1994
Being a mechanical sensation, Pinball machines had to compete with video games at the arcades and though developers tried to implement new functions maybe exactly the increasing cost for more complicated maintenance led to the cease of existence. There must have been a general interest in the gameplay otherwise as there constantly was software for home consoles and computers, trying to emulate the fun to be had with Pinball cabinets.
It's possible more recent computers are capable of an almost perfect recapture, but there's a reason even today enthusiasts are restoring Pinball cabinets and some of them are making them accessible through clubs and museums to work their charme as an attraction. In fact, just a few hours ago, in preparation of my next big arcade trip in May, I stumbled over the featurette for a new Pulp Fiction machine and looking at the details made me realize the fascination for physically moving parts again.
Creating a Pinball video game can't provide that amongst all the realism, but the further you go back in time, the bigger had been the problems to depict a realistic table at all. Pinball Dreams for the Amiga might have been state of the art during the era for instance, but how much reason is there to revisit this game today? I might simultaneously have been playing Revenge of the Gator on my Gameboy back in the day, because it was my option for a Pinball video game on the then recent mobile device and we could take from this that these games rather function as a status quo.
Some of you might already remember I was rarely playing Mega Drive games in the nineties, because most of us had taken the Amiga to SNES route, so you might anticipate with the question why on earth would I enjoy a game like Codemasters' Psycho Pinball that much in retrospect then?
The answer in short is: Because they've gotten something right.
I was just recently playing the Pokemon Pinball games and that Disney's The Little Mermaid II: Pinball Frenzy to reassure me enough in saying a good Pinball video game was created under the awareness it is not a real table. So what does that mean?
Well, I found Psycho Pinball, when I was looking for alternatives to Sonic Spinball, that had disappointed me with its gameplay/physics, even though I liked the idea. I could later find out that an almost similar concept with better execution would convince me in the form of Yoku's Island Express. But a couple of years ago, I was specifically researching hidden gems I might have missed due to my ignorance of Sega during the console war, when there also had been monetary reasons to focus on one platform only.
It seems Codemasters' Psycho Pinball had been a UK or European exclusive anyway, so a huge part of you readers might possibly have missed it too, back then. Codemasters had been known for their Dizzy games and Micro Machines already. They would then later move on to create the TOCA and Colin McRae Rally games, some of my absolute favorite racers on the Sony Playstation. They had actually published Advanced Pinball Simulator in 1988, so maybe another Pinball wasn't exotic in their roster, but let me assure you it's no comparison at all.
Knowing Pinball Dreams the selection of four tables in Psycho Pinball isn't much of a surprise. There's a horror, a western and an underwater theme, all three well thought through tables fun to play on their own, but mostly as training for the fourth, Psycho, that is a complete table, but will have portals to the other ones. Until now, I've probably played hundreds of hours on Psycho, quite a lot at first, but I wheel this game out every other month for years now.
Psycho Pinball for me has just the right amount of craziness on a more or less traditional Pinball layout, because it doesn't try to add too much, like for instance the aforementioned Pokemon Pinball, that's rather limited on the Pinball, so it tries to keep you occupied on the catching and developing of Pokemon, which is a nice touch, but something I'd rather pick up a Pokemon game for and not a Pinball game.
On the contrary, Psycho Pinball has got enough Pinball mechanics to explore the triggering of events on each table. And it totally has the physics for that, which is essential. As a Pinball wizard, you neither need a perfect body nor a perfect soul, but if one thing, you wanna have control. Tilting is a helpful option, but it even feels right to save the ball with the outermost tip of your flipper.
Whilst the scrolling is quite a decent emulation of your view following the ball, there sure is a learning curve from chaotic attempts of keeping the ball in play to increasing highscore chances intentionally. Complemented by minigames on the old school screen or inserts of simple platformer mazes there's enough variability to make the hunt for a score of at least 100000000 most enjoyable.
Psycho Pinball is also fast enough, which is a huge problem with a lot of Pinball video games in general. Often enough the scrolling, if there even is some, isn't smooth enough and the ball just doesn't behave right. In Psycho Pinball even launching the ball feels like you're actually pulling back a spring mechanism and every curve or bounce feels like it should be that way.
I'm avoiding the word authentic, because within the limitations of a Mega Drive Psycho Pinball does a great job at creating an illusion, but there's at least the cost of graphical brilliance. The squeaky score is something not everybody can handle, but I actually think it's quite appropriate thinking of it as an overdriven speaker at a noisy arcade. The graphics appear rather pragmatic, probably aware that too many fancy details would rather slow down the processor, but it is actually the speed and dedication to playability that makes you forget about that swiftly.
In fact, the clear design adds to the orientation during fast bounces and aiming for the Jackpot, emphasized by increased tension of the soundtrack when you've completed the letters for "Psycho", probably works best the way it is. Psycho Pinball even today is addictive and just playing it again, I didn't even realize an hour had passed instantly.
Aiming for the preset highscores is doable by the way, but will need some warming up, because Psycho Pinball doesn't throw points at you for nothing. I remember having played once on an ancient Pinball cabinet my then girlfriend's father owned and on that you hardly scored more than a few thousand.
With more complicated targets an upscaling in numbers makes sense, but scoring almost 3 billion for instance on my first play of the mentioned Little Mermaid Pinball for Gameboy Color was just as ridiculous as that one time I left credits in the Star Trek TNG cabinet, because I didn't manage to lose within the twenty or so minutes we waited for our takeaway food. Just like the person who had left some balls for me to pick up on. They probably didn't make much money with the cabinet at that diner.
That's just one of the many things Psycho Pinball does right, I guess. Scoring the first ten million as a beginner seems like a hard task, but the more you learn the mechanics, the better you get at combining events, increasing your bonus and scoring at mini games. It's sheer pleasurable excitement realizing to be in the zone to beat the next highscore and if there's one thing missing, it's a battery in the cartridge to actually save your success.
But that's not a very bitter pill to swallow in trade for the awesome game Psycho Pinball is. I can understand if you're not much into this kind of gaming or you're more after the state of the art simulation, that this isn't the game for you. But if you're interested in good Pinball games check it out. Especially for the Mega Drive, and I've been playing pretty much any Pinball there is for the console, it is as good as it gets.
It's possible more recent computers are capable of an almost perfect recapture, but there's a reason even today enthusiasts are restoring Pinball cabinets and some of them are making them accessible through clubs and museums to work their charme as an attraction. In fact, just a few hours ago, in preparation of my next big arcade trip in May, I stumbled over the featurette for a new Pulp Fiction machine and looking at the details made me realize the fascination for physically moving parts again.
Creating a Pinball video game can't provide that amongst all the realism, but the further you go back in time, the bigger had been the problems to depict a realistic table at all. Pinball Dreams for the Amiga might have been state of the art during the era for instance, but how much reason is there to revisit this game today? I might simultaneously have been playing Revenge of the Gator on my Gameboy back in the day, because it was my option for a Pinball video game on the then recent mobile device and we could take from this that these games rather function as a status quo.
Some of you might already remember I was rarely playing Mega Drive games in the nineties, because most of us had taken the Amiga to SNES route, so you might anticipate with the question why on earth would I enjoy a game like Codemasters' Psycho Pinball that much in retrospect then?
The answer in short is: Because they've gotten something right.
I was just recently playing the Pokemon Pinball games and that Disney's The Little Mermaid II: Pinball Frenzy to reassure me enough in saying a good Pinball video game was created under the awareness it is not a real table. So what does that mean?
Well, I found Psycho Pinball, when I was looking for alternatives to Sonic Spinball, that had disappointed me with its gameplay/physics, even though I liked the idea. I could later find out that an almost similar concept with better execution would convince me in the form of Yoku's Island Express. But a couple of years ago, I was specifically researching hidden gems I might have missed due to my ignorance of Sega during the console war, when there also had been monetary reasons to focus on one platform only.
It seems Codemasters' Psycho Pinball had been a UK or European exclusive anyway, so a huge part of you readers might possibly have missed it too, back then. Codemasters had been known for their Dizzy games and Micro Machines already. They would then later move on to create the TOCA and Colin McRae Rally games, some of my absolute favorite racers on the Sony Playstation. They had actually published Advanced Pinball Simulator in 1988, so maybe another Pinball wasn't exotic in their roster, but let me assure you it's no comparison at all.
Knowing Pinball Dreams the selection of four tables in Psycho Pinball isn't much of a surprise. There's a horror, a western and an underwater theme, all three well thought through tables fun to play on their own, but mostly as training for the fourth, Psycho, that is a complete table, but will have portals to the other ones. Until now, I've probably played hundreds of hours on Psycho, quite a lot at first, but I wheel this game out every other month for years now.
Psycho Pinball for me has just the right amount of craziness on a more or less traditional Pinball layout, because it doesn't try to add too much, like for instance the aforementioned Pokemon Pinball, that's rather limited on the Pinball, so it tries to keep you occupied on the catching and developing of Pokemon, which is a nice touch, but something I'd rather pick up a Pokemon game for and not a Pinball game.
On the contrary, Psycho Pinball has got enough Pinball mechanics to explore the triggering of events on each table. And it totally has the physics for that, which is essential. As a Pinball wizard, you neither need a perfect body nor a perfect soul, but if one thing, you wanna have control. Tilting is a helpful option, but it even feels right to save the ball with the outermost tip of your flipper.
Whilst the scrolling is quite a decent emulation of your view following the ball, there sure is a learning curve from chaotic attempts of keeping the ball in play to increasing highscore chances intentionally. Complemented by minigames on the old school screen or inserts of simple platformer mazes there's enough variability to make the hunt for a score of at least 100000000 most enjoyable.
Psycho Pinball is also fast enough, which is a huge problem with a lot of Pinball video games in general. Often enough the scrolling, if there even is some, isn't smooth enough and the ball just doesn't behave right. In Psycho Pinball even launching the ball feels like you're actually pulling back a spring mechanism and every curve or bounce feels like it should be that way.
I'm avoiding the word authentic, because within the limitations of a Mega Drive Psycho Pinball does a great job at creating an illusion, but there's at least the cost of graphical brilliance. The squeaky score is something not everybody can handle, but I actually think it's quite appropriate thinking of it as an overdriven speaker at a noisy arcade. The graphics appear rather pragmatic, probably aware that too many fancy details would rather slow down the processor, but it is actually the speed and dedication to playability that makes you forget about that swiftly.
In fact, the clear design adds to the orientation during fast bounces and aiming for the Jackpot, emphasized by increased tension of the soundtrack when you've completed the letters for "Psycho", probably works best the way it is. Psycho Pinball even today is addictive and just playing it again, I didn't even realize an hour had passed instantly.
Aiming for the preset highscores is doable by the way, but will need some warming up, because Psycho Pinball doesn't throw points at you for nothing. I remember having played once on an ancient Pinball cabinet my then girlfriend's father owned and on that you hardly scored more than a few thousand.
With more complicated targets an upscaling in numbers makes sense, but scoring almost 3 billion for instance on my first play of the mentioned Little Mermaid Pinball for Gameboy Color was just as ridiculous as that one time I left credits in the Star Trek TNG cabinet, because I didn't manage to lose within the twenty or so minutes we waited for our takeaway food. Just like the person who had left some balls for me to pick up on. They probably didn't make much money with the cabinet at that diner.
That's just one of the many things Psycho Pinball does right, I guess. Scoring the first ten million as a beginner seems like a hard task, but the more you learn the mechanics, the better you get at combining events, increasing your bonus and scoring at mini games. It's sheer pleasurable excitement realizing to be in the zone to beat the next highscore and if there's one thing missing, it's a battery in the cartridge to actually save your success.
But that's not a very bitter pill to swallow in trade for the awesome game Psycho Pinball is. I can understand if you're not much into this kind of gaming or you're more after the state of the art simulation, that this isn't the game for you. But if you're interested in good Pinball games check it out. Especially for the Mega Drive, and I've been playing pretty much any Pinball there is for the console, it is as good as it gets.
1992
As late as March 1995, the Varie Corporation came up with a port of Irem's 1992 arcade Beat'em'up for the Super Famicom. According to Wikipedia an American localization was planned but canceled and the SNES game had already received a review in Nintendo Power #58 (interesting, because that's supposedly the March 1994 issue). Having had a chance to play the Super Famicom version, here's my follow up to the arcade review.
While there can never be enough Brawlers on the system, with the Sony Playstation on the horizon and even the Nintendo 64 at least eagerly awaited, a game like Undercover Cops probably wasn't expected to retain enough players during a time games like the Donkey Kong Country series and Killer Instinct were providing some late surprises what the system was capable of.
Other than in Japan, where a mild success of the arcade release was carried on via the Gameboy game Undercover Cops: Hakaishin Garumaa and a Manga published in Gamest Comics, the American audience, if even aware, might have forgotten about the title anyway until the port would have been released.
Luckily, if you wanted to play the import, the necessary menus are in English. Only the rudimentary story is written in Japanese and though I try to actually read those narrations if I can, it's neither crucial to the typical Beat'em'up, nor was the plot very convincing at the arcades, so I can assure you it's not much you're missing out on.
A difference would be the weird Gameboy board game style adaption from 1993, that I couldn't make much sense of, because there you pick one of the three known characters to play on a map with a mix of slot machines, supposedly taken from the Assessment Day segments in Undercover Cops, and turn-based fights. Plenty Japanese text might actually explain what that is about, but due to the language barrier I'm not able to judge.
The question is, would you want to play the more accessible Super Famicom game? That's probably depending on the availability of the arcade original and your general interest. Though limited to one player, that doesn't mean Undercover Cops is any easier than the arcade version as a single contender.
Having read Easy Mode will end after stage 3 asking you to switch to Normal, I've of course picked that difficulty. Having played the Undercover Cops arcade quite recently made me confident enough to try and I can say the Varie port for the Super Famicom stays quite true to the original within its limitations. The screen is smaller at a lower resolution, but it even managed to keep backgrounds and details like the crows, whilst minor censorship like missing blood spray doesn't really affect gameplay.
The enemies don't seem to fight precisely the same, but they either were an even larger pain in the ass like that bat wielding dude or at least as annoying as in the original. And that's my actual issue with Undercover Cops in the first place. I wasn't all that convinced by the arcade machine anyway, but that was capitalist enough to let me pass with enough credits as backup.
I'd be totally with you that having a limited amount of continues (here adjustable to up to five lives and five continues) will enhance a game to the requirement of skill. Knowing the original wasn't much rewarding with the design or even story development, but instead punishes any success by being even more infuriating, my motivation wasn't high enough to not abandon the Super Famicom version after failing at the third boss.
Batman Returns for instance kept me hooked on a rather maddening Super Nintendo game, but Undercover Cops lacks a more unique theme by today's standards. It was too clearly designed with cashing in at arcades in mind, so it's not really supporting an elaborated learning curve and the excellence of execution super hard Irem games like the R-Type series provide just don't translates as well to the Brawling genre.
As an Irem, Super Famicom or Beat'em'up completionist, you might still want Undercover Cops in your collection, but I highly doubt you'll be enjoying it, should you not be a genre dedicated masochist.
While there can never be enough Brawlers on the system, with the Sony Playstation on the horizon and even the Nintendo 64 at least eagerly awaited, a game like Undercover Cops probably wasn't expected to retain enough players during a time games like the Donkey Kong Country series and Killer Instinct were providing some late surprises what the system was capable of.
Other than in Japan, where a mild success of the arcade release was carried on via the Gameboy game Undercover Cops: Hakaishin Garumaa and a Manga published in Gamest Comics, the American audience, if even aware, might have forgotten about the title anyway until the port would have been released.
Luckily, if you wanted to play the import, the necessary menus are in English. Only the rudimentary story is written in Japanese and though I try to actually read those narrations if I can, it's neither crucial to the typical Beat'em'up, nor was the plot very convincing at the arcades, so I can assure you it's not much you're missing out on.
A difference would be the weird Gameboy board game style adaption from 1993, that I couldn't make much sense of, because there you pick one of the three known characters to play on a map with a mix of slot machines, supposedly taken from the Assessment Day segments in Undercover Cops, and turn-based fights. Plenty Japanese text might actually explain what that is about, but due to the language barrier I'm not able to judge.
The question is, would you want to play the more accessible Super Famicom game? That's probably depending on the availability of the arcade original and your general interest. Though limited to one player, that doesn't mean Undercover Cops is any easier than the arcade version as a single contender.
Having read Easy Mode will end after stage 3 asking you to switch to Normal, I've of course picked that difficulty. Having played the Undercover Cops arcade quite recently made me confident enough to try and I can say the Varie port for the Super Famicom stays quite true to the original within its limitations. The screen is smaller at a lower resolution, but it even managed to keep backgrounds and details like the crows, whilst minor censorship like missing blood spray doesn't really affect gameplay.
The enemies don't seem to fight precisely the same, but they either were an even larger pain in the ass like that bat wielding dude or at least as annoying as in the original. And that's my actual issue with Undercover Cops in the first place. I wasn't all that convinced by the arcade machine anyway, but that was capitalist enough to let me pass with enough credits as backup.
I'd be totally with you that having a limited amount of continues (here adjustable to up to five lives and five continues) will enhance a game to the requirement of skill. Knowing the original wasn't much rewarding with the design or even story development, but instead punishes any success by being even more infuriating, my motivation wasn't high enough to not abandon the Super Famicom version after failing at the third boss.
Batman Returns for instance kept me hooked on a rather maddening Super Nintendo game, but Undercover Cops lacks a more unique theme by today's standards. It was too clearly designed with cashing in at arcades in mind, so it's not really supporting an elaborated learning curve and the excellence of execution super hard Irem games like the R-Type series provide just don't translates as well to the Brawling genre.
