Game #130 | CLOCK TOWER Review (1996) | Beaten

 

CLOCK TOWER (December 13, 1996)

Genre: Survival horror

Platforms: [PlayStation]

Developer: Human Entertainment

Publisher: Human Entertainment, ASCII Entertainment

Moby Score: 7.0

Started: March 27, 2025

Finished: March 28, 2025

Beaten: Beaten

Playtime: 3.5 hours

Welcome to the review of Clock Tower (1996). Not Clock Tower (1995) but Clock Tower (1996). Clock Tower (1995) is a Super Famicom game. Clock Tower (1996) is a PlayStation game. But Clock Tower (1996) is also Clock Tower's (1995) sequel. Pay attention, this might win you a trivia contest one day.

The reason for this naming decision should be clear to those with a keen eye. The first Clock Tower game was never released in the west, at least until last year that is. So when Clock Tower (2) did, they simply called it Clock Tower over here. It's the same spiel as with Final Fantasy's early games.

This Clock Tower does continue the story of the original, and there is a lot more dialogue in this one that clues you in on the first game's events.

This game does a lot of things that I enjoy whenever I play a sequel, and that is bringing back the same unique features of its original to give you a nostalgic feel. In the case of this game, that would be both the hilarious and impressive set pieces to which the game's antagonist, Scissorman, appears.

In that sense, developer Human Entertainment knew what their fans liked and brought it back. But in every other sense it seems, they didn't.

Title Screen with Jessica begging me not to play this

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10

It is rare for me to give such a poor rating for a game with this much story. But for this game, 3 points might still be me being nice. This is the most hilariously garbagely written game out of this entire challenge so far. It is so bad and so funny that I want you to take part in some of the hilarity by sharing some of my favorite quotes and scenes with you. First, a tiny bit of backstory.

The main character of the first game, Jessica Simpson, goes to Norway to get therapy. People don't believe of the Scissorman's existence, though the murders have definitely happened. Are they trying to blame Jessica for what happened? The game doesn't give you that impression, but considering she was the only one who survived, they should in this case.

When the game starts, a psychology professor, Burton, is hypnotizing Jessica. Jessica's adoptive mother, Helen, realizes this, stops him and takes Jessica home. See Burton needs to know everything he can about this mysterious Scissorman, even though he also is not fully convinced he is real. To achieve his goal, he will do some dumb shit.

OK, now it becomes stupid. After that deal with Jessica, Burton goes to the entrance of the university to talk with Nolan, a local reporter who is also very interested in the Scissorman case. Nolan is an interesting character because 1 of 2 things is going on with him. Either, the developers fucked up when putting together the manual for the game, or Nolan is a disgusting pedophile. Because when you look at the manual, Nolan is 26. Nolan wants to date Jessica, who by the way is in therapy and mentally fucked from the Scissorman business, so either way it would be weird. But Jessica, according to the manual ... is 15. So yeah.

Anyway, Nolan asks whether they've got new information on the case, and Burton says that they don't, because "the victim's testimony lacks credibility."

Nolan: "Oh, you mean the victim that's testifying". ?!

If you think this is an unfortunate line and that the writing might get better, no. The writing is horrendous and the character's straight out of the worst B movie horror title you can think of. Characters also have this really odd and cheesy habbit to say "how do you do" when greeting each other, it made me laugh every time.

Later in that conversation, Burton says "it's because of trashy gossip magazines like yours that Scissorman is sensationalized."

Nolan: "Ouch, that hurts."

So after this eye-opening conversation that went nowhere, Burton goes back into his office. Here, 10 year old is waiting for him. He apparently was the only other surviving individual from the whole ordeal in the first game. He has amnesia. Total memory loss. He has a caregiver with him. Burton enters, and the caregiver says: "How do you do. This is Edward."

Burton: "EDWARD?!?!?! He knows his name?"

The caregiver then explains to him that no, you dumbass, we gave him a name so we had something to call him by. Anyway, straight after, Burton addresses the kid and says, I shit you not:

Burton: "OK, tell me everything you know about what happened."

BRO, HE HAS AMNESIA. YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS? WTF!

The game then cuts to Jessica, who can go to several places to have a quick chat with some of the characters in what is now a 20 minute introduction before anything interesting happens. She goes to the hotel and meets Edward, the 10 year old. The caregiver introduces him.

Jessica: "Hello Edward, how do you do."

Jessica does not remember Edward from the first game, so you know where this is going.

Another example is Inspector Gotts, who when addressed as Inspector Gotts by Jessica, always says "It's "ASSISTANT" Inspector Gotts". It's a running gag but I don't see the joke part?

Here is another bad bit. After the second sequence of my game, we find out that the Scissorman's family have a castle in England. Jessica and Helen decide to go there to investigate. She tells the inspector and professor, and they're like "We'll go too". She tells Nolan and his cameraman and they're like "We'll go too". She tells Edward and his caregiver and EDWARD IS LIKE "I'LL GO TOO I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF I'M 10 LET ME COME WITH YOU" and the caregiver is like "hmm" and Jessica is like "YEAH OK FUCK IT LET'S GO" like what???

