Gogglebob.com officially started with FGC #001: Double Dragon on June 15, 2015. Looking at the calendar, that means this website has been up and running for ten friggen’ years. And I thought I would lose interest sometime around hitting article 60! But here we are! Ten years of Gogglebob.com, containing everything from silly videogame articles, Xenosaga/Wild Arms Let’s Plays, Even Worse Streams, to the occasional Ice Climber fanfic. This site has got it all!
You know what else this site has got? Annual gaming roundups looking at the best and most disappointing games of the last ten years. And, since I like to imagine that I have learned a thing or two over the last ten years, I am going to replay my most disappointing games of the last ten years, and make recommendations on how to avoid disappointing me (and possibly other gamers) in the future. Let’s hop right into the Batmobile with…
2015: Batman: Arkham Knight
What went wrong? Batman: Arkham Asylum was a revelation for Batman gaming, as it really made you feel like you were a stealthy monster bat-man that could conceivably take down an entire compound of armed maniacs and supervillains. Batman: Arkham City took it a step further by expanding your play area and implementing a gliding system to easily stalk around the city. Batman: Arkham Knight made an even bigger city, which necessitated the presence of the Batmobile. And the damn thing lost a wheel, so the Joker got away…
Did it get better? It has somehow been ten years since this Batman game dropped, and I can safely say I would much rather replay the first two entries in the trilogy than the third. And I have! Batman: Arkham Knight could have been a slam dunk, but everything about the Batmobile is the complete antithesis of Batman: Arkham gameplay. Or, put simply, there is nothing stealthy about running a crook over! Bah! Batmobile racing or tank gameplay is not particularly bad, it just belongs in a different, older game. Other Arkham games revolutionized Batman gameplay, Batmobile times were just reheated Grand Theft Auto 3 missions.
Does playing it now change anything? I remembered the Arkham series as being a kind of gritty AAA aesthetic (Penguin’s glass bottle-monocle always sticks in my mind), but revisiting Arkham Knight reminds me there was an almost Schumacher Gotham neon thing going on around town. And we haven’t gotten anything quite like that in the last decade, so this retro title is suddenly nostalgic.
Did we learn anything? I guess I learned not to play Batman games anymore. I didn’t return to Gotham Knights in any capacity, and the next Rocksteady sequel, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, was also skipped. And my understanding is that that title was heavily influenced by director meddling adding features, so maybe we all just need to wait for Injustice 3.
2016: Street Fighter V
What Went Wrong? The final version of Street Fighter 4 had 44 characters (hey… was that deliberate?), multiple modes, and even manifold endings for different fighters’ arcade modes spread across its several versions. That was a lot of content! Street Fighter 5 launched with 16 playable characters, “character stories” that included three fights, and a survival mode. There was no arcade mode, and no overarching story mode. There were zero returning characters first introduced in Street Fighter 4, and edgelord Necalli was a pale shadow of even Abel. And, most disgracefully, we were told we would soon have the opportunity to pay cash money for mainstays like Ibuki or Balrog. Nash is free, but Guile comes at a premium? That is insulting.
Did it get better? By the time Street Fighter 5 was finished (aka when Street Fighter 6 was on the horizon), it had one more fighter than Street Fighter 4 (and none of them were Oni). It had variety. It had costumes. It had a full story mode, and future “mini stories” that advanced the plot of Street Fighter beyond “Ryu needs to register with the app store”. It had Sakura. In short, Street Fighter 5 had everything you could ever want… and it only took years to get there.
Does playing it now change anything? Yes, but only because of the previously mentioned “shows marked improvement” factor. I can smack around Abigail with Gill, and the world is a better place. Street Fighter 5 did not graduate to one of my favorite games (or even most favorite Street Fighter games), but I am not going to say no if someone wants to go a match or two.