As an Irem, Super Famicom or Beat'em'up completionist, you might still want Undercover Cops in your collection, but I highly doubt you'll be enjoying it, should you not be a genre dedicated masochist.
What can you expect from three Romanians going on Kickstarter with another recreation of all the legendary Point'n'click adventures we all love? Yeah, you'd think Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure is just another one of those nice ideas addressing our nostalgia, that will turn out bland after the introduction or trailer material, but this one's different.
Stuck in Attic created beautiful and flawless animations on plenty of hand drawn backgrounds just like it would be the next modern installment after Monkey Island 3, Discworld and Broken Sword and you might want to forget studios ever attempted going 3D after fully interactive cartoons were just on the doorstep. They totally went out of their way to make Gibbous completely dubbed in English and include lots of details they could have already gotten away without.
As a first release Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure might not be 100% perfect when it comes to writing. The developers are great in including reference without rubbing everything in your face and the mix of a playable private detective, a slacker and his talking cat are an awesome base to go from, but I somehow had a hard time picking the game up again for another session without being able to explain why.
Maybe one thing bothering me was you've got a lot of hotspots to interact with, though it's mandatory to find out when a special ability like involving the cat is required, too often the result will be the same "won't do that". That's something they maybe wanted to elaborate in vein of the Edna & Harvey games for instance, but didn't have the resources for anymore. Loving to explore the environment especially once the scenery expanded this became a little frustrating.
For what Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure might lack in that last bit of refinery of storytelling to keep drawing me in all the time, it really offers a lot of smaller gags and spoofs to keep being entertaining. Making this a comedy loosely based on lovecraftian myths isn't much more than a general theme for a mystery in the middle, but probably a good lever to click with popular culture. In my opinion wordplays with locations like Darkham and Fishmouth are good examples for when they're overdoing the comedy, but that's my personal humor.
I understand Stuck in Attic wanted to pay tribute to their Transylvanian heritage by including some funny scenes over there as well and though this offers some of the best moments, actually modernizing the Monkey Island sword fight as a rap battle and putting the mechanics in question at the same time by omitting the learning process, that side plot feels quite random and out of focus. It's promising though for the announced next title Near-Mage that's supposed to take place in Transylvania.
Though some characters you cooperate with are only functional to close gaps between chapters, the general writing of NPCs is a very strong point of Stuck in Attic's design and they're very good at emphasizing quirks to make them unique and funny. I like the somber tone between the lines and the cynical cat was something they could have even expanded on.
I have a hunch the designers either wanted to focus on the storytelling or had a modern puzzle design in mind for Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure, because almost everything fell into place quite naturally for me. That however leaves a slightly bitter taste on my tongue that it could have been a little less straight in thinking. I'm totally fine not having to consult a guide for moon logic and I appreciate the absence of too many red herrings, but I would have liked just a notch more challenge.
Towards the end they try to create that by puzzle mechanics you could actually crack by just trying hard enough, but they always manage to leave enough hints to solve them on your own. It just requires knowing what to do with the information and then it's possible to apply logic. That's fine, it's probably a more user friendly way to do it, but I'm missing some of the best surprises you could get out of the classic Lucas Arts adventures.
At least they also don't have you hunt pixels and that's where the engine is very convenient, even on the Switch version of Gibbous that I got, because it caught my attention instantly on the eShop being on sale for a fiver.
Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure actually plays quite nicely via touch screen especially for the zoom in feature that helps admiring the art's beautiful details. But you can do just the same on your Pro Controller for instance and it doesn't take long to learn all functions. Popping up the inventory and menu, highlighting all hotspots or of course clicking on a hotspot to reveal icons to pick between commands is very pleasant.
So there's really no reason you shouldn't try Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure if you're just the slightest fan of gorgeously animated Point'n'click galore, because you very well will get your money's worth in about 11-12 hours of gameplay, which is a good duration for these programs in my opinion.
Is it an instant classic? That might depend on your reception, but the overall quality can't be denied. It sure has more substance than The Wardrobe, another too overlooked genre highlight I've written a review about some months ago. As another suggestion for further reading The Innsmouth Case comes to mind, because it's the more hilarious Lovecraft spoof in writing, but it can only be that as an illustrated interactive novel.
We definitely shouldn't measure Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure by the romanticizing memory of the moments we had with what we consider classics. Have you played games like Maniac Mansion or Zak McKracken lately for example? Some references can only be understood if you actually lived when those games were made and Lucas Arts improved on their gameplay mechanics a lot. Even Monkey Island could be stripped of things like unnecessary map walking. We should welcome a new generation being able to put the best of what was into a modern context.
So keep in mind this is the debut of a start up and though Stuck in Attic include references and of course draw inspiration from those classics, they deserve to build upon this. What I'm so grateful for is they don't just try to cash in on regurgitating retro triggers. Instead with Gibbous they present themselves as dedicated genre connoisseurs with a mind of their own.
Having to face the usual problem of finishing a story, they even manage to implement a brain teaser referencing the linearity of Point'n'click gameplay and shining like that could be a chance to once elevate to the writing genius of a Ron Gilbert. Until then Gibbous is a brilliant show off what Stuck in Attic are capable of creating, a wholesome experience you would expect from a professional studio. Hopefully this is the first in a long line of future highlights to come.
Stuck in Attic created beautiful and flawless animations on plenty of hand drawn backgrounds just like it would be the next modern installment after Monkey Island 3, Discworld and Broken Sword and you might want to forget studios ever attempted going 3D after fully interactive cartoons were just on the doorstep. They totally went out of their way to make Gibbous completely dubbed in English and include lots of details they could have already gotten away without.
As a first release Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure might not be 100% perfect when it comes to writing. The developers are great in including reference without rubbing everything in your face and the mix of a playable private detective, a slacker and his talking cat are an awesome base to go from, but I somehow had a hard time picking the game up again for another session without being able to explain why.
Maybe one thing bothering me was you've got a lot of hotspots to interact with, though it's mandatory to find out when a special ability like involving the cat is required, too often the result will be the same "won't do that". That's something they maybe wanted to elaborate in vein of the Edna & Harvey games for instance, but didn't have the resources for anymore. Loving to explore the environment especially once the scenery expanded this became a little frustrating.
For what Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure might lack in that last bit of refinery of storytelling to keep drawing me in all the time, it really offers a lot of smaller gags and spoofs to keep being entertaining. Making this a comedy loosely based on lovecraftian myths isn't much more than a general theme for a mystery in the middle, but probably a good lever to click with popular culture. In my opinion wordplays with locations like Darkham and Fishmouth are good examples for when they're overdoing the comedy, but that's my personal humor.
I understand Stuck in Attic wanted to pay tribute to their Transylvanian heritage by including some funny scenes over there as well and though this offers some of the best moments, actually modernizing the Monkey Island sword fight as a rap battle and putting the mechanics in question at the same time by omitting the learning process, that side plot feels quite random and out of focus. It's promising though for the announced next title Near-Mage that's supposed to take place in Transylvania.
Though some characters you cooperate with are only functional to close gaps between chapters, the general writing of NPCs is a very strong point of Stuck in Attic's design and they're very good at emphasizing quirks to make them unique and funny. I like the somber tone between the lines and the cynical cat was something they could have even expanded on.
I have a hunch the designers either wanted to focus on the storytelling or had a modern puzzle design in mind for Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure, because almost everything fell into place quite naturally for me. That however leaves a slightly bitter taste on my tongue that it could have been a little less straight in thinking. I'm totally fine not having to consult a guide for moon logic and I appreciate the absence of too many red herrings, but I would have liked just a notch more challenge.
Towards the end they try to create that by puzzle mechanics you could actually crack by just trying hard enough, but they always manage to leave enough hints to solve them on your own. It just requires knowing what to do with the information and then it's possible to apply logic. That's fine, it's probably a more user friendly way to do it, but I'm missing some of the best surprises you could get out of the classic Lucas Arts adventures.
At least they also don't have you hunt pixels and that's where the engine is very convenient, even on the Switch version of Gibbous that I got, because it caught my attention instantly on the eShop being on sale for a fiver.
Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure actually plays quite nicely via touch screen especially for the zoom in feature that helps admiring the art's beautiful details. But you can do just the same on your Pro Controller for instance and it doesn't take long to learn all functions. Popping up the inventory and menu, highlighting all hotspots or of course clicking on a hotspot to reveal icons to pick between commands is very pleasant.
So there's really no reason you shouldn't try Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure if you're just the slightest fan of gorgeously animated Point'n'click galore, because you very well will get your money's worth in about 11-12 hours of gameplay, which is a good duration for these programs in my opinion.
Is it an instant classic? That might depend on your reception, but the overall quality can't be denied. It sure has more substance than The Wardrobe, another too overlooked genre highlight I've written a review about some months ago. As another suggestion for further reading The Innsmouth Case comes to mind, because it's the more hilarious Lovecraft spoof in writing, but it can only be that as an illustrated interactive novel.
We definitely shouldn't measure Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure by the romanticizing memory of the moments we had with what we consider classics. Have you played games like Maniac Mansion or Zak McKracken lately for example? Some references can only be understood if you actually lived when those games were made and Lucas Arts improved on their gameplay mechanics a lot. Even Monkey Island could be stripped of things like unnecessary map walking. We should welcome a new generation being able to put the best of what was into a modern context.
So keep in mind this is the debut of a start up and though Stuck in Attic include references and of course draw inspiration from those classics, they deserve to build upon this. What I'm so grateful for is they don't just try to cash in on regurgitating retro triggers. Instead with Gibbous they present themselves as dedicated genre connoisseurs with a mind of their own.
Having to face the usual problem of finishing a story, they even manage to implement a brain teaser referencing the linearity of Point'n'click gameplay and shining like that could be a chance to once elevate to the writing genius of a Ron Gilbert. Until then Gibbous is a brilliant show off what Stuck in Attic are capable of creating, a wholesome experience you would expect from a professional studio. Hopefully this is the first in a long line of future highlights to come.
2017
I was thinking really hard on how to review Thimbleweed Park or doing it at all, because in general everything should have been said at this point. On the other hand there seems to be enough confusion whether it's a matter of taste or knowledge to like this Point'n'click adventure or not.
For my part, I love and appreciate it, but at the moment I don't feel like bragging in spoilers by putting every last bit in context, because I've matured enough to know how little I actually know. I might have gotten a majority of the references, but that doesn't entitle to pin it down. I've still learned things on this journey, like Ron Gilbert starting his career on developing Graphics Basic for the C64 and that I should have kept my eyes and ears open at the time the Kickstarter went live, because neither had I expected new (interesting) Point'n'clicks being designed, nor would I have expected being able to back their creation then, because I'd sure would have chipped in on this one.
I feel like I'm missing out on the whole initiation process, that I can just try to follow by reading blogs and picking up trails in Interviews or other talk formats. It's a bit like back when the movie Kill Bill found a life of its own on the internet, when there were active discussions on Quentin Tarantino's inspirations and viewers got involved by watching more and more of them to find more clues on his work.
On Thimbleweed Park though, backers even had a limited possibility to take part in the actual creation and this process, along with communities forming like the family of said supporters or players who then went on to discuss their progress and interpretation of the game.
I would have loved to be a part of that family of backers at least, because I feel like being the same kind, loving those brilliant Lucas Arts adventures. It's like there always had been a relation between those dream worlds we liked to dwell in and the designers who not only created the beautiful environments, but also laid out nuts to crack and lure us towards an exit, like guiding parents to finally take us home to reality. And we brats couldn't stop to reboot and live through those awesome adventures all the time.
It's like Thimbleweed Park was created for that specific family of players, who would understand plenty of the shown references unfolding in a surreal Twin Peaks murder mystery that enough players can't understand doesn't have to be the main focus all the time. That's the sad part about today's world where cashing in on explaining origins and tying loose ends shifted consumers to lay back and expect having each and everything explained in detail.
On the other end we have so called nerds, who would look back on Mad Max II rip off movies for instance as a reduction to subjectively summarized core elements due to low budget in best cases enhanced with own additions as a form of critique.
Ron Gilbert's writing genius works in the best essayistic manner comparable to the need to know basis of Tarantino's films, that the majority tries to catch up with by praising the cool dialogues, but then gets lost once he totally geeks out on a flick like Death Proof, which I'd consider one of his best works sheer alone for the big middle finger towards the pretenders giving me the opportunity to enjoy being the only one laughing in a packed theater.
Being backed by fans who would understand enough to still enjoy Thimbleweed Park without necessarily catching any self-revealing train of thought or bringing knowledge about Plato's cave allegory for instance, gives the designers a welcome freedom to geek out about computers or data carriers faded into obscurity, some even in 1987, when the story takes place. But it also lets Gilbert expand on his philosophy of game design with the confidence to better lose players on the way than to make compromises.
And together with old colleagues Gary Winnick, Mark Ferrari and David Fox he paved a solid way by creating retro but completely voice acted state of the pixel art design that emphasizes the impression of a lost game of the late eighties that collected dust unnoticed until now, to have you collect specks of dust instead because of your obsolete pixel hunting OCD and boy, I should have cleaned my screen first, because I didn't reckon being part of the joke. Well played, Gilbert.
Anyway, Thimbleweed Park lets you play as up to five characters simultaneously and making them cooperate to solve plenty of puzzles on a moderate to little advanced level is very natural when you're used to the verb system of games like Maniac Mansion or The Secret of Monkey Island. A later implemented helpline to call for hints in-game should keep you going constantly. You might just have to accept you see paths that will have to open up later in the game.
Still, there are usually enough tasks to work on should you be stuck on one and often this will lead you to new possibilities and ideas. Most of the essential puzzles are designed so that you get an idea what you can pick up or combine and though some items are red herrings, some actually reveal themselves before you get the wrong idea. Knowing the old works helps just as much as it surprises you maybe.
There's a DLC just to make Ransome the clown character swear without censorship and that's totally up to you if that's worth your money. It will just add uncensored audio, but the text will still show the beeping passages. He's a bit like an even more miserable Krusty and like other characters you will play him in a throwback rather than just watching a cutscene.
Ransome has his fans and haters, I guess the two agents aren't as ambivalent and their motivation seems a bit random. I guess it's quite clear the nerds fall for Delores (I did), who even got a small spin off I will play after this. But criticizing depth in all characters would be like arguing the Nazis would have gotten the Ark with or without Indy's involvement. You still did enjoy the ride, didn't you?
And what a foundation shaking ride Thimbleweed Park is! Though I only played it in hard mode, I still wanted to go back and look for things I might have missed, because not everything you can do is essential to the plot. One thing that was patched later is the possibility to actually play for highscores at the arcade, which I missed out first, because I didn't find the tokens. And you know my love for arcades. I really couldn't stop before I made sure to have tried anything except deleting the game.
I'm not yet ready for that step. There might still be something I'm missing out on, because Thimbleweed Park is not only written in computer code to run it, but also encrypted with said references you might enjoy the overall idea without, but could have fun to catch up on, should you not yet be familiar with the essence of the Point'n'click genre and been living in the eighties in general, or as an initiated have the time of your life reliving the good old days in a new way.
Thimbleweed Park in that sense is what so many impostors want to make you believe they are by throwing canonical catchphrases at you without having to add something themselves. You might even prefer that, because it's easy to accept something as cult, get in line and goose-step with the masses, throwing money at reproductions of icons chosen for you.
For Thimbleweed Park this would mean scratching the surface and it's possible you're fine with it. But the more you add yourself, be it by your autobiography or the effort you put into following the details, the more you can enjoy this adventure that grows with you just as Ron Gilbert isn't actually repeating himself, but refining his ideas in the most satisfying way, creating new games. Buy this, so he doesn't have to get a real job and can keep making more of them.
For my part, I love and appreciate it, but at the moment I don't feel like bragging in spoilers by putting every last bit in context, because I've matured enough to know how little I actually know. I might have gotten a majority of the references, but that doesn't entitle to pin it down. I've still learned things on this journey, like Ron Gilbert starting his career on developing Graphics Basic for the C64 and that I should have kept my eyes and ears open at the time the Kickstarter went live, because neither had I expected new (interesting) Point'n'clicks being designed, nor would I have expected being able to back their creation then, because I'd sure would have chipped in on this one.
I feel like I'm missing out on the whole initiation process, that I can just try to follow by reading blogs and picking up trails in Interviews or other talk formats. It's a bit like back when the movie Kill Bill found a life of its own on the internet, when there were active discussions on Quentin Tarantino's inspirations and viewers got involved by watching more and more of them to find more clues on his work.
On Thimbleweed Park though, backers even had a limited possibility to take part in the actual creation and this process, along with communities forming like the family of said supporters or players who then went on to discuss their progress and interpretation of the game.
I would have loved to be a part of that family of backers at least, because I feel like being the same kind, loving those brilliant Lucas Arts adventures. It's like there always had been a relation between those dream worlds we liked to dwell in and the designers who not only created the beautiful environments, but also laid out nuts to crack and lure us towards an exit, like guiding parents to finally take us home to reality. And we brats couldn't stop to reboot and live through those awesome adventures all the time.
It's like Thimbleweed Park was created for that specific family of players, who would understand plenty of the shown references unfolding in a surreal Twin Peaks murder mystery that enough players can't understand doesn't have to be the main focus all the time. That's the sad part about today's world where cashing in on explaining origins and tying loose ends shifted consumers to lay back and expect having each and everything explained in detail.
On the other end we have so called nerds, who would look back on Mad Max II rip off movies for instance as a reduction to subjectively summarized core elements due to low budget in best cases enhanced with own additions as a form of critique.
Ron Gilbert's writing genius works in the best essayistic manner comparable to the need to know basis of Tarantino's films, that the majority tries to catch up with by praising the cool dialogues, but then gets lost once he totally geeks out on a flick like Death Proof, which I'd consider one of his best works sheer alone for the big middle finger towards the pretenders giving me the opportunity to enjoy being the only one laughing in a packed theater.
