Tanuki Justice (PS4) Review

Tanuki Justice (PS4) Review

Release Date: 16 October 2020

Date Played: 30 December 2021

Introduction:

Tanuki Justice is a charming 8-bit inspired side scrolling action platformer.  The developers, Wonderboy Bob & Storybird Studio, proudly display their inspirations with this cute, fun, and difficult game. You can see, hear, and feel the influences of Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden, and even Contra in this throwback to the golden era of gaming when the NES reigned supreme. 

You play as a Tanuki (a Japanese Raccoon) and his sister (in 2 player mode) who have to platform their way through 7 stages while taking out countless anthropomorphic enemies on their quest to save the world. It's a basic story that we've seen a million times and fits in nicely with the old-school feel.  Honestly, you don't need anymore exposition than the brief but well illustrated cut-scene before you're dropped right into the action. Everything is presented in a fantastic feudal Japan art style that really helps the game stand out and gives it a nice little boost to its appeal.

Gameplay:  

Like most, "Nintendo Hard" games from yesteryear, Tanuki Justice gives us easy to learn but difficult to master gameplay.  Present are the one hit deaths, respawning enemies, and tight platforming that drove me into a rage when I was a child.  You're armed only with your double jump and a very short range and weak throwing star. You can fire in all 8 directions and can even lock your shot or character in place with use of the trigger buttons. In addition to this you have a massively destructive magic attack that can be unleashed once the meter is filled. This will usually make quick work of any enemy you come across and will even take a pretty sizable chunk out of the bosses you'll encounter along your way. Filling the meter is as simple as destroying the enemies you come across or by collecting crystals hidden in chests around the level. In addition to these crystals, you'll also find powerups for your throwing star, 1-ups, and shields.  All of these are highly essential and you'll want to grab everything you can find.  The shield will prevent you from taking a hit and basically serves as an extra life.  The throwing star upgrade greatly increases the range and power of your puny base shot and is a necessity for most of the game. Although it doesn't increase your very limited range as much as I would have liked, completing many of the levels without it feels like an almost insurmountable task at times because you won't be able to reach enemies without getting right in their faces. 

As you go through the diverse settings of the games stages that range from bamboo forests, undergrown caverns, graveyards, and even a ninja temple, enemies will come at you from all directions and will sometimes even spawn right in front of you as they jump out of doors at the last second.  Knowing when to move forward or hold back and wait for the opportune moment is key to this game.  Often enemies are placed in a precarious position that will put your skills and reflexes to the test. Sometimes, they pop out of nowhere and basically sucker punch you in the face and cause you to die. A lot of the time you don't have the chance to react to this and just have to know where the enemies are going to be before they get there. This is especially true in the second half of the game where you'll need to play the stages again and again to memorize the enemy patters and carefully learn to route your way through the hazards of bottomless pits, spikes, disappearing platforms, and dozens of lethal enemy types. Yes, this game is just as challenging as those incredibly difficult games from the NES days.  Luckily, the developer takes pity on you and allows you to respawn right where you died until you run out of lives.  If you're forced to continue, you have to start at the beginning of the stage, but it's never that far to go as the levels are action packed but brief.  Also, you're given unlimited continues on Normal and Hard difficulties.  This makes the game beatable as you're allowed to retry each stage as many times as you need until you get it right.  And, by the way, you WILL need to retry the later stages several times for sure. After you finish a stage, it's unlocked in a level select for that difficulty.  This of course allows you to practice each stage to your heart's content. At the end of each stage, you'll face off against one of the fun and well thought out bosses. They all have engaging patterns that you'll have to learn to master them.  While difficult, I never found any of them to be annoying or frustrating and was able to get the kill after only a handful of tries and usually enjoyed my time doing it.

The trophies in the game, however, ARE extremely frustrating, draconian, difficult, and downright impossible. Many of the trophies focus on beating the game in a certain time limit, or without dying, or without killing a certain number of enemies.  I was absolutely shocked to see that more than half of the trophies in the game have a 0.0% completion rate.  As in, NOONE, has EVER done these tasks.  I think it's a little brazen for the developers to think that their game is so unbelievably amazing that they expected the community to basically want to perfect a world record caliber speed run just to unlock them.  

Presentation:

This game is oozing with charm from ever aspect.  The main characters are unbelievably cute in their design and their little furrowed and menacing brows only make them even more adorable.  The same can be said for the dozens of well designed enemy and boss models. All of the stages are bright and colorful and feel very different not only in design but also in art direction.  There are many memorable and striking set pieces that are thrown your way as you work through the game.  I won't spoil these, but they certainly stand out in several of the stages and remind you that you're playing on a current gen console and not something from 1985.  

The music is also quite good and has some catchy tunes to it.  My daughter and her friends were hanging out in my game room while I was playing, and I caught them all humming along to the soundtrack.  If that's not a compliment to the composer, I don't know what would be.  Once again, you can feel a strong influence from Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden.  Perhaps a little TOO strong because I heard little hints of melody taken directly from those games and chord progressions that I know were lifted from some of my favorite stages in those games.  It's not blatant or malicious, but you can tell that some of the hooks were um, borrowed, from the NES greats.  

Conclusion:

Tanuki Justice is exactly what it was developed to be.  For better or worse, it feels like it could have been released in 1989.  You have the very short game length (less than 20 minutes if you're good enough) that is made artificially longer by its extreme difficulty and having to retry levels over and over.  This is made more obvious by having unlimited continues.  You'll soon realize that most stages are only a two or three minutes long.  It's a tough balancing act and I'm not sure the developers could have done any better.  You don't want to pad out your game because you need keep it short and energized like they were back in the day.  But, you don't want to scare off modern gamers by limiting their continues and trying their patience to the point of them quitting. Pleasantly, I think Tanuki Justice successfully walks this tightrope and give the player just enough challenge to make them feel like they're playing a game from that period, but has enough leeway to actually allow them to finish it.  

I can honestly say that if this game had been released on the NES or Sega Master System three decades ago, it would be considered one of the best games on the system and a bonified classic.  It's a fantastic recreation of a game from that time period and can stand toe to toe with them.  Unfortunately, this game wasn't created in 1989 and was released in a time where we're going through a retro themed game renaissance.  Other 8-bit inspired indie games over the last few years have taken the framework of these classic games and evolved and improved them to create something magnificent and groundbreaking.  Some of these games have even won game of the year by beating out AAA multi-million dollar franchises with insane pedigrees.  Tanuki Justice doesn't do that. It doesn't try to break new ground or alter the formula in any way.  It pays homage to the games that inspired it by trying to be exactly like them... and it succeeds.  The only problem with that is that there already so many games just like this and you could just play them instead. I wish it had gone out of its way to bring something new to the table. Personally, I was able to beat it, but didn't have any desire to put more time into it because I felt like I had seen it all before. It made me say to myself, "Man, I should play Ninja Gaiden again."

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 7/10 (Good) 

Tetris Effect (PS4) Review

Tetris Effect (PS4) Review

Released: 9 November 2018

Played 28 December 2021

Introduction:

Tetris Effect was released to critical acclaim back when it came out in the autumn of 2018.  I remember seeing it on many best game of the year lists, and I'm pretty sure I remember it winning basically ALL of the best VR game of the year awards.  It was boldly named after the phenomena that compulsive Tetris players experience when they devote some much time and interest to the game that it begins to invade their thoughts and dreams to the point where they keep playing the game in their mind subconsciously. This arrogant statement on part of the developers and publisher was nothing short of a gauntlet being thrown.  To just come right out and declare this iteration of the game to be THAT addictive took some guts. After all, we've seen Tetris released again and again over the last 3 decades.  What new ideas can this game bring to the table to revitalize the the aging franchise?  The answer, surprisingly, was that it didn't need to bring much.  All it took for most people was to slap a fresh coat of paint on game we've all visited countless times. Basically, Tetris Effect is just plain old Tetris with pretty backgrounds, bright colors, interesting visuals, cool sound effects, and bumping tunes that can be played in VR.  For some fans, this was just a cash grab and didn't offer anything worthy of a new release.  For others, it was an, "emotional and spiritual" experience that touched them deeply.  I was curious to know where I would fall.

