i still hate the shit out of sunshine one way or the other, but a friend showed me that you can actually just skip the whole boat ride by doing a comically easy wallclip [Link] if you have to play this game, at least make it easier on yourself

the pachinko machine is between you and god, though

kimimi is one of my oldest online friends! she'll definitely teach you about some cool stuff.

i have really low tolerance for what passes for gaming culture so most of the people i follow are very niche retrogame folks or artists. too much Industry Discourse is bad for your health, don't you know.

metamorphic force is the product of konami arcade devs working on so many licensed western cartoon games like xmen and TMNT that they could just make an entirely fictional one.

if you like any of those games, i really cannot recommend metamorphic force enough; it's got the colorful visual style of the turtles games, goofy dialogue like x-men ( "i won't let anyone, step in this area!" ), and a fun gimmick with the human/were-beast forms.

one thing i generally don't like about the older konami brawlers like turtles is the individual hits never feel very impactful, and the overall pace through the game can be sluggish due to slow walk speeds and limited movement options. metamorphic force, and also violent storm, amp up the speed of combat to the point where it's hard to even notice the individual hits because you tear trough enemies so fast. good times all around

one thing though: konami's american division made notoriously awful decisions with many games like this, but metamorphic force is maybe the absolute worst case. among other bad ideas, your life bar is just constantly ticking down for no reason. when people bang on about old arcade games just being quarter-munchers, a not-insignificant part of that perception is american branches and operators being cynical thoughtless idiots. stick to the JP version if you want to actually enjoy the game.

I'm not stuck on E4M1 or anything I just said I wasnt gonna get the platinum because of the "Not So Bad" Trophy. I couldnt get past E1M2 on Nightmare Mode I can't even imagine doing it on every level let alone with 2 people or in my case an inactive controller. It just becomes not fun when all it is is just a race to the end with dozens of infinitely respawning enemies that kill you in only 3 or 4 hits. I also heard horror stories about the boss(es) in E1M8 and how if you lose just once its nearly impossible to make it back to him since the barrels that would have killed the horde of Imps at the beginning are no longer there on top of the invisible Imps repeatedly coming back when you do reach the boss.

Playing SIGIL makes me realize just how limited DOOM is in comparison to its sequel. DOOM has 10 monsters whereas DOOM II has 20. The double barrel shotgun is also sorely missed. Fights with Cacodemons and Barons of Hell take too long and use too much ammo. SIGIL compounds these issues by making bullets and rockets scarce with the plasma rifle non-existent for 2/3 of the episode. The latter half of E5M3 up to the first half of E5M6 is an absolute slog. The evil eye gimmick is neat, and so is the level design, but truthfully, SIGIL isn't very fun.

All that said, I am still happy SIGIL exists. It's always awesome to see new content released for old games. SIGIL feels right at home as the 5th episode of DOOM. It's also really cool to see something new from someone so influential. For better or worse, SIGIL is very much a John Romero game. (And speaking of Romero games, can we please get an Anachronox remake and/or sequel already?)

P.S.: Is it weird that I've never heard of Buckethead before? (Keep in mind that I had no idea who Kurt Cobain was when he died.)

yeah, absolutely; i also got destroyed in this section hardcore back in the day. earlier in the year an online friend was having similar problems on their first stab at the narshe battle and it dredged up a lot of old memories of suffering through that fight, only for me to realize that my latent knowledge of jrpg mechanics was probably enough to completely dismantle kefka and his goons.

so i did. [Link] eat shit you imperial clown!!