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Digital Down-Low for 10/15/2021: You can be very good, like few have ever done. Meeting them is your job, and you beat them like a drum

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
A video game? In this day and age? Just imagine what the neighbors will think!

First and possibly most prominently, we have Disco Elysium, which I recall everyone being really deeply invested in a year or two ago (and which I constantly confused with Sayonara Wild Hearts, because which of those would you think is a gritty detective drama and which would be a trippy musical romp?). Anyhow, this one is everyones favorite Gritty 70s Detective RPG where you roll for initiative to solve murders and are just a general complete mess of a person because that's how you video games, baby.

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And speaking of palling around with complete monsters, we have Monster Crown! A video game that looks to be to Pokémon, what Pokémon was to Pokémon. Just straight up, GBC-era Pokeymans. Based on the reviews I've read, it is, in fact, really good at replicating G1 and G2 Pokémon, and has a number of creative new ideas to bring out, but it's also a completely buggy mess at the moment so... maybe wait for a couple of patches before diving into those waters. But it's definitely among the games I'm most interested in this week.

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Critadel is one of those games I feel compelled to mention, but it's more of a chastising wagged finger than an respectful nod or beacon; since this is a game from those crumb-bums at Nicalis. It's a side-scrolling platformer where you gotta run and gun your way up a big tower full of PIXEL ROBOTS and the like. I can only hope that whoever made it gets the opportunity to change publishers at some point because it looks fine in screenshots and I don't like Nicalis.

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Dungeon Encounters is... a weird aesthetic mess, but I mean that in a nice way. It's about as stripped down as a dungeon crawler could possibly be; as the dungeons themselves are blank squares that sometimes have numbers written on them, and combat takes the form of static images; and the whole thing just reeks of minimalism and it looks pretty cool? Maybe not as cool as personally owning forty Canadian dollars, it is pretty much a set of graph paper mazes after all, but still pretty cool.

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A Little Golf Journey is a video game ALL ABOUT spoiling nice walks. Like Mini-golf, except larger. Y'got a whole whack of golf holes all around a weird magical realism land full of tron stuff and mummies and whatever. The eShop listing has a bunch of golf puns. That's about all I can say there.

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In the field of point-and-clicky adventure games , we've got two choices this week; Sundew if you want a cyberpunk detective story set in the mean streets of the year Bladerunner, and Inspector Waffles if you'd prefer a low-rez jokey game chock full of animal persons. Both are about detectives solving murders; the deadliest crime of all.

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But if you prefer your animal persons to be inflicting, rather than solving, instances of grievous bodily harm, there's also Fight of Animals: Arena, which appears to be Smash Brothers, if, instead of beloved Nintendo characters, everyone was a weirdly muscley dog, which the eShop description lists as "meme animals". You know... that meme about the shiba-inu that is just absolutely jacked all to hell and back?

It was all the rage on the message boards

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And let's keep on the "animal persons affiliated with violence" track with Ruin Raiders, which maintains the same level of talkin' varmints, but this time makes them live in outer space and do SRPG battles in robot-infested space dungeons. Then use the junkus they yank out of those space dungeons to ease the process of 'splodin' other fools and exploring more treacherous space dungeons.

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Evil Tonight is probably the game I'm most excited for this week, and went into my wishlist the very instant I learned of its existence; it's the latest from DYA (a company that I have and will continue to, sing the praises of at any opportunity), and this one appears to be a cross between Resident Evil and Legend of Zelda, like a much expanded follow-up to their earlier spooky haunted puzzle castle game, Viviette. But this time the world is much more open, and there's lots of monsters you get to visit traumatic gunshot-based exorcisms upon.

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And speaking of... erm... puzzles and violence... we have Red Ronin, which doesn't have a trailer, or a very good description, but I infer to belike that surprisingly solid John Wick SRPG, except with more pixels and also if you were a future samurai lady with a robot friend instead of a Sad Keanu with no dogs.

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Jackbox Party Pack 8 is... the eighth Jackbox Party Pack. That's really all that needs to be said on that matter. You already know if this is something you need to buy as soon as you read the title.

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Aeon Must Die! is our second example of "something I think looks pretty cool, but can not endorse because the publisher is a known crumb-bum". It's a beat-em-up starring robots who live in Tron World.

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And bringing up the rear we have a port of Gleylancer, the arcade (?) shmup that set all our hearts a twitter back in 1992. From the trailer, I'd assume it's a Genesis game, based on the visuals and the audio quality, but I did all the research I'm doing this month by finding that article about Aeon Must Die, and if you think I'm going to use google to investigate something twice in teh same week, you've got another thing coming

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WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
Gleylancer is indeed a Mega Drive (Genesis) game. To save you the thought of extra research, Octo lol
 

Peklo

Oh! Create!
(they/them, she/her)
Around these parts we pay it the respect it's due by its full title in Advanced Busterhawk Gley Lancer.

