My Brother Ate My Pudding! (Switch): COMPLETED!

You know those silly “Mon Hid My Game!” games I played a while back? This is one of them, only with a slight difference. Each level, you have to hide from your sister. The first few are easy – behind a curtain, or in a cupboard – but they soon get more complicated. The gameplay, such that it is, is almost exactly like the other games and it has some similar 4th wall breaking “surprises” later on, but it’s a …

Lord Winklebottom Investigates (Switch): COMPLETED!

A point and click murder mystery adventure game where all the people are actually animals? Why yes, yes I do believe I will buy and play that. It’s really very good too. The puzzles are neither too easy nor too obscure, and the whodunnit (and, after that, the whydunnit) were both surprises and kept me wanting to play to get the resolution. The graphics are amazing, and the voice acting really something special. My only issue is the pacing is …

Heaven’s Vault (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

What an unusual game. I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just not really like anything I’ve played before. Heaven’s Vault has the feel of a point and click adventure game (albeit with direct control of your character), but it’s also mostly a visual novel. Except, it has “driving” sections. And, perhaps most interesting and unusual, there’s an entire language you have to slowly translate as the game progresses. Then there’s the animation style, which is like a …

Kirby’s Dream Land 3 (Switch): COMPLETED!

After the travesty that was Kirby 64, I thought I’d play this on the SNES service on the Switch. It’s been ages since I last did (and even then it was in Japanese), and I’d forgotten – and been tainted by 64 – just how good it looked. In fact, it’s probably the best looking SNES game. How did they go from this to that? Unpossible. I haven’t collected everything on every level, and I’ve not done all of the …

Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Switch): COMPLETED!

I had no idea there were bad Kirby games. Certainly, Kirby Air Ride and Kirby Not Smash Bros Because It’s Only Kirby in Different Colours Clash aren’t amazing, but they’re inoffensive and not really proper Kirby games. But Kirby 64 is bad. And not in a 1980s way. Considering that it came out after Mario 64, and is a much simpler game being only 2D (well, 2.5D really), how is it that this looks terrible? It’s worse than the NES …

Pac’n Roll Remix (Switch): COMPLETED!

No, I have no idea why I played this either. It’s one of the games on the somewhat hit-and-miss Pac-Man Museum+ collection and although it’s not really bad, there’s nothing special about it. Not least because the USP of “stroking” Pac-Man with your Nintendo DS stylus in order to twang him around the levels is totally lost. That’s said, I did enjoy most of it, aside from a couple of later levels where there are some nasty jumps-in-3D with no …

Shinsekai: Into the Depths (Switch): COMPLETED!

Just in case I’d not had enough Metroidvania games, I bought another one. Only this one is underwater! Which means you constantly have to look for oxygen, and being attacked drains your oxygen, and jetting around drains your oxygen, and you move slowly and you have a harpoon. And at one point you gain use of a hovercraft cowfish shaped submarine which means you don’t need oxygen when in it, and – more importantly – you can survive deeper water. …

Bit Orchard: Animal Valley (Switch): COMPLETED!

In case you were thinking this was like a Game Boy version of Stardew Valley, then you’re right. It is. Only very, very cut down. Well, maybe cut down is wrong. Streamlined? Slimmed down? As in that game, you inherit a run-down farm (an orchard, in this case – albeit one with only one tree), meet people, grow crops (well, just apples), do a bit of fishing, complete some quests, chat to a ghost, and so on. Only instead of …

Record of Lodoss War: Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (Switch): COMPLETED!

Well look at this – it’s another Metroidvania game that I’m playing. Only this one is based on a series of Japanese books (I think!) and looks a lot like Touhou Luna Nights. Not least because it’s running on seemingly the same engine and is by the same team. And it’s really good! Whereas Touhou Luna Nights “borrowed” the bullet grazing mechanic from the Touhou shooters, in Deedlit there’s a Radiant Silvergun-style colour swap system, where you flick between fire …

Unpacking (Switch): COMPLETED!

What I was expecting from this game: a sort of Tetris puzzle game where you have to fit items into a room. What I was not expecting: a putting-things-away simulator with an unwritten, non-verbal story about the life of a woman. Told over a number of years across various different houses, you unpack your belongings as you move in. Over time, you acquire (and lose) new hobbies, tastes and relationships, but this is only explained by the objects in the …

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch): COMPLETED!

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, …

Picross S Mega Drive & Master System Edition (Switch): COMPLETED!

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, …

Pokémon Legends: Arceus (Switch): COMPLETED!

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 …

Super Fantasy Zone (Switch): COMPLETED!

This was hard. I’ve played it before but I don’t remember it being this difficult. In fact, last time I said this: So yes, it’s probably the easiest of all the Fantasy Zone games  Which is proof I’m an actual liar because no, no it is not. It’s bloody hard and even with saving each level I barely made it through. That said, the bosses were pretty easy – it’s the levels themselves which are virtually impossible to move five …

Metal Slug 2nd Mission (Switch): COMPLETED!

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!” …