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Revenge of the Bird King is an interesting spin-off of the Gunworld series with some ideas in mind, but it’s not really that fun. Tight controls and the sense of speed you can get with this game are one thing, but if the level design and the overall structure isn’t good to compliment it, then you aren’t likely to even get anywhere without a guide or dumb luck. It’s an annoying experience for sure, and unfortunately one I cannot really recommend compared to its predecessor.
Here you get what feels like a successor to Neo Contra, but one that tries to innovate in such a poor way that it feels like it forgot the basics, and it needs a lot of polishing up in order to really be memorable. I really tried hoping that this would still be a hidden gem in the end, but unfortunately even I couldn’t get into it despite an update being released, as that update did almost nothing to improve the core experience.
But with zero historical context, bonus features of any kind or even button mapping, this is a singular, fun NES platformer thrown in the most barebones wrapper imaginable, and pales in comparison to all of Konami’s other retro compilations.
Either you’re a big old school JRPG fan who won’t mind the tedious parts, or you’ll be annoyed by one game having too much grinding and difficult fights, and the other having too many boring encounters.
If this ends up getting smoothed out and polished, you’ll have one of Toaplan’s best scorechasers available for easy online leaderboard fun at a steal of a price, and as a very easy recommend for newcomers to their shooters. Still, that dreadful explosion stutter is just so painful to witness and see still make it out into the launch build, so if you do nab it now, maybe play this game at a lower volume than you normally would…
Seeing other aspects fall short of even the versions available via Sega Ages just really disappoint me, and while I don’t think a kid jumping into the Sonic series for the first time via this set will come away disliking any of the games, I do feel that compared to the Mega Collection I grew up with, the spit and polish to make this feel like the ultimate museum for a celebrated franchise is just not here.
I cannot say the same about this port, since it is plagued with a lot of annoyances and problems that make this one of the last places I’d advise you play the game. From audio pitch glitches, barebones options, the lack of save states or an autofill password feature, and a tiny smidge of input lag, this is an incredibly barren port, and for the $10 price, double that of an old NES VC title from back in the day, it is honestly pretty upsetting to see such a fantastic game presented in such a barebones fashion.
Magical Drop VI’s core gameplay is still fantastic, and honestly did a damn fine job at bringing back the frantic gameplay that made me addicted to III all those many years ago, polishing it up with a great new coat of paint. Unfortunately, MDVI’s idea of replay value is not that of scorechasing or online, but needless amounts of padding to unlock the full current roster.
Just, maybe play this game on anything that isn’t the Switch for the sake of not having a bad framerate or godawful scrolling, since after finally giving it an honest marathon session, I easily can see that being a dealbreaker for some like it was for me, and no matter how many times I tried to throw myself at this game in hopes the performance would be something I could get around, it just came back like a recurring nightmare.
Even if that meme of an intro is planned to be added in the future, I really can only recommend you dive into this one if you buy the other three in the bundle: good weaponry, music and QOL still can’t do much to save an otherwise average shooter from developers who could do so much more.
Still solidly made with a few hours of fun to kill if you don’t mind the excessive fetch quests, but nothing that’ll impress fans of platformers or help get non-fans like me into the series.
While it’s an absolute stunner of a game presentation wise, looks aren’t everything, and I really do hope they eventually nail that sweet arcade-style gameplay loop the devs clearly wanted to pull off, perhaps by making it a bit speedier and faster paced to get a better rhythm in. Sadly, it just didn’t quite nail it here, and that hook never showed up for me.
However, they do have to get on top of the emulation in the future: bad sound emulation here is unfortunately, a big shame that brings the whole package down, and while it’s not as unplayable as Panorama Cotton was at launch (the gameplay is perfectly as it should be, it’s just the audio that’s irritatingly off), it’ll definitely bug those who’ve played this game the way it should sound.
Ultimately, for a “Collection”, you do get everything… But with none of the historical context these retro games requires, and as arguably the biggest and most remembered of the Qubyte line yet, it’s a shame almost no extra work was done in this compilation besides compiling these three together and adding achievements. If you liked the original game and just want to play that, you’ll have a fun time, but otherwise, if you were hoping for the other two to be anything substantial or for any bonus content to be here, I’m sorry to say, that ain’t the case.
However, as it stands now on Switch, Ganryu 2 isn’t in a good shape at all, even with the recent patch: more balancing needs to be done, and that framerate needs stabilization. No longer a chaotic mess like it used to be, and it has glimmers of a fun gameplay loop, but alas, this quest for revenge should be held off on, for the time being at least
The Immortal was a weird choice to start this line of retro classics with: neither version of the game is particularly a classic by any means, and while I do find the NES version to be a legitimate gem worth trying out at least until you get stuck, the basic wrapper, the frustrating guide game nature of both versions, (but especially the Genesis one) and the lack of QOL stuff like a rewind feature does lead to this tedious experience not being brought back in the most polished of ways.
Unfortunately, Moero Chronicle doesn’t exactly have much merit to it outside of the eye candy, with the dungeon crawling feeling very, very shoehorned in and everything but the suggestive parts seeming like the afterthought here, and I could only stand around two hours before I realized that there wasn’t much of a enjoyable game here.
Unfortunately, the constant slowdown from loading dungeon floors is enough of a pace breaker to drive me absolutely insane, and I'm not gonna lie when I also point out that this sort of game has been done many of time before. Still, you have a solid foundation, a fun gameplay loop, and a great pick up and play experience, so if you can get this on sale and really do not mind the agonizing floor loading, you may have a good amount of fun going on runs with this!
Potata is a middle of the road puzzle platformer. Yes, it provides puzzling entertainment, and the solutions can be clever enough to make you crack a smile, but when the game is bogged down by a lot of genericness and frustrating moments, along with just how dull the experience is as a whole, I honestly can’t really recommend this at the usual MSRP: it controls fine enough to get you some entertainment if you pick it up on sale, but for the $12 MSRP, this is a puzzler that just doesn’t have the full magic.
Stay Cool definitely deserves props for looking distinct in a series that overdoes the same art style to no end, but otherwise, I can’t say this River City Ransom story is a must-own by any means, outside of local co-op shenanigans or for the sake of completing the series on your Switch. It’s a shame, since some aspects of this game I really do dig, from how the game looks, the spirit attacks, the multiple playable characters, but when the core loop is just so repetitive and confusing, this time travel story is just a weird paradox that is best left unsolved, and I feel that they could very well use this promising game engine for a game that’s far, far better executed.