Well, I took a week off because there tweren't nothing to report on, and then I get a week that's twice as Video Game Dense to compensate. The arc of the universe bends ever towards balance in all things.
So we're going to start off with some of the stuff that actually *was* released last week and which I stuck a pin in to talk about now; and that means the third entry in the My Lovely Family series; My Lovely Empress. And this is one of those series where the title is meant to be ironic because *hoo nelly*, not especially lovely. This time, it's a empire running simulator. And, like the rest of the series, you're... going to make sure everyone in the country has a real bad time since the combination of grief and madness of losing a close family member has turned you into a monster who figures that hey, a l'il ol' mass human sacrifice and faustian bargains would probably get you out of this pickle.
I mean, couldn't hurt. Until it does... for everyone.
And speaking of adventure game stories of madness and revenge, we've got a new Famicom Detective Club game; Emio: The Smiling Man. This here is the return of the long dormant (not counting a remake last year) possible-originator of the visual novel/crime-solvin' genre. This time you're investigating a series of serial killings tied to an urban legend about a guy what slashes big ol' smileys into their victims faces. And also kills them. Since, you know, the smiling thing alone is only *pretty* bad, but not "tense game of cat-and-mouse with a mass murderer" bad.
And speaking of being a beast who makes things worse for everyone, we have Goat Simulator 3! I... umm... don't know how to describe Goat SImulator 3 adequately. If you've played Goat Simulator 1 or 2, then... More of That. It's an Animal Bastard game, like your Untitled Goose Games or Little Kitty Big City or what have you, except you're a goat, you're very sticky, and you're going to make that everyone else's problem.
Moving on to some of the surprise drops from this weeks Nintendo Direct, we're putting what might be the most significant one out there first; Castlevania: The Dominus Collection, a compilation of the three DS Castlevania games (Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia) which would have been plent enough on its own, but it also has the arcade game Haunted Castle! Arguably the worst Castlevania and whose inclusion , honestly... brings the average of the collection down a fair bit. BUT ALSO there's a brand new remake of Haunted Castle that feels like Konami saying "Yeah... sorry about that, mea culpa". So that more than compensates for the original version being there.
They did a great job mapping the DS extra features on to the console layout as well, though I do wish there was a screen option that just put the gameplay display on the TV; having it smushed down to fill in multiple screens doesn't feel quite right, but that's a minor quibble for a top-tier M2 collection of some of my favorite games in one of my favorite series, so... yeah.
Traipse on down to Draculas Castle and put him back in the ground the very instant he wakes up.
Speaking of games that haven't had an original release in over a decade, Wario Land is one such example of that.
And that wait continues.
However, Pizza Tower is here and it's enough to make you say "Well, close enough". And while, historically, "Close enough" was reserved for horseshoes and hand grenades it seems we can add "cartoonish mustachioed gentlemen who communicate through bodyslams" to that list as well. Anyway, it's a platformer, you've got a mustache, a violent streak and a fundamental need to save your business by demolishing your hated rival; Pizza Tower.
Speaking of how food preparation begets violence, we have Fragrant Story: Papayas Path, a port of the final 3DS digital exclusive game! Or at least the last oen anyone would conceivably give a toot about. Not ported to an actually active storefront so... like... people may purchase and enjoy it. Sound business strategy, that.
It's an SRPG in the 16 bit vein, doesn't look to stray too far from that working formula. But it DOES have Chris Sarandon listed in the credits as a voice actor.
It also has some other people, but they weren't the bad guy from Fright Night.
And speaking of the bad guy from Fright Night, he was a vampire. And I already brought up Castlevania, so this segue is actually talking about Crypt Custodian! This here is a Zeldo where you're a cat what died and then got a job as a Spooky Ghost Janitor, but then you say "Oh... this sucks TBH" but still have to grab a broom and get dungeon-explorin' and monster-whackin' since "Afterlife Custodian" is a much more dangerous job than it sounds.
Also you have to heist your way into one of the better calibres of afterlife that don't have so many skeleton-spiders in it.
Speaking of top-down action adventure games with horror imagery, we have Super Dark Deception! A demake of the original Dark Deception, about which I know nothing. But I DO know that this one kinda looks like Zombies Ate My Neighbors, except Pac-Man instead of Robotron.
Speaking of things that look like other things which in turn look like other things, but I mean it in a much more positive way this time, we have Peglin, which looks much like Roundguard (which I love), and which was Peggle, but with Roguelite RPG Elements. This is also that and, by merit of really liking it the first time IN ALL PROBABILITY, I would love it a second time as well.
This time you're a goblin!
And on the subject of things that look very similar to things I already adore; Gundam Breaker 4 looks a heck of a lot like Megaton Musashi. Which was transcendant. But this time it's got Gundams in it instead of robots from Getter Robo and, like... yeah, that's *way* more marketable, so I get it. Or, I guess "like Armored Core" or "Daemon ex Machina" would work better as a point of comparison as I don't think Megaton Musashi was anywhere near as popular as it should have been. And by all accounts, this is one of the best entries in the Gundam Breaker series.
