So previously I had the words "I AM GOD" up there, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that I was referencing something not a lot of people had seen, a late episode of Kamen Rider Gaim, and changed it to reflect a current event of July 2023. Anyways: this is a web page where I media thread about video games, movies, anime, tokusatsu, and other such things: I want to keep things decently casual here.
BigNerdSam: though if you want a full name, it is Samuel G. Previously I would write my full name on the internet in absolute apathy in the reality of Facebook, but as I work on a day job where my personal life can be an ethical liability, I would like to have the leverage of being able to ask “why are you prying into my personal life?”
I grew up on the N64, but then a surprise Christmas PS2 Fat took me from being a Nintendo YouTuber into becoming the Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gas Pump text, with less racism and whatever provokes you to invent the word “Vidcon.” Instead of becoming a save point, I have fallen into a few other gaming holes to where I now treat this hobby as a sort of adventure, looking at whatever game catches my attention for whatever reason and just checking it out. Yes, this website is a massive media thread. Unlike maintaining a media thread on Twitter (which I am migrating from as of July 2023), however, this will eventually end in me knowing more HTML and CSS than my high school website design class taught me about Macromedia Dreamweaver.
This list is not particularly ordered, will try to only include four games per genre, and will be sporratically updated with links to archived lists at the bottom of the page.
Played on PS4
Mechanically, this game is simple to the point of feeling like a post-Super Mario 64 platformer with some easy-to-execute jumping tricks; but the game itself really likes to play with its own mechanics and try being other genres or gameplay styles. I really enjoyed my time with it, and I am torn between my friend telling me about how fun the community-made levels are and laughing at my friend for failing to understand that Hat Kid's Cyclone Jump was a part of the Freedom Planet Mod he installed.
Played on the SNES
I miss the Virtual Console because it was a whole lot more motivating to buy and play through a game you bought than play through a game available on your Online Gaming membership that Microsoft gaslit the industry into believing is normal. Anyways: Assault Suits Valken is mecha platformer game that emphasizes the mobility of your machine, encouraging you to boost before you land so that you don't spend several frames recovering from a landing and accelerating forwards as you punch to maximize damage. The western release of Assault Suits Valken, Cybernator, made several cuts to dance around the game's anime content and violence, as well as remove the mid-mission conversations to presumably improve the pace of the game; I don't have much to say on that, but it's still notable.
Played on Wii U's GBA Virtual Console and the Castlevania Advance Collection
This is my favorite Metroidvania game and I still compare whatever new Metroidvania I play to it. A part of me wants to argue that Aria of Sorrow is a stronger game than Symphony of the Night, but there's a difference between Alucard becoming strong by awakening and using his vampire powers and Soma Cruz eating a monster's soul to do Rider Kicks.
Played on the Wii U GBA Virtual Console
The original Metroid on NES is a rat-in-a-maze simulator that I did not enjoy, the corridors were too vertical to wrap my brain around and there's a point where, in my lack of direction, that the depressive voices in the back of my mind speak up like we just ran out of Cheerios. Zero Mission prevents this from setting in by telling me where to go and having slightly more varied music with cool mechanics and a fun, original stealth-action epilogue.
Played the PS4 Version
The Titanfall 2 Multiplayer was so good, but now its lobbies are empty or sabotaged by whatever that weird Titanfall Online project wa supposed to be. The single player story is still there and still very replayable, but the multiplayer was probably the last shooter, besides Fortnite, that will have this kind of super-mobility.
Played the PS3, PS4, and PC versions
So I thought about putting RE4 up there, and I honestly think that at some point I will wind up updating this list to swap the two of these around every now and then and the archive version of this listing will end up looking like a joke. Vanquish is a funny little game where if you have no idea what the game is, you will fail to grasp why the game is praised. Let me give you a rule to play this game by: do not use cover unless you are recharging. Do that and you will have a fairly intense shooter with a deep question of "how many things can I bullet time and shoot from?"
Only play the original PS2 version PLEASE
There is a PS3 HD version that works and can be plugged into modern TVs without an external upscaler. Do not play that, it is broken in so many ways that it honestly should have never come out. The PS2 original is the best version and I highly recommend it. All of the other Ratchet and Clank games are small-scale platforming games, except you blast the enemies away with an energy shotgun. Ratchet Deadlocked is all arena challenges where I literally played it over and over again until the dual Uzis shot rainbow bullets. I love it.
Played the PS4 and PS5 Versions
I understand the gameplay complaints about not having enough ammo, how the game becomes transparent with wanting you to use every weapon and function you have, and how throwing several of the hardest enemy at once at you is especially cruel to the player. I also like it when a game pushes me to use every gun I got as much as I am a freak that can agree with putting Jump on a shoulder button while Monster Hunter Clawing my finger tips onto the face buttons and D-Pad.
