Personally, I don't think you're going to find a better example of a way to illuminate a room than a lightbulb. Candles? You're on notice.
Starting off with a break from tradition as I generally just cover what's in the eShop, but this week has Starfield, a video game known for having a Very Expensive Watch if you purchase it at retail and also for being Skyrim, except in Spaceship Times and with guns. Not to be confused with Outer Worlds, which was Skyrim in Spaceship times with guns, but, like... there was jokes about capitalism.
Anyway, travel from one wack-ass planet to another through space in a quest to make them fresh as all hell.
Now, if you want your RPGs to be just as lousy with stars but you hold up Chrono Trigger as being a much more formative RPG experience than Skyrim (and if you're reading this thread, there is a 99.7% chance that is the case), then look your ass right over to the next three words after the semi-colon that I'm about to type; Sea of Stars! As this is one Chrono Trigger-ass RPG, and unlike *most* games that looked at Chrono Trigger and said "Phht, I can do better than that!" (looking at you, I Am Setsuna), this one by all accounts understands why people like SNES era RPGs a whole heck of a lot and decides to just stick with The Good Parts.
It's already inside my Switch and I am just grumpily kicking up dust clouds going "Harrumph!" that I elected to write this thread instead of playing it.
Speaking of video games that make me just sit there and shake, we have a different one with Samba de Amigo: Party Central. In this case the sitting and shaking is QUITE INTENTIONAL, as it's a Maracas-em-up starring some manner of ghastly simian mammal with an inescapable desire to groove shimmy and shake to the rockin' tunes of...
umm...
It's a Sega game originating on the Dreamcast, so I'll assume Crush 40 and maybe Offspring.
Next we have a... weird sort of retro video re-release as it's The Making of Karateka, which is, for starters, a modernized gussying up of Jordan Mechners other seminal rotoscoped game; Karateka! As well as three other ports of Karateka. But also, it's a documentary about the creation of Karateka, which is all kind of bonkers because the games absolutely a formative work and it's been completely eclipsed by Mechners much more popular other stuff and largely forgotten by history.
Anyway; walk to the right and murder a bunch of blue guys with your deadly hands honed into murderous implements by years of death karate.
Another retro game re-release, though one that is less comprehensive (but which was also never released in English before) is Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles, a collection of the second and third Marl Kingdom games, now known as Rhapsody in the west (honestly; a more fitting title since the games all have a strong musical motif). We got the original game rereleased last year in a bundle with La Pucelle but now THE WHOLE GANG IS HERE.
They're RPG Musicals (the first one was an SRPG, these ones seem to be the regular kind) and they look cute as a bugs ear.
How cute of a bug? You'll have to learn yourself when Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles releases on the Nintendo Switch... *later today*
And h*ck, why stop with retro re-releases? I surely can't think of a good reason, not when there's still two more in this weeks New Games List! And the penultimate of all of them I declare to be... Taito Milestones 2! The first Taito Milestones was a collection that was, it's fair to say, a hard sell; a set of a handful of largely forgotten (and mostly poorly aged) arcade games from the early 80s. And also Ninja Warriors. This one is *much* better curated selection of Kiki Kaikai (the original Pocky & Rocky), New Zealand Story, Darius 2, Metal Black, Gun Frontier, Ben Bero Beh, Solitary Fighter, Legend of Kage, Liquid Kids and Dinorex; a selection that runs the gamut from "Popularizing a beloved (if largely forgotten) series, to transcendent works in its genre to... at least being completely bugnuts.
And wrapping up this weeks Old Video Games Released to New Audiences, we have another NSO update; one far less exciting than the last couple to me personally, but definitely more exciting than the last few in a very objectively true way; it's Excitebike 64! The sixty fourth most Excited Bicheal you've ever met! Dirtbike you're way into the heart of a nation! Level yourself out when you are in the sky so you don't crash and completely disassemble your entire skeleton! Do... umm... do wheelies?
I don't know, I only ever played the original Excitebike, but I liked that!
Next up is Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy! Did you know there were five Trine games? I sure didn't, and I really liked the first couple! And technically, as of this writing; there still aren't; this one ain't out until later in the week. As per series tradition, it's Lost Vikings, except slightly RPGier and all the puzzles can theoretically be solved with NAY of your heroes, but some are *way* better at it than others.
Puzzlatform your way across a fantasy world that's just friggin' lousy with weird robots and skeletons and the like and try to knock experience-point widgets off high shelves so you can swing your sword harder or whatever!
And speaking of sequels to platformers I really liked, we're closing out this week with 30XX, the sequel to beloved Mega Man roguelite; 20XX! This one is structured more like a Mega Man game (whether to its benefit or detriment is an exercise to the reader) and based on impressions I've gleaned, it's kind of a two-steps forward, two steps back kind of sequel.
But it's still Additional Game That's Basically Mega Man, and I'm Octo, so in a week that didn't have Sea of Stars, it'd be at the top of my list!
And that's it, but also; the DLC for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge is also out this week, and that remains one of the highpoints of TMNT video games, and the franchise in general, so I'm also very much jazzed for that.
