The crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd; yes the Boys of Summer are back again; it's Baseball Season. Let's celebrate those Warlocks of Whack by talking all about video games, two of which, charitably, could be described as "kind of sports".
Accidentally walking right into a spider-web while out on a walk and doing a weird panic-dance this week is Trinity Trigger; a video game that... really looks like an Secret of Mana. Deliberately so; little orbiting ring around your peeps instead of a status menu and 3-player co-op and everything. Don't really know what else to add here; it's an action-rpg that is heavily, heavily inspired by one of the most beloved entries of that genre. S'gotta be at least Pretty Good.
And speaking of things that look really good, and I mean aesthetically more than anything else because GAL DAMN, they purdy, we have two troid-em-ups this week! And also one that doesn't look nearly as purdy, but, well... might as well keep everything grouped together for organization sake. Arguably the purdiest of the three is Afterimage, which is set in a fancy looking fantasy kingdom where you'd a gal with a sword and a hankerin' to chop the CRAP out of some dark gods what think they own the joint. Silver medal finalest for Snazzy Troid this week is Itorah. It too is about a gal what wants to smash up some corrupted gods plaguing a fantasy kingdom but she uses a big-ass axe instead of a sword to facilitate her troidin'. And finally we've got Mangavania, which deliberately goes for a more low-fi monochromatic aesthetic, like, say, Gato Roboto or Downwell or Herocore or the like. I'm sure it's fine, but compared to how friggin' snazzy those other two look it's... not coming from a point of strength.
Explore Scenic Lands, and get a double jump or a new kind of weapon that can blow open doors or whatever and fight a mother brain or a dracula. You know; Troidy Stuff!
Another video game that made my jaw drop and made me say "GAT DANG!" this week is Strayed Lights, which appears to be a boss-fight heavy beat-em-up, much in the vein of, say, Furi (which was tremendous), or Eldest Souls (which I wished to like very much) or Malicious (which I struggled all morning to recall the title of) or Asuras Wrath (which admittedly I never played). You're a l'il elemental peep what got it into their head that the best course of action was to find a bunch of enormous shadowy monsters and then proceed to POUND THEM SILLY with parry attacks and boss fight pattern recognition. It went directly into my wishlist the instant I finished watching the trailer and... I may well pick it up without waiting for impressions; it's a hell of a trailer.
And speaking of games that I suspect will tug on the ol' heart strings (in fact, the press release assures me that is the case) we have Desta: The Memories Between, a video game about investigating and repairing friendship and relationships between very sad or otherwise anxious people. And, naturally, this is done by the most widely accepted form of therapeutic activities; going into peoples subconscious and beating the shit out of them at Psychic Dodgeball.
Make kick-ass trick-shots as you absolutely brutalize peoples ingrained psychosis with a magic fireball you fling out of the material of your soul. Let's see Frasier do that!
On the subject of games that aren't QUITE sports, but... you know... Sports Enough, we have the very generically titled Omega Strikers. It's an animed-up high speed Soccer-em-up where all the characters are, like... anime werelizards or cyber ninjas or slimegirls or wizards or whathaveyou. It looks... pretty fun honestly, and that's coming from someone whose knowledge of sports begins and ends with being pretty confident in knowing which ones use balls and which ones don't.
Run around a Future Arena with several Other People and Root-root-root for the home team while you fill the opposing team with spread-beam laser fire and punches directly into the stomach muscles.
Next up are two entirely different RPGs that both make me go "Oh... okay this looks pretty... oh... nevermind"; Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord is the sequel to Fairy Fencer F, which I did not play, and all accounts inform me that... that is a good call. This one is an SPRG and it's from Idea Factory, so it's already coming into things with a long legacy of not being a well produced or coherently conceived video game (nice looking, however). And the other is Mugen Souls (which is produced by eastasiasoft and so has an even worse track record by merit of being actively toxic) and has an art style that looks Very DIsgaea-y. But not the, you know... visually cool parts of Disgaea. It's more Etna, less Prinny. And it's rated M for "Partial Nudity and Sexual Themes" so... umm...
That's a big ol' NOPE from me, hoss.
