Apparently, Nintendo decided to celebrate my Birthday by releasing a boatload of video games for me to purchase. Thanks, Nintendo. I'm poor, now.
Gonna kick things off with, what in any other week, would easily be the headlining #1 with a bullet release, but is, not because of the sheer density of Good Stuff this week; The Return to Monkey Island, which is a new Monkey Island game from Monkey Island main guy, Ron Gilbert! And a bunch of other people, but their names aren't integrated into the logo. As befitsthe series, it's a point and clicky jokey-style adventure game, that does a *very good job* with both puzzles and jokes. It also boasts a new art style, with opinions over which ranging from "Fine I guess" to "Apoplexy". Regardless, it's got pirates, a Caribbean soundtrack, skeletons and fine leather jackets, so it's got everything you want from Monkey Island. Except that it costs twenty five bucks.
Next up is Jack Move, the latest example, this year, of people finally releasing cyberpunk games I wish to engage with. This one is a JRPG, where the J stands for "Jacked into the Cyber-web"; it is one million years in the future, the year 2199, and computers have taken over the internet; it's up to you to grab a digi-sword and start hacking! I made up every word of that synopsis but I do want to play that game now, too.
It's actually a game about a sassy hacker who wants to avenge her murd'd up poppa and uses RPG combat to do it, and it's bright and colorful instead of grim and grimy.
Potion Permit is also a game about a young person going into business for themselves, but instead of being a futuristic computer-using girl in the year Blade Runner, it's about a plucky young chap/lass who is real good at mushing leaves and bugs into potable liquids and glugging them down. Looks much like the Atelier games, crossed with Harvest Moon, except that is uses pixels instead of polygons and you can play as a dude if you want. nd also hack up monsters to use their giblets in your witches brews.
OneShot is another game about a pixelled up person getting stuck in a computer, so we have a theme this week. On the other hand, this appears to hearken more to There is No Game, Contact and maybe a squidge of Undertale (it's also not actually called "neShot" despite how it looks in the logo); you kind of have to get a little computer-kitty-character to finish a quest to relight the sun (a very big ask for a small child), but ALSO you're playing on the desk-top running the game OneShot, and have to exploit the rest of the computer OS in order to help them along.
It is uncommon for a game to make me think of Contact, so that alone puts this in rare company.
The Diofield Chronicle is next, and it's what I chose to title the thread after (but, to be honest, that was more born of love of making a Jojo reference than anticipation for this game), and this here is an SRPG, much more in the Ogre Battle vein than the Final Fantasy Tactics one, but with a visual style that reminds me a bit more of Crimson Shroud. The trailer was a lot of cutscenes and people saying things like "No matter the cost WE CAN NOT LOSE!" so... I don't know what else to say here.
Get some blue guys to beat some red guys and also Political Intrigue happens?
Beacon Pines looks to be something in the Night in the Woods, mixed with Gravity Falls. This one is about little talkin' critter-folk what notice that their town is weird and decide to investigate it and figure out if that means its mysterious or not. Personally, I think it's not. Kids just need to learn to be less suspicious of mysterious goings-on in Middle-American sleepy towns.
Speaking of places where there's no place for bravery, we have No Place for Bravery, a pixelly game where a l'il guy has to Zelda his way through a real sucky land with all manner of spooky monsters and murder trap-filled dungeons and the like. Looks a lot like Hyperlight Drifter, except with less abstract visuals and set in Conan Times instead of Cthulhu-Megaman Times.
Anyway, hack a big monster to pieces, why don't you. It's got "brutal, souls-like combat", so you KNOW there are somersaults in this game!
Spider Heck is a platform-fighter, like Smash Brothers and the like, where you're a spider with a light-saber and a grappling-hook.
I literally need not say anything else!
Prodeus is another game out this week that made me go "Oh... OH!!!" and then immediately slap it into my wishlist; it's an FPS that looks to be... tremendously in the style of the 2016 Doom; like, even moreso than Doom Eternal was. Except instead of fancy-lookin' polygons that the Switch BY NO MEANS should be able to replicate well as it does, it uses nice chunky pixel graphics on a polygon background; like Duke Nukem 3D. Or like if Octopath was an FPS.
Anyway, run like h*ck itself was chasing you through Space Mazes chock-a-block with munsters and RIP AND TEAR your way through them!
I've made no secret that I consider Shovel Knight to be one of my favorite video games since the turn of the millennium, and Steamworld Dig and its sequel are right up there too. so IMAGINE MY ENDLESS DELIGHT that they went and mushed both of those things together into Shovel Knight: DIG! Take l'il Ms. Shield Knights favorite guy out on a romp to THE VERY BOTTOM OF THE EARTH when the nefarious Drill Knight gets up to mischief (mainly causing sinkholes)! Then redeem the precious cash you get digging holes in order to improve your capacity for SHOVELRY.
STRIKE THE EARTH AS NEVER BEFORE!
And finally, the NSO updated with three, eclectically chosen Genesis games; we've got Alisia Dragoon (a side-scroller that is surprisingly deep and requires a very different gameplay mindset than you'd think looking at it), Beyond Oasis (arguably the best Zeld-em-up on the Genesis, well, that or Crusader of Centy) and proving that ten bad apples can spoil the bunch, Earthworm Jim (the Genesis port has more content than the SNES one, at the cost of having worse visuals and music, and since Earthworm Jim isn't actually a fun game to play, it just looks nice, I would argue that makes the SNES version categorially superior)
Phew, I think that's everything.