Gameplay:

Other than a few slight changes, this game is just... Tetris.  There are the same five pieces that come falling down from the top of the screen and you have to flip them and arrange them in order to make complete lines.  Once you do this, the line is cleared and disappears.  The more lines you clear at once, the more points you earn.  Slowly, the game speeds up more and more until the pieces fall at lightning speed and you attempt to survive as long as possible to increase that high score.  In the upper right, you get a preview of the next piece that will appear so you can try to plan your moves and last a little longer.  Returning is the mechanic where you can chose to holster a piece and save it for when you most need it.  Whether this is for a huge scoring opportunity or for survival is totally up to your skills at the game.  In addition to the basic gameplay, there is a new Zone mechanic to add a little more variety and freshness to the experience.  As you clear lines, your zone meter fills up.  Once it is full, you can activate it to basically give yourself "bullet time" for a few seconds.  This causes the gameplay to slow to a crawl and allow you to try and clear out the detritus that has built up to this point.  If you do well while using this zone mechanic, you can rack up an even bigger score and maybe even save yourself from a game over. It's a helpful mechanic for sure, but I couldn't help but feel that the developers could have been a little more original in spicing up the gameplay.  We've seen the slow-down mechanic in countless games in the past and it feels a little too on-the-nose in this circumstance.

There are several different modes in the game to add some longevity to the package.  The main campaign mode just takes you through progressively harder and harder stages and is the main event where most people will spend the majority of their time.  In addition to this are modes that let you see how many lines you can clear in a set time period, or see how many points you can score in a set number of line clears, etc.  There's pretty much a mode for every variation of Tetris you can think of, and if you're a huge fan of the gameplay, there's plenty here to keep you busy for a long time. Other than the clear conditions, the gameplay remains the same in all of the modes that I tried. I feel like this was another missed opportunity to add some additional flavor to this side of things and I was honestly a little disappointed by the lack of content here.

Presentation:

The presentation is where Tetris Effect attempts to set itself apart form all of the other Tetris games that came before it. It takes the 2D Tetris board, and surrounds it with striking scenery and visuals.  You may be on a beach, flying through the air, sitting at the bottom of the sea, or being bombarded with fireworks.  As your eyes are being overloaded by the bright colors and gorgeousness being thrown at you, a spectacular soundtrack attacks your auditory system to pull you completely into these environments.  Not only that, but the colors, sounds, music, and scenery all change and ebb and flow to match your gameplay and the current mood.  When you play this in VR, it really is a magnificent experience unlike anything I've seen before.  It is incredibly immersive, beautiful, and thrilling at the same time. I have to fully commend the developers on what they've done here to make these environments so spectacular. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the visual experience is one of the finest I've ever seen in any game and it's a true marvel through and through. The soundtrack and sound design is no less wonderful and ranges from ambient and minimalist soundscapes to pumping tribal themes.  Each song builds and synergizes with the visual extravaganza to transport you to another world. The big question is, "is this a world you want to visit while doing something as banal as playing a game of Tetris?"

Conclusion:

I'm almost at a loss for how to describe this game.  It's just such a weird and bizarre concept.  The best way I can describe the whole experience is to say that... it's like being at an EDM festival... while playing Tetris.  Picture yourself surrounded by thumping music, flashing lights, bright colors, and a palpable energy that surrounds everything and threatens to send you into sensory overload; all the while you're looking down at your Game Boy and playing Tetris.  Personally, I think Tetris is a great game.  It is without a doubt the most important puzzle game ever made, and is still probably the best.  Also, the sights and sounds of this game are spectacular and can truly transport you to a new and amazing place.  But, unfortunately, these two ideas are at odds with each other in my opinion.  It's difficult to fully let yourself be absorbed in the VR experience because your eyes and attention are so focused on the 2D Tetris game going on directly in front of you.  And it's sometimes difficult to focus on the game of Tetris that you're trying to clear while pops and bursts of color and exploding all over the place and distracting you. 

This also leads me to the second issue of this game being at odds with itself.  Tetris is very addictive by design and there is a big urge to keep playing.  Even the title of this game acknowledges this concept. So, you find yourself playing a highly addictive game in this immersive world that you don't want to leave.  But you're wearing a VR headset... and anyone who has ever used one of these before will not hesitate to tell you how uncomfortable they can get after a while.  My head, neck, and eyes were so sore after playing this game for an hour that I just couldn't go any longer.  Luckily, I didn't experience any motion sickness.  But, no matter how much I wanted to keep playing, I HAD to put the game down after about an hour and give the VR a break. Even if you want to keep going... you just can't.

At times Tetris Effect can be a calm and relaxing experience and at others can be a breakneck, heart-pounding, and tense one.  If you really want to sit back and just enjoy Tetris for half an hour or so, this is probably the best way to do it. Maybe if I were more into the EDM scene, I would have been able to say that this game was the, "Emotional and spiritual" experience that some others had felt.  But, while beautiful and immersive, I can't honestly say that the game game anywhere close to that for me.  In the end, it really is just Tetris with pretty backgrounds. 

Sadly, I feel like this game is the perfect example of the opposite of synergy.  The sum is less than that of its parts.  Tetris Effect is the best puzzle game of all time set in one of the most visually appealing and engrossing VR experiences of all time.  But these two things don't work together to elevate each other and the whole experience doesn't bring enough new to the table to revitalize the genre for me.  It also doesn't help that playing this game in VR, which is the preferred way, is not comfortable for long sessions.  So, even if I loved it, I couldn't play as much as I would want to.

Final Status: Beaten (campaign cleared)

Final Score: 7/10 (Good)

DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou (Xbox 360) Review

DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou (Xbox 360) Review

Release Date: 30 May 2013

Date Played: 20 December 2021

Introduction:

DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou (SDOJ) was the swan song for it's hallowed developer, Cave, and also the final of the six games in the DoDonPachi franchise. It's a vertical bullet hell game with an anime feel and is has previously made it onto many Greatest Shmups of All Time lists. It was released to Japanese arcades in 2012 with this region free Xbox 360 port to follow a year later.  SaiDaiOuJou translates roughly to "Blissful Death" which is a fitting title for a game with such a notoriously heinous difficulty.  While still a well liked game in a beloved franchise, SDOJ was a bit of a departure and isn't as highly regarded as many of the other games in the series. Though it was highly regarded when it came out, it seems to have fallen a bit out of favor over the last few years. I originally played it back when it was released in 2013 and remember having a rather good impression of it.  Having been on a huge shmup kick over the last few years I decided to give it another shot to see if I still liked it as much as before now that I'm more knowledgeable about the genre. Having played the predecessor to this game, DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu  (DFK, aka. known as Resurrection in Europe) earlier this year, this felt like a good time to compare the two. How would they stack up against each other?