Build your very own Gunman out of the bits and pieces of robots from a whole dang stink-load of other Gundam series and find bad Gunmen and Gun-them.
That sounds like a grand ol' time!
Speaking of giant robots, and those who gun them, there's Valfaris: Mecha Therion, a sequel to Valfaris, which was a very good run-and-gun much in the Turrican vein, just much much more Metal. And, Turrican was already pretty damn Metal, but I stand by that assessment. But instead of doing Additional Valfaris, which I would have loved, they went for a shmup this time. And one where, if I'm interpreting the screenshots correctly, the camera is locked at a weird angle that'd make precision navigating really tricky which is kind of a big deal for the genre.
Next up was *formerly* the biggest release of the week and one of the games I was most jazzed for for August; Shadow of the Ninja Reborn. From the same peeps as what made the *extremely good* Wild Guns, Ninja Warriors and Pocky & Rocky remakes. But this time, it's a full on remake of an 8-bit game going to Modern 2D Platformer Standards instead of, like... going from Mid-Tier SNES to Mid-tier Sega Saturn visuals. Which is to say it got an incredibly extensive overhaul. The original Shadow of the Ninja was an exceptionally produced knock-off of Ninja Gaiden (so much so that a port of it was just called Ninja Gaiden) and based on the demo alone, this more than lives up to its legacy.
Also, as with the other Tengo Project games, you... umm... you can really tell that the at least one person on the sprite design team really likes animating thicc ladies.
And speaking of supernaturally empowered women (I've got over a dozen of these friggin' things to write, not every segue is going to work) we have Witch Spring R, which I infer to be an Atelier kind of dealy, but with the added wrinkle of the fact that you're a witch and, historically, that's a category of person who has their own kind of hunt named after them. So... room for improvement regardin your fulfillment of your hierarchy of needs.
And let's wrap things up with another Old Japanese PC Game Re-release; Egg Console: Xanadu Scenario 2, which is one of the rare Egg COnsole RPGs where the total lack of localization isn't that big of an impediment; since most of the in game text is in English. That still doens't make it super approachable since it's a PC RPG from the mid 80s and "Entirely Too Difficult" was the order of the day back then, and that's without taking into account the fact that Xanadu 2 is infamous for its difficulty.
Phew, I'm going to bed.
So we're going to start off with some of the stuff that actually *was* released last week and which I stuck a pin in to talk about now; and that means the third entry in the My Lovely Family series; My Lovely Empress. And this is one of those series where the title is meant to be ironic because *hoo nelly*, not especially lovely. This time, it's a empire running simulator. And, like the rest of the series, you're... going to make sure everyone in the country has a real bad time since the combination of grief and madness of losing a close family member has turned you into a monster who figures that hey, a l'il ol' mass human sacrifice and faustian bargains would probably get you out of this pickle.
I mean, couldn't hurt. Until it does... for everyone.
And speaking of adventure game stories of madness and revenge, we've got a new Famicom Detective Club game; Emio: The Smiling Man. This here is the return of the long dormant (not counting a remake last year) possible-originator of the visual novel/crime-solvin' genre. This time you're investigating a series of serial killings tied to an urban legend about a guy what slashes big ol' smileys into their victims faces. And also kills them. Since, you know, the smiling thing alone is only *pretty* bad, but not "tense game of cat-and-mouse with a mass murderer" bad.
And speaking of being a beast who makes things worse for everyone, we have Goat Simulator 3! I... umm... don't know how to describe Goat SImulator 3 adequately. If you've played Goat Simulator 1 or 2, then... More of That. It's an Animal Bastard game, like your Untitled Goose Games or Little Kitty Big City or what have you, except you're a goat, you're very sticky, and you're going to make that everyone else's problem.
Moving on to some of the surprise drops from this weeks Nintendo Direct, we're putting what might be the most significant one out there first; Castlevania: The Dominus Collection, a compilation of the three DS Castlevania games (Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia) which would have been plent enough on its own, but it also has the arcade game Haunted Castle! Arguably the worst Castlevania and whose inclusion , honestly... brings the average of the collection down a fair bit. BUT ALSO there's a brand new remake of Haunted Castle that feels like Konami saying "Yeah... sorry about that, mea culpa". So that more than compensates for the original version being there.
They did a great job mapping the DS extra features on to the console layout as well, though I do wish there was a screen option that just put the gameplay display on the TV; having it smushed down to fill in multiple screens doesn't feel quite right, but that's a minor quibble for a top-tier M2 collection of some of my favorite games in one of my favorite series, so... yeah.
Traipse on down to Draculas Castle and put him back in the ground the very instant he wakes up.
