Stylish and hyper-short, Shikhondo is a perfectly sized experience that somehow still suffers from repetitive stage design. Enemies barely vary between stages at all, making it hard to really see what sets them apart from one another. The soul mechanics, allowing you to capture enemy essence and use it to fuel a powered up state, is the star here, but the system lacks the complexity of similar genre attempts like Akai Katana. Boss designs are fun and are maybe the highest point of the game, but they aren't enough to make one excited to shoot five-thousand little red fells once again in a few minutes.
1990
Say what you will, he is a pretty amazing penguin. It's a puzzle game of moderate difficulty, where you follow paths to break dots or kick them at enemies. It's Pac-Man with a little bit more offense, with the closest comparisons to the overall mechanics I can think of being Mendel Palace for the NES and Qix. I had a pretty good time with it outside of a few massive difficulty spikes.
1993
We have Street Fighter II at home.
Jokes aside it's not bad, a little easy but controls feel good. You think you've seen everything this game has and then you fight the knife clown so there's that incredibly redeeming factor.
Jokes aside it's not bad, a little easy but controls feel good. You think you've seen everything this game has and then you fight the knife clown so there's that incredibly redeeming factor.
2001
Honestly this combination of shmup and brick-breaker is inspired and a LOT of fun. If anything it's just a touch too short! The power-ups are mostly powerful, with a few feeling like they don't change a thing, and the ability to bounce back enemy bullets with your combination pinball-flipper/paddle makes the game more engaging than others in its genre. Hope you have fun with this one!
1989
Slowest brick breaker I've ever played. Blast Mario's head full of holes. Cute sprite art bonus levels. Otherwise not much else to write home about. It kills time.
Easiest and least interesting retro sonic title, not bad just bland. Some neat mechanics using moving springs and breakable blocks but beyond that it's a good length full of very little excitement. Be warned that the Sonic Origins version can suffer from audio issues, causing the music tracks to echo pretty badly.
A hidden object game where you find cats throughout an apartment building. It's simple, and introduces a somewhat annoying difficulty level by hiding cats within and behind objects entirely, only revealing them when that item has been clicked.
The star feature here is a special cat that will move when clicked in each apartment, having to be found three times before counted as found. This leads to a heartwarming narrative choice that makes the process a lot more rewarding by game's end.
Also keep an eye out for three special hidden cats within the game, especially if you're seeking a completion.
The star feature here is a special cat that will move when clicked in each apartment, having to be found three times before counted as found. This leads to a heartwarming narrative choice that makes the process a lot more rewarding by game's end.
Also keep an eye out for three special hidden cats within the game, especially if you're seeking a completion.
Really simple but REALLY strong, Knights of San Francisco is stylistically clever, features a surprisingly elaborate combat system, and examines the consequences and blessings of legacy. It's VERY short but better for it, telling exactly the story it wants to and allowing it to sit in your mind. I'm a big fan and have to recommend it!
1994
Wild Guns is absolutely incredible and I cannot believe I missed it until now. It's the perfect challenge level, it has such variety of mechanics (I didn't even discover I could throw TNT back until I had to in order to survive a boss fight) and the soundtrack is out of this world. It's up there with Windjammers for me as a title that, if I saw it in an arcade, I would hunker down at the machine all day and play on loop. Definitely give this one a try if you love rail-shooters and are craving some variety within the genre.
2022
Complicated and winding, Norco is a game that defies and embodies the genres it's assembled from. Part existential RPG, part 90s style point & click, Norco is a painful and intelligent game to its core. You don't play Norco to be happy, or to enrich yourself per say, but because it reflects humanity at a very universal level.
Your enemies may occasionally be security guards or impressionable cultists, but the ones driving them, you, and everyone else in Norco are more present and dangerous. Religious paranoia fuels radical violence, poverty informs where you go and what solutions you can partake in, and the constant threat of a world ravaged by humanity, where flood waters rise constantly at your front door, forces into you a dread that you can't just turn-based battle away.