 

Story/Presentation: 

There is definitely a story and a lot of lore associated with the DoDonPachi franchise, and honestly, I don't really know any of it.  All of these games, except for one, are in Japanese.  And, unfortunately, I don't speak Japanese.  You can feel free to read all about these games on the internet if you wish.  Suffice it to say, I'll only give a very brief description of SDOJ's story here.  Essentially, it takes place in an alternate universe from the other games in the series and has totally new characters.  These characters are artificial lifeforms called, "dolls" and their purpose was to help out humanity.  One of the dolls went evil and decided to destroy humankind (I think...) and it's your job to play as one of the four good dolls to stop her.  

It's a basic enough story, and I honestly find it kind of intriguing and would like to know more and wish I spoke Japanese and was more versed in the whole DoDonPachi franchise. As for the character design, I really like it a lot more than I thought I would.  The sexy doll design is a nice departure from the generic fighter pilot stereotype we see time and time again in these games and I think it helps stand apart from the franchise which is primarily a military based shmup series. These military shooters can all start to look too similar to each other after years of playing them.  Compared to its predecessor, DFK, this game has a much more interesting and appealing art style.  

Unlike the other games in the series, you're greeted with a fast and flashy anime introduction to introduce you to the characters.  It's well done, but I could see how it would feel a little out of place if you're a seasoned DoDonPachi fan.  Personally, I liked it and appreciate the direction they decided to go with this entry. Once you begin playing, you'll notice the game is is bright and colorful and really has that signature CAVE look with chunky sprites and blindingly colorful bullets. As you play through the 5 stages that range from nigh time cityscapes, rivers, and all the way into a computer itself you'll get to take in the gorgeous visuals of the game... if you're able to take your eyes off the bullets for a second, of course. Each level feels very distinct from the others as you're going through the game, but seem pretty generic when compared to CAVE's other creations. This was also a big problem with DFK, sadly.  As I'm writing this, I'm struggling to even remember where each stage was set... and that's after putting in a couple of dozen hours with the game. Honestly, other than the characters and gameplay, I wouldn't be able to easily identify this game apart from DFK if you were to show me a screen capture from the game. This makes the game feel a little uninspired compared to some of the masterpieces that CAVE has released before. There are also a lot of recycled enemies and mid-bosses in this game that carry over from stage to stage.  This leads to the whole experience feeling a little too monotonous for its duration.  I end up recognizing most of the stages by the bullet patterns rather than their location.

As for the music, it's a lot better than DFK.  While I'm not personally a huge fan of the music from CAVE games, I find it to be well suited and pretty generally pretty decent.  Rarely, though, do I find it to be catchy or to have interesting chord progressions that keep you hooked and humming along.  This isn't the case with SDOJ, and it has one of the better soundtracks that I've heard from CAVE.  The bridge of the song in Stage 2 has a really nice hook that I always looked forward to while I was playing the game, and the boss music is epic, energetic, and catchy as can be; and it might be some of my favorite boss fight music of all time.  Overall, the composer did a really good job this time around and there are a few standout tracks good enough to listen to in the car.

Excluding the sort of bland environments, SDOJ has a really nice and fun aesthetic presentation that I feel is one of the better ones of any CAVE game I've played.  That's saying a lot, because CAVE is known for making great and memorable games.

Gameplay:

Like any game in the genre, a good shmup lives or dies by its gameplay and SDOJ is no exception.  The creator of this game wanted to get away from all of the complicated mechanics that had been so prevalent in CAVE games for the last several years and move towards a more streamlined system of only shooting and dodging. You begin the game by selecting one of three ships with different strengths and weaknesses.  There's the red ship (Shuri) that's fast and has a strong but narrow shot, green (Hikari) that's more balanced, and blue (Maria) who is slow but has the widest shot. All of these characters seem viable, but a faster speed ship seems to be the preferred direction for most fans of this game. After this, you pick the "outfit" for your selected character.  All three have a fighter outfit that makes your spread shot more powerful, a civilian outfit that makes the focus laser more powerful, and a swimsuit outfit that makes both much more powerful but GREATLY increases the game's difficulty. This is a really cool idea for customizing your playstyle that I enjoyed experimenting around with as I found my favorite combo, but can get a little creepy when you realize you're playing dress up with some dolls. Don't let that deter you though.  It's still very much PG-13.

Still present is the CAVE system of having a spread shot that is weaker but lets you maintain your speed, and a focused laser that is stronger, but slows you way down.  It's a risk/reward system that works extremely well and is genius in its simplicity.  Many, including me, consider this to be the best designed system for a shmup and never get tired of it.  You still have screen clearing (and life saving) bombs that we're all used to as well as a hyper system that is not only used to give you huge scoring opportunities, but also can clear the screen of bullets in a pinch.  Sadly, both of these are mapped to the same button.  So, if you're about to take a hit and want to bomb to save yourself, this only works if your hyper gauge is empty.  If it's full, you'll just activate your hyper instead, which is a bit of a let down and can royally ruin your scoring strategy.  The game could have benefitted from having these assigned to two different buttons and this is one way which DFK wins over SDOJ.  As you play and collect tokens, you're hyper gauge can be charged up to 10 levels to give you progressively larger scoring opportunities. You'll be spending a lot of your time focusing on building it up, so it's very frustrating to play through half of the game, while increasing and conserving your hyper gauge, only to to have to use it instead of a bomb when a stray bullet comes your way. It can often be demoralizing; especially when you have all your bombs in stock. One way to get around this issue, and a smart decision on CAVE's behalf, is the autobomb feature.  If you're about to get hit, the game will use up your current bomb supply to save you from losing a life.  It's a nice returning mechanic from DFK, but I feel like it's a little overly harsh with taking all of your bombs instead of just one.  Of course, you can turn this ability off. But, that's only for the most hardcore of players (myself not included).

As for scoring, it's pretty complicated, and I could spend 2000 words describing it.  So, I'll just go over the basics here.  As you shoot, you build up a combo, using your hyper increases this combo greatly and the higher number of charges you've stocked up on the hyper gauge increase it more and let it last longer. If you auto bomb, it breaks the combo.  If you bomb on purpose, it reduces the combo by 30%.  There are also hidden bees around the levels that you can collect to gain more points based on how many you find.  As you kill enemies, they drop tokens/stars that you can collect for points.  The larger the token, the more points you get.  Killing a large enemy will often cancel all of the bullets on the screen and convert them into tokens.  Holding down your focus attack pulls in all the tokens to your ship.  Obviously, dying messes up your combo and hurts your scoring chances.   There are more nuances to this, but if you're interested in all of that, you can learn more over about it on the internet. 

See, even that was a mouthful.  It basically boils down to collecting all of the hidden bees, not getting hit or bombing until your hyper gauge is maxed out at 10, then using it and collecting all the tokens that you can.  I'll just say that I find the scoring system in this game to be pretty intuitive and fun and wish it was in more games.  It's exciting to see your multiplier and score grow insanely huge when you use your hyper.  This scoring system to be one of the easier and more accessible ones that CAVE has done in the past and I wish they had often kept things this simple in many of their other games. They are known for letting things get a little too complex and I'm glad they didn't drop the ball here.

