Legolas_Katarn
BACKER
2021
Brief horror title done in a grainy PS1 visual style that gives a strong buildup mixed with a strange atmosphere as you interact with the locals but mechanically never really puts you in enough danger which starts to detract from the feeling of being under a current threat.
The main character finds dirty clothes around her apartment as her boyfriend hasn't done the laundry. Needing fresh clothes for a morning interview she finds the apartment's washer broken and is told about an old laundromat that is open 24 hours a day near the edge of town. She decides to take a bus there ignoring the warnings about a serial killer that has been targeting pregnant women. As your clothes wash and dry you are giving time to explore a small area where you can find clues about the past murders and area and talk to some local people often giving off a mixture of a strange or humorous vibe while maybe noticing the same car in the parking lot that you saw when you got on the bus by your apartment.
It's a good environment and visual style that does a lot right but you start to find yourself in situations where in most titles the killer would be stalking you and you would be in active danger and would need to sneak around but as you come to notice that you have no direct threat in these early sections it removes a lot of the possible tension.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1785228111526891669
The main character finds dirty clothes around her apartment as her boyfriend hasn't done the laundry. Needing fresh clothes for a morning interview she finds the apartment's washer broken and is told about an old laundromat that is open 24 hours a day near the edge of town. She decides to take a bus there ignoring the warnings about a serial killer that has been targeting pregnant women. As your clothes wash and dry you are giving time to explore a small area where you can find clues about the past murders and area and talk to some local people often giving off a mixture of a strange or humorous vibe while maybe noticing the same car in the parking lot that you saw when you got on the bus by your apartment.
It's a good environment and visual style that does a lot right but you start to find yourself in situations where in most titles the killer would be stalking you and you would be in active danger and would need to sneak around but as you come to notice that you have no direct threat in these early sections it removes a lot of the possible tension.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1785228111526891669
2023
A bizarre, funny, well acted story in an interesting setting, with some of the best writing in the medium, mechanically and visually feels like playing a mixture of Max Payne and Control except with frequently boring repetitive gameplay and a length that has it stay long past its welcome.
El Paso, Elsewhere is visually similar to a Playstation era title with the movement and controls of the first two Max Payne titles with some of the colors and environment styles that can feel like you are playing Control. The story involves your character entering a motel to stop his ex, the lord of vampires, from destroying the world. He believes his addictions as well as the battles themselves will lead to his death. As you enter an elevator you are transported to the void and are slowly lowered down where floor after floor you must fight through an area while attempting to rescue people who have been captured to be used as sacrifices. As you your journey goes on the environments shift from the motel to areas that were important to your ex's life and some by extension important to your life. Memories of both your lives are discussed with entities you meet, each other, and can be further expanded on by finding projectors in stages themselves. Radios are also scattered around with often humorous stories or references to noir style monologue filled with increasingly ridiculous metaphors. The visual style and writing are the highlights of the game and can make it worth playing on their own merits. Though another issue is that it takes about 1/3 of the game for that writing to go beyond just being entertaining to reaching that next level.
The problems with the game come from the dull enemies that don't fit with the Max Payne bullet time style gameplay. That there are 50 stages and you only start to see more interesting things around 20 stages in. You are only given enough enemy variety for combat to be interesting and a bit varied, if the enemies were even fun to fight (which they typically aren't), around stage 26. Nothing interesting is ever done with the hostages you want to save, they are just sitting around waiting to be saved, there is no threat to them, no timed deaths, no real issue even if they do die from you killing them other than a slightly different ending. Even when the enemy variety is better and the stages become more interesting you are still doing the same thing over and over and with how long it took to get to the second half of the game I was just wanting it to end, keeping the slightly higher quality of the gameplay from making much of a difference at that point. As there can often be points where something narrative wise might only happen over other level it would have felt like a much better experience if about 1/3 of the stages had been cut.
There is a dull weightlessness to the combat where bullets hit enemies until they die and rarely feel like they did anything until that moment, you can take a massive hit that takes off 60+% of your health and not even know you got hit unless you look at your healthbar, the stake melee attacks are powerful damage wise but there is no visceral satisfaction for hitting an enemy with one. The entire Max Payne style gameplay of using a slow-motion toggle, diving, rolling, etc is almost entirely pointless due to the boring melee focused enemies and how you move with where the reticle is in relation to your body always makes aiming a bit awkward. Rolling becomes more useful about 27 stages in when there are some enemies with AoE attacks you can try to roll out of the way off but you never really want to dive into a room in slow motion shooting things because it isn't practical with these kinds of enemies and isn't even fun due to lack of any real response to your shots and lack of things like the killcam Max Payne games had. The only positive thing I can say for the gameplay is that there are great difficulty settings where you can alter anytime you start a new game or continue your current one, you can give yourself infinite ammo and stakes, change the speed, change how much slow motion time you have, change enemy and weapon damage, enemy health, etc and from playing on the base settings for 35 stages when I realized it was never going to become remotely enjoyable and I gave myself infinite stakes and ammo so I at least wouldn't be bothered with picking up supplies or needing to melee objects to try to find more stakes.
It's a game that I am glad that I played and will continue to think of in the future, especially now that the gameplay is over.
Has the annoying frequently found problem in PC titles where it doesn't disable your controller when using a keyboard and has no ability to turn off controller rumble, so if you keep a controller plugged in you will likely want to unplug it.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1784465308822237639
El Paso, Elsewhere is visually similar to a Playstation era title with the movement and controls of the first two Max Payne titles with some of the colors and environment styles that can feel like you are playing Control. The story involves your character entering a motel to stop his ex, the lord of vampires, from destroying the world. He believes his addictions as well as the battles themselves will lead to his death. As you enter an elevator you are transported to the void and are slowly lowered down where floor after floor you must fight through an area while attempting to rescue people who have been captured to be used as sacrifices. As you your journey goes on the environments shift from the motel to areas that were important to your ex's life and some by extension important to your life. Memories of both your lives are discussed with entities you meet, each other, and can be further expanded on by finding projectors in stages themselves. Radios are also scattered around with often humorous stories or references to noir style monologue filled with increasingly ridiculous metaphors. The visual style and writing are the highlights of the game and can make it worth playing on their own merits. Though another issue is that it takes about 1/3 of the game for that writing to go beyond just being entertaining to reaching that next level.
The problems with the game come from the dull enemies that don't fit with the Max Payne bullet time style gameplay. That there are 50 stages and you only start to see more interesting things around 20 stages in. You are only given enough enemy variety for combat to be interesting and a bit varied, if the enemies were even fun to fight (which they typically aren't), around stage 26. Nothing interesting is ever done with the hostages you want to save, they are just sitting around waiting to be saved, there is no threat to them, no timed deaths, no real issue even if they do die from you killing them other than a slightly different ending. Even when the enemy variety is better and the stages become more interesting you are still doing the same thing over and over and with how long it took to get to the second half of the game I was just wanting it to end, keeping the slightly higher quality of the gameplay from making much of a difference at that point. As there can often be points where something narrative wise might only happen over other level it would have felt like a much better experience if about 1/3 of the stages had been cut.
