Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonace Review

There's a new Castlevania that just came out and before it did, I wanted to round up all the CV games Koji Igarashi on worked before touching it. I briefly touched Circle of the Moon and absolutely hated it's controls that I dropped it in less than 15 minutes. I was expecting to drop Harmony of Dissonace as well but surprisingly, I did finish this one. After doing that however, I can see why Aria of Sorrow is the most fondly remembered of all the GBA games. I wouldn't consider this title to be terrible but out of all the games worked on by Igarashi, this one makes me ask, "what's the point?"

HoD can be summed up in "what if old school CV and SOTN were to combine together?" You get this. You kind of have the same movement physics as the games prior to SOTN and you mainly use the whip instead of different weapons.

When you overlook that, it's a title that's just "there" and needed to be made because Konami had a mandate of releasing a new game in the series annually or biannunally. Everything from SOTN is here like the stats, the gear, the XP system, the spells, and the various traversal upgrades.

You'll get more heart and health upgrades than any other game "Igavania" game.

It's not the difficulty of combat you will be struggling with since enemies are mostly easy and bosses can be killed with just spamming spells and sub weapons. The real challenge is knowing where on earth you are supposed to go next. There are many vocal people on the internet who get angry by the mere idea of hand holding in a game but I really do believe this game will make them challenge that belief.

Knowing what the next objective is often vague and you'll need a guide just for that but the end game fetch quest can truly drive someone's patience. One of the items you need to get to get the "real" final boss requires you to get a metroidvania upgrade that you didn't need for most of the game and then has an extra step of you needing an item to get past a barrier to get it.

The music is often a much maligned part of the game but I didn't think it was that bad, I did start to get sick of it the more I played the game but I can't tell if it was just me wishing the game would just end.

Overall, the game's just there. Circle of the Moon feels awful to play and Aria of Sorrow feels like the GBA CV that is worth checking out. Harmony of Dissonace is worth trying out of curosity since it doesn't have challenging combat and bosses, but if you stop out of boredom, I don't blame you.

Blood: Refreshed Supply(Playstation 5) Review

Blood is a game so good that I'm willing to play a game for a 3rd time. When I first played it, you could only emulate through Dosbox then they made a remaster and now they are doing it again and I can play it console now. It was the game that put Monolith Productions on the map and would later make more games I would enjoy like No One Lives Forever, FEAR, Condemned and Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor then they would later meet their unfortunate demise but that's the gaming industry for you. I still really enjoy Blood but I can't help but notice issues that I haven't before. It's still a highly enjoyable game and one of the best boomer shooters you can play released in this era especially before they went full 3D.

Anyways, whenever I booted up Blood before, I always dread playing Episode 1 but now lowering the difficulty to easy, I appreciate the design a lot more here. Yes, no doubt you will be overwhelmed by the the hitscanning cultists and the regular zombies before you even build up your wilder arensal of weapons. There is one thing Episode 1 teaches you and this will be learned even on easy mode.

Enemies using hitscan weapons tends to be a hot topic among people who talk about shooter combat design. Blood is very unique in that instead of just tanking hits and hoping you recover from it. You have a way to combat them: The TNT. If you even casually play this game, this is a weapon you will have to get accustomed to. What makes it so unique is that basically a hitscan cultist or a group will be either hiding in rooms, corners, or just in tight spots. If you can spot one or hear the sound barks, you can lob in some TNT and get some quick and fast kills on them with no need to even tank any hits.

As a result, Blood can feel a bit more on the conservative or tactical side. You get no health packs outside of portable medkits, enemies just randomly drop health upon death. It's more about lobbing in and being as careful as you can before you can use your more powerful weapons later.

Speaking of more powerful weapons, Blood has the most punchy, gory and memorable boomer shooter aresnals of guns you could ever have. You got a useful flare gun. You got the awesome Tommy Gun that can tear into enemies and it's alt fire that can attacks nearby enemies with it's spread. The amazing sawed off shotgun where one shot can do a lot of damage but feels very satisfying to fire both shots to defeat higher level enemies. The beastly Tesla Cannon that can make little work of the tougher enemies. Of course, one of if not the beast rocket launchers in all of gaming: the Napalm Launcher. Which casuses a huge explosion upon touching an enemy and can spread to other enemies and slowly burn away at their health. The Remote Mines are also a decent follow back weapon for the TNT.