Being backed by fans who would understand enough to still enjoy Thimbleweed Park without necessarily catching any self-revealing train of thought or bringing knowledge about Plato's cave allegory for instance, gives the designers a welcome freedom to geek out about computers or data carriers faded into obscurity, some even in 1987, when the story takes place. But it also lets Gilbert expand on his philosophy of game design with the confidence to better lose players on the way than to make compromises.
And together with old colleagues Gary Winnick, Mark Ferrari and David Fox he paved a solid way by creating retro but completely voice acted state of the pixel art design that emphasizes the impression of a lost game of the late eighties that collected dust unnoticed until now, to have you collect specks of dust instead because of your obsolete pixel hunting OCD and boy, I should have cleaned my screen first, because I didn't reckon being part of the joke. Well played, Gilbert.
Anyway, Thimbleweed Park lets you play as up to five characters simultaneously and making them cooperate to solve plenty of puzzles on a moderate to little advanced level is very natural when you're used to the verb system of games like Maniac Mansion or The Secret of Monkey Island. A later implemented helpline to call for hints in-game should keep you going constantly. You might just have to accept you see paths that will have to open up later in the game.
Still, there are usually enough tasks to work on should you be stuck on one and often this will lead you to new possibilities and ideas. Most of the essential puzzles are designed so that you get an idea what you can pick up or combine and though some items are red herrings, some actually reveal themselves before you get the wrong idea. Knowing the old works helps just as much as it surprises you maybe.
There's a DLC just to make Ransome the clown character swear without censorship and that's totally up to you if that's worth your money. It will just add uncensored audio, but the text will still show the beeping passages. He's a bit like an even more miserable Krusty and like other characters you will play him in a throwback rather than just watching a cutscene.
Ransome has his fans and haters, I guess the two agents aren't as ambivalent and their motivation seems a bit random. I guess it's quite clear the nerds fall for Delores (I did), who even got a small spin off I will play after this. But criticizing depth in all characters would be like arguing the Nazis would have gotten the Ark with or without Indy's involvement. You still did enjoy the ride, didn't you?
And what a foundation shaking ride Thimbleweed Park is! Though I only played it in hard mode, I still wanted to go back and look for things I might have missed, because not everything you can do is essential to the plot. One thing that was patched later is the possibility to actually play for highscores at the arcade, which I missed out first, because I didn't find the tokens. And you know my love for arcades. I really couldn't stop before I made sure to have tried anything except deleting the game.
I'm not yet ready for that step. There might still be something I'm missing out on, because Thimbleweed Park is not only written in computer code to run it, but also encrypted with said references you might enjoy the overall idea without, but could have fun to catch up on, should you not yet be familiar with the essence of the Point'n'click genre and been living in the eighties in general, or as an initiated have the time of your life reliving the good old days in a new way.
Thimbleweed Park in that sense is what so many impostors want to make you believe they are by throwing canonical catchphrases at you without having to add something themselves. You might even prefer that, because it's easy to accept something as cult, get in line and goose-step with the masses, throwing money at reproductions of icons chosen for you.
For Thimbleweed Park this would mean scratching the surface and it's possible you're fine with it. But the more you add yourself, be it by your autobiography or the effort you put into following the details, the more you can enjoy this adventure that grows with you just as Ron Gilbert isn't actually repeating himself, but refining his ideas in the most satisfying way, creating new games. Buy this, so he doesn't have to get a real job and can keep making more of them.
Whilst continuous replays of Thimbleweed Park kept the characters alive, adventure game developer Delores might have become a fan favorite, at least for me she is. So what's not to be excited about with Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure we actually got a spin-off dedicated to her?
Well, first things first-a-reno. This isn't presented as an actual game. It's clearly stated it was created as a test run for a new engine reusing graphics from the original Thimbleweed Park and omitting voice acting to fit the non-existent budget, because Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure was made available for free as a thank you to the fans.
It should be very hard to harshly criticize that, but just as the toxic internet would later bash the godlike Return to Monkey Island, before it was even released, to an extent Ron Gilbert would shut down communication, reactions to Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure in part have been astonishingly ignorant.
To me, that can only be caused by either not understanding or not even playing the original Thimbleweed Park, because if you just didn't like it already, which isn't forbidden of course, you wouldn't pick up an appendix that is presented in the form of a rehearsal, expecting it to be better, would you-aboo?
But actually, Terrible Toybox acts as a sign of quality even on that level. Traffic cones are blocking off huge parts of the world already known, most of the stores are closed and Delores returns to take a vacation job as a photographer for the local newspaper. That's odd, innit? Well it seems that this Chapter 10 to Thimbleweed Park is an alternate universe, where Chuck is still alive, Willie is still in business and the murder never happened. Or did it?
Whilst we explore the environment looking for our five photo motives to check from our list, we have the opportunity to recognize occasional glitches that clearly are intentional. Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure does not offer a save feature per se, but after around an hour of fiddling around with each and every opportunity, the game will end abruptly-who once we hand in our work. But the game doesn't end there.
In fact, it saves progress in general and with each reboot we start over with five new photo tasks that require solving another combination of the same puzzles and sometimes can be fulfilled with more than one motif.
If you beeping missed the files, after your sixth playthrough (which I count as one in my log, because only then the super long credits roll) you will meet Ransome for another hint how Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure seamlessly ties in with Thimbleweed Park. So with the spin-off totally confirming the principles of the original, the Upper World esoterically delivers jokes at the cost of the impatient and uninitiated.
Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure could be seen as repetitive for sure, but that way it totally caters to those who would repeatedly play Point'n'click adventures to squeeze out any secret and I'm not ashamed to admit that I wouldn't have found the poem without a hint and though I had the right hunch for the double vision I had to look up how to actually catch it on camera. I had a good four hours of fun in total anyway.
And that's an awesome thing about the present, even for a game rooted in the past. Not only were Terrible Toybox able to patch in additional features to the original Thimbleweed Park. Thanks to the internet they could also distribute more specks of dust to the fans who love to collect them and can't get enough of roaming the beautiful pixel art scenery of the game.
It was also a great sign of life that something is happening and I assume the new engine, that omits the old school verb menu, was leading to the fabulous new Monkey Island that's probably more than I couldn't have dreamt of, though I'm playing this in retrospect now and therefore was totally unprepared for when the Return to Monkey Island release was announced out of nowhere.
Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure is nothing but a love letter to the fans and on the shoestring budget it does the possibly best to give us just a little bit more of an awesome game on the way to the next big whoop and it sure ain't coincidence Return of Monkey Island also builds a little on the moniker of Thimblecon and the weird life of its own fandom can adapt.
If it wasn't for the solitary nostalgia with which some fans claim their interpretation of a franchise as irrefutable to a point they're even defending it against the ideas of its original creator, I'd say what a great time to be alive!
And yeah, haven't we got enough problems in reality? The pandemic, the war, the shortages and inflation? I'm not saying you've got to be as excited about Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure as I am. But if a creator is willing to distract us from the somber world we inhabit just a little for free, shouldn't we at least be kindly thankful?
Have your opinion, but Terrible Toybox has not yet disappointed me with any of their products. I think Ron Gilbert is still in his prime and I'm looking forward to any of his coming ideas, trusting his competence to create additional mature incarnations of his elaborated vision.
Well, first things first-a-reno. This isn't presented as an actual game. It's clearly stated it was created as a test run for a new engine reusing graphics from the original Thimbleweed Park and omitting voice acting to fit the non-existent budget, because Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure was made available for free as a thank you to the fans.
It should be very hard to harshly criticize that, but just as the toxic internet would later bash the godlike Return to Monkey Island, before it was even released, to an extent Ron Gilbert would shut down communication, reactions to Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure in part have been astonishingly ignorant.
To me, that can only be caused by either not understanding or not even playing the original Thimbleweed Park, because if you just didn't like it already, which isn't forbidden of course, you wouldn't pick up an appendix that is presented in the form of a rehearsal, expecting it to be better, would you-aboo?
But actually, Terrible Toybox acts as a sign of quality even on that level. Traffic cones are blocking off huge parts of the world already known, most of the stores are closed and Delores returns to take a vacation job as a photographer for the local newspaper. That's odd, innit? Well it seems that this Chapter 10 to Thimbleweed Park is an alternate universe, where Chuck is still alive, Willie is still in business and the murder never happened. Or did it?
Whilst we explore the environment looking for our five photo motives to check from our list, we have the opportunity to recognize occasional glitches that clearly are intentional. Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure does not offer a save feature per se, but after around an hour of fiddling around with each and every opportunity, the game will end abruptly-who once we hand in our work. But the game doesn't end there.
In fact, it saves progress in general and with each reboot we start over with five new photo tasks that require solving another combination of the same puzzles and sometimes can be fulfilled with more than one motif.
If you beeping missed the files, after your sixth playthrough (which I count as one in my log, because only then the super long credits roll) you will meet Ransome for another hint how Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure seamlessly ties in with Thimbleweed Park. So with the spin-off totally confirming the principles of the original, the Upper World esoterically delivers jokes at the cost of the impatient and uninitiated.
Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure could be seen as repetitive for sure, but that way it totally caters to those who would repeatedly play Point'n'click adventures to squeeze out any secret and I'm not ashamed to admit that I wouldn't have found the poem without a hint and though I had the right hunch for the double vision I had to look up how to actually catch it on camera. I had a good four hours of fun in total anyway.
And that's an awesome thing about the present, even for a game rooted in the past. Not only were Terrible Toybox able to patch in additional features to the original Thimbleweed Park. Thanks to the internet they could also distribute more specks of dust to the fans who love to collect them and can't get enough of roaming the beautiful pixel art scenery of the game.
It was also a great sign of life that something is happening and I assume the new engine, that omits the old school verb menu, was leading to the fabulous new Monkey Island that's probably more than I couldn't have dreamt of, though I'm playing this in retrospect now and therefore was totally unprepared for when the Return to Monkey Island release was announced out of nowhere.
Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure is nothing but a love letter to the fans and on the shoestring budget it does the possibly best to give us just a little bit more of an awesome game on the way to the next big whoop and it sure ain't coincidence Return of Monkey Island also builds a little on the moniker of Thimblecon and the weird life of its own fandom can adapt.
If it wasn't for the solitary nostalgia with which some fans claim their interpretation of a franchise as irrefutable to a point they're even defending it against the ideas of its original creator, I'd say what a great time to be alive!
And yeah, haven't we got enough problems in reality? The pandemic, the war, the shortages and inflation? I'm not saying you've got to be as excited about Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure as I am. But if a creator is willing to distract us from the somber world we inhabit just a little for free, shouldn't we at least be kindly thankful?
Have your opinion, but Terrible Toybox has not yet disappointed me with any of their products. I think Ron Gilbert is still in his prime and I'm looking forward to any of his coming ideas, trusting his competence to create additional mature incarnations of his elaborated vision.
2014
Other than for the previously reviewed crowdfunded Point'n'clicks Gibbous and Thimbleweed Park I'm actually happy I didn't back the Broken Age Kickstarter, because it would probably have distracted me from the beauty of this adventure.
Though Ron Gilbert later stated he was only at Double Fine to finish The Cave, the promotion clip suggested his involvement in my opinion and I have a hunch Broken Age grew out of the initial pitch with the money that got thrown at them. I'm not even sure though the disappointed had been old adventure aficionados like me, or if it was a newer generation hardly in touch with Grim Fandango and rather entitled to be edgy about not receiving another Brütal Legend.
The Broken Age Kickstarter became a milestone for independent funding in the gaming industry and it might be mandatory for an actual business to have that kind of backing to produce a Point'n'click adventure after Tim Schafer himself expanded his creative freedom at Lucas Arts to a point hundreds of thousands sold copies of Grim Fandango weren't enough to not call it a flop. You'd either need enthusiasts willing to trash away their lifetime 24/7 at almost no guaranteed pay or you've got to keep your business running and I understand that, appreciating every ambitious work in the genre.
For the only $300k initially asked to create the Double Fine Adventure, it might have been even possible to have a representative majority take part in deciding over the game's direction, but with the millions from 87000 backers within a month, what might have become a simpler Point'n'click more likely to be catering to the fans took on a life of its own. Opinions are like arse holes, everybody's got one. And so creating a game everyone would love seems almost impossible to me.
Even though Tim Schafer says in the documentary (now available free on YouTube) having the money takes away the pressure from him, it turns out to be a feeling of responsibility towards future crowdfunding in the industry. With worldwide media attention due to the surprise success they had on Kickstarter with over 70% of newly registered accounts to participate, Broken Age became a singular chance to show the world adventures are relevant.
With the backing, there was also a chance to address a new generation of gamers with a product good enough to convince them and with broad success pave the way for more genre titles to come. I myself probably wouldn't have seen this or that Tim Schafer actually progressed since the Monkey Island games. I might have wished for him to turn back to the good old times before Grim Fandango that I didn't even notice on release and shied away from ever since I hated the controls of Monkey Island 4 that used the same engine.
To be fair, with Deck 13, Wadget Eye and Daedelic for instance there have been other publishers keeping the genre alive, at least as a european phenomenon. Being featured in popular Let's plays by streamers like Gronkh might have helped acquiring fresh blood, too, but none of that was enough to determine if majors turn down Point'n'clicks for a reason. So much so that even I, as a fan in Germany, thought they just had ceased existence until a few years ago.
What some critics also seem to forget is Double Fine didn't just collect the millions and were able to use them on the project. As far as I know Kickstarter gets a cut and money flowing into a company usually has to be taxed sooner or later. They also had to ship a bunch of pledge rewards. Then just running a place with employees to enable the creative process eats away another part of the cake. So they might have gotten away with a simpler product on that budget, but ended up looking for more funds and released Broken Age in two parts to roughly keep a schedule at all.
It will always be a bumpy graph for announcement, hype, disappointment and finally the reasonable level of appreciation and I think Broken Age deserves more than the rushed bashing it received so often. I must add here, that I played the German dub, that doesn't drop as prominent names such as Elijah Wood, Jack Black or Wil Wheaton, who later even invited Tim Schafer to his TableTop format on YouTube. It's also said the translation had to be cut in places due to length of the animation. I can't tell if it was for the good, but I very much enjoyed the results.
And here it's about the actual game, finally, but it's going to be hard to not give away too much before you've played Broken Age and you really should. I will try my best to review it without spoilers and if I'll drop information, it is meant to create an image in your head, but not to reveal crucial twists.
I don't compare this coming of age story to Maniac Mansion specifically, but with the two parallel stories of a boy and a girl, I imagine this could have a similar adventurous effect on the kids of today like it had on us, when we played the Lucas Arts adventure without ever really finishing it at that time. It was fun enough to roam that old house with characters older than us to be someone we would like to impersonate, but not too old to be too absurd. It was about exploring the environment in a way reality wouldn't allow safely.
At first sight, I found the art of Broken Age gorgeous and repulsive at the same time, because I'm that age when you acknowledge the character style as a thing, but especially girls with matchstick thin extremities like in Miraculous and those big eyes aren't really my idea of aesthetic. The fact Schafer's daughter actually decided which "princess" they used might explain the choice and knowing my niece, out of any adventure games I have, Broken Age would be the one I'd introduce her to the genre with.
We could stop here and say this isn't a product for us, but is it? Broken Age didn't feel like being in the wrong place like Pokemon does sometimes for instance. Growing old on not growing up I'd like to say I prefer to consume stuff aimed at kids that transports the comforting feeling from my own childhood over newer productions I don't have any nostalgia for. But I appreciate an included metaphorical level you might not actively acknowledge as a youngster.
I liked very much how Schafer makes it appear as if you pick one of the two protagonists, but then both sides are essential to the story and you can click on the icon to either play teenage girl Vella in some random badlands or the teenage boy Shay on a spaceship. Whilst Vella grows up destined to become the ritual sacrifice at a maiden's feast, Shay seems stuck on groundhog days of playing the hero for his wool puppets and is beginning to look for his purpose in life, just as Vella is putting the ritual in question and would like to defeat the monster.
Double Fine tried to avoid many flaws of previous Point'n'click adventures and so hitboxes for hotspots are quite generous. The number of items to pick up and combine is rather small, so you will not end up hunting pixels. In fact, I even had the impression Broken Age was designed with tablets in mind, especially because you can pick between the way you drag and drop.
What couldn't be avoided is having to go back and forth on the screens and practically the only times I felt stuck was, when what I wanted to do wasn't wrong per se, but the game expected me to go somewhere else first and maybe finish a dialogue to be able to proceed.
I would describe the puzzles as increasingly challenging, because Broken Age welcomes the players very warmly to then require more clues between the stories and it is mandatory to keep track of them. This incline also occurs due to feedback chapter one was too easy.
I did not find any impossibilities though. The game always allows to somehow unveil required information again, so you can't mess up by trying. It's recommended to keep track of information though and I ended up taking photos and short videos with my phone, when back in the day I would have used a pencil. You might not have played older adventures, but Broken Age is actually designed quite well if you expect more than an interactive storybook.
I know, today better Point'n'clicks often have a log to keep track of these things, but that just proves the point that genre games evolved even in the last ten years. If you don't want to get involved into playing at all, then maybe you're better off watching along with a YouTube video, like some people discovered for them to be representative for a game and I don't mind if you're doing so. It's just like when we gathered as viewers at a friend's place back then. But it's not the same feeling of actually finishing the game yourself.
What I understand might have bothered players back then is the cliffhanger. With the luxury of the complete edition I was able to transition seamlessly into the second chapter, which to me only carried on after an expected paradigm shift, that basically applies Plato's cave allegory to adolescence. And it's actually bizarre how protective parents keep their children from recognizing consequences of their behavior, when they simultaneously follow a belief that heavily affects the future of the kids they're trying to keep safe.