There are several different modes included in this port.  There's Arcade mode, which is just like it sounds... a port of the arcade game.  There's Ver 1.5, which is the arcade mode with some patched out scoring bugs and tweaked scoring system.  It's really more for experts of the game who are very familiar with its systems.  There's a Novice mode that is a easier and more balanced version of Arcade. And, lastly, there's XBOX 360 more which serves as an arrange mode of the arcade and completely changes up the gameplay and even gives you a storyline and new fourth character to play.  This final mode is one of the better parts of the package and makes the game more about resource management because you have no lives nor bombs and only a meter of energy that is depleted when you bomb or get hit.  Going into hyper mode causes the enemies to drop crystals that replenish this energy gauge.  Personally, I found the Xbox 360 mode to be the most fun way to play the game, but the storyline part has too much dialog that is annoying and constantly goes on while you play.  There are cutscenes that extend the game time as well and aren't very welcome.  Lastly, the music has been remixed and doesn't sound nearly as good and has a strange sound to it like it's almost played in sped up form.  This mode is much easier than the other modes and if you're a fan of the genre, you should try it out. It all of the unskippable story parts are very frustrating, but the novel and addictive gameplay changes, new and powerful character, and new enemy patterns more than make up for it.

Ok, now for the elephant in the room.  SDOJ is hard.  It's unforgiving, brutal, unfair, and as one internet reviewer put it, "mean."  While this game is simpler in terms of its mechanics and scoring over it's CAVE brethren, it is much more difficult and is considered one of, if not THE, hardest CAVE games ever.  If you've ever played a CAVE game before, you know that's saying a lot because they are renowned for making some of the hardest games ever made. So, to be at the top of that mountain is quite the feat.

There is only one loop in SDOJ, so it's doesn't have time to ramp up the difficulty over a bunch of stages.  It starts off extremely difficult and only goes up from there.  The bullet patterns are too dense, the bullets are too fast, the bosses are bullet sponges, and the enemy placement is ruthless.  Add to that, you're hit box is a lot larger than it was in previous games of the series and seems like it can't even fit between some of the bullets slung at you.  Piling on top of all those issues, the Xbox 360 port of this game is rather sloppy and has 5 frames of input delay.  This is right on the border of making the game unplayable. This means when you see a bullet about to hit you, it already has.  You're just seeing a delayed image of what's already happened on the screen. If you're curious how bad 5 frames is on this game, it's about twice as bad as the gold standard. With bullets as fast as they are in SDOJ, and the tight dodges you'll need to make, this small oversite on the porting job pretty much adds an insurmountable struggle to an already impossibly difficult game. It's hard to say if it's the input delay, the fast bullets, or huge hitbox; but often you'll die... and not even really know what happened. Usually in these games, the bullet comes at you and you succeed in dodging or... you don't.  You have to try again to get better.  In SDOJ, you'll be dodging and weaving through enemy bullet patterns that you have memorized and done time and time again... and you'll just die. Some random bullet that you swore you dodged will collide with you and tank your run. Or, the game will send a wave of enemies that push you to one side of the screen, and then immediately bombard you with a tight cluster of bullets that completely annihilates you. That's where the unfairness comes in. No matter how well you're playing, there's always that chance that things will just go awry.

The first 3 stages are fun and manageable, but stage 4 and 5 are so much harder, longer, and generally unfair that they feel like they were designed by a different person. It's almost like they are from two different games.  Even the bullet patterns feel like they were designed differently. It's jarring and makes the second half of the game much less fun that the beginning. In addition to all of this, the game has a rank system that makes the game harder and harder based on how well you're doing.  I personally hate rank systems in shmups, but this one isn't too bad and goes down when you bomb or die.  So, you can manage it more than in other CAVE games (I'm looking at you, Pink Sweets). Unless you're a pro at the game and are playing for score rather than a clear, the rank system shouldn't deter you too much.

I mentioned the Novice mode earlier that was designed for "beginners" to the game, but even it is unbalanced and difficult.  I was able to 1 credit clear Novice on easy difficulty on my first try.  It felt perfect, and just the right difficulty. But even after 10 days of practice, I wasn't able to clear it on Novice Normal difficulty.  Honestly, this is the hardest novice mode I've ever seen in a game and Novice Normal feels like a Normal mode in most other arcade shmups. Calling it "Novice" is basically an insult. Getting a 1CC on the Novice mode of this game is an accomplishment for most gamers. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well for training you up to tackle the Arcade mode of the game. The jumps between the difficulty levels are just too great to make constant progress. Conversely, on the Arcade mode, the difficulties aren't varying enough.  Easy is almost as difficult as normal mode.  To combat this, you're given a training mode to help with Arcade, Novice, Xbox 360 mode, and Ver. 1.5.  It will let you set your lives, bombs, rank, and any other variables you wish to help you out. However, there is one exception to this. The freaking difficulty can't be changed.  It just defaults to Normal difficulty no matter what.  So, if you're working on Arcade Easy mode, there's no way to practice in training mode at all. Want to work on Novice Hard? Tough luck. Yes, it allows you to skip to various sections of each of the 5 stages to practice, but what good will training mode do you if you're forced to play on a difficulty that's way higher (or lower) than what you're currently working on? This pretty much makes learning the game a chore and more difficult than it needed to be. To help you out, you can unlock "cheats" for the game that basically make it push over, but these don't help you learn the game.  Which, after all, is the whole purpose of playing a shmup. Without a functional training mode, any home port of a shmup becomes much less appealing. Sadly, most of the competitive focus of this game is on the Arcade mode... and this port isn't really good enough to train up your skills for it.

The Xbox 360 mode is more balanced, fun, and doable... but is still tough as nails. It still suffers from the 5 frames of input delay, but won't make you rip out your hair quite as quickly as the other modes due to the slower bullets and more forgiving patterns. 

Conclusion:

SDOJ is one of the hardest games I've ever played... and not in a fun way.  Unlike most other CAVE games, when I died in this one it didn't feel like it was my fault or that I made a mistake.  Every death felt like a sucker punch to my face when I wasn't looking.  The input delay and uneven balance of the stages (esp. stages 4 and 5) make it neigh impossible to get into a good rhythm with the game and even after practicing a section dozens of times, I was struggling to make much improvement. Also, the lack of a usable training mode made the whole experience more frustrating than it needed to be.

I really do like the simplified mechanics (even if I wish there was a dedicated bomb button) and scoring.  The tried and true CAVE spread shot/focus laser system works as great as always and never gets old.  The character design was refreshing and a real stand out as was the music of the game.  Yes, the stages were a little unmemorable in terms of backgrounds and settings and the final one runs on for too long.  But, CAVE succeeded with a lot of its design choices with SDOJ.

There is a really good game hidden in here, but it's just covered up by the draconian difficulty and seemingly unfair attitude of its creator. The whole experience feels like CAVE was out to get your and ruin your day. The sloppy port only adds to this as it asks too much of the player and doesn't give you the training tools you need to succeed.  There is some real fun to be had in the Xbox 360 mode and in Novice mode for sure and I would recommend you spend your time with these.  If you're interested in grinding out the 1CC in Arcade mode. Or, if you're crazy enough to want to jump into the scoring scene of this game, you'd be better off playing the game elsewhere. 

I am a member of several shmup communities with a lot of seasoned players.  I asked them their opinions of this game and found there to be a general disdain for it.  The ones who had 1 credit cleared the Arcade mode didn't seem to recognize it as a joyous accomplishment and spoke of it more like overcoming an arduous struggle and were relieved when it was over.  Many others came out of the woodwork (unprompted, mind you) to express their hatred of the game.  While, I personally don't hate the game; I did become very frustrated with it and found myself to not be having much a lot of the time while playing it.  At the beginning of this review I wanted to compare it to the DoDonPachi game that came before it, DFK.  In the end, I would say that SDOJ has more fun mechanics and scoring, better characters and music, and more interesting stages.  However, it's just too hard and playing DFK is a more enjoyable experience.  So, I guess they even out in the end. I know there are people who love this game.  But, to me, it's not a shmup I want to devote the countless hours it would require to truly learn it.

