The weather report today is "Everything outside my house kind of smells like farts", so let's talk about video games instead!
We're kicking things off with no fewer than three different flavours of Starman Farm Game this week; Paleo Pines is one where you have t-rexes instead of cows, Harvest Moon: Winds of Anthos is the newest game to have the Harvest Moon name, even if the actual Harvest Moon series changed its name because of copyright ownership nonsense, and Minekos Night Market is less of a Farming and more of a General Chores game as you're The New Kid in Town and that means Doing Chores and Inducing Friendship in order to get yourself ready for the big Nightly Weird Flea Market!
Next up, after... I'm not even sure how long, we've got a brand new Ty the Tasmanian Tiger game; Ty The Tasmanian Tiger 4! I do not know how loud the demand for this was, but I also don't pay attention to the rumblings of the free market; I only write the news; you want a prediction of the future; you go consult your local Bog Hag. Anyway, while the other Ty games were 3D platformers, this one sheds a few of those pounds as it's 2D instead.
Speaking of unexpected revivals; remember Bud Spencer & Terrence Hills Slaps and Beans? The beat-em-up based on the exploits of two of the main actors in a largely forgotten series of light hearted Westerns in the late 60s? It was weird that that happened, right? Well, get ready to be just as perplexed, because Bud Spencer & Terrence Hill: Slaps and Beans 2 is out and it's... more of that.
It's been a while since I saw the Trinity trilogy, but I remember liking them so... there's that much of a pedigree?
Now you might be rolling your eyes and saying "Well, duh" when I say that Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai Infinity Sirash is based on Dragon Quest, but you shut your smart-ass mouth, because it's more specifically based on the anime and manga spinoff of DQ; The Adventures of Dai, which I haven't watched despite my love of the DQ series, since it was only subtitled, and shonen anime works better the less focus I have to put on it.
Anyway, it's an action RPG where all the character designs are slightly to the left of Akira Toriyama designs; like the Spirit Halloween versions of Dragonball Z.
Gothic Classic is "the classic that revolutionized roleplaying games", according to the eShop; which is pretty impressive since I don't recall hearing about it before. And all the attendant screenshots of are of Early PS2-y peeps crowding around a campfire. From the description, it sounds like Escape from New York, except in Wizard Times.
Traipse around a castle and stab a buncha bad guys, eh? Maybe huck a lightning at some suckers?
Vampire the Masquerade Is one of them Telltale-y walky adventure games, except based on Vampire the Masquerade; you know, one of the things that What We Do in Shadows exists to make fun of. Traipse through scenic "Boston, at night" and try to figure out who is a the center of a web of deadly intrigue; because VtM vampers are the kind where you can't put two of them in the same room without them coordinating a decades long game of murderous subterfuge.
Speaking of killing the undead; we have Forgive Me Father which, based on the screens, appears to be a FPS take on Darkest Dungeon; and more specifically a Doom-y style one (or "Boomer Shooter" as the children like to say); and it looks frickin' rad as hell and I will definitely be picking it up.
Power Metal your way through a bunch of murderous monster mazes by exploding the sh*cks out of everything that looks funny.
A different kind of Doom-y style shooter is Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition (the FPS that revolutionized 1994, as the eShop description reads). I didn't play it back in the day, but I understand that it bridged the gap between Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, and it isn't held up on nearly the same level as either of those games historically, but it does do a few neat things, like offering different characters with different abilities and offered just preposterous levels of cartoonish violence for the time, and this version reintroduces cut content from the original game, as well as new stuff and the usual kind of general improvements you'd expect from a Nightdive port.
Before the Night is a spooky style game in a Planet of the Apes-y world where the role of Human and Pet are reversed; and you've got the jones to do something about the fact that your bunny rabbit owner dunn got ganked. And, well... things take a turn after that and you learn that the bright sunny world of talking varmints might.... kind of suck.
FATE: Samurai Remnant is a new FATE game that takes place in Old Timey Japan, back when there were Samurai and Nobunagas all over the dang place. But more relevantly, also a crap load of Yokai what need a good chopping, with the help of a spooky ghost lady who swords good. I do not know if this affects the series' main draw of "Literally any historical figure with any kind of general public awareness gets to be a Pokemon" thing, I'll assume it's mainly a Japanese Historical Figures Fighting kind of game.
And finally we got another NSO update on the GBA; Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, which is definitely one of the more polarizing Kirby games, but one which I love dearly. It's a Metroid-inspired take on Kirby and Exploration Platforming is kind of at odds with gameplay where your abilities last until you take one single point of damage, and the map is both difficult to follow and the games geography is completely inexplicable however the game is also fully non-linear, and it's fast and breezy to play and it's got more Video Game crammed into it than any two Kirby games AND it has one of my favorite finale segments I've ever seen.