Played the Nintendo Switch version
So one time I was hanging out with my pal and we briefly talked about the first time we discovered YouTube: he said the first thing he looked up was "Hardest Boss Fight" and saw a video of the final boss of Mushihimesama. Following that thread into my own enjoyment of scrolling shooter games. Between the other two bullet hells I play on my Switch, Crimzon Clover World EXplosion and the previously mentioned Mushihimesama, I think that I enjoy DoDonPachi more. I enjoy the name and premise of Strong Style and I really like how the green ship shoots.
Played on PC, PS4, and Switch
You know what I can never get tired of? A good scrolling shooter, or sh'mup or whatever I wrote up there. Astebreed is a shooter with a story that's there too, but features a shooter with a lock on button, a dash, a sword, and multiple bullet types that get blocked by different attacks and require different responses. It's also really pretty and runs really well on the Switch and PS4, I remember it also being one of the few PS4 games that took no time at all to boot up on the console.
Both N64 and 3DS Versions are valid.
This was the first video game I beat, I have vivid memories of this being the case and unending old lady stories from my mother about this. As a result, Star Fox 64 is a foundation game, a game that made me what I am today. I also fear that the way Star Fox plays, shoots, and moves has ruined my ability to enjoy Space Harrier and Afterburner.
Played the PS2 version from the PS3 Digital Store
I just really like Gradius, I go to it as the pure space shooter game template. The reason that I chose Gradius V on the PS2 specifically is because it was developed by Treasure, who wrote some cool stuff to go with the simple, but fun Gradius gameplay.
Play it on Nintendo Switch or use the DMC3 Style Switcher Mod on PC
There are some that say that the addition of style switching to DMC3 hurts the game and the design flow of having to make just one of the six styles you have selected work for all kinds of situations. I argue that the enemy design of DMC3 still keeps the game decently difficult even with the ability to hit the Royal Guard style while Gunslingering all over the blood birds.
Played on PS4 in the PSVR
One of the first things I fantasized about with VR was "what if someone made a giant robot game in VR?" Of course, there were several barriers in developing in VR from resource costs to the limitations of the human body all the way to game developers being incapable of making another Assault Suits Valken. Fast forward to when the VR version of Zone of the Enders 2 comes out and here I am turning off all of the VR Safety Limiters in order to see if it would make me sick. The answer is "no" and I'm worried that the data being collected by Konami is listing me as a candidate for a New Type program.
Played on PS4
When Monster Hunter Rise came out, I was really disappointed in how shallow and arcadey it was in contrast to World, where instead of collecting power-up pickups, I instead skim the screen and put together a plan to stunlock a monster by dropping scatternuts on their head. The most vivid memory I have of Monster Hunter World is being in Low Rank, having a Rathalos fly in, and hiding in a bush while it ate a dinosaur, paced around, and flew off. I have this vivid illusion in my brain of that Rathalos being real and I hold more value in that than doing sick air combos on the Pink Rathian with Gyro Aiming.
Played the PS2 Digital on the PS3
Another Shinji Mikami game where, unless you know what you're walking into, you're not going to understand what the game is trying to sell you. God Hand is a game that I suspect runs on the RE4 Engine, where are given 6 attack commands and an auto-combo that you buy and slot moves into, a simple combat scheme with a game that will slowly turn up its heat until it burns you alive. That was not a metaphor for a cruel difficulty curve, that was a metaphor for the actual leveling mechanic that decided what moves the enemies have access to, how often they mix in guards, how willing they are to all group up at once, etc. Highly recommended, IGN gave it a 3/10 and they've been going downhill ever since.
Only on N64
Similar to how Star Fox 64 was a foundational game to me, the day that my brother said to trust his friend that Mystical Ninja was a cool game forever shaped the kind of weeb trash that I am now. It's a Ganbare Goemon game where, instead of running around a town to power up before attempting a side scroller stage, you instead have Ganbare Goemon as a Zelda-like, and more than a year before Ocarina of Time came out. This game did not age very well as an early adventure game trying to be Zelda, but playing Mystical Ninja as a product of what was understood about 3D adventure games at the time has a lot of charm, assuming that you're playing the localization that removed the homophobia.
Please play the PS2 version, I have no idea how broken the PS3 HD Edition is.
There was this solid month where my friend, who we will address as the Parakeet, got me to play the entire Sly Cooper PS2 Trilogy, and then whatever Thieves in Time was supposed to be. I had some fun with the trilogy, and in the end I decided that Sly 3 was my favorite: Sly 2 figured out what the series should be, but Sly 3 was willing to get experiemental with what can be done with Sly's open world-esque maps.
