I don't want any confusion on this matter; every game I'm about to mention are made entirely out of *videos*.
So we're starting off with something I overlooked last week, but should have commented on; Strife! A re-release of a mid 90s RPG/FPS hybrid that I have never heard of before, but the write-up in the eShop sure makes it sound like I was fool for my ignorance. Enjoy the scenic Bad Future, as you gun down robots with crossbows and magic powers trying to bugger up authority.
And speaking of re-releases of old games, and we're going to do that a lot this week, Oddworld: Abes Odyssey: New 'n' Tasty is out on Switch now, and it's a vastly gussied up port of the original game that asked the question on everyone lips of "What if Prince of Persia was a bit more like Out of This World and starred a gross frog-man and also it was about how Corporations are Bad?".
And now that question has been answered, once again!
Cobra Kai is a beat-em-up tie-in to the show of the same name! And I really like the show, and I'm only halfway through watching it, so I'm worried that just watching the trailer would give me spoilers. From the screens though, I can see that all your favorites are there; like Troubled Teen, Guy With Mohawk and Lip Scar, and Middle Aged Ralph Macchio.
One screen has Middle Aged Ralph Macchios daughter punch the ground and cause a huge wall of ice to burst from the ground, and I really hope that's a spoiler.
And another 80s throwback, but which has not aged as gracefully, is North & South! And to be fair, the actual game part is (presumably) still a fun and fast paced arcadey strategy game set in the civil war, it's just that you... may find yourself fighting on behalf of, you know, the slave-owning land-owners and... can't really call that an enjoyable prospect. History has painted that side of the conflict pretty badly.
And speaking of dealing with terrible racists from history times, Gibbous is a point-and-clicky adventure game from everyones favorite Racist Who Hates Fish, ol' Howie Love. Except this one is a bit more cartoony and less intolerant of... well... everyone. It's got a kind of Ron Gilberty look to it, like your Monkey Islands or Days of the Tentacle or whatnot. Whether it can hit that benchmark, I'unno. Better than people being spooked because they saw an octopus.
And speaking of Games That Plainly Want to Be Compared to Other Things, whether or not their in the same weight class, we have Oceanhorn 2, the sequel to a game that, well, certainly tried to be like Zelda, bless-it. It certainly looks much more expansive and ambitious than the original, and honestly, all I remember of the first game was playing through the whole thing while I was sick with a bad flu so it didn't make a strong impression on me other than giving me some really unfortunate sense-memories.
Your Mileage May Vary
Yuppie Psycho was a game I was initially assuming to be based on American Psycho, or maybe a horror-themed dating sim. But then I read the eShop summary and was forced to reconsider my opinions. That's life for ya, always throwing you curveballs. It's a survival horror game where you're a new, low-level hire at a vague and omnipresent tech company, and your tasked with tracking down the vengeful ghost of a witch who was responsible for your employers success in the first place, and which has now cursed your all.
You'd be forgiven for assuming that a game called Wallachia: Reign of Dracula would be a Castlevania-y game. It's certainly what I expected, but from the trailer, it's not! It's Ghosts & Goblins! Maybe that Arcade Robocop game. Wander form left to right, and release an endless torrent of arrows at every cussed varmint so arrogant as to enter your line of vision. Poke a hole or two into a vumpire at some point too, why not!
De: Yabatanien is another spooks-em-up for the Weeniest time of year; this one here is a puzzle game that's basically Saw, except with fake retro graphics. Solve some point and clicky puzzles before pixelly anime teens *dunn get murd'd*. I typically don't care much for the Murder-Man genre of horror, but lateral thinking to *prevent* murdermans from doing manmurders is... a pretty interesting concept for a spooks-em-up game. Like a reverse chibi-pixel Saw. May give this one a look later.
Now, while everything up to now has justified the thread title to one degree or another, it was actually referring to Pikmin 3 Deluxe! A gussied up, DLC-filled, extra-campaigned re-release of one of the few remaining WiiU games to not be ported over to its much more popular little brother. Take a few teeny tiny astromans out and about in the scenic and beautiful Nameless Planet and try to survive with the help of a bunch of ant-carrots while avoiding the menace posed by weird bug creatures and stuff. Then harvest precious juice from large fruit because survival is hard enough without any sources of vitamin C!
