

     Donkey Kong for the NES is an absolute classic for a reason. It's fun, even today, despite or perhaps because of its simplicity.       The graphics are simplistic to the extreme, but there is a nostalgic charm to that, and the sound effects are somehow just as endearing, even though they are barely more than beeps and boops.     The game is a repetitive cycle of three stages, that get progressively harder. They are fun and basic with Mario/Jumpman's only actions besides moving left and right are jumping and climbing ladders. Besides this there is the hammer powerup which makes Mario automatically swing a hammer up and down for a short time, automatically destroying enemies and obstacles.     Donkey Kong is a very family-friendly game.      Despite its simplicity I love this game but its very repetitive and you basically just play it till you get tired of it or the game gets too hard. I give it A tier, 9 out of 10...

    This is a very good episode of Darkwing Duck, but an odd choice for a pilot as it is more about the episode villain Bushroot's origin than about the titular character Darkwing Duck.     Its humor and charm make it great with witty jokes and plant-based puns.      In many ways, Bushroot is a very strong villain for an animated series. He is surprisingly sympathetic and nuanced, but his origin is rushed, and he goes almost instantly from mild-mannered scientist to crazed menace. It's a bit jarring actually. Regardless, he is somehow likable even after becoming a bad guy and comes off more misguided than truly malicious. It's easy to feel sorry for him, yet he is still clearly a threat and needs to be stopped.      The highlight of the show is Darkwing Duck who I find hilarious. And he pairs well with the clumsy Launchpad, who was originally a DuckTales character.        Overall,  this is a very family-frie...

     Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is basically pure fun and awesomeness in video game form. It's amazing from beginning to end.      The graphics are sharp and colorful. Its soundtrack is perfect and some of the best video game music I have heard and matches the stages they accompany perfectly.      And the stages are innovative and fast-paced with a mostly balanced difficulty that is challenging without being frustrating.  However, things get pretty tough near the end. And the final fight with Robitnik/Eggman is pretty brutal.       It's as family-friendly as a game can be as almost all enemies are robots except for Robotnik himself.      This is an amazing platformer that rivals the best Mario games, and it's hard to find flaws with it. S+ tier and 10 out of 10, easily. 

  While largely a filler episode that is light on action, its actually a very good episode of Avatar.     Its funny and charming with a dash of romance and the conflict between resting in fate and seizing your own destiny is both thematically interesting and relevant to the plot.     Sokka is a star in this show as its perhaps his funniest episode and he is truly hilarious.      I do miss Zuko and Iroh who don't appear in this one. I like the unique characters of Aunt Woo and Meng though. Its good to have a slower episode like this sometimes.    Its a very good episode but its not S tier. However its A tier and a 9 out of 10. I really enjoyed it.

     Ninja Gaiden is a side-scrolling action platformer masterpiece with cutting edge innovations for the time.       The cinematic cutscenes that play between action segments are great and the story is deep and rich, especially for an Nes action game.     The gameplay is smooth and fun with lots of power-ups. And the suspenseful and exciting soundtrack is probably one of the best on the NES.      The first few stages range from easy to moderately difficult but than this game gets HARD! Insanely hard with waves of enemies knocking you into pits or overwhelming you. This is especially noticeable in stage 5 with stage 6 being Insanely brutal and concluding with a very difficult boss fight.     Its a mostly family-friendly game with bloodless violence.    This game is a masterpiece despite its sometimes insane difficulty in later stages. I love it! One of the best NES games for sure. S+ Tier, 10 out of 10.

    The NES beat-em up is undeniably a classic and it looks great for an 8-bit game of this era. The soundtrack is also great.      But like other NES games of this time its very difficult and frustrating. Still, its quite fun if you don't mind losing a lot. Fortunately,  I played it through the Nintendo Online Service on Nintendo Switch 2 so the rewind feature saved me as I doubt I could have beat it otherwise.      Its a mostly family friendly game but with violence you would expect from this genre and possibly a blood effect from the daggers. If your character or an enemy gets hit at those it shows red which just might symbolize impact or could be blood.     Overall, this is a classic beat-em up for a reason and the music is great but its frustrating. I give it a 8.5 out of 10. That's B tier, a good game!

     Wow the Blue Spirit is a masterpiece and easily my favorite episode so far which is saying something.       Its probably both the funniest and most exciting episode. And the haunting and suspenseful music during more dramatic scenes really sets the mood and guts perfectly.      Commander Zhao, who I have mistakenly referred to as Admiral Jhou in previous episodes makes a return and he is a great villain. Now he gets promoted to Admiral and he is as slimy and evil as usual.      Zuko is at center stage which is great because I think he is the coolest character in the show and he really shows off his skills at wordplay.     Sokka is hilarious in this episode though he and his sister Katara aren't in it much. And there are a lot more amphibians that you would expect.      Love this episode! Its the best! S+ Tier and 10 out of 10.

     "The Storm" is probably the best episode so far and especially comes as a breath of fresh air after the dreadful last episode.  Love it!      It's great storytelling where the back story of Zuko and Aang is revealed through interesting flashbacks and is a great example of the old "show, don't tell" adage.       Zuko's back story is particularly interesting to me and explains quite a lot why capturing the Avatar is so important to him. He is presented as a nuanced and complex character who is a lot more than an antagonist. He is probably my favorite character.       Aang's back story is also interesting and he wrestles with past regrets. I love the tender relationship with his friend Katara who sweetly encourages him.      It's a great character-focused episode and I love it a lot! It's S+ Tier and a 10 out of 10.

I did this blog for fun but now want to have a break from it. The blogs I already wrote--up to some time in November--will still be published but I am done for awhile okay.

     Lunar Silver Star Story Remastered is a great updated version of a classic originally released on the Sega Cd in the early 90s.       It's a very charming game and the characters are definitely the highlight of the game. They are so lovable, funny, quirky,  and likable.      The main character is Alex. He is a good-natured teenager who lives in Burg with his friends Luna and Remus and Alex's flying cat-like creature Nall.      I don't talk about plot points much to have spoiler-free review but suffice it to say what starts as a simple adventure gradually escalates into an epic quest to save the world.      Besides the great characters I also like the witty well-written dialogue.  NPCs often have interesting or funny things to say so it is worth talking to them.     The music is unforgettable and there are even a few songs with lyrics and I think they are nice songs myself. Such a cha...