There is nothing to say about Jupiter’s Picross series that I haven’t already said. There’s not much new here that hasn’t been done before, it’s just more brain-wrinkling and relaxing (at the same time, somehow) picross puzzles. One thing I would like, perhaps, is fewer of the 5×5, 10×10 and even 15×15 puzzles, and more of the 40×30 ones. There are only a handful here, and you only get them if you have save data from previous games in the …
And that’s it. I’ve officially run out of Xenoblade to play. In about a year and a half I’ve completed the entire series of games in some sort of obsessive newfan flurry of activity. Why did I sleep on this series for so long? It’s bloody great. Anyway, I’ve said a lot about the three numbered games in the series, and I have to say I was a little worried coming to X because I’d heard it wasn’t quite the …
No, I don’t know why I played this either. It wasn’t that great, with very flickery graphics, was very short, and did nothing much other games (even at the time of original release) hadn’t already done far better. Probably a miracle it managed as well as it did on the Game Boy hardware, although, I suspect, impossible to see on the original device’s blurry screen – it’s bad enough on the telly – but still average at best.
I’ve always loved this game. It’s the Game Boy version of Donkey Kong, also sometimes referred to as “Donkey Kong ’94”. I talked about it more last time I played it, which I thought was maybe three years ago but it turns out it was FOURTEEN years ago. Cripes. This time, I played it on the Switch’s Game Boy game service thingy, but it’s just the same game as it ever was before. It’s still really slick, and plays well …
This Famicom Detective Club game differs from the others in a number of ways. Firstly, for some reason, “Famicom Detective Club” is now the subtitle rather than the title. Secondly, there are a few tweaks to the dialogue system (which I’ll explain in a bit), but the big one is that this isn’t a remake of a 40 year old Famicom title – it’s a completely new game in the series, with the murder mystery story written by the same …
Remember a while back I played a game called Shin Chan The Endless Subtitle About Seven Days Of Summer Or Something? It’s one of those lazy Japanese summer games by Kaz Ayabe where you go fishing and catch bugs and do lots of minor things with very little consequence. Natsu-Mon is one of them. This time you’re a boy who’s part of a circus troupe, staying at a guest house in a small town for the summer. You run errands …
This is actually half of a double pack along with The Missing Heir, as they were released together but are actually separate downloads. It’s obviously very similar to the other Detective Club game, and has some of the same characters. This one is set a few years before the other, however, at the start of your private detective career, and centres around investigating a murder in a high school (where you meet the girl who will become your partner in …
I’d seen a number of reviews comparing this series of games to the Phoenix Wright games and let me tell you this – they’re not really much alike at all. Phoenix Wright has humour and puzzles and magic and stupidity and nonsense, whereas Famicom Detective Club is (despite appearances) rooted in reality with no magic or ghosts or stuff like that. And there’s no trial – just investigations. Which play out mostly like a visual novel. The Missing Heir is …
I’m a little sad now that the whole Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy has come to an end. This feature-length DLC for XC3 might be the last time we see the worlds created for the series, as although it did manage to forge some links with Xenoblade Chronicles X, I understand that’s not really related and the “links” are really little more than Easter eggs. Sad. But the good things! Future Redeemed is set about 500 years before Xenoblade Chronicles 3, in …
I went back after completing the main story, as there was still A Lot To Do. Not least completing the story unlocks two more Heroes – the Queens of Agnus and Keves themselves – but also because I had loads of other side missions and stuff I wanted to look into. There’s quite a lot more exposition on how the world of Aionios came to be, as well as more backstory on both the main characters and all of the …
I’ve been playing a lot of Huge RPGs in the last year or so, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 might be the longest one yet. I’ve completed it, but of course There’s Still More To Do, so it’s not over yet. Just 85 or so hours in. It’s hard to talk about everything in the game without spoilers. Normally, a spoiler in an RPG like this would just spoil the ending of this game, but in the case of Xenoblade 3 …
Sadly not the full Metroidvania experience I was expecting (the reason it ended up on my wishlist in the first place, following a review), Momodora still feels like one. Creepy town with a creepy castle, a curse, a map to explore, and pixel graphics? It certainly has the look of one. What’s missing is all the extra powers that open up new areas. Sure, there are some, but very few. That means it is more a standard explorey platformer, hence …
My daughter and I were big fans of the original River City Girls so the sequel was sat on my wishlist for ages waiting for a bit sale. That came around, and we played it through together. It’s more of the same, really. A side-scrolling, semi-open-world beat-em-up with RPG elements set in the world of Kunio-kun/River City Ransom and made by Wayforward, just like the first game. It has a great cartoon style, loads of in-jokes (with both River City …
Note: A free code was given to me by the devs for review purposes for an upcoming episode of the ugvm Podcast. This isn’t a full review, just a record in my gaming diary. The full review will be over there anon. A while back, I played the totally ridiculous Switch game About An Elf. It had a very unique art style and gameplay which teeters on the very definition of what gameplay is, and was baffling before you even …
If the $hlmun of hours on the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 main game and DLC wasn’t enough, then thank $deity for this prequel spin-off! Yes, more Xenoblade! Amazing. To be cynical for a moment, it’s clear that this was likely originally supposed to be integrated in the main game. There’s a number of flashbacks to events 500 years ago, and it’s those events that are retold in full here. You could complain about it being money-grabbing to ask you to buy …