Children are born to point out our mistakes and so Broken Age tells a story way beyond the teenager protagonist's Initiation. It might also reveal other layers intertwined with each and everything and will be interpreted and explained with a narrative. It's like the concept of god lies and lives or dies within us. The community of believers will decide for instance if a catastrophe was a sign of a vengeful being, wiping sinners off the earth, or if it was the merciful, showing his kindness by saving the pure.
Not having followed the entire development of Broken Age I can't judge on false promises Tim Schafer might have made. I understand at least, that quite a few backers had a different image in mind of what product they could expect. It's possible this ambivalent conflict even influenced the writing of this adventurous story, which is encapsulated accordingly.
After ten years though, maybe it's time to forget about a possible grudge. Let's focus on the good parts and the possibly good intentions behind a decision that, like stated above, could never have met everybody's expectations anyway. So here's a captivating tale you could pass on your love to the genre with to a new generation.
Broken Age can be a great game for adults and kids alike and though it hints what might happen after by still sketches during the credits inspired by My Neighbor Totoro, there's still enough space to discuss the plot and form an adequate conclusion that may be applied as wishes for the personal future as well.
I must admit I haven't played Grim Fandango to this day, but now I regret not having bought the remaster again, when it was on sale. I should really give it a shot, at least to see if my reservations had been justified. Opening up as parochial I've acted all those years means something, doesn't it?
Maybe it won't become my uttermost personal favorite, but Broken Age is a brilliant story driven Sci-fi/Fantasy adventure nonetheless. It was a fresh take on the genre, juvenile but grim and it pioneered financing for more fantastic games we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
Though Ron Gilbert later stated he was only at Double Fine to finish The Cave, the promotion clip suggested his involvement in my opinion and I have a hunch Broken Age grew out of the initial pitch with the money that got thrown at them. I'm not even sure though the disappointed had been old adventure aficionados like me, or if it was a newer generation hardly in touch with Grim Fandango and rather entitled to be edgy about not receiving another Brütal Legend.
The Broken Age Kickstarter became a milestone for independent funding in the gaming industry and it might be mandatory for an actual business to have that kind of backing to produce a Point'n'click adventure after Tim Schafer himself expanded his creative freedom at Lucas Arts to a point hundreds of thousands sold copies of Grim Fandango weren't enough to not call it a flop. You'd either need enthusiasts willing to trash away their lifetime 24/7 at almost no guaranteed pay or you've got to keep your business running and I understand that, appreciating every ambitious work in the genre.
For the only $300k initially asked to create the Double Fine Adventure, it might have been even possible to have a representative majority take part in deciding over the game's direction, but with the millions from 87000 backers within a month, what might have become a simpler Point'n'click more likely to be catering to the fans took on a life of its own. Opinions are like arse holes, everybody's got one. And so creating a game everyone would love seems almost impossible to me.
Even though Tim Schafer says in the documentary (now available free on YouTube) having the money takes away the pressure from him, it turns out to be a feeling of responsibility towards future crowdfunding in the industry. With worldwide media attention due to the surprise success they had on Kickstarter with over 70% of newly registered accounts to participate, Broken Age became a singular chance to show the world adventures are relevant.
With the backing, there was also a chance to address a new generation of gamers with a product good enough to convince them and with broad success pave the way for more genre titles to come. I myself probably wouldn't have seen this or that Tim Schafer actually progressed since the Monkey Island games. I might have wished for him to turn back to the good old times before Grim Fandango that I didn't even notice on release and shied away from ever since I hated the controls of Monkey Island 4 that used the same engine.
To be fair, with Deck 13, Wadget Eye and Daedelic for instance there have been other publishers keeping the genre alive, at least as a european phenomenon. Being featured in popular Let's plays by streamers like Gronkh might have helped acquiring fresh blood, too, but none of that was enough to determine if majors turn down Point'n'clicks for a reason. So much so that even I, as a fan in Germany, thought they just had ceased existence until a few years ago.
What some critics also seem to forget is Double Fine didn't just collect the millions and were able to use them on the project. As far as I know Kickstarter gets a cut and money flowing into a company usually has to be taxed sooner or later. They also had to ship a bunch of pledge rewards. Then just running a place with employees to enable the creative process eats away another part of the cake. So they might have gotten away with a simpler product on that budget, but ended up looking for more funds and released Broken Age in two parts to roughly keep a schedule at all.
It will always be a bumpy graph for announcement, hype, disappointment and finally the reasonable level of appreciation and I think Broken Age deserves more than the rushed bashing it received so often. I must add here, that I played the German dub, that doesn't drop as prominent names such as Elijah Wood, Jack Black or Wil Wheaton, who later even invited Tim Schafer to his TableTop format on YouTube. It's also said the translation had to be cut in places due to length of the animation. I can't tell if it was for the good, but I very much enjoyed the results.
And here it's about the actual game, finally, but it's going to be hard to not give away too much before you've played Broken Age and you really should. I will try my best to review it without spoilers and if I'll drop information, it is meant to create an image in your head, but not to reveal crucial twists.
I don't compare this coming of age story to Maniac Mansion specifically, but with the two parallel stories of a boy and a girl, I imagine this could have a similar adventurous effect on the kids of today like it had on us, when we played the Lucas Arts adventure without ever really finishing it at that time. It was fun enough to roam that old house with characters older than us to be someone we would like to impersonate, but not too old to be too absurd. It was about exploring the environment in a way reality wouldn't allow safely.
At first sight, I found the art of Broken Age gorgeous and repulsive at the same time, because I'm that age when you acknowledge the character style as a thing, but especially girls with matchstick thin extremities like in Miraculous and those big eyes aren't really my idea of aesthetic. The fact Schafer's daughter actually decided which "princess" they used might explain the choice and knowing my niece, out of any adventure games I have, Broken Age would be the one I'd introduce her to the genre with.
We could stop here and say this isn't a product for us, but is it? Broken Age didn't feel like being in the wrong place like Pokemon does sometimes for instance. Growing old on not growing up I'd like to say I prefer to consume stuff aimed at kids that transports the comforting feeling from my own childhood over newer productions I don't have any nostalgia for. But I appreciate an included metaphorical level you might not actively acknowledge as a youngster.
I liked very much how Schafer makes it appear as if you pick one of the two protagonists, but then both sides are essential to the story and you can click on the icon to either play teenage girl Vella in some random badlands or the teenage boy Shay on a spaceship. Whilst Vella grows up destined to become the ritual sacrifice at a maiden's feast, Shay seems stuck on groundhog days of playing the hero for his wool puppets and is beginning to look for his purpose in life, just as Vella is putting the ritual in question and would like to defeat the monster.
Double Fine tried to avoid many flaws of previous Point'n'click adventures and so hitboxes for hotspots are quite generous. The number of items to pick up and combine is rather small, so you will not end up hunting pixels. In fact, I even had the impression Broken Age was designed with tablets in mind, especially because you can pick between the way you drag and drop.
What couldn't be avoided is having to go back and forth on the screens and practically the only times I felt stuck was, when what I wanted to do wasn't wrong per se, but the game expected me to go somewhere else first and maybe finish a dialogue to be able to proceed.
I would describe the puzzles as increasingly challenging, because Broken Age welcomes the players very warmly to then require more clues between the stories and it is mandatory to keep track of them. This incline also occurs due to feedback chapter one was too easy.
I did not find any impossibilities though. The game always allows to somehow unveil required information again, so you can't mess up by trying. It's recommended to keep track of information though and I ended up taking photos and short videos with my phone, when back in the day I would have used a pencil. You might not have played older adventures, but Broken Age is actually designed quite well if you expect more than an interactive storybook.
I know, today better Point'n'clicks often have a log to keep track of these things, but that just proves the point that genre games evolved even in the last ten years. If you don't want to get involved into playing at all, then maybe you're better off watching along with a YouTube video, like some people discovered for them to be representative for a game and I don't mind if you're doing so. It's just like when we gathered as viewers at a friend's place back then. But it's not the same feeling of actually finishing the game yourself.
What I understand might have bothered players back then is the cliffhanger. With the luxury of the complete edition I was able to transition seamlessly into the second chapter, which to me only carried on after an expected paradigm shift, that basically applies Plato's cave allegory to adolescence. And it's actually bizarre how protective parents keep their children from recognizing consequences of their behavior, when they simultaneously follow a belief that heavily affects the future of the kids they're trying to keep safe.
Children are born to point out our mistakes and so Broken Age tells a story way beyond the teenager protagonist's Initiation. It might also reveal other layers intertwined with each and everything and will be interpreted and explained with a narrative. It's like the concept of god lies and lives or dies within us. The community of believers will decide for instance if a catastrophe was a sign of a vengeful being, wiping sinners off the earth, or if it was the merciful, showing his kindness by saving the pure.
Not having followed the entire development of Broken Age I can't judge on false promises Tim Schafer might have made. I understand at least, that quite a few backers had a different image in mind of what product they could expect. It's possible this ambivalent conflict even influenced the writing of this adventurous story, which is encapsulated accordingly.
After ten years though, maybe it's time to forget about a possible grudge. Let's focus on the good parts and the possibly good intentions behind a decision that, like stated above, could never have met everybody's expectations anyway. So here's a captivating tale you could pass on your love to the genre with to a new generation.
Broken Age can be a great game for adults and kids alike and though it hints what might happen after by still sketches during the credits inspired by My Neighbor Totoro, there's still enough space to discuss the plot and form an adequate conclusion that may be applied as wishes for the personal future as well.
I must admit I haven't played Grim Fandango to this day, but now I regret not having bought the remaster again, when it was on sale. I should really give it a shot, at least to see if my reservations had been justified. Opening up as parochial I've acted all those years means something, doesn't it?
Maybe it won't become my uttermost personal favorite, but Broken Age is a brilliant story driven Sci-fi/Fantasy adventure nonetheless. It was a fresh take on the genre, juvenile but grim and it pioneered financing for more fantastic games we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.
1983
Gyruss is the lovechild of Tempest and Galaga, rather using raster than vector graphics and pretty much everything from the Namco game, but with the advantage of a tube shooter not being able to get you cornered. It's good. Play it! And that could be everything you want to know about this early Konami shooter.
When I found the remote cabinet at an arcade I will revisit next month hopefully being able to beat my old highscore, I wasn't even aware I already knew Gyruss, but it turned out I did and at first I re-experienced a feeling of alienation. The reason simply is that Gyruss seems to play like a game made for a spinner, but uses a joystick. At least that's what I thought. It turns out using a lever was intended and you'll notice once you've learned the mechanics.
Spinners, or even potentiometers, like I think the controls for old seventies games like Pong would be named more accurately, whilst later games used different optical Spinners like Arkanoid and of course Tempest, ceased to exist for a reason I can't verify. Other than companies riding the Pong train for too long going broke that is and finally often innovative Atari leading into the big western crash of 83. It might have been a maintenance issue for arcade owners.
Video games changed over time and Gyruss creator Yoshiki Okamoto might have either been aiming at a more accessible joystick technology at japanese arcades for cabinet conversions you could do between a lot of then recent Konami machines or at possible home ports not everybody wanted to buy extra peripherals for.
I also couldn't research the exact technology used in japanese Gyruss cabinets. I know the American distributor Centuri used 8-way Monroe sticks that were almost entirely made of metal, using a circular gate and leaf switches. Though some prefer to swap the Time Pilot and Gyruss sticks with the grommet based Wico sticks found in later western Konami cabinets like Crime Fighters, The Simpsons or both Turtles games, a point is made this machine might not be supposed for stock square gate Sanwa JLFs most consider the arcade standard today.
I'm probably nerding out about something the majority of players won't even be bothered with, using control pads for one of the many available emulations like a Konami Arcade Collection. Chance is though, that quite a few users will abandon Gyruss quickly before even noticing why it might play weird on their d-pad and whilst the motions might work halfway decently on an analogue thumbstick once you've figured it out, it seems to be made with the circular gate arcade lever in mind and I'm going to pick up on that later.
So I was standing at the arcade puzzled, and I will actually have to find out what joystick they used, because I simply can't remember. I can recall the increasing fascination though, once I actually moved forward in the solar system towards earth. It's maybe a long way to Tipperary, but only a few warps to Uranus when you're sharp enough.
Bad pun? You might have actually seen a bootleg Easter egg of Gyruss in GTA San Andreas under the name of They Crawled From Uranus more likely than the arcade bootleg called Venus. It's also cloned as a mini game in Contra: Legacy of War and the soundtrack was remixed for Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2.
Anyway, I got a double shot, which is a lot more fun and with the bonus stages I soon managed to set a new highscore on an almost virgin table. They either reset it or nobody's actually caring to learn Gyruss, but I scored and just went on to play other machines to legitimate the flatrate price.
I think it's hard to fully grasp the evolution of arcade's golden age video games in retrospect and even though I started early as a kid in the eighties Gyruss looks aged to me as well. That doesn't mean it's bad though and you can see the genesis of shooters quite clearly. Space Invaders however hit a nerve in 1978, especially as Star Wars just had brought Sci-Fi back into theaters.
Some games just copied the rather static cosmic warfare and others had something to add like Namco did with Galaxian and Galaga. Keep in mind Shmups as we know today had just recently been pioneered with games like Scramble and Defender in 1981 and Xevious in 1982. There was still room for improvement on the Nostromo inspired two-way phalli and their intergalactic bukkake.
What especially the latter have in common is that they are rather simple in game mechanics, looking at them today, when they'd probably run on your microwave display. But at their time, they had to overcome technical difficulties to make them playable so flawlessly precise that you can't really argue it was you, the player who made the mistake in a merciless but clear ruleset, including limitations to few shots at once, so you better be a sniper or wait til your bullet will exit the screen to fire again.
When Konami asked Yoshiki Okamoto to do a driving game, he forced his team to do a shooter anyway and that was his first game Time Pilot that became successful, so the company, instead of firing him, asked for another one leading to the creation of Gyruss. It ended in Okamoto being dumped afterwards over a raise and so he went on to create 1942 and Gun.Smoke with Capcom. He then produced titles like Final Fight and Street Fighter II. Quite a career.
So let's take a short look at Time Pilot to understand Gyruss a little better. Time Pilot starts off as both a thematic anticipation of 1942 (until you meet flying saucers) and an art style that reminded me of the 1985 TwinBee, especially when you look at the clouds. The game plays a little differently though. Your plane is centered and whilst you're forced to scroll, you can move in any direction, putting it more in the Asteroids type of family, despite there you can thrust over the screen.
Yes, that's another spinner based game transferred to 8-way joystick play and it takes some time getting used to as well. The thing with Time Pilot is, whilst the movement might actually include some realism, especially the swirling around the enemy to strike in air to air combat, it just doesn't feel natural to me, because with the nose pointed outwards from the center it's hard for me to transfer this to an outwards circular motion on the stick, when my head wants the ship to follow straight inputs based on cardinal directions.
Yoshiki Okamoto felt he had accomplished what he wanted in shooters, but the fact in Gyruss your ship is fixed on an orbital circumference pointing towards the vanishing point in the center is like an inversion of Time Pilot to the advantage your movement of the lever towards the gate is reflected in the circular motion on screen this time.
It's hard to fully enjoy the discrete audio circuit stereo sound and Masahiro Inoue's interpretation of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565", inspired from the 1980 hit rock arrangement "Toccata" by instrumentalist band Sky in a noisy arcade environment, but that's another plus of Gyruss and pavement for Konami's future strength in game soundtracks, so many steps ahead from the digital fart sounds early space shooters offered.
I couldn't care less why you have to reach Earth, but Gyruss is separated into warps between our solar system's planets and the stage counter goes up even after the set goal was achieved. It's just back to Neptune with an additional warp there and towards Earth again, so my log of completing an endless game is probably more representing the ending of a humongous session in a way beating the main objective to get this review posted in activities, because I think in other cases that doesn't happen.
Zoning into that one-point direction with stars coming at you to create the illusion of movement and dimension left me quite crossed eyed, but I enjoyed getting a lot further than before very much, even though I'm plenty of parsecs away from the world record. If you wrapped your head around the concept it's just as captivating as Galaga, because that's what it basically is.
Okamoto simply envisioned Gyruss as facing the problem of getting caught in the corners of Galaga by using the tube shooter concept of Tempest. So best think of it as Galaga folded to a cone; the straight bottom line of orientation bent around the screen to form a circle and the top becoming the vanishing point. Instead of moving left or right it becomes clockwise or counterclockwise, theoretically allowing you to spin infinitely one or the other way round.
Vectors might have been visionary for a while, but just like the movie Tron went obsolete quickly, a game like Tempest would have had to be improved with textures to stand the test of time. We can look at them with nostalgia spectacles on, but for 1983 the raster graphics used in Gyruss had been the way to go.
The enemy is swirling in formations, so it doesn't look like they're bound to the path like you are and they're a lot smaller when grouping in the back until they charge individually. You've got the luxury of three shots you can fire in quick triplets or aim more carefully to have a shot left before the others hit or leave the screen to refill your ammo.
You then have to swivel to any clock position required to erase the enemy interrupted by hostile fire and indestructible asteroids to dodge as well, leading to sheer excitement when wiggling back and forth on pure instinct to survive the assault. It's only half the fun without the double shot though, so you want the satellites to appear. Shoot the sunlike object in the middle to upgrade.
Just as Galaga of course Gyruss has bonus stages and you want to be in the correct 3, 6, 9 or 12 o'clock position to profit the most. And that's it. The Famicom Disk System/NES version might be called Gyruss, though it's actually not a port, but at least a 1.5 variant of the game adding new obstacles like stage bosses. You can't really compare it and other than the current situation I write this review, that version should be separated into an individual backloggd entry.
