I don’t know what the most delicious cryptid is but… probably not Mothman, right? Can’t imagine it’s Mothman.
Rampaging its way through New York and kidnapping Fay Raye this week is another update to the NSO Expansion Pass, and it’s a weird case where every game in the update is very good, but two thirds of them are… kind of irrelevant. Super Mario Advance (a gussied up port of Mario 2 with lots of new content) Super Mario Advance 2 (a slightly compromised port of Super Mario World, but with a handful of minor tweaks) and Super Mario Advance 3 (a fairly compromised port of Yoshis Island, but with a handful of bonus levels for completionists). Those latter games are also available on the SNES app so… kind of a hard sell on those, but this really may be the best way to experience Mario 2.
And you get to enjoy the dulcet tones of Toad as he discovers a crystal!
Next up is one of those games that I *really* did not expect to get a re-release, let alone official localization, the PC-Engine platformer Cyber Citizen Shockman! Which was apparently *not* related to early Gamefreak platformer Pulseman (though there are some similarities). It’s a clunky early 90s platformer that really looks to have been inspired by Wonderboy so… umm… don’t go in expecting anything revelatory. I have played one of the sequels that is, by accounts, way more fun and playable and it still… tempered my expectations a bit, we’ll say.
And speaking of surprise releases of old video games that are clunky, that’s the bread and butter of Battle Kid in the Fortress of Peril! Which was one of the earlier examples of Fake NES Masocore Platformers; a contemporary of I Wanna Be the Guy, in fact. But this one focused on being Mean and Difficulty for Mean Difficulty’s sake, as opposed to at least making it silly. That being said, it does look pretty enjoyable and I suspect that the lower difficulty levels are, y’know… managble.
Plus I *kind of* suspect that IWBTG would have a much harder time making the jump to consoles.
And speaking of things based on other things, we have another example of the folks at Riot trying to make me care about League of Legends by turning it into a genre I DO like; in this case, 2D Mega Man-y platformers; to which end we have Convergence: League of Legends. I guess, *technically* it’s more inspired by Copen: Sword of Rewind than Mega Man, but that was basically Mega Man by way of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time so… umm…
I… kind of got away from myself with my comparisons.
Anyway… you’re a Sword Teen with TIME CONTROL and a hankerin’ to use that particular combination of talents to prevent a grim future, mostly by finding the right people to hack to pieces with a TIME SWORD and then proceeding to chop. Them. To. Pieces.
Next up we have not one, but TWO different Puzzle Bobble games, from opposite ends of history! Puzzle Bobble: Everybubble is the most recent game in the series which, besides… umm… being Puzzle Bobble and therefor PRETTY FUN all on its own, also has multiplayer for up to four peeps, a Space Invaders vs. Puzzle Bobble mode as well as the kind of content you might expect from a Color matching multiplayer puzzle game. And if that feels like WAY TOO MUCH stuff and you want to get back to basics, there’s also a rerelease of OG Style Puzzle Bobble (or Bust a Move, as we knew it to be in those days) which… I think is a port of the SNES game with a different title.
Either way; get your ass to the cave of monsters and start your amazing adventure.
And I bet being on an adventure in a cave of monsters would make you work up an appetite. In fact, I’m certain of it. Moreover, I INSIST this is the case. And luckily, here comes NIS with a solution to that common and relatable problem; Monster Menu is an SRPG where you’re exploring a randomized dungeon with a real hankerin’ for a filling meal, and so you opt to get the ingredients for a tasty meal by beating them out of every friggin’ inhabitant of the ecosystem you’ve just barged your way into.
It don’t look too shabby on it’s own merits, but I haven’t tried the demo to make any proper value judgements on it.
Next up; they finally went and did something I really didn’t expect to see; they went ahead and made a Warhammer 40,000 game that looks Ridiculous and Fun and seems to get the joke that this is supposed to be an inherently silly setting; Warhammer 40,000: BOLTGUN, a Doomy-style Doom-em-up (I believe the proper term is “Boomer Shooter”, but you’ll never convince me that Doom-em-up isn’t the better term) where you’re one of them giant gun knights what has a bunch of labyrinthian levels chock full of monsters to alternatively explode and chainsaw to pieces like you’re running and gunning your way through, like, half of Iron Maidens discography.
