Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 17: Indie Heroes Collection 1

Having a game thats clearly very inspired by a very specific game unfortunately leads you to consistantly compare it to that specific game. Here is a game thats very clearly took inspiration from Metro-Cross (or Retro-Cross if you've only ever played it in Europe on the Xbox360 Namco collection).

So running from left to right, hopping over items, picking up collectables and using boost pads to try and hit the finish line before the time limits run out. Its a fairly basic enough game and its one that works decently enough.

Chain Breaks main problem is just its sense of speed... or even just its flow through the entire game. It would honestly be better off cutting down on the point total screens and having a speedier cut from level to level.

The levels themselves are also just lacking a little bit of variety. While what is here is decent enough, by the halfway point, despite the occasional new obstacle, the changes are not drastic enough to make things feel different so you feel you've seen most of what the game has to offer already.

Its a shame because when the game really gets going, its a fun and frantic take on metro-cross with the gameboy's limitations being worked around in a wonderful way... It just needed to be snappier.

Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 17: Indie Heroes Collection 1

Theres a lot here im wanting to like, graphically this game absolutely pops, the sprite art is lovely, enemy graphics are nice and chunky...

But overall the gameplay itself is a little on the bland side. The dungeons are a little lifeless, the attacks are a little on the too-shortranged side and enemies can often soak up just a little too much damage. Its annoying because I can see what the developer was going for but it just doesnt quite hit the mark.

Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 17: Indie Heroes Collection 1

First game up. Usually I try and do these things in release date order but honestly im not sure that'll make a difference here so here we go and... Yeah. This is nice.

What we have here is a rather fun and breezy little puzzler where you guide both the titular main cat and 'cat clones' around each stage, picking up items and reaching an exit. The 'snag' here though is you move every character all at once, so careful positioning and movement is the name of the game.

And it all just works, the music is nice and boppy, the puzzles are tricky without being too overly mean spirited in their design and none of the level gimmicks ever really go on for too long.

So yeah, quite fun. Will I be singing its praises long after? Probably not.... But its still worth playing through none the less.

Came at the right time for me, a really charming a calming little first person puzzler that has you searching round an large manor house looking for clues and details on how to grow a variety of picky little plants.

While it is overall a very relaxing experience, it is a little too on the easy to complete side with most puzzles being quite self explanatory and relying mostly on memorisation of data than anything else with solutions often just boiling down to remembering or writing down key facts to determine things like light sources, heat, sound or PH level.

Its still charming, soothing and very much the sort of game you'll finish in an afternoon but I do wish there was a touch more variety in the puzzles.

Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2

I don't want to be too harsh on this since this is obviously a beta/prototype that Piko bought up when hoovering up small companies but its just bland. The UI is cheap and basic, the controls are on the loose side and the AI isn't really anything to talk about.

Theres not much progression outside of a basic 'RACE 1, RACE 2, RACE 3' linear set of levels and none of them are worth talking about. Add in a rather bland looping track that plays across most of the game and you've got a racing game that barely makes the grade. It may be 2/5 but theres so little to talk about here.

Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2

You know the idea that you're always better off focusing on one thing and making that thing good. Clearly nobody told the developers of Top Gear/Racer as this essentially is their take on Road Rash, the motorcycle stuff clearly is the bit they put all their passion in. Sure its occasionally a little clunky and the range of the kicks when attacking other players is absolutely questionable, but it mostly works.

What doesn't work is the jet-ski component. While the motorbike racing still has that Top Gear/Racer sense of speed and excitement, the Jet-ski parts are just boring with bad track design and a general dull pace. These cut into the Motorbike stuff too by forcing you to often pace and save up money for the better upgrades as both the Motorbike and Jet-Ski have separate upgrade menus.

If this was just the Motorbike stuff, i'd call it a 3/5. Not bad but certainly has its moments. The Jet-Ski stuff just sinks it lower.

Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2

Finally onto Top Gear 2... Sorry I mean 'Top Racer 2' and honestly its more of the same from the first game with a few steps forward but then a few steps back.

Firstly before we hit those, lets just copy and paste a lot from the first games review. The controls are still really good, the music banging and the AI often feels aggressive but generally quite fair.

That said, onto a negative, the game's difficulty curve is a little off. Its actually quite hard at the beginning, you'll often be hurting to catch up with others and it can sometimes feel like you've been stacked against impossible odds. On the other side, the late game is really easy thanks to the AI not really keeping up with you as you upgrade way past them.

On the plus side, the entire screen now is yours, no more forced split-screen. Huzzah.

