Published: 2025-07-04

I like stupid video games, I like playing stupid video games, talking about stupid video games, and whatever there is in between those two things, in fact, I'm known for spamming the poor people that made the mistake of following me on Mastodon with toots about stupid video games, for which I'm truly sorry! For that reason I said to myself "hey, why instead of spamming the poor people of Mastodon with thoughts on stupid video games don't you just write it on your blog so that way nobody has to suffer?", and I gotta say, that was a good idea, so here we go!

Needless to say: SPOILER ALERT

Table of contents

Not Exactly Better Call Saul

The first game I finished in June was Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Trials and Tribulations, a good ol' Nintendo DS game, although I played it as part of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy on Nintendo 3DS. This game is more of what came before, which is good since I knew what to expect after playing the first two entries, but there were some elements that ruined it for me, first of all the good-twin / bad-twin dynamic of the last case — and honestly the whole game — it's been done before, to death actually, but more than that, what truly ruined it for me was the character Jean Armstrong who appears during the case Recipe for Turnabout, and why is that? I'm glad you asked.

Jean Armstrong is the most disgusting stereotype I have ever seen in a video game. He's the chef of a French restaurant called Très Bien, and of course, he's French, a French chef that is, who knew... Not that there's anything wrong with having a French chef in a piece of media, but this French chef is also effeminate, a well-known stereotype about French people. Jean Armstrong introduces himself as a man, but then would refer to himself as "a little girl" multiple times; other characters will partake in this during the case too, making it a running gag. To put the cherry on top, the developers decided to convey Jean Armstrong's thick French accent through text instead of leaving it to the imagination, which made the game hard to follow for me as a non-native English speaker, and again, I found it really annoying and blatantly racist. They also added French definite articles every couple of words — la and le — for some reason, with no disregard for correctness of course, because racism is funny!

Honestly, this is my least favorite game of the trilogy, even accounting for its redeeming qualities, it's not as enjoyable as the previous games, and yes, I know everyone is a caricature in the Ace Attorney series, the clueless judge, the incompetent detective, the corrupt prosecutor, but even so, some shit is just not funny to me.

We Have Megaman At Home

Continuing with my pocket adventures, I played Mega Man Battle Network, a game I've been wanting to try for a long, long time. Mind you, this is not your grandpa's Megaman; there's no running and gunning or platforming here, just good ol' JRPG fun! That being said, it was a little disappointing how the game was structured; each mission is basically presented as a separate chapter with events beyond the player's control occurring in between missions, which is certainly not immersive. The beautiful isometric view makes the game stand out visually but makes navigation in the digital world a tiny bit hard. To add insult to injury, there's no map, so good luck navigating those giant mazes! Some games are rough around the edges, and then there's Mega Man Battle Network, no edges, just roughness.

A Soulless Pokémon Game

Pokémon Colosseum was my monthly dose of Pokémon during June and the first GameCube game I played and finished on my Wii ever, and although I loved the idea of a more "mature" Pokémon game in a neo-western style, the game failed to impress me, not because there's something wrong with it, but because they removed the elements I enjoy the most in a Pokémon game, I don't play Pokémon to mindlessly battle hundreds of trainers, I'm not obsessed with bAsE sTaTs and tHe MeTaGaMe, I play Pokémon because I like the idea of a fantastic world populated with these little creatures, so when the exploration/adventure part of the game is removed and focus changes mostly to battling I can certainly say I won't enjoy it that much, at that point I'm better off playing Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Stadium 2, which are in fact still in my backlog.

A Great Puzzle Adventure

Another pocket adventure of mine was Professor Layton and the Curious Village, an impressive puzzle game for the Nintendo DS, I was in awe while watching the cut-scenes of this game play in the screen of my 3DS, it wasn't the first time I saw a cut-scene or anything, but the fact that developer Level 5 included these beautiful animated videos with full voice acting on a DS game was impressive, even if the audio was compressed beyond imagination.