Just because there’s only war in the future, that doesn’t mean it has to be grim and dark
Fights in Tight Spaces is one of the NON-Zelda games I was most excited for this month (the other two are also out this week; and what we have here is a card-based SRPG about simulating a Hong Kong Action movie Fight Scene with all your options being to either move either yourself or an enemy around a very limited area while beating them with whatever happens to be in the immediate vicinity.
It’s much more of a John Woo video game than any actual video game based on any film John Woo ever made.
Batboy is the second of those three Not-Zeldo games I was most excited for this month! This’un is a Platformer that one could say, perhaps… has a slight bit of inspiration from the likes of Shovel Knight or Mega Man. Moreso the former. But, of course, this guy is a superhero whose powers consist of whackin’ suckers with a baseball bat instead of a shovel; entirely different dynamic. Travel through a series of treacherous Sports Zones in order to defeat EVIL SPORTSBALL MASTERS, then steal their weapons and abilities to better facilitate platformin’ and pounding the bajeezus out of monsters.
It’s the Crack of the Bat and the Beating of the Ass; the Boys of Summer are back, and if those boys want to fight you better let them.
And the third and final Non Zeldo I was deeply jazzed for; we have Cassette Beasts, which our own Kalir’s has been doing a plenty good enough job getting me all hyped for. It’s a Poke-the-man game except you summon monsters by playing mix-tapes, and also embody those monsters in order to deliver the smackdown s *personally*; like beloved hero of the Decepticon rebellion, Soundwave. It is, by all accounts, Above Average as far as Pokémon games go, and the Mix Tape thing is pretty novel for an aesthetic choice.
Enjoy some low-fi chill beats to FIGHT MONSTERS to.
And finally, we have two critically acclaimed adventure games with an *aesthetic*; Case of the Golden Idol is a pointy and clicky who-dun-em-up where you’ve got no fewer than twelve entire murders, ranging from *okay* to *MOST FOUL* to uncover using the brains in your head and the facts at your hand and try to figure out if there’s P’RAPS some kind of common point between them that might discourage additional murd. Personally, I think a golden idol might be involved, but no spoilers.
The other one is The Blind Prophet which is ALSO a point and colicky adventure game about a bunch of murds, but they’re all set in the same place and time and also it’s got a real indie comic vibe, but one of the cool ones with some magical realism and not, like… Ghost World.
OKAY THAT’S ALL YOU’RE GETTING OUT OF ME, YOU SCOUNDRELS
Rampaging its way through New York and kidnapping Fay Raye this week is another update to the NSO Expansion Pass, and it’s a weird case where every game in the update is very good, but two thirds of them are… kind of irrelevant. Super Mario Advance (a gussied up port of Mario 2 with lots of new content) Super Mario Advance 2 (a slightly compromised port of Super Mario World, but with a handful of minor tweaks) and Super Mario Advance 3 (a fairly compromised port of Yoshis Island, but with a handful of bonus levels for completionists). Those latter games are also available on the SNES app so… kind of a hard sell on those, but this really may be the best way to experience Mario 2.
And you get to enjoy the dulcet tones of Toad as he discovers a crystal!
Next up is one of those games that I *really* did not expect to get a re-release, let alone official localization, the PC-Engine platformer Cyber Citizen Shockman! Which was apparently *not* related to early Gamefreak platformer Pulseman (though there are some similarities). It’s a clunky early 90s platformer that really looks to have been inspired by Wonderboy so… umm… don’t go in expecting anything revelatory. I have played one of the sequels that is, by accounts, way more fun and playable and it still… tempered my expectations a bit, we’ll say.
And speaking of surprise releases of old video games that are clunky, that’s the bread and butter of Battle Kid in the Fortress of Peril! Which was one of the earlier examples of Fake NES Masocore Platformers; a contemporary of I Wanna Be the Guy, in fact. But this one focused on being Mean and Difficulty for Mean Difficulty’s sake, as opposed to at least making it silly. That being said, it does look pretty enjoyable and I suspect that the lower difficulty levels are, y’know… managble.
Plus I *kind of* suspect that IWBTG would have a much harder time making the jump to consoles.
And speaking of things based on other things, we have another example of the folks at Riot trying to make me care about League of Legends by turning it into a genre I DO like; in this case, 2D Mega Man-y platformers; to which end we have Convergence: League of Legends. I guess, *technically* it’s more inspired by Copen: Sword of Rewind than Mega Man, but that was basically Mega Man by way of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time so… umm…
I… kind of got away from myself with my comparisons.