To reduce it down, Norco is WEIRD. And I mean the good kind of weird. The kind you'll be thinking about for weeks after, and that makes you want to find a way to express the feelings in you that you can't ever seem to say right. For all its technical jank and dubious narrative conclusions, Norco is a game that will make you want and make you fear how badly you do so, and I mean that as the highest praise.
Your enemies may occasionally be security guards or impressionable cultists, but the ones driving them, you, and everyone else in Norco are more present and dangerous. Religious paranoia fuels radical violence, poverty informs where you go and what solutions you can partake in, and the constant threat of a world ravaged by humanity, where flood waters rise constantly at your front door, forces into you a dread that you can't just turn-based battle away.
To reduce it down, Norco is WEIRD. And I mean the good kind of weird. The kind you'll be thinking about for weeks after, and that makes you want to find a way to express the feelings in you that you can't ever seem to say right. For all its technical jank and dubious narrative conclusions, Norco is a game that will make you want and make you fear how badly you do so, and I mean that as the highest praise.
2021
I'm a firm believer that Pokemon is at its strongest when a variety act. Competitive play, collecting, and bonding with pokemon are all part of the complete set, and New Pokemon Snap brings collecting and bonding to life with a much larger than expected pokedex and a story about the beauty of Pokemon and the world around them that may be lost when battling rivals and traversing dark caverns clutching an escape rope.
The game's main focus is charm, and it has it in spades, shining new light on pokemon you might not have found charming before encountering them in the lentil region, and amplifying the cute factor of fan favorites to the max with action sequences, feeding mechanics, and sweet greetings and dances between different pokemon that haven't previously interacted much.
The game's real shine comes from two places, however. The first facet that makes the game great is the social component. Even ignoring the online photo sharing capabilities, New Snap is the perfect game to show your friends some of your favorite things about Pokemon, and the customizable photodex entries means that everyone you watch play, or interact with about the game, will have their own visual spin on the adventure.
The second and strongest facet in my mind is the game's diverse use of extremely simple mechanics. Using illumina sequences, alternate routes, and simple environmental puzzles, New Snap shifts from photo sim to rail shooter to observational puzzle game without missing steps in between, helping break up what would have easily been a monotonous game otherwise.
It won't be for everyone, but for Pokemon lovers or photography nuts, this game is a MUST.
The game's main focus is charm, and it has it in spades, shining new light on pokemon you might not have found charming before encountering them in the lentil region, and amplifying the cute factor of fan favorites to the max with action sequences, feeding mechanics, and sweet greetings and dances between different pokemon that haven't previously interacted much.
The game's real shine comes from two places, however. The first facet that makes the game great is the social component. Even ignoring the online photo sharing capabilities, New Snap is the perfect game to show your friends some of your favorite things about Pokemon, and the customizable photodex entries means that everyone you watch play, or interact with about the game, will have their own visual spin on the adventure.
The second and strongest facet in my mind is the game's diverse use of extremely simple mechanics. Using illumina sequences, alternate routes, and simple environmental puzzles, New Snap shifts from photo sim to rail shooter to observational puzzle game without missing steps in between, helping break up what would have easily been a monotonous game otherwise.
It won't be for everyone, but for Pokemon lovers or photography nuts, this game is a MUST.
TBD
A unique oddity for the Atari Lynx, Malboro Go was a game obtainable using points earned from...smoking Malboro cigarettes. It's a really simple motorcross game similar to Excitebike, and it's perfectly fun, but is more notable for its strange existence than its innovation. You could even earn a special red Atari Lynx if you REALLY hit the packs...so obviously I hope everybody who got one is okay right now...
1995
It's aged pretty badly, but if you REALLY need a Mortal Kombat fix it'll do. The characters that aren't typical 90s stereotypes are like, gory bio-mechanical abominations that are actually really fun to look at (Skullcrusher and Buzzsaw specifically). The arcade mode is upsettingly easy, and if you don't believe me try hold down and mashing A and watch in awe as the CPU struggles to even walk until around fight eight. Said mode finishes with a boss fight that either bodies you immediately or does an amazing pinata impression seemingly at random.
In 2023 I think Ultra Vortek is probably best engaged with as a "my friend and I have had a few drinks and this is available and funny enough" game, so all in all not a waste, just not a game to play with much clarity of mind.