This is a mean week on my time and money: Dungeon Encounters, Evil Tonight, rRootage Reloaded, The Good Life and Gley Lancer all fall more or less within my interests.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
It is Tuesday and that means time for the game photos covering stuff Octo did and didn't mention!

Disco Elysium: The Final Cut is a game where you're an amnesiac detective with all kinds of crazy thought-based abilities at your disposal that can seriously change the shape of your experience. It's highly critically acclaimed and now on your Switch! And other things.
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Monster Crown is another in the long range of Pokémon-likes. This one has some pretty awesome faux 8-bit aesthetics, but it also has a T rating for stuff like bad words and blood. Because Pokémon totally sold itself on being an experience for the grown-ups.
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Lumione is a prett-'em-up platformer under the sea about chasing dreams and having hope...by doing the usual platformer stuff like trying not to get killed by spikes.
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Critadel is a pretty cool looking 2D shooty game with branching paths and stuff...but it's published by noted shit scum company Nicalis.

Maybe...find somebody else to publish your game.
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In Catty & Batty: The Spirit Guide, you have a cat in a box and a bat cooperate to guide spirits home with boxes and stuff.
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Starlight Alliance is a very PS2-y looking sci-fi game where a duo work together to figure out why the robots are acting up and what's causing the world to die. Got some really NieR-esque bullet hell stuff too.
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Dungeon Encounters is the kinda game I'm unlikely to get unless it's on sale, but I'm still thrilled that Square Enix is allowing experimental things like this to exist. Go explore extremely minimalist dungeons and recruit all kinds of crazy characters.
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Mon Amour is Flappy Bird but you're some guy with a Mario nose who flies around kissing everybody and builds a chain of the kissed following you.
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Tears of Avia is a medieval tactics game. And I realize there are numerous gachas with far less feasible outfit designs but I could not get over how unfit for dungeon diving the main archer girl's outfit is.
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Aliens Drive Me Crazy is an endless runner type thing where you run from aliens and those who are possessed by aliens.
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More coming later!
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
I did not realize Dungeon Encounters was out so soon! I am intrigued but not quite committed to getting it just yet.
 

Regulus

Sir Knightbot
Mm, Gley Lancer is good. Especially that Noriyuki Iwadare soundtrack. I'm also looking forward to being able to understand the cutscenes.

Weird that it seems to be on its way to almost everything except PC. I'll probably grab it for the Switch, but I'd prefer something more future-proof.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Okay, it's later.

Fight of Animals: Arena is a Smash-like but with meme animals! That's it. That's the game.
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Bonito Days is a game all about fish relaxing by flying about pretty environments and racing for fun.
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In The Sundew, you are a cyborg (kinda) cop who's been left behind by advances in technology and you end up thrust into a world-saving situation. As usual.
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Evil Tonight has you exploring a haunted school and taking on monsters by shooting them in the face. I can only hope that DYA GAMES's take on the shooty kind of explorey horror is better than their take on the Run From Boogaman kind was; quite liked the visual/audio aspects of Viviette but was disappointed by how it handled its characters and story.
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And because this week just cannot get enough of the po-po, you have Inspector Waffles! Solve crimes as an anthropomorphic cat.
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The Jackbox Party Pack 8 is the latest set of Jackbox party games! Draw 2-frame animations, spin a giant trivia wheel, and more!
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Waifu Discovered 2: Medieval Fantasy has you flying about in side-scrolling shooter stages exploding the clothes of extremely uncanny-looking anime girls and shooting demons to stop an aging curse placed on their clothes.

.....

This is the first time I read the description for this game, just posting now. Not gonna judge you if you wanna blow up clothes or whatever, but you have options available for horny stuff.
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This spot was originally going to be used for Aeon Must Die!. I have a photo of a guy in a power suit fighting a robot and a demon in Hell and everything. But then I learned the dev was shitty and exploited a bunch of people and that the publisher's solution to all the baggage was to not actually do anything and hope nobody notices when they just release the game out of the blue.

'Stolen' Game Aeon Must Die Returns, Despite Unresolved Allegations Of Abuse And Corruption

Fuck you, Limestone Games and Focus Home Interactive.

Moving on, we have The Good Life, SWERY65's latest game! As journalist Naomi Hayward, you've taken on a job uncovering a mystery in the town of Rainy Woods in the hopes of repaying your debt. Also you turn into a cat and dog for some reason.
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Ancient Stories: Gods of Egypt is one of those mobile-like Match 3 puzzle games. That's it.
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Look, I just wanted to use Ankha some more, okay?