Again, it's obvious why they make Edward go with them, but it is just so poorly executed it's shocking. Then there is the whole Nolan / Jessica fiasco and I was just either laughing, yawning or shaking my head throughout this entire thing.

Points for effort I guess, but this is brutal and a massive step down from the original, which gave us as much info as we needed to get going, and that's it. To put such a heavy emphasis on storytelling when none of the people at Human Entertainment could write for shit was a pretty big misstep.

Possibly the most exciting story moment in the game

GAMEPLAY | 6/20

Unlike the original, about half of the game's length is spent listening to these mostly boring, partly hilarious dialogues. They are poorly written and lack any sort of direction, so you just sit there and wait for the pain to end.

There are a couple choices you make during these conversations that will actually lead the game to give you different scenarios. You might play with Helen or with Nolan depending on what you choose for example, and it all culminates in a total of 10 endings. So for those who love this game, there is a lot more to see then just the 3 or so hours it takes to beat the game initially.

Once the gameplay starts, it's pretty much the same thing as in the original, just in a 3D space this time. You enter one of the many doors in whatever building you are in trying to find items to unlock other doors and reach your goal. Meanwhile, Scissorman might appear at any moment to hunt you down and kill you.

From what I could tell, while Scissorman would appear in scripted sequences in the original, he can appear after a certain amount of time passes in this game. You will just hear his music and he will appear from somewhere after a few more seconds.

When he does, you can either hide in certain hiding spots (under the bed, in a cardboard box, in a closet etc) or pick up an item and wait for him to appear to hit him with it. In one of the funniest scenes in the game, I wanted to hide under a bed, but instead Jessica picked up the blanket and held it in front of her. While I thought she was actually trying to hide holding this blanket, she ends up throwing it on Scissorman and makes her escape.

While I don't know if I had any chance of impacting the result, it felt random whether a hiding spot would work or not. For example, hiding in the closet worked a couple times, and I was found and killed another time. Same with the hiding spots in the shower or the cardboard box. Luckily, the game auto saves all the time, so it's no biggie to be caught, you should expect it and enjoy the animation.

The point & click gameplay aspect is much worse than in the original unfortunately. There are barely any items to pick up until the final sequence and the items are hidden in weird spots and hard to find. Sometimes, you even need to open something twice for your character to find the item. For example, I opened a closet and Nolan said "there is something in there" and then closed it. I moved on thinking that was just a random line. 20 minutes of searching later, I went back to the same closet and interacted with it twice. On the second interaction, Nolan actually grabs what was in the closet. What?

It's poorly paced and just very boring. The entrances by Scissorman are the highlight and the only thing worth experiencing here, but apart from a couple jumpscares, the scary vibe will quickly fade and leave you with mediocre gameplay.

At first I thought he was hiding behind the blanket, but he's about to throw it. Incredible

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 5/10

The voice acting is limited to a few lines and not good, so I'm glad. The soundtrack is limited to very few tracks, but has some good horror music.

The worst part about the audio is that for most of the dialogue, you will either have zero background music / noise or just the sound of computers running or undiscernible background chatter of other people. It makes these tedious sections even worse.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 6/10

The only OK part about the game. The game released early in the PS1's life cycle, so it still looks relatively fresh thanks to that, but the game world and its textures lack depth in almost all locations. The best aspect of the visuals is the camera work, when it zooms in for certain moments or even pans across to show who is sitting on a couch (It's Scissorman!).

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 4/10

B movie vibes throughout. Instead of being scary, it feels like a comedy horror movie. Nothing about the characters or the Barrows family feels believable. To make it worse, the game adds supernatural elements when there was no need. There are some successful jump scares and easily scared players might get the rush of anxiety one looks for from horror games whenever Scissorman's music plays. Scissorman has some really cool entrances as well. But it's bad otherwise.

CONTENT | 4/10

Multiple playable characters and 10 endings are nice and all, but I could not care less when the game is as bad as it is. I'd rather watch paint dry than put myself through this game's story sequences again. The point & click aspect comes up way short too, and outside of the few unique entrances by Scissorman, you aren't left with much that could be considered enjoyable.

When you interact with the toilet, Nolan says "hmm...what memories." What the fuck?

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10

Don't know whose idea it was to put such an emphasis on story sequences, but they should be fired. It slows the game down tremendously and adds almost nothing. It took so long for this 3 hour game to get started (20-30 minutes) I was wondering whether I was playing the right game.

Then you get to the first sequence with Jessica and there are 2 items and 1 puzzle before it is done. Same with story sequence number 2. You spend all the time wondering around aimlessly in locations with very little to interact with in a meaningful way before you go back to the story parts. Seriously, at one point all Jessica had to say when I looked at books was "I don't like to read" and all Nolan had to say about a painting was "I don't understand paintings". Thanks for nothing.

Then the final sequence is the only longer one and it appears it's the only one they spent any time on because the other sequences beforehand are "optional" depending on your choices. Not good.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 2/10

It's the original but worse in literally every way.

REPLAYABILITY | 3/5

Sure, if you enjoy the game (everyone has their own tastes), replayabiliy is definitely there. 10 endings and you can do something I didn't, which is play as Helen depending on your choices.