Whilst you might prefer that enhanced home version thinking of the original arcade Gyruss as redundant or repetitive, to me the game is an epitomic space shooting challenge just as Space Invaders, Galaxian or Galaga, but with its own twist. It's possible you've got to be a specific type of player to adopt a single game with the task to analyze, understand and beat it to a personal level of satisfaction.
If you are, why not try Gyruss if you haven't? Chance is you get just as hooked as I am, so wheel out your trusty arcade stick, try having a circular or at least octagonal gate and a ball top on it and enjoy!
When I found the remote cabinet at an arcade I will revisit next month hopefully being able to beat my old highscore, I wasn't even aware I already knew Gyruss, but it turned out I did and at first I re-experienced a feeling of alienation. The reason simply is that Gyruss seems to play like a game made for a spinner, but uses a joystick. At least that's what I thought. It turns out using a lever was intended and you'll notice once you've learned the mechanics.
Spinners, or even potentiometers, like I think the controls for old seventies games like Pong would be named more accurately, whilst later games used different optical Spinners like Arkanoid and of course Tempest, ceased to exist for a reason I can't verify. Other than companies riding the Pong train for too long going broke that is and finally often innovative Atari leading into the big western crash of 83. It might have been a maintenance issue for arcade owners.
Video games changed over time and Gyruss creator Yoshiki Okamoto might have either been aiming at a more accessible joystick technology at japanese arcades for cabinet conversions you could do between a lot of then recent Konami machines or at possible home ports not everybody wanted to buy extra peripherals for.
I also couldn't research the exact technology used in japanese Gyruss cabinets. I know the American distributor Centuri used 8-way Monroe sticks that were almost entirely made of metal, using a circular gate and leaf switches. Though some prefer to swap the Time Pilot and Gyruss sticks with the grommet based Wico sticks found in later western Konami cabinets like Crime Fighters, The Simpsons or both Turtles games, a point is made this machine might not be supposed for stock square gate Sanwa JLFs most consider the arcade standard today.
I'm probably nerding out about something the majority of players won't even be bothered with, using control pads for one of the many available emulations like a Konami Arcade Collection. Chance is though, that quite a few users will abandon Gyruss quickly before even noticing why it might play weird on their d-pad and whilst the motions might work halfway decently on an analogue thumbstick once you've figured it out, it seems to be made with the circular gate arcade lever in mind and I'm going to pick up on that later.
So I was standing at the arcade puzzled, and I will actually have to find out what joystick they used, because I simply can't remember. I can recall the increasing fascination though, once I actually moved forward in the solar system towards earth. It's maybe a long way to Tipperary, but only a few warps to Uranus when you're sharp enough.
Bad pun? You might have actually seen a bootleg Easter egg of Gyruss in GTA San Andreas under the name of They Crawled From Uranus more likely than the arcade bootleg called Venus. It's also cloned as a mini game in Contra: Legacy of War and the soundtrack was remixed for Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2.
Anyway, I got a double shot, which is a lot more fun and with the bonus stages I soon managed to set a new highscore on an almost virgin table. They either reset it or nobody's actually caring to learn Gyruss, but I scored and just went on to play other machines to legitimate the flatrate price.
I think it's hard to fully grasp the evolution of arcade's golden age video games in retrospect and even though I started early as a kid in the eighties Gyruss looks aged to me as well. That doesn't mean it's bad though and you can see the genesis of shooters quite clearly. Space Invaders however hit a nerve in 1978, especially as Star Wars just had brought Sci-Fi back into theaters.
Some games just copied the rather static cosmic warfare and others had something to add like Namco did with Galaxian and Galaga. Keep in mind Shmups as we know today had just recently been pioneered with games like Scramble and Defender in 1981 and Xevious in 1982. There was still room for improvement on the Nostromo inspired two-way phalli and their intergalactic bukkake.
What especially the latter have in common is that they are rather simple in game mechanics, looking at them today, when they'd probably run on your microwave display. But at their time, they had to overcome technical difficulties to make them playable so flawlessly precise that you can't really argue it was you, the player who made the mistake in a merciless but clear ruleset, including limitations to few shots at once, so you better be a sniper or wait til your bullet will exit the screen to fire again.
When Konami asked Yoshiki Okamoto to do a driving game, he forced his team to do a shooter anyway and that was his first game Time Pilot that became successful, so the company, instead of firing him, asked for another one leading to the creation of Gyruss. It ended in Okamoto being dumped afterwards over a raise and so he went on to create 1942 and Gun.Smoke with Capcom. He then produced titles like Final Fight and Street Fighter II. Quite a career.
So let's take a short look at Time Pilot to understand Gyruss a little better. Time Pilot starts off as both a thematic anticipation of 1942 (until you meet flying saucers) and an art style that reminded me of the 1985 TwinBee, especially when you look at the clouds. The game plays a little differently though. Your plane is centered and whilst you're forced to scroll, you can move in any direction, putting it more in the Asteroids type of family, despite there you can thrust over the screen.
Yes, that's another spinner based game transferred to 8-way joystick play and it takes some time getting used to as well. The thing with Time Pilot is, whilst the movement might actually include some realism, especially the swirling around the enemy to strike in air to air combat, it just doesn't feel natural to me, because with the nose pointed outwards from the center it's hard for me to transfer this to an outwards circular motion on the stick, when my head wants the ship to follow straight inputs based on cardinal directions.
Yoshiki Okamoto felt he had accomplished what he wanted in shooters, but the fact in Gyruss your ship is fixed on an orbital circumference pointing towards the vanishing point in the center is like an inversion of Time Pilot to the advantage your movement of the lever towards the gate is reflected in the circular motion on screen this time.
It's hard to fully enjoy the discrete audio circuit stereo sound and Masahiro Inoue's interpretation of Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565", inspired from the 1980 hit rock arrangement "Toccata" by instrumentalist band Sky in a noisy arcade environment, but that's another plus of Gyruss and pavement for Konami's future strength in game soundtracks, so many steps ahead from the digital fart sounds early space shooters offered.
I couldn't care less why you have to reach Earth, but Gyruss is separated into warps between our solar system's planets and the stage counter goes up even after the set goal was achieved. It's just back to Neptune with an additional warp there and towards Earth again, so my log of completing an endless game is probably more representing the ending of a humongous session in a way beating the main objective to get this review posted in activities, because I think in other cases that doesn't happen.
Zoning into that one-point direction with stars coming at you to create the illusion of movement and dimension left me quite crossed eyed, but I enjoyed getting a lot further than before very much, even though I'm plenty of parsecs away from the world record. If you wrapped your head around the concept it's just as captivating as Galaga, because that's what it basically is.
Okamoto simply envisioned Gyruss as facing the problem of getting caught in the corners of Galaga by using the tube shooter concept of Tempest. So best think of it as Galaga folded to a cone; the straight bottom line of orientation bent around the screen to form a circle and the top becoming the vanishing point. Instead of moving left or right it becomes clockwise or counterclockwise, theoretically allowing you to spin infinitely one or the other way round.
Vectors might have been visionary for a while, but just like the movie Tron went obsolete quickly, a game like Tempest would have had to be improved with textures to stand the test of time. We can look at them with nostalgia spectacles on, but for 1983 the raster graphics used in Gyruss had been the way to go.
The enemy is swirling in formations, so it doesn't look like they're bound to the path like you are and they're a lot smaller when grouping in the back until they charge individually. You've got the luxury of three shots you can fire in quick triplets or aim more carefully to have a shot left before the others hit or leave the screen to refill your ammo.
You then have to swivel to any clock position required to erase the enemy interrupted by hostile fire and indestructible asteroids to dodge as well, leading to sheer excitement when wiggling back and forth on pure instinct to survive the assault. It's only half the fun without the double shot though, so you want the satellites to appear. Shoot the sunlike object in the middle to upgrade.
Just as Galaga of course Gyruss has bonus stages and you want to be in the correct 3, 6, 9 or 12 o'clock position to profit the most. And that's it. The Famicom Disk System/NES version might be called Gyruss, though it's actually not a port, but at least a 1.5 variant of the game adding new obstacles like stage bosses. You can't really compare it and other than the current situation I write this review, that version should be separated into an individual backloggd entry.
Whilst you might prefer that enhanced home version thinking of the original arcade Gyruss as redundant or repetitive, to me the game is an epitomic space shooting challenge just as Space Invaders, Galaxian or Galaga, but with its own twist. It's possible you've got to be a specific type of player to adopt a single game with the task to analyze, understand and beat it to a personal level of satisfaction.
If you are, why not try Gyruss if you haven't? Chance is you get just as hooked as I am, so wheel out your trusty arcade stick, try having a circular or at least octagonal gate and a ball top on it and enjoy!
2020
Is playing Solitaire still a thing? At least for the generations having this and maybe Minesweeper pre-installed as the only available games at your school or work PC it triggers nostalgia. I didn't play it much back then, but more recently discovered via Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics, that I actually enjoy the Klondike variant a lot more than I did with Spider Solitaire.
Whilst the Clubhouse Games Solitaire engine works perfectly fine for me, I own that game physically and with all the digital sales I got most of my Nintendo Switch library in that format despite I usually didn't see a value in it. The thing is though, most games aren't 100% on those cards anyway, so other than classic game cartridges, I wouldn't be able to put them in ready to play without a server connection 20 years later anyway.
Now I'm caught in that vicious circle of being too lazy for swapping physical games, when I've got so much to play available on my Switch directly. And I'm browsing sales frequently, even though I've got almost everything that's of interest in the usual rotation. But, hey! There are all those Solitaire games… and almost all of them are by Baltoro?
Looking at their portfolio it seems like they do stuff in a style I associate with mobile apps and if I would do transactions from my phone, Solitaire would be a good game to add there. But my e-shop points became moldy and it seems like a good idea to buy a game to allow for some quick minutes of Klondike Solitaire when I'm listening to music, audio plays or podcasts.
World of Solitaire wasn't the necessary choice, but Baltoro Games seem to have worked their way to this newer incarnation offering the largest roster of five Solitaire variants (Klondike, Spider, Free Cell, Pyramid, Tri Peaks) in one single product for 0,99€ just like the older titles are priced on discount. Sounds like the best deal, right?
Well, it's not like the internet is full of Solitaire reviews, surprisingly. The only info I squeezed out of there is Baltoro might be able to do a decent Solitaire and I can verify that, even though World of Solitaire starts off with conservative controller activation and quite some loading time for a simple game like this.
You might also want to know a little about Solitaire beforehand, because the included manual didn't feel very helpful to me. I'm mainly speaking for the Klondike and Spider Solitaires when I say playing is as fun as I'd expect from this kind of program. With lack of understanding the other variants appeared more or less enigmatic, leading to me stopping the collection of achievements.
But that's actually how much Baltoro went out of their way to offer more than just simple Solitaires. With playing, you collect points and rise in your rating level to unlock new background music, different card and table designs. Achievements are there to encourage you to play different designs and variants but also include simple math puzzles.
My experience though is that I decided on my favorite simple designs and perspective for Klondike Solitaire mostly and then turned off the music to listen to whatever I want at the moment. I'd still call it a nice addition though, having freedom of choice for your personal playing preference.
Do you enjoy your screen getting dirty? Touch controls are smooth. But after some warming up using your Joy cons or Pro Controller works perfectly fine as well. What I enjoy most is you can use the cursor via d-pad or analogue stick, so you've got the perfect conditions to play World of Solitaire on your arcade stick of choice.
Does that contradict the initial idea of the quick few minutes of play? Totally! But it also gives me the feeling of a card game arcade cabinet and with my passion for playing each and everything on my arcade stick that still makes sense. Clicky microswitches are my ASMR! It's a bonus for me, that I admittedly don't frequent as often as I should with this game, playing most sessions undocked and in bed.
However, this is my perspective on World of Solitaire and even though it seems lucrative enough to produce plenty installments, it still occurs as something like a niche in Switch gaming. So thank you for reading, but I'm not sure I will convince you of playing any Solitaire game if you didn't like it before.
After all it's just a single player card puzzle, a game you wouldn't need a console for in general, but it's still the nice brain teaser it always was. The help function isn't of much assistance if you basically understood the game, but might be as much a tutorial as you get.
So if you consider having a Solitaire game on your Nintendo Switch and you don't already have a version to play, then World of Solitaire in my opinion is a solid choice. It tries to make the game more interesting without changing the classic gameplay and that's more than required. Get it discounted and have everything you need concerning Solitaire.
Whilst the Clubhouse Games Solitaire engine works perfectly fine for me, I own that game physically and with all the digital sales I got most of my Nintendo Switch library in that format despite I usually didn't see a value in it. The thing is though, most games aren't 100% on those cards anyway, so other than classic game cartridges, I wouldn't be able to put them in ready to play without a server connection 20 years later anyway.
Now I'm caught in that vicious circle of being too lazy for swapping physical games, when I've got so much to play available on my Switch directly. And I'm browsing sales frequently, even though I've got almost everything that's of interest in the usual rotation. But, hey! There are all those Solitaire games… and almost all of them are by Baltoro?
Looking at their portfolio it seems like they do stuff in a style I associate with mobile apps and if I would do transactions from my phone, Solitaire would be a good game to add there. But my e-shop points became moldy and it seems like a good idea to buy a game to allow for some quick minutes of Klondike Solitaire when I'm listening to music, audio plays or podcasts.
World of Solitaire wasn't the necessary choice, but Baltoro Games seem to have worked their way to this newer incarnation offering the largest roster of five Solitaire variants (Klondike, Spider, Free Cell, Pyramid, Tri Peaks) in one single product for 0,99€ just like the older titles are priced on discount. Sounds like the best deal, right?
Well, it's not like the internet is full of Solitaire reviews, surprisingly. The only info I squeezed out of there is Baltoro might be able to do a decent Solitaire and I can verify that, even though World of Solitaire starts off with conservative controller activation and quite some loading time for a simple game like this.
You might also want to know a little about Solitaire beforehand, because the included manual didn't feel very helpful to me. I'm mainly speaking for the Klondike and Spider Solitaires when I say playing is as fun as I'd expect from this kind of program. With lack of understanding the other variants appeared more or less enigmatic, leading to me stopping the collection of achievements.
But that's actually how much Baltoro went out of their way to offer more than just simple Solitaires. With playing, you collect points and rise in your rating level to unlock new background music, different card and table designs. Achievements are there to encourage you to play different designs and variants but also include simple math puzzles.
My experience though is that I decided on my favorite simple designs and perspective for Klondike Solitaire mostly and then turned off the music to listen to whatever I want at the moment. I'd still call it a nice addition though, having freedom of choice for your personal playing preference.
Do you enjoy your screen getting dirty? Touch controls are smooth. But after some warming up using your Joy cons or Pro Controller works perfectly fine as well. What I enjoy most is you can use the cursor via d-pad or analogue stick, so you've got the perfect conditions to play World of Solitaire on your arcade stick of choice.
Does that contradict the initial idea of the quick few minutes of play? Totally! But it also gives me the feeling of a card game arcade cabinet and with my passion for playing each and everything on my arcade stick that still makes sense. Clicky microswitches are my ASMR! It's a bonus for me, that I admittedly don't frequent as often as I should with this game, playing most sessions undocked and in bed.
However, this is my perspective on World of Solitaire and even though it seems lucrative enough to produce plenty installments, it still occurs as something like a niche in Switch gaming. So thank you for reading, but I'm not sure I will convince you of playing any Solitaire game if you didn't like it before.
After all it's just a single player card puzzle, a game you wouldn't need a console for in general, but it's still the nice brain teaser it always was. The help function isn't of much assistance if you basically understood the game, but might be as much a tutorial as you get.
So if you consider having a Solitaire game on your Nintendo Switch and you don't already have a version to play, then World of Solitaire in my opinion is a solid choice. It tries to make the game more interesting without changing the classic gameplay and that's more than required. Get it discounted and have everything you need concerning Solitaire.
1991
In my previous reviews for Blade Master and Undercover Cops I've already mentioned developers moving on from Irem to form Nazca and unleashing Metal Slug. What I held back so far was they actually did Geo Storm with Irem before and that game pretty much feels like a blueprint for the now classic Run and Gun series.
In the west though, Geo Storm was renamed Gunforce II and it was about time for me to find out if that actually means the original Gunforce is a spiritual predecessor of the Metal Slug series as well.
It is… kind of? See, the thing with this 1991 side scrolling shooter is that it's not only less comical like Geo Storm is compared to Metal Slug. Gunforce is in general more dull, which of course in a way feels natural, looking at games in retrospect.
I must admit, I'm not the world's biggest Run and Gun aficionado. I sometimes challenge myself with those hard games like Contra or Metal Slug, but I would have to put more effort in to call myself reasonably good. So without free play and continues allowed on this machine, I would have gotten nowhere.
What I can talk about after checking out Gunforce though is in most parts it did feel hard but not unfair, unlike my criticism on above mentioned Irem Beat'em'ups. With some training, especially proper handling of the diagonal shots, I might manage quite a lot of the parts until the enemies really swarm you.
That was also one of my problems with the final boss that has an increasing number of gnomes taking your attention, so you can't fire enough rounds at the actual target. For the last phases I found a sweet spot where I only had to evade occasional firing, so there might be a pattern to get through all of this.
Does this encourage me to pick up on that and truly beat the game like an honest warrior? Not quite. And that's not even because Gunforce had wacky controls, I got pretty good at them over time. But one detail I hated for instance was when the screen scrolls up, it doesn't count if there is a platform below. A gap on the recent screen means instant death.
But the major bummer is that it's so barebone in comparison. It's got the weapon upgrade system and you can use different vehicles, even tanks and a helicopter. Maybe that was more fun in 1991, but Gunforce didn't really entertain me enough with it.
I can live without the hostages, because I'm not expecting Gunforce to be identical to later games in that lineage, but the enemy and level design don't offer much variation and the bosses are very pragmatic, not to say uninspired.
