Digital Down-Low for 03/18/2022: I'm here to Kill Chaos and Be Fantastic. And I'm all out of Fantasy

[Octopus Prime]

Sometimes I have a hard time thinking of titles for these threads, sometimes I have a hard time narrowing it down to one.

First and certainly not feast is Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy, a much more actionay adaption (or possible prequel) to the original Final Fantasy that dares to ask what people think about Chaos, in general and as an individual. As it turns out, the consensus is that they're not a fan. Overwhelming negative reviews on this Chaos guy. And Jack Garland, the Angriest Man to ever Finally Be Fantastic in particular, has some terse words for that ol' dweeb.

Chaos is NOT invited to his birthday.

Chaos passed him a note that said "Do You Like Me?" and "No" was circled and underlined.

I think maybe they want to kiss?

From context clues offered in the eShop description, Phantom Breaker: Omnia is the Super Turbo to Phantom Breaker Extras Street Fighter 2. It's a fighting game, everyone is animes, and there's one screenshot of the story mode and it's got some Nouns in it. It also has some peeps from Steins Gate and CHaos Head, and hey, I've heard of one of those things before.

Punch an anime before the anime punches you first in this, the most Omnia edition of Phantom Breaker yet!

On the same subject of Updated Re-Releases of Video Game Crossover Fighting Games, we also have Persona 4 Arena Ultimix, which I understand to have been a good example of a Fighting Game Spinoffo of an RPG, but I ain't never played it. I sometimes play as Joker in Smash Brothers, which is about as close as I can claim to having experience with this one, and he was from a different game.

Anyway, one guy is in a mascot costume and he makes a lot of bear puns, and that's the extent of my knowledge of Persona 4s cast and frankly, any more knowledge would dilute my enjoyment of that.

Next is something so far into my wheelhouse that you can drive it down the block. Or possibly use it to grind up grain? I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what a wheelhouse does, but I figure it's either a windmill or a car garage. But something I'm much more confident talking about is Dawn of the Monsters! A video game that finally did the sensible thing and looked at Pacific Rim and said "Well, why don't we just do precisely that?" Take one of four GIANT ROBOT HEROES/KAIJU MEGAFAUNA out across the world in a mission to beat every Giant Monster entirely to death across a whole whack of fully destructible cities.

One could argue that "Well, King of the Monsters 2 was also basically exactly that", and they would be correct, and it's about damn time someone realized that yes I wanted a King of the Monsters 3 for decades

In conclusion; I want to rassl' a Zilla.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero is kiiiind of a sequel to The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince (aesthetically, at least), but this is a regular ol' RPG instead of a puzzlatformer. It is super adorable looking and it's about a l'il gal who decided of her own accord to smash every monster in the world on the grounds that, hey, someones' gotta do it, and also Friendship happens. The visuals alone mean that this is going into my Wishlist.

And speaking of video games with a female lead, well... I guess Gal-Gun Double Peace also counts as that. Just... swinging hard in a very different direction in terms of tone and content. It's a rail shooter where you're tasked with shooting teenage girls in their underpants in order to discourage them from smoochin' you by filling them with magical horny bullets from your magical horny gun.

According to the eShop, it's "one of Japans best loved and critically acclaimed shooters", which I feel is a misleading statement.

Dark Deity would be the game I'm most excited for if it weren't for Dawn of the Monsters. No shame in a tie for first. This one feels very familiar to me, it looks real similar to something that I love a lot, but I'm totally blanking on the name. It's an SRPG where You move little Blue Guys around a grid fighting Red Guys, and then it cuts to a little cutscene of your people fighting, and when your guys are near one another long enough they become friends and their stats increase and you get to build their relationships, and there's a weapon triangle and... gah, it's getting em all fiery trying to think of what gameplay like that is emblematic of....

Oh I know; it's Langressier!

Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus is an FMV murd-em-up where you've got to use Zoom Calls and deductive reasoning to determine which one of your CAD relatives dunn murd'd up your unky Mark. Kind of like Knives Out, except everyone is British instead of just the Cajun guy, and the victim is the guy from The Office instead of the guy from Star Crash.

And wrapping up this weeks selection is Inukari: Chase of Deception is a jumps-em-up hop and bop game with pixels where you're a ninja varmint what has to Super Mario her way through all kinds of levels in order to smack around bad guys and pick up little things that go "cling" while chiptunes blare.

Y'know; a video game.