PLAYABILITY | 3/5

Very slow, point & click gameplay poor but otherwise playable.

OVERALL | 40/100 ⭐⭐

Clock Tower has one unique selling proposition, and that is Scissorman. Withouts its main antagonist, the game would be tossed aside as a cheap survival horror game with hilariously bad writing and storytelling. Even with him, this fact is hard to ignore.

Game #129 | BLOOD OMEN: LEGACY OF KAIN Review (1996) | Beaten

BLOOD OMEN: LEGACY OF KAIN (November 15, 1996)

Genre: Action-adventure

Platforms: PlayStation, [Windows]

Developer: Silicon Knights

Publisher: Crystal Dynamics

Moby Score: 7.7

Started: March 19, 2025

Finished: March 26, 2025

Beaten: Beaten

Playtime: 12 hours

Here it is. The game I've been waiting for. As someone who loves great cinematography and storytelling in his games, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is THE game that feels like the first big step for the former in the games industry. Actual cutscenes of total length of over 25 minutes, incredible voice acting by a very talented voice cast (including Skyler from Breaking Bad), terrific writing, superb atmosphere and mature storytelling.

I don't play many cRPGs as part of this challenge because I simply can't deal with the poorly aged control schemes and gameplay systems, so I'm taking those out of this comparison. But for any non-cRPG I played from January 1 1990 up until November 1 1996 (this game's release date), this game is so far beyond all others in terms of writing and storytelling.

I know I only focus on that aspect of this game so far, but the game is fun to play as well. Thanks to its story it flows really well, but it also makes for a really enjoyable time as you take on the role of the titular vampire Kain and progress into an overpowered god by the end.

For any and all retro gaming fans, this is well worth a look. Here is why.

Title Screen

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 10/10

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is set in the world of Nosgoth, a setting that would be used for the entirety of the Legacy of Kain series. I don't want to spoil too much here. All you need to know is that there are pillars protecting the health of Nosgoth, each pillar having its own guardian. The guardian's minds are poisoned by the lover of Ariel, the guardian of balance, in response to her mysterious killing. The pillars start fracturing to represent this, putting the health of Nosgoth at risk.

You play Kain, a piece of shit nobleman who is killed by villagers and brought back to life by a necromancer called Mortanius to get his revenge. He does so pretty much instantly, but when Mortanius calls these villagers the instrument, not the cause of his murder, Kain is motivated to push on. He finds the ghost of Ariel protecting the pillars. She tells him that he needs to find and kill all the guardians and bring their "tokens" (which represent their tie to the pillars) to the pillars back as gifts, at which point the pillars will heal again and new, uncorrupted guardians will be chosen.

From this point on, you hunt down all the guardians but uncover the actual backstory that the nobleman version of Kain never gave a fuck about. This attitude of Kain's is a key part of why the story and dialogue works so well. As you travel from village to village on your way to slay your next foe, Kain gives background information on these locations through an internal monologue, and every word and sentence is loaded with hate and disgust for the history and populace. It is not just a joy to listen to his diatribes because the dialogue is impeccably written, but because the delivery by Kain's voice actor, Simon Templeman, is just as strong.

The same goes for every other main character in the game. This is not another case of voice actor directionlessly and/or half-heartedly reading out the script in front of him, the actors are clearly invested in their characters and give them actual personality. For 1996, I am still shocked at how good it is.

While the game starts you off with an introductory cutscene where a fellow vampire starts killing a bunch of sorcerer-looking characters within a castle's halls, Kain's own journey starts off slow (apart from his murder, of course) and you are not at first privy to the happenings around him. This alongside the exposition given by Kain whenever you enter a new location make for a setting that feels real and that feels like it actually has a history, and it is really enjoyable to uncover more information as you progress. I can't say I felt like this about a game world as part of this challenge I'm doing outside of the RPGs.

As you progress, you have three plot elements to focus on. 1) Kain's internal struggle about becoming a vampire and all the pros and cons that come with it. 2) Uncovering the history and mystery about Nosgoth. 3) Following the main quest of fixing the pillars and realizing the actual role that Kain plays.

There is more than enough here to keep you engaged for its entire 10 hour main story run time. It never overstays its welcome. The quality of the writing always stays high. And there are two endings that round up the experience really well. Personally I can't wait to see where the other games in the series take things.

This sets the tone right from the start

GAMEPLAY | 15/20

You start your vampiric journey in your own mausoleum. Here, you learn most about what the game has to offer.

First, you are equipped with a sword and basic armor. You get new equipment over time, such as a mace which can destroy bigger structures and give you access to previously inaccessible areas, or an axe that can chop down trees and achieve the same. You can even find the "Soul Reaver" weapon, which is incidentally the title of some other games in the series, so you know it's important. These weapons even have a special attack pattern if you keep mashing the attack button, none more impressive than the axe, which lets you swing in circles for a good 5 seconds, doing massive damage in the process. This makes an otherwise unimpressive melee combat system a bit more fun to engage with. The armor usually has different abilities, like the bone armor which de-aggros undead enemies, or the blood armor, which automatically drains the enemy's blood when slain.