Final Status: Beaten (1CC Xbox 360 mode, 1CC Novice Easy)

Final Score: 7/10 (Good game, bad port... and too difficult)

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. (3DS) Review

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. (3DS) Review

Date Released: 13 March 2015

Date Played: 20 December 2021

Introduction:

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. was a commercial failure that received very mixed reviews when it arrived on store shelves back in 2015.  Developed by Intelligent Systems, the renowned developers of the Fire Emblem and Paper Mario franchises, many people were excited for this release when it was first announced and seemed more than ready for a little tactical shooting action.  Once people got their hands on it, however, the community was greatly divided. Everyone either seemed love it or hate it with not many falling in between.  With lots of 3/10 reviews and lots of 9/10 reviews, this left the overall ranking of the game somewhere in the mediocre range when all averaged together. Without a known franchise tie in or license to bolster its sales, it wasn't long until you saw piles of this game stacked up in the bargain bin for $5.  Even now, 6 years later, this game can be had for around that same price brand new. 

So, is this game a misunderstood masterpiece that was just beyond the grasp of your average casual handheld gamer?  Or, was is a S.T.E.A.M.ing pile of garbage that revealed the hubris of Intelligent Systems and Nintendo?  Let me put it this way, I bought this game brand new for $1 and not only do I not feel like I got my money's worth, I feel like Nintendo OWES me money after playing this mess of a game.

Story:

The premise of this game is so bizarre and unhinged that it's hard to know where to begin. Essentially, Abraham Lincoln faked his own death to escape from the public eye so he could form a secret combat force known as S.T.E.A.M. to, as I quote, "fight the real enemy."  Never mind slavery and its abolishment, a nation divided by war and trying to heal, nor a general powder keg of political differences threatening to cast the re-United States back into turmoil. No, according to this game, none of that was the real problem.  The REAL problem was... ALIENS.  That whole presidency thing was just a temporary cover to create this, "Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace (aka. S.T.E.A.M).  This whole premise is so tasteless and out of touch that I'm almost at a loss for words.  I can't believe that Nintendo took a real historical figure who was literally killed for their beliefs and trying to make humanity a better place by liberating millions of enslaved people and turned them into a caricature for an easy "cool" factor. I can picture the developers in my mind sitting around a conference table and someone says, "We need an American that everyone likes to be the focus of our game."  Someone replied, "What about Abraham Lincoln?"  Then, no thought was given to Lincoln's actual personality or attributes, they slapped a beard and a mole on a generic steampunk character and called it a day. What's next, saying Martin Luther King Jr. faked the whole Civil Rights Movement and his own assassination as giant distraction so he could secretly create a team of fighters to eliminate the bug monsters living below Atlanta, Georgia?  Offensive.

Anyway, Queen Victoria (yes, that Queen Victoria) has had Buckingham Palace invaded by the aliens and Henry Fleming (from Joseph Conrad's the Red Badge of Courage), John Henry, the cast from the Wizard of Oz, and some other randomly selected literary characters that have nothing to do with each other join S.T.E.A.M. to go fight against the alien menace.  It's an incredibly random premise and it really does feel like the developers were just drawing ideas out of a hat. 

I'm sure there are some people out there who really dig this crazy idea for a game, but I find the game's lack of propriety off putting and its general world building (outside of its characters) rather banal and pedestrian.  You can't take a storyline as overused as an alien invasion, inject a bunch of random characters that everyone knows, give them all stereotypical personalities that have nothing to do with the way the actual characters behaved themselves, and call it "original".

Gameplay:

The gameplay is a tactical combat game like the developer's previous Fire Emblem games combined with a 3rd person view like Valkyria Chronicles (which really just makes it a ripoff of Valkyria Chronicles since that was a tactical combat game itself). Your team is put onto a map with an objective (like reach point A, or escort person B, etc.) with a group of enemies between them and their goal.  You able to move around on a grid system and fire your weapons. This is done in 3rd person view with a targeting reticule.  Each action uses "steam" which acts as action points.  Just like all of the games in this style, you try to move into position and outflank your enemy while using your action points wisely to eliminate them.  The different characters have different weapons and abilities that sets them apart and just like always, picking the correct team for the job is essential.  If you conserve enough steam on your turn, it will put that character into overwatch and any enemy that crosses them will get blasted.  Using this technique is an important mechanic and the game feels impossible without utilizing this. It doesn't feel much different than the aforementioned Valkyria Chronicles and comes across more of a bad clone of that game rather than a progression of Intelligent System's other games.

After all of your characters take their turn, the enemy gets to go.  And this is where the game takes a giant nosedive right off the cliff in terms of gameplay.  The game makes you sit through every single enemy action as they slowly happen. You can't fast forward, you can't skip. You can't even see what the enemy is doing unless one of your team members has line of sight on them (which isn't very often).  Much of the time, you'll just be staring at a wall while the computer moves the enemy around somewhere in the distance.  This can take almost two minutes sometimes.  It's absurd, and I've never seen a worse game design choice in my life.  Pretty much half of your playtime is just sitting there waiting on the enemy turn while not knowing what they're doing or where they are.  It's totally pointless for the developers to have included this and it shows a blatant disregard for the gamer's time. These parts are so long and so boring that I almost fell asleep during several battles. Truthfully, it feels like they didn't even playtest this game before releasing it because no on in their right mind would have thought the omission of a fast forward option during these sections was reasonable.

On top of that, there is no in-game map.  You can't see where you're going, you can't see where you are, you don't know where the enemies are located or how many there are remaining, and you can't get a grasp of the overall area that you're supposed to tactically overcome.  It pretty much makes the game unplayable.  Remember how I said that using your overwatch was essential to succeeding in the game?  Well, the enemies have this ability too.  Since there's no map, and no way to know where the enemies are, you'll often walk around a corner and there will just be an enemy there sitting in overwatch who will blast you in the face.  Then, you try to back up and get out of line of sight, and they see you move and blast you again.  Basically, you're constantly walking into traps with no way to know they're there and once you get into those situations, there's rarely away to get out without taking massive damage.  It's extremely frustrating and rage inducing to say the least.

I found a good method for avoiding this was to just go super slowly and rely almost exclusively on your overwatch to carry you through.  Unfortunately, the game pretty much spits out enemy reinforcements from behind you constantly.  So, you're almost always being pincered from two directions which forces you to have to constantly move your squad forward. This of course is not always tactically advantageous and often forces you into the enemies lying in waiting and feels unfair and cheap.  Also, in some levels you'll just start off being surrounded by several enemies from above that can jump down on you, fire at you, and drop grenades on several of your soldiers at once and you have no way of reaching them or targeting them.  You have to push through the hail of bullets and attacks over several turns while taking tons of damage just to get into a position to fire on the enemy.  I understand that this happens in these sorts of games on certain maps and various scenarios.  But, it seems like a common occurrence in this game and makes the battles themselves feel like they weren't well thought out. Rather than clearing out enemies along the way as you push towards your goal, this game feels like enemies constantly pour out from all directions around you while you try to survive long enough to make it to the objective. You'll constantly feel outnumbered, outgunned, and intentionally put into a losing position.  

This game is hard, unforgiving, and it feels unfair a lot of the time.  Even when you line up a shot on the enemy's weak point, often times their standing animation will make them bob out of the way and have your bullet miss.  Imagine you have a section in a game where you have to take out an enemy with a sniper rifle, but the entire time the enemy just keeps swaying back and forth.  You fire your shot right when his head is in the crosshairs, and once the bullet is in the air, he sways out of the way causing you to miss.  Every enemy in the game feels like they do this all of the time. This is just another in a long line of poor design choices.