With that said, there are gimmick weapons that are just there like the Vodoo Doll, Aeresol Can, and the Life Leech is just kind of there. I will say the BFG from Doom and the Devastator from Duke 3D does have the Life Leech beat in terms of gamefeel and use.

The main weapons feel so good to use that I don't mind this.

Level design is mostly good with the scenery and locals getting better with each episode. Episode 2 being the most memorable in that you have a creepy carnivale then you got a real cool homage to The Shinning where you the level have you begin in a maze outside of The Overlook hotel then you actual visit and go through the actual recreation of it. Episode 4 starts off in creepy labs and then you start go through haunted temple areas. Blood is often said to be a parody of horror media like how Duke 3D is to action films and Blood does a good job at it. The only big issue I have is how in the penultimate level E4, Kaleb somehow gets inside of a giant worm. I'm not strongly demanding stories in these games but I wish it was explained how he got there since it's so random.

The enemies I'm more mixed on this time around. I find some of them to be really annoying to fight like the Hellhounds where if they hit you even once, they can slowly chip away at your health and you better hope you kill an enemy that drops some. The Gargolyes will take forever to finally fly down and start attacking you. Spiders can mess up you field of view by touching you. Phantasms can be really be grating if you don't have Sawed Off shotgun rounds ready and hit with it's alt fire when it reappears. Hands can be annoying if you don't know the button to get them off you. The Hellhounds are especially annoying since being ill prepared could lead you back to the restart screen.

It's strange, Blood for the most part is a really well made game but there are just enemies in it's roster that makes me start groaning by the mere thought of fighting them again.

Overall, while Blood can be frustrating in places, it's still enjoyable to play just held back by some very irksome enemies to fight especially in the moment before learning of their placement in the levels.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Review

When I got the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection back over a decade ago, this was the game I remember playing the most out of all them. I really enjoyed it back then and I thought after being lukewarm on every MGS past the first Solid and especially after 2, a large part me thought Peace Walker might not hold up that much. After playing it again over a decade later, Peace Walker still holds up. There's a couple of things that hold the game back but after feeling almost nothing but apathy from MGS3 and 4, I'm surprised Peace Walker is even a game I still like.

Since it's an MGS game I'll begin with the story and for the most part I enjoy it. I really do enjoy the fact that the more or less seemingly retconned the 3rd game's ending. It was nothing more than the logical fallacy known as "appeal to emotion". What makes Peace Walker's story compelling is that Big Boss and by extension Hideo Kojima is on my side regarding this. What do I mean? Big Boss throughout the much of PW's story still hasn't accepted that fact what Eva told her is 100% truth since with MGS3's narrative, we don't really see that many scenes with "The" Boss and Eva. The latter ran away and gave you a tape recording saying, "take my word for it" in a long winded monologue of course. Having a story where Big Boss is questioning all this makes him a more nuanced character. The starting of the game does a great job at selling you on him as it shows how he is haunted by what seems to be a ghost of his former mentor. How Zadornov baits Big Boss into taking on the mission.

What is also refreshing is how great it feels for a Metal Gear protagonist to have agency again. Where Old Snake acts disinterested and dismissive, Big Boss in Peace Walker gives the feeling of wanting to find geniune closure. With the scene I mentioned and how he taunts Strangelove in the Torture Room later in the game. It's also great how Old Snake's long stretches of silence is gone and he gets into actual geniune conversations with his allies and foes. The "turning what you just said but saying it questioningly way" is toned down here a good deal.

The themes of deterance and peace are quite interesting in how AI should be used to handle firing nuclear weapons. This will do much of the story's heavy lifting outside of BB's plight since the characters outside of him, Strangelove and maybe Huey and Miller are on the underdeveloped side. There's not many bad guys outside of "Hot" Coldman and he's just there.

PW also gets very ridiculous towards the end even for MGS standards but that's if you do the grind in Chapter 5.

Gameplay despite losing actions like first person aiming and moving in prone. The gameplay manages to be the most compelling the series has been in a while.

Remember the tranq gun I kept on complaining about? Here it's used to recruit members for Mother Base rather be a bypass gameplay option. You are also encouraged to finish the level quickly and not die that much so you can get more "heroism" points so no relying on being able to respawn from the last place you died.

