Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind is nostalgic for me. I played it several times at a friend’s house, but its unforgiving difficulty never let us beat it. I streamed it recently and found myself once again charmed by its severe cheese factor and challenged to master its movement mechanics.
Bubsy, the character and the game, are the butt of many jokes in the gaming community. Sure, it’s a blatant Sonic ripoff with even more cheap difficulty, but come on. The giraffe is wearing sunglasses. And the music never fails to bring a smile (as long as you choose SNES over Mega Drive).
Yes, it’s frustrating, and I save scummed mightily, but I think Bubsy (yes the character and the game) have genuine worth. The fourth wall breaking is endearing! And that’s why I like Modern Bubsy, it’s respectful and has fun with its ideas, and gives us a reason to celebrate Bubsy again. For more rambling, watch the stream. ;)
Here’s another game that I played through on a stream. You can see that archived here. I talk a bit about my impressions in the video itself, so I’ll be brief here.
Sneaky Snakes was one of Rare’s early handheld companions to a console release, in this case Snake Rattle n Roll. It takes that game’s central mechanic of eating Nibbleys throughout a level in order to gain enough weight to unlock the exit, but translates it to a 2D sidescroller rather than an isometric 3D scape.
It seems very faithful to the formula of its parent game but with a few interesting additions and maybe a little more variety in its content. There are more different varieties of Nibbleys, for example, and things like an evil snake or a ball you have to push around then bounce off. New enemies such as sentient staplers and toilet lids show a sense of ridiculous fun that the game’s sometimes hellacious difficulty doesn’t quite manage to squash. The final boss too, a pot-bellied homunculus with a brass instrument for a face, has to be seen to be believed.
The environments become more and more strange as you continue, ending in some decidedly alien caverns. Perhaps it really is following up on the promise of “Snakes in Space” that the NES original teased in its ending. Incidentally, this video fits the maps from the first game together to show how clever its level design was to fit it into a greater context. Sneaky Snakes is not quite so impressive but it’s still fun and a refreshing change of pace from other platformers.
I don’t know who Epic Mickey is for. It wants to make Mickey Mouse dark and edgy, but also be a nostalgic throwback to old Disney and with a tacked-on moral choice system. So actually I think the game designers possibly made it for themselves: jaded adult Disney fans. This could have worked, and the gameplay ideas could have been appealing, if the game had managed to rise above mediocrity.
It’s the spooky season apparently, so why not break out a Castlevania game? The only thing scary about this chibi-fied spinoff is its difficulty, but I was able to mitigate that through rampant savestate cheating.
Now I love Picross in 2D, I don’t need to tell you that. In 3D it’s a bit different; you can’t take in the whole puzzle at a glance, and building off each new step is much more fiddly. The numbers you need to solve each logic puzzle are printed on the sides of each cube. You rotate it in 3D space and you have a progressive cross-section function, so it’s a matter of repeatedly checking each slice and cycling through both vertical planes. Did that make sense? It’s hard to explain.
I’ve done a couple of Twitch streams as an experiment to see how I enjoy them. For an audience of around 3, I today played through the entirety of this indie GBA game in 3 hours. It was an enjoyable experience despite some missteps (both the game and the stream).
French studio RFX Interactive seems to have (briefly) been the kind of studio that makes licensed games to save up money, then makes a passion project of their own IP. They didn’t last long unfortunately, developing only a handful of GBC and GBA games before folding. As it turns out, I’ve played one of theirs before: Tonic Trouble for GBC.
The game does have heart. The character designs range from adorable (I was reluctant to take out most enemies because they were so cute) to grody and terrifying, with lots of human-animal hybrids and one very angry walrus. The actual graphics work seems amateurish, but there are neat effects and background details frequently that made me stop and take notice.
The plot’s a bit of a mess. Hilariously, the opening exposition crawl zooms by way faster than I could read, so working out what was going on in subsequent cutscenes was something of a journey. The ending too is rushed and unsatisfying. The environmental development and worldbuilding was much stronger and more interesting than the actual story, which is OK.