Maybe at a point when you're really looking for another genre title to 1cc, then Gunforce might come up, but other than that, I don't see much sense in putting coins into this cabinet for more than historical curiosity, which is maybe why it's not very prominent in the wild anymore.
The sad truth is, that Gunforce might not even be bad, but with the exciting Geo Storm or Metal Slug available for example, there's just no real demand for it. If your arcade has it, and you're done with their eclectic selection so far, yeah, then go for Gunforce, because we always need new old games to play. Same probably goes for the announced five volumes of an Irem Collection.
In the west though, Geo Storm was renamed Gunforce II and it was about time for me to find out if that actually means the original Gunforce is a spiritual predecessor of the Metal Slug series as well.
It is… kind of? See, the thing with this 1991 side scrolling shooter is that it's not only less comical like Geo Storm is compared to Metal Slug. Gunforce is in general more dull, which of course in a way feels natural, looking at games in retrospect.
I must admit, I'm not the world's biggest Run and Gun aficionado. I sometimes challenge myself with those hard games like Contra or Metal Slug, but I would have to put more effort in to call myself reasonably good. So without free play and continues allowed on this machine, I would have gotten nowhere.
What I can talk about after checking out Gunforce though is in most parts it did feel hard but not unfair, unlike my criticism on above mentioned Irem Beat'em'ups. With some training, especially proper handling of the diagonal shots, I might manage quite a lot of the parts until the enemies really swarm you.
That was also one of my problems with the final boss that has an increasing number of gnomes taking your attention, so you can't fire enough rounds at the actual target. For the last phases I found a sweet spot where I only had to evade occasional firing, so there might be a pattern to get through all of this.
Does this encourage me to pick up on that and truly beat the game like an honest warrior? Not quite. And that's not even because Gunforce had wacky controls, I got pretty good at them over time. But one detail I hated for instance was when the screen scrolls up, it doesn't count if there is a platform below. A gap on the recent screen means instant death.
But the major bummer is that it's so barebone in comparison. It's got the weapon upgrade system and you can use different vehicles, even tanks and a helicopter. Maybe that was more fun in 1991, but Gunforce didn't really entertain me enough with it.
I can live without the hostages, because I'm not expecting Gunforce to be identical to later games in that lineage, but the enemy and level design don't offer much variation and the bosses are very pragmatic, not to say uninspired.
Maybe at a point when you're really looking for another genre title to 1cc, then Gunforce might come up, but other than that, I don't see much sense in putting coins into this cabinet for more than historical curiosity, which is maybe why it's not very prominent in the wild anymore.
The sad truth is, that Gunforce might not even be bad, but with the exciting Geo Storm or Metal Slug available for example, there's just no real demand for it. If your arcade has it, and you're done with their eclectic selection so far, yeah, then go for Gunforce, because we always need new old games to play. Same probably goes for the announced five volumes of an Irem Collection.
2018
Golf Club: Wasteland is definitely one of those indie oddities that aren't too good in gameplay, but still manage to come up with great atmosphere and a storyline you wouldn't expect. If you were just looking forward to simple golf entertainment in an innovative setting, like me and it seems quite a few did, you might want to replay and capture all the details you might have missed in the experience.
The game itself isn't more complicated than playing Bowmasters. You aim via a curved arrow and set the intensity with your left analogue stick. The courses of Golf Club: Wasteland incorporate future Earth's ruins, so you have to place your shots on platforms, use switches and have to pass mechanics like automatic doors or conveyor belts. Like in Worms you can zoom and scroll the map to plan how to reach the target.
I understand it can be frustrating in some stages, when you miss and have to find your way all over again, especially if it takes a while for the protagonist to catch up. On the other hand, that contributes to the depiction of the environmental condition we are indeed creating today.
Golf Club: Wasteland isn't exactly pointing a finger by sketching out a possible apocalyptic scenario where mankind had to evacuate Earth to live on Mars and only the rich can use our planet's remains to play golf. It's kind of a retro futuristic melancholy, woven into a radio performance that complements the protagonist's longing for home.
The game asks us to put on headphones to fully embrace the isolation accompanied by a brilliant score (downloadable via qr code) and informational talking bits (English with a selection of Subs available).
Then, strolling the ruins of our future, Golf Club: Wasteland tenously confronts us with the now meaningless achievements of mankind, not without the word Weltschmerz being brought up.
Serbian Demagog Studio announce themselves as a transmedia operation and seem to have expanded on this universe now with Highwater and The Cub that I both don't know yet despite from trailers.
Both games seem to incorporate radio stations and especially The Cub looks like a possible puzzle platformer sequel to Golf Club: Wasteland, which I'm highly interested to check out after this somber, almost satirical world building.
Included with Golf Club: Wasteland also comes a set of about 50 art panels further describing the story's background. To me, that's a greater bonus than the diary entries you unlock as achievements and possibly have to replay maps for, when you needed more shots than required. Even those small texts have something to add, but it doesn't motivate me enough to master the courses I struggled with.
The golfing to me is something to keep your fingers occupied in an interactive art performance to immerse yourself in for almost two hours. It's more like the unique moveset for a puzzle platformer and with its expedient graphics Golf Club: Wasteland even unfolds its qualities just like it could be a late successor of Inside. The game won't unleash a wave of post-apocalyptic golf games for sure, but for this instance it works out.
I really appreciate how Demagog create a depth of layers they risk to lose some players with by being too enigmatic with uncommented bits of putative chatter. Golf Club: Wasteland is also depending on what you bring to the experience on both an intellectual and emotional level.
That way it's the sophisticated version of a simple mobile game especially for those being aware how close to the edge we actually are. And then it will probably be narrowed down by the required gallows humor to nihilistically dwell in the future wasteland we could actually try to prevent during that same time.
Golf Club: Wasteland is not just the random post near future apocalypse, it's about a future nostalgia for Earth by people who had to escape the inhospitable environment whose emergence we have to witness with bitter acceptance of the fact we might not be able to turn around.
It feels a lot more tangible due to latest findings, the lockdown situations we just went through, the war and because Golf Club: Wasteland is more based on feelings of desperation in a conceivable refugee scenario rather than a more abstract fictional one with aliens or other external threats. It just leaves the question who of us might even hope to make it to another planet once shit finally hits the fan.
The game itself isn't more complicated than playing Bowmasters. You aim via a curved arrow and set the intensity with your left analogue stick. The courses of Golf Club: Wasteland incorporate future Earth's ruins, so you have to place your shots on platforms, use switches and have to pass mechanics like automatic doors or conveyor belts. Like in Worms you can zoom and scroll the map to plan how to reach the target.
I understand it can be frustrating in some stages, when you miss and have to find your way all over again, especially if it takes a while for the protagonist to catch up. On the other hand, that contributes to the depiction of the environmental condition we are indeed creating today.
Golf Club: Wasteland isn't exactly pointing a finger by sketching out a possible apocalyptic scenario where mankind had to evacuate Earth to live on Mars and only the rich can use our planet's remains to play golf. It's kind of a retro futuristic melancholy, woven into a radio performance that complements the protagonist's longing for home.
The game asks us to put on headphones to fully embrace the isolation accompanied by a brilliant score (downloadable via qr code) and informational talking bits (English with a selection of Subs available).
Then, strolling the ruins of our future, Golf Club: Wasteland tenously confronts us with the now meaningless achievements of mankind, not without the word Weltschmerz being brought up.
Serbian Demagog Studio announce themselves as a transmedia operation and seem to have expanded on this universe now with Highwater and The Cub that I both don't know yet despite from trailers.
Both games seem to incorporate radio stations and especially The Cub looks like a possible puzzle platformer sequel to Golf Club: Wasteland, which I'm highly interested to check out after this somber, almost satirical world building.
Included with Golf Club: Wasteland also comes a set of about 50 art panels further describing the story's background. To me, that's a greater bonus than the diary entries you unlock as achievements and possibly have to replay maps for, when you needed more shots than required. Even those small texts have something to add, but it doesn't motivate me enough to master the courses I struggled with.
The golfing to me is something to keep your fingers occupied in an interactive art performance to immerse yourself in for almost two hours. It's more like the unique moveset for a puzzle platformer and with its expedient graphics Golf Club: Wasteland even unfolds its qualities just like it could be a late successor of Inside. The game won't unleash a wave of post-apocalyptic golf games for sure, but for this instance it works out.
I really appreciate how Demagog create a depth of layers they risk to lose some players with by being too enigmatic with uncommented bits of putative chatter. Golf Club: Wasteland is also depending on what you bring to the experience on both an intellectual and emotional level.
That way it's the sophisticated version of a simple mobile game especially for those being aware how close to the edge we actually are. And then it will probably be narrowed down by the required gallows humor to nihilistically dwell in the future wasteland we could actually try to prevent during that same time.
Golf Club: Wasteland is not just the random post near future apocalypse, it's about a future nostalgia for Earth by people who had to escape the inhospitable environment whose emergence we have to witness with bitter acceptance of the fact we might not be able to turn around.
It feels a lot more tangible due to latest findings, the lockdown situations we just went through, the war and because Golf Club: Wasteland is more based on feelings of desperation in a conceivable refugee scenario rather than a more abstract fictional one with aliens or other external threats. It just leaves the question who of us might even hope to make it to another planet once shit finally hits the fan.
1998
Most western Cave fans will tell you about their Shoot'em'ups like DoDonPachi or Espgaluda, but actually Puzzle Uo Poko, one of their most obscure games done singlehandedly by Toshiaki Tomizawa, was my first exposure to one of their products. Published to the arcades by Jaleco approximately in February 1998, this is obviously sort of a puzzle game that has not much in common with their usual output.
Quite recently I reported about Pachinko Challenger that I have problems familiarizing myself with that Pinball variant, though I had forgotten about Puzzle Uo Poko being one of those japanese oddities I actually enjoy - despite it has all the indicators to call it a stupid program you could have a moderately trained monkey finish at least ten of the thirty stages.
At a time all we could play on our mobiles was Snake, if there ever was a stereotypical japanese salaryman, Puzzle Uo Poko would have been the perfect game to be complemented by a drink and a smoke after a 23 hour work day, before he's got to be back at the job again. Because all you do is pull the lever intuitively.
In my case today, it was after two hours of trying to beat the final boss in Varth and though I might not be in the mood for Puzzle Uo Poko everyday, to get rid of the remaining caffeine and adrenaline in my system, impersonating a cat that's shooting bubbles at the sea, because it wants fish, is absolutely appropriate.
So no cute anime girls here, just you, a cat and a plunger, pulling at various intensities to engage differently coloured balls on a pile of others. Let's just call Puzzle Uo Poko a simplified bastard of said Pachinko, Puzzle Bobble and Puyo Puyo. You're combining at least three bubbles of one color to have them explode and hopefully create a chain reaction.
It's not all that easy, though. Sometimes you've got to crack blocks by placing the falling ball on them. At other occasions the bubbles require having a chain explode next to them to be unlocked. As weird as the synopsis already was, you'll also find a yellow submarine at sea level that will be of assistance if you hit it.
Just having watched a video for co-op mode due to the lack of a gaming partner, I can only assume the two player version being an interesting variation where shots of the other can get in the way if not properly communicated.
Everything is a race against time as well. You've got a few seconds to aim and the bottom will raise constantly. Having the top row touching the surface has to be avoided at all costs. And with the cute meow sounds and a score that partly reminded me of a happy version of the Akira OST it's actually satisfying.
It's probably for the same reasons mobile apps are successful, comforting us with simple tasks of putting random things in order. It's anticipation and reward, dangerously close to gambling maybe, because at the arcade you're losing money for enjoying a flickering display, sounds and minimal participation. Maybe the only difference is there's no chance offered to win your dough back, so the addiction has limits.
Whilst in our day and age, games like Puzzle Uo Poko would be perfect for cashing in on data and advertising via your phone, it would lack one crucial factor that to me means the world. It's so much more satisfying to play on an actual arcade lever than swiping a screen!
Sadly I couldn't verify if Puzzle Uo Poko was really shipped including a cat paw top for the joystick like it's rumored on the internets, because that would have given a nice touch in connection with the protagonist. I've only seen it with a regular ball top though.
For the minimal effort put in a machine like Puzzle Uo Poko it was quite possibly lucrative anyway and for the fun I frequently have with the smooth gameplay, I'll probably have to forgive Cave that they didn't come up with a more elaborate theme and design. Studios need their moneymakers.
I don't know if it would be legit to say the same about the 2005 Puzzle! Mushihimetama, with Tomizawa returning to merge the Mushihimesama franchise with Puzzle Uo Poko routines. But as much as you'd think a more Cave appropriate theme and additional boss and bonus stages would spice things up, here I am, stuck with the boss at stage 5-6 in a game that feels too hectic and too long.
I don't want a forced Bubble Hell Shooter. I would have appreciated just an improved environment, some nicer artworks in particular. More doesn't always equal better, it seems. (Edit: After realizing 5-6 was the final boss and it just required swiftness I wasn't in the condition for, I've made my peace with Mushihimetama.)
At least to me the predecessor is just the right kind of plain relaxation that doesn't overstay its welcome and opposed to Puzzle! Mushihimetama it's Puzzle Uo Poko with its nice flow of some slightly challenging but never unsolvable puzzles that leaves me wanting to play just one or two more stages.
Quite recently I reported about Pachinko Challenger that I have problems familiarizing myself with that Pinball variant, though I had forgotten about Puzzle Uo Poko being one of those japanese oddities I actually enjoy - despite it has all the indicators to call it a stupid program you could have a moderately trained monkey finish at least ten of the thirty stages.
At a time all we could play on our mobiles was Snake, if there ever was a stereotypical japanese salaryman, Puzzle Uo Poko would have been the perfect game to be complemented by a drink and a smoke after a 23 hour work day, before he's got to be back at the job again. Because all you do is pull the lever intuitively.
In my case today, it was after two hours of trying to beat the final boss in Varth and though I might not be in the mood for Puzzle Uo Poko everyday, to get rid of the remaining caffeine and adrenaline in my system, impersonating a cat that's shooting bubbles at the sea, because it wants fish, is absolutely appropriate.
So no cute anime girls here, just you, a cat and a plunger, pulling at various intensities to engage differently coloured balls on a pile of others. Let's just call Puzzle Uo Poko a simplified bastard of said Pachinko, Puzzle Bobble and Puyo Puyo. You're combining at least three bubbles of one color to have them explode and hopefully create a chain reaction.
It's not all that easy, though. Sometimes you've got to crack blocks by placing the falling ball on them. At other occasions the bubbles require having a chain explode next to them to be unlocked. As weird as the synopsis already was, you'll also find a yellow submarine at sea level that will be of assistance if you hit it.
Just having watched a video for co-op mode due to the lack of a gaming partner, I can only assume the two player version being an interesting variation where shots of the other can get in the way if not properly communicated.
Everything is a race against time as well. You've got a few seconds to aim and the bottom will raise constantly. Having the top row touching the surface has to be avoided at all costs. And with the cute meow sounds and a score that partly reminded me of a happy version of the Akira OST it's actually satisfying.
It's probably for the same reasons mobile apps are successful, comforting us with simple tasks of putting random things in order. It's anticipation and reward, dangerously close to gambling maybe, because at the arcade you're losing money for enjoying a flickering display, sounds and minimal participation. Maybe the only difference is there's no chance offered to win your dough back, so the addiction has limits.
Whilst in our day and age, games like Puzzle Uo Poko would be perfect for cashing in on data and advertising via your phone, it would lack one crucial factor that to me means the world. It's so much more satisfying to play on an actual arcade lever than swiping a screen!
Sadly I couldn't verify if Puzzle Uo Poko was really shipped including a cat paw top for the joystick like it's rumored on the internets, because that would have given a nice touch in connection with the protagonist. I've only seen it with a regular ball top though.
For the minimal effort put in a machine like Puzzle Uo Poko it was quite possibly lucrative anyway and for the fun I frequently have with the smooth gameplay, I'll probably have to forgive Cave that they didn't come up with a more elaborate theme and design. Studios need their moneymakers.
I don't know if it would be legit to say the same about the 2005 Puzzle! Mushihimetama, with Tomizawa returning to merge the Mushihimesama franchise with Puzzle Uo Poko routines. But as much as you'd think a more Cave appropriate theme and additional boss and bonus stages would spice things up, here I am, stuck with the boss at stage 5-6 in a game that feels too hectic and too long.
I don't want a forced Bubble Hell Shooter. I would have appreciated just an improved environment, some nicer artworks in particular. More doesn't always equal better, it seems. (Edit: After realizing 5-6 was the final boss and it just required swiftness I wasn't in the condition for, I've made my peace with Mushihimetama.)
At least to me the predecessor is just the right kind of plain relaxation that doesn't overstay its welcome and opposed to Puzzle! Mushihimetama it's Puzzle Uo Poko with its nice flow of some slightly challenging but never unsolvable puzzles that leaves me wanting to play just one or two more stages.
Given that it turned out it was actually only the final boss I was struggling with in Puzzle! Mushihimetama when I was reviewing Puzzle Uo Poko, I've changed my mind a little about Toshiaki Tomizawa's second bubble shooting game. It might have been harsh to call it a bubble hell, when it wasn't anything but a little more challenging and I could finish it on my second attempt within a good hour when I was more awake. I might even become tempted to try a 1cc one day, because it should be totally possible.
Having that out of the way, Puzzle! Mushihimetama is obviously the successor of the more obscure Puzzle Uo Poko with the Mushihimesama theme added, so other than the Pachinko vs. Puzzle Bobble gameplay, it finally has an anime girl with the Princess from the Shoot'em'up. She doesn't do much though, except for some cute sounds and poses when you free the bug babies to finish the puzzle instead of erasing all bubbles like in the predecessor.