CQC slam is no longer an instant knockout. You have to knockdown on an enemy, wait for them to get up, then choke them out if you want to incapcitate them up close. Higher level guards will take longer to choke out.

It doesn't end there, the game also introduces new enemy types throughout the campaign. You got armoured enemies, guards with helmets(no first person aiming means you can't aim under them and you got to worry about activitating a quick caution phase), some that blend in with the surrondings and are also good at CQC, snipers using ghille suits, and game drone enemies.

Vehicle bosses can also be defeated using stealth.

This transitions me to negatives since the vehicle bosses on paper are a good idea only the APC boss is handled well since you know where enemies will spawn from. Later fights have random alerts and extremely random enemy spawns.

The AI bosses are okay but can be lengthy damage sponges especially Peace Walker. What makes it worse is that PW can go on for long that it drain that annoying psyche guage. Some of it's attacks can do it too. Then you have to do that obnoxious 7th gen left stick waggling nonsense.

While Chapter 3 starts off with a creative shootout where you have to watch multiple vantage points and are in a choke point where you can ambushed from left and right. The creativity in game design starts to go down slowly. You get only one whole main mission where you have to avoid a drone enemy and the rest is mainly just evading guards in industrial areas. Lacking the interesting enemy design of the outdoor levels. It's almost too easy to go back to tranq headshotting in the industrial levels before the Soviet Base.

Chapter 5 is a boring grind with a ridiculous boss and song at the end. A sequence where Big Boss resigns to his fate isn't worth grinding this much over. Also, that torture mini game is awful and can stump almost any first time player from getting furthur into the game. Why is there no accessiblity option for this?

Overall, PW was a surprise especially how apathetic to the series before playing.

Sprawl Zero Review

When I first heard of Sprawl Zero, I originally thought, "it's a follow up to that one game that wasn't really that great? Hope this time it's better". It was also interesting just how much it was going to borrow from the early to mid 00s FPS games. Games like FEAR, Halo, Dead to Rights and arguably even games like Psi Ops the Mindgate Conspiracy but most likely Half Life 2's Gravity Gun. There's also games like Project Snowblind and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence for it's visual inspiration.

As a whole, I'd say for the most part, it lived up to my expectations of being better than the first Sprawl.

One major difference and a really big improvement is that weapon feedback feels MUCH better this time. Guns actually have a sense of weight and punch to them unlike the first game. Tearing into an enemy with the various weapons feels good to do now. Where the original game's weapons feels like you are firing BB gun rounds into enemies.

Another one is while the first game was FEAR meets Titanfall. Here it feels like a homage to the 00s and also the hitscan shooters of the late 90s. There's traditional cutscenes here and there but also telling a story with no cuts like in Half Life. There's also a leader npc giving you a rundown on the mission objectives something you'd find in an early Medal of Honor game.

The narrative is kind of just there but it does give you more context to what's going by comparison to the first game.

Actual combat of Sprawl Zero is a ballet of using melee, slo mo, grabbing a weapon that can't reload then throwing the gun or lifting environmental objects, and then picking up another weapon or getting health back from the damage you lost from the hitscanners.

There's some cool ideas Sprawl Zero has to it's own like being able to hold bullets or rockets and send them right back at the enemy. You can also do the aforemention throw an empty gun at an enemy and it feels super satisfying to do. It can feel reminiscent of Superhot.

It creates for a very fast and frentic combat system that's very satisfying and fun in the moment. You can also kill an enemy leader and cause nearby enemies' comms to malfuction similar to killing an elite in Halo. Speaking of Halo, there is a very obvious homage to the Gravity Hammer from the 3rd game. It arguably feels better here than it did in that game since the enemies gib a lot more when the attack connects.

Enemies also give health pick ups upon death which is a system I prefer vastly over regen health since it keeps you on the move rather than have you wait and be vunerable. One aspect of 00s FPS design I'm glad it stayed away from.

You even helicoptors being regular enemy types as opposed to be bosses. I did wish you had another way to damage them other than using the magnetic reflection ability.

This might as well transition me to issues. While I do like that enemies give health upon death, I did wish you got one health stim to fallback on since you could be at critical and want to run to the pick up but you might be dead by the time you reach it. The guns are hitscan so you can't just dodge out of the way. The enemy counts also starts to get really high and overwhelming so it would be nice to have one fallback healing item.