As for the gameplay, we have a 2D action platformer as you can tell. Levels are often a bit open with different paths available to the player, like I think maybe Sonic is like that? Dunno, haven’t played it. Sia has various magic skills that open up to her and sword combos, most of which I found difficult to pull off and not often necessary. But there’s lots of variety in enemies and mini environmental setpieces which keeps it fresh. Boss fights are a total letdown though: anticlimactic, lacking impact, and often very buggy (although that may have been emulation issues). They often transform you into a large beastlike form which has different abilities, rather than testing skills you use during normal levels. Hrm.
So this is another game that my friendGibbon of DK Girder (plugs for his 100% stream attendance) recommended, one whose IP has been lost to time with the dissolving of its creator. Planned sequels were cancelled and Sia is forgotten. But maybe that just makes it more poignant to dig up and admire its artistry and ambition, as well as learning from its questionable design decisions and lack of polish. Give it a go, why not?
Sabre Wulf couldn’t be more Rare, yet it seems to get overlooked. Its lush environments are almost DKC-esque, the music by Robin Beanland reminds me of Starfox Adventures, and the lewd jokes and silly characters are right out of Tooie or Ghoulies. Thanks Leigh. Of course coming from the handheld team there’s a slight roughness about it (and the occasional use of Comic Sans), but it’s also got charm in spades, and deserves to be mentioned towards the end of the same breath as all these other games.
Like many kids in my generation, I grew up with the English dub of Dragon Ball Z and GT on morning television before school. Fighting games are a natural fit for the series; able to have a wide selection of characters from the series’ cast, while trying to replicate the action that it’s famous for. Unfortunately fighting games don’t always agree with me too well.
This game was ultimately frustrating for me. Part of it was that I couldn’t git gud enough to beat the final mission, losing a half hour on each failed attempt. But part of improving at the game is not just practicing with different characters, but grinding for booster cards, getting lucky with or exploiting the opponent AI, and slogging through the map portions all while drowning in a sea of loading screens. Not to mention the incredibly sloppy proofreading on the script, but that’s just a nitpick.
I don’t want to be unfair to the game, considering my blind spot for “traditional” fighters. By all accounts this is a good example of the genre. I did have fun when I felt evenly matched with the AI. And when the plot went in unexpected directions—such as seeking out the dead Future Gohan in the Other World, snapping him out of his hallucinations of constant android battling with the help of dead Goku and Bardock, and him then somewhat mirroring present Gohan’s Buu arc—I was delighted. Having Cooler, Broly, and Janemba show up in the story is silly and fun. And the game looks great too.
My problem with the missions is how much of an endurance challenge they are. You fly around an overworld map, protecting cities from bad guys. A neat idea in principle, but every map essentially plays out the same and an unlucky matchup late in the mission can really set you back, all the while each clash has multiple lengthy loading screens transitioning to and from the battle mode and rewards screens. I struggled to understand these missions early on, came to really enjoy myself in the middle as the plot went in different directions and I got to grips with it, but by the end had too much frustration and resentment from the growing difficulty curve and my inability to keep up. And that’s even after finding a cheap strategy with Mr. Buu.
Oh I guess I didn’t explain that this game is a scenario outside the bounds of the series; it explores how Future Trunks would have dealt with Buu in his timeline. As such it’s a nice idea with the potential for fanservice, even before they start bringing in the movie villains and revisiting New Namek and the Other World. I really liked how it expanded in that way on what we’ve seen already, although the progress of the plot gets bogged down a little at times to account for more fights. I would recommend it for patient fans or if you have some skill at the other Budokai games, otherwise just watch that one scene from Super where they deal with the “Future Trunks Buu arc” scenario in literally 40 seconds!
More Lego games! Wait, this one’s different! One of the small number of RTSs for DS, Lego Battles takes elements of the Lego formula such as collectibles and Red Bricks, which add a nice extra element of exploration to the stages, but remains a competent if basic real time strategy game.
The game plays well enough, with the stylus and shoulder buttons being the major players. This doesn’t quite give you enough control; attack-moves and loading/unloading transport ships is all done through a touch screen sub-menu, so it can be clunky. The R button is for selecting an assigned group, but there’s only one available. Sure the maps are relatively small and multitasking isn’t really required most of the time but it seems like a limitation enforced by the buttons available, or maybe it’s trying to keep the design simple. Either way it’s certainly no Starcraft, but a decent scaled-down approximation.