In 2023 I think Ultra Vortek is probably best engaged with as a "my friend and I have had a few drinks and this is available and funny enough" game, so all in all not a waste, just not a game to play with much clarity of mind.
2021
An incredibly human game that isn't interested in embellishing the mundanity of death for anyone's benefit. Adios is a game about accepting the inevitable and trying to examine what makes up a life. It's getting a lot of unfair hate right now and honestly it's a case of "not every game is for every person".
Whether this ends up being a game for you or not, it's well voice acted, emotional, and reflective. A perfect product of exactly what genre it exists in that's worth the short playtime if you can take a moment to suspend your disbelief and embody where it places you.
Whether this ends up being a game for you or not, it's well voice acted, emotional, and reflective. A perfect product of exactly what genre it exists in that's worth the short playtime if you can take a moment to suspend your disbelief and embody where it places you.
2021
An amazing space combat game held back by a story of redemption a little too elaborate and delicate for it to hold firmly without breaking it, Chorus was a big surprise gameplay-wise, making me love a genre I'm often quite bad at. But promotional material for the game sets the tone and narrative standard so high it couldn't have possibly cleared the bar without a bump or two.
You play as an ex-genocidal-cultist, saving the world from the results of her atrocities and from the coming atrocities of her former mentor. It's a heavy topic, and tries a little to grapple with the nature of irredeemable acts and redemption in their wake, but the topic is admittedly one of the most complex moral webs humanity has brought upon themselves and the nature of the subject itself makes it either too hard to ever forgive the protagonist or far too easy to forgive everything that wanders across your path, painting with somewhat broad strokes a series of incredibly cruel actions. The topic was absolutely worth exploring, and even well-written and thoughtful at times, but it's a little too big for the game's finite narrative framework.
Gameplay is where this title shines, offering some of the most fine-tuned flight and one of the most useful suites of abilities I've ever seen in the genre. Players have the usual flying and rapid fire weaponry that other space shooters offer, but along the way players will also unlock "rites", powers that grant abilities like drifting to aim during high-speed maneuvers, the ability to warp behind or in font of enemy forces for quick assaults, and the ability to pierce through enemy vessels and asteroids at top speed as a javelin of starlight. It's FAST and demands accurate play early on, but the steep learning curve evens out well by the game's center, ensuring players have plenty of time to learn.
All in all if you love this genre, the title is a must play. If the promotional materials or trailers appeal to you, you should likely check it out. But know that the hefty topics and ethereal nature of many of the characters' relationships will likely leave you a little parched for the narrative resolution you hope. Still, I do think I recommend this one.
You play as an ex-genocidal-cultist, saving the world from the results of her atrocities and from the coming atrocities of her former mentor. It's a heavy topic, and tries a little to grapple with the nature of irredeemable acts and redemption in their wake, but the topic is admittedly one of the most complex moral webs humanity has brought upon themselves and the nature of the subject itself makes it either too hard to ever forgive the protagonist or far too easy to forgive everything that wanders across your path, painting with somewhat broad strokes a series of incredibly cruel actions. The topic was absolutely worth exploring, and even well-written and thoughtful at times, but it's a little too big for the game's finite narrative framework.
Gameplay is where this title shines, offering some of the most fine-tuned flight and one of the most useful suites of abilities I've ever seen in the genre. Players have the usual flying and rapid fire weaponry that other space shooters offer, but along the way players will also unlock "rites", powers that grant abilities like drifting to aim during high-speed maneuvers, the ability to warp behind or in font of enemy forces for quick assaults, and the ability to pierce through enemy vessels and asteroids at top speed as a javelin of starlight. It's FAST and demands accurate play early on, but the steep learning curve evens out well by the game's center, ensuring players have plenty of time to learn.
All in all if you love this genre, the title is a must play. If the promotional materials or trailers appeal to you, you should likely check it out. But know that the hefty topics and ethereal nature of many of the characters' relationships will likely leave you a little parched for the narrative resolution you hope. Still, I do think I recommend this one.