Audiobliss Episode 1
Listen to RJ (@rga_02) & Amr (@siegarettes) ramble about the Musou genre.
By: Omar (@siegarettes)
Within the recent return of the dungeon crawler, Ray Gigant is working within frameworks that are at once traditional and forward facing. There’s the grid-based, first-person dungeon crawling that connects it Japan’s long love affair with Wizardy. At the same time it leads with an impression of a modern Phantasy Star IV, with fluidly animated characters and lavish, painted enemies populating its battles. Its pacing is thoroughly modern as well, seeking to take the archaeological exploration of the genre and transpose it to a portable format that can sneak into today’s hurried lifestyle.
By: Omar (@siegarettes) & RJ (@rga_02)
After a lengthy gourmet meal at McDonalds we decided to swing over to Bit Bash’s Cool Jazz to indulge ourselves into the wonderful world of indie gaming. It was held at the Bottom Lounge. Despite the cramped surroundings, the atmosphere was very relaxed and upbeat. Realizing there were more than just overpriced drinks here, we decided to talk about games.
by Omar (@siegarettes)
Stikbold is a game that gets by entirely by its charm. Between its bright color palette, humor, low poly characters and expressive animation, Stikbold is a game so lighthearted that often feels untethered from gravity. It’s a distinctly springtime game.
by Omar (@siegarettes)
Dariusburst CS always presented itself as a celebration. A final hurrah to a storied, bizarre series of arcade titles. So it seems appropriate that they’ve followed that up with a series of new playable ships based on other Taito arcade games. What I didn’t expect was the games that they’d choose to bring in.
by Omar (@siegarettes)
There’s a certain appeal to revisiting games. It can produce alternate interpretations of the original, reuse aspects of it in interesting ways, or simply reproduce an aesthetic that hasn’t been seen in a while. Code of Princess is, at the least, a clear attempt that follows the logic of those approaches. It has a clear goal of being a successor to 1996’s Saturn RPG-brawler hybrid, Guardian Heroes, to the point where it even brings that game’s director and programmer aboard for development. Even without that knowledge it would be clear; there’s a heavy aesthetic debt to Guardian Heroes here, everything from combat to menu layouts feels recognizable.
by Omar (@siegarettes)
The Umihara Kawase games have a strange history. The original Umihara Kawase was a small independent effort. The original game was developed by studio TNN, and published by a Japanese television station on the Super Famicom. The games themselves are stranger still, consisting of a set of puzzle platformers, where a Japanese school girl uses a bouncy fishing line as a grappling hook to navigate surreal configurations of platforms and fish creatures.
By: Ryan (@Henchman34) & RJ (@rga_02)
Coming from a guy that’s played a fair share of top-down horde based web games, Zombie Hunter Inc briefly alludes to the glorious days of flash games during middle school lunch. But Zombie Hunter Inc never really kindles the spark that so many great flash games before captured. The game is quite simply, archaic. It’s so basic in its most fundamental aspects, that it’s almost funny. I’ll admit there’s something truly unique about moonwalking across the stretched jpeg that qualifies as the floor of survival modes’ arena. But it can’t mask the fact that Zombie Hunter Inc will probably only appeal to fans of the cheesiest of games.