So yeah, if you enjoyed the first game, theres a lot to like here.

Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2

Blah blah. Honestly I could copy and paste most of my review for 'Winter Challenge' and get away with it. The faux-3D graphics still chug away slowly, the music is still questionable and the CPU players are still rather miserable to play against.

The only upsides here in comparison to Winter Challenge is theres generally more variety here and some of the new stuff thats more track and field focused actually plays half-decent but thats not really enough to make this a game worth playing.

As others have stated, this is basically what you get when you combine elements from Breath of the Wild and A Short Hike and its just absolutely a big charm-fest in every single way thanks to a rather touching story, cute characters that ooze sillyness and a pretty fun core mechanic of searching, smashing cardboard cutouts and helping others.

The only real issue I have is the map can sometimes be a little too easy to get lost in. While this isnt too much of an issue as the map isnt 'that' big, it can make finding and hunting down specific items and characters a bit of a pain in the behind, something thats alleviated a bit with end-game content but its not something I feel I should 'have' to do to stand a chance of clearing the game.

Still, a cute happy little time all around.

...

Im totally the kid who wanted to make pretend restaurants.

Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2

Eesh. I had this game back on the Amiga and I always wondered if it would play better on a console with more than one fire button. Answer is... No. In fact its actually worse here than on the Amiga.

It plays like absolute arse. Its basically bad Ocean platformer design at its very worst with chunky level designs, enemies that run at you quick from offscreen, boring looping music, collectables strewn across the level like troll dolls in a 90s kids bedroom and a terrible control setup with the football attacks whiffing and sailing over enemies heads 9/10 times. Trust me, any actual hits on enemies is completely unintentional.

Sure theres some decent enough sprite art that manages to 'just' make this game dodge a 0.5/5 but its not like 1/5 is anything to talk about either. If you absolutely need to try this game, please just pick up the Amiga original. I mean the Amiga original still isnt that great but its sure better than this mess of a SNES port.

Playing Through My Evercade Collection Part 16: Piko Interactive Collection 2

I kind of get what they wanted here but theres absolutely no way the Mega Drive could handle the 3D effects they attempted here. What we have is six mostly similar variants of 'throwing yourself down a snowy mountain' with three of the six given to ski related activities, two to luge based events and one ice skate-race game.

There isn't really much variety in the levels themselves, the controls are stiff and unfriendly but the worst issue is the fact that everything is so slow and laggy with most events just feeling like a slog to go through despite the rather short runtimes. Graphically its a rather ugly affair and whatever music that plays is just Sierra from wish. The computer players are rather mean spirited to go up against and the whole thing just feels tired.

Again, I can see what they were going for but this wasn't the way to do it.

You know you're in for an interesting time when you first start the game and Steam gives you an EULA that just says 'have fun'.

This game is just a jank-filled mess with very little redeeming it. The voice acting is abysmal, the controls are awkward, the menu and UIs are dull and lifeless, the graphics are ugly and the music is generic as it comes.

But wait, its gets worse, text hangs often on some screens, there's multiple pickups that haven't been coded properly so they just come up as 'Undefined', combat is slow and dull but the game can never decide when to do long range attacks or short range melee properly so often you'll just be wailing at random hoping for the good attacks to come out.

There's NPCs who spin while rooted to the ground, there's ground elements that block your progress that look exactly like the walkable ground, there's passageways and doors the character just flat out refuses to interact with for no reason other than 'I Cant do that' and there's text errors and spelling issues all over the place.

Just a total mess.

It clearly wants to ape what Spyro and such does but while the controls are sort of ok, the game just fails to really have anything all that good inside of it.

Attacks against enemies work well enough but are vague at the best of times, the music is sort of there but the worst bit is the general level design being mostly blocky, vast and empty without enough detail or design to it all to make any given level worth remembering.

If you happen to love 3D platforming collect-a-thons then feel free to stick another half star on. For anyone else, this is just a little too on the bland side to really stand out.

This is absolutely one of those games that has all the ideas in the trunk from the oddball art style to the collection mechanics and overall bendy plot... But the problem is that it floods all those ideas across the screen all at once and demands speedy reaction times, while assaulting your eyes with UI elements, particle effects and providing peashooter weapons that feel watered down in comparison to everything around it.

Thrown in enemies that often blend in with their surroundings and the whole thing just feels a lot harder than it really should be. The entire game hinges on score-chasing, speed clearing and accuracy and none of this works in its favour for the thing its wanting to achieve.