 

[gogglebob]

Anyway, one guy is in a mascot costume and he makes a lot of bear puns, and that's the extent of my knowledge of Persona 4s cast and frankly, any more knowledge would dilute my enjoyment of that.

I am going to risk your ire and note that another character recently got a job as an actress on a sentai show, and then The Plot broke out, and she had no time to change, so now she is inexplicably dressed as a power ranger for the proceedings.

I have a lot of issues with the Persona series, but I appreciate Ultimax identifying that the casts of P3 and P4 are mostly just identical walking archetypes, so the P3 cast had get weird if they were going to have distinct characters when they all hung out.

 

[Octopus Prime]

…okay nobody tell me about a third Persona character because we’re batting a thousand so far and I *know* the other shoes gonna drop

 

[MetManMas]

It is game time once again! More overlap than usual with Octo's selection this week.

Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy is some kinda prequel or re-thingy of Final Fantasy on the big kid consoles that you know is for the adults because it's a Souls-ish game where some people in full humanity-obscuring armor get chopped up and Jack says "Fuck" sometimes.

And people quickly figured out the obvious plot twist of Jack=Garland at the first trailer for Nomura's angry dudebro action RPG so the advertising changed suit to how they got there.

(If you know why I chose these two villager for Garland and the Princess you (also) read wikis too much.)

The Cruel King and the Great Hero is an RPG where a small child named Yuu goes out on adventures while her adoptive dragon father watches out for her.

Dawn of the Monsters is a beat-em-up where you fight off giant city-destroying monsters with giant city-destroying monsters.

If you're into fighting games with pretty anime people, Phantom Breaker: Omina and P4AU: Persona 4 Arena Ultimax are both on Switch this week! Have your favorite and not-so-favorite characters beat the everloving shit out of one another, sometimes for the flimsiest of reasons.

Gal*Gun Double Peace is the latest in the light gun series that first made its debut as the other property represented in Mighty Gunvolt! A young boy named Houdai has been shot by Cupid's arrows and now he must fend off a legion of horny school girls with pheromone guns.

You know, you usually never see the reverse happening in vidyagames unless it's like, a horror game. Where's the Guy*Gun at?

Boxing Gym Story is the latest Kairosoft simulation game to hit Switch! Run your own boxing gym and try to take your boxers to the championship.

LOST EGG 2: Be Together is a game with online multiplayer where you guide a fragilee egg through an obstacle course to its eventual death in a frying pan and you can greet and mourn other eggs with that same goal along the way.

Who Pressed Mute On Uncle Marcus? is an FMV mystery game filmed during COVID-19 lockdown in Los Angeles and London where somebody has poisoned the titular creepy uncle and you must find out the truth about what's going on before it is too late.

And Fingun is a comical M-rated shooter that aesthetically looks like Part-Time U.F.O. but gameplay-wise has you as a flying white glove asploding giant people's clothing.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Okay so in the first couple levels of Dawn of the Monsters you can see billboards advertising “CCAs hit single; Don’t Put It In Your Mouth” featuring blue puppets, a plain yellow billboard with black text reading “Yellow Food Product”.

Nobody South of Maine knows what that means.

This game was as Made for Me As Any Game Ever Has Before

 

[Issun]

Strangers of Paradise is a definite "wait until it's $20" type of thing for me. I'm curious, but not $60-$70 curious.

 

[MetManMas]

It is March 17th on the east coast! Today we celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, the day when some racist evicted the snakes from Ireland.

But here in the realm of Animal Crossing, it's known as Shamrock Day!

Anyway, here's soms things to do instead of getting drunk.

The Sega Genesis app saw an update! If you want to get your Mega Drive on, you can now play the following:

Light Crusader is an isometric adventure game by Treasure with very wRPG-esque visual aesthetics! As Sir David, you must fight and puzzle platform your way through an isometric dungeon to save the town from an evil wizard.

Alien Soldier has you as a bird man what nearly got assassinated and must now save his planet from all kinds of crazy Treasure bosses and the madman what took over his organization.

Super Fantasy Zone has the cartoon ship out to avenge his father's death by taking on the Dark Menon army.

And our Arcade Archives game of the week is Rolling Thunder! An agent what dies in two hits must save the female agent from Geldra and his army.

I mean, this is on the Switch's Namco Museum compilation if you have it, and I prefer the sequel (also on said compilation) because I don't die as often, it has more scenic locales, and the female agent gets to do stuff other than being kidnapped. But it's here if you want it.

Maybe we'll see Rolling Thunder 3 on Arcade Archives someday.