Speaking of popular RTS games, the developers of Lego Battles can be traced back to Total Annihilation, my favourite PC strategy game of all time. Oh wait, Homeworld 2 exists. Anyway, as I’ve been saying this isn’t nearly as involved or complex as those; only one resource type, a small unit cap, no research or development apart from tower upgrades. It keeps things interesting with hero characters who have buffs or damage abilities, as well as partner sub-races in the campaigns.
I didn’t play the multiplayer but the story mode is pretty cool; rather than using licensed IPs like other Lego games, this one falls back on nostalgic original Lego lines: Castles, Pirates, and Space. Each of these has two campaigns for opposing factions. Mission objectives and parameters vary, and for example there’s much more ship combat and island-hopping in the pirate story, so there’s variety. But the gameplay loop does start to get samey and I ended up turning on many Red Brick cheats just to get through it faster.
There’s unlockable concept art but it’s not very exciting. The game is worth playing if you have feelings for the old Lego sets of yesteryear or for the novelty of a traditional RTS on the DS, but it’s no substitute for the real thing, and too awkward to be as enjoyable as the “real” Lego games either.
Locoroco is… like… a cross between Katamari, Badland, and World of Goo? I dunno man. It’s a simple but engaging platformer where you tilt the whole world using the shoulder buttons, which makes your blobby little character roll around, and both buttons to nudge, making them jump. When you eat fruits the “Locoroco” gets bigger, and can split into multiple smaller copies of itself, although in practice this is rarely useful and mainly used when it’s automatically activated contextually.
I guess the headline feature of this game, apart from its accessible and simple control scheme, is the aesthetics. The soundtrack and visuals are charming and disarming, an inextricable part of the game’s identity and make it a little bit special. Not that there aren’t other games that hit the same notes, but this one is very solidly constructed into a convincing package with heart.
Secret areas and hidden collectibles are fun to find and pick up, and often have you doing interesting things with the mechanics, or meeting a strange creature or geometric shape, doing a small rhythm minigame to entertain them. Pickups go toward a mode where you expand the house of your little “Muimui” pals; this aspect is not especially entertaining or rewarding but it’s better than just having numbers on a menu screen. Other little modes include a stamp book and a few underwhelming minigames.
It’s clever, it’s fun, it’s cute. As with the entire PSP library I’m late to the party and not an expert on the standouts, but this one is a gem. Of course the studio is overworked on a bunch of varied projects for Sony, so don’t expect another one of these, but it’s worth seeking out for the price I found it at.
A recommendation from a friend and a second-hand online store brought this smaller game to me easily enough. It’s shortish, on the verge of indie downloadable territory, but a few years before that would be such a big thing. As it was, it released on both GBA and DS; the DS version is basically identical but with a map on the bottom screen.
Scurge Hive is a Metroid-inspired isometric game. You explore interconnected rooms in a research base, fighting off a parasitic incursion and finding upgrades. The ¾ perspective makes depth perception and jumps occasionally off, but it’s fairly forgiving. There’s a lot of combat, being rushed by aliens or robots while you only have ranged attacks to keep them at bay. You’re always switching between three main elemental attacks depending on which enemies are around, plus more for puzzle solving. This mechanic is well integrated and it’s snappy to switch between them, so it feels good especially when you turn an “overwhelmed” situation into a bunch of enemies exploding into health refills.
These pickups also add to your experience bar, which is the only way to improve your character apart from plot-based suit enhancements; and these level ups only increase your max health. There’s an enjoyable survival element with your main character Jenosa being constantly worn down by the alien infection, an ever-present tense encouragement to seek out the next save room to reset your timer, or else risk pushing on. Backtracking can be tedious if you miss something, though.
The main loop is to find a new area and seek out security keys by exploring and solving environmental puzzles, while also pulling things into thing sockets to unlock the teleport out, at which point you confront a boss. These bosses make pretty good use of the isometric angle, and are also the only hard part of the game. The final battle in particular is a hardass but satisfying to conquer; by clearing the game once you unlock a boatload of extra palettes for Jenosa. Unfortunately with there being no optional content in the game (upgrades, collectibles, etc) I felt no need to play again—I wish the costume options had been present throughout the game instead of all at once at the end.
I’d mention the typos but I’ve seen worse in games from bigger companies like Capcom and Konami, so I’ll forgive them. For a studio with so few games to their name it’s well executed. Too bad they put a “to be continued” message at the end; the company apparently folded not long after making this game. But I loved having a spunky lady protagonist, especially one with long flowing hair (Shantae or Zero fans take note), and the pixel art is crisp and colourful, with a unique “big hands” art style.
