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Digital Down-Low for 04/24/2026: Alu-cards

Octopus Prime

Mystery Contraption
(He/Him)
Well, we're going to lead with strength this week as we've got one of the games I'm most excited for not only this month, but this entire year; Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard! Which is a spin-off of the genre-making, indie-darling and potential epilepsy trigger Vampire Survivors. A game which I absolutely adored and sunk a preposterous amount of time into. But this time, it's a deckbuilding RPG *and* a first person dungeon crawler.

They... they could not have possibly made a video game more aimed at my heart.

It simply can not be done. Science will not allow it.

Visit scenic "A cursed land that presumably has a vampire in it" with any one of a group of those who have survived vampire-mischief and see if they can't do it again; but from a first person perspective using increasingly broke-ass weapon and skill combinations, turning the landscape into a kaliedoscope of retina-shredding pain.

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And moving on to another game that is a combination of genres that is so laser aimed at my heart that it feels almost like it's pandering to me and me alone, we have Drop Duchy. A game that is, at first blush, Tetris with a medieval fantasy theme. But why would you stop with one genre when you can add two; so it's also a 4X strategy game; each piece you drop into place modifies, expands and collects resources, so you can build a kingdom on your board; which other kingdoms will try to invade; since what's a castle for if not overthrowing the peeps who live in there.

That's right; it's Tetrivilization.

God DAMN I love video games.


And just in time for Drugs Day (well, it would have been if I make these threads on Monday, but I don't; they're Tuesday Chores) we have Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch which... uh... well, you got all the info you need right there in the title. It's a side-scrolling beat-em-up starring Jason Mewes and Kevin Smiths characters from... nearly every Kevin Smith movie as they pulverize their way through the View Askewniverse.

The trailer made much hey about the poop-monster from Dogma so you know he's in there. No word on the walrus from Tusk.

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Foreign Sun is a troid set in a futuristic, but very doomed, city where you're a cyber-samurai cowboy who thinks the people in charge of the aforesaid doomed city could use a mite bit of a stern talking-to and have just enough supernatural/mad science abilities at your beck and call to facilitate that. It *looks like* there's heaps upon heaps of alternate paths and storybeats the game can take, but I am also just inferring that from vague descriptions in the eShop and trailer.

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Now what if you don't want to play a video game about chopping up cyber-monks, or punching mall-cops, or using trading cards to simulate magical combat against monster hoards or... uh... dropping... tetris blocks. Well... you and I have wildly different opinions on what constitutes a fun video game, but nonetheless, your needs are met as well as we have Outbound! A chill, Faff-em-up where you're a guy in an RV, with a dog on a road trip. Doing chores for campers, building decks, painting cabinets. Foraging for berries. You know; Van life stuff.

Live your best Van!

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Next we have Inticreates' latest game, and a solid runner-up for being the most preposterous title of the week, we have Kingdom Return: The Time Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster, which appears to be something of an Actraiser; half side scrolling action RPG and half Sim City; with you doing monster whacking quests to gather resources, and using those resources to rebuild your fallen kingdom which, in turn, lets you upgrade your heroes so they can explore more dangerous monster-whacking quests.

I torn between thinking "Oh, I liked Actraiser quite a lot" and realizing I never actually finished the Actraiser remake so... right into the wishlist this one goes until I get that taken care of.

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Now as for the ACTUAL most preposterous title for a game this week, we have (*deep breath*) Game The Strongest Job is Apparently Not a Hero or a Sage but an Appraiser Provisional Dungeon and Mystery Girl. As half the title suggests, this is a tie-in game for one of those animes with an impossible to properly recite title. This one is a roguelite.

That's all I got.

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Now if you thought that it simply isn't fair that Vampire Crawlers has a lot of the Castlevania vibe and aesthetic, but isn't the same genre at all, perhaps I could interest you in Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege, which is VERY MUCH an NES-style Castlevania game. Deliberately so, given how often the letters "NES" appear in the eShop description.

Can brave framer Rudiger kill all the monsters that a crappy Saint wound up summoning? I'unno, hopefully!

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And finally we have an Old Game Re-release! And it's one of the ones that's certainly neat from a game preservation standpoint but not from a Game I Want to Play standpoint; Traysia, a JRPG of the Sega Genesis vintage that, by all accounts, was no great shakes. But, again, I'm impressed it's here at all.

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OKAY, GO TO BED
 
The trailer made much hey about the poop-monster from Dogma so you know he's in there. No word on the walrus from Tusk.

If I had a nickel for every time Jay and Silent Bob starred in a beat 'em up where they fought the poop-monster from Dogma, I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice.

 
I know you just kind of quietly come up with great joke names every week, but I have to call out "Alu-cards" as some S-tier thread naming.
 
To do slightly more than no research: the title is more properly GAME The Strongest Job Is Apparently Not a Hero or a Sage, but an Appraiser (Provisional)! ~Dungeon and Mystery Girl~. The Steam description says, "Experience a story original to the game, starring the characters of Appraiser (Provisional)." That may indicate that the anime has a much more reasonable name than the game. The game looks very much Vampire Survivors-inspired.