Did we learn anything? Kinda! Street Fighter 6 felt like more of a complete package at its launch, likely because of an intensive “Story Mode” featuring your own version of Beef Not Afraid. Or maybe by 2023, we were all just conditioned to understand fighting games as iterative “seasons”. Thanks, changing nature of videogames! Regardless, Street Fighter 5 taught us the lesson of “just wait for the $20 version that has everything”, and, given the size of Street Fighter 6’s current player base, we have absolutely not learned that.
2017: Super Bomberman R
What went wrong? At its core, the Bomberman series has always been about timing and geometry. Your bombs are on a particular timer that must be carefully managed so they detonate just in time to obliterate an opponent. And, since the explosions from those bombs form simple cross lines, you must be fully aware of everything in the path of those explosions. Bomberman has always included friendly fire and powerups that can be accidentally destroyed for this reason: you must have an expert perception of your bombs’ capability and the world around them. So Super Bomberman R emphasized arenas where you patently cannot see everything happening, and the perspective can make some corners and obstacles imperceptible. Boo.
Did it get better? Super Bomberman R wound up with a lot of free DLC that added additional characters from the Konami pantheon, but it never added anything like a “classic mode” where you could more easily understand what the heck was going on. Mind you, that would take recreating the game from scratch, but I would be willing to see some poor programmers make that sacrifice for my exclusive pleasure.
Does playing it now change anything? No! And I was all set to give this Switch launch title more of a chance in the age of Switch 2 launch titles. But nope! I could barely make it through a world before I decided to quit just as quickly as I did in 2017. I am once again mad at Bomberman!
Did we learn anything? Super Bomberman R 2 was released in 2023. It contains all the same issues as Super Bomberman R, and adds a castle defense mode to the proceedings. I am more angry than I have ever been. Yet, somehow, it appears to still be entertaining online seasons as of this article, so it lasted longer than Multiversus. Shows what I know.
2018: SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy
What went wrong? Long ago, SNK Gals’ Fighters was a cute and simple SNK fighter designed for a 2-button handheld. Later, King of Fighters 14 was the lauded most recent entry in the SNK fighter pantheon. SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy was an attempt to get some extra mileage out of some King of Fighters 14 characters, truncate the gameplay slightly to be simpler for neophytes, and revisit the SNK Gals’ Fighters concept of an all-female fighter. There was a lot of potential here! And then somebody stuck the whole thing in a rape dungeon.
Did it get better? The stated premise of the fighter is that all the women are trapped in a pocket dimension where their own embarrassment and fear will fuel the powers of the one dude (kinda/sorta) in this entire scenario. I got the creeps just writing that sentence. Later updates and downloadable fighters (including one from World Heroes!) could never change that original proposition. Future titles, like the following King of Fighters, ignore that this game ever happened. Good.
Does playing it now change anything? I now realize that the gameplay being “streamlined” to dial-a-combo attacks means that at least one side of the cabinet spends half the game unable to do anything while 15-hit combo strings play out with corner juggles. Modern fighters have generally moved past this… and by “modern”, I mean “a 2018 game really should have known better”. It being 2025 makes this unbearable.
Did we learn anything? Referring to the premise of SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy as a “rape dungeon” is a marginal exaggeration, as the women involved have been costumed for the villains’ sexual gratification, but said villain does not physically act on his perversion and only alludes to his enjoyment. The fact that SNK eventually included a literal, real-life rapist in one of its games makes me realize I might never buy another SNK game again.
2019: Super Mario Maker 2
What went wrong? You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone. Super Mario Maker was an amazing outlet for creativity on the WiiU that was bolstered by the gigantic WiiU gamepad and stylus. We never saw WiiU: Mario Paint, but for one glorious moment, that Nintendo screen-in-your-hands showcased how this peripheral-system was the future. And then we left that all behind, and making Mario stages on the Switch felt… cumbersome.
Did it get better? Super Mario Maker had the same problem as Splatoon 2 (and other games before and after on this very list) where a long tail of DLC on the previous title meant that the sequel didn’t seem all that revolutionary. Thus, everything good about Super Mario Maker 2 came well after launch (I am talking about the Koopa Kids). And, while nothing has been done to improve the interface, at least I can fight legions of create-an-airships in Endless Mode and play Mario content until my eyes bleed.