Personally, even when I felt like had a good handle on the battles and was making good progress, I just wasn't having any fun.  The little bit of enjoyment I was starting to experience was completely quelled by spending half of my time just waiting on the enemy's turn or trying to hunker down and clear out some enemies blocking my way while reinforcement after reinforcement kept appearing from behind me. I finally called it quits when I spent an hour trying to fight my way through a section over and over during several attempts.  I finally got to a spot with some cover, and the game decided to spawn 3 new enemies behind me.  I'd use all of my steam to take them out.  Then, they'd spawn 3 more on the next turn, rinse and repeat.  It was demoralizing. 

The game does give you save points, healing items, and powerful special attacks (that can only be used once per battle) to help you out during a mission.  But, they honestly feel like they were put in there to help make the game more forgiving in terms of difficulty rather than balancing out the scenarios themselves.  Why carefully plan out enemy placement that forces the use of good tactics; when, instead, you can just throw a bunch of overpowered enemies randomly around the map and give the player a bunch of healing items and save points and let them clumsily work their way through it?

Presentation:

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. is an ugly game with a bad art style.  It presents itself in a comic book setting with mostly still frame animation surrounded by panels.  Often, the poorly voice acted characters will give exposition about what they are doing and you'll see an image of them with a sound bubble that says, "wham" or "bang" a la the 1960s Batman TV show.  Ugh.  The cell-shaded graphics, which are normally pretty forgiving, don't work well here and give the blocky and clunky character models and even more unappealing look.  The alien enemies are uninspired and very generic looking and are all too similar to each other.  If they didn't tell you the name of the enemy when you targeted it, I don't think I would have been able to tell the enemies apart whatsoever.  Everything is just a purple scorpion-like insectoid. The lack of enthusiasm for creating interesting enemies to fight on part of the developers is appalling in this game.  

The music is good enough and ranges from some rock tracks to some basic EDM stylings.  It does serve to keep the action up as much as it can, but it's not memorable in any way and fades into the background of the presentation... and your mind far too easily.

As for the voice acting.  It's so very bad and hammed up.  The characters all deliver their lines like they are playing old fashioned comic book characters... because that's what they're are. But, I can only hear John Henry say, "Now, that's a whole lot of ugly." every time he sees an alien before I begin to lose my mind. I know that this is exactly what the developers were going for, but it's not what I want. I'm tired of it. Similar to how the dialog from anime can become a cringeworthy trope, the over confident action hero dialog doesn't fare any better.

Conclusion:

Code Name S.T.E.A.M. is a painfully bad game that loves to waste your time.  It took a fun and engaging gameplay genre and made it boring and tedious.  You spend half your time not doing anything and the other half of your time trying out half-baked strategies because you can't truly plan anything due to the game's lack of a map.  The premise of the game is very cliché and overused with the alien invasion idea.  They tried to spice things up by using what they considered to be whimsical and zany characters, but this only comes off as not only lazy, but actually severely lacking in decorum in the case of Lincoln.  The cell-shaded comic book steampunk aesthetic is so incredibly overused and phoned in that it feels like the art direction of this game was created by a focus group of 9 year old boys trying to act cool.  There is nothing likable or redeemable about this game and the only positive I have to say is that the game is technically functional.  It's didn't crash, and I didn't encounter any bugs (excluding the alien character models) while I was playing.  

I paid $1 for this game, and it was a gigantic ripoff.  

Final Status: Played (couldn't force myself to continue)

Final Score: 3/10 (Painfully bad.)

 Pre-Christmas Pickups

These are all of the games I picked up for the collection between the 12th of November 2021 until the 18th of December 2021.

Rogue Legacy (PS4) Review

 

Rogue Legacy (PS4) Review

Release Date: 14 June 2013

Date Played: 16 December 2021

Introduction:

Rogue Legacy was one of the first big releases in the rogue-lite boom of the early 2010s.  Along with Spelunky, Faster than Light, and The Binding of Isaac, Rogue Legacy was on the tip of everyone's tongue when it came to what was going on in the gaming world.  The developer, Celler Door Games, took classic sidescrolling action platformer and mixing it with randomized elements that served to create addictive gameplay that is still as compelling and fun as it ever was.  Personally, I originally played and finished this game on PC back when it came out in 2013.  I was excited to crack open my PS4 copy and give it another go around almost a decade later. Since then, I've played my fair share of rogue-lites and would consider myself to be somewhat of a connoisseur of the genre and was hoping the game would remain fondly remembered in my mind. Would this game still be able to hold up after all these years and after so many great games came after it?  Unsurprisingly, the answer is still yes.

Story and Gameplay: 

The game begins with a valiant knight venturing into the castle to find and save the king who has been reputed to have fallen deathly ill after an injury. The word around the land is that the king has disappeared and no one has seen or heard from him in far too long. Not long after, as a double whammy,  you learn that this savior knight has not returned from the castle either and you must traverse the castle yourself to discover what terrible fate has befallen him. You play as the descendants of the missing knight and in typical rogue-lite fashion, when you die your run is all over.  You then begin the next run as one of the decedents of your previous character; and so on and so forth until you finish the game. It won't be long until you've seen countless generations pass in your attempts to conquer the castle.  Along the way, you'll discover journal entries from the very first knight to enter that sheds a little bit more light onto the story.  It's very basic, but intriguing, and does serve to help keep the player engaged over the dozens of attempts it will take them to conquer the castle. The game's resolution is pretty strong and makes the somewhat arduous and lengthy journey worth it. I won't spoil anything for you, but rest assured that the storyline of Rogue Legacy has some nice flavor and plot to it that is a real plus in an indie community more focused on novel gameplay ideas rather than narrative.

When you begin a new run, you select from one of three randomized characters who, as I previously mentioned, are the offspring of the character which you previously played.  These characters have various classes like barbarian, knight, wizard, hokage, and more.  They do have their strengths and weaknesses but mostly play the same way at first.  As you progress and unlock more classes, things start to feel more and more different between them and can certainly make different runs feel more unique. However, this "uniqueness" is definitely on a smaller scale and most of the time you'll just be jumping and slashing with your sword the same way in almost every run.  In addition to this, every character has randomized physical and psychological traits that add a spin to the game.  One character might have gigantism that makes them twice as large, or ADHD that makes them hyper fast; while another will have visual impairments like color blindness, nearsightedness, etc.  Alzheimer's makes your map disappear, OCD rewards you for destroying all items in a room, and many more give a lot of flavor and humor to the game. While a lot of these are only more for novelty than actual gameplay changes, they are still a nice touch and add to the already fantastic sense of comedic thoughtfulness that was clearly in the forefront of the developer's mind.

After this, you'll enter the castle properly and begin to explore it, gather wealth and collect items, slay enemies, and platform your way through its plethora of rooms as you uncover more and more of the map. Of course, everything is randomized in true rogue-lite fashion and every journey into the castle will have the rooms shift and change into a new configuration that is sure to keep you on your toes. You have a basic sword attack, a jump, and a sub-weapon/magic attack.  It is very reminiscent of Castlevania and even the sub-weapons are taken from that beloved franchise.  There's the dagger the shoots straight ahead, the axe that is lobbed out in an arc, a chakram that works like a boomerang, a circle of fire, and several more I won't spoil here.  Suffice it to say, if you're used to those sorts of games you'll feel right at home here. Keeping with this theme, there's the frustrating and difficult enemies, perilous platforming, knockback when hit, and spikes all over the place.  Luckily, the platforming is much, much better in this game and you have superb control over your character not only while on the ground but also when jumping and falling. Unlike the inspiration for this game, you're not committed once you press the jump button.  Maneuvering while in the air is integral to your success in this game and mastery of the tight and responsive controls is a must.  In addition to this, you're given a downward pogo stick attack like in the NES Ducktales game.  This is an essential technique and you'll need to employ it as you make your way through the castle's 4 main areas.