Gonna kick things off with, what in any other week, would easily be the headlining #1 with a bullet release, but is, not because of the sheer density of Good Stuff this week; The Return to Monkey Island, which is a new Monkey Island game from Monkey Island main guy, Ron Gilbert! And a bunch of other people, but their names aren't integrated into the logo. As befitsthe series, it's a point and clicky jokey-style adventure game, that does a *very good job* with both puzzles and jokes. It also boasts a new art style, with opinions over which ranging from "Fine I guess" to "Apoplexy". Regardless, it's got pirates, a Caribbean soundtrack, skeletons and fine leather jackets, so it's got everything you want from Monkey Island. Except that it costs twenty five bucks.
Next up is Jack Move, the latest example, this year, of people finally releasing cyberpunk games I wish to engage with. This one is a JRPG, where the J stands for "Jacked into the Cyber-web"; it is one million years in the future, the year 2199, and computers have taken over the internet; it's up to you to grab a digi-sword and start hacking! I made up every word of that synopsis but I do want to play that game now, too.
It's actually a game about a sassy hacker who wants to avenge her murd'd up poppa and uses RPG combat to do it, and it's bright and colorful instead of grim and grimy.
Potion Permit is also a game about a young person going into business for themselves, but instead of being a futuristic computer-using girl in the year Blade Runner, it's about a plucky young chap/lass who is real good at mushing leaves and bugs into potable liquids and glugging them down. Looks much like the Atelier games, crossed with Harvest Moon, except that is uses pixels instead of polygons and you can play as a dude if you want. nd also hack up monsters to use their giblets in your witches brews.
OneShot is another game about a pixelled up person getting stuck in a computer, so we have a theme this week. On the other hand, this appears to hearken more to There is No Game, Contact and maybe a squidge of Undertale (it's also not actually called "neShot" despite how it looks in the logo); you kind of have to get a little computer-kitty-character to finish a quest to relight the sun (a very big ask for a small child), but ALSO you're playing on the desk-top running the game OneShot, and have to exploit the rest of the computer OS in order to help them along.
It is uncommon for a game to make me think of Contact, so that alone puts this in rare company.
The Diofield Chronicle is next, and it's what I chose to title the thread after (but, to be honest, that was more born of love of making a Jojo reference than anticipation for this game), and this here is an SRPG, much more in the Ogre Battle vein than the Final Fantasy Tactics one, but with a visual style that reminds me a bit more of Crimson Shroud. The trailer was a lot of cutscenes and people saying things like "No matter the cost WE CAN NOT LOSE!" so... I don't know what else to say here.
Get some blue guys to beat some red guys and also Political Intrigue happens?
Beacon Pines looks to be something in the Night in the Woods, mixed with Gravity Falls. This one is about little talkin' critter-folk what notice that their town is weird and decide to investigate it and figure out if that means its mysterious or not. Personally, I think it's not. Kids just need to learn to be less suspicious of mysterious goings-on in Middle-American sleepy towns.
Speaking of places where there's no place for bravery, we have No Place for Bravery, a pixelly game where a l'il guy has to Zelda his way through a real sucky land with all manner of spooky monsters and murder trap-filled dungeons and the like. Looks a lot like Hyperlight Drifter, except with less abstract visuals and set in Conan Times instead of Cthulhu-Megaman Times.
Anyway, hack a big monster to pieces, why don't you. It's got "brutal, souls-like combat", so you KNOW there are somersaults in this game!
Spider Heck is a platform-fighter, like Smash Brothers and the like, where you're a spider with a light-saber and a grappling-hook.
I literally need not say anything else!
Prodeus is another game out this week that made me go "Oh... OH!!!" and then immediately slap it into my wishlist; it's an FPS that looks to be... tremendously in the style of the 2016 Doom; like, even moreso than Doom Eternal was. Except instead of fancy-lookin' polygons that the Switch BY NO MEANS should be able to replicate well as it does, it uses nice chunky pixel graphics on a polygon background; like Duke Nukem 3D. Or like if Octopath was an FPS.
Anyway, run like h*ck itself was chasing you through Space Mazes chock-a-block with munsters and RIP AND TEAR your way through them!
I've made no secret that I consider Shovel Knight to be one of my favorite video games since the turn of the millennium, and Steamworld Dig and its sequel are right up there too. so IMAGINE MY ENDLESS DELIGHT that they went and mushed both of those things together into Shovel Knight: DIG! Take l'il Ms. Shield Knights favorite guy out on a romp to THE VERY BOTTOM OF THE EARTH when the nefarious Drill Knight gets up to mischief (mainly causing sinkholes)! Then redeem the precious cash you get digging holes in order to improve your capacity for SHOVELRY.
STRIKE THE EARTH AS NEVER BEFORE!
And finally, the NSO updated with three, eclectically chosen Genesis games; we've got Alisia Dragoon (a side-scroller that is surprisingly deep and requires a very different gameplay mindset than you'd think looking at it), Beyond Oasis (arguably the best Zeld-em-up on the Genesis, well, that or Crusader of Centy) and proving that ten bad apples can spoil the bunch, Earthworm Jim (the Genesis port has more content than the SNES one, at the cost of having worse visuals and music, and since Earthworm Jim isn't actually a fun game to play, it just looks nice, I would argue that makes the SNES version categorially superior)
Phew, I think that's everything.
