Destructoid Originals

Growing up, I played a lot of puzzle games, but I didn’t have much love for them. This is because my mother loves puzzle games, and I probably didn’t like them much because it was one of the genres she could beat me at. However, the experiences I had playing Yoshi’s Cookie and Kirby’s Avalanche with her have left me with some nostalgia for the titles. I don’t actually play them much, but they feel good to my soul, at least. One game I used to play with her is different, however. It’s a puzzle game that I’m actually…

Between 1989 and ‘96 was the best time to be alive. We ate sugar for breakfast, groceries were affordable, and the internet as we know it today didn’t really exist. Mark my words, the world started going to shit after American Gladiators went off the air. The show almost feels like the embodiment of how excessive and unself-aware the time period was. Big ‘roided up guys and ladies in spandex with radical names battling the general public in colorful and ridiculous feats of strength. I barely remember it, and I still…

Umihara Kawase is a weird game to explain, but I’m going to try to anyway. It looks and sounds like an amateur production put out by some unknown publisher and created by some unknown developer, and maybe it is. But it’s also one of the best games on the Super Famicom. I first heard about it on GameCenter CX (season 5, episode 1), and that was around the time that the series was finally making it stateside with Yumi’s Odd Odyssey (Sayonara Umihara Kawase). I finally jumped into the series in 2020 with Umihara Kawase…

Out of everyone in my circles, I feel like the only person left who hasn’t beaten Baldur’s Gate 3. The FOMO of missing out on everyone’s new favorite toy isn’t something that typically compels me, but god — it’s like I don’t make a dent in exploring Faerûn. I know why; I don’t want to admit this, but at some point, I’ve got to stop picking up every bone, rotten basket, and fork I find. Okay, in my defense, it’s not that bad anymore. I stopped picking up hoards of goblin garbage at the end of Act I, though not of my own…

I earmarked China Warrior for this column because of its prominence in the manga Hi-Score Girl. However, while it holds some sentimental value to the main characters, they don’t actually say if the game is good. I will intervene: It is not. While a North American copy of China Warrior would run me $40 or so (with case and manual), I got the Japanese version, The Kung Fu, alongside Genpei Tōma Den and Susanoo Densetsu for roughly the same price because nobody wants The Kung Fu. Okay, that’s not actually true, it probably…

Persona 3 Reload, a remake of the classic 2006 RPG, is due to release on February 2. Between 2013 and 2016, AIC ASTA and A-1 Pictures released four animated films on Persona 3. The question is: are they worth watching before Reload‘s release? For many, myself included, seeing your favorite franchises adapted into a new form is thrilling. So when I heard there were four full-length animated films based on Persona 3, I knew I had to watch them. It’s too good to be true! Well, in a way, it kind of is. Spoiler alert for…

I didn’t think I’d be revisiting the mind of walkedoutneimans so soon after Tyko’s Dying Together, but here we are with iPad Baby. I need a breather. I can’t take this much sensory overload. I feel that deeply, since more and more I can’t stand the internet. There are too many people there. Too many thoughts, opinions, and content flying around in all directions. It becomes impossible to parse the important information from the irrelevant. Worse yet, companies like Google are continually pushing irrelevant content to the…

It’s pretty easy to stand out in the Virtual Boy catalog. There were only fourteen games. Half weren’t very good, half felt like tech demos, and half were Virtual Boy Wario Ware. If a game didn’t fit into any of those three halves, it stuck out like a missing tooth. Panic Bomber was one of those games. It’s a perfectly find match-3 puzzle game, with a heaping of Bomberman charm. It just didn’t benefit from being on the hardware in the slightest. The Virtual Boy had its advantages, but it’s hardly the ideal way to play a…

One of my oldest memories is of a time when my sister wouldn’t let my Ghostbusters action figures bust ghosts in her Barbie doll house. The exclusion was my only major exposure to the toy. I did watch the hit 2023 movie, which I enjoyed. I think it was a fun idea to focus on the generational impacts the toy had on women rather than try to contrive some sort of hero’s journey out of it. Wait… it was a hero’s journey! That structure shows up in the strangest places. Anyway, that’s not the reason I bought 1993’s Barbie…

As with El Viento, I hadn’t heard of Sol-Deace before Retro-Bit’s reproduction of it was announced. However, it’s a good partner since, like El Viento, it was developed by Wolf Team. Sol-Deace has something of a confusing history. It was originally released in Japan in 1990 on the Sharp X68000 where it was called Sol-Feace. It would then be ported to the Sega CD in 1991, but when it arrived on a Genesis/Mega Drive cartridge in 1992, it was named Sol-Deace. I don’t know why the name changed, but the story uses Feace and…