deKay's Lofi Gaming

Puzzle Quest (Demo) (360)

I really enjoyed Puzzle Quest on the DS, but part of what made it so great was the DS itself. It was portable, easy to turn on for just a quest or two, and had touch control which makes a lot of sense with this game. The XBLA version isn’t bad. It can’t be – it’s almost exactly the same game – but it isn’t right. I can’t bring myself to buy a game I already have in a form …

Puzzle Quest (DS): COMPLETED!

Today started with having to find some herbs for the High Elves, and then progressed onto killing Lord Bane’s three (rather easy) Generals, followed by a Deathknight and then an Iron Golem (both quite easy too) before finally “fighting” Lord Bane himself. With an alarming about of HP (three times what I had), it was somewhat nailbiting at the end as we were both on around 30HP, there were red skulls galore on the grid, and it was my turn. …

Pear Quest (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

If you look at the screenshot, you’ll see that everything is very small. This is not, as I discovered having spent a long time trying to change it, a bug, a zoomed out setting, or a screen resolution issue. It is, in fact, intentional. The entire “map” is visible for the duration of the game, and everything is supposed to be tiny. And, on a Steam Deck, almost impossible to discern what is going on. But I managed it. It’s …

Car Quest (Switch): COMPLETED!

My first impressions of Car Quest were, it has to be said, less than favourable. It had, as I mentioned on Twitter after my first hour’s play, a definite air of “My First Unity” game about it, not least because of the sparse, blocky environment that just screams “I can’t draw but I can sellotape geometric shapes together”. You, a car, don’t fit within this style either thematically or graphically, and it feels like a placeholder that was never replaced …

Answering unasked questions #1

Some questions I’ve not been asked, but I think are on your lips anyway. I’ve been looking at the search terms people have been using to find my blog, and the same things are cropping up most days. Q: Hey deKay – what’s this “destroy my gems” thing all about? A: I have no idea. Well, I have some idea. You’re talking about this, right? Well, there was some discussion about the Amiga puzzle game “Gem-X” (specifically, its crap box-art) …

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (DS)

45 Slimes GET! I’m slightly addicted to just collecting, well, stuff. Items, baddies, boxes, etc. I keep getting them and dumping them on the train, rather than using them and progressing any further into the game… Also, I really should read the manual, as I didn’t realise you could cycle the order of the items on your head using the R button. This made one of the puzzles somewhat easier. Upped the HP of my tank a bit, and loaded …

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (DS)

With Touch Detective out of the way, it was time to move on to yet another DS game. And it isn’t exactly what I was expecting… I thought, considering both it’s pedigree and reviews I’ve read, that Rocket Slime was going to be an RPG. But it seems that it isn’t. It’s a sort of arcade adventure with puzzles, not unlike Zelda, but with a little bit of Pokémon mentality chucked in. My character (the big blue slime on the …

Metropolis: Lux Obscura (Switch): COMPLETED!

It’s the age old story: Man released from prison, man tries to find the reason he was framed, man gets caught up with the mafia, man visits strippers, man fights everyone and everything via the medium of a Match 3 puzzle game. We’ve seen it so many times before. And that’s exactly what this is. There’s a branching story, with four endings (three of which I’ve seen so far), a lot of violence and somewhat graphic sex. Also, swearing. So …

Completed 2007

Viva Pinata (360 12/01/2007) New Rally-X (360 14/01/2007) Super Castlevania IV (Wii 25/01/2007) Castlevania: Circle of the Moon (GBA 30/01/2007) Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance (GBA 04/02/2007) Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA 10/02/2007) Super Mario World (Wii 11/02/2007) Kirby’s Adventure (Wii 17/02/2007) The Castlevania Adventure (GB 18/02/2007) Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge (GB 19/02/2007) Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS 25/02/2007) Gunpey (DS 01/03/2007) Kororinpa (Wii 03/03/2007) Kirby Squeak Squad (DS 08/03/2007) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (360 14/03/2007) Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS …

2007: A Year in Gaming – Part 2

May May was more varied than previous months this year.¬¨‚Ć There was Eledees and Wing Island on the Wii, Crackdown, Lego Star Wars II and Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland on the 360, and the amazing Ouendan 2 on the DS, as well a plethora of 360 demos, XBLA games, and Wii VC titles. I struggled with the original NES Castlevania (on the VC) for a while too, and never did manage to complete it.¬¨‚Ć It’s just too hard! June Oh …

A roundup of the week

I’ve been away all week, so not been playing a huge amount in the way of games. However, my holiday was partly affected by rain, so my DS did get an airing. On that, I started playing Puzzle Quest, which is a Bejewelled/Zoo Keeper clone in an RPG setting. So you have to battle orcs and things by matching gems, and have special powers and stats and stuff. It sounds totally ridiculous, but is actually somewhat amazing. I also played …

The Backlog

Anyone who describes themselves as a gamer, or even those who read a lot of books, collect DVDs (remember them?) or are avid fans of various other arts, know about The Backlog. It is, as a gamer at least, a list of games that have been bought (or acquired – most games are “free” these days) under the full intent to play, but for whatever reason are Pushed on the stack and have not yet reached Pop. Why these games …

Detective Pikachu Returns (Switch): COMPLETED!

It’s been a long time coming, what with the original game coming in at the end of the Nintendo 3DS’ viable life, and it now being the twilight hours of the Nintendo Switch, but finally it was released and, having given it to my daughter to play first, the time eventually came for me to finish the story that cliffhangered on the previous game. Now, I may be misremembering the first game, but I’m pretty sure this one is somewhat …

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch): COMPLETED!

What’s this, you say? It’s been over a month since I completed anything? You thought I was dead? Well, no! Turns out that Tears of the Kingdom is Quite Large and so it has taken me 95 hours to complete it. Which, across a month, is about three hours a day. That’s fine, right? There’s a lot to talk about regarding the game. For example, a number of people complained that it’s just using the same overworld as Breath of …