Blood draining is an important mechanic here. Because instead of health drops whenever you kill enemies, you can either drain the blood of innocent humans who walk around in villages or are chained-up in dungeons, or you can stagger hostile humans and some other types of enemies and drain theirs. While at first I tried to avoid this out of fear that an ending might be tied to how often you drain innocents, I quickly realized that this was not optional. Not only do dungeons later get much harder, but Kain's health also slowly goes down as time passes, indicating his lust for blood. In this way, the game cleverly conveys to the player how Kain's humanity is slowly slipping away as he is overcome more and more by his vampiric urge to drink blood. Very impressive how it is done in my opinion.

The biggest gameplay element in the game comes from power ups and spells you pick in mandatory and optional dungeons. Some of these can make your time playing this significantly easier.

First there are the power ups. There are consumables like the "Heart of Darkness" - which I've heard so many times that I can only say it in my head the way that Kain says it - which heals you and even resurrects you with a tiny bit of health if you ever die, meaning I never actually saw a Game Over screen. There is also a consumable which cleans out the poison in your blood if you were attacked by specific enemies or accidentally sucked up poisoned blood, which is another clever mechanic.

Kain having a sip

Then there are the ridiculously overpowered offensive power ups. These will one shot a single or groups of enemies in various, gruesome, gory ways. Limbs being separated or entire bodies exploding and leaving you showering in their blood for example.

You find these power ups in lower numbers by just going through village houses and dungeon halls, but there are a total of 100 secret areas to find (either by entering a hidden passage or backtracking and accessing a previously locked area) which can in many cases have insane amounts of power ups in them. I'm talking dozens of Hearts of Darknesses in one secret area

Then there are even more powerful spells. You have your defensive spells again, like the overpowered Repel spell which shields you from also any type of damage. Then there are offensive spells, like a magic bolt or, again, a one-shot spell that sucks up the blood of all enemies visible on your screen, bringing down even the toughest enemies just like that and massively healing you in the process. It's just fun.

There are mind-controlling spells as well, which you shoot at enemies to take control of them and turn otherwise inaccessible levers that block your way, adding a puzzle element to the use of your abilities.

Finally, you can shape-shift into a werewolf to traverse areas quicker or jump to higher platforms, you can turn into a bat for fast travel, you can turn into a peasant to talk to some humans and you can turn into mist to walk past surfaces that would severely damage you otherwise. They play a smaller, yet still noticeable role, though gamers spoiled by modern games will wish for the transformations to occur faster than they are.

This, outside of the boring melee combat, would be my only other gripe with the gameplay, and it is exclusive to the PSX emulation: The loading times are unbearable. If you want to switch your abilities or access your inventory, you need to sit through 3-5 seconds of loading EVERY time. Then there is the frame slow-down you have to deal with as well and it just is not playable. BUT THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO THE GOG VERSION. THAT ONE IS GREAT! THIS MAKE IS GREAT!

The inventory screen showing your available weapons and armor

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 10/10

I don't think there is anything left for me to say about the voice acting. It is incredible. The sound quality is of course not great due to the game's age, but that hasn't stopped the actors here from getting their superb delivery across.

The soundtrack is also fantastic. It's not very long, and a lot of tracks repeat, but these set the mood for the mature adventure to come. Some tracks are stand-outs I'd suggest you to check out. These are

• Road to Vengeance, listen to when the flute kicks in
• Avernus
• Elzevir, probably my favorite

What you will also remember most sound wise is the "ooooooh" and "please help me, kind sir!" that chained up humans in dungeons say. That's literally their only two lines and they keep saying them. On the one hand, it's repetitive. On the other, it is calming to know you got access to healing again whenever you're in a pity.

Another great sound is the satisfying click whenever you interact with a lever or switch. Or the sound whenever you pick up a power-up. Or whenever you swing the Soul Reaver. Outside of these things, the sound design is rather average though.

The only other minor critique is that instead of properly looping, whenever a song ends, there is an awkward quiet for a few seconds.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 9/10

The game has an isometric perspective. The visuals suit the dark gothic style of course, but what impressed me the most was the detail in some of the textures and the structures.

This is supplemented with (in some areas) foggy environments, broken-down architecture and devastation that becomes apparent by the large group of corpses thrown on top of each other in one of the many villages that were destroyed.

The striking animations are pretty smooth and the weapon movesets add a little bit of detail as well.

The game does a good job of playing with color brightness, focusing on muted colors for the most part and then using bright, vivid colors to help areas stand out.

Overall, it's a good looking game for its time, though some areas are designed very similarly to each other, so that you can't really differentiate between many of the villages without having played it many times over.

The detail on that tapestry is impressive

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 10/10

The game's dark gothic atmosphere is felt throughout. The music sets the tone, the visuals add to it greatly and the voice acting tops it all off.

Many of the villages you visit have been destroyed, there is blood, dead chained-up humans and limbs scattered about everywhere to convey the decay and devastation, in line with the condition of the pillars, the state of mind of their guardians and the internal turmoil within Kain.