Speaking of games that haven't had an original release in over a decade, Wario Land is one such example of that.
And that wait continues.
However, Pizza Tower is here and it's enough to make you say "Well, close enough". And while, historically, "Close enough" was reserved for horseshoes and hand grenades it seems we can add "cartoonish mustachioed gentlemen who communicate through bodyslams" to that list as well. Anyway, it's a platformer, you've got a mustache, a violent streak and a fundamental need to save your business by demolishing your hated rival; Pizza Tower.
Speaking of how food preparation begets violence, we have Fragrant Story: Papayas Path, a port of the final 3DS digital exclusive game! Or at least the last oen anyone would conceivably give a toot about. Not ported to an actually active storefront so... like... people may purchase and enjoy it. Sound business strategy, that.
It's an SRPG in the 16 bit vein, doesn't look to stray too far from that working formula. But it DOES have Chris Sarandon listed in the credits as a voice actor.
It also has some other people, but they weren't the bad guy from Fright Night.
And speaking of the bad guy from Fright Night, he was a vampire. And I already brought up Castlevania, so this segue is actually talking about Crypt Custodian! This here is a Zeldo where you're a cat what died and then got a job as a Spooky Ghost Janitor, but then you say "Oh... this sucks TBH" but still have to grab a broom and get dungeon-explorin' and monster-whackin' since "Afterlife Custodian" is a much more dangerous job than it sounds.
Also you have to heist your way into one of the better calibres of afterlife that don't have so many skeleton-spiders in it.
Speaking of top-down action adventure games with horror imagery, we have Super Dark Deception! A demake of the original Dark Deception, about which I know nothing. But I DO know that this one kinda looks like Zombies Ate My Neighbors, except Pac-Man instead of Robotron.
Speaking of things that look like other things which in turn look like other things, but I mean it in a much more positive way this time, we have Peglin, which looks much like Roundguard (which I love), and which was Peggle, but with Roguelite RPG Elements. This is also that and, by merit of really liking it the first time IN ALL PROBABILITY, I would love it a second time as well.
This time you're a goblin!
And on the subject of things that look very similar to things I already adore; Gundam Breaker 4 looks a heck of a lot like Megaton Musashi. Which was transcendant. But this time it's got Gundams in it instead of robots from Getter Robo and, like... yeah, that's *way* more marketable, so I get it. Or, I guess "like Armored Core" or "Daemon ex Machina" would work better as a point of comparison as I don't think Megaton Musashi was anywhere near as popular as it should have been. And by all accounts, this is one of the best entries in the Gundam Breaker series.
Build your very own Gunman out of the bits and pieces of robots from a whole dang stink-load of other Gundam series and find bad Gunmen and Gun-them.
That sounds like a grand ol' time!
Speaking of giant robots, and those who gun them, there's Valfaris: Mecha Therion, a sequel to Valfaris, which was a very good run-and-gun much in the Turrican vein, just much much more Metal. And, Turrican was already pretty damn Metal, but I stand by that assessment. But instead of doing Additional Valfaris, which I would have loved, they went for a shmup this time. And one where, if I'm interpreting the screenshots correctly, the camera is locked at a weird angle that'd make precision navigating really tricky which is kind of a big deal for the genre.
Next up was *formerly* the biggest release of the week and one of the games I was most jazzed for for August; Shadow of the Ninja Reborn. From the same peeps as what made the *extremely good* Wild Guns, Ninja Warriors and Pocky & Rocky remakes. But this time, it's a full on remake of an 8-bit game going to Modern 2D Platformer Standards instead of, like... going from Mid-Tier SNES to Mid-tier Sega Saturn visuals. Which is to say it got an incredibly extensive overhaul. The original Shadow of the Ninja was an exceptionally produced knock-off of Ninja Gaiden (so much so that a port of it was just called Ninja Gaiden) and based on the demo alone, this more than lives up to its legacy.
Also, as with the other Tengo Project games, you... umm... you can really tell that the at least one person on the sprite design team really likes animating thicc ladies.
And speaking of supernaturally empowered women (I've got over a dozen of these friggin' things to write, not every segue is going to work) we have Witch Spring R, which I infer to be an Atelier kind of dealy, but with the added wrinkle of the fact that you're a witch and, historically, that's a category of person who has their own kind of hunt named after them. So... room for improvement regardin your fulfillment of your hierarchy of needs.
And let's wrap things up with another Old Japanese PC Game Re-release; Egg Console: Xanadu Scenario 2, which is one of the rare Egg COnsole RPGs where the total lack of localization isn't that big of an impediment; since most of the in game text is in English. That still doens't make it super approachable since it's a PC RPG from the mid 80s and "Entirely Too Difficult" was the order of the day back then, and that's without taking into account the fact that Xanadu 2 is infamous for its difficulty.
Phew, I'm going to bed.
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