Why do the Power Rangers masks all have pouty lips built into them? They don’t kiss…
Putting our best foot forward this week and starting off with what’s not only arguably the biggest release of the week, but is still considered one of the best games of its whole range genre; Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles! A gussied up re-release that gives a mild visual overhaul, new localization, voice acting and a healthy smattering of QoL improvements to the Street Fighter 2 of SRPGs (It didn’t create the genre, but it certainly codified it).
Take young Ramza Beoulve on a journey to learn that absolutely everyone with even a modicum of social power is a complete monster, sometimes literally. And, because there’s voice acting now, finally solve how mystery the heck his name is supposed to be pronounced.
The *other* Big Dog gussied up re-release this week is Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (either bundled together or separately, depending on your preference); two of the best 3D Mario platformers that Nintendo has been weirdly coy about re-releasing until now. Well THOSE DAYS ARE OVER since here they are, in 1080p and *not* sidled with a limited time window of availability, like the last time Mario Galaxy was released.
They’re Mario games, so you know the score overall, but this time most of the levels are on tiny bespoke Little Prince planets with weird gravity that you can hop between, hunting down stars because their Star Mom got her house robbed by Bowser.
Now if Super Mario is entirely too whimsical and you want bizarre horror to go with your impossible biomes, how about you turn your attention over to Mouthole, a spooky walks-em-up where you're exploring your house. And your house happens to be contained within your own mouth. And all the inhabitants of your house, inside your mouth, are weird broken-jpeg guys who all make vaguely unsettling comments, and all the graphics look bad on purpose like an Atari Jaguar game.
Now, do you love RPGs and hate your inability to read Japanese? Well, luckily, the vast majority of the games in that genre get localized pretty quickly since they have a global audience, but certainly not all. And so, to bridge that gap, how about you take a gander at Shujinkou, a Wizardry-em-up where your ability to beat the asses of all the monsters living their best life in a dungeon is to be able to properly translate written Japanese after a demon lord eats the alphabet. But you can also disable the edu part of the edutainment and just wander through a dungeon beating monster ass. Which… kind of undercuts the main selling point, a bit.
And since you just learned Japanese, why not put it to good use, because, yes, there’s a new Egg Console release and this week it’s Aramo. But unfortunately, this week the Egg Console release is an RPG that doesnt look like it has any text that needs translating; so this perfect coincidence is meaningless. This here is a Zelda-em-up, but it was also an early MSX game, so it looks more Intellivision-y than Famicom-y.
OKAY, GO TO BED
Putting our best foot forward this week and starting off with what’s not only arguably the biggest release of the week, but is still considered one of the best games of its whole range genre; Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles! A gussied up re-release that gives a mild visual overhaul, new localization, voice acting and a healthy smattering of QoL improvements to the Street Fighter 2 of SRPGs (It didn’t create the genre, but it certainly codified it).
Take young Ramza Beoulve on a journey to learn that absolutely everyone with even a modicum of social power is a complete monster, sometimes literally. And, because there’s voice acting now, finally solve how mystery the heck his name is supposed to be pronounced.
The *other* Big Dog gussied up re-release this week is Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 (either bundled together or separately, depending on your preference); two of the best 3D Mario platformers that Nintendo has been weirdly coy about re-releasing until now. Well THOSE DAYS ARE OVER since here they are, in 1080p and *not* sidled with a limited time window of availability, like the last time Mario Galaxy was released.
They’re Mario games, so you know the score overall, but this time most of the levels are on tiny bespoke Little Prince planets with weird gravity that you can hop between, hunting down stars because their Star Mom got her house robbed by Bowser.
Now if Super Mario is entirely too whimsical and you want bizarre horror to go with your impossible biomes, how about you turn your attention over to Mouthole, a spooky walks-em-up where you're exploring your house. And your house happens to be contained within your own mouth. And all the inhabitants of your house, inside your mouth, are weird broken-jpeg guys who all make vaguely unsettling comments, and all the graphics look bad on purpose like an Atari Jaguar game.
Now, do you love RPGs and hate your inability to read Japanese? Well, luckily, the vast majority of the games in that genre get localized pretty quickly since they have a global audience, but certainly not all. And so, to bridge that gap, how about you take a gander at Shujinkou, a Wizardry-em-up where your ability to beat the asses of all the monsters living their best life in a dungeon is to be able to properly translate written Japanese after a demon lord eats the alphabet. But you can also disable the edu part of the edutainment and just wander through a dungeon beating monster ass. Which… kind of undercuts the main selling point, a bit.
And since you just learned Japanese, why not put it to good use, because, yes, there’s a new Egg Console release and this week it’s Aramo. But unfortunately, this week the Egg Console release is an RPG that doesnt look like it has any text that needs translating; so this perfect coincidence is meaningless. This here is a Zelda-em-up, but it was also an early MSX game, so it looks more Intellivision-y than Famicom-y.
OKAY, GO TO BED
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