Category: Diary

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Originally a Game Boy game, this TMNT game is now one of the games on the “Cowabunga” collection, and it… isn’t great. Pretty sure it wasn’t great at the time, either, what with the flickery graphics and barely-there animation and repetitive gameplay and the tiny viewport and, well, it goes on. It’s not that far from Kung Fu Master for most of the game, having to attack enemies as they approach from left and right, but there’s also some basic …

Lost in Play (Switch): COMPLETED!

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A point and click adventure game set in the imaginations of two kids playing with a weird collection of creatures and characters, some Alice In Wonderland-esque trippiness, and some fantastic art and cartoon level animation? Sure, why not. Not unlike The Many Pieces of Mr Coo, Lost in Play is wordless, with intent and conversations in the game taking place via icons, gestures and various non-vocal grunts and outbursts. It does mean that a bit of nuance is lost, but …

Super Mario Land (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Ah, who doesn’t remember the chart-topping MC Mario “Folks round here think I’m crazy, but I gotta rescue Daisy” song that was based on the music from this, slightly odd in hindsight, Game Boy Mario game? Kids, that’s who. Tch. And it is a bit odd. Super Mario Land starts out as a seemingly normal, low resolution and black and white approximation of the NES classic, but adds different enemies and the fire flower is a bouncy ball and there …

Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I have mentioned many times here how I do like a good (or even, a fair-to-middling) Metroidvania game. So when I discovered that the already great looking Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was such a game in that genre, I leapt on the demo and was so struck by it I did a very rare thing – I bought an actual physical copy. It’s really good. It does all the great things Metroidvanias do, by giving you additional powers …

FAR: Changing Tides (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Remember a while back I completed a game called FAR: Lone Sails? If not you can just click that link. I refer to it because the ending of that game was a bit of a damp squib and didn’t make any sense. Turns out, this sequel is actually sort of the other half of the game and that’s why. Whereas in Lone Sails you had a land-boat where you travel across what appears to be a dried up sea, in …

Streets of Rage 4 (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Oh would you look – a PS+ monthly game that’s actually good and I don’t already own! How rare. And yes, it is good! It’s a long awaited sequel to the original Mega Drive fighting games, if we ignore the Fighting Force game which was obviously supposed to be Streets of Rage 4 for the Saturn anyway. And even that was decades ago. SoR4 doesn’t deviate from the previous games very much at all, really. You punch and kick through …

A Monster’s Expedition (Through Puzzling Expeditions) (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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I maintain that I am not really a fan of sokoban type puzzle games, and yet somehow, I seem to enjoy them. Perhaps it’s just when there are crate-pushing puzzles in otherwise crate-push-free games that I don’t like? In any case, A Monster’s Expedition was one of the ones I did enjoy. You are a monster, who navigates islands which seem to make up a sort of Museum of Humans, as there are many artefacts (sometimes amusingly mislabelled as to …

Beglitched (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Someone recommended this game over on Mastodon and it looked interesting. Then it turned out I already owned it and could play it on my Steam Deck. Result, eh? It’s a match-3 puzzle game, but one that messes with the rules a bit. The idea isn’t just to match-3 (or more), as it matter which icons you match. For example, you only have so many moves, but matching certain symbols gives you more moves. Additionally, there’s a digital creature on …

Sküljagger (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Sküljagger (no, I’d never heard of it either) is a Bad Game. Originally a SNES game which seemed to have been completely ignored at the time, it’s yet another 16-bit platform with literally nothing going for it. It seems to have a pirate theme or maybe a viking theme or who actually knows, or cares? You have a sword and have platforms to navigate. Wow. Even at the time this can’t have been more than a 5/10 title. It’s janky …

Gal Guardians: Demon Purge (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Why yes, this is another Metroidvania style game! And yes, it’s another one based on a different game, this time Gal*Gun by Inti Creates. Inti Creates, who have made some of my favourite platformers (including some other Metroidvanias) like Azure Striker Gunvolt and Blaster Master Zero. Of course I’m going to buy it. The ‘hing with Demon Purge, which differentiates it from all the other “explore a castle” games is that you control two characters at once, each with different …

Nour (PS5): COMPLETED!

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What even is this? I’ve completed it and I’m still not sure. I think it fits into the same sort of category as something like Electroplankton or Noby Noby Boy where although there is a goal of sorts, it’s the toy you play with along the way that’s the real game. In Nour, you’re given a large restaurant table, and each plate on it takes you to a different scenario. In each, the controller buttons spawn different food and drink …

The Little Tales of Alexandria (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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This game is a very short narrative discovery game for the Game Boy, released on an Evercade Indie Heroes cartridge. You’re a girl in a block of flats, you talk to people, find cats, and then it ends. There’s not really much else to say. It has some charm, but there’s very little here even for this genre, and it’s a bit clunky and collision detection is all over the place. My guess is it’s built on an engine like …

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I’m definitely in the mood for roleplaying games this year, so Xenoblade Chronicles – a game I already have, unplayed, for the 3DS – came to mind. Of course, I couldn’t play the 3DS version when a newer, better, more complete version exists, so I had to buy that. Naturally, it has never seen much of a price drop but after a few weeks of checking sites for cheap copies an Italian version came up on eBay for £23, less …

Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Although I’d had access to this via PS++++++++ for some time, I’d never downloaded it as I, erroneously, thought it was that vertically scrolling shooter EDF spin-off rather than a “normal” third-person co-op giant insect/robot apocalypse game. Then I noticed the screenshots and realised I was thinking of Earth Defense Force: Wing Diver The Shooter and Iron Rain is, in fact, more of the game I wanted. It is, broadly, the same game that most of the other games have …

Rental (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Rental is (or at least, was at time of writing, who knows what the Terrifying Future holds) a free game on Steam and nothing is more important in gaming than low, low prices. So why the hell not, eh? Perhaps the best way to describe the game, assuming you can’t see the screenshots here, is What if Animal Crossing was Resident Evil on the PS1? Or maybe, Silent Hill: Sylvanian Families. It has the cute animals and the quaint little …