The burst fire pistol feels awful and weak to use due to how long it takes to get a kill, not a good weapon to ever have in a game where there's no reloading and all guns are a single clip.

Like Halo there's black bars that pop up when loading a new part of the level and while in Halo, it never gets in the way, here there are parts of the game where you are getting shot at while the black bars are around.

There are some awful levels here and there like Eden where you have to get past a sniper's alley, fight them in a single choke point and fight helicoptors twice with no health items or checkpoints. The final boss is also really bad since you have to do an enemy wave just to fight him and battling him can level your health bar and start a restart. There can be some really annoying firefights here and there but the checkpoint system can allievate much potential frustration.

Overall, Sprawl Zero turned out to be an enjoyable follow up to a game I was very lukewarm on and it's highly worth checking out. Wasn't expecting to enjoy it this much.

Marvel's Wolverine Review

I'm big fan of Insomniac Games and while their Spider-Man titles is not what I think when it comes to them at their peak, they are solid and enjoyable. I can say much of the same for this Wolverine game all though there are some surprises that this game gave me due to also being an intermidiate Marvel fan and superhero fan by extension. Well intermidiate fan from the perspective of a divorced wife but I'm getting off topic.

The story had quite a number "holy crap" moments upon first booting it up. Yes, there have been video games like the X-Men Origins Wolverine movie tie in where you get to play as an unhinged Logan tearing things apart with his claws but it was still shackled to the framework of a terrible PG-13 movie. This Wolverine game feels like it has the tone of a Marvel comic under the MAX imprint. Everything is bloody, gory and characters aren't afraid to curse and be overly mean to each other. It's surprising to see any Marvel adaptation like this let alone a game. Hearing Sabertooth say, the f word for the first time really caught me by surprise. It's a huge stark contrast compared to the writing in their Spider-Man games.

It doesn't just end there, it feeds into the story and writing itself, right at the start at the end of the first mission you kill Omega Red and how Logan himself isn't strongly against killing or anyone else in the story is for that matter. Later on, Jean Grey kills a bad guy in self defense and there's no "we are heroes, we don't kill" speeches to be found. The story officially sold me when Essex wanted to capture and keep Bolivar Trask locked up so he can keep torturing him but then Wolverine mercy killed the latter instead.

The whole story feels refreshing in that just because you are a supervillain, it doesn't mean you'll get beat up, locked up, cause trouble, get a "pardon" and get locked up again and repeat the process. It isn't even scared to kill off child characters like Leech too. No Charles Xavier and his endless idealism that goes nowhere and as much as I like Magneto, he's on the overused side and his origin is hard to reimagine for modern times without some anti aging device.

What REALLY sold on the story was the "sinister" villain Essex. He's the Xavier stand in and well I thought Insomniac was going to make him a sympathetic anti villain but instead it was just a red herring. He was ultimate a parastic self righteous hypocrite who only used his "helping mutantkind" for his own selfish ends. It hits close to for me now. The cutscenes with him might be a little underwhelming at first but it slowly starts to add up.

It's also nice to see elements of X-Men Evolution and Infamous in here too.

While I did enjoy the story I got some issues particularly with the backstory and how a disjointed and vague everything can feel. Wolverine did so much stuff over hundreds of years? He was also a hearld of Apocalypse? He was once had a relationship with Jean Grey a hundred years ago? Essex made him savage and then made him sane again? Feels like so much information happens and feel scatter brained.

Also some side characters like Mystique can feel a little underdeveloped if you don't hear her optional conversation with Tyger at the bar before the Hand shows up.

Combat is pretty good. Yes, it isn't going to reinvent the way video game combat is going to be done but it's fun enough regardless. You got combos with special enders with the triangle button, special attacks on cooldowns, parries, perfect dodges, a kick, the ability to reflect projectiles, a rage meter and critical strikes. It can be fun to chain combos together, use special abilities and then build up some rage to get critical strikes in.

You a solid enough toolset, the big issue is that the game on normal can be a little too forgiving with ability like channeling your rage into healing or the multiple second chances you get. The enemy roster starts to get more interesting when it introduces medium and larger enemies with larger HP and more attacks for you to parry, more projectiles and more area of effect attacks to try to perfect dodge. They start popping up towards the around the end of the Japan chapter so it can take a while for things to get interesting.