Now, how do you like your platformers? 2D? Great! How about Extremely Difficult? Wonderful! Now, how about designed around making fun of old video games you don't like very much? Also yes? Excellent! Now, how about being subjected to a string of profanity every time you die in a vrutally difficult platformer? Yes as well? Well, good news, you are the exact target audience for The Angry Video Game Nerd Deluxe! Easily the best game about an insufferable cussman who gets mad at video games!
Mad Rat Dead is a rhythm-based platformer about a rat who returns from the dead in order to accomplish its unfinished business before going to back to Rat Heaven, and you have to match the beat of the music to the beat of your little dead rat-heart. Which I realize, as I'm typing this, that they've *finally* made a game based on Weekend at Bernies 2, but with a cartoon rat instead of Terry Kiser.
Yes, I did have to look up the actor who played Bernie from Weekend at Bernies.
And Yes, that is the only research I did for the new games this week.
Quite a whirlwind of emotions related to Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!, since, based on the title, I assumed it was a new Umihara Kawase game, and was therefor expecting platforming challenges based around grappling hooks and avoiding fish. What this is, instead, is a party-fighting game, starring the much beloved cast of Umihara Kawase (I literally do not know any of them) and also Cotton (from Cotton? Remember Cotton? Don't worry, nobody else does either). But this game is also a Bubble Bobble-esque screen-based kill-em-up.
And everything is based on using Bazooka Physics?
Man... video games are hard to summarize sometimes.
And what better thesis for that statement than Pixel Puzzle Makeout League, which is a Picross game. About super-heroes. About dating superheroes. Gay superheroes. And your power is being able to condense any situation, be it fighting villains or seducing sentient jigsaw puzzles, into a nonogram puzzle.
I... can't say much else than that. I think they had made their sale somewhere in that string of broken sentences.
So we're starting off with something I overlooked last week, but should have commented on; Strife! A re-release of a mid 90s RPG/FPS hybrid that I have never heard of before, but the write-up in the eShop sure makes it sound like I was fool for my ignorance. Enjoy the scenic Bad Future, as you gun down robots with crossbows and magic powers trying to bugger up authority.
And speaking of re-releases of old games, and we're going to do that a lot this week, Oddworld: Abes Odyssey: New 'n' Tasty is out on Switch now, and it's a vastly gussied up port of the original game that asked the question on everyone lips of "What if Prince of Persia was a bit more like Out of This World and starred a gross frog-man and also it was about how Corporations are Bad?".
And now that question has been answered, once again!
Cobra Kai is a beat-em-up tie-in to the show of the same name! And I really like the show, and I'm only halfway through watching it, so I'm worried that just watching the trailer would give me spoilers. From the screens though, I can see that all your favorites are there; like Troubled Teen, Guy With Mohawk and Lip Scar, and Middle Aged Ralph Macchio.
One screen has Middle Aged Ralph Macchios daughter punch the ground and cause a huge wall of ice to burst from the ground, and I really hope that's a spoiler.
And another 80s throwback, but which has not aged as gracefully, is North & South! And to be fair, the actual game part is (presumably) still a fun and fast paced arcadey strategy game set in the civil war, it's just that you... may find yourself fighting on behalf of, you know, the slave-owning land-owners and... can't really call that an enjoyable prospect. History has painted that side of the conflict pretty badly.
And speaking of dealing with terrible racists from history times, Gibbous is a point-and-clicky adventure game from everyones favorite Racist Who Hates Fish, ol' Howie Love. Except this one is a bit more cartoony and less intolerant of... well... everyone. It's got a kind of Ron Gilberty look to it, like your Monkey Islands or Days of the Tentacle or whatnot. Whether it can hit that benchmark, I'unno. Better than people being spooked because they saw an octopus.