Truly, Dreamland is a land of contrasts.
We're kicking things off with no fewer than three different flavours of Starman Farm Game this week; Paleo Pines is one where you have t-rexes instead of cows, Harvest Moon: Winds of Anthos is the newest game to have the Harvest Moon name, even if the actual Harvest Moon series changed its name because of copyright ownership nonsense, and Minekos Night Market is less of a Farming and more of a General Chores game as you're The New Kid in Town and that means Doing Chores and Inducing Friendship in order to get yourself ready for the big Nightly Weird Flea Market!
Next up, after... I'm not even sure how long, we've got a brand new Ty the Tasmanian Tiger game; Ty The Tasmanian Tiger 4! I do not know how loud the demand for this was, but I also don't pay attention to the rumblings of the free market; I only write the news; you want a prediction of the future; you go consult your local Bog Hag. Anyway, while the other Ty games were 3D platformers, this one sheds a few of those pounds as it's 2D instead.
Speaking of unexpected revivals; remember Bud Spencer & Terrence Hills Slaps and Beans? The beat-em-up based on the exploits of two of the main actors in a largely forgotten series of light hearted Westerns in the late 60s? It was weird that that happened, right? Well, get ready to be just as perplexed, because Bud Spencer & Terrence Hill: Slaps and Beans 2 is out and it's... more of that.
It's been a while since I saw the Trinity trilogy, but I remember liking them so... there's that much of a pedigree?
Now you might be rolling your eyes and saying "Well, duh" when I say that Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai Infinity Sirash is based on Dragon Quest, but you shut your smart-ass mouth, because it's more specifically based on the anime and manga spinoff of DQ; The Adventures of Dai, which I haven't watched despite my love of the DQ series, since it was only subtitled, and shonen anime works better the less focus I have to put on it.
Anyway, it's an action RPG where all the character designs are slightly to the left of Akira Toriyama designs; like the Spirit Halloween versions of Dragonball Z.
Gothic Classic is "the classic that revolutionized roleplaying games", according to the eShop; which is pretty impressive since I don't recall hearing about it before. And all the attendant screenshots of are of Early PS2-y peeps crowding around a campfire. From the description, it sounds like Escape from New York, except in Wizard Times.
Traipse around a castle and stab a buncha bad guys, eh? Maybe huck a lightning at some suckers?
Vampire the Masquerade Is one of them Telltale-y walky adventure games, except based on Vampire the Masquerade; you know, one of the things that What We Do in Shadows exists to make fun of. Traipse through scenic "Boston, at night" and try to figure out who is a the center of a web of deadly intrigue; because VtM vampers are the kind where you can't put two of them in the same room without them coordinating a decades long game of murderous subterfuge.
Speaking of killing the undead; we have Forgive Me Father which, based on the screens, appears to be a FPS take on Darkest Dungeon; and more specifically a Doom-y style one (or "Boomer Shooter" as the children like to say); and it looks frickin' rad as hell and I will definitely be picking it up.
Power Metal your way through a bunch of murderous monster mazes by exploding the sh*cks out of everything that looks funny.
A different kind of Doom-y style shooter is Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition (the FPS that revolutionized 1994, as the eShop description reads). I didn't play it back in the day, but I understand that it bridged the gap between Doom and Duke Nukem 3D, and it isn't held up on nearly the same level as either of those games historically, but it does do a few neat things, like offering different characters with different abilities and offered just preposterous levels of cartoonish violence for the time, and this version reintroduces cut content from the original game, as well as new stuff and the usual kind of general improvements you'd expect from a Nightdive port.
Before the Night is a spooky style game in a Planet of the Apes-y world where the role of Human and Pet are reversed; and you've got the jones to do something about the fact that your bunny rabbit owner dunn got ganked. And, well... things take a turn after that and you learn that the bright sunny world of talking varmints might.... kind of suck.
FATE: Samurai Remnant is a new FATE game that takes place in Old Timey Japan, back when there were Samurai and Nobunagas all over the dang place. But more relevantly, also a crap load of Yokai what need a good chopping, with the help of a spooky ghost lady who swords good. I do not know if this affects the series' main draw of "Literally any historical figure with any kind of general public awareness gets to be a Pokemon" thing, I'll assume it's mainly a Japanese Historical Figures Fighting kind of game.
And finally we got another NSO update on the GBA; Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, which is definitely one of the more polarizing Kirby games, but one which I love dearly. It's a Metroid-inspired take on Kirby and Exploration Platforming is kind of at odds with gameplay where your abilities last until you take one single point of damage, and the map is both difficult to follow and the games geography is completely inexplicable however the game is also fully non-linear, and it's fast and breezy to play and it's got more Video Game crammed into it than any two Kirby games AND it has one of my favorite finale segments I've ever seen.
Truly, Dreamland is a land of contrasts.