Played on PS4 and PS5
I remember when this game was announced, it was alongside Nioh 2 and Sekiro, and I made the decision then and there that one of these samurai action games had to be dropped: while I initially thought that I would drop this game, I actually decided to skip Sekiro on the grounds that I want to instantly kill my enemies and not smack their swords for ten minutes. Anyways, Ghost of Tsushima fits into my Breath of the Wild niche of ride around a windy, grassy overworld, see a thing happening, see what that thing is, and do it.
Played on PS4
And this was the last time that the Yakuza series was ever good. You'd think that I'm joking, but the Dragon Engine games are just barely functional enough with game engines and I haven't touched enough of Like a Dragon Ishin to change this judgment. Overall this is the one time that the big scary guy wandering the streets isn't too annoying, the styles all work well enough together, and the individual pieces of the game all come together to form an enjoyable Kamurocho/Osaka city block to roam about and forget the main story over.
Played the PS4 version on PS5
I was excited for this game since around 2015, I have to trust that was when it was first announced because when I just went to fact check that I could only find the Nintendo Switch announcment date. I cannot say that I was ready for any of the events that transpire in the game, I was just in this game for Robot Tactics RPC combat, not the story going nuts and making me want to go to Japan just to eat a sauced up noodle sandwich.
Played the PS4 Version
I admit, I kind of put this up here for the sole reason of arguing that the Telltale Adventure genre is just a visual novel with 3D models standing around. They don't all stare into the camera with a canned animation, but at the same time we're reaching new stages of technology that visual novel makers are able to take advantage of. Anyways, Tales from the Borderlands was really good, I never touched the one that Gearbox made and quite honestly: I don't want to even acknowledge it!
Only on the Wii and that is a moral crime
I played this with a friend and we both really enjoyed it from the additional doctoring modes and the story. Really I'm just going to use this paragraph to complain, what do you mean Atlus never brought this series back in anyway? First off: this series would work as fine on PC as it did for Wii, just port it onto there and I can point people towards it. Second: there were two Nintendo systems with touch screens that would have been great for new Trauma Center games, and still it was never brought back. I don't know what Atlus needs to do before they can bring back Trauma Center, but they better do it before they run out of Persona 5s to sell people.
Played on the DS
Two things put this game on my list: the puzzle gameplay and the wacky characterization of the world. I still think about what more can be done with Ghost Trick's style of puzzles and Stand-user rulesets for ghosts, but I'm happy with where the game ended. I'm also very happy that the game is available on more platforms than just the Nintendo DS and iPads, Atlus has me in a constant fear that old VNs never get rereleased on modern platforms.
Played the GBA, DS, and Pixel Remaster on Android
Sure, I'm calling this my favorite out of all of the Final Fantasys I've played, which makes... almost every numbered game plus a weekend Blockbuster rental of Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube. It doesn't have the job system, but the characters that all represent their jobs are really nice, plus their early experiementation with ATB, reflect, and having mid-battle cutscenes produces a really nice RPG. It's also the very funny bottom of what SNES RPGs are capable of. Expect a page of me losing my mind at Far East of Eden Zero.
Played on Android then the Super Famicom Edition
This is the awkward reveal that I have played this game on my android phone in 2018. I do not recommend that version, while it is still Dragon Quest III with its character jobs, the personality system, and the same story and mechanics, it lacks several additions and improvements made to Dragon Quest III since its North American NES release.
Played on the PS2 and again on the PS4
What? Kingdom Hearts II is a good game. Not a whole lot more I can say that people that think the story is confusing just don't want to face the fact that Donald Duck has a body count and is an accomplished sergeant for his service in World War II.
Played on the PS4 with the Maniax DLC
I confess: I haven't finished it yet due to a sudden deluge of FFXIV content and a weeaboo Fortnite season, but what I have played has been great. I'm a sucker for literal applications of real world religion and spiritualism to media, so of course I'm into the Shin Megami Tensei series for aesthetic alone. I just really like this one in particular because they got Reuben Langdon to voice Dante from the Devil May Cry series.
Played on PS4 and PS Vita
This is a really fun belt action brawler, you can combo pretty well and there are just enough RPG mechanics that whatever party you're having around this game won't get too bored with you setting up your gear. It gets pretty cheap when it's on sale and it looks real pretty as a Vanillaware game.
Played on PS4
I often think back to the Chinese PC fighting game Dong Dong Never Die, and its secret ending where they show a wide PSP and a teaser of their upcoming project: Streets of Rage 4. Due to a lack of anything about the developers, I am forced to believe that this Streets of Rage 4 fan game was never finished. The real Streets of Rage 4 is a masterpiece of all of the series's mechanics and advancements in the belt action beat-em-up genre, put together into a much better ending for the series than the CEO of Sega allegedly forgetting that they made and own the rights to Streets of Rage.