The presentation appears more wholesome than Puzzle Uo Poko though, which was something I criticized in that game. In fact, with that bug theme included it of course makes sense to implement the bosses from Mushihimesama to create a new challenge. Coming from the more relaxing and forgiving Puzzle Uo Poko though, I wasn't expecting Puzzle! Mushihimetama to require that much velocity, reaching its peak in said final boss. You really have to hit relentlessly to succeed.
With the credits rolling, I must admit it was more about me than the game though. I was exhausted after failing to beat the final boss in Varth, had finished Puzzle Uo Poko for recreation and expected Puzzle! Mushihimetama to be just another game to chill before I finally go to bed. Had I not known the predecessor and been alert enough for the pace, I might have enjoyed Mushihimetama instantly. The only real downside is that you've got to push your lever up between stages instead of having you pull as well like in the game, which to me feels more awkward than satisfying.
In conclusion both games have their limitations drawn from their puzzle game niche, but also their individual strengths in that I might still pick Puzzle Uo Poko with my brain in zombie mode and Puzzle! Mushihimetama if I'm up for the more arduous sequel that's also far from unbeatable once you've zoned in. It's just a little more struggle compared to the rewarding emotion of cleaning up in Uo Poko and it might be my OCD is triggered by the fact I can't always remove all bubbles before the stage is done.
Having that out of the way, Puzzle! Mushihimetama is obviously the successor of the more obscure Puzzle Uo Poko with the Mushihimesama theme added, so other than the Pachinko vs. Puzzle Bobble gameplay, it finally has an anime girl with the Princess from the Shoot'em'up. She doesn't do much though, except for some cute sounds and poses when you free the bug babies to finish the puzzle instead of erasing all bubbles like in the predecessor.
The presentation appears more wholesome than Puzzle Uo Poko though, which was something I criticized in that game. In fact, with that bug theme included it of course makes sense to implement the bosses from Mushihimesama to create a new challenge. Coming from the more relaxing and forgiving Puzzle Uo Poko though, I wasn't expecting Puzzle! Mushihimetama to require that much velocity, reaching its peak in said final boss. You really have to hit relentlessly to succeed.
With the credits rolling, I must admit it was more about me than the game though. I was exhausted after failing to beat the final boss in Varth, had finished Puzzle Uo Poko for recreation and expected Puzzle! Mushihimetama to be just another game to chill before I finally go to bed. Had I not known the predecessor and been alert enough for the pace, I might have enjoyed Mushihimetama instantly. The only real downside is that you've got to push your lever up between stages instead of having you pull as well like in the game, which to me feels more awkward than satisfying.
In conclusion both games have their limitations drawn from their puzzle game niche, but also their individual strengths in that I might still pick Puzzle Uo Poko with my brain in zombie mode and Puzzle! Mushihimetama if I'm up for the more arduous sequel that's also far from unbeatable once you've zoned in. It's just a little more struggle compared to the rewarding emotion of cleaning up in Uo Poko and it might be my OCD is triggered by the fact I can't always remove all bubbles before the stage is done.
1991
Who knew shmup epitome Toaplan had their puzzle game as well and after a lot of you seem to have enjoyed looking at Cave's Puzzle Uo Poko and Puzzle! Mushihimetama with me, I think it's about time to review this exceptional genre manifestation . Teki Paki - Sennô Gêmu, translated for the west as "The Brainwashing Game", fell right into place after the impact of Tetris and its first epigones, though despite being reported a favorite to play at the developer's office wasn't among the most successful arcade cabinets for the company.
Ports for the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo had been canceled just as a planned sequel was never finished. Teki Paki was made available for home consoles for the first time more recently, so if interested, you will find conversions for PS4, Nintendo Switch and Evercade.
One reason Teki Paki was overlooked back in the day could be that it doesn't appear to be more than Columns at another angle. And that's not entirely wrong. Instead of the greek framework the design was more like retro futuristic and it can't be denied that the player has to organize groups of three falling blocks in random colors. Beginning with those three blocks coming in an L-shape though, the game mechanics make Teki Paki an entirely different game at an advanced level.
It's not as obviously set apart like Dr. Mario, Panel de Pon or Puyo Puyo from Tetris, but just as you have to wrap your head around the system freshly, even coming from Columns a new way of thinking is required to even start mastering Teki Paki. The reasons are simple as they should be in a puzzle game.
First, the three combined blocks always come in three different colors, unlike in Columns, where there can be doubles. And then, whilst the L-shape makes it actually increasingly challenging to place your blocks, in Teki Paki it's not enough to combine just three blocks to make them pop out of the way.
It has to be an incredible amount of five blocks, but it gets more interesting by the fact those just have to be neighbors vertically, horizontally or diagonally, so you could clear a whole labyrinth spiraling through your pile should you be able to place a block accordingly.
On my first credit at Teki Paki I managed to hit like 8000 points and thought "WTF?!", because I used to make quite decent scores on Game Boy Tetris, GBA Puzzle League and Game Gear Columns a while ago. I must admit though, having played the Columns arcade for comparison directly, that the cabinet started out at a more challenging level, but I still could keep up with the pace for a while.
Now, Teki Paki doesn't hold back for long, adding two colors swiftly and only offering the smiley block (can connect with any color) for help and tries to lure you in with the promise to clear the screen for 100k should you be able to combine five dynamite blocks, which I never did yet, just as I haven't seen any silver or golden blocks the Toaplangames website says will give bonus points.
It doesn't matter to me that much for this review though, as Teki Paki soon turned out very addictive to me and the feeling of an existing chance to beat more of the 999 possible levels, but probably never actually finishing the game adds to that as much as I will unlikely ever report from a master's perspective. I leave that to the pros and just enjoy whatever I will accomplish.
Raving to the driving score by Tomoaki Takanohashi (published together with the Vimana OST by Scitron/Pony Canyon), who was also introduced into programming on Teki Paki, the game sounds quite different to the typical allaying music of the puzzle genre. Thinking ahead for rather complex combos is crucial to not end up filling the screen completely without any remaining chance. Though you can proceed on another credit, this alternative is reflected in your points and doesn't turn out as an option for me.
Still focused too much on the gameplay, Teki Paki in my case also doesn't qualify for the versus mode yet, like I particularly enjoy with Puyo Puyo Tetris and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, but if you're into it, it's there. You'll probably just have to get your opponent on the couch for the conversions just like you would have to stand next to at the arcade.
I don't know why a fully grown puzzle game wouldn't be considered for a stand-alone release by today's standards, but included with the M2 Kyukyoku Tiger-Heli compilations for Switch and PS4 or the Toaplan Arcade 1 Evercade collection getting your hands on Teki Paki is ensured to be a bang for your buck.
Teki Paki might have been one of too many in its day, but as a fan of falling blocks, especially if you wipe your ass with Columns or Tetris 2, it's exactly the different of the same you want and by addressing the similar 1cc ethos of Shoot'em'up players it's actually a more than adequate addition to Toaplan's ludography.
Ports for the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo had been canceled just as a planned sequel was never finished. Teki Paki was made available for home consoles for the first time more recently, so if interested, you will find conversions for PS4, Nintendo Switch and Evercade.
One reason Teki Paki was overlooked back in the day could be that it doesn't appear to be more than Columns at another angle. And that's not entirely wrong. Instead of the greek framework the design was more like retro futuristic and it can't be denied that the player has to organize groups of three falling blocks in random colors. Beginning with those three blocks coming in an L-shape though, the game mechanics make Teki Paki an entirely different game at an advanced level.
It's not as obviously set apart like Dr. Mario, Panel de Pon or Puyo Puyo from Tetris, but just as you have to wrap your head around the system freshly, even coming from Columns a new way of thinking is required to even start mastering Teki Paki. The reasons are simple as they should be in a puzzle game.
First, the three combined blocks always come in three different colors, unlike in Columns, where there can be doubles. And then, whilst the L-shape makes it actually increasingly challenging to place your blocks, in Teki Paki it's not enough to combine just three blocks to make them pop out of the way.
It has to be an incredible amount of five blocks, but it gets more interesting by the fact those just have to be neighbors vertically, horizontally or diagonally, so you could clear a whole labyrinth spiraling through your pile should you be able to place a block accordingly.
On my first credit at Teki Paki I managed to hit like 8000 points and thought "WTF?!", because I used to make quite decent scores on Game Boy Tetris, GBA Puzzle League and Game Gear Columns a while ago. I must admit though, having played the Columns arcade for comparison directly, that the cabinet started out at a more challenging level, but I still could keep up with the pace for a while.
Now, Teki Paki doesn't hold back for long, adding two colors swiftly and only offering the smiley block (can connect with any color) for help and tries to lure you in with the promise to clear the screen for 100k should you be able to combine five dynamite blocks, which I never did yet, just as I haven't seen any silver or golden blocks the Toaplangames website says will give bonus points.
It doesn't matter to me that much for this review though, as Teki Paki soon turned out very addictive to me and the feeling of an existing chance to beat more of the 999 possible levels, but probably never actually finishing the game adds to that as much as I will unlikely ever report from a master's perspective. I leave that to the pros and just enjoy whatever I will accomplish.
Raving to the driving score by Tomoaki Takanohashi (published together with the Vimana OST by Scitron/Pony Canyon), who was also introduced into programming on Teki Paki, the game sounds quite different to the typical allaying music of the puzzle genre. Thinking ahead for rather complex combos is crucial to not end up filling the screen completely without any remaining chance. Though you can proceed on another credit, this alternative is reflected in your points and doesn't turn out as an option for me.
Still focused too much on the gameplay, Teki Paki in my case also doesn't qualify for the versus mode yet, like I particularly enjoy with Puyo Puyo Tetris and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, but if you're into it, it's there. You'll probably just have to get your opponent on the couch for the conversions just like you would have to stand next to at the arcade.
I don't know why a fully grown puzzle game wouldn't be considered for a stand-alone release by today's standards, but included with the M2 Kyukyoku Tiger-Heli compilations for Switch and PS4 or the Toaplan Arcade 1 Evercade collection getting your hands on Teki Paki is ensured to be a bang for your buck.
Teki Paki might have been one of too many in its day, but as a fan of falling blocks, especially if you wipe your ass with Columns or Tetris 2, it's exactly the different of the same you want and by addressing the similar 1cc ethos of Shoot'em'up players it's actually a more than adequate addition to Toaplan's ludography.
2018
If anything, Detective Gallo was probably the most cock I found in a crowdfunded point'n'click adventure and I'm not even sure the italian studio Footprints Games dressed their anthropomorphic rooster in yellow with the intention of emphasizing a reference to a certain Mr. Tracy, when a complex pun would have worked based on him being a private dick anyway. I would have smiled honestly, if he had been a Gaul as well (because to my knowledge besides cock that's the second possible translation for Gallo). It's just that the game itself isn't all that deep and complicated.
An adventure taking place in an area like a decrepit part of Duckburg doesn't necessarily have to be that and I could imagine inspiration was drawn from Sam & Max Hit The Road, judging from the cartoonish presentation that even improves on the simple icon based user interface. It doesn't seem like coincidence Detective Gallo's partner is a cactus, because the case to solve is actually the murder of exotic plants.
As a debut game, it might have been a good idea to restrict the number of locations and characters. On the other hand Detective Gallo starts out as rather straight forward until I hit the wall of having to hunt for tiny hotspots that I could of course have identified earlier by pressing space. With running back and forth to find the right combination of items, the decently dubbed humor wasn't enough to pick up the game between my first session in April and early July 2023, when I finally wanted to get Detective Gallo off my list.
Luckily, the adventure expands with some relatively surprising plot twists, but even though items usually don't end up as red herrings, the linearity is partly annoying. The designers had a path in their minds for Detective Gallo, so sometimes other actions are required to finalize a thought I had before. This usually leads to getting lost on parts of a puzzle that just isn't next in the queue or that seems self-explanatory, but the realization makes it kinda work counterintuitively.
I ended up looking for hints on the internet for some of them, because I didn't feel like running circles until I accidentally fit the pieces together. It would have helped to keep up contact with the informant for this, but he sadly ignores the private eye's calls later. Instead a limited variety of one liners complement the denial of combinations, making Detective Gallo feel underdeveloped in a world where OG designers make their games more user-friendly these days.
It's sad that compared to another italian genre title, The Wardrobe, Footprints Games tried to establish a more original creation sans all the pop cultural references, but their fellow competitors CINIC Games understood to design the more pleasing product. Whilst the plot is fairly adequate for a cartoon story, Detective Gallo seems to overstay its welcome a wee bit by trying to implement too many puzzles for its narrative limitations of the environment and especially shortage of acting roles.
The almost anticlimactic ending, despite occurring quite rapidly, actually satisfies as a welcome exit, because it fulfills the foreshadowed incompetence of our grumpy investigator in a surprise twist. The humor of Detective Gallo is neither deranged nor overly clever, but would simply work much better in smoother condensing.
It's an interactive sordid Saturday morning cartoon drawn and animated on a gorgeous level, which raised my interest in the first place. I can't say if my expectations are too high for a debut like Detective Gallo, because a lot of things have been done right. But as too often in this day and age what is presented as a final product to me feels more like what should have been a pitch to raise funds for completion.
What's missing maybe was a little more time and money to refine the ideas or, another issue with small teams of independent programmers, the ability to kill darlings. An executive would have had to keep track during a test phase and balance out Detective Gallo much more to the extent of what is an equivalent to a cartoon show episode than the feature film they were trying to cobble together.
Under the maxim of less is more this could have very well functioned as a pilot to a series or maybe even a shorter standalone release shining brighter without its ballast. Assuming nothing was lost in translation from the italian original this I feel would be what I had preferred as a backer as well, looking for a bang for the buck not in playing time alone.
Of course it could have been much worse. I remember Encodya wasting a lot of potential by referencing tropes to a painful degree without reflection. But then there's also Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure, that sure still ain't perfect, but gets plenty of things very right as a crowdfunded debut. It sure plays a role the latter operates at a higher scale of content and Detective Gallo still is kind of promising for future releases, but it's also the game they sent out to their backers and us regular customers spend their well earned money on as well.
It's hard to criticize, when today's big players ship barely more than demos if a physical copy is made available at all and all you get on day one is a beta version to be hopefully patched after the early birds assisted in a testing phase like they purchased green bananas.
Unlike that, independent studios usually are not looking to sell additional content via a game as their shopping platform and so there's often hardly any update unless heavy glitches cause the program's crash. I've read this has been the case during Detective Gallo's finale for some players, but with the version 1.21 installed, I can't confirm any of that, so kudos for providing a working game, I guess?
It's because of these structures I tend to acquire a huge amount of my software via sales to get the most refined game in return and whilst this is a monetary no-brainer, I'd prefer the publishers putting in more effort to satisfy us for full price to make smaller productions like this lucrative. It's a give and take that in my world feels as unbalanced as the creative direction in Detective Gallo.
There's too much "if", not enough that exceeds being just potential which simply doesn't cover the requirements of an independent game anymore, when there are so many studios trying to get a foot on the ground with exactly that as a business model. We can't just accept flaws on a regular basis to give newcomers a chance, when almost everybody is trying and there's no board of trustees to sift through the sheer amount of possibilities.
Please get me right, Detective Gallo is enjoyable on average, but I would like to see the team compete with the legends on an elaborated level and not just give away hints that they might be able to do that. It's great to see more potential is there to keep point'n'click adventures one of my favorite genres, but who's winning when Detective Gallo ends up being the introduction for young gamers, when for instance Broken Age would be a much better amalgamation of old and new?
Facing the truth, Detective Gallo ain't more than just another one of those games to consume because you can't get enough of its type and you hope for a hidden gem. It comes the day you might spend a few hours with this mildly entertaining hardboiled detective story, but I don't see anyone dissecting each and every detail for analysis. You play it, delete it from your hard drive and probably forget about it. The way Detective Gallo is cocky is that the graphic presentation is a lot better than the actual substance.
An adventure taking place in an area like a decrepit part of Duckburg doesn't necessarily have to be that and I could imagine inspiration was drawn from Sam & Max Hit The Road, judging from the cartoonish presentation that even improves on the simple icon based user interface. It doesn't seem like coincidence Detective Gallo's partner is a cactus, because the case to solve is actually the murder of exotic plants.
As a debut game, it might have been a good idea to restrict the number of locations and characters. On the other hand Detective Gallo starts out as rather straight forward until I hit the wall of having to hunt for tiny hotspots that I could of course have identified earlier by pressing space. With running back and forth to find the right combination of items, the decently dubbed humor wasn't enough to pick up the game between my first session in April and early July 2023, when I finally wanted to get Detective Gallo off my list.
Luckily, the adventure expands with some relatively surprising plot twists, but even though items usually don't end up as red herrings, the linearity is partly annoying. The designers had a path in their minds for Detective Gallo, so sometimes other actions are required to finalize a thought I had before. This usually leads to getting lost on parts of a puzzle that just isn't next in the queue or that seems self-explanatory, but the realization makes it kinda work counterintuitively.
I ended up looking for hints on the internet for some of them, because I didn't feel like running circles until I accidentally fit the pieces together. It would have helped to keep up contact with the informant for this, but he sadly ignores the private eye's calls later. Instead a limited variety of one liners complement the denial of combinations, making Detective Gallo feel underdeveloped in a world where OG designers make their games more user-friendly these days.
It's sad that compared to another italian genre title, The Wardrobe, Footprints Games tried to establish a more original creation sans all the pop cultural references, but their fellow competitors CINIC Games understood to design the more pleasing product. Whilst the plot is fairly adequate for a cartoon story, Detective Gallo seems to overstay its welcome a wee bit by trying to implement too many puzzles for its narrative limitations of the environment and especially shortage of acting roles.
