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Astlibra Revison is an RPG of a tremendous scale

Astlibra Revision
Developers - KEIZO
Publisher - Whisper Games
PC, Switch

As Astlibra opens, your character finds himself stranded in a cabin at the edge of a lake, with nothing but an endless forest in front of him. After years at the cabin, he finally resolves to escape, trekking for eight years without contact through the forest, with no idea of when he may finally reach the edge.

Developed over the course of 15 years, by solo developer Keizo, you can feel the creator’s preoccupation with time and scale throughout Astlibra. The story’s themes are obsessed with time, with how our actions reverberate through it, and what we would do if given the opportunity to go back and change them. The scale of the game itself is tremendous, with system after system stacked upon each other in a way that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Tri-Ace title. Every system has been reexamined, throwing off the general assumptions of the genre.

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Loddlenaut: a cozy clean up that leaves the bigger questions behind

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Loddlenaut
Developers - Moon Lagoon
Publisher - Secret Mode
PC,

With a chill, and I daresay–cozy–atmosphere, Loddlenaut offers exactly the kind of laid back routine that’s easy to dip into for small moments of satisfaction. Taking the role of an ocean sanitation worker, there’s an immediate satisfaction to clearing the junk and gunk in the area, which builds towards the long term goal of creating a clear, inhabitable biome. Loddles, the native lifeform of the planet, provide a light pet raising element, not unlike Sonic Adventure’s Chao Gardens.

Alongside the cute, slightly aliased aesthetic, and some light survival game elements, Loddlenaut kept me plenty engaged and doesn’t overstay its welcome, with plenty smaller goals for those looking for more. Yet it’s those same cozy elements, and the vague gestures toward an environmental message that Loddlenaut struggles to square away.

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Gunhead Review

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Gunhead
Developers - Alien Trap
Publisher - Alien Trap
PC, PS5

Armed to the teeth with a shotgun, chaingun, mortar launcher and pile bunker–one weapon for each of my mech’s four arms–and with a cloak in reserve, I was equipped with the perfect loadout for big hit and run damage. The job in front of me was simple: plenty of locked doors on this ship, but with easy access to its door system it would be a non-issue, giving me a straight shot to the shield system and just enough time to splatter the brains of the craft and shut it down. The only major obstacle was the nuke system, which would set off a short range nuclear explosion when a system went down. Dismantle that and the rest was easy.

I slipped in through an airlock, took out the drones still active in the area, then shutdown the nuke system–only to be caught off guard by a slowly radiating explosion that took off several chunks of armor before driving me to retreat into a corner. In my arrogance I’d overlooked the redundancy system, which took over the nuke system the instant it shut down. The time I’d lost from my retreat gave the shuffle system enough time to activate, moving every system to a new room, and ruining my entire plan.

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Air Twister Review

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Air Twister
Developers - YS Net
Publisher - ININ Games
PC, PS5, PS4, XBOX, Switch

The latest from legendary SEGA arcade creator Yu Suzuki, Air Twister has finally escaped its exclusivity period with Apple Arcade and arrived on other platforms. From a glance it’s clear that Suzuki and his team were aiming to create a follow up to Space Harrier, with surreal visuals and saturated colors that’d feel right at home in SEGA’s fantasy worlds. Scored by Dutch composer Valensia, doing his best Queen impression, Air Twister makes a splashy first impression despite the clearly limited budget. But as the game continues it’s clear that Suzuki’s vision lacks any real cohesion, rendered in hasty sketches rather than the efficient and masterful strokes of his work at SEGA.

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Trepang 2 is FEAR for the creepypasta generation

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Trepang2
Developers - Trepang Studios
Publisher - Team 17
PC, PS5, Xbox

When Monolith’s FEAR hit the scene in 2005, it astounded with its sharp AI opponents, technical achievements and blend of slow motion gunplay and J-Horror atmosphere. Even now there’s a particular appeal to that first game, with the two sequels tossing away its unique atmosphere and gunplay for something more conventional. And with Monolith stuck working on whatever license Warner Bros. assigns them, it seemed that nothing would even attempt to achieve the same alchemy that defined the first FEAR entry.

That is, until Trepang 2. Trepang immediately makes it clear where its influences lie. From the way bullets tear through scenery, to the oversharpened look of the slow motion, the enemies’ ragdoll reactions to melee attacks, and the way shotguns instantly pulp bodies, Trepang’s entire aesthetic is directly pulled from the first FEAR game. Even mechanical choices, like the lack of aiming down the sights and the particular feedback of the guns, reflect the very specific gunplay dynamics of the original game and the era it was made in. Some modern conveniences keep Trepang from becoming a complete throwback, but its modern influences are most felt in the works of horror it draws from.

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Grid Force brings an ambitious new take of the Battle Network style

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Grid Force: Mask of the Goddess
Developers - Taito, Pyramid, M2
Publisher - Square Enix
Switch, PS4

Self-described as a “tactical bullet-hell RPG”, Grid Force is in reality a Mega Man Battle Network style game. Presented with visual novel style branching dialogue and illustrated comic panels, it immediately impresses, and continues to do so as the scale of what it’s attempting is revealed. Grid Force is unafraid to reinterpret the core ideas of its inspiration, with arenas that vary drastically, and a large roster of playable characters that shake up the way battles play out on every screen. Unfortunately, Grid Force’s ambitions often overreach, leaving the execution of its many ideas inconsistent through its runtime.

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My favorite ways to play GBA

by Amr (@siegarettes)

The GBA is one of my all time favorite consoles. With an iconic, pocketable form factor and an expansive library of games, I’m still finding ways to enjoy it, over twenty years after its release. And with so many different options to revisit that library, it can be easy to get wrapped up in finding the “perfect” way to play it. But the truth is, so much of the handheld experience is wrapped up in the hardware you play it on, that the best option is going to be different for each person.

So today I’m going to run through my favorite ways to play GBA, why I picked them, and what makes each great.

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The Retroid Pocket 2+ Experience: Flawed, Frustrating, and Fun

by Amr (@siegarettes)

Retroid Pocket 2+
$100 via Retroid, $150 via Amazon
Android based emulation of whatever systems you can load onto it, up to the Dreamcast

Emulation handhelds sell an incredible promise. Multiple generations of consoles and handhelds, all on a single device , with a unified control scheme and the added features of years of emulation development. But more often than not, these devices are a bundle of compromises with features packed in no matter if they make sense.

The Retroid Pocket 2+ initially seems to be exactly that–an incremental upgrade for a sub 100 dollar device, reusing the same shell and awkward controls,running on an outdated version of Android. No matter how you cut it, any modern Android smartphone with a decent USB controller is going to outpace it in performance. So it better offer some other compelling reasons to pick it up.

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