Played on Nintendo Switch
The most history I've had with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was that I watched the 2000s Fox cartoon and thought that the alien dinosaur arc was kind of goofy. Fast forward to me playing this game, listening to Parakeet gush about seeing these retro characters, and then I see the interdimensional dinosaurs, rock people, and alien teenagers written by middle-aged television executives and go "Oh, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are just goofy." Another good beat-em-up with crossplay and 6-player co-op that would probably be much better for a party that Dragon's Crown: it's easier for a party to point and pog at TMNT lore than sort out a Sorceress build.
Played on Nintendo Switch through the Capcom Beat 'em Up Bundle
So the reason I say "Belt Action" instead of Beat 'em up is that is the Japanese term for the genre and I think it's easier to visualize than the words "beat 'em up." Anyways, this game takes a Capcom belt action title that is really hard to not make good, and combines it with light mecha gameplay that reminds me of Assault Suits Valken. I'm a simple man and what I enjoy is heavy, giant robots and a good Capcom belt action game, and I have yet to be disappointed by either one of those two things.
Played on Nintendo Switch and PS5
One of those games that, if you've been online for a certain period of time, you've likely seen or heard of it: a roguelike where you play as the obscure/forgotten Greek God Zagreaus fighting his way out of Hades. I couldn't get into it at first, the Parakeet showed me his builds and finally understood the game. Now my only issue with Hades is that I set up a cloud save on Hades between my Switch save and Steam, only to tragically discover that the PS5 version I wanted to play for 4K Hades does not support could saves. I currently use my PS5 version as the hard mode save and it is actually not very hard after reaching credits on the Switch version.
Played on PC and PS Vita
I do not perfectly recall how I discovered Rogue Legacy, but I'm glad I did because it is a really good game with or without all of the roguelike elements. I also remember it being the only roguelike I've hit 100% completion on, the PC Version, and being really disappointed that the paintings in the console and Vita versions were replaced from Cellar Door Games's history to generic paintings of enemies. I hope tha Rogue Legacy 2 is good, but I want to wait for it to leave early access, and hopefully land on a platform I can play it on besides my old college laptop.
Played the PS1 version, I wish I could have played the Sega Saturn Version
There is a lot to say about the game, but if you're really curious I suggest checking out the fan page that made me pick up the PS1 Fan Translation, The Nerve Tower. They have translation guides for the unpatched versions, additional information on the other versions, interviews, and all kinds of Baroque materials. I remember hearing about the Wii version on some forum and how dark it is, but I honestly prefer the original Saturn Version an its PS1 port, it has a better presentation for the surrealist horror of Baroque's setting.
Played on the GBA
The Mystery Dungeon games, by design, are basically roguelikes with a preperation stage. I never played any of the others, but I really enjoyed this first game. I still go back to it every now and then, since the Mystery Dungeon and Pokemon Rulesets go together pretty well for me. It took me more than a month to realize that this game was not a real-time dungeon crawler, but instead only moved and acted when I did, which is kind of embarrassing.
Played on PS2
This was my go-to "I have an afternoon to burn and nothing better to do" game on the PS2 and it is a real tragedy that EA just sees no value in Burnout as a series. Burnout is an urban racing and demolition game where, as you race, you can setback or just get rid of one of the racers by pushing them into oncoming traffic and watching a slow motion camera shot of their car getting crushed like a can. There was also the demolition mode where you drive a car into traffic and just cause as much damage as you can by controlling the husk of what was once the vehicle you chose. I'd say check out Paradise, but it's honestly nowhere close to what the games were like on Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2.
Played the original arcade version through Yakuza Zero
There are a lot of retro driving games out there where you drive against the horizon and adjust the gear shift in order to control your speed during a turn, but there's only one driving game with Outrun's vibes. Really you should hunt down any version of Outrun and just play it, you're probably not going to reach any of its endings, but you will understand the 90s power fantasy of speeding down a freeway in a red sports car with a babe in the passenger seat.
Played on PS1
Ridge Racer is a series that sells itself on a slightly different power fantasy, where you drive up and down the same track until you commit its turns to memory and how to maneuver your car of choice to get the best times. There is also a grand prix mode with some nice illustrations to go with a short racing campaign, but I play Ridge Racer more to exercise my desire to drift through a track without hitting the car against anything. The opening cutscene to R4 is also really funny just to see the Ridge Racer lady's awkward smile at asking for a ride.
Played on PS2 and PS5
I need you all to understand: I do not like the Jak and Daxter games, they're fine, but the only game in the series that really appealed to me was Jak X Combat Racing. It's, as the name suggests, a combat racing game that may very well be the last high speed arcade racer before racing games all tried to be driving simulators. Based on what I have seen of this game, the most stable version you can play is the PS4 port on a PS5, since the original PS2 versions would hit frequent lag on its native hardware.
When the list is updated.