Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle Review

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By: RJ (@rga_02)

  • Touhou Kobuto V: Burst Battle 
  • Developer - CUBETYPE
  • Publisher - NIS America
  • PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch 
  • Rating - T

There are some games you play for the sake of irony or a joke. You know those type of games. You would find them digging deep in the Steam storefront and you tell yourself, “this looks so awful, but I’ll play it anyway.” Then there are games that are so atrocious that even any sort of irony won’t be able to salvage your experience. Touhou Kobuto V is one of them.

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Super Hydorah is a loving homage to classic shooters, for better or for worse

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by Omar (@siegarettes)

As of writing this there are two things that I’m sure of: Super Hydorah is a fantastic homage to the shooters I grew up with, and I might never be able to finish it. It’s obvious that Locomalito grew up loving the same games I did. The aesthetics, soundtrack, and even opening waves of enemies make his love for arcade shooters like Gradius and R-Type clear. The measure of a good homage, of course, is whether they make the originals their own, or simply imitate it. Hydorah undoubtedly makes the spirit of those games its own, but it brings the frustration of those early games along with it.

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Necrosphere Review

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By: David (@friendshipguy_)

  • Necrosphere
  • Developer - Cat Nigiri
  • Publisher - Cat Nigiri
  • PC/Mac

Metroidvania games are something near and dear to my heart; I grew up watching my brother play htem, and eventually started consuming them myself. It’s a genre of game that I’m happ to see still being itereated upon, and Necrosphere definitely does an excellent job itereating upon those past experiences, save for a few caveats. However, it should be noted that Necrosphere is an incredibly small title – able to be beaten in far less time than I spent on it. At times, this can make it feel like a proof-of-concept for its intriguing choice of controller input – see, it only uses the left and right arrow keys. It is billed as a bite-sized metroidvania title after all.

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Tooth and Tail is a fresh, micro-sized take on Real-Time Strategy

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Time, it turns out, was my greatest barrier to entry into the real-time strategy genre. More than the complexity of tech trees, the need for fast responses, or juggling an economy, time is what has kept me from diving into the genre. At least, that’s what I’m learning from my time with Tooth and Tail, the new micro-RTS from the developers of Monaco.

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Rock of Ages 2 Review

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by Omar (@siegarettes)

  • Rock of Ages 2
  • Developer- ACE Team
  • Publisher- ATLUS
  • PC, PS4

The original Rock of Ages was one of the first games I ever reviewed. I wasn’t kind to it. I was enamored with its tour of art history by way of competitive tower defense, but the actual act of playing it ended as a competition in seeing who could roll their boulder down a hill faster. Its humor never landed with me either. Still, I can’t deny that Rock of Ages was a spectacle. ACE Team is a developer that’s kept me engaged through the sheer wonder of their art direction. So the promise of a new, more varied living art gallery built by a more experience team was all I needed to show up for Rock of Ages 2.

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Senko no Ronde 2 Review

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by Omar (@siegarettes)

  • Senko no Ronde 2
  • Developer- G. Rev, Chara-Ani
  • Publisher- Degica
  • PC, PS4

Senko no Ronde 2 is a game for a very, very specific audience If you’re not someone whose activation phrases are “Virtual-On”, “bullet hell”, “Psychic Force”, or “arena fighter” you’re probably someone who is going to be bewildered by the chaos you witness. For those with an affinity towards ANY of those, Senko no Ronde will feel like a revelation. It joins the ranks of the few competitive shoot-em-ups, alongside Change Air Blade, Twinkle Star Sprites and its various anime girl imitators like Genso Rondo and Acceleration of Suguri.

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Pixel Cup Soccer 17 (Early Access) Review

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By: RJ (@rga_02)

  • Pixel Cup Soccer 17
  • Developer - Batovi Games Studio
  • Publisher - Batovi Games Studio
  • PC 
  • Rating - N/A

Somewhere out there – perhaps on twitter I may have tweeted something lamenting on the trend of pixel games. I probably said something along the lines of, “those games are nothing but bleep bloop nonsense.”  I’m also a raging hypocrite however as I’ve enjoyed quite a bit of those “bleep bloop” games. Pixel Cup Soccer 17 is one of them.

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Yakuza Kiwami Review

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by Omar (@siegarettes)

  • Yakuza Kiwami
  • Developer- SEGA
  • Publisher- SEGA
  • PS4, PS3

Yakuza Kiwami has a strange tension between the new and the old. Its modern face lift of the original PS2 game bring it in line with the look of the later PS3 titles, and it’s clear that this is where many series conventions were established. Kiryu’s established as an icon of the old school ideals of  masculinity. Rough, straightforward, and honorable to a fault. There’s also plenty of melodrama and absurd reveals, all of which build into a slowly unraveling conspiracy. But while the core is there, it’s clear that Kiwami suffers from being held to the original Yakuza’s structure.

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