The latter couple chapters is where things start to pick up and the enemy count gets higher especially with the proto sentienels, more projectile enemies and long waves

Bosses are also good even if they are a few like Omega Red, and Sabertooth, and Essex. With different attacks and timings for dodges and parries. Sintenel boss being the weakest.

Environmental takedowns and lunging were handled better in X-Men Origins since the former you have a grab button and the latter isn't contextual.

The stealth is on the pointless side and some of the scripted setpieces aren't the greatest especially that bike chase.

Overall, I was expecting a solid time with this Wolverine game and got exactly that with a couple of surprises here and there.

Call of Duty: Ghosts Review

This was a game I played a few years back and knowing it's reputation of the worst CoD game more like the worst CoD game they are aware of but I digress. I remember it being a solid and enjoyable time, it had some memorable missions with the only big sore spot being the terrible ending. I'm more forgiving of bad endings in games since gaming encapuslates the idea of "the journey" better than any other medium. I still feel the same way years later, it's not the best CoD campaign but after recently replaying Black Ops 2, I can certainly say I prefer this game.

One thing about CoD Ghosts that is quite surprising is that it paces itself quite well. We get to live through the eyes of the main characters before the world gets completely anhillated and destroyed. It's also interesting to see a CoD game attempt some kind of bond of family. You got Riley and your brother while also needing to prove yourself to your father.

Some aspects on paper I also like one example being the villain Rorke. He can be pretty overpowered and often wrestles control away from the player for bad things to happen. At the same time, it's interesting because he's one of the former memebers of the Ghosts who got left behind. The plot twist of him still left behind and blaming other people for his problems also makes sense on paper since he spent years being in prison and getting tortured. The problem is that before he kills your father, the torture and imprisonment never gets brought up so it's just nothing more than me and my headcanon rather than something concrete. It was nice to see the game play with player expectations and have the part where the player character pulls a knife out and tries to overpower Rorke like with Shepard just for him to counter and beat you.

Another big issue is Infinity Ward and their insistence for the protagonist not to speak. It was showing problems as far back as MW2 and it still isn't helping the narrative now. Since this game is about familial bond, why doesn't the main character talk and form a geniune dynamic? This appeal to tradition at this point feels like Infinity Ward just refuses to move at this point. It made sense for CoD before MW2 to do it since you were one of many soldiers on the battlefield. Now there's more going on by comparison.

The ending is also random and terrible setting up a cliffhanger that never got followed up on.

Still, it's a moderately decent story and keeps more to the grounded military feeling than Black Ops 2 does.

You know the gameplay mechanics by now. Regen health, ADS, scripted sequences, throwables you might use on occasion, maybe some melee. The shooting is still rather a simple spray and pray shooting. The frustrating parts where enemies have line of sight on you while you are trying to find cover and at critical health or the cover is too small to hide and get a cheap death, it's all still there. I tolerate this stuff more than anything like an annoying family member or friend that I still hang around with.

This is still the same CoD but there are some memorable and enjoyable missions here. Like Brave New World, Struck Down, Legends Never Die, Federation Day, Clockwork, Into The Deep, Sin City, LOKI and Ghost Killer.

Brave New World has part where you have to defend a wall from enemies from above and on the ground. Struck Down has you mark trucks and then slowly destroy an enemy base on a baseball field.

Other missions like Legends Never Die even has you using the water as cover to enemy fire in combat. Into the Deep had underwater combat that has hitscan weapons indirectly become projectile. Ghost Killer has a level where you are on a train and have to maintain your balance while it's shaking.

It has things that makes CoD campaigns endearing like beautiful looking establishing shots and an incredible sense of scale where it looks like other battles are happening while you are doing yours and does a good job at breaking up traditional gunplay like I mention above.

CoD Ghosts does have some fair share of good missions. The problem is that there is a lot of recycled ideas and assets here. If you were on the gaming community around a decade ago, the CoD "Recycled Warfare" meme was said. Games like this can fuel that narrative. MW3 did that and it was charming in that game, here it enters into parody.