Next up is a game that's been a surprisingly long time coming (although apparently less long than I thought since I wasn't aware that the series made it up five) Magical Drop VI! Which takes the classic Magical Drop gameplay and... produces more of it. I mean... I really like Magical Drop, it's a fun game, but... there's not... like... a lot of ways to really innovate on the gameplay that I'm seeing in the eShop description or screenshots.
Huck different coloured crystals together to make them disappear, and make a combo of them disappear for BIG BONUS POINTS, all the while being surrounded by the gifs used by any number of Anime Fan Web Rings from the late 90s.
And speaking of games I'm happy to see on general principle but also have nothing really to talk about; we have Picross S9.
Enjoy it, won't you?
Aliens : Fireteam Elite... is assuredly a game I admire for the chutzpah of releasing it, certainly. It's a horde-mode style Aliens co-op shooter where you and your Friends (buddies, in this case) take a team of Colonials Marines out to fight a swarm of Xenomorphs. And I've seen those movies so that is... just asking for trouble. Everyones day would be a lot better if they leave the friggin' murder-crickets alone.
But it's also a Cloud Based game, so you need a strong and steady internet connection to play it. And furthermore, its a co-op shooter, so you'd need a strong and steady internet connection for that as well.
So... I think you *might* need to hook your Switch up to the SETI telescope to have enough bandwidth to play this?
Speaking of the entire place being nuked from orbit, we have Nuclear Blaze. It's a Fire Fights-em-up platformer from the peeps as what made Dead Cells, and decided that what a Firefighting sim really needs is to also be a Resident Evil game. And since "A platformer where youre a fighterfighter who fight fires instead of, like... monsters" this version also includes a Kid Mode, for anyone who just wants their wee childrens to enjoy a stripped down version of the game intended for a younger audience. It also has a Hold My Beer mode which does the exact opposite.
Regardless of your opinions on the skill proficiency of firefighters, Nuclear Blaze has you covered.
And speaking of fire fighters, they frequently are found with water near them, And what better place to find water than a lake? A Varney Lake, to be specific! But don't be fooled; this isn't the same Varney made famous by the Ernest films, this is a completely unrelated Varney! This one is a text based adventure game where it's summer and therefor some children decide to uncover a sinister conspiracy involving vampire-murder. It's the sequel to Mothman '66 and looks precisely as much like a EGA computer game.
And backing up the rear is Super Alloy Ranger which looks very much like Mega Man. They pointedly avoid sayint it's Mega Man, but... you know... it looks like Mega Man.
OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH, CRIPES
Accidentally walking right into a spider-web while out on a walk and doing a weird panic-dance this week is Trinity Trigger; a video game that... really looks like an Secret of Mana. Deliberately so; little orbiting ring around your peeps instead of a status menu and 3-player co-op and everything. Don't really know what else to add here; it's an action-rpg that is heavily, heavily inspired by one of the most beloved entries of that genre. S'gotta be at least Pretty Good.
And speaking of things that look really good, and I mean aesthetically more than anything else because GAL DAMN, they purdy, we have two troid-em-ups this week! And also one that doesn't look nearly as purdy, but, well... might as well keep everything grouped together for organization sake. Arguably the purdiest of the three is Afterimage, which is set in a fancy looking fantasy kingdom where you'd a gal with a sword and a hankerin' to chop the CRAP out of some dark gods what think they own the joint. Silver medal finalest for Snazzy Troid this week is Itorah. It too is about a gal what wants to smash up some corrupted gods plaguing a fantasy kingdom but she uses a big-ass axe instead of a sword to facilitate her troidin'. And finally we've got Mangavania, which deliberately goes for a more low-fi monochromatic aesthetic, like, say, Gato Roboto or Downwell or Herocore or the like. I'm sure it's fine, but compared to how friggin' snazzy those other two look it's... not coming from a point of strength.
Explore Scenic Lands, and get a double jump or a new kind of weapon that can blow open doors or whatever and fight a mother brain or a dracula. You know; Troidy Stuff!
Another video game that made my jaw drop and made me say "GAT DANG!" this week is Strayed Lights, which appears to be a boss-fight heavy beat-em-up, much in the vein of, say, Furi (which was tremendous), or Eldest Souls (which I wished to like very much) or Malicious (which I struggled all morning to recall the title of) or Asuras Wrath (which admittedly I never played). You're a l'il elemental peep what got it into their head that the best course of action was to find a bunch of enormous shadowy monsters and then proceed to POUND THEM SILLY with parry attacks and boss fight pattern recognition. It went directly into my wishlist the instant I finished watching the trailer and... I may well pick it up without waiting for impressions; it's a hell of a trailer.
