Happy Birthday, Drugs!
Kicking things off with the crossover event of the century; Neptunia X Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars, the long-awaited (or not actively rebelled against, at least) spin-off of the Neptunia series of RPGs and the Senran Kagura series of beat-em-ups. My exposure to both series is fairly limited, but this one seems to hearken more to the latter than the former for gameplay. Use the power of tremendous violence and friendship to smash up some... I'unno gerblins and robits. That's a guess more than an answer; it looks like the sort of game where you're chopping up robits and gerblins.
I played the first level, and it was robits, at least.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is next on the docket, coming out... like... two weeks before it would have made the most sense to release a Star War. C'mon guys, get your heads in the game. Force Unleashed is, of course, the Star Wars video game that is perhaps the most... umm... hmm...
I don't think either over or under rated is the best term to use here, let's say "Rated". While other Star Wars games may have been better designed or more fun, tt excelled at being a Space Wizard Jackass Simulator better than virtually any other Star Wars game before or since, and sometimes chucking Storm Troopers into one another is all you need to have a fun time.
Also, it's hard to tell from the eShop description, but I think this is specifically a port of the Wii version of the game which... can't possibly have been the right horse to back.
Anyway, you're Darth Vaders adopted fail-son and you've got a Star Wars franchise to Forrest Gump your way through.
Revita is a Rogue-y platformer. That's all I got. It looks like Flinthook or Scourgebringer, but... with a different title. I guess it's got a thing where you can trade health for more firepower. So... there you go.
Sometimes I don't get a lot to go off of with these.
Ganryu 2 is a sequel to Ganryu, which was an SNK game that has lain fallow since before the turn of the century! So that's something! I doubt there was much demand for that, so it's clearly a labor of love for someone. The eShop says it was inspired by the likes of Shadow Dancer and Revenge of Shinobi, which... feels weird to use as a point of comparison when it's a direct sequel to an existing video game. But I guess saying it was inspired by the original Ganryu would be self-evident. And to be fair, I was getting much stronger Shinobi vibes than anything else looking at the screenshots.
Take a Samurai guy out on the town and have him chop up ALL THE BADDIES, scrolling from side to side as you do!
Anuchard was something I was going to just skip past, then I read the description and said "well wait one apple-pickin' second... is this Soul Blazer?". It's an action RPG where you're some dude what got a bell and a hankerin' to restore a ruined world one inhabitant at a time by exploring dungeons, solving puzzles and thwackin' munsters, and the more peeps you save the more the world gets restored and... yeah, that sounds like Soul Blazer to me.
I'm not saying it IS meant to be Soul Blazer, but... I mean... the shoe fits.
And speaking of pixelly games about building up a community salvaged from an apocalypse, we also got Lilas Sky Ark. Which is also a Zeld-em-up about exploring dungeons and whackin' monsters, but I'm almost completely certain that in this one, the whole fantastic realm of weird creatures and whimsical devices is a coping mechanism for a little girl who is in some manner of psychological peril. It seems like that kind of game, you know.
Either way; you can throw bombs at rock monsters, and that means its a video game.
And if you want much less existential terror in your cute pixelly games about building a town, how about Bit Orchard: Animal Valley, which appears to be Harvest Moon, but Gameboyier. The eShop says "If you love pixel art games, you shouldn't hesitate to try out this charming game". And why would a press release for a video game misrepresent my interests?
Next up we have two very different games that look a lot like Slay the Spire, and I have two wildly different reactions to them; Deck of Ashes appears to be StS except that I don't particularly like the art and all the characters are explicitly The Bad Guys, and Roguebook which is from one of the guys what made Magic the Gathering, and it looks like Slay the Spire, but expanded into a much more full and robust experience. So... I guess like Steamworld Quest, maybe? Hell, that ain't a complaint by any stretch of the imagination. Our own Jbear sings its praises and I trust him when he says he likes a Rogue-em-up.
Regardless, it's in my Wishlist now and will be in my Switch itself tomorrow!
And finally, this weeks arcade game is Gaplus, the seldom ported sequel to Galaga. Like most of the world, I don't have anywhere near the same level of familiarity with Gaplus that I do with its poppa, but I think this is the one that lets YOU tractor-beam up the space bugs instead, hoisting them off their very petard.
I think that's all. Bye, have a great summer!