 

[gogglebob]

Okay, not mentioned in this thread but I saw was released yesterday (when I was perusing the eShop to see if Ultimax was available yet) is Wife Quest. It looks like a metroidvania? Which immediately piques my interest? Anyone heard anything about this one? It looks vaguely cute and like something I would enjoy, but (and I never thought I would say this) there are just so many metroidvanias nowadays, and the product description emphasis on "naughty" makes me think this could be trash gameplay relying on pixel titillation to keep the player interested (though rated T for teen). But it also looks like it has the farm from Pac Man 2? So I don't know what to believe.

Wife Quest?

 

[Octopus Prime]

I tend to avoid mentioning Eastadiasoft games on the grounds that they are bunch of jerkos, but the game is apparently pretty solid;

Review: Wife Quest (Switch) - A Bawdy Metroidvania That's Well Worth A Look

Sorry monster girls, but that boy is ours

www.nintendolife.com

 

[MetManMas]

I tend to avoid mentioning Eastadiasoft games on the grounds that they are bunch of jerkos

Yeah, I've passed on mentioning more than one game because Play Asia's games division was involved in some way.

 

[Peklo]

If you are comfortable with a Shantae, I think the same would apply to this game--they are about as exploitative and fetish-driven. Of course, features like "punishment" animations being weaved into the game mechanics (and having their dedicated external viewing gallery) make it even more transparent what the intent here is, in supplying a justification for a ryona (sexualized abuse of women) kink and then veiling it in a "comedic" exterior as slapstick. Just a bad scene, and personally I'm more troubled by material like this that tries to walk some imagined line and normalize its own content than the actually explicit pornovanias that exist, which I can meet immediately on their own terms and judge accordingly, whether that means walking away or indulging in trash.

For recent romantic farces in action RPGs and the like, something like Maglam Lord looks to me like it has more of a palatable approach to the premise.

 

[Octopus Prime]

And the less I have to haul out Homer Badman as an image per week, the better

 

[ArugulaZ]

I think Rolling Thunder can be purchased in three different ways on the Switch, if you count the NES version on Namco Museum Archives. It's kind of freaking me out, how games (especially Namco's games) can be bought, and re-bought, and re-re-bought, on the same console. I'm pretty sure I've got Ms. Pac-Man three times on the Xbox One, and King of Fighters '97 is available in three different formats on the Playstation 4 (KOF '97 Global, Hamster's KOF '97, and The Orochi Saga). Look, I get it, King of Fighters '97 was really popular in China! But nobody needs this many copies of the same game, on the same system!

 

[MetManMas]

Personally I'm glad there's options available. Like, the Namco compilation is definitely the better bargain, but having the option to buy it separately or buy a more different 8-bit version in a Famicom compilation is still welcome.

Speaking of the Famicom compilations, while they might not necessarily be the most ideal ways to play those arcade games it's still amazing that Bandai Namco went to the effort to make these happen and that Legacy of the Wizard and Mendel Palace can be bought together.

I wish more companies would rerelease their older versions of stuff. At one point we saw Capcom porting their PSone Resident Evil output to a few next-gen consoles (of the time) but nowadays we don't see anything older than the GameCube era from that series.

 

[gogglebob]

I tend to avoid mentioning Eastadiasoft games on the grounds that they are bunch of jerkos, but the game is apparently pretty solid;

I basically bought this game because of that review and the fact that it was a whole six bucks.

Goggle Bob review: it's actually kinda boring/repetitive, and the bosses are a confusingly major upswing in difficulty. This is particularly annoying, as there's a shop, and I guess you're supposed to buy every dang thing in there or suffer... but the average level doesn't require that kind of "leveling" at all. This is mostly because you have very little speed & range in attacking, and all the monsters do contact damage, so you either play conservatively against something with a lot of health, or buy potions/armor out the wazoo. There are some neat little challenges and powerups in here, but it doesn't outweigh how most of the game is just kind of tiresome.

If you're into the punishment mechanic, this game is extremely horny. Otherwise, it is mostly just jiggling and revealing outfits. Also: that annoying anime trope wherein all women can ever talk about is how they want one particular man or insulting/admiring each other's figure. Gross. In the end, though, it's extremely subjective, but I found the whole thing less offensive than, say, SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy. There is no question what this game is generally going for, but it's minute-to-minute is not a constant stream of nonsense.

In both titillation and gameplay, I would rank the adventure as "tepid".

 

[Octopus Prime]

Doing the Zords work there, G