Starting off with a break from tradition as I generally just cover what's in the eShop, but this week has Starfield, a video game known for having a Very Expensive Watch if you purchase it at retail and also for being Skyrim, except in Spaceship Times and with guns. Not to be confused with Outer Worlds, which was Skyrim in Spaceship times with guns, but, like... there was jokes about capitalism.
Anyway, travel from one wack-ass planet to another through space in a quest to make them fresh as all hell.
Now, if you want your RPGs to be just as lousy with stars but you hold up Chrono Trigger as being a much more formative RPG experience than Skyrim (and if you're reading this thread, there is a 99.7% chance that is the case), then look your ass right over to the next three words after the semi-colon that I'm about to type; Sea of Stars! As this is one Chrono Trigger-ass RPG, and unlike *most* games that looked at Chrono Trigger and said "Phht, I can do better than that!" (looking at you, I Am Setsuna), this one by all accounts understands why people like SNES era RPGs a whole heck of a lot and decides to just stick with The Good Parts.
It's already inside my Switch and I am just grumpily kicking up dust clouds going "Harrumph!" that I elected to write this thread instead of playing it.
Speaking of video games that make me just sit there and shake, we have a different one with Samba de Amigo: Party Central. In this case the sitting and shaking is QUITE INTENTIONAL, as it's a Maracas-em-up starring some manner of ghastly simian mammal with an inescapable desire to groove shimmy and shake to the rockin' tunes of...
umm...
It's a Sega game originating on the Dreamcast, so I'll assume Crush 40 and maybe Offspring.
Next we have a... weird sort of retro video re-release as it's The Making of Karateka, which is, for starters, a modernized gussying up of Jordan Mechners other seminal rotoscoped game; Karateka! As well as three other ports of Karateka. But also, it's a documentary about the creation of Karateka, which is all kind of bonkers because the games absolutely a formative work and it's been completely eclipsed by Mechners much more popular other stuff and largely forgotten by history.
Anyway; walk to the right and murder a bunch of blue guys with your deadly hands honed into murderous implements by years of death karate.
Another retro game re-release, though one that is less comprehensive (but which was also never released in English before) is Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles, a collection of the second and third Marl Kingdom games, now known as Rhapsody in the west (honestly; a more fitting title since the games all have a strong musical motif). We got the original game rereleased last year in a bundle with La Pucelle but now THE WHOLE GANG IS HERE.
They're RPG Musicals (the first one was an SRPG, these ones seem to be the regular kind) and they look cute as a bugs ear.
How cute of a bug? You'll have to learn yourself when Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles releases on the Nintendo Switch... *later today*
And h*ck, why stop with retro re-releases? I surely can't think of a good reason, not when there's still two more in this weeks New Games List! And the penultimate of all of them I declare to be... Taito Milestones 2! The first Taito Milestones was a collection that was, it's fair to say, a hard sell; a set of a handful of largely forgotten (and mostly poorly aged) arcade games from the early 80s. And also Ninja Warriors. This one is *much* better curated selection of Kiki Kaikai (the original Pocky & Rocky), New Zealand Story, Darius 2, Metal Black, Gun Frontier, Ben Bero Beh, Solitary Fighter, Legend of Kage, Liquid Kids and Dinorex; a selection that runs the gamut from "Popularizing a beloved (if largely forgotten) series, to transcendent works in its genre to... at least being completely bugnuts.
And wrapping up this weeks Old Video Games Released to New Audiences, we have another NSO update; one far less exciting than the last couple to me personally, but definitely more exciting than the last few in a very objectively true way; it's Excitebike 64! The sixty fourth most Excited Bicheal you've ever met! Dirtbike you're way into the heart of a nation! Level yourself out when you are in the sky so you don't crash and completely disassemble your entire skeleton! Do... umm... do wheelies?
I don't know, I only ever played the original Excitebike, but I liked that!
Next up is Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy! Did you know there were five Trine games? I sure didn't, and I really liked the first couple! And technically, as of this writing; there still aren't; this one ain't out until later in the week. As per series tradition, it's Lost Vikings, except slightly RPGier and all the puzzles can theoretically be solved with NAY of your heroes, but some are *way* better at it than others.
Puzzlatform your way across a fantasy world that's just friggin' lousy with weird robots and skeletons and the like and try to knock experience-point widgets off high shelves so you can swing your sword harder or whatever!
And speaking of sequels to platformers I really liked, we're closing out this week with 30XX, the sequel to beloved Mega Man roguelite; 20XX! This one is structured more like a Mega Man game (whether to its benefit or detriment is an exercise to the reader) and based on impressions I've gleaned, it's kind of a two-steps forward, two steps back kind of sequel.
But it's still Additional Game That's Basically Mega Man, and I'm Octo, so in a week that didn't have Sea of Stars, it'd be at the top of my list!
And that's it, but also; the DLC for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredders Revenge is also out this week, and that remains one of the highpoints of TMNT video games, and the franchise in general, so I'm also very much jazzed for that.
