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Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I had no idea there were bad Kirby games. Certainly, Kirby Air Ride and Kirby Not Smash Bros Because It’s Only Kirby in Different Colours Clash aren’t amazing, but they’re inoffensive and not really proper Kirby games. But Kirby 64 is bad. And not in a 1980s way.

Considering that it came out after Mario 64, and is a much simpler game being only 2D (well, 2.5D really), how is it that this looks terrible? It’s worse than the NES game. Hell, it’s worse than almost every game. But it was free on the Nintendo 64 thingie on the Nintendo Online doofer, so can I really complain?

Unusually for a game, it actually looks better as a static image than when moving.

It tries to make up for it by being cute and stuff and having the usual Kirby twee choons and jingles, but it’s so slow, so ugly and so impressively dull that it’s a wonder anyone can play it for more than ten minutes.

So after about three hours, I completed it. Obviously. And we shall Never Speak of This Again.

Worst boss ever.

Super Fantasy Zone (Switch): COMPLETED!

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This was hard. I’ve played it before but I don’t remember it being this difficult. In fact, last time I said this:

So yes, it’s probably the easiest of all the Fantasy Zone games 

Which is proof I’m an actual liar because no, no it is not. It’s bloody hard and even with saving each level I barely made it through. That said, the bosses were pretty easy – it’s the levels themselves which are virtually impossible to move five pixels without dying. Again. And again.

It was still fun though, despite all that. You can’t hate the blue skies and twinkly happy musics even if you are struggling to progress.

Metal Slug 2nd Mission (Switch): COMPLETED!

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And now the sequel! It’s basically more of the same, but there are plenty of changes which improve on it. Firstly, you press pause to actually chuck a grenade (or “pineapple”, as the VO says) rather than use it to swap weapon. This makes it much easier to make use of! You can still pause by holding the button.

Secondly, there’s voices. Like the original Big Boy NeoGeo games, you get sound samples of “Heavy Machinegun!” and “Rocket Lawn Chair!” when you pick them up, which might not sound like much but it makes a big difference.

The game is also a fair bit longer than 1st Mission, doesn’t have as many “maze” missions, and reintroduces the aliens from Metal Slug 2 which were missing from 1st Mission. Your character has more colours too – I assume they mesh two or more sprites together to achieve this. While the first game is still excellent, this is better in so many ways!

Metal Slug 1st Mission (Switch): COMPLETED!

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The two NeoGeo Pocket Metal Slug games are both much, much easier than the “proper” NeoGeo games in the series, and they’re also as much about platforming as running and shooting, which differs from the big versions too. They are, however, still both excellent on the tiny screen.

I’ve completed them both before (a few times, I expect), but I hadn’t remembered much from the actual levels. There are a couple where the layout is basically a maze, which was a bit annoying as I got lost and all the baddies respawn, and having to press pause to swap between gun and grenade was not ideal, but 1st Mission was a lot of fun.

SNK vs Capcom: The Match of the Millennium (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Yes, another NeoGeo Pocket game from that Switch compilation. And it seems I’d completed this previously – twice in fact. Like all the other fighting games on the NeoGeo Pocket, it’s very good, although they don’t half do a lot of asset reuse. At least in this one they had to create all the Capcom fighters from scratch though!

I played through it three times. First as Ken, then as Mai, then as Leona, getting the ending for each, Of course, Ken is best.