You'll travel through the stony castle, the surrounding forest, the haunted towers, and the caverns below.  As you go through these, you'll collect tons of gold, blueprints for new gear, and runes to help you out.  Eventually you'll come to a boss in each area that you'll need to destroy before unlocking the door to the final boss. This is nothing new and is a gameplay style as old as the genre itself. Of course, even getting to these bosses is easier said than done and even the most basic rooms can spell disaster if you're not ready.

Unlike most other rogue-lites, you don't really find any new items during a run to change up the gameplay.  Whatever you set out with when you enter the castle is going to be what you're going to be stuck with for the duration of that character's life.  While this keeps things simple, it does make a lot of runs feel the same and deprives the game from having those zany and fun item combinations that you find in so many other rogue-lites with randomized equipment. I was really longing for item synergies and crazy off-the-wall situations that can result from having this sort of randomized game progression during a run.  While it isn't game ruining, this is certainly my biggest complaint about Rogue Legacy and I wish there was more variability during an individual run; and even between the different runs themselves.  

Where the game DOES vary from its peers is after you die in an attempt.  And, trust me, you will die... plenty.  Your next character inherits all the gold and items of your previous one.  You can use the gold to purchase upgrades, new abilities, new classes, weapons, armor, and runes to help you on your journey.  These are permanent upgrades that apply to every character you use from now on.  So, even though the game is tough as nails, no run is ever wasted and you will slowly become stronger and stronger over time.  I really like this system in that it allows you to tailor your characters' progression to the style that you prefer.  Want to focus on defense, go for it.  Melee, magic, critical chance, money farming, etc. ; go for what playstyle you like.  Over time you can max out everything if you want to put in the hours. Any gold you don't spend though, is forfeited when you enter back into the castle, so you'll need to use every last coin that you can before you dive into the next attempt.

Even if you're terrible at these games, you'll eventually become strong enough to succeed.  In addition to this, you'll soon realize that after you slay one of the area's bosses, it stays permanently dead.  That means you only have to kill each boss a single time during all of your attempts.  You'll also be able to unlock the Architect, an NPC that allows you to lock down the castle and prevent it from randomizing in between runs (for only a 60% cut of your future gold!).  This cuts way down on having to redo the same areas over and over again and can really help with the monotony that can tend to set in with this game after a while. This prevents the terrible situation of having to clear 75% of the game over and over again just to make a new attempt at the 3rd boss.  If you die on a boss fight, just have your child lock down the castle and you can teleport right to the boss room and give it another attempt. This certainly makes the game more manageable and forgiving. Without this, the game would wear thin far too quickly.

Presentation:

The best way I can describe the art style of Rogue Legacy is that it looks like a more cartoony version of Castlevania.  Everything is mostly bright, colorful, and while basic, is pretty nice to look at. There is a whimsical and campy charm to it that makes it memorable. It's not going to shatter your mind in the graphics department, but it has that early indie-game look to it that is pretty tasteful and nostalgic. There's a definite "from the early 2010s look" that, thankfully, never really ventures into the "Free Online Flash Game" territory that was so sadly extremely prevalent from the time period.

As for the music, that's another story.  The soundtrack to this game absolutely brings the talent.  There are no shortage of awesome hooks, creepy Halloween-pop bangers, and slick ambient and atmospheric songs to keep you humming along.  They are presented in a sort of psuedo-chiptune style that is very endearing and likable.  These songs are so good, in fact, that the developers put random little jukeboxes around the castle to allow you to change the music to your favorite track whenever you find one.  They knew they had something special on their hands in this regard, and they weren't wrong.  In addition to this, the sound effects are also amazing and fit with the game perfectly.  The weapon, enemy, combat, and item breaking sounds are charming and a pleasure to hear over and over. I would try to smash every item I came across when I played, and even if I didn't find any gold, I still felt rewarded with the sound design. Honestly, even sound of your character taking a hit or dying  sounds punchy and meaty. It will be branded into your mind not only from how often your hear it, but also from just how well it's done.  Honestly, I can't say enough about the sound design in this game and I have to give it up to Judson Cowan and Gordon McGladdery on their phenomenal work on this soundtrack.

Conclusion:

Rogue Legacy is still as fun today as it was when it came out 9 years ago.  Yes, there have been more innovations in the genre since then, but the fun and addictive gameplay is still there.  Upgrading your characters never gets old and it's a joy to see each generation becoming more and more powerful.  Clearing a boss in each area of the castle is still a challenge that makes you want to give it another shot when you fail and is all the more rewarding once you finally put them down for good. Many times, I would sit down to play for an hour or so and would find that 3 hours had passed in the blink of an eye. Like any good rogue-lite, you have that desire to do just one more run. Yes, the game can start to feel a little heavy on the grinding as you do run after run just trying to farm gold to upgrade your character for the next attempt, but it never gets too bad or kills your desire to play more.  I do wish each run itself had more variability after you entered the castle through item pickups or something similar.  Once you begin a run, there's no real sense of progression other than the gold you collect.  Still, it's always fun to explore the castle and its surrounding areas as your hack and slash your way through countless enemies, platform over perilous spikes, and avoid fireballs from all directions. I also really like the cavalier and blatant disregard for life that the game drives home as generation after generation of adventures die again and again in pursuit of conquering this castle. It's comical in a macabre sort of way that really hits on my twisted sense of humor.

This game is considered one of the classics in the genre for a reason and I would recommend it to any fan of 2D platformers. You can finish it in about 15-20 hours on your first playthrough, but you could put in more than 100 hours if you wanted to go for New Game + and beyond.  

Final Status: Beaten (Twice)

Final Score: 8/10

 

Blazing Chrome (PS4) Review

Blazing Chrome (PS4) Review

Release Date: 11 July 2019

Date Played: 8 December 2021

Introduction:

Blazing Chrome is a 16-bit inspired 2D run and gun platformer developed by JoyMasher.  It wears its influences on its sleeve and draws heavily both from the Contra and the Metal Slug franchises. The game takes place in a post-apocalypic world where humanoid machines have taken over and a small resistance group of the remaining humans have set out to defeat them. If this plot sounds familiar to you, you're not alone. It's basically just the plot from Terminator 2: Judgement Day. No one is going to doubt that this is a cool premise for a game, novel, book, movie, what-have-you.  After all, Terminator 2 is a beloved movie and was a HUGE hit when it came out.  Unfortunately, this setting been played to death. We've seen it again and again and you can only beat a dead horse for so long. Yes, it certainly evokes a sense of nostalgia from the early 90s, but I couldn't help but feel that the developers could have picked a less cliché setting for their game to make it stand out and be something novel and unique. Give us something that serves as an ode to those games that came before it rather than serving as one of many clones that did nothing more than try to sit at the cool kid's table of game development. Take what your influences did before you, stand on their shoulders, and combine your knowledge with theirs to elevate the things you love to a new height. Give your audience a glimpse into your passion and they'll love you for it. 

Sadly, the developer of Blazing Chrome didn't do this and instead pumped out what I consider to be a pedestrian and phoned in attempt at genre that is crying out for a retro-inspired masterpiece.  If you played a Sega Genesis (Sega Megadrive) at any point in your life, you've played a game like this.  