You got ideas from All Ghilled Up, a part where you are attacked by an attack chopper and then sneak around using a heartbeat sensor, you are defending a device while a progress bar is slowly loading, a mission on an oil rig. There's even one bizarre mission where it even borrows from Black Ops 2 where attacked a military ship that is your home base. The penultimate mission borrows from CoD2(2005), and MW1 where you ride a tank then a helicoptor and try to a missile from exploding while on a timer.

Overall, CoD Ghosts have it's interesting and novel moments, there's a fair share of derivative parts. Worth checking out in spite of it's reputation

Resident Evil 2(2019) Review

I remembered being so hyped by the very idea of this remake. Back in a time period where I was against tank controls and thought, "this remake will give what the original game had but with better controls". Little did I know, it didn't really give me that. The changes like the tougher zombies, camera shaking when grabbed, Mr. X no longer being scripted and especially A and B games being heavily gutted caused me to have a strong dislike for years to come. This was one of the games that did teach me to never get overly hyped for anything. I have bashed this game many times in my past write ups too. I decided to replay the PS5 version years later. I was dreading that I was going to have a miserable time but surprisingly I enjoyed it much more this time around. It still has the problems I mentioned but a lot of them aren't as big of deal breakers except the A and B scenarios being a red herring now. The best comparison I can make is that this is something along the lines of Tomb Raider Anniversary, a flawed but enjoyable remake.

REmake 2 keeps mostly everything that makes the original game great but what makes it stand out is how it plays with your expectations. If you never played the original, you'll of course get a new experience but if you did, there's lots new to find where it doesn't like you are playing the same game in a different perspective and controls.

RPD Police Station has been redesigned but the general layout remains the same. You still got the Main Hall that connects to a West and East side but the rooms are all fully rendered in 3D rather than the prerendered backgrounds of yester year. The order in which visit iconic places in the story changes too. For example, Kendo's gunshop doesn't appear until late game, you go through the RPD again but with Mr. X stalking you, or even a puzzle where you need different number keys to unlock certain doors in a weapons locker.

The spirit of the original game and the RE of old before 2005 is kept intact. You got inventory space and you have to make a concious decision of what to take with you. What do you prefer? Lots of healing items or ammo? Do you take lots of puzzle items instead? Do you try to try to fit in a few of each? A new addition this time around is that you can get hip pouches to add more space to your inventory.

You will backtrack, fight enemies, solve puzzles some being smaller ones within a giant puzzle.

This is the part where I address the combat and when I first played the game, I was annoyed by many of REmake 2's "quirks". The first major one being how the zombies take multiple hits and especially multiple headshots before dying. I discovered this time around that the game has a dismemeberment system especially when you shoot them in the legs. A common tactic was to immobilize them and then finish them off with either a knife or a few headshots. They weren't as annoying as I once thought.

Camera jerking became less of a problem because I got grabbed much less due to this said tactic. It does become a problem when surronded by many zombies by those scenarios are too few to even notice. Lickers do take a lot of damage but they don't pop up too much either and you'll be decked out with firepower to take them down easily. Surprisingly dogs were easier to run away from than to fight since the survival horror decision making of, "take some hits so you can save bullets" popped into my mind.

Mr. X? This was the biggest surprise, if you keep moving througout the map like you have a purpose, you won't really encounter him that much. Maybe at the library at the most but that seems to be his most common spawn point. It's rather surprising that what was once something I strongly dislike about this remake is barely an issue now.

With that said, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. The parts where you play as Ada aren't particularly interesting since they are mainly just scripted sequences that have nothing to do with the core gameplay. That and I'm not a big fan of the much longer and expanded on sewer section. The layouts can get very confusing and at times even labythrine. The map also isn't as helpful here as it should be do to the disjointed presentation of it. You also fight a lot of damage spongey enemies and super padded out plug puzzle.

Luckily the Labratory is where things wrap up and isn't as dragged out.

The biggest issue is how the A and B scenarios are red herrings this time around. Capcom added them due to fan backlash when they should've just stuck to their guns since there's this weird inbetween. The true ending is unlocked after you do Claire's run. This isn't worth it due to the contradictions in the story and how everything is mostly remixed as opposed to being, "what Claire was up to while Leon was on his adventure". I know I would get annoyed and looked up the final boss and ending on Youtube.

Overall, I'm much kinder on REmake 2 but the botched zapping system holds it back from being on par with the original.