#Review
#Review
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Pawarumi
Developer: Manufacture43
Publisher: Manufacture43
Switch, PC, Xbox One, PS4
Sporting a multiple weapon system and three color polarity system, Pawarumi might immediately bring to mind Treasure’s shooter diptych of Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga. But while it clearly draws inspiration from the two, Pawarumi is both simpler and more complex. It frequently overwhelms, but is balanced by allowing some messiness. Pawarumi might be balanced around a triangle of weapons, but it’s often a game of dichotomies.
At the heart of Pawarumi is its three color weapon system. Red lasers home in on enemies, the green wave beam hits a wide area directly ahead, and the blue laser inflicts direct, steady damage in a small area. At first, Pawarumi seem follows the usual STG weapon balance, trading off between covering wider angles and doing direct damage. This is unfortunately undercut by two factors.
by Amr(@siegarettes)
Rolling Gunner feels like it stepped out of a time machine. Starting it up, there was something about the interface that immediately made me feel as if I were playing a doujin shooter from ten years ago. The interface, the very specific pixelated edges its pre-rendered sprites, down to the story sequences and between level transitions–all it felt right at home with my expectations of old doujin works. It was almost surprising to be playing it on the Switch, and in widescreen–if it wasn’t for the sheer density of projectiles this could easily pass for something you’d find on a 4:3 CRT monitor in some corner of a fan event.
That’s not to say Rolling Gunner feels, outdated. Rather it combines the sensibilities of latter year shooters with their modern design, and feels aware of the way people engage with the genre today.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Muse Dash
Developer: PeroPero Games
Publisher: XD Network
PC, Switch, Android
Note: This review is based on code for the base PC game, which does not contain the entire song library.
Muse Dash begins with a message declaring that it wants to be a rhythm game for everyone, even those who don’t feel they have a good sense of rhythm. And on that front it largely succeeds.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Velvet Swing makes a great first impression. The art style and moody soundtrack set up a trip into a surreal, vaporwave inspired landscape. It’s swinging manages to convey a sense of momentum while giving me enough control to keep it from feeling like I could be carried into an inescapable situation by mistakes I made three moves back. So already it manages to swing right past so the traps so many other momentum platformers fall into. Then it drops into the rest of them.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Nobody I know plays tennis, but everyone has played videogame tennis. Alongside golf, tennis is one of the most ubiquitous sports in games. The mechanics have been iterated on and refined so many times over that everyone’s got their own expectations of what a tennis game should do. Super Tennis Blast mostly lives up to those expectations, even if it’s presented in a no-frills package.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Rayark has made a name for themselves in the rhythm game space. They’ve carved their space with games like VOEZ and Deemo on mobile and Vita, eventually bringing both to the Switch in updated, comprehensive packages that were even updated to add button support to interfaces intended for touchscreens. Cytus Alpha is the latest in this series, bringing Cytus’ complete tracklist and story into one game, alongside some guest tracks from the DJ Max series.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
A brand new Mega Drive title, Tanzer rocks an Amiga style aesthetic, calling back to games like Shadow of the Beast with its tracker style soundtrack and detailed landscapes. If I’m honest, that had me skeptical, as too often games from the Amiga school of design are easier to appreciate for their mood and artistry than for the experience of playing them. Publisher and developer Mega Cat Studios has also put out several titles for retro hardware before, which I often found similarly easier to appreciate as aesthetic exercises. But when they reached out with a chance to review Tanzer, I couldn’t pass up the chance to see what it’s like to play a new Mega Drive cartridge in 2019.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Jupiter & Mars reads like a cautionary tale, not only about the environmental damage the story concerns itself with, but about the considerations we need to give when telling stories within games. Jupiter & Mars often talks over itself. In blunt terms, it’s too much of a videogame for its own good. Its clumsy use of game mechanics and tropes distracts from its environments and iconography, dulling the tools for visual storytelling it comes prepared with.
Jupiter & Mars has a strong central premise. The story of two dolphins making their way through the ruins of humanity, rescuing sealife from the damage inflicted upon the sea. Seeing images of our everyday lives submerged underwater comes preloaded with pathos, and provides a refreshing change from our usual modern apocalypses, which often oscillate between arid deserts and overgrowth.
