I'll just say what we're all thinking; if someone actually responded to a question the way that Jeopardy poses its answers, you'd think they were an asshole
So we're kicking off this week with one of those games that's a neat idea that I want to encourage but doesn't look to be anything I'd actually enjoy playing; Drag x Drive, the Paralympic basketball game where you use the Switch 2s mouse-controls to simulate controlling a wheelchair for the purposes of Basketballin' good; and everyone is dressed in customizable Cyber Armour.
Or I guess normal ass protective gear for a high impact sport, but "Cyber Armour" sounds cooler.
Speaking of video games about chairs, we have Is This Seat Taken! It's a puzz-em-up where only YOU, with your keen mind sharpened by the likes of a thousand lateral thinking problems, can work out how to best make everyone pleased with their seating arrangement even when they're all really *really* fussy about who they want to sit next to and where they are in relation to the rest of the room.
It's like playing Tetris except *polite conversation* is on the line!
Next up is OFF! Which is evidentally one of them "Well this is weird and goofy and kind of sad" style of RPGs, like your Earthbounds and Undertales and Omoris and the like. In this one you have a baseball bat, which I guess invites more comparisons to Earthbound.
According to the eShop it's "one of the most influential RPGs of the last twenty years" and I've only just heard of it this morning, and compared it to Earthbound, twice. But in fairness, that's on me.
Next up we have *another* new Bendy game; Bendy: Lone Wolf, but instead of a spooky walks em up adventure game, this is a Spooky Roguelite where you're one of the sentient cartoons that haunt the cursed animation studio trying to survive even though there's a whole heck of a lot of substantially less charitably minded sentient animonsters skulking around.
Seems like the kind of job a quasi-unkillable cartoon dogman with a 2x4 should be able to handle.
Speaking of talking animal people with a perchant for violence, we've also got what I was expecting to be the game I was most jazzed for this week, until some shadow drops appeared; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, which is an SRPG that got the TMNT license and said "Well... why don't we just... make this Fights in Tight Spaces but with nuclear karate reptiles?" To which I said "Wait, that was an option this whole time?!?"
Evidently yes, because here we are.
This is also taking canon in a bit of a weird direction as it's a sequel to the original cartoon, with the turtles being adults, and also Splinter and Shredder both being dead. Also it's a turn based SRPG about knocking peeps around instead of ninja combat beat-em-up.
Anyway, it's a fusion of multiple things I love dearly, so *obviously* this is a high priority release for me.
Next up is the absolute big dog of the week, if not month; and knowing the demographics of who is likely to read this thread; probably year; UFO 50; a collection of what I believe is the entirety of UFOsofts 1980s catalogue; even their weird experimental games that never made that much of a splash like and whole ass troid-em-ups like R-Vainger and Porgy, and at least three really impressive RPGs.
UFOsofts entire output was so ahead of its time that they feel like games made in the last couple of years, honestly. Surprised they didn't remain part of the conversation
Speaking of vast collections of 8-Bit releases, we have DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapped; a collection of games from a cursed multi-cart that plays like a combination of the aforesaid UFO 50 and WarioWare with you having scan seconds to clear escalatingly difficult challenges from a wide variety of black-box era style NES games.
Also the games art is slathered with pictures of sexy anthropomorphic ducks, if that moves the needle for you any.
And speaking also of what are assuredly real NES games; we have 1989: After War, which, frankly I am just including for completion sake with those last two games. Feel weird if I excluded it.
It looks kind of Ninja Gaiden-y I think?
So moving on to some retro re-releases that more people are likely to have played back in the day, we have another surprise release that made everyone say "*Humdinger!*; Heretic/Hexen the fantasy themed also-rans to Doom and Doom 2, just got a fancy as heck re-release. And since it's a re-release of a 90s FPS, you know full well that Nightdive is responsible for it and they pulled out all the stops; adding in several entire campaigns worth of custom maps in addition to the full versions of both original games and their expansions.
I didn't play nearly as much Heretic as I did Doom back in the Shareware days, but not for a lack of desire. Them games were fun as all hell.
And speaking of elderly shooters, what if you wan them to be a bit more 16-bit looking and also from a vertical scrolling perspective instead of a first person one? Well, Toaplan's got you back; since they just released Toaplan Arcade Classics vol 1 and 2 has no fewer than 16 of Toaplans 80s and 90s releases between them and based on my limited knowledge of them they look to be almost entirely shmups. They're all beloved shmups from a compnay that did a *very* good job with that genre mind, so it's got that going for it.
Zero Wing is there, but IIRC the goofy-ass localization was just a product of the console ports.
And finally we've got another Egg Console release and it's one of the ones where I really, realy really wish they'd done anything at all in terms of localizing it for people who can't read Japanese; it's Brandish: Renewal; which was one of several remakes of the original Brandish. It's a first person dungeon crawler with a fixed overhead camera; which makes navigating the dungeon *really* disorienting but I loved the SNES and PSP games which were the only ones ever localized and Falcom keeps subbornly refusing to bring more of them out in a language I can read which I am trying hard not to take personally.
Anyway; there's a monster filled trap-dungeon, there's a Planet Buster in there somewhere, and a lady in an armored bikini really *really* hates you for reasons that are never fully elaborated upon.
