#short review
#short review
By Amr (@siegarettes)
“You will see the birth of new lives” with these dramatic words you’re sent off into the cosmic sea of G Darius. Flying through landscapes of oceans, prehistoric forests and psychedelic space, G Darius gives the impression of a struggle against time and evolution. All of this is backed by a score made of distorted vocals, crowd sounds, industrial percussion and swelling choirs that would almost feel at home in a horror game.
The drama comes to a climax with the capture system, which not only allows you to capture enemies for new weapons, but also mini-bosses, with both enabling you to engage in spectacular laser duels with stage bosses.
The only letdown in the package is the HD transfer, which is certainly sharper, but lacks the extensive gadgets found in other M2 releases.
G-Darius may not be the revelation advertised, but its cosmic landscapes still deliver quite the journey.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Coming from the gluttonous feast that was Chronicle Saviors, Another Chronicle EX is like showing up to a banquet and only being served an appetizer. Chronicle Saviors, the previous port, sported both a port of the ultrawide arcade game as well the titular CS mode, with a brand new campaign formatted for 16:9 widescreen, new songs, and an upgrade system, as well as extensive DLC support with shooter crossovers from other companies.
Another Chronicle EX is more or less a straight, no frills port of the arcade game, with the previously missing event mode restored, and the new ship from Chronicle Saviors added. None of the M2 gadgets have been added, and no concessions have been made for the 16:9 presentation, save a not so useful zoom function.
At almost the same price as Chronicle Saviors, Another Chronicle is charging full admission to eat another party’s leftovers.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
After ten minutes driving around the suburbs my bus had grown several times in size, stretching through a residential street down to the soccer field and arcing into the air and crossing over itself several times. At this point the Switch’s framerate began to dip and I promptly crashed my bus into itself setting it ablaze and ejecting passengers everywhere. Snakeybus is at its best here, where your inevitable failure is met with absurd humor and the ability to survey the wreckage you leave behind.
Snakeybus falls apart right as you unlock its time trial mode. What feels like it should be the main attraction of the game ends up revealing the game’s weaknesses. The more seriously you take it the less enjoyable it becomes. The chaotic physics and ever expanding bus line that makes the game entertaining in a more casual setting becomes frustrating the instant you try to play it skillfully.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
With forgettable stock fantasy enemy designs and featureless level design, you’d be forgiven for writing off 3000th Duel off first impressions. It plays with several popular tropes of modern game design, with a non-linear map structure, and a combat loop that borrows the RPG systems and corpse run format from Souls games. A Souls-like Metroidvania if you must. Despite that it doesn’t capture any of what makes those games beloved, and they even feel at odds with anything interesting about the game. 3000th Duel barely has an identity to itself.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Everything in Straimium is a little off. What initially presented as a regular rogue-lite shooter became something more curious as I realized how obscured its details were. Each screen is a miniature ecosystem, with flickers of life within its biomechanical interiors. Enemies, constructed with sparse pixel counts, swarm you as you enter new areas, while bosses and NPCs dominate the space with elaborate detail. Powerups appear only as symbols, leaving me to figure out their effects only through experimentation. All of this is obscured with a haze of color and visual effects, blending foreground and background, and having me wonder which parts of its ecosystem are hostile to you.
But as I began to parse its visuals and understand its small eccentricities, I came to another realization: under all its obtuseness Straimium Immortaly is a deeply average game.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Fight’n Rage may have drank in a little too much nostalgia, but its heart is in the right place. It begins with a fake CPS2 boot screen, so from the jump you immediately understand what its aiming for. Fair enough, since Fight’n Rage nails it, replicating the tense, high speed style of action seen in titles like Capcom’s Battle Circuit and Alien vs. Predator.
by Amr (@siegarettes)
Ghoulboy doesn’t quite capture the retro feeling that it goes for. Ghoulboy fits comfortably along games like Poppyworks’ Super Skull Smash and Halloween Forever, which look the part in screenshots, but aren’t quite there when you get your hands on them. The movement is all slightly off, the feedback isn’t there, and some of the stage designs get finicky. Regardless, it ends up being decent fun in its own right, even if it mostly reminds me of games it can’t live up to.
by Omar (@siegarettes)
At its most chaotic Blade Ballet is a whirlwind of blades and robotic debris, attracting and repelling, scattering across a hazardous dance floor. It’s a show of light and sound that earns its name. Most of its appeal, in fact, is wrapped up in its color. Take for instance, its title theme, Contradanza Robotica, whose melody is taken from the Habenera aria of the opera, Carmen.