Anyway… you’re a Sword Teen with TIME CONTROL and a hankerin’ to use that particular combination of talents to prevent a grim future, mostly by finding the right people to hack to pieces with a TIME SWORD and then proceeding to chop. Them. To. Pieces.
Next up we have not one, but TWO different Puzzle Bobble games, from opposite ends of history! Puzzle Bobble: Everybubble is the most recent game in the series which, besides… umm… being Puzzle Bobble and therefor PRETTY FUN all on its own, also has multiplayer for up to four peeps, a Space Invaders vs. Puzzle Bobble mode as well as the kind of content you might expect from a Color matching multiplayer puzzle game. And if that feels like WAY TOO MUCH stuff and you want to get back to basics, there’s also a rerelease of OG Style Puzzle Bobble (or Bust a Move, as we knew it to be in those days) which… I think is a port of the SNES game with a different title.
Either way; get your ass to the cave of monsters and start your amazing adventure.
And I bet being on an adventure in a cave of monsters would make you work up an appetite. In fact, I’m certain of it. Moreover, I INSIST this is the case. And luckily, here comes NIS with a solution to that common and relatable problem; Monster Menu is an SRPG where you’re exploring a randomized dungeon with a real hankerin’ for a filling meal, and so you opt to get the ingredients for a tasty meal by beating them out of every friggin’ inhabitant of the ecosystem you’ve just barged your way into.
It don’t look too shabby on it’s own merits, but I haven’t tried the demo to make any proper value judgements on it.
Next up; they finally went and did something I really didn’t expect to see; they went ahead and made a Warhammer 40,000 game that looks Ridiculous and Fun and seems to get the joke that this is supposed to be an inherently silly setting; Warhammer 40,000: BOLTGUN, a Doomy-style Doom-em-up (I believe the proper term is “Boomer Shooter”, but you’ll never convince me that Doom-em-up isn’t the better term) where you’re one of them giant gun knights what has a bunch of labyrinthian levels chock full of monsters to alternatively explode and chainsaw to pieces like you’re running and gunning your way through, like, half of Iron Maidens discography.
Just because there’s only war in the future, that doesn’t mean it has to be grim and dark
Fights in Tight Spaces is one of the NON-Zelda games I was most excited for this month (the other two are also out this week; and what we have here is a card-based SRPG about simulating a Hong Kong Action movie Fight Scene with all your options being to either move either yourself or an enemy around a very limited area while beating them with whatever happens to be in the immediate vicinity.
It’s much more of a John Woo video game than any actual video game based on any film John Woo ever made.
Batboy is the second of those three Not-Zeldo games I was most excited for this month! This’un is a Platformer that one could say, perhaps… has a slight bit of inspiration from the likes of Shovel Knight or Mega Man. Moreso the former. But, of course, this guy is a superhero whose powers consist of whackin’ suckers with a baseball bat instead of a shovel; entirely different dynamic. Travel through a series of treacherous Sports Zones in order to defeat EVIL SPORTSBALL MASTERS, then steal their weapons and abilities to better facilitate platformin’ and pounding the bajeezus out of monsters.
It’s the Crack of the Bat and the Beating of the Ass; the Boys of Summer are back, and if those boys want to fight you better let them.
And the third and final Non Zeldo I was deeply jazzed for; we have Cassette Beasts, which our own Kalir’s has been doing a plenty good enough job getting me all hyped for. It’s a Poke-the-man game except you summon monsters by playing mix-tapes, and also embody those monsters in order to deliver the smackdown s *personally*; like beloved hero of the Decepticon rebellion, Soundwave. It is, by all accounts, Above Average as far as Pokémon games go, and the Mix Tape thing is pretty novel for an aesthetic choice.
Enjoy some low-fi chill beats to FIGHT MONSTERS to.
And finally, we have two critically acclaimed adventure games with an *aesthetic*; Case of the Golden Idol is a pointy and clicky who-dun-em-up where you’ve got no fewer than twelve entire murders, ranging from *okay* to *MOST FOUL* to uncover using the brains in your head and the facts at your hand and try to figure out if there’s P’RAPS some kind of common point between them that might discourage additional murd. Personally, I think a golden idol might be involved, but no spoilers.
The other one is The Blind Prophet which is ALSO a point and colicky adventure game about a bunch of murds, but they’re all set in the same place and time and also it’s got a real indie comic vibe, but one of the cool ones with some magical realism and not, like… Ghost World.
OKAY THAT’S ALL YOU’RE GETTING OUT OF ME, YOU SCOUNDRELS