Does playing it now change anything? There are two games on this list that I randomly return to, and this is the one without Blanka. I maintain that Super Mario Maker 2 is not as fun for creation as Super Mario Maker, but I have not dodged this game for more than a few months for the last six years.
Did we learn anything? The Switch 2 has a mouse! I am optimistic!
2020: Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
What went wrong? The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a gigantic, sweeping adventure that changed the face of not only the Zelda franchise, but what an adventure game could be. Hyrule Warriors was a Masuno title where practically every luminary across decades of Zelda titles could team up and battle hordes of enemy combatants. Combine these two amazing games… And you get a creature that is neither Zora nor Rito.
Did it get better? Not really. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a very tightly constructed game with a world and characters that all served the same purpose of bolstering the image of a Hyrule trapped in a century of conflict and decline. Eccentric characters like Goggle Robby or a child queen summoning a sand walrus are allowed in its spin-off, but you are never going to reach the high of “Marin summons the Wind Fish for special attacks”. And the general concept of fighting during the initial conflict is cool, but it reduces BoTW’s massive world to a series of flat battlefields where you cannot even vault a knee-high fence. And a time traveling R2-D2 making everything better for everyone? Seriously? Which one of you yokels demanded a happy ending that invalidates the purpose of the better game?
Does playing it now change anything? I went through an arc of fearing this game prerelease, being overwhelmed with objectives at launch, eventually playing 40 continuous hours of it, and then never wanting to play it again. Miraculously, I did not bite on the DLC, even though Nintendo has somehow successfully sold me Killer Instinct Gold on multiple occasions! Now, replaying portions in 2025, I remember why: I have zero interest in doing all of this “again” for a lesser title. Hyrule Warriors had similar goals and gameplay, and you could employ a giant chicken. This sequel remains lesser in every way.
Did we learn anything? Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment has been announced, and it will be fun to see if anything has been learned in the eleven years (!) since the original Hyrule Warriors. I understand that you are trying to build a brand or something, Nintendo, but can we go back to a situation where Groose might be DLC?
2021: Axiom Verge 2
What went wrong? Axiom Verge 2 is the only game on this list that gets a full Gogglebob.com pardon. I wanted Axiom Verge (1) again, because that game is incredibly rad. Axiom Verge 2 was not immediately Axiom Verge, so I bounced off it…
Did it get better? After playing it some more, though, I found that Axiom Verge 2 is 100% its own thing. I wrote an apology letter. I hope AV2 does not mind my initial slander. I think we all learned a valuable lesson about initial judgments and… Crap! I’m supposed to save that statement for later.
Does playing it now change anything? I am repulsed by my younger self not immediately identifying Axiom Verge 2 as one of the best metroidvanias out there. Get the hell away from me, 2021 Goggle Bob. I hope 2022 brings you nothing but misery.
Did we learn anything? Alright! Here we are! We all learned a valuable lesson about initial judgments and expecting a sequel to be exactly the same as its previous entry. This ain’t Mega Man 3, this is a whole new event. Be open to new experiences.
2022: Pocky and Rocky Reshrined
What went wrong? Oh! Synergy! Pocky and Rocky Reshrined is the other side of the coin: After over twenty years, the Pocky and Rocky franchise returned with a game that played just like its last entry. And that’s not a good thing!
Did it get better? Unfortunately, it is still true that Pocky and Rocky Reshrined did not get better, and everything else got better around it. Simple things like locking into place to shoot (leaves) or the ability to instantly “train” with boss encounters have enhanced descendants of Pocky and Rocky like Cuphead or other operations. Unfortunately, Pocky and Rocky Reshrined did not utilize any of those enhancements, and, with absolutely zero updates since launch, it never will.