The Lego games will keep coming! I got my wife a whole bunch of them for her birthday so expect more reviews, suckers! This is the newest one we’ve played so far, and compared to Marvel Super Heroes it runs better; our frame rate was noticeably better in levels even with both screens on. Its scale feels smaller though, and the character choices leave much to be desired; it feels like a lot of character were held back for DLC, which is sadly not available on Wii U.
The hub areas were nostalgically small, at least until the explorable Lantern worlds were unlocked, which was a nice surprise. These are Mario Galaxy-style planetoids with quests and things from DC characters. They added content but the planets themselves aren’t too exciting.
This is a problem I had with the game: while purporting to be “Lego Batman”, after the first three levels it is more of a Justice League-cum-Green Lantern game, and the Lantern realm is something I only have a passing familiarity with. For it to be such a significant part of the game was a little off-putting to a “cosmic DC” outsider. But that’s to be expected. The villainous characters also feel like a B-team, but there’s the inevitable team-up and plenty of disguises and magic emotional manipulation due to Lantern shenanigans to shake things up, adding interest to the main group.
My favourite parts of the game were the levels set on Earth cities that had been shrunk by Brainiac’s shrink-ray, with adorable mini Lego models of landmarks and objects; and the amusing level based on the 60’s TV series complete with visual sound effects and hammy Adam West narration.
Speaking of celebrity cameos, there are some really out-of-place appearances by Kevin Smith and Conan O’Brien that were a constant groaner. Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers as the Green Loontern was OK, but there was a bit much of him too. Stan Lee really worked in Marvel, and Adam West is good here, but they went overboard with these.
It was still great to play through this in co-op. Each new character unlock would either elicit memories and delight, or bemusement and a trip to Wikipedia. Vehicles as a concept are tacked on and unnecessary, and there’s the occasional glitch but much fewer outright crashes. The core concept is still strong and it’s not broke, so have at it.
I’ve played the big boy version of this before, but wanted to try out its little brother for a few reasons. One, the sequel burned me and made me yearn for the greater variety of the original game; two, I do find it interesting to see alternate takes on things I enjoyed; three, Wookieepedia had some details indicating that there was extra content in this version; four, it’s by Krome Studios, the famous Australian developer.
To address each of these points… it was good to return to this setting; seeing Rahm Kota in Elite Forces and reading some designer notes and the tie-in comic reminded me of the care and design work that went into this project. It’s a real successful attempt to tell a new Star Wars story that feels authentic but with a slight reimagining of what bombastic Force powers would make an exciting video game.
In terms of this being an alternate take, it does present value as a separate game to the HD version. Instead of a cut-down port, this game (released on PSP, PS2, and Wii) reworks a lot of stuff and is practically a new experience because of it. The way some of your abilities work, the unlock system, collectibles, are familiar but fresh. (Confusingly, the buttons for lightning and push are swapped compared to its counterpart.) Levels too have new layouts, and enemies sometimes require different strategies. By the end of the game my favoured technique was the Force Choke followed by pummel, which auto-flings physics objects at the gripped target., including other nearby enemies.
This slightly dinkier version doesn’t use the same advanced physics engine as the main game, so physics interactions aren’t as smooth. But there’s still a decent amount of stuff to fling around, and if anything it’s less trivial to simply throw objects around to obliterate dudes, forcing you to think a bit more about handling groups of enemies.
In terms of new content I was pleased by the differences. True, some things were cut, such as the medical frigate level and the Sarlacc in the return to Felucia, as well as some other setpieces I remembered. But Krome’s additions were very welcome: several interludes in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant involving fights with simulations of wacky ancient Sith, a new level on Bespin rescuing Garm bel Iblis (who was previously only a cutscene character), and new characters including some diverse gangs of pirates and scoundrels, even an evil Gungan! Also apparently unique to the PSP version is a scenario mode that sees you replaying classic events such as the battle at Jabba’s sail barge (with a more intense Boba Fett fight), or Anakin and Obi-Wan’s duel on Mustafar, as well as an Order 66 wave-survival mode and a Jedi duel mode. Good value!