There is a dull weightlessness to the combat where bullets hit enemies until they die and rarely feel like they did anything until that moment, you can take a massive hit that takes off 60+% of your health and not even know you got hit unless you look at your healthbar, the stake melee attacks are powerful damage wise but there is no visceral satisfaction for hitting an enemy with one. The entire Max Payne style gameplay of using a slow-motion toggle, diving, rolling, etc is almost entirely pointless due to the boring melee focused enemies and how you move with where the reticle is in relation to your body always makes aiming a bit awkward. Rolling becomes more useful about 27 stages in when there are some enemies with AoE attacks you can try to roll out of the way off but you never really want to dive into a room in slow motion shooting things because it isn't practical with these kinds of enemies and isn't even fun due to lack of any real response to your shots and lack of things like the killcam Max Payne games had. The only positive thing I can say for the gameplay is that there are great difficulty settings where you can alter anytime you start a new game or continue your current one, you can give yourself infinite ammo and stakes, change the speed, change how much slow motion time you have, change enemy and weapon damage, enemy health, etc and from playing on the base settings for 35 stages when I realized it was never going to become remotely enjoyable and I gave myself infinite stakes and ammo so I at least wouldn't be bothered with picking up supplies or needing to melee objects to try to find more stakes.
It's a game that I am glad that I played and will continue to think of in the future, especially now that the gameplay is over.
Has the annoying frequently found problem in PC titles where it doesn't disable your controller when using a keyboard and has no ability to turn off controller rumble, so if you keep a controller plugged in you will likely want to unplug it.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1784465308822237639
Simple but unique and intuitive mechanics, a story that remains constantly interesting and entertaining, and features vivid locations, expressive personality filled animations, and two of the best pets in the medium.
A puzzle mystery game where you wake up with no memories after having recently been killed only to witness an assassin threatening a woman near your body and discovering that you have developed special powers. These "ghost tricks" allow you jump between and manipulate objects, travel through phone lines to other locations, and to travel back in time four minutes after a person has died to change their fate which also allows you to speak with them in the past and once they are safe in the present. In one night you attempt to keep your potential friends and allies safe from a group of assassins, discover the truth about your powers and others who have gained similar abilities, and learn of a decade old event that ties together your former life, the police, and foreign spies.
Each stage has you using your ghost tricks to manipulate objects in a way that will effect the environment or people in the environment in a way that leads to you completing your goals. This can have you moving and manipulating objects to increase your reach allow you to jump into new things, manipulating lights or sounds to attract or distract people, leading a character through a dark room while avoiding assailants, or timing multiple interactions to create a particular sequence of events that will aid you. There are some new mechanics added over time but little gameplay wise changes over the course of the adventure. This can normally be a bad thing but each area is designed in a way where they are interesting and amusing to explore, the story that remains the highlight is allowed to progress quickly, and none of the events ever become overly cluttered, confusing, or tedious to deal with in a way that would detract from the enjoyment of the game and its strongest elements. The narrative over time explaining why certain thing can't or couldn't be done in a way that fits for the setting and often in ways that make more sense as more elements of the story reveal themselves.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1782596763070976441
A puzzle mystery game where you wake up with no memories after having recently been killed only to witness an assassin threatening a woman near your body and discovering that you have developed special powers. These "ghost tricks" allow you jump between and manipulate objects, travel through phone lines to other locations, and to travel back in time four minutes after a person has died to change their fate which also allows you to speak with them in the past and once they are safe in the present. In one night you attempt to keep your potential friends and allies safe from a group of assassins, discover the truth about your powers and others who have gained similar abilities, and learn of a decade old event that ties together your former life, the police, and foreign spies.
Each stage has you using your ghost tricks to manipulate objects in a way that will effect the environment or people in the environment in a way that leads to you completing your goals. This can have you moving and manipulating objects to increase your reach allow you to jump into new things, manipulating lights or sounds to attract or distract people, leading a character through a dark room while avoiding assailants, or timing multiple interactions to create a particular sequence of events that will aid you. There are some new mechanics added over time but little gameplay wise changes over the course of the adventure. This can normally be a bad thing but each area is designed in a way where they are interesting and amusing to explore, the story that remains the highlight is allowed to progress quickly, and none of the events ever become overly cluttered, confusing, or tedious to deal with in a way that would detract from the enjoyment of the game and its strongest elements. The narrative over time explaining why certain thing can't or couldn't be done in a way that fits for the setting and often in ways that make more sense as more elements of the story reveal themselves.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1782596763070976441
A few years after the events of Mean Streets, Tex Murphy is hired by one of the wealthiest men in the world, the founder of the TerraForm Corporation, to track down his missing daughter as well as an item that he doesn't want anyone knowing about. The case takes Tex to locations in San Francisco, the jungles of South America, and to Mars.
Martian Memorandum removes the stranger aspects of the previous game, the side scrolling shooter segments and spending the majority of your time sitting in your speeder as it moves you to a destination, and makes updates common for the genre in the 90s. You no longer have to type in exact names to ask people about and have a list of everything you have discovered that can be clicked through. You now have more control and verb action buttons with different types of interactions as you explore a wider variety of locations, though with these changes now comes some moments of the worst pixel hunting I've seen often due to the grainy style of the environment and models.
Good voice acting, animation, and video clips and character portraits for the time. Dated now but still a decent adventure title.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1779720617178362134
Martian Memorandum removes the stranger aspects of the previous game, the side scrolling shooter segments and spending the majority of your time sitting in your speeder as it moves you to a destination, and makes updates common for the genre in the 90s. You no longer have to type in exact names to ask people about and have a list of everything you have discovered that can be clicked through. You now have more control and verb action buttons with different types of interactions as you explore a wider variety of locations, though with these changes now comes some moments of the worst pixel hunting I've seen often due to the grainy style of the environment and models.
Good voice acting, animation, and video clips and character portraits for the time. Dated now but still a decent adventure title.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1779720617178362134
Has the strong tactical gameplay and varied characters similar to Mimimi's previous games, with a new bafflingly terrible mission structure that starts to make the game a chore to complete.
Shadow Gambit takes the gameplay of Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3 to a new setting, this one focused on undead/cursed pirates fighting against a tyrannical order that is trying to destroy them and control the citizens of various islands. As a pirate looking to make a name for herself you free a captured sentient ship from the inquisition with the hope of finding the former Captain's hidden treasure. To do that you have to join forces with the ship, who has the ability to record events and move time back to those former spots, and revive her former crew in order to follow the clues left by the Captain.