OKAY, GO TO BED!
So we're kicking off this week with one of those games that's a neat idea that I want to encourage but doesn't look to be anything I'd actually enjoy playing; Drag x Drive, the Paralympic basketball game where you use the Switch 2s mouse-controls to simulate controlling a wheelchair for the purposes of Basketballin' good; and everyone is dressed in customizable Cyber Armour.
Or I guess normal ass protective gear for a high impact sport, but "Cyber Armour" sounds cooler.
Speaking of video games about chairs, we have Is This Seat Taken! It's a puzz-em-up where only YOU, with your keen mind sharpened by the likes of a thousand lateral thinking problems, can work out how to best make everyone pleased with their seating arrangement even when they're all really *really* fussy about who they want to sit next to and where they are in relation to the rest of the room.
It's like playing Tetris except *polite conversation* is on the line!
Next up is OFF! Which is evidentally one of them "Well this is weird and goofy and kind of sad" style of RPGs, like your Earthbounds and Undertales and Omoris and the like. In this one you have a baseball bat, which I guess invites more comparisons to Earthbound.
According to the eShop it's "one of the most influential RPGs of the last twenty years" and I've only just heard of it this morning, and compared it to Earthbound, twice. But in fairness, that's on me.
Next up we have *another* new Bendy game; Bendy: Lone Wolf, but instead of a spooky walks em up adventure game, this is a Spooky Roguelite where you're one of the sentient cartoons that haunt the cursed animation studio trying to survive even though there's a whole heck of a lot of substantially less charitably minded sentient animonsters skulking around.
Seems like the kind of job a quasi-unkillable cartoon dogman with a 2x4 should be able to handle.
Speaking of talking animal people with a perchant for violence, we've also got what I was expecting to be the game I was most jazzed for this week, until some shadow drops appeared; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown, which is an SRPG that got the TMNT license and said "Well... why don't we just... make this Fights in Tight Spaces but with nuclear karate reptiles?" To which I said "Wait, that was an option this whole time?!?"
Evidently yes, because here we are.
This is also taking canon in a bit of a weird direction as it's a sequel to the original cartoon, with the turtles being adults, and also Splinter and Shredder both being dead. Also it's a turn based SRPG about knocking peeps around instead of ninja combat beat-em-up.
Anyway, it's a fusion of multiple things I love dearly, so *obviously* this is a high priority release for me.
Next up is the absolute big dog of the week, if not month; and knowing the demographics of who is likely to read this thread; probably year; UFO 50; a collection of what I believe is the entirety of UFOsofts 1980s catalogue; even their weird experimental games that never made that much of a splash like and whole ass troid-em-ups like R-Vainger and Porgy, and at least three really impressive RPGs.
UFOsofts entire output was so ahead of its time that they feel like games made in the last couple of years, honestly. Surprised they didn't remain part of the conversation
Speaking of vast collections of 8-Bit releases, we have DUCK: Dangerous Ultimate Cartridge Kidnapped; a collection of games from a cursed multi-cart that plays like a combination of the aforesaid UFO 50 and WarioWare with you having scan seconds to clear escalatingly difficult challenges from a wide variety of black-box era style NES games.
Also the games art is slathered with pictures of sexy anthropomorphic ducks, if that moves the needle for you any.
And speaking also of what are assuredly real NES games; we have 1989: After War, which, frankly I am just including for completion sake with those last two games. Feel weird if I excluded it.
It looks kind of Ninja Gaiden-y I think?
So moving on to some retro re-releases that more people are likely to have played back in the day, we have another surprise release that made everyone say "*Humdinger!*; Heretic/Hexen the fantasy themed also-rans to Doom and Doom 2, just got a fancy as heck re-release. And since it's a re-release of a 90s FPS, you know full well that Nightdive is responsible for it and they pulled out all the stops; adding in several entire campaigns worth of custom maps in addition to the full versions of both original games and their expansions.
I didn't play nearly as much Heretic as I did Doom back in the Shareware days, but not for a lack of desire. Them games were fun as all hell.
And speaking of elderly shooters, what if you wan them to be a bit more 16-bit looking and also from a vertical scrolling perspective instead of a first person one? Well, Toaplan's got you back; since they just released Toaplan Arcade Classics vol 1 and 2 has no fewer than 16 of Toaplans 80s and 90s releases between them and based on my limited knowledge of them they look to be almost entirely shmups. They're all beloved shmups from a compnay that did a *very* good job with that genre mind, so it's got that going for it.
Zero Wing is there, but IIRC the goofy-ass localization was just a product of the console ports.
And finally we've got another Egg Console release and it's one of the ones where I really, realy really wish they'd done anything at all in terms of localizing it for people who can't read Japanese; it's Brandish: Renewal; which was one of several remakes of the original Brandish. It's a first person dungeon crawler with a fixed overhead camera; which makes navigating the dungeon *really* disorienting but I loved the SNES and PSP games which were the only ones ever localized and Falcom keeps subbornly refusing to bring more of them out in a language I can read which I am trying hard not to take personally.
Anyway; there's a monster filled trap-dungeon, there's a Planet Buster in there somewhere, and a lady in an armored bikini really *really* hates you for reasons that are never fully elaborated upon.