Presentation:  

In terms of looks, Blazing Chrome knocks it out of the park for achieving that gritty 16bit look that was so prevalent in the early 90s. It has some great sprite work, nice backgrounds with cool parallax scrolling, cool boss and enemy designs, and a very nice color pallet.  The game looks the part and could actually fool someone into thinking it was being played on a 16bit console. The art direction is nice and has a good focus.  There levels mostly feel distinct from each other and have some memorable sections. There are also some really impressive pseudo 3D effects they do towards the end of the game.  One of these is a simple on-rails shooter section that has you traveling into the background in a 3rd person view similar to Space Harrier or Panorama Cotton.  It's well done, but doesn't quite live up to the high standards of those two games.  But, nevertheless, is a joy to observe.  In a similar fashion, there is a section of the final stage where you're teleported into a VR world and have to dispatch enemies while avoiding obstacles that scroll towards the screen.  It's a really inspired idea and was the standout moment in the game for me. If only the game creators were able to put this sort of exciting and unique inspiration into the whole game, we might have seen something truly remarkable. 

You're also given some screen filter options to make the game feel like you're playing on a pixelated CRT screen.  Personally, as someone who games daily on an actual CRT screen, I never use these.  But, if you're after that nostalgia high, maybe these will help you get a little closer.

As for the sound, it doesn't fair so well.  I'm not sure if it's a bug or a poor mixing issue, but Blazing Chrome is super quiet.  For a game that's all about attitude and having all guns blazing, the sound is very puny and weak.  I did an internet search and heard that there is a issue with the game where only the sound comes out of the middle channel.  I'm not sure if it'll ever be patched, but the music is quiet, thin, and doesn't have any bass or presence to it at all.  It sounds like it's coming out of an old-timey radio with a 2 inch wide speaker. I'm not sure anyone has ever wanted to listen to some pumping and rocking music coming out of a Victrola, but that's what we were given.  I basically had to crank the volume on my sound system to even have it audible.  Even after that, the music was still pretty muffled, undynamic, and just generally lackluster.  It certainly has the feel that the developers are striving for with a rock/metal feel with drums, distorted guitars, and the sort of composition you would expect.  However, the chord changes are banal and repetitive and there's no real good sense of melody or hooks to keep you engaged.  The best way I can describe it is that it is filler music that you would tolerate in between the cool sections on a soundtrack. The problem is that the game never gets to those good sections.

Gameplay:

I know, I know... I've rambled on enough about the aesthetics of the game when all anyone cares about in a 2D run and gun is the gameplay.  So, how does Blazing Chrome hold up?  Just fine.  It plays exactly like you would expect it to and has the same control scheme as games like Contra Hard Corps and the Metal Slug games.  You run and shoot in 8 directions.  Holding R1 will lock your shot angle so you can maneuver around and keep firing in the locked position. You can jump, slide, and cycle through the 4 weapons available to you (provided you've already collected them). Also, if you're within range, you can melee an enemy.  This reminds me a lot of Metal Slug, of course, but the attack is much stronger here and can even serve as your primary source of damage.  I found myself melee attacking most of the bosses. In addition to this, you can also collect helper drones to assist you.  These will provide a shield, extra firepower, or a speed increase.  This provides you with a decent arsenal to help you on your way.  You will also be able to enter into a vehicle/robot suit at several points in the game just like in Metal Slug (...once again).  They provide some extra firepower until they take too much damage and you have to bail out.  Just like always, this a lot of fun and serves to add some pizazz to the game.  Unfortunately, these only appear in 3 levels and your time with them is all to brief.  Lastly, there are a couple of speeder sections where you're on a hoverbike and have to avoid obstacles while shooting the enemy.  These sections, while different than the rest of the game, are kind of annoying and are more dreadworthy than something you look forward to.  Surprisingly, for a game called Blazing Chrome that tries too hard to inundate you with it's radical renegade attitude, it never really makes you feel like you're that powerful or awesome.  The guns and explosions are... milquetoast. It's like lighting the fuse on a giant bomb only to have it give off a tiny pop with a smattering of confetti. 

One hit deaths are present here, but dying only causes you to lose your equipped weapon and one of your lives.  Once you're lives are depleted you're allowed to continue from the most recent checkpoint.  These checkpoints are fairly forgiving and there are several in each level.  You'll also earn an extra life every 20k points which helps immensely and you can accumulate quite a healthy stock of lives before too long. Still, Blazing Chrome can be pretty difficult in places and will cause some frustration in players that aren't used to this sort of game. Luckily, the aforementioned checkpoint system really makes beating the game much more manageable than the games that inspired it.  There are unlimited continues on Easy and Normal mode, but Difficult limits you and is only for the most hardcore of players.

From the onset, you're given the option to select from 1 of 2 characters.  Mavra, a female resistance leader, and Doyle, a converted robot.  I can't tell if there's any gameplay difference between them, but they both have cool designs and are a bit endearing and likable. After you beat the game for the first time, you'll unlock 2 more characters that are a female and male ninja respectively. They only have melee attacks that can be charged but can't pick up any other weapons. They really add some additional difficulty to the game with their limited range and charge times and can take some getting used to. Still, they are fun and add a little more playability to the game. 

Finally, there are some additional modes like mirror mode (where the game is reversed) that feels a little lazy for a content addition and a boss rush mode.  If you truly love this game, there's enough here to keep you busy for a while.

Conclusion:

All this being said, while Blazing Chrome really works hard to feel like the games that inspired it.  It just doesn't live up to those standards.  A lot of the enemy placement feels poorly designed and unfair.  Enemies will appear at strange angles and elevations that make it almost impossible to kill them before they fire off a flurry of bullets at you.  You won't have time or room to react sometimes and basically have to know the enemies are coming before you get there.  It feels more like a memorization game that I would like, but that still isn't uncommon in these sorts of games... but it does almost feel as if the enemy placement wasn't very thought out before hand and each level is just a series of tedious and sign inducing sections strung together. 

All of the negatives and positives I have to say thus far aren't very grievous or alluring. The don't make or break the game. The real issue with the whole experience is that the game just feels a little... hollow to me. As I'm playing it, I'm just going through the motions of playing a 2D run and gun without really having a good time. I beat it with every character on Normal difficulty, and the sheer idea of having to learn the game well enough to beat it on Hard difficulty put a pit in my stomach. Having that sort of physical dread come over you when thinking about playing a game lets you know that it's time to move on to something else.

While Blazing Chrome is inspired by great games, it doesn't feel inspired itself.  I found it to be more tedious than fun a lot of the time and I had to force myself to play it.  There was nothing there that gave me that urge to keep getting better or instilled an desire in me to experience more.  I would finish a single stage and be ready to put the game down. You know how a video game company will rip-off a really good and popular game trying to jump on the bandwagon of the newest trend but it always feels rushed, lazy, and not quite as good?  Blazing Chrome feels like it's doing that... but to a popular game that came out 30 years ago. I know the developers weren't setting out to make a game that feels like a cash grab. Obviously, they care about this style of game and want to make something amazing. They just didn't quite get there this time. Still, they have some potential and I would like to see them improve in the future and give us something amazing. There's a fun game here, but with the renaissance of 2D indie titles that have been pumped out over the last decade (many of which not only rivaled, but surpassed the games that inspired them) Blazing Chrome can't really hang in there and go toe to toe with those games and falls short of the developer's goal.

Final Status: Beaten

Final Score: 6/10 (a little good)