Meanwhile, Kingdom's Return: Time-Eating Fruit and the Ancient Monster shows a sphere grid in one of the store images (attn: JBear).
 
Let's wrap up this thread with some RETRO RIBBON action, huh? Squid Alpha here, and we have a few games to get through, so let's quit the blabbin and start gabbin

Hamster's continuing to poke around the SNK backlog and finding games to re-release that they didn't before, and this time it's SNK's 1989 pre-NeoGeo brawler Street Smart. Karate Expert + Profess Wrestler square off in the streets to smackdown the most randos to impress ladies or something. Look, I'm not going to elucidate on these titles that much because the current owners of SNK are desperately trying to sportswash their human rights atrocities with video games and flashy events, and mollusks see right through that bullshit.

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Console Archives brings a second sequel to a NES franchise and is still ignoring the first; that's right, it's Tecmo 1991's ninja platactioner Ninja Gaiden 3: The Ancient Ship of Doom! Step back into the ninja shoes of Ryu Hayabasa as he digs into the mysterious circumstances of Irene Lew's death, as well as prove himself innocent of the vile deed. It's perhaps the least loved of the trilogy, but I think that's mostly due to the "fuck rentals" stance many US publishers took back in the late 80s/early 90s with a big uptick in difficulty for the NA localization, and here at least you can get the Japanese original on top of that bogus NES one to compare.

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Last but not least is our little EGG Console nestling, and it's another deep dive into the history of legendary developer Compile with the release of 1989's MSX2 RPG Adventure of Randar! Take on the round role of Randar, the cute little blue smiley face emoji mascot of the company, and role play your way through a short but challenging quest to save Gameland from chaos and demonic possession! The concept took off, so expect sequels down the road!

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And that's not all in the realms of retro! My octopus cousin noted Traysia, the Telenet-developed Genesis RPG that's pretty mid critically, but skipped over ArtDink's Aquanaut's Holiday re-release, which given the use of AI to develop the port and lack of localization, I can't blame him. However, I do want to spotlight something from last week's releases: Taito's Spica Adventure! This never saw a console release back when it came out in arcades and mobile, so having a proper home release feels snazzy, and it's a pretty cute and adorable platform adventure to boot!

OK, that's my report. Sliding it into the inbox, and slipping out for a nice long nap. Octo keeps telling me to go to bed and I'm gonna listen. Laters!
 
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Also of note on the Playstation retro front: Sony remembered it owns Wild ARMS and brought the fourth entry from the PS2 back today. It's not the most beloved of entries (and Sony themselves didn't even bother to localize it back in the day), but it's still nice to see more of Media.Vision's distinctive anime western vibe revived. The bugs that crippled the original release have also been fixed, so it's also the definitive way to play it in English.
 
If they get Alter Code F on there (or, Zephyr help us, the PSP-exclusive XF), I'll be the happiest boy in the world. But, that said, seeing Wild Arms 4 at all is great for... uh... Well! It's a neat game!
 
Going to give Raquel mad props for...
1. Easily being the coolest character in the cast of Wild Arms 4.
2. Being a beloved, playable protagonist in an RPG who is around for nearly the entire game but (WA4 spoilers) has an incurable disease that does straight up, canonically kill her. It's incurable! No cure! Get on with your life, eventual daughter that still uses her mother's maiden name for some reason! I literally cannot remember any other time that has happened to a playable character in the last 30 years.
 
If they get Alter Code F on there (or, Zephyr help us, the PSP-exclusive XF), I'll be the happiest boy in the world. But, that said, seeing Wild Arms 4 at all is great for... uh... Well! It's a neat game!
All I know about XF is that it reportedly has a really fun villain
 
You guys tried out Titanium Court? It's a Bejeweled-esque strategy roguelite...sorta. Kinda. It's hard to describe but it is delightfully bizarre in its gameplay and writing.
 
You guys tried out Titanium Court? It's a Bejeweled-esque strategy roguelite...sorta. Kinda. It's hard to describe but it is delightfully bizarre in its gameplay and writing.
I found the demo utterly bizarre but very fun, completely agree

Titanium Court, one of the most bizarre demos I've played in a long time, also announced that they'll be releasing this month, on the 24th. It's really hard to describe this. A Match 3 Tower Defense Visual Novel Roguelike maybe? There's a demo on Steam, I highly recommend trying this weird thing out.

No price yet but I have some Steam credit so assuming it's not crazy expensive I'm probably picking it up.


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Turned out I had enough Steam credit to cover it so picked it up!
 
I've read some extremely glowing reviews of Titanium Court and apparently there's also a Mac version! I don't have time for another new thing right now but I'm wishlisting it for when I can come up for air in...some unknown amount of months.
 
I've read some extremely glowing reviews of Titanium Court and apparently there's also a Mac version! I don't have time for another new thing right now but I'm wishlisting it for when I can come up for air in...some unknown amount of months.
Oh yeah, the demo was on Mac too. I don't know if that's live anymore but maybe next time a festival is on they'll put it back up.
 
I picked up Kingdom's Return and I think it's neat. It's simple, and simple is exactly what I wanted. A budget action RPG based entirely on the concept of farming for drops has a pick-up-and-play appeal that can't be denied, and the spritework is self-evidently cute.
 
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