Lurker > Kamekguy

DK actively has meta awareness. The entire plot of Donkey Kong Land is DK claiming that he could get the banana horde again on weaker hardware, and Cranky Kong goes "bet", calls K Rool, and they have an adventure on the Game Boy. Additionally, he has a Switch on him at all times as of Tropical Freeze, meaning that he actively has controllers to change the ports of.

This is a terrible match-up for Mantis. And THEN DK can punch the moon on top of that.

6.5

The original character story is really nice, has some good backstory moments, and the Kanji/Ken scene in the P4 route might be the best scene either character gets (and one of those characters in Kanji, which says something!). It's amazing how the game manages to create fantastic moments for its characters and then slam them with the most contrived, unfunny bits of watered-down "comedy". There's legitimate great stuff in here, it's just buried under a lot of mediocrity and Teddie at his absolute worst 100% of the time.

I am very mixed on Conker. On one hand, I think he's a fantastic piece of satire - the team at Rare going "screw it" after years of not being satisfied with the direction of Conker 64 and making him a snarky wiseass who actively just does whatever he feels like to get past arbitrary problems because he sucks at the jumpy and explorey bits that Mario and Banjo have is fantastic. Perfectly emblematic of his era in how he's written, a great vocal performance at the time, and just generally taking the at-the-time dominant platformer genre and belittling and mocking it lovingly while also going "screw it" and abandoning the genre for shooters (something that would be paralleled in the industry only a few years later) makes him incredibly well-realized in a way not a lot of video game characters are. Add in the fact that he rarely ever swears and gets to play the snarky straight man for most of the game's most outlandish or gross scenes, and I think Conker's about as good of a protagonist as Bad Fur Day could have.

... I just don't personally think I like him outside of that intellectual perspective. He gets some funny lines, but he's just kind of an ass for no reason a lot of the time, feels unpleasant to play as a platforming character, does lean into crass humor more than a few times, and is genuinely an awful person for the sake of cheap laughs. Everything is very purposeful, I appreciate it, I think he really brings Bad Fur Day home and the note he ends on is great and VERY deserved... but it's also just unpleasant to go through whenever a joke doesn't land.

Yes, but it's a verrrry light approval, I could really go either way. He's pretty fun in Diddy Kong Racing, at least, good stat spread there.

The TV Spots At The Start of MGS4

Sonic 2006

It is a broken husk of a game.

Breaking it and being a geometry momentum-based disaster is more fun than most Sonic games.

At that point it's practically "what game do you love enough that you would speedrun" for me.

At which point... toss-up between Crash Team Racing and Kirby Planet Robobot. I think Crash would juuuust edge that out.

Klaptrap

Sukapon

Croagunk's victory animation in Pokken is him dreaming that he won the round. I love that bit of personality. Mareanie's great, too.

Sukapon
Chef Kawasaki

MARCEL the Mr. Mime taught me about Marcel Marceau, and was an absolute beast while I was a dumb kid trying to get through Koga. Fell off of him for a long while, but then Detective Pikachu put him right back up there as an all-timer. He's a creepy little dude, but he's great and probably influenced my love of silent comedy quite a bit.

Wobbuffet being the physical manifestation of a comedy partner meant to take the fall by being a literal punching bag that turns its abuse right back at its attacker is pretty brilliant, though. The rest of the group is generally solid but Wobbuffet and Mr. Mime are something else.

Sukapon
Klaptrap

Espurr is the perfect "kinda cute kinda creepy" balance that just works for the psychic type, but Spoink is just so hilariously tragic I can't not love him.

Sukapon
Wily Capsule

Sukapon
Tingle

Sukapon
Sable Prince

Knuckle Joe
Takamaru

Sukapon
Sable Prince

2/10

Not even really charmingly bad, just... bad. Sonic doesn't get the same narrative novelty as Mario does in an RPG; this is just a story in his world and it's... not interesting. Sonic has a 'snarky response' dialogue option in most conversations, and that's a good idea that plays well with Sonic's character, occasionally he'll say something fun, but he gets no payoff and no one to act off of him in any interesting way.

Gets one point for Big the Cat. Who is officially immune to poison gas and occasionally all harm because he gets so excited he forgets to feel pain. And has the all time line "I think my eyes are broken... no wait, they're just closed". What a guy.

When I was young, I had a dream where Ash's head turned into a Weepinbell. I then had a friend come over and I told them I was watching the episode of Pokemon where Ash's head turns into a Weepinbell. They then told me that the episode wasn't real, and that I wasn't real either.

I woke up immediately after. I contemplated the meaning of reality for the next week. It was the first time I ever thought about mortality and existence.

So Weepinbell's pretty cool, learns Razor Leaf and stuff!

Mr. Resetti
Guile

Prince of Sable
Sukapon

Sukapon
Sable Prince

Yes

Took a long time for me to warm up to him, but after realizing that I do prefer just him to all the Koopalings after having all eight consistently for the past few years, I think I like him as an emotional center to Bowser who's this constantly cocky brat. Mario + Rabbids and Strikers Charged really turned me around on him.

