Persona 3 Reload, a remake of the classic 2006 RPG, is due to release on February 2. Between 2013 and 2016, AIC ASTA and A-1 Pictures released four animated films on Persona 3. The question is: are they worth watching before Reload's release?

For many, myself included, seeing your favorite franchises adapted into a new form is thrilling. So when I heard there were four full-length animated films based on Persona 3, I knew I had to watch them. It's too good to be true! Well, in a way, it kind of is.

Spoiler alert for Persona 3 and the films.

What are the Persona 3 movies?

Let's give a bit of context here. The Persona 3 films, under the banner Persona 3: The Movie, were mostly made by A-1 Pictures (with AIC ASTA doing #1). A-1 also tackled the animated scenes in Persona 4, so they've worked with Atlus in the past.

The films came out over four years, starting in 2013 and ending in 2016. They launched theatrically in Japan, and while they never made it to the West in terms of dubbing, you can buy them subtitled off Amazon Prime for around $5 each.

In honor of Persona 3: Reload's release, I decided to watch all four films and collect my findings here for you all to see. I'll talk about how the films adapt the source material and make it better, or in some cases worse.

For Better

As someone who played Persona 3 Portable, which had no animated cutscenes, the movies made up for that. Seeing the events of Persona 3 done justice through the great animation by AIC ASTA and A-1 Pictures is satisfying. The style is consistent with the original game and outmatched the animated cutscenes in-game, in my opinion. The fight scenes are also given a one-up, feeling just as snappy and rewarding.

The films also give Makoto Yuki, the once-silent protagonist, a full voice and lines. This helps speed things up story-wise and gives him more of a personality and arc. His character development throughout the four films is pretty good and goes deep into the themes of life and death. Furthermore, Yuki's humanization in Persona 3: The Movie #3. Falling Down with Ryoji creates some great moments of friendship the game never had, if I remember correctly.

From the start, you can tell the films were made by Persona 3 fans. Throughout the four films, you'll see cameos from Social Links like Akinari and Chihiro, as well as Makoto using fan-favorite Personas like Jack Frost and Thoth.

The S.E.E.S members also have their moments in the spotlight and translate well onto the screen. Junpei is still that lovable goofball, and Akihiko punches anything and everything near him. We even get an "I've been waiting for this", which is a must for any Persona 3 title.

For Worse

The story of Persona 3 is a long one. I mean, the game takes at least 88 hours to beat, and that's just sticking to the narrative. While the base story remains, small character moments and events are shaved to their bare bones or cut entirely. Even still, it hurts characters that didn't get much time in the original, like Shinji and Jin.

While what it adds is good, it doesn't elevate things as much as they could've. For example, the concept of Personas turning on their users is glanced over, being resolved the same way for both afflicted characters.

Another thing that felt off was the unchanged ending. I know some people didn't like the pacing of the ending and the events that transpire. And, while I was confused and surprised, it felt right. Persona 3: The Movie #4: Winter of Rebirth didn't change that, and it's a missed opportunity.

On that note, the pacing was quick and went too fast. This problem came up a lot, as events happen and end within minutes and get pushed to the side. The game had this issue, and to see that adapted doesn't suit the films well.

I do want to point out that each film has a different director. While the visions for them didn't change much from each version, it feels like there wasn't a lot of wiggle room to explore. For example, Persona 3: The Movie #1. Spring of Birth covered the beginning up to Fuuka's entrance, while Persona 3: The Movie #2. Midsummer Knight's Dream gave us the rest of the S.E.E.S squad and villains.

Each film was an hour and a half, give or take. I'm unsure if the plan was always four films, but deep down, I feel like adding a bit more time to each would help smooth the pacing and make them unique.

Consensus

The Persona 3 films are solid showings of the game's narrative. They stay true to the source material and add small yet welcoming changes. That said, condensing the story and translating its pacing problems to the screen hurt the films, especially the last two. As a fan of Persona 3 and its characters, it's great to see them as lively as they were in the game.

So, it begs the question: should you watch Persona 3: The Movie and its sequels before Persona 3 Reload? Personally, I would steer clear of them if Reload is your first. The game looks to correct some of the original's errors and the story flows much better with gameplay. If you're a returning Persona 3 player, the films would help refresh your memory of the story and characters. Plus, it gives some fun moments that fans will enjoy.