Still more photos coming later! I have not forgotten about a certain other release!
 
why is so much of the discourse around the internet on dungeon explorers just "minimalist style isn't worth money"
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
I acknowledge there is definitely a certain appeal to the minimalism...but the impression the trailers have given so far is that the game is primarily focused on fighting and collecting party members and the odd traps.

Cool lore text and detailed descriptions are generally the kinda things I look forward to in games with a minimalist design ethos, and if they're in this one they sure as hell haven't been shown off in the trailers or photos yet.

Also there's just a lot of other games I'd like to get right now. Still haven't picked up Eastward yet, and The Good Life releases this week.
 
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Lokii

(He/Him)
Staff member
Moderator
why is so much of the discourse around the internet on dungeon explorers just "minimalist style isn't worth money"

if youre not paying money for graphics what are you paying for? Nothin.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
Dungeon Encounters is $10 cheaper than a new Etrian Odyssey, which I think seems fair considering the pedigree behind it.
 

MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
More games!

Robot Car War: Transform Battle Machines is a Transformers knock-off that popped up out of literally nowhere...and another in the long line of obvious mobile game Switch ports.
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Also popping up out of nowhere is Damn Dolls, a game where you are in a haunted house looking for your best friend while evading killer dolls...or shooting them with your gun.
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A Little Golf Journey is about a golf ball on a journey that involves going into holes at various exotic locales. But I have no golf balls.

I want golf balls.
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Nira is a survival game where you have your li'l white pixel person explore procedurally generated islands and try not to get killed by skeletons.
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Zumania - Magic Casual Puzzle is a Zuma clone. Granted, most of the games being cloned all the time are themselves clones of another thing and I'm pretty sure Zuma was no exception.

Be nice if real actual Zuma was on Switch, but clones are the only option for now.
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Henchman Story is a visual novel where you work for a supervillain doing whatever crazy stuff he wants you to do this week. There are multiple endings depending on your actions, too.
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In Advanced Busterhawk Gley Lancer グレイランサー you are Lucia. Your father has been kidnapped by aliens and you have stolen a prototype starfighter to save him by shooting everything that gets in your way.
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And finally there's Wild & Horror Pinball, another compilation of SuperPowerUpGames's pinball machines just in time for the Halloween season.
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MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
Games just keep popping out of the bushes this week!

Super Chicken Catchers is a competitive future sport where people riding big fat pigs try to catch and hold onto chickens for points. And let me tell you, chicken catching is not easy.
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Murder House is one of them indies with PSone style graphics. Some idiots go into a house of a dead serial killer who dressed like an Easter Bunny to film a documentary. And as vidya games have shown, bunny costumes are terrifying.
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Our Arcade Archives blood sacrifice of the week is Rally-X! It's a Namco game that's pretty available, but not quite as widely available as the trinity of Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug.
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Barbero is a game where you trim and groom voxel dogs. I knew a dog who was a groomer once, she'd have you go through an entire questionnaire just to get a haircut.

I kinda miss her.
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And finally, there's Halloween Jigsaw Puzzles. Pay $15 for some poorly drawn puzzles of witches and ghosts to entertain your kids with on Switch! Or pay nothing and just throw some Halloweeny pictures into a puzzle generator instead. Whatever suits you.
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MetManMas

Me and My Bestie
(He, him)
And a few more just 'cuz I'm having fun.

Over on the PS4 I've started acknowledging again for the Halloween season we have Kick it, Bunny!, a game where claymation bunnies kick boxes around to fill a shape! Only a console with a higher graphical threshold can handle all of this bunny box-booting action.
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Also on your PlayBoxes (and presumably X-Stations too) is Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality! Daleks! Cybermen! Those goofy statues the show keeps trying to convince you are scary! These are all things that are threats to your existence as you pal around with the modern Doctor and her past self That One Doctor Your Mommy Likes Please Buy This We Got David Tennant Please Please Please!

You? Play AS the Doctor? No way, you'd just have them shoot everything.
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Back to things on Switch, we have a bundle of Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don't Dry + Wet Dreams Dry Twice. Of all the old Sierra adventure game series that could've received a modern revival, it continues to bewilder me that the one about the sleazebag who wants to get laid is the one that continues to have a modern presence.

Larry should seriously go back to the 80s where he belongs. Do like, one of those medieval games or the space game instead.
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And finally, the Crysis Remastered Trilogy! Three games worth of a guy in power armor shooting space invaders, now portable!
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