To my last point, I’ve never actually played anything by Krome before, but it’s good to support local development, right? Except I bought this second hand from the US, so it’s not really supporting them much… er, moving on.
I really enjoyed this; a revisit but with a whole new game experience. The definitive story would be some synthesis of bits from both versions, which I gather is what the novel is maybe? In any case, the PSP version specifically represents a great 3D action game on handheld and if not an equivalent experience to the HD one than a comparable one at least. Plus the character models are lower-detail so you actually get less of an uncanny valley effect during cutscenes!
Here’s a little oddity, groundbreaking in a few ways. It represents big publishers trying to get into the mobile phone game market, Konami collaborating with Westerners for one of their big franchises, and a hybrid of the two types of Castlevania gameplay. Too bad it’s not very good. Ok, ok, with the heavy disclaimer “for a mobile game” it’s fine.
Although this would normally be played in a narrow portrait view, using my java phone emulator I was able to expand the screen space, which really helped with visibility of enemies even if the UI ended up a little odd. Unfortunately I had other problems with my controller, apart from the regular control issues on mobile phones (only accepting one input at a time, button combos with overlapping functions, sketchy diagonal jumps). It looks decent for what it is, but you must toggle between music and sound effects; whatever midi rendering my emulator had made the SFX very unsuited so I kept the music, which was fine.
But let’s talk about how the game works, because it’s an interesting experiment. You have a slightly explorable world but broken up into stage-like bits. Progress gives you new abilities and you will loop back at one point, and you find sub-weapons that are permanently collected and switchable through the menu (but most of them are useless; either comparable to the whip but using hearts, or with more range but too weak). Desmond levels up with experience and can find usable health items and spells. So it’s a light Metroidvania in fact, albeit cut down for the platform, poorly executed and nowhere near as satisfying as its contemporaries. It didn’t really need the RPG elements and backtracking, especially as a mobile game.
At least we have a plot with cutscenes. Desmond is the Belmont of the day, and his sisters Dolores and Zoe pop up for exposition and to give you new abilities, such as alchemy (this and other plot elements tie it loosely to the PS2 game Lament of Innocence). It’s not really unique in Castlevania, except having multiple Belmonts, and it’s very brief. The game is over very quickly; I beat it in a bit over an hour without much trouble. Respawning in the same room on death helps.
So I don’t want this game to be overlooked; it’s not up to the standard set by many other Castlevania games, but it’s short and not difficult so as long as you can wrangle a mobile phone emulator, a fan of the series should give it a go. And I do push back against it being written off as non-canon, as I did with Legends for Game Boy, or the N64 games; I like being inclusive like that. Random trivia fact: the game’s designer went on to found indie publisher Nicalis very soon after this.
Konami’s Rebirth games on WiiWare were revivals or remakes of some of its classics into glorious… er, SD. Although the first Castlevania Game Boy game had previously had an upgrade on the GBC, it was chosen for a retool by the legendary M2. The result feels like a lost 16-bit classic with an extra sheen on top.
No SNES, PC Engine, or even PS1 game ever looked this good. It’s got the trademark evocative Castlevania style but smoothed over. I also appreciated them not simply reusing Rondo of Blood’s sprites yet again. The music is going for throwback synthesised tones but there’s maybe not enough variety in instrumentation. Still, it contributes to that neo-classic feel (architecture nerds will not like me using that term, I’m sure).
While the the visuals are a step beyond Rondo or SCIV, the mechanics are not up to that level. Christopher has very basic moves; no backflip, slide, fancy whip moves. All the normal sub-weapons are there, as well as the GB game’s whip upgrade system, but it feels simple compared to even the few small tricks Rondo had available; you can’t even jump on and off stairs! It’s by no means easy however; the level design and enemy behaviours are much more complex than the GB source and that’s where the fun and challenge arise. I did appreciate the option for more lives!
My main problem with the game was it didn’t seem to have much to say compared to other linear Castlevania games. I admit that my experience is limited but Rondo was more fun to play for me, especially with Maria. I suppose the retro style is exactly what they were going for, but I would have thought a remake would be a great opportunity to expand a bit more; a slightly more involved plot or second playable character (again, like Rondo). That said, and I’m no level design guru, but in terms of pure game-ness it does manage to elevate an extremely simplistic handheld game to a “proper” stage-based Castlevania experience. It does this by completely reworking almost everything about the game, but still.