Kicking things off with the crossover event of the century; Neptunia X Senran Kagura: Ninja Wars, the long-awaited (or not actively rebelled against, at least) spin-off of the Neptunia series of RPGs and the Senran Kagura series of beat-em-ups. My exposure to both series is fairly limited, but this one seems to hearken more to the latter than the former for gameplay. Use the power of tremendous violence and friendship to smash up some... I'unno gerblins and robits. That's a guess more than an answer; it looks like the sort of game where you're chopping up robits and gerblins.
I played the first level, and it was robits, at least.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is next on the docket, coming out... like... two weeks before it would have made the most sense to release a Star War. C'mon guys, get your heads in the game. Force Unleashed is, of course, the Star Wars video game that is perhaps the most... umm... hmm...
I don't think either over or under rated is the best term to use here, let's say "Rated". While other Star Wars games may have been better designed or more fun, tt excelled at being a Space Wizard Jackass Simulator better than virtually any other Star Wars game before or since, and sometimes chucking Storm Troopers into one another is all you need to have a fun time.
Also, it's hard to tell from the eShop description, but I think this is specifically a port of the Wii version of the game which... can't possibly have been the right horse to back.
Anyway, you're Darth Vaders adopted fail-son and you've got a Star Wars franchise to Forrest Gump your way through.
Revita is a Rogue-y platformer. That's all I got. It looks like Flinthook or Scourgebringer, but... with a different title. I guess it's got a thing where you can trade health for more firepower. So... there you go.
Sometimes I don't get a lot to go off of with these.
Ganryu 2 is a sequel to Ganryu, which was an SNK game that has lain fallow since before the turn of the century! So that's something! I doubt there was much demand for that, so it's clearly a labor of love for someone. The eShop says it was inspired by the likes of Shadow Dancer and Revenge of Shinobi, which... feels weird to use as a point of comparison when it's a direct sequel to an existing video game. But I guess saying it was inspired by the original Ganryu would be self-evident. And to be fair, I was getting much stronger Shinobi vibes than anything else looking at the screenshots.
Take a Samurai guy out on the town and have him chop up ALL THE BADDIES, scrolling from side to side as you do!
Anuchard was something I was going to just skip past, then I read the description and said "well wait one apple-pickin' second... is this Soul Blazer?". It's an action RPG where you're some dude what got a bell and a hankerin' to restore a ruined world one inhabitant at a time by exploring dungeons, solving puzzles and thwackin' munsters, and the more peeps you save the more the world gets restored and... yeah, that sounds like Soul Blazer to me.
I'm not saying it IS meant to be Soul Blazer, but... I mean... the shoe fits.
And speaking of pixelly games about building up a community salvaged from an apocalypse, we also got Lilas Sky Ark. Which is also a Zeld-em-up about exploring dungeons and whackin' monsters, but I'm almost completely certain that in this one, the whole fantastic realm of weird creatures and whimsical devices is a coping mechanism for a little girl who is in some manner of psychological peril. It seems like that kind of game, you know.
Either way; you can throw bombs at rock monsters, and that means its a video game.
And if you want much less existential terror in your cute pixelly games about building a town, how about Bit Orchard: Animal Valley, which appears to be Harvest Moon, but Gameboyier. The eShop says "If you love pixel art games, you shouldn't hesitate to try out this charming game". And why would a press release for a video game misrepresent my interests?
Next up we have two very different games that look a lot like Slay the Spire, and I have two wildly different reactions to them; Deck of Ashes appears to be StS except that I don't particularly like the art and all the characters are explicitly The Bad Guys, and Roguebook which is from one of the guys what made Magic the Gathering, and it looks like Slay the Spire, but expanded into a much more full and robust experience. So... I guess like Steamworld Quest, maybe? Hell, that ain't a complaint by any stretch of the imagination. Our own Jbear sings its praises and I trust him when he says he likes a Rogue-em-up.
Regardless, it's in my Wishlist now and will be in my Switch itself tomorrow!
And finally, this weeks arcade game is Gaplus, the seldom ported sequel to Galaga. Like most of the world, I don't have anywhere near the same level of familiarity with Gaplus that I do with its poppa, but I think this is the one that lets YOU tractor-beam up the space bugs instead, hoisting them off their very petard.
I think that's all. Bye, have a great summer!