The game's main buildings are architecturally impressive yet daunting externally, and many of their halls and rooms are surprisingly in-depth. A stained-glass depictions of a battle between a vampire and the protector of the Circle of Nine in one room for example. And that's the only thing in there. The devs were simply like "look how cool this shit looks", and they are right.

The soundtrack supplements the oppressive feel really well. There is one track called "Oracle's Cave", which kind of has this weird suspenseful yet lulling to sleep kinda quality to it, but then hits you with a loud chime and has you instantly focused on the task at hand again.

Finally, the gory depictions of the enemies that Kain slays is a great presentation to showcase how powerful vampires are and why they are so feared in this fictional world. Overall, the game does a great job with its atmosphere and it comes from all elements working well together and individually.

CONTENT | 9/10

The main story takes roughly 10 hours, which is a great length for it. Then there is all the side content, which does not involve any questing or side missions unfortunately, but you do get to hunt down a bunch of optional caves, dungeons and areas akin to something like The Legend of Zelda, where you can find new powers and stock up on existing power ups. Even without backtracking, there is a great amount of content here to enjoy, particularly at today's price point.

One of the many villages you will visit, and a power-up for the taking

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 8/10

The world map is impressively designed and the game does a great job guiding you without the use of any quest markers or something similar.

In the overworld, you look for secret areas or the main path, which will lead you to caves and dungeons. Additionally, your path will cross a bunch of villages. These villages are all very similar in their layout. There are a few houses and some of them have open doors. You can enter these to find barrels or chests with power ups in them, or humans that you can feast on to replenish your health. It does get a bit repetitive by the end, but it works for the game's purposes.

The main, and even many optional, dungeons and caves can become quite complex, but never in a way that you are overwhelmed by it. Your main way to progress is by finding switches and levers to flips in order to open doors. Spikes coming off the floor or the walls, melee or magic wielding enemies and the doors are the main obstacles you will find. Sometimes the floor will require you to turn into your mist form and sometimes the game requires you to figure out which ability would be useful to progress, meaning there is puzzle solving as well.

Finally, there are repeating caves in the game. One is simply a fountain of blood that will increase your strength (ability to move bigger boulders) or improve your magic recovery speed. The other is a temple to offer your health for 10 of a specific power up.

What I also appreciate about the game is that it has save points right before each boss fight. Definitely not typical for its time, but makes the game age much better.

Overall, the design here is very good, the only fault being some of its repetitive structure.

Save haven

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10

The game design is not all too different from a Zelda game, but adding a mature theme makes it stand out. Additionally, the voice acting set a new bar for the gaming industry at the time, and it might have the best writing in any non-RPG until its release too.

Entering dungeons to find a mural on the ground depicting an upcoming ability to find within is also a very nice way to get the player excited for what's to come.

REPLAYABILITY | 3/5

I found 18/100 secrets myself, and have mainly focused on certain power ups over others. In subsequent playthroughs, you can change your playstyle a little bit and go on the hunt for more secrets. Additionally, there are two endings, though they are limited to an end-game choice.

PLAYABILITY | 4/5

This score would depend on whether you play the original PSX version or the recently released GOG version. The GOG version is pretty much exactly the same, but has higher resolution of course and, most importantly of all, removes the loading times. The difference here really makes me go from "don't play Blood Omen" to "play Blood Omen!!", that's how bad it would be if the GOG release hadn't happened.

So I'll dock a point here to account for this, but the GOG version worked perfectly fine.

OVERALL | 86/100 ⭐⭐⭐⭐½

Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain was a lot of fun and I'd consider it in the Top 5 of all games I've played as part of this challenge so far, which is now 129 games. The quality of the voice acting and writing puts the game on its own level up to this point, and it sort of feels like the turning point for me as far as what to expect from the games coming in 1997 and beyond. Obviously I know what will come, but this game feels like the big step in cinematography and storytelling that I'd been expecting. For retro game fans, I 100% recommend this at the low 7€ price point on GOG.

Game #128 | PARAPPA THE RAPPER Review (1996) | Not Beaten

PARAPPA THE RAPPER (December 06, 1996)

Genre: Rhythm

Platforms: [PlayStation]

Developer: NanaOn-Sha

Publisher: Sony CE

Moby Score: 7.2

Started: March 24, 2025

Finished: March 26, 2025

Beaten: Not Beaten

Playtime: 1.5 hours

One of the few retro games that are instantly recognizable to me because of a Pewdiepie Lets Play of it I watched well over a decade ago. Good times. So due to this, I got really excited to get into PaRappa the Rapper myself now.

Immediately, you will notice how unique this game was for its time and still is to this day. A rhythm game featuring quirky paper-thin 2D characters in three-dimensional worlds and surreal humor presented through rap songs is definitely a mix I love everything about.

The game released on December 6, 1996 for the PlayStation. Apparently Sony wanted to produce as many games as they could before the PlayStation came out, and they built two teams for this. One focusing on popular genres, and one focusing on whatever. I think there is no better game to showcase "whatever" than PaRappa the Rapper.

Sure, it is a rhythm based game if you want to give it a straightforward designation. But from its story to its to characters to its lyrics to its presentation, it quickly becomes apparent why this game is considered a cult classic.