The almost anticlimactic ending, despite occurring quite rapidly, actually satisfies as a welcome exit, because it fulfills the foreshadowed incompetence of our grumpy investigator in a surprise twist. The humor of Detective Gallo is neither deranged nor overly clever, but would simply work much better in smoother condensing.
It's an interactive sordid Saturday morning cartoon drawn and animated on a gorgeous level, which raised my interest in the first place. I can't say if my expectations are too high for a debut like Detective Gallo, because a lot of things have been done right. But as too often in this day and age what is presented as a final product to me feels more like what should have been a pitch to raise funds for completion.
What's missing maybe was a little more time and money to refine the ideas or, another issue with small teams of independent programmers, the ability to kill darlings. An executive would have had to keep track during a test phase and balance out Detective Gallo much more to the extent of what is an equivalent to a cartoon show episode than the feature film they were trying to cobble together.
Under the maxim of less is more this could have very well functioned as a pilot to a series or maybe even a shorter standalone release shining brighter without its ballast. Assuming nothing was lost in translation from the italian original this I feel would be what I had preferred as a backer as well, looking for a bang for the buck not in playing time alone.
Of course it could have been much worse. I remember Encodya wasting a lot of potential by referencing tropes to a painful degree without reflection. But then there's also Gibbous - A Cthulhu Adventure, that sure still ain't perfect, but gets plenty of things very right as a crowdfunded debut. It sure plays a role the latter operates at a higher scale of content and Detective Gallo still is kind of promising for future releases, but it's also the game they sent out to their backers and us regular customers spend their well earned money on as well.
It's hard to criticize, when today's big players ship barely more than demos if a physical copy is made available at all and all you get on day one is a beta version to be hopefully patched after the early birds assisted in a testing phase like they purchased green bananas.
Unlike that, independent studios usually are not looking to sell additional content via a game as their shopping platform and so there's often hardly any update unless heavy glitches cause the program's crash. I've read this has been the case during Detective Gallo's finale for some players, but with the version 1.21 installed, I can't confirm any of that, so kudos for providing a working game, I guess?
It's because of these structures I tend to acquire a huge amount of my software via sales to get the most refined game in return and whilst this is a monetary no-brainer, I'd prefer the publishers putting in more effort to satisfy us for full price to make smaller productions like this lucrative. It's a give and take that in my world feels as unbalanced as the creative direction in Detective Gallo.
There's too much "if", not enough that exceeds being just potential which simply doesn't cover the requirements of an independent game anymore, when there are so many studios trying to get a foot on the ground with exactly that as a business model. We can't just accept flaws on a regular basis to give newcomers a chance, when almost everybody is trying and there's no board of trustees to sift through the sheer amount of possibilities.
Please get me right, Detective Gallo is enjoyable on average, but I would like to see the team compete with the legends on an elaborated level and not just give away hints that they might be able to do that. It's great to see more potential is there to keep point'n'click adventures one of my favorite genres, but who's winning when Detective Gallo ends up being the introduction for young gamers, when for instance Broken Age would be a much better amalgamation of old and new?
Facing the truth, Detective Gallo ain't more than just another one of those games to consume because you can't get enough of its type and you hope for a hidden gem. It comes the day you might spend a few hours with this mildly entertaining hardboiled detective story, but I don't see anyone dissecting each and every detail for analysis. You play it, delete it from your hard drive and probably forget about it. The way Detective Gallo is cocky is that the graphic presentation is a lot better than the actual substance.
Today everybody seems to remember the CDi, 3DO and maybe Mega-CD as platforms for clumsy attempts to do revolutionary FMV games on CD, but the truth is a lot of the early generation CD-ROM titles in general were either enhancements of the floppy versions or might not hold up very well today with pixelated cutscenes in tiny window boxes.
Lucas Arts had to dump $1.5 million into Full Throttle pushing the envelope on the point'n'click genre they helped to define. Despite the legendary status over here in Europe those games had not exactly been a cash cow, so backing Tim Schafer's pitch for his debut as a leading producer can be seen as a bold move on behalf of graphic adventures.
Unlike today, there wasn't a nostalgic way of referencing classics like Maniac Mansion or The Secret of Monkey Island. Whilst it usually still is the intention of most of the old designers to renew and reinvent the genre, that motto was as much intrinsic as mandatory. But does that excuse what came out as Full Throttle?
It's not like they didn't try. I'm tempted to say Full Throttle came out like Reservoir Dogs, which sure had an impact on movies and impressed many people at the time, but with its limitations looks rather unwieldy compared to True Romance and Natural Born Killers for which Tarantino also didn't have control what happened to his scripts. But when Pulp Fiction was released, that was the big bang.
Obviously Grim Fandango burned too much budget to deny it might have rather killed point'n'click adventures monetary and as I've promised after Broken Age, I will have to catch up on Schafer's 1998 release to decide if I'm on the side of the fans, but there seems to be a generation remembering it benevolently.
It's true that I missed both, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, because I wasn't owning a PC that was more than a better typewriter at that time. Whilst I enjoyed Discworld and Broken Sword on my PlayStation, I only got to play some genre titles like Day of the Tentacle, Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail or The Curse of Monkey Island at friend's places. I might have confused Full Throttle for a racing game anyway because the title is not exactly an adventure trope.
Whilst it might be true the previous Lucas Arts point'n'clicks had been somewhat cartoonish, I wouldn't see them as family friendly as some compare them to a "more grown up" Full Throttle. It just so happened a lot of us played the earlier games as kids, but at least Sam & Max Hit the Road is far away from what I'd call suitable. With Full Throttle being a gritty unique noir blend of The Wild One, Yojimbo, The Road Warrior and Akira it might as well have been part of the Heavy Metal anthology movie and that way stands out as more adult.
That might also give a hint it's short. Now, I've suggested for Detective Gallo that less is more and I actually have nothing to say against the story. Full Throttle has everything that's needed for a gnarly one man show of stumbling into being the innocent suspect for a murder. An interesting point here is that neither whodunnit nor howdunnit are ever in question. The worst thing to happen in this semi-apocalyptic parallel dimension is the production of minivans.
Thematically, I would have loved Full Throttle back in the day, being a movie buff since I'm able to think and digesting an increasing number of genre films as a teenager in the early nineties. At the same time, I transitioned into the more adult side of franco-belgian comics and beyond, especially from the seventies.
Another thing to point out, I think, is that Full Throttle has a rather independent female in mechanic Maureen, though in a short period of time defined by Tank Girl and Barb Wire or girly brats like in Clueless the Eastwood/Bronson type somehow reflected in protagonist Ben feels a little out of time, especially as above mentioned comics often had female leads maybe even out of place.
Full Throttle on one hand forces us to use violence instead of talking sometimes, but on the other hand limits us with what we can actually use our mouth or extremities on via the newly introduced icon based radial interface a lot of us learned to love in point'n'clicks. I'd sure have wreaked much greater havoc if they let me, like in Edna & Harvey: The Breakout, that's pushing the boundaries of nonlinearity in graphic adventures.
Whilst the main engine remains SCUMM, Full Throttle also profits from the INSANE animation engine previously used on Star Wars: Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire. Being the first Lucas Arts adventure solely released on CD-ROM, this actually comes at a cost.
Because now there's room for professional voice actors like Mark Hamill, a quite decent licensed rock score by The Gone Jackals (they sadly couldn't afford "Kickstand" by Soundgarden) and extensive full motion video sequences with good enough compression to work full screen, there doesn't seem to be much left for an actual genre game within the cinematic presentation.
Despite the success and cult status of Full Throttle, for me, this is a bitter pill to swallow. And I'm not talking out of disappointment over the new artwork of the Full Throttle Remastered edition. I've looked deeply at both versions and as I don't have any nostalgic relation to the original, I like it as much as I think the remaster doesn't only look more up-to-date, it also brings Full Throttle even closer to the above mentioned Heavy Metal style. I could have lived without the shiny 3D modeling, but that seems to be true to the original that might have looked like the remaster had it been state of the art back then.
I can sit back for good cut scenes, that isn't an issue either. But the few puzzles kind of annoyed me entirely. It's ok most of them are more environmental than icon based, but they're all but self-explanatory. Even though that characteristic is typical for Lucas Arts if you're thinking of moon logic and pixel hunting, Full Throttle for instance does nothing to lead you to the idea you might have to hide in a situation or use a fluent sequence of actions.
It's possible the original gave away hints in the manual that doesn't come with the GOG release of Full Throttle Remastered and the idea might have been to mimic Another World/Out of this World, but framed for an actual point'n'click adventure this is almost as irritating as the real action passages, which ruin an otherwise still pleasurable game for me.
I know, this isn't a first in Lucas Arts adventures and I've read at least for the original that you could bypass the bike fights and destruction derby with a code, but then there's not much of a game left to beat, honestly. So I've gone through everything with a mouse, which isn't the best way to control a vehicle.
It's not a license game for Batman '89, where the chases weren't exactly highlights and if I wanted to play Super Cars II, R.C. Pro-Am or at best Rock'n'Roll Racing, then I'd do that. In my impression the designers just wasted space here for very linear minigames that awkwardly rely on you to find that one path to get past them.
And I get they canceled a planned peyote trip scene for glorification reasons, whilst I might have liked a complete bike gang subplot that seems to have been dropped as well. I would have preferred that over any of the agility parts I neither expect nor miss in a graphic adventure, just like the chance to try again doesn't compensate for the time limits during the final scenes that will make you die and watch the same FMVs over and over.
So with the credits rolling after two sessions cut even shorter with a guide when I was absolutely clueless what Full Throttle wanted me to do, I was still kind of relieved it's over. And that's probably an issue with the game being made when it was made. A CD-ROM of course has new limits again if you pack it with data and the fancy presentation can only get you that far if besides cinematics the game is rather weak.
It has to come with an expiration date when you alienate your puzzle geeks that aren't satisfied with a few items to look for, even though two things had been hard to spot, in trade for an underdeveloped upgrade that appears like a few unfocused ideas cobbled together. Full Throttle Remastered doesn't fix that, which would have been a chance, actually, but an extended director's cut would have needed more budget and the support of the fans.
In conclusion Full Throttle Remastered is the refreshed look of a game that is more style than substance anyway. It can't have the same impact, because it doesn't come with the same unique selling points it had when it was first released. It would have been a nice base to work from nonetheless, but two game sequels had been canceled during production and pitches at MTV and Disney+ seem to have failed.
With the death of Ben's voice actor Roy L. Conrad in 2002 any real follow up is out of the question and so we might take this as an actual reason Full Throttle Remastered wasn't expanded. The question though is, who really needed this then, besides people like me wanting an available version to close another gap?
Too hung up on trying something else Full Throttle just lacks the charme and challenge of the early Monkey Island games for example, that are written so well they work in any version, from Amiga to Special Edition.
Lucas Arts had to dump $1.5 million into Full Throttle pushing the envelope on the point'n'click genre they helped to define. Despite the legendary status over here in Europe those games had not exactly been a cash cow, so backing Tim Schafer's pitch for his debut as a leading producer can be seen as a bold move on behalf of graphic adventures.
Unlike today, there wasn't a nostalgic way of referencing classics like Maniac Mansion or The Secret of Monkey Island. Whilst it usually still is the intention of most of the old designers to renew and reinvent the genre, that motto was as much intrinsic as mandatory. But does that excuse what came out as Full Throttle?
It's not like they didn't try. I'm tempted to say Full Throttle came out like Reservoir Dogs, which sure had an impact on movies and impressed many people at the time, but with its limitations looks rather unwieldy compared to True Romance and Natural Born Killers for which Tarantino also didn't have control what happened to his scripts. But when Pulp Fiction was released, that was the big bang.
Obviously Grim Fandango burned too much budget to deny it might have rather killed point'n'click adventures monetary and as I've promised after Broken Age, I will have to catch up on Schafer's 1998 release to decide if I'm on the side of the fans, but there seems to be a generation remembering it benevolently.
It's true that I missed both, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, because I wasn't owning a PC that was more than a better typewriter at that time. Whilst I enjoyed Discworld and Broken Sword on my PlayStation, I only got to play some genre titles like Day of the Tentacle, Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail or The Curse of Monkey Island at friend's places. I might have confused Full Throttle for a racing game anyway because the title is not exactly an adventure trope.
Whilst it might be true the previous Lucas Arts point'n'clicks had been somewhat cartoonish, I wouldn't see them as family friendly as some compare them to a "more grown up" Full Throttle. It just so happened a lot of us played the earlier games as kids, but at least Sam & Max Hit the Road is far away from what I'd call suitable. With Full Throttle being a gritty unique noir blend of The Wild One, Yojimbo, The Road Warrior and Akira it might as well have been part of the Heavy Metal anthology movie and that way stands out as more adult.
That might also give a hint it's short. Now, I've suggested for Detective Gallo that less is more and I actually have nothing to say against the story. Full Throttle has everything that's needed for a gnarly one man show of stumbling into being the innocent suspect for a murder. An interesting point here is that neither whodunnit nor howdunnit are ever in question. The worst thing to happen in this semi-apocalyptic parallel dimension is the production of minivans.
Thematically, I would have loved Full Throttle back in the day, being a movie buff since I'm able to think and digesting an increasing number of genre films as a teenager in the early nineties. At the same time, I transitioned into the more adult side of franco-belgian comics and beyond, especially from the seventies.
Another thing to point out, I think, is that Full Throttle has a rather independent female in mechanic Maureen, though in a short period of time defined by Tank Girl and Barb Wire or girly brats like in Clueless the Eastwood/Bronson type somehow reflected in protagonist Ben feels a little out of time, especially as above mentioned comics often had female leads maybe even out of place.
Full Throttle on one hand forces us to use violence instead of talking sometimes, but on the other hand limits us with what we can actually use our mouth or extremities on via the newly introduced icon based radial interface a lot of us learned to love in point'n'clicks. I'd sure have wreaked much greater havoc if they let me, like in Edna & Harvey: The Breakout, that's pushing the boundaries of nonlinearity in graphic adventures.
Whilst the main engine remains SCUMM, Full Throttle also profits from the INSANE animation engine previously used on Star Wars: Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire. Being the first Lucas Arts adventure solely released on CD-ROM, this actually comes at a cost.
Because now there's room for professional voice actors like Mark Hamill, a quite decent licensed rock score by The Gone Jackals (they sadly couldn't afford "Kickstand" by Soundgarden) and extensive full motion video sequences with good enough compression to work full screen, there doesn't seem to be much left for an actual genre game within the cinematic presentation.
Despite the success and cult status of Full Throttle, for me, this is a bitter pill to swallow. And I'm not talking out of disappointment over the new artwork of the Full Throttle Remastered edition. I've looked deeply at both versions and as I don't have any nostalgic relation to the original, I like it as much as I think the remaster doesn't only look more up-to-date, it also brings Full Throttle even closer to the above mentioned Heavy Metal style. I could have lived without the shiny 3D modeling, but that seems to be true to the original that might have looked like the remaster had it been state of the art back then.
I can sit back for good cut scenes, that isn't an issue either. But the few puzzles kind of annoyed me entirely. It's ok most of them are more environmental than icon based, but they're all but self-explanatory. Even though that characteristic is typical for Lucas Arts if you're thinking of moon logic and pixel hunting, Full Throttle for instance does nothing to lead you to the idea you might have to hide in a situation or use a fluent sequence of actions.
It's possible the original gave away hints in the manual that doesn't come with the GOG release of Full Throttle Remastered and the idea might have been to mimic Another World/Out of this World, but framed for an actual point'n'click adventure this is almost as irritating as the real action passages, which ruin an otherwise still pleasurable game for me.
I know, this isn't a first in Lucas Arts adventures and I've read at least for the original that you could bypass the bike fights and destruction derby with a code, but then there's not much of a game left to beat, honestly. So I've gone through everything with a mouse, which isn't the best way to control a vehicle.
It's not a license game for Batman '89, where the chases weren't exactly highlights and if I wanted to play Super Cars II, R.C. Pro-Am or at best Rock'n'Roll Racing, then I'd do that. In my impression the designers just wasted space here for very linear minigames that awkwardly rely on you to find that one path to get past them.
And I get they canceled a planned peyote trip scene for glorification reasons, whilst I might have liked a complete bike gang subplot that seems to have been dropped as well. I would have preferred that over any of the agility parts I neither expect nor miss in a graphic adventure, just like the chance to try again doesn't compensate for the time limits during the final scenes that will make you die and watch the same FMVs over and over.
So with the credits rolling after two sessions cut even shorter with a guide when I was absolutely clueless what Full Throttle wanted me to do, I was still kind of relieved it's over. And that's probably an issue with the game being made when it was made. A CD-ROM of course has new limits again if you pack it with data and the fancy presentation can only get you that far if besides cinematics the game is rather weak.
It has to come with an expiration date when you alienate your puzzle geeks that aren't satisfied with a few items to look for, even though two things had been hard to spot, in trade for an underdeveloped upgrade that appears like a few unfocused ideas cobbled together. Full Throttle Remastered doesn't fix that, which would have been a chance, actually, but an extended director's cut would have needed more budget and the support of the fans.
In conclusion Full Throttle Remastered is the refreshed look of a game that is more style than substance anyway. It can't have the same impact, because it doesn't come with the same unique selling points it had when it was first released. It would have been a nice base to work from nonetheless, but two game sequels had been canceled during production and pitches at MTV and Disney+ seem to have failed.
With the death of Ben's voice actor Roy L. Conrad in 2002 any real follow up is out of the question and so we might take this as an actual reason Full Throttle Remastered wasn't expanded. The question though is, who really needed this then, besides people like me wanting an available version to close another gap?
Too hung up on trying something else Full Throttle just lacks the charme and challenge of the early Monkey Island games for example, that are written so well they work in any version, from Amiga to Special Edition.