At the end of the day this game is just a collection of puzzles, not different from those you can find for free in the app store of your phone, but the fact they created this incredible complex story around them, with beautiful animated characters and fully voiced cut-scenes is remarkable and I tip my hat to them.

Now, the puzzles themselves. I believe there are only two types of puzzles, the ones you think "huh, that was fun!" after solving them, and the ones you go "mine is bigger than yours!", to my annoyance, the game includes both types. I personally enjoy the former rather than the latter the most and relied on hints — or straight up looked up the solution — for some of the most difficult ones, still, that did not take away from my experience at all.

Not Quite Shin Megami Tensei

I've been eyeing the Megami Tensei franchise for quite a while now, and being the stickler that I am I decided to start at the beginning with Kyuuyaku Megami Tensei I-II for the Super Famicom, a remake of the two Famicom games: Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei and Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II. Now I technically didn't finish this "game" because, as I said before, this is a two-game bundle; what I did finish is the first game in the bundle, the remake of the original Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei. I have a lot to say about this game. Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei is first and foremost a first-person dungeon crawler JRPG, I had never played something like that before, and after a couple of hours, I was ready to give up, mainly because of how difficult it was to navigate these huge, same-looking mazes with no map! Then I realized you could cast the spell Mappara to get an on-screen minimap, oopsie! And then, I read you could bring up a map by pressing the R button, oopsie again! After that, the game became more bearable, and dare I say even enjoyable! This is not a game I think is worth revisiting nowadays because of how dated it is, it's repetitive, unnecessarily punishing, confusing, and worst of all, slow, thank god I was emulating it and speeding the hell outta the CPU, also, did I mention your characters can actually lose levels in this game? Yeah, definitely dated. That being said, I'm glad I got to play this game and got to know how the franchise came to be, can't wait to play Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II... Except I can wait, and will wait, don't want to play too many similar games in a short time.

Much More Than Just Horny Devil May Cry

"Just a horny Devil May Cry", I was quick to dismiss Bayonetta after only a couple of minutes of play by calling it that, and boy, how wrong I was. First of all, the hypersexualized nature of the main character had me constantly asking myself "was this truly necessary?", I mean, at the end of the day this game was primarily made by men, for men, horny men that is, teenagers and young adults that want women, all women if possible, to look like this because they have a narrow view of the world, and we have seen women like this in videogames before, just take a look at any JRPG artbook and marvel at the absurdity of ripped men wearing the heaviest, most-protective armor there could possibly be, while women get to expose their torso as if shouting "go ahead, stab me, I don't care, my breast looks fabulous!", but Bayonetta wasn't this, because unlike most women in JRPGs, Bayonetta was not an accessory to someone else's story, this was Bayonetta's story, and as hypersexualized as the character was, it was not about that, this is not a sex simulator after all, it was a strong's woman journey of self-discovery and coming to terms with fate, and when I say strong woman I fuckin' mean it, there has probably not been a stronger female mythological figure in history than the witch, women feared and persecuted by their strong power, and Bayonetta is a witch, a very capable witch, and a very strong witch, the character being hypersexualized is part of the sense of humor baked into her — because yes, she has a great sense of humor — and into the whole world that revolves around her, which makes her feel authentic. More than a witch, Bayonetta is a woman, and she embraces their femininity; she blows kisses to barriers to destroy them and uses lipstick as a bullet, which is refreshing in a game primarily marketed towards men.

And that's only the non-gameplay related part, because yes, the gameplay is flawless, with easy combos to pull off, varied sections that include platforming, shooting, and racing, and beautiful cut-scenes that lean into the humor of Bayonetta's absurd world more than the gameplay could ever do. Bravo, I tip my hat to this game.

That's All Folks

The only logical conclusion that I can reach after writing all this is that I play too much videogames, which is... OK? Escapism is OK, just remember to take care of your responsibilities and you'll be OK, and more than your job or mortgage I mean your body, mental health, and family, the things that really matter, remember to eat well, drink enough water, exercise at least a little, and spend time with your family, maybe playing videogames with them.