Title Screen

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 5/10

The story itself is a let down. PaRappa wants to impress a girl called Sunny while she is more attracted to the rich and arrogant Joe Chin, so PaRappa learns how to fight to defend her from bullies, how to drive to take her places, how to bake to bake her a cake etc. The way the story unfolds is whatever and kind of a letdown.

This category also includes the quality of the writing though, which is where PaRappa the Rapper scores most of its points. No, it's not a lyrical masterpiece, but for what it tries to achieve, a lot of the lines as well as the delivery are pretty funny. It all starts with the "Hatatatatatata, Kick Punch It's all in the mind" by the hilariously designed Chop Chop Master Onion, gets ridiculous when Prince Fleaswallow says "I've been working here ever since my mama was a baby" and ends when Cheap Cheap has a mic drop moment by calling her style "rich, dope, phat".

There is another female driving instructor character here called Mooselini, which is an obvious pun but I'm not sure why it's there. On this note, some jokes might not land for you in this game, so that's gonna make or break your enjoyment here for sure.

PaRappa has fallen for the flower girl

GAMEPLAY | 8/20

I want to give more points here, but the main issue with PaRappa the Rapper (both in the emulation and the PS4 remaste afaik) is input delay and randomness. Add to this that rhythm based input is the only gameplay element in this game and it becomes a pretty big deal.

After a short story sequence, you move into one of six stages, where PaRappa has to repeat after his instructors. So when Chop Chop Master Onion says "Kick Punch Block", you need to input the same buttons in the same order and speed as he did. Unfortunately, on Normal difficulty, the delay and randomness means you will often go from 0 to 16 and back to 0 points. If you perform too poorly, the instructors will slowly fall to their sides in disgust and you will fail at some point. This makes an otherwise incredibly simple game very very difficult.

I tried to account for a delay by clicking a split second off beat. Whether it's before or after I would press based on the rhythm, it didn't matter. Sometimes I would get points, sometimes I wouldn't. It got worse when the most reliable way for me to get a lot of points was by not pressing Triangle once like the game asks, but rather as many times as I could. It would work more often.

See, the game has a freestyle type feature that isn't explained. The UI has a few dots and stars up top, where the buttons are displayed as well. Something there indicates that if you press the same buttons more often, you will score more points, which can move you into "Cool"-score territory. Reach Cool and you unlock the Freestyle part of the stage, where you can basically do whatever and seemingly 1000x your score. But I never figured out how to do this reliably. Even in YT videos showing how to achieve Cool, the players sometimes lose points as well before climbing up in score.

So suffice to say, something is very wrong here. The solution for me was to bring the difficulty down to Easy. This makes the game very "forgiving" (forgiving is the wrong word when I was doing it right from the start) but it doesn't tell you that after 3 stages, it's Game Over, because you can't go farther than that on Easy. So I went back to Normal, struggled again and let the game be. Looking at the rest of it on YT, it looks like I missed out on PaRappa shitting himself and going on stage. The strangeness is in line with the rest of the stages for sure.

Being taught how to fight by Chop Chop Master Onion

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10

The beats are terrific. The lyrics range from WTF to Hilarious. The character designs are funny and creative and their dances add a lot to the vibe of the songs. The only thing wrong with the music is that there is so little of it.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10

The paper-thin character designs couple with three dimensional worlds and the art style give the game a distinct look that is memorable.

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 7/10

The game emanates a quirky, upbeat and downright weird vibe at all times, but the story could have taken the game up another level I feel like, at least in terms of its comedy.

"U rappin' AWFUL" will be your experience 99% of the time

CONTENT | 5/10

There are six stages and short story sequences before each. If the game didn't have its input issues, it would take just 30 minutes. That wouldn't be a big deal in my opinion, but as it stands, not only are there just six stages, but they are a chore to go through on Normal because of the gameplay issues.

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 6/10

The idea of a rhythm based game was very fresh in 1996. To have it be based on the rap genre with these characters to represent different musical themes and professions is brilliant. The freestyle "secret" part of the levels and the slow descend into Game Over being visible on your instructors are also great touches. Unfortunately, I don't know what they were thinking with the input delay. I guess it was added to increase the game's length artificially? I can't think of anything else.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 8/10

Very unique, both in presentation and genre.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

The input issues keep me from recommending a replay of this, but if you can get past them, you can try to get each stage into the freestyle section to see something new.

PLAYABILITY | 2/5

I'd call the game nearly unplayable personally. I never felt like I was in control of my score and gameplay I've seen from others suggests the same.

OVERALL | 58/100 ⭐⭐⭐

PaRappa the Rapper is such an odd game. By looking at the game, you immediately understand the love for it. But then you look at its gameplay issues and you wonder how so many people could overlook them and still remember the game fondly. I guess that's how unique this game is.

