Drill Dozer [GBA]

A platformer from Game Freaks. A girl and her person-sized drill machine goes around...drilling stuff. Blocks, walls, enemies, etc. It's a great game. Not perfect, but then again what is these days. It makes intelligent use of the drilling mechanics and it never becomes gimmicky. It controls really well. What more can I say. It's a lot better than Game Freak's other franchise so it's a shame that it didn't sell well because that just tells Nintendo to keep on milking the Pokemon franchise for all its worth instead of ever again releasing the studio to try and make anything new. Go out and hunt it down.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon [GBA]

I'm telling you right now that I hate this game. I urge most of you to stop right there, as whenever I mention that I find the post-SotN Castlevania's to be crap-tacular I am almost always met with "YOU ARE A SIMPLE-MINDED FOOL." So if you're one of those people, just stop right now. Go take a walk instead, maybe. Or you might even go get some sweet and sour chicken; I always find that enjoyable. The rest of you, go ahead and keep reading if you want.

Of course, this is all acting like I actually have more than four to six readers. Those four to six of you, please ignore my ego stroking. Please? ; 3; Anyway.

To start off, this game doesn't even star a Belmont (in fact, the Belmonts are never even mentioned), which you wouldn't even know unless you actually pay attention to the story (and, really, who's going to?) as he has the same Belmont shuffle. In other words, by all accounts he is a cripple. That is, until you get an item that lets you run around...by double tapping on the D-pad. So to get around anywhere at anything resembling a reasonable speed, you'll be doing this for the whole game. This is not how you make a good game.

Next is length. This game is long. Long, long, long, long, long. And it has been praised for it. Chrono Trigger was 20 hours of fantastic, and now people bitch if the play time doesn't reach a minimum of 50 hours. But that's another rant. The problem is the length doesn't come from an abundance of content, it comes from artificial padding. While it does have multiple gameplay modes, you only get this after beating the game once, then another after beating it in one style, then another. This is further hurt by the experience not being good the first time. The gameplay modes "shake things up" by either making you focus on physical combat, magical combat, or using just sub-weapons. If I didn't like it the first time, then forcing me to play in a way that I don't want to isn't going to make me like it any more. This is not how you make a good game.

And more artificial extension comes in backtracking. Backtracking, backtracking, and more backtracking. Sometimes it's legitimately to get to a new area, but most of the time it's just to get more widgets. No "As long as I'm here, I'll get all the stuff here." or "As long as I'm here again, I'll get all the stuff that I can get now." No, you have to go back to areas to specifically to get some arbitrary powerup. This is not how you make a good game.

And speaking of all those widgets, most of them are hidden behind breakable walls. You will find most of these by luck, if at all. The problem is is that there are almost no visual clues as to where they lie. There is just a minuscule discrepancy in said walls, and I can't imagine ever being able to see it on the original GBA's dark as fuck screen. To find all of them you'll probably be swinging around at the walls or going up against them with an area of effect spell active trying to find the damn things, and that's not how you make a good game.

But none of those are my biggest gripes. My biggest gripe is, in fact, grinding. By adding in RPG elements in the form of stats and experience and completely fucking up in the process, you now have to kill enemies in the same area over and over again for hours before you can go on to the next area or every single normal enemy turns into a mini-boss. But the grinding is not just for levels. No, the enemies are also your main source of items, equipment, and the necessary items for your magic, cards. The only other place you're going to get stuff is candlesticks for hearts and subweapons, of course. The problem is that, like the breakable walls, there's absolutely no indication of which monsters hold what. And not only that, the probability of whether or not a monster will actually drop one of their items is wholly dependent on your stats, so even if you do figure out which monster drops what, you might not even get said item even if you grind said enemy for hours. Even then, when you do get magic cards, the game doesn't even tell you what they do until you activate them and stumble upon how they work. This can take forever to find out, and when you finally do, it's most likely worthless and you could have been using magic that was actually useful instead of wasting your time figuring out the others. All this is not how you make a good game.

Last complaint. In action-adventure games, the whole point is to find items that both help you in combat and to get around, otherwise you're just wasting your time. However. There is a boss in here that you have to defeat to get an item that you only use once to clean up some water. That's right, you fight a boss just to get a key. This is not how you make a good game.

All in all, Castlevania: CotM hits all the trappings of both bad RPGs and bad action-adventure games, so it fails double. Fuck this game.

Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo [GBA]

This is a pretty crappy port. The whole thing runs a bit slow. And it's flattened to fit the GBA screen. While the arcade game is fan-fucking-tastic, you should steer clear of this port at all costs. You will get no enjoyment out of this squished, sluggish travesty.

Game-A-Day: Classic - 007: Nightfire [GBA]

God, even more proof that EA is incapable of putting out a good portable game. Also more proof that FPS games shouldn't be on handhelds. Or at least not on something slightly more powerful than an SNES. It's slow. It's clunky. It's ugly. It sounds...okay, I guess. It's based on a franchise I hate. Fuck this game.

Texas Hold 'Em Poker [GBA]

Pffft. It's just the card game. And not that great. Not that bad, but not that great. A budget game for a budget price. Wholly forgettable. It doesn't really warrant its own blurb, but I played it, so I guess it gets one.

Game-A-Day: Classic - The Sims (various editions) [GBA]

Gott, EA can't put out a good portable game to save their lives. All of the portable Sims are awful. That's all I can say about them. Fuck these games.

Game-A-Day: Classic - No Rules: Get Phat [GBA]

Tch.

Ninja Five-O [GBA]

A platformer from Konami. Part Bionic Commando, part...something else. Swing around with a grappling hook, shoot terrorists, rescue hostages, fight bosses, and other platformer things. All with perfect control, great sound, and great graphics. This is a great game. If you find it, snatch it up immediately.

Game-A-Day: Classic - Polarium Advance [GBA]

Yes. Polarium Advance. On the GBA. I didn't know about it until recently. It's the Polarium we know on the DS, but with some improvements and omissions. First thing first, no more challenge mode, instead focusing on the puzzle mode, giving you one puzzle everyday for a year, and with over 365 puzzles that's almost four times the amount in the first one. And on top of that, there's an added challenge where each puzzle will give you two points on the grid that you have to connect in a certain amount of spaces while clearing the board after you've cleared it at least once. Sometimes you'll get it your first time on the board, but others you really have to rethink how to clear it. Second, instead of having to have a solid block of one color, only the horizontal rows have to be the same color. This makes some boards harder and some easier. Thirdly, there are three new special tiles. Hurdle tiles, tiles that sit on the edge that you can't move over; multi-tiles, wild cards that act as empty spaces that will switch to whatever color is needed to clear the row; and solid tiles, tiles that hold other tiles that let's them drop down when cleared.

Maybe it's just that I was sitting down and playing a whole bunch of them at one time, but there's something about it that just makes you go "eh" after a while and you get sick of it. So because of that, despite the fact that it's a really good puzzle game that's better than the original, I give it a