Does playing it now change anything? Not in the least. Pocky and Rocky Reshrined continues to be an amazing SNES game that just happens to be available on the Nintendo Switch. Unfortunately, I have access to an entire SNES library on the Switch, too, so Pocky and Rocky did not have a tanuki’s chance in the World of Darkness.
Did we learn anything? I vaguely regret playing this game. I kept expecting some new character or stage to grant me the experience I was craving, and that never came. As it is, I put in the hours, “got good” at this leaf ‘em up, and my reward was “that was alright.” In the future, I should learn to quit while I’m ahead.
2023: Disney Illusion Island
What went wrong? Disney Illusion Island is utilizing the modern, stylized Mickey Mouse and marrying it to gameplay meant to evoke memories of beloved Disney action platformers like Castle of Illusion or that time Capcom absolutely wrecked the Super Nintendo (in a good, mouse-based way). And it is four-player coop, too! And kind of a metroidvania! Unfortunately, it moves as slow as molasses, so the only “illusion” here is the concept of ever having fun.
Did it get better? You keep playing it, hoping something will add some spice to the proceedings, but no powerup or boss fight ever changes the fact that this island adventure was made for players that have the reflexes of someone that watched Steamboat Willy’s premiere. Whether it is due to being intended for “all ages”, or the mandate was that Mickey Mouse is never allowed to do anything interesting ever again, the weightlessness of 90% of this game is depressing.
Does playing it now change anything? When it was first released, I commented that both Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario had wonderful multiplayer releases that year, and Disney Illusion Island just had the misfortune of going up against the greats. Playing it now in 2025, I realize this was always going to be crap. I cannot imagine convincing three other people to trudge through this when Mario Kart and Smash Bros. are right there on the same system.
Did we learn anything? I should have played a demo of this one before purchasing, because clocking Disney Illusion Island as a waste of time and money would have been obvious from the moment I vaulted over my first mobile cactus. Ten thousand wannabe cactuars later, and nothing improved.
2024: Princess Peach Showtime!
What went wrong? We couldn’t just have another 2-D platformer starring Princess Peach? Please? No, we have a series of extremely themed levels and abilities that are indeed fun, but feel more like episodes of a TV series than actual videogame levels. And, oh yeah, there are 10,000 doodads to collect across the world(s).
Did it get better? Surprisingly enough, Princess Peach Showtime! wound up being in no way revisited by the designers. Really thought we would get some DLC stages somewhere along the line! So, given it has barely been a year since the initial drop of PPS!, I’m going to say this one is going to be preserved in amber until 15 years later when we ultimately see another Princess Peach game.
Does playing it now change anything? I tried out a couple of levels for this re-review. On my first level retry, I got to the second area, found a “hidden ninja”, and the HUD noted that I had found the second hidden ninja, but missed the first. I had been playing the level for maybe two minutes, and had advanced seventy speech bubbles. My only recourse was to start again from the beginning of the stage, repeating all the dialogue and “cute” introductions of the atmosphere and characters. I nearly threw my controller through a window.
Did we learn anything? By Bowser’s spikey toes, Nintendo, if you want this to be an infinite collectathon, at least give me a “gameplay mode” where I can skip cutscenes and nonsense when replaying a level. Or maybe something where I can “skip” to sections where I’m missing something? Save states? Rewind? It works on the virtual console, dammit!
Did we learn anything more after ten years of disappointment?
I was really hoping some central thesis was going to coalesce over the course of this article, but my greatest disappointments are all over the place! Don’t make sequels exactly like their previous games, except when you absolutely should do that? Am I serious with that nonsense? I know it’s been ten years, and feelings change over a decade, but… Geez! This has been a complete waste of everyone’s time!
Welp, only one thing for it: I must compile another ten years of videogame reviews, and hopefully this batch will work out a little better…
What’s next? Random ROB is refreshed and chosen… Gradius: The Interstellar Assault! Vic Viper is going to fly all over the galaxy! Please look forward to it!