And speaking of games that I suspect will tug on the ol' heart strings (in fact, the press release assures me that is the case) we have Desta: The Memories Between, a video game about investigating and repairing friendship and relationships between very sad or otherwise anxious people. And, naturally, this is done by the most widely accepted form of therapeutic activities; going into peoples subconscious and beating the shit out of them at Psychic Dodgeball.
Make kick-ass trick-shots as you absolutely brutalize peoples ingrained psychosis with a magic fireball you fling out of the material of your soul. Let's see Frasier do that!
Run around a Future Arena with several Other People and Root-root-root for the home team while you fill the opposing team with spread-beam laser fire and punches directly into the stomach muscles.
Next up are two entirely different RPGs that both make me go "Oh... okay this looks pretty... oh... nevermind"; Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord is the sequel to Fairy Fencer F, which I did not play, and all accounts inform me that... that is a good call. This one is an SPRG and it's from Idea Factory, so it's already coming into things with a long legacy of not being a well produced or coherently conceived video game (nice looking, however). And the other is Mugen Souls (which is produced by eastasiasoft and so has an even worse track record by merit of being actively toxic) and has an art style that looks Very DIsgaea-y. But not the, you know... visually cool parts of Disgaea. It's more Etna, less Prinny. And it's rated M for "Partial Nudity and Sexual Themes" so... umm...
That's a big ol' NOPE from me, hoss.
Next up is a game that's been a surprisingly long time coming (although apparently less long than I thought since I wasn't aware that the series made it up five) Magical Drop VI! Which takes the classic Magical Drop gameplay and... produces more of it. I mean... I really like Magical Drop, it's a fun game, but... there's not... like... a lot of ways to really innovate on the gameplay that I'm seeing in the eShop description or screenshots.
Huck different coloured crystals together to make them disappear, and make a combo of them disappear for BIG BONUS POINTS, all the while being surrounded by the gifs used by any number of Anime Fan Web Rings from the late 90s.
And speaking of games I'm happy to see on general principle but also have nothing really to talk about; we have Picross S9.
Enjoy it, won't you?
Aliens : Fireteam Elite... is assuredly a game I admire for the chutzpah of releasing it, certainly. It's a horde-mode style Aliens co-op shooter where you and your Friends (buddies, in this case) take a team of Colonials Marines out to fight a swarm of Xenomorphs. And I've seen those movies so that is... just asking for trouble. Everyones day would be a lot better if they leave the friggin' murder-crickets alone.
But it's also a Cloud Based game, so you need a strong and steady internet connection to play it. And furthermore, its a co-op shooter, so you'd need a strong and steady internet connection for that as well.
So... I think you *might* need to hook your Switch up to the SETI telescope to have enough bandwidth to play this?
Speaking of the entire place being nuked from orbit, we have Nuclear Blaze. It's a Fire Fights-em-up platformer from the peeps as what made Dead Cells, and decided that what a Firefighting sim really needs is to also be a Resident Evil game. And since "A platformer where youre a fighterfighter who fight fires instead of, like... monsters" this version also includes a Kid Mode, for anyone who just wants their wee childrens to enjoy a stripped down version of the game intended for a younger audience. It also has a Hold My Beer mode which does the exact opposite.
Regardless of your opinions on the skill proficiency of firefighters, Nuclear Blaze has you covered.
And speaking of fire fighters, they frequently are found with water near them, And what better place to find water than a lake? A Varney Lake, to be specific! But don't be fooled; this isn't the same Varney made famous by the Ernest films, this is a completely unrelated Varney! This one is a text based adventure game where it's summer and therefor some children decide to uncover a sinister conspiracy involving vampire-murder. It's the sequel to Mothman '66 and looks precisely as much like a EGA computer game.
And backing up the rear is Super Alloy Ranger which looks very much like Mega Man. They pointedly avoid sayint it's Mega Man, but... you know... it looks like Mega Man.
OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH, CRIPES