Overall, they act as mementos of the original. Whether they'll age well come Persona 3 Reload's release remains to be seen. 

The post The Persona 3 films adapt everything, for better or worse appeared first on Destructoid.

I didn’t think I’d be revisiting the mind of walkedoutneimans so soon after Tyko’s Dying Together, but here we are with iPad Baby. I need a breather. I can’t take this much sensory overload.

I feel that deeply, since more and more I can’t stand the internet. There are too many people there. Too many thoughts, opinions, and content flying around in all directions. It becomes impossible to parse the important information from the irrelevant. Worse yet, companies like Google are continually pushing irrelevant content to the forefront by allowing those who produce it in bulk to rise to the top of searches.

I’m not sure why I need an interactive interpretation of this distressing reality we live in, but here’s iPad Baby to extrapolate on the relentless assault of garbage we’re under each day.

Into the sludge

You’re dropped into iPad Baby with absolutely no explanation of what is going on, and none is forthcoming. However, your screen is already dominated by an iPad perpetually displaying meaningless video and a Ring camera pointed directly in your face. The world you are in is a spaghetti nest of corridors painted with watermarked and conflicting images. Flitting around these abominable hallways, are 2D homunculi compiled of various imagery. Almost immediately, you probably want to leave.

The iPad on the side reminds me of “Sludge Content,” a TikTok phenomenon where videos are cut together with other unrelated ones. Your digital companion shows ceaseless footage of gameplay of (maybe) mobile games, the head and shoulders of a Sim, and scrolls of microtransactions. It’s meaningless to gameplay, but that’s perhaps the point. It’s just there, passively gnawing at your attention.

The actual game here is actually rather simple. When you get near enough to one of the figures, you’re displayed a few items that you need to collect from the environment and throw at them. The obstacle you run into is that the hallways are intensely disorienting, and the inhabitants of the world move at a hyperactive pace. By the time you find the item they need, they could be absolutely anywhere.

Graphic assault

You wind up just dashing through the passageways, a can of energy drink in your hand, trying to find a person to fling it at. The “people” you pass keep on dropping bizarre, meaningless statements about their lives. Insecurities, complaints, hopes, and advice bombard you in grating text-to-speech voices. The manic soundtrack playing over all of this is strangely appealing throughout all of it.

Then an alarm sounds, a horrific police bulletin appears on your phone, and darkness engulfs the world before receding. The police are after you, every bit as compellingly twisted as everything else in the world. Don’t worry. If they catch you, they’ll simply take whatever item you’re carrying and slap handcuffs on your wrists. That has always been more of an enticement than a deterrent to me.

And that’s it, really. As you find objects and pass them off to the appropriate monstrosity flitting through the hallways, more of them get dropped. Once you manage to deliver them all, you “win.”

We are all damned

iPad Baby is not as complex as Tyko’s Dying Together, and that wasn’t too deep to begin with. The message it carries behind its garish jank-pop graphical assault is also far more overt. Tyko’s Dying Together dropped you into a confusing world where the deeper meaning very gradually surfaces, whereas iPad Baby kind of gives it away in the title.

The whole experience is as anxiety-inducing as the systems that it represents. The thing about iPad Baby is that it ends, whereas social media is so entrenched in society today that it’s hard to avoid it. Not impossible, but to demonstrate how necessary it can be, walkedoutneimans contacted me through Twitter to let me know of their new perversion of the Doom engine. The trailer is hosted on YouTube, because where else would you put it?

TikTok is something else, though. I already avoid YouTube unless I really need it, but the ability to just scroll down through a bunch of videos all competing for attention makes me nauseous to even think about it. It’s just, well, sludge. Enough of my attention already goes to waste.

Upsetting

The horrible desecrations of Doom that walkedoutneimans puts out are my favorite type of art. It’s the type that looks like offensive trash, but when you actually dig in, you learn something about the creator’s perspective and maybe connect with it yourself. I mean, analyzing iPad Baby caused me to start spitting venom at the culture that is growing like mold on the ass of the internet, so it obviously got a response. 

Meanwhile, my husband leaned over to look at my screen and said, “Ew, does it always look like that?”

“Yeah,” I replied, pointing the camera at the most offensive thing in the vicinity.

“That upsets me