And speaking of Games That Plainly Want to Be Compared to Other Things, whether or not their in the same weight class, we have Oceanhorn 2, the sequel to a game that, well, certainly tried to be like Zelda, bless-it. It certainly looks much more expansive and ambitious than the original, and honestly, all I remember of the first game was playing through the whole thing while I was sick with a bad flu so it didn't make a strong impression on me other than giving me some really unfortunate sense-memories.
Your Mileage May Vary
Yuppie Psycho was a game I was initially assuming to be based on American Psycho, or maybe a horror-themed dating sim. But then I read the eShop summary and was forced to reconsider my opinions. That's life for ya, always throwing you curveballs. It's a survival horror game where you're a new, low-level hire at a vague and omnipresent tech company, and your tasked with tracking down the vengeful ghost of a witch who was responsible for your employers success in the first place, and which has now cursed your all.
You'd be forgiven for assuming that a game called Wallachia: Reign of Dracula would be a Castlevania-y game. It's certainly what I expected, but from the trailer, it's not! It's Ghosts & Goblins! Maybe that Arcade Robocop game. Wander form left to right, and release an endless torrent of arrows at every cussed varmint so arrogant as to enter your line of vision. Poke a hole or two into a vumpire at some point too, why not!
De: Yabatanien is another spooks-em-up for the Weeniest time of year; this one here is a puzzle game that's basically Saw, except with fake retro graphics. Solve some point and clicky puzzles before pixelly anime teens *dunn get murd'd*. I typically don't care much for the Murder-Man genre of horror, but lateral thinking to *prevent* murdermans from doing manmurders is... a pretty interesting concept for a spooks-em-up game. Like a reverse chibi-pixel Saw. May give this one a look later.
Now, while everything up to now has justified the thread title to one degree or another, it was actually referring to Pikmin 3 Deluxe! A gussied up, DLC-filled, extra-campaigned re-release of one of the few remaining WiiU games to not be ported over to its much more popular little brother. Take a few teeny tiny astromans out and about in the scenic and beautiful Nameless Planet and try to survive with the help of a bunch of ant-carrots while avoiding the menace posed by weird bug creatures and stuff. Then harvest precious juice from large fruit because survival is hard enough without any sources of vitamin C!
Now, how do you like your platformers? 2D? Great! How about Extremely Difficult? Wonderful! Now, how about designed around making fun of old video games you don't like very much? Also yes? Excellent! Now, how about being subjected to a string of profanity every time you die in a vrutally difficult platformer? Yes as well? Well, good news, you are the exact target audience for The Angry Video Game Nerd Deluxe! Easily the best game about an insufferable cussman who gets mad at video games!
Mad Rat Dead is a rhythm-based platformer about a rat who returns from the dead in order to accomplish its unfinished business before going to back to Rat Heaven, and you have to match the beat of the music to the beat of your little dead rat-heart. Which I realize, as I'm typing this, that they've *finally* made a game based on Weekend at Bernies 2, but with a cartoon rat instead of Terry Kiser.
Yes, I did have to look up the actor who played Bernie from Weekend at Bernies.
And Yes, that is the only research I did for the new games this week.
Quite a whirlwind of emotions related to Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!, since, based on the title, I assumed it was a new Umihara Kawase game, and was therefor expecting platforming challenges based around grappling hooks and avoiding fish. What this is, instead, is a party-fighting game, starring the much beloved cast of Umihara Kawase (I literally do not know any of them) and also Cotton (from Cotton? Remember Cotton? Don't worry, nobody else does either). But this game is also a Bubble Bobble-esque screen-based kill-em-up.
And everything is based on using Bazooka Physics?
Man... video games are hard to summarize sometimes.
And what better thesis for that statement than Pixel Puzzle Makeout League, which is a Picross game. About super-heroes. About dating superheroes. Gay superheroes. And your power is being able to condense any situation, be it fighting villains or seducing sentient jigsaw puzzles, into a nonogram puzzle.
I... can't say much else than that. I think they had made their sale somewhere in that string of broken sentences.