Game #127 | SONIC 3D BLAST Review (1996) | Beaten

SONIC 3D BLAST (November 08, 1996)

Genre: Platformer

Platforms: Sega Genesis, [Sega Saturn]

Developer: Traveller's Tales

Publisher: Sega

Moby Score: 6.9

Started: March 23, 2025

Finished: March 25, 2025

Beaten: Beaten

Playtime: 5 hours

It's funny that this game came up right after Contra: Legacy of War. Similarly to that game, Sonic 3D Blast also was its series first foray into "wannabe-3D" or in other words, "3D" from an isometric perspective. Similarly, this game was not received all that well. And similarly, the publishers decided to let external developers make these games instead of using their established teams.

While in Sonic and Sega's case, the main team was preoccupied making a different game, Nights into Dreams, it begs the question, why did Sega think it would be OK to not have a flagship Sonic title for its new 64-bit system, the Sega Saturn? Why was it such an afterthought while an, admittedly technologically impressive, Sonic game was being commissioned for the previous gen Sega Genesis again?

Well apparently the reason was that a different Sonic 3D game was being worked on around the same time called Sonic X-treme. It ended up being cancelled. We have footage of it and from a first glance ... yeah. It looks bad. What were they thinking with the fish-eye view?

As I said with Contra: Legacy of War, I understand the temptation for 3D games at the time, but if it's too complicated for you to do right, you have to realize that 2D is still the way to go. Right? You can't starve your fans of your flagship gaming character and expect to do well in competition with Nintendo.

So in the end what happened was that Sega wanted a port of Sonic 3D Blast to be made for the Sega Saturn. While the development of Sonic 3D Blast for the Genesis only took about 8 months, the job to port it to the Saturn was done in 7 (!) weeks (!). So you can imagine how different the game looks on the much more powerful Sega Saturn: not all that much. You can't really blame the devs all that much here, it's exclusively mismanagement by Sega in my opinion.

Anyway, what the Saturn version does differently is, of course, look very slightly better, but outside of that, it only has a different special stage (which is the same one used in Sonic the Hedgehog 2), a higher quality opening video and a different (very good) soundtrack.

But did it need any more changes than that? Is the game any good? Let's find out.

Title Screen

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10

An opening video and an ending cutscene are all you get in-game as far as the story goes. That goes like this:

There are these birds called "Flickies" that can travel using large rings, so Dr. Robotnik wants to turn them into robots and use them for his purposes (i.e to collect the Chaos Emeralds). Sonic wants to rescue them, so he has to go into each level, kill all the non-stationary enemies so that a flicky pops out of each of them, and then carry them with him to the large ring at the end of a level so they can travel back to their home I guess.

Simple, sufficient.

GAMEPLAY | 9/20

This is the first "3D" Sonic game. It uses an isometric perspective. As mentioned, the goal is to go into each level, kill the 5 enemies carrying flickies, and bringing them to the large ring that either opens up the next section of the Act or finishes it. Each world has 3 Acts with the final one acting as the boss fight, pretty standard stuff for Sonic.

Outside of this main goal, you collect rings and find hidden areas where Tails and Knuckles await your arrival. If you can bring them 50 rings, you are moved to secret stages. These are the same as in Sonic the Hedehog 2. You run forward in a half-pipe track, you need collect a set number of rings to get to Stage 2 of the mini-game, where you need to collect a higher set number. The only obstacle are the bombs, and they're easy to avoid after your first run. Getting the required rings gives you a Chaos Emerald. Collect all 7 and you unlock Super Sonic ... wait, no you don't. Super Sonic is not in the game. Instead, you unlock the secret final boss fight against Dr. Robotnik.

Outside of the hunt for secret stages and collecting 5 Flickies, there is nothing else in the game for you to do. There are a total of 8 zones, each with a different theme, but in terms of gameplay, some are similar to each other. Multiple zones have fans that blow you in the air for example. There is always a stationary enemy shooting in 8 directions that you can't kill. There are also turrets that shoot out fire (in Volcano Valley) or ice (in Diamond Dust) depending on the zone. Enemies vary slightly in appearance but are mostly the same, as they don't attack and just have to be rolled over and stepped on to kill them.

Speaking of rolling over, the game brings back the Spin Dash. It's the only skill Sonic has other than simply spinning forward slowly. In terms of power ups, there are invincibility (nothing can hit you) or shield power ups (takes one blow for

you). The only other one of note are the Speed Shoes, but this is worse than useless because the areas are so tight and hard to maneuver that collecting speed does you literally no good. You will hit a wall or an enemy within a second or two, and going that long without having to turn at some point is pretty much impossible in the game. This means that the game overall has a much slower feel to it than usual. I've complained before that I personally am not a fan of the high pace of Sonic games, but that's entirely subjective. Sonic fans love it. So to have that nerfed here is definitely a negative for the series fanbase. The only time speed shoes are useful are when they are paired with invincibility, in which case you can just run around to your heart's content, but you will still bump into stuff very regularly.

The main problem with the gameplay is that Sonic just feels so damn slippery all the time. The manual even warns about how you can control him better in the Diamon Dust zone, where there is ice, but jokes on them, every single zone feels like you are on ice. This makes precise jumps incredibly painful because you misjudge your speed and fly past your target or are way short of it. The isometric perspective also creates this issue with positional depth (similarly to Contra Legacy of War and many other isometric 3D titles of its time I'd assume), so jumping on moving platforms is an incredibly frustrating exercise.