Sukapon
Tingle

Meltan's a buddy and Galarian Meowth is a disaster, kinda love it.

The rest do nothing or are "... why is this elephant made of metal?" Like I get the idea of the copper changing color but Phanpy looks more Steel than Cufant.

Also Magnemite actively goes down because of the noise it makes in Pokemon Snap.

Sukapon
Little Mac

Resident Evil Village

Sukapon
Sable Prince

Probably either Launchpad McQuack or Albert Einstein.

Sabl Prince

Omori

I like how most of them have these big, weird exaggerated personality in their designs. There's a lot of really good body language, and the business of the designs feels really intentional. The only ones I'm not a fan of are the ones that are just "object, but a lot of it doing a weird thing" like cable man and block man. And Guzzlord screaming is just great.

But one of them is a clown that blows up its own head and is a ghost because of the incredibly fleeting nature of fireworks and I love that guy.

6

It's trash, confusingly plotted, incredibly well acted at times which just makes the issues stand out more, has creepy implications both in and out of the story, and is among the most formulaic of Quantic's games... but damn, it lives in my brain rent-free for the amount of bafflingly dumb moments in it. Absolutely a schlock favorite, and it just keeps hitting with stupid plot beat after stupid plot beat so it doesn't drag half as much as earlier Quantic games (hi Indigo).

Resident evil Village

Resident Evil Village

Snorlax used to be my favorite Pokemon. Still hanging in my Top 5, but man, what a simple but incredibly appealing design. Plus they've never shied away from propping up his brute strength, be it in the games or anime.

Lickilicky is dumb but he nearly sniglehandedly bailed me out of a nuzlocke fail state with rollout and his massive HP pool.

Ursaring and Cinccino are cool, fun item combos but they always fall off for me.

Neutral to "why is Ambipom" on the others. Shoutouts to Persian for not learning Slash until the mid 50's in Blue version, making the reason you'd actually raise a Meowth totally pointless!

It Takes Two

NFUN posted...

Deoxys? Mega Metagross too

I dunno if Mega Metagross knows it's committing sin or if it's just in its nature to be cruel due to the stress its extra intelligence is putting on its brain. It seems more obsessed with the concept of absolute victory. Deoxys, too, as I believe it's a mutation.

Meowth could probably feel guilt, though. That makes it more evil to me. I mean, Mewtwo probably gets here, too, and that jerk Shaymin from that one movie, but I just love the idea of Meowth being the exemplar of sin in the Pokemon universe.

Meowth is still the only evil Pokemon because it understands the sin it's committing.

That's pretty rad. Shame it sucks in-game but I don't think the anime boosts any Pokemon harder than Meowth.

Honestly all pretty solid designs. They're just all big fluffy things that shouldn't murder you but do and Granbull, who is a dog, so good.

But I just did a Pokemon Gold run where my Level 46 Wigglytuff solo'd the entirety of Lance's team with nothing but Sing, Mint Berries, Ice Punches and dreams, and that was the most fun and dramatic last stands I've had in Pokemon in years. And that's thoroughly placed Wigglytuff as my go-to casual run favorite, it's just a big dumb sponge that can actually hit things unlike Blissey.

Metroid Dread

https://youtu.be/iU3JU8kRsI8

What a cute little design to get a ton of spotlight. Love that Smash Bros just makes her a joke character in the sense of "what if we made a platform fighting character that just jumps over the platforms and dies if they play with the super generous shielding system"? Rest of the Pokemon are pretty solid honestly but man, Jiggs has the sauce.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart

If this is a straight adaptation, I'll be disappointed even if it's alright.

If this is some alternate reality adaptation that is canon to the main timeline, I will like it even if it's crap.

2/10

I like the merchant and the twist at the end, it's super dumb and silly and makes me laugh every time I think about it.

Dinosaur Planet becoming unearthed in the past year and seeing the actual plotline that shoehorning Fox into butchered makes an underwhelming mess of a cobbled-together story even more pitiful. Like, Dinosaur Planet was never gonna be more than a silly young adult novel, but I probably woulda really dug its weird Game of Thrones meets time travel meets planetary alignment plot at the time. It's really impressive just how boring you can make that by gutting out the pacing, locations, characters, and weight!

I don't usually mind Pokemon with props (Farfetch'd, Kadabra, etc.) like, I find it weird that they biologically get some tools but Hell with it, that's fine. Flabebe having just a random flower bigger than its whole body that it just rides around has always bugged me. Can't even say why, I just don't like it.

Milk is cute, I like its evolution gimmick, everything else is just kinda ok.

Omori

Stonjourner is just a discount Kirby boss and I love him.

Yes

I like his character arc from "just some tree" to "shut-in traumatized from his encounter with Kirby" to "screw it I'm filled with hatred now" to "loving father who sees Kirby kill his children in front of him and cannot obtain revenge". Very relatable.

For real though it's just a mild joy of "haha I am happy to see the weak tree man again".