What a lovely blue skies game this was. It wasn’t the open-world, post apocalyptic Kirby the trailers and pre-release media made out though, as it sticks to the same level structure as most of the classic Kirby titles, but it looks amazing and is a lot of fun. And is so, so easy! I completed the entire game, including the post-ending extra hard content, without dying at all. Or even coming close to dying. Or, a handful of bosses aside, …
Yes, it’s another of Jupiter’s excellent but nearly identical Picross games! Only this one is slightly different as each puzzle is a pixel graphic straight from a Sega Mega Drive or Master System game! But you guessed that from the title. Not that it really matters because I literally don’t care what the pictures actually are, but it was a bit disappointing that so many of them were just faces of characters from games. Nowhere near as many items, logos, …
It’s different, isn’t it? The last few main Pokémon games have all claimed to be “new” in terms of how they play, with Let’s Go! doing away with proper battles with wild Pokémon, Sun and Moon being properly in 3D and Sword and Shield having the Wild Areas. Arceus is like an extrapolation of those Wild Areas, with several large regions you can freely travel around, seeing Pokémon in the wild doing what they do, and catching them by sneaking …
And now the sequel! It’s basically more of the same, but there are plenty of changes which improve on it. Firstly, you press pause to actually chuck a grenade (or “pineapple”, as the VO says) rather than use it to swap weapon. This makes it much easier to make use of! You can still pause by holding the button. Secondly, there’s voices. Like the original Big Boy NeoGeo games, you get sound samples of “Heavy Machinegun!” and “Rocket Lawn Chair!” …
The two NeoGeo Pocket Metal Slug games are both much, much easier than the “proper” NeoGeo games in the series, and they’re also as much about platforming as running and shooting, which differs from the big versions too. They are, however, still both excellent on the tiny screen. I’ve completed them both before (a few times, I expect), but I hadn’t remembered much from the actual levels. There are a couple where the layout is basically a maze, which was …
A few tweaks to the layout, slider and homepage. Just seemed silly to have everything duplicated three times!
At first glance, Summer in Mara would appear to be a Wind Waker clone, but in fact it’s only really similar in terms of graphics and there’s a load of islands you travel between via a little boat. Actually, it’s much closer to something like Harvest Moon, with a bit of farming, some crafting, and a lot of fetch quests. There’s no peril, danger, time limits or any chance of death – just a nice little story about an orphan …
Haven Park is a twee little game (and I mean that in a good way) about a bird who takes over the running of a set of run down campsites out in the countryside. It’s very similar in feel to A Short Hike, but with more interaction and a different emphasis. It involves collecting resources, like wood, to build appealing camping areas, which are then populated with visitors. Some of these have additional requests, and there are a few areas …
You know something? I’ve never been a big fan of Double Dragon. Sure, it’s OK. And yes, it’s one of the first arcade games I ever completed in an arcade (well, in a shed in a field), I don’t understand the reverence. It doesn’t have the fun of TMNT, or the style of Streets of Rage, or the depth of River City Ransom. But here we are. The main reason for playing it was because my daughter wanted another two …
Once more it was time to play a digital cock-fighting game! I mean, that’s basically what it is, right? With a plot, of course. A plot which is the same in every single Pokémon game: evil organisation (usually with a non-evil front) want to capture Pokémon for $reason so they can get Ultimate Power or something. All while your 10 year old avatar is rapidly rising from having a single feeble creature to being King Of All Pokémon Trainers and …
Just in case I didn’t have enough games to play already, and I have a copy of this already on my Switch in the Sega Mega Drive Collection thing, I decided to play the one in the new Sega Nintendo Online collection. No, I don’t know either. I’ve played it before. And completed it before. But not for a while. Mean Bean Machine is just a reskin of Puyo Puyo, and I have to say, I prefer Puyo Puyo. This …
More than 14 years after last completing this, it was re-released on modern consoles as part of the Castlevania Advance Collection along with some of the other GBA Castlevania games (it’s missing the NES Classic original on there) and Castlevania X for some reason. Since it really needs to be played on a handheld, I bought the Switch version and then played it almost entirely on the TV. Tch. The general consensus is that of the three GBA IGA-vania games, …
I used to play Echo Bazaar, an online web-based story RPG thing from Failbetter games, ages ago. Before it was renamed as Fallen London, which is also the setting of the game. It was good, although you really needed to pay for extra moves and features to get the most out of it. I’m against IAPs as a rule so kind of fell off it. I did love the Lovecraft/Pratchett crossover vibe of the world though, and so Sunless Sea …
A long, long time ago, I played about 15 minutes of the original Mega Drive version of this game in a local game shop. It was all in Japanese but I liked the look of it. Not quite as long ago, but still over a decade ago, Sega released the first English translated version of it as part of a Wonder Boy pack on Xbox Live Arcade. I bought it, but never played it. Then this came along. A remake …
This is one of those games I’ve had my eye on for ages but for whatever reason have never bought. Well, I probably have it on Steam or something but that doesn’t count. Anyway, it was on offer this week and has recently had yet another level added and I’d just finished Scott Pilgrim and wanted another co-op game so it all fell into place and, well, here we are. Human Fall Flat is one of those purposefully awkward to …