Even if the controls were a charm though, the game never feels truly exciting. They are mostly kept into short areas where you are tasked with finding the 5 enemies. Once you do, you bring the flickies you get to the ring. Get hit on your way to the ring and the flickies are thrown in random directions, meaning you have to pick them up again. It's so annoying to deal with in a platformer, again, even with perfect controls. And when everything goes well, you simply carry them from point A to B with very little resistance other than the stationary enemies and the few spikes or lava pits you can hit.

It's a competent but boring gameplay loop at its best, and a really frustrating game at its worst, leaning more towards the latter usually. To have this as the only non-racing Sonic game for the Saturn is wild.

Killing one of the many of the few copy&paste enemies

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10

Regardless of what one (or in this review: I) might think about the gameplay itself, the music of Sonic 3D Blast on the Sega Saturn is great. You have your typical good vibes, playful, upbeat tracks like in the Green Grove Zone, but the game also impressed me with its more orchestral-like music such as in the Volcano Valley Zone thanks to its use of dramatic melodies that give it a more cinematic feel. Then there is the mix between the two with Rusty Ruins, which has a very mysterious quality to it thanks to its melody while retaining a bouncy vibe from its drum pattern.

Most interestingly, the game ends with a song featuring vocals called "You're My Hero", which must be the second time vocals are used in a Sonic game after Sonic Boom, right? And generally you almost never hear vocals in games up until this point, so it was a fun surprise.

Either way, I enjoyed the music overall.

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 6/10

The visuals on the Sega Saturn version are definitely better than for the Genesis version, but that is common sense when you have a more powerful machine. The textures look more detailed, the floor tiles don't look as lifeless, the final boss is lit up versus completely dark in the Genesis version and there is overall a higher quality look to the game.

Unfortunately, the colors used still make for ugly floors. It's also the same two colored pattern in each level, making them feel a bit similar. Outside of the flooring, the stages do have very different backgrounds. Sadly, these backgrounds are often undiscernable from playable areas that I often found myself trying to make a jump over there, only to be blocked by invisible walls.

And honestly, 2D Sonic games look much better no matter how you slice it. The effort here is not poor, but stages look heavily inspired by older Sonic games and don't offer ANY unique gameplay mechanics to make them stand out. So I'd pick the 'originals' any day of the week. Those offer unique platforming possibilities to make them feel like playgrounds for the player to experiment in or to fight the distinct challenges each stage represents. In Sonic 3D Blast, they only look different.

I don't know about you, but it's not my favorite world map

ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10

It sounds like a Sonic game and it has Sonic elements in gameplay. These parts are not that hard. Add stages from previous entries, copy elements from previous entries (while foregoing others, making this a less complete game), make Tails and Knuckles stand there so more Sonic characters are somehow included, have Dr. Robotnik be the villain and you have a basis for "Sonic vibes" these games will emanate at this point. But the game doesn't do anything beyond that.

Very little story, an ugly looking world map, a random handful (literally) of killable enemies in each part of the stage and the awkward camera angle are some of the things holding the game back in this regard.

CONTENT | 2/10

Sonic 3D Blast offers a semi-decent amount of content for a platformer, but it falls short of delivering the depth and variety expected from a Sonic title, especially given its release on the Sega Saturn. It took me roughly 5 hours using save states a couple times, so it would take your average player from the 90s 10-15 hours at most. That's not so bad.

Unfortunately, most of the time you hunt down for the flickies, even if you do so on a lot of different stages. They vary thematically but often obstacles are copied and pasted with a different filter. Special stages are not unique (only visually upgraded from Sonic 2) but at least offer some bonus content. Also, Super Sonic is missing.

It's an OK time for a weekend, doesn't overstay its welcome if you find some enjoyment out of it but overall, there are many much better platformers out there, especially of the 3D variety.

The special stage you might remember from Sonic 2

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 3/10

I've touched on this so far already. To sum up, a mix of boring "find flickies and bring them to the ring" and "different looking but similarly playing stages" makes for a repetitive and uninspired game.

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10

I suppose the move to "3D" counts as kind of innovative but very little is done with it and it would have been better to stick with 2D if they didn't give 3D a proper try a la Super Mario 64. Other than that, this is a more empty, less appealing version of older Sonic games.

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

You can hunt down all Chaos Emeralds in your second attempt if you failed the first time out, since the final boss fight is locked behind that. Otherwise, no replayability.

PLAYABILITY | 4/5

Works well at all times, but the controls are so awful that I docked a point for that. Jumping on moving platforms or trying to come to a stand still in these little pits some enemies are in without rolling past them is so unnecessarily finicky.

OVERALL | 49/100 ⭐⭐½

The worst thing you can say about Sonic 3D Blast is that it is kinda "meh". And that's not what you want for a Sonic game at all. It gives off an "unfinished" and "rushed" vibe everywhere. I didn't grow up with Sega consoles and never really looked this stuff up, and after doing so I'm flabbergasted by the fact that THIS is the only game that Sega gave Sonic platforming fans to play on their 64 bit console.