In the base game there is a total of eight playable characters with an extra unlockable one if you reach 80% completion by doing different stage and character challenges. Each character has a slow or fast kill/knockout attack with their weapon of choice, a pistol that has one shot per map unless you find ammo, and usually two other abilities with often one of them changing to something else under certain conditions or when something else is in use. One of the more unique characters has the ability to possess other enemies and can then move them within a certain range of where he took over their bodies and he might gain some of their abilities, one character can grow a bush almost anywhere on the map to hide characters or enemy bodies, one has a cannon she can use to launch allies to distant places or that can be used to attack enemies, many characters have a item or animal partner that allows them to distract or lure enemies to a location. The crews various skills can pair together in useful ways and can allow you to handle locations in different ways. The characters are also likable and have their personalities brought out by their banter during gameplay, having some unique dialogue based on who is chosen to go on certain missions, story elements on your ship in between missions, and in the later game a mission or series of missions that focuses on some part of a character's backstory.
You play against the usual types of enemies the the genre has become known for having. You have the generic grunts that are easy to fool with distractions and traps, sentries that won't move or be distracted long from their set locations and line of sight, one that activates an alarm to summon reinforcements, a sniper with a longer and more quick to activate line of sight, a stronger types that requires multiple characters to take down, and in a new more setting unique enemy a pair of two enemies that need to be killed quickly before one revives the other. You have the helpful time stopping planning button found in their previous games that allows you to chain multiple actions together and the always nice to have fast forward button that Desperados 3 had so you aren't needlessly waiting around for enemies to get into certain positions or for alarms and alerts to end.
In this genre Shadow Gambit would be of the same excellent quality of the developers previous games, if not for suffering from one area that those previous games didn't struggle with.
The game unfortunately becomes something of a chore to finish, even more so with the DLC, due to the constant need to replay the same locations with little changes 3-5+ times. Even with the ability to bring a different set of crew members and to start and finish in different locations the repeated visits to the same maps is easily the worst part of this game. It's so bad you might get into a situation where you have to go to the same map 3+ times in a row. In Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3 a map was designed for the mission and characters it was made for (Desperados 3 eventually giving modes where you could try different characters), the maps here are made to play for multiple missions where almost nothing changes except for the minor mission objective targets or the time of day (a much bigger change than just about anything the objectives will do). Many of the missions will focus on you really only needing to complete your objectives around a portion of the total location with you being able to pick from a few starting locations and exit locations once your tasks are complete. The problem with the approach is that it leads to some very short uninteresting missions in the worst times, but there is also the problem that they didn't necessarily spread out how those missions tend to limit themselves. You might play a mission that focus on a third of the map, only to find your next mission focuses on pretty much the same area of the map, then to find you have another mission on the island that now deals with 2/3s or the entire map that again will have you dealing with that same 1/3 all with the same enemy groupings and locations. There being a lot more playable characters and being able to take the 1-3 you want to each time does help to alleviate some of this problem, but it still ends up getting dull as you end up playing a lot more total missions than in Minimi's previous games, less interesting missions, much less challenging missions, and the types of enemies you are facing doesn't really expand as the game goes on.
The challenge badges for each map and crew member are a lazily handled mess where it is needlessly difficult to check your progress or what you have done on the revealed badges, the logbook is a mess that you can't even access for some reason while on the mission planning screen, some badges just don't seem to want to unlock when you complete them, and the challenges aren't all revealed until you complete the game. Because you really want to go back to that one map you just played six times, however many more times to try to hit a ridiculously high 80% badge completion rate to unlock a hidden character so you can play the same maps some more times with them.
Both sets of DLC adds a new character, giving you total of 11 playable characters with the additional unlockable one, one new location that will have three missions on it and three new missions on the older locations. The characters are both fun to use but the new islands tend to only have one mission on them that is actually interesting and the other three missions mean you will be going back to areas you've already played even more than you have to in the base game. If you are really playing the game a lot and see yourself frequently replaying missions or just really like having the varied characters then they are going to be worth getting just for that.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1779332521110691961
Video: https://youtu.be/l2mPhZSk5dc?si=kceIF0gjE0bhbcXe
Shadow Gambit takes the gameplay of Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3 to a new setting, this one focused on undead/cursed pirates fighting against a tyrannical order that is trying to destroy them and control the citizens of various islands. As a pirate looking to make a name for herself you free a captured sentient ship from the inquisition with the hope of finding the former Captain's hidden treasure. To do that you have to join forces with the ship, who has the ability to record events and move time back to those former spots, and revive her former crew in order to follow the clues left by the Captain.
In the base game there is a total of eight playable characters with an extra unlockable one if you reach 80% completion by doing different stage and character challenges. Each character has a slow or fast kill/knockout attack with their weapon of choice, a pistol that has one shot per map unless you find ammo, and usually two other abilities with often one of them changing to something else under certain conditions or when something else is in use. One of the more unique characters has the ability to possess other enemies and can then move them within a certain range of where he took over their bodies and he might gain some of their abilities, one character can grow a bush almost anywhere on the map to hide characters or enemy bodies, one has a cannon she can use to launch allies to distant places or that can be used to attack enemies, many characters have a item or animal partner that allows them to distract or lure enemies to a location. The crews various skills can pair together in useful ways and can allow you to handle locations in different ways. The characters are also likable and have their personalities brought out by their banter during gameplay, having some unique dialogue based on who is chosen to go on certain missions, story elements on your ship in between missions, and in the later game a mission or series of missions that focuses on some part of a character's backstory.
You play against the usual types of enemies the the genre has become known for having. You have the generic grunts that are easy to fool with distractions and traps, sentries that won't move or be distracted long from their set locations and line of sight, one that activates an alarm to summon reinforcements, a sniper with a longer and more quick to activate line of sight, a stronger types that requires multiple characters to take down, and in a new more setting unique enemy a pair of two enemies that need to be killed quickly before one revives the other. You have the helpful time stopping planning button found in their previous games that allows you to chain multiple actions together and the always nice to have fast forward button that Desperados 3 had so you aren't needlessly waiting around for enemies to get into certain positions or for alarms and alerts to end.
In this genre Shadow Gambit would be of the same excellent quality of the developers previous games, if not for suffering from one area that those previous games didn't struggle with.
The game unfortunately becomes something of a chore to finish, even more so with the DLC, due to the constant need to replay the same locations with little changes 3-5+ times. Even with the ability to bring a different set of crew members and to start and finish in different locations the repeated visits to the same maps is easily the worst part of this game. It's so bad you might get into a situation where you have to go to the same map 3+ times in a row. In Shadow Tactics and Desperados 3 a map was designed for the mission and characters it was made for (Desperados 3 eventually giving modes where you could try different characters), the maps here are made to play for multiple missions where almost nothing changes except for the minor mission objective targets or the time of day (a much bigger change than just about anything the objectives will do). Many of the missions will focus on you really only needing to complete your objectives around a portion of the total location with you being able to pick from a few starting locations and exit locations once your tasks are complete. The problem with the approach is that it leads to some very short uninteresting missions in the worst times, but there is also the problem that they didn't necessarily spread out how those missions tend to limit themselves. You might play a mission that focus on a third of the map, only to find your next mission focuses on pretty much the same area of the map, then to find you have another mission on the island that now deals with 2/3s or the entire map that again will have you dealing with that same 1/3 all with the same enemy groupings and locations. There being a lot more playable characters and being able to take the 1-3 you want to each time does help to alleviate some of this problem, but it still ends up getting dull as you end up playing a lot more total missions than in Minimi's previous games, less interesting missions, much less challenging missions, and the types of enemies you are facing doesn't really expand as the game goes on.
The challenge badges for each map and crew member are a lazily handled mess where it is needlessly difficult to check your progress or what you have done on the revealed badges, the logbook is a mess that you can't even access for some reason while on the mission planning screen, some badges just don't seem to want to unlock when you complete them, and the challenges aren't all revealed until you complete the game. Because you really want to go back to that one map you just played six times, however many more times to try to hit a ridiculously high 80% badge completion rate to unlock a hidden character so you can play the same maps some more times with them.
Both sets of DLC adds a new character, giving you total of 11 playable characters with the additional unlockable one, one new location that will have three missions on it and three new missions on the older locations. The characters are both fun to use but the new islands tend to only have one mission on them that is actually interesting and the other three missions mean you will be going back to areas you've already played even more than you have to in the base game. If you are really playing the game a lot and see yourself frequently replaying missions or just really like having the varied characters then they are going to be worth getting just for that.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1779332521110691961
Video: https://youtu.be/l2mPhZSk5dc?si=kceIF0gjE0bhbcXe
Great story and beautiful art style that can depict the horrors of war well, when it isn't being comedic or at times overly comedic. Final level is one of the best designed I've seen and a perfect example of having a likely ingrained response from playing a lot of video games.
Has a few time wasting fetch quest and "puzzle" style elements.
Has a few time wasting fetch quest and "puzzle" style elements.
AKA Clock Tower: Ghost Head
Horrible graphics, story, enemies, voice acting, and generic locations full of constant backtracking. Has you constantly running back and forth from zombie like enemies that you need to hit with melee weapons sitting in set locations or that can be pushed off you if they try to strangle you. This is everything bad about the real Clock Tower 2 but even worse.
Turning into your alter ego and just kicking zombies and beating up possessed enemies is pretty funny though.
Horrible graphics, story, enemies, voice acting, and generic locations full of constant backtracking. Has you constantly running back and forth from zombie like enemies that you need to hit with melee weapons sitting in set locations or that can be pushed off you if they try to strangle you. This is everything bad about the real Clock Tower 2 but even worse.
Turning into your alter ego and just kicking zombies and beating up possessed enemies is pretty funny though.
1996
The sequel went from the great 2D art of the SNES to ugly early 3D, losing a lot of the atmosphere of the first game and most of what made it memorable while still having some positive elements.
Good replay value, choice of playable characters that change events and character actions in the story, ability to save most characters leading to different endings. There is a lot more dialogue than the first game giving some more characterization, though it is mostly awkward conversations with often poor voice acting. Fairly slow working text box when exploring. There is now faster movement and response to commands than the first game which can remove some frustration but due to how the enemies work they just no longer seem threatening furthering taking away the horror and atmospheric elements of the previous title.
Good replay value, choice of playable characters that change events and character actions in the story, ability to save most characters leading to different endings. There is a lot more dialogue than the first game giving some more characterization, though it is mostly awkward conversations with often poor voice acting. Fairly slow working text box when exploring. There is now faster movement and response to commands than the first game which can remove some frustration but due to how the enemies work they just no longer seem threatening furthering taking away the horror and atmospheric elements of the previous title.
1995
Great art, atmosphere, and multiple endings and ways certain events can play out.
Point and click mechanic is a little annoying due to some objects only having one spot that it allows you to interact with them making it easy to miss things unless you know that you can interact with it.
It's fairly basic premise but they nailed the art and atmosphere of the location.
Point and click mechanic is a little annoying due to some objects only having one spot that it allows you to interact with them making it easy to miss things unless you know that you can interact with it.
It's fairly basic premise but they nailed the art and atmosphere of the location.
The Lamplighters League takes place in the 1930s where a man who was part of a former heroic team, now all dead, attempts to recruit thieves, murderers, renegades, and adventurers for hire to fight against his old group's enemies. Your opponents are three different groups that are attempting to access a mystical tower that will allow their leader to reshape the world in the way that they want. Each week you send three or four agents on a main mission and some of your other agents on side missions where they gain items from safehouses or spend intel to unlock new special missions. Based on your actions, you can lower faction progress level but will typically see two factions coming closer to reaching their goal while slowing the third. As each faction's circular meter fills up they gain new benefits when you fight against them. Completing missions gives you skill points to improve your agents as well as giving you random Undrawn Hand cards, of which each agent can eventually equip three of that give access to new active or passive abilities. These cards can be upgraded over time either by spending Ink that you gain from discarded or replaced cards or by drawing the same ability again and equipping it onto the same skill. The goal is to complete the heist missions needed to steal an object from each faction as well as the missions that give you the keys to accessing the tower before you go onto the game's finale.
Each mission takes place on a fairly small map where you move your agents by themselves or in a group trying to avoid, stealth kill, or engage groups of enemies while trying to complete a main or side objective while also gathering items and supplies. The actual manipulation of your characters in real time here is both pretty basic and somehow never feels good to control, even the way enemy visual cones are handled is odd compared to similar games. A lot of the equipment you find will never be remotely useful and the kind of equipment you can buy is very limited in scope.
The combat can be pretty good as you gain varied characters with their own styles of play that can work together well and be further enhanced by different Undrawn Hand cards. Even the characters that seem to be thought of as much worse than others can work well in certain teams and with certain upgrades and consumables that fit with their unique passive abilities. Problems come from the game doing a horrible job at explaining anything. You have no effective way to look up what status effects do, how long those buffs or debuffs last, what will trigger and who has reaction attacks, some abilities only partially tell you what they do, and many improvements have the usual lazy descriptions with text like greatly improved crit chance/increases accuracy/increases damage/increases ammo capacity/etc without giving you the numbers you want to have in anything but especially in a turn based strategy game. It is constantly trying to mess with the target you are aiming at. I've had it randomly perform actions where it used consumable items that I was at no point even close to selecting. Certain abilities like ones that can knock enemies down are so much more useful than anything else and can lead to the majority of fights being extremely easy.
The randomness preventing you from using the characters you want in a playthrough by limiting who or when you can recruit or making it difficult to get the randomly generated cards at the end of the mission that you actually want to use with a particular character who had to have gone on that mission. The terrible, and far to common in the genre, decision to limit party size to three characters (though 4 can be available in recruitment missions when you find the new character and in some of the main missions) is made even worse in this particular game due to the three types of classes each character can be. You typically want to have one of each of in a party to be able to do the interactions with the environment to find alternate paths and items which even further limits how you are likely to make use of the game's agents. While skill points earned in a mission can be spent on any character you have, the random Undrawn Hand cards have to be equipped, turned into upgrades for copies, or discarded right away and can only be assigned to the characters who participated in a mission. This can make it hard to get what you want, or what is even useful on certain characters, making it worse is that there are a few cards that are pretty much made specifically to fit one or two characters and would be of poor use on the other 10 or 11 (and some that just look to be a poor choice on anyone).
Map are frequently reused with no changes other than potential faction or enemy variety based on their current threat level. After 15 random missions two map repeated twice and one repeated three times (this became four times a few missions later). Even if a mission objective is different this does little to change how the maps play out as a main objective can be as simple as picking something up, killing a certain enemy, or destroying a device before having to move to a small area for extraction (that is, for some reason, located in a place that usually requires you getting through one more large camp of enemies).
Random text events that were added to the game after launch are an improvement to the game. Giving you a text scenario with three options to choose that can benefit you in different ways. They did do a strange thing at times where an option might have a specific agent doing something (possibly something that keeps them busy for the weak possibly just them as flavor text) but the option with an agent can sometimes have the exact same reward as one of the other two options, usually having a specific person could give better results but here it seems like that might have been the case while it was in development but then that was ignored. While the results aren't always that interesting, these events add more flavor to the setting, enemies, and agents while also allowing you to potentially gain items you need or to have another way to manage the threat of one or all three enemy factions giving you a bit more freedom to play the missions you want to play. The additional setting information is also nice because the character conversations between missions and there varied personalities is one of the better parts of the game, as is some of the back and forth that can happen between them during missions.
When you aren't dealing with too much randomness and get into a fight with the characters and abilities you want it can feel like a decent game is there but it falls far short of the developer's previous narrative and exploration elements found in their Shadowrun games and the gameplay mechanics of Battletech while completely failing at the overworld system and a desire for multiple runs that the game seems to be going for. Even the 1930's pulp style adventurers dealing with mystical cult like enemies was better handled in the game Pathway that also handles multiple quick rougelite style runs with a small team of characters that some elements of this game feel like it might have been aiming for at some point in its development. It has what could have been an interesting setting as well as fun varied characters whose abilities can synergize well if used in certain pairs but handles nearly every system poorly.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1767053132495040916
Each mission takes place on a fairly small map where you move your agents by themselves or in a group trying to avoid, stealth kill, or engage groups of enemies while trying to complete a main or side objective while also gathering items and supplies. The actual manipulation of your characters in real time here is both pretty basic and somehow never feels good to control, even the way enemy visual cones are handled is odd compared to similar games. A lot of the equipment you find will never be remotely useful and the kind of equipment you can buy is very limited in scope.
The combat can be pretty good as you gain varied characters with their own styles of play that can work together well and be further enhanced by different Undrawn Hand cards. Even the characters that seem to be thought of as much worse than others can work well in certain teams and with certain upgrades and consumables that fit with their unique passive abilities. Problems come from the game doing a horrible job at explaining anything. You have no effective way to look up what status effects do, how long those buffs or debuffs last, what will trigger and who has reaction attacks, some abilities only partially tell you what they do, and many improvements have the usual lazy descriptions with text like greatly improved crit chance/increases accuracy/increases damage/increases ammo capacity/etc without giving you the numbers you want to have in anything but especially in a turn based strategy game. It is constantly trying to mess with the target you are aiming at. I've had it randomly perform actions where it used consumable items that I was at no point even close to selecting. Certain abilities like ones that can knock enemies down are so much more useful than anything else and can lead to the majority of fights being extremely easy.
The randomness preventing you from using the characters you want in a playthrough by limiting who or when you can recruit or making it difficult to get the randomly generated cards at the end of the mission that you actually want to use with a particular character who had to have gone on that mission. The terrible, and far to common in the genre, decision to limit party size to three characters (though 4 can be available in recruitment missions when you find the new character and in some of the main missions) is made even worse in this particular game due to the three types of classes each character can be. You typically want to have one of each of in a party to be able to do the interactions with the environment to find alternate paths and items which even further limits how you are likely to make use of the game's agents. While skill points earned in a mission can be spent on any character you have, the random Undrawn Hand cards have to be equipped, turned into upgrades for copies, or discarded right away and can only be assigned to the characters who participated in a mission. This can make it hard to get what you want, or what is even useful on certain characters, making it worse is that there are a few cards that are pretty much made specifically to fit one or two characters and would be of poor use on the other 10 or 11 (and some that just look to be a poor choice on anyone).
Map are frequently reused with no changes other than potential faction or enemy variety based on their current threat level. After 15 random missions two map repeated twice and one repeated three times (this became four times a few missions later). Even if a mission objective is different this does little to change how the maps play out as a main objective can be as simple as picking something up, killing a certain enemy, or destroying a device before having to move to a small area for extraction (that is, for some reason, located in a place that usually requires you getting through one more large camp of enemies).
Random text events that were added to the game after launch are an improvement to the game. Giving you a text scenario with three options to choose that can benefit you in different ways. They did do a strange thing at times where an option might have a specific agent doing something (possibly something that keeps them busy for the weak possibly just them as flavor text) but the option with an agent can sometimes have the exact same reward as one of the other two options, usually having a specific person could give better results but here it seems like that might have been the case while it was in development but then that was ignored. While the results aren't always that interesting, these events add more flavor to the setting, enemies, and agents while also allowing you to potentially gain items you need or to have another way to manage the threat of one or all three enemy factions giving you a bit more freedom to play the missions you want to play. The additional setting information is also nice because the character conversations between missions and there varied personalities is one of the better parts of the game, as is some of the back and forth that can happen between them during missions.
When you aren't dealing with too much randomness and get into a fight with the characters and abilities you want it can feel like a decent game is there but it falls far short of the developer's previous narrative and exploration elements found in their Shadowrun games and the gameplay mechanics of Battletech while completely failing at the overworld system and a desire for multiple runs that the game seems to be going for. Even the 1930's pulp style adventurers dealing with mystical cult like enemies was better handled in the game Pathway that also handles multiple quick rougelite style runs with a small team of characters that some elements of this game feel like it might have been aiming for at some point in its development. It has what could have been an interesting setting as well as fun varied characters whose abilities can synergize well if used in certain pairs but handles nearly every system poorly.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1767053132495040916
The Japanese exclusive action platformer that has been said to be the best Spider-Man game on the platform (ignoring the beat em ups). It is, but it's still really bad. The slow and clunk controls allow you to punch, dash, dash attack, jump, jump attack, fire a little web ball shot, crawl, climb on walls or a ceiling, and to hit the trigger buttons to swing left or right from your webs. Movement and attacks feel awkward and slow, stage enemies are both very strange and can typically either be dash attacked through or present on odd target that you can't stunlock so you hit them until they hit you once then you either ignore them and move past or hit them one or two more times to destroy them. It has the usual Spider-Man game problem of being too visually zoomed in to make use of web swinging and to give some awkwardly placed stage hazards and off screen enemies that suddenly appear. Bosses require you to attack in whatever cheap way to discover that allows you to basically ignore their attacks or to stun lock them by knocking them over or backwards repeatedly. Stage design is poor and at times like a small maze (thankfully nowhere near as bad as some of the other games) there just to try to run down the pointless timer. You have some allies that show up in story scenes like Iron Fist, Human Torch, Speedball, etc but they don't do anything mechanically like in Maximum Carnage.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1766965902371947002
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1766965902371947002
2019
A good setting and while it often involves combat it at least doesn't have you fighting the style of threats you should have absolutely no chance against like some other Cthulhu games but the combat is never good enough and it involves too much busywork.
The investigation mechanic is too basic with pixel hunting on the harder difficulties and easily being able to piece things together with the main gimmick being the need to frequently look up records in the library, city hall, police HQ, and newspaper to find the address of people and places. Fast traveling to those locations and walking to the place you discover is where much of the time is spent. It's unfortunate these mechanics weren't better handled with the developers long running series of Sherlock Holmes games.
Cases often give you two or three ways to handle the finale and what side characters live or die but it never actually effects anything that meaningful except maybe a brief vision later or a few different lines. Even choices warning you that it will increase the spread of madness in the city never actually do much of anything. The game is too focused on finding crafting components to make more ammo, main and side quest rewards are ammo and components (sometimes a new gun), skills are mostly based on combat and crafting and there are infected areas of the city with good loot that require you to fight or avoid a lot of enemies (probably spending a lot of the loot you are acquiring anyway) that I just ignored. You have a sanity meter that never really matters, if it gets low enough hallucinations might attack you. The most interesting thing it did was create a hallucination of a fake box that gave me items when I searched it and then vanished.
The lower budget does show through in animations, walk cycles, bugs.
It can be an ok but repetitive playthrough if you like the theme. It did have one of my favorite NPC interactions in a game though https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1765647639973089742
The investigation mechanic is too basic with pixel hunting on the harder difficulties and easily being able to piece things together with the main gimmick being the need to frequently look up records in the library, city hall, police HQ, and newspaper to find the address of people and places. Fast traveling to those locations and walking to the place you discover is where much of the time is spent. It's unfortunate these mechanics weren't better handled with the developers long running series of Sherlock Holmes games.
Cases often give you two or three ways to handle the finale and what side characters live or die but it never actually effects anything that meaningful except maybe a brief vision later or a few different lines. Even choices warning you that it will increase the spread of madness in the city never actually do much of anything. The game is too focused on finding crafting components to make more ammo, main and side quest rewards are ammo and components (sometimes a new gun), skills are mostly based on combat and crafting and there are infected areas of the city with good loot that require you to fight or avoid a lot of enemies (probably spending a lot of the loot you are acquiring anyway) that I just ignored. You have a sanity meter that never really matters, if it gets low enough hallucinations might attack you. The most interesting thing it did was create a hallucination of a fake box that gave me items when I searched it and then vanished.
The lower budget does show through in animations, walk cycles, bugs.
It can be an ok but repetitive playthrough if you like the theme. It did have one of my favorite NPC interactions in a game though https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1765647639973089742
2024
I loved the original Helldivers, but lost almost all interest when I saw this was third-person from imagining all the problems it could have. It has all those problems, and more, but I still loved this.
Every issue I imagined this game could have and the ones that would likely become even worse at the shift to a third-person perspective, it has. It can be difficult to tell what exactly you can scale in the environment and diving or being hit into certain objects can see you clipping into them and getting stuck. Enemies can get stuck on terrain or fall into the environment (as can your equipment or items you are trying to extract from a mission if someone dies), though this does seem to be happening less now so patches may have been taking care of this issue. Like almost any game with melee attacks your melees and your enemies doesn't always seem to have functional hit detection. Damage is widely inconsistent with a blow doing almost nothing one time killing you another. If the Charger enemy killed you it probably cheated and stun locked and dragged you around with ignoring or preventing your movements. The weapons and call in strategums are even less balanced here then they were in the previous game. Just about any weapon besides one of the three Breaker shotgun variants and one particular explosive ammo rifle feeling so much weaker they can barely compare and of the currently available side arms only the auto pistol is an obvious choice as it does the exact same as the pistol but with more ammo and an option to use single or full auto fire while the revolver takes the usual bad design decision of being practically useless due to not either making it more powerful or making it load with a speedloader as opposed to one bullet at a time. The strategums can have a bit more nuance to them with the right team, communications, and depending on which enemy type you are facing but even with that there are certain call ins that are clearly subpar when compared to what else is offered. It launched with only two enemy factions when the first game had three to begin with, no mechs, and no vehicles. The game has, to be fair at this time barely relevant, microtransactions with currency you can at least slowly earn in game. Over the last few days I haven't had any problems getting into the game from lack of server space but there can still be difficulties in connecting to people, crashes and freezing on loading can still happen.
Even with all of those problems, it has been some of the most fun I've had in a co-op game and even is a fun enough time playing alone. What they have done well they have excelled at in the shift to more face to face gameplay. The environments are beautiful and have a variety of modifiers that can influence them, one of the best additions they can make is a disable UI button for screenshots. The enemies look good, react to being shot in a satisfying visceral way where you can target weak points or individual spots on both the bugs and automatons to disable weapons. The guns tend to be satisfying to shoot (balance issues aside) and while I would usually suggest sticking to third person aiming rather than first it is nice to see the work done for the first person view, weapon sights, and sometimes additional information like seeing a railgun's charge level in the close up view. Using the dive move is responsive and your ability to shoot mid dive and while rolling around on the ground makes for some exciting moments while you're being chased down by enemies. Calling down airstrikes, bombs, orbital lasers, etc is a much more exciting experience with the more personal viewpoint. The humor and satire from the opening cutscene, tutorial, tooltips, and ship upgrade descriptions are well done as is the additional lore from both games like destroying propaganda outposts talking about how the bugs are created and killed as a source for oil and your officers on your ship wondering how the bugs even travel from planet to planet. Even with the much higher player base likely giving the game even more inexperienced players in general, for the most part, the random people I have played with have worked together fairly well, in some cases the best I've seen in a videogame playing with randoms, and your viewpoint and how your strategums are called in makes it fairly easy for good players to avoid friendly fire. The map is quick to pull up and put away and location and enemy pings work well. Mission objectives are fairly straightforward and even the ones that could have lead to some confusion when working with people that aren't talking have added ways to help people work together like sound confirmation cues when a radar is positioned correctly or giving access to a call in bomb to destroy a base that can be used if no one has access to the kind of strategums that can destroy buildings or if the person that does won't use it. There are only two enemy factions so far but fighting against one or the other can feel like an almost entirely different game at times, as can the different planet ecosystems.
The problems seem likely to matter less as time goes on and the game continues to be updated and even when things were at their worst I still greatly enjoy the game.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1763486463981654378
Every issue I imagined this game could have and the ones that would likely become even worse at the shift to a third-person perspective, it has. It can be difficult to tell what exactly you can scale in the environment and diving or being hit into certain objects can see you clipping into them and getting stuck. Enemies can get stuck on terrain or fall into the environment (as can your equipment or items you are trying to extract from a mission if someone dies), though this does seem to be happening less now so patches may have been taking care of this issue. Like almost any game with melee attacks your melees and your enemies doesn't always seem to have functional hit detection. Damage is widely inconsistent with a blow doing almost nothing one time killing you another. If the Charger enemy killed you it probably cheated and stun locked and dragged you around with ignoring or preventing your movements. The weapons and call in strategums are even less balanced here then they were in the previous game. Just about any weapon besides one of the three Breaker shotgun variants and one particular explosive ammo rifle feeling so much weaker they can barely compare and of the currently available side arms only the auto pistol is an obvious choice as it does the exact same as the pistol but with more ammo and an option to use single or full auto fire while the revolver takes the usual bad design decision of being practically useless due to not either making it more powerful or making it load with a speedloader as opposed to one bullet at a time. The strategums can have a bit more nuance to them with the right team, communications, and depending on which enemy type you are facing but even with that there are certain call ins that are clearly subpar when compared to what else is offered. It launched with only two enemy factions when the first game had three to begin with, no mechs, and no vehicles. The game has, to be fair at this time barely relevant, microtransactions with currency you can at least slowly earn in game. Over the last few days I haven't had any problems getting into the game from lack of server space but there can still be difficulties in connecting to people, crashes and freezing on loading can still happen.
Even with all of those problems, it has been some of the most fun I've had in a co-op game and even is a fun enough time playing alone. What they have done well they have excelled at in the shift to more face to face gameplay. The environments are beautiful and have a variety of modifiers that can influence them, one of the best additions they can make is a disable UI button for screenshots. The enemies look good, react to being shot in a satisfying visceral way where you can target weak points or individual spots on both the bugs and automatons to disable weapons. The guns tend to be satisfying to shoot (balance issues aside) and while I would usually suggest sticking to third person aiming rather than first it is nice to see the work done for the first person view, weapon sights, and sometimes additional information like seeing a railgun's charge level in the close up view. Using the dive move is responsive and your ability to shoot mid dive and while rolling around on the ground makes for some exciting moments while you're being chased down by enemies. Calling down airstrikes, bombs, orbital lasers, etc is a much more exciting experience with the more personal viewpoint. The humor and satire from the opening cutscene, tutorial, tooltips, and ship upgrade descriptions are well done as is the additional lore from both games like destroying propaganda outposts talking about how the bugs are created and killed as a source for oil and your officers on your ship wondering how the bugs even travel from planet to planet. Even with the much higher player base likely giving the game even more inexperienced players in general, for the most part, the random people I have played with have worked together fairly well, in some cases the best I've seen in a videogame playing with randoms, and your viewpoint and how your strategums are called in makes it fairly easy for good players to avoid friendly fire. The map is quick to pull up and put away and location and enemy pings work well. Mission objectives are fairly straightforward and even the ones that could have lead to some confusion when working with people that aren't talking have added ways to help people work together like sound confirmation cues when a radar is positioned correctly or giving access to a call in bomb to destroy a base that can be used if no one has access to the kind of strategums that can destroy buildings or if the person that does won't use it. There are only two enemy factions so far but fighting against one or the other can feel like an almost entirely different game at times, as can the different planet ecosystems.
The problems seem likely to matter less as time goes on and the game continues to be updated and even when things were at their worst I still greatly enjoy the game.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1763486463981654378
1994
Cute and nicely animated but a bit too simple and the only real difficulty coming from somewhat awkward movement controls hold it back.
Ninja side scrolling action platformer with a cute cartoon aesthetic. You have a basic attack, jump, and dash that will cause you to roll before doing your attack if you try to attack mid run. You can slowly climb up certain walls and jump off of them and when a meter is charged activate a ninja power like having a clone double that follows you and attacks or a circle of fire you can shoot out of yourself. When you or enemies hit each other it often creates a stunned effect instead of damage and when it happens to enemies you can pick them up and throw them. There are four attack types you unlock over time that can be cycled through with their own ranges and arcs that can be better against certain enemies. Varied stages over the nine levels. Good animations and little details for both you and enemies with some nice backgrounds and good use of color.
Jumping is more difficult to control than it needs to be. While jumping you move slower than your walk speed, the jump is momentum based so you are unable to maneuver once jumping (odd for a ninja game) and jumping from a near standstill gains you almost no distance. In the early stages you aren't too effects but some of the later stages make the imprecise movement controls more difficult to ignore.
Has a two player mode.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1761908530075066531
Ninja side scrolling action platformer with a cute cartoon aesthetic. You have a basic attack, jump, and dash that will cause you to roll before doing your attack if you try to attack mid run. You can slowly climb up certain walls and jump off of them and when a meter is charged activate a ninja power like having a clone double that follows you and attacks or a circle of fire you can shoot out of yourself. When you or enemies hit each other it often creates a stunned effect instead of damage and when it happens to enemies you can pick them up and throw them. There are four attack types you unlock over time that can be cycled through with their own ranges and arcs that can be better against certain enemies. Varied stages over the nine levels. Good animations and little details for both you and enemies with some nice backgrounds and good use of color.
Jumping is more difficult to control than it needs to be. While jumping you move slower than your walk speed, the jump is momentum based so you are unable to maneuver once jumping (odd for a ninja game) and jumping from a near standstill gains you almost no distance. In the early stages you aren't too effects but some of the later stages make the imprecise movement controls more difficult to ignore.
Has a two player mode.
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1761908530075066531
1995
An interesting single plane beat em up based on a manga with some unique mechanics that can make it worth a try but never that good due to feeling a bit too slow, somewhat too reliant on iframes, high difficulty, limited enemy and location variety, seeming a bit outdated for a 95 game, and having one playable character.
As an example of what happens over the course of five short stages you start off punching and kicking a biker gang off of their motorcycles as you defend an orphanage with a treasure hidden inside, battle soldiers on a train that keep throwing small food carts at you while your ally walks alongside you briefly shooting at enemies, and fight ninjas on a public streets as random people pass by until the ninjas start disguising themselves as people ripping off disguises of children and old ladies before attacking you.
You have unlimited continues but any deaths will restart the stage you are on requiring you to attack in ways that will likely perfectly counter a type of enemy or rely on defensive moves until you have an opening. Doing nothing has you block attacks that will absorb most of the damage, ducking or crouch walking avoids high attacks, holding up while walking forward puts you in different stance that moves slower but that will automatically do a low jump over low attacks (or food carts). You have one attack button but a variety of moves based on if you attack while moving or still or if you are holding up or down, crouching and attacking will do an uppercut while crouching and holding forward does a leg sweep, you have multiple jumping attacks with the jump button that do more damage and are more useful than in many beat em ups but you can also hit up twice to do a high backflip that you can do a kicking combo with after you land, hitting down twice does a forward dodging roll with some minor iframes that you can launch a kick from, and if knocked down you have different attacks while getting up depending on what directions you hold. Many attacks put enemies into a juggling state where you can continue to hit them before they hit the ground with one solid combo or a combo and a hit or two in mid air often being enough to kill an enemy, but you are vulnerable to this as well and a minor mistake might lose you a large amount of health. Getting near an enemy allows you to throw them and in the options menu you can bind throw to its own button or just have it be the same as the attack button. The ability the game is named after is that as you hit enemies you charge up a meter that when full allows you to hit a button to briefly remove your earing that was holding back your full power, this puts you into a Super Saiyan looking mode where you are surrounded by a gold glow and have your hair change color and stand up (in your portrait at least), you are healed for half your health bar, and you gain much faster speed and sometimes things like lightning bolts or a tornado hitting enemies as you fight. In this mode you do still take the same high damage when you get hit though.
Enemies will drop weapons that you can continue to use but that lose durability when you do a special attack with them or get hit. Swords and blunt objects can add a stronger final blow with further reach to a normal combo or you can hit the weapon button that will launch your character in the direction he is facing for a powerful swing that kills most enemies before he then launches backwards and forwards again. Claws and brass knuckles enhance your attacks but have no special ability but have five durability instead of the usual three. Pistols can be picked up that you can fire in front of, behind you, or that you can roll forward before shooting in front of or behind you. The pistol does a fairly high amount of damage and shots penetrate enemies.
Good soundtrack.
While it is an interesting style it is kind of limited by the source material and mechanics. You needing to know how to react to enemies is likely why the variety tends to be so low and why they tend to be the same with palette swaps on each stage so you know what kind of moves they are going to do and why you tend yo be limited to one enemy on the screen from each side until you defeat both and then one more comes at your from each side again and again. Each stage takes you to a different locations but usually as the scene in each place changes you are just changing to a new identical or nearly identical spot until the stage is finished or as you get a story scene before going back to the gameplay. It's going to be frustrating to make it most of the way through a stage only to take a hit that suddenly sees you take three or four more blows by multiple enemies while in mid air losing you about half your health. Some enemies really like to stay off screen for some added annoyance, worse when it is an enemy type with a gun or ranged attack. It's a beat em up where you only have one character to play as in game that is quickly over (ignoring all the continues it might take).
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1759512095903899936
As an example of what happens over the course of five short stages you start off punching and kicking a biker gang off of their motorcycles as you defend an orphanage with a treasure hidden inside, battle soldiers on a train that keep throwing small food carts at you while your ally walks alongside you briefly shooting at enemies, and fight ninjas on a public streets as random people pass by until the ninjas start disguising themselves as people ripping off disguises of children and old ladies before attacking you.
You have unlimited continues but any deaths will restart the stage you are on requiring you to attack in ways that will likely perfectly counter a type of enemy or rely on defensive moves until you have an opening. Doing nothing has you block attacks that will absorb most of the damage, ducking or crouch walking avoids high attacks, holding up while walking forward puts you in different stance that moves slower but that will automatically do a low jump over low attacks (or food carts). You have one attack button but a variety of moves based on if you attack while moving or still or if you are holding up or down, crouching and attacking will do an uppercut while crouching and holding forward does a leg sweep, you have multiple jumping attacks with the jump button that do more damage and are more useful than in many beat em ups but you can also hit up twice to do a high backflip that you can do a kicking combo with after you land, hitting down twice does a forward dodging roll with some minor iframes that you can launch a kick from, and if knocked down you have different attacks while getting up depending on what directions you hold. Many attacks put enemies into a juggling state where you can continue to hit them before they hit the ground with one solid combo or a combo and a hit or two in mid air often being enough to kill an enemy, but you are vulnerable to this as well and a minor mistake might lose you a large amount of health. Getting near an enemy allows you to throw them and in the options menu you can bind throw to its own button or just have it be the same as the attack button. The ability the game is named after is that as you hit enemies you charge up a meter that when full allows you to hit a button to briefly remove your earing that was holding back your full power, this puts you into a Super Saiyan looking mode where you are surrounded by a gold glow and have your hair change color and stand up (in your portrait at least), you are healed for half your health bar, and you gain much faster speed and sometimes things like lightning bolts or a tornado hitting enemies as you fight. In this mode you do still take the same high damage when you get hit though.
Enemies will drop weapons that you can continue to use but that lose durability when you do a special attack with them or get hit. Swords and blunt objects can add a stronger final blow with further reach to a normal combo or you can hit the weapon button that will launch your character in the direction he is facing for a powerful swing that kills most enemies before he then launches backwards and forwards again. Claws and brass knuckles enhance your attacks but have no special ability but have five durability instead of the usual three. Pistols can be picked up that you can fire in front of, behind you, or that you can roll forward before shooting in front of or behind you. The pistol does a fairly high amount of damage and shots penetrate enemies.
Good soundtrack.
While it is an interesting style it is kind of limited by the source material and mechanics. You needing to know how to react to enemies is likely why the variety tends to be so low and why they tend to be the same with palette swaps on each stage so you know what kind of moves they are going to do and why you tend yo be limited to one enemy on the screen from each side until you defeat both and then one more comes at your from each side again and again. Each stage takes you to a different locations but usually as the scene in each place changes you are just changing to a new identical or nearly identical spot until the stage is finished or as you get a story scene before going back to the gameplay. It's going to be frustrating to make it most of the way through a stage only to take a hit that suddenly sees you take three or four more blows by multiple enemies while in mid air losing you about half your health. Some enemies really like to stay off screen for some added annoyance, worse when it is an enemy type with a gun or ranged attack. It's a beat em up where you only have one character to play as in game that is quickly over (ignoring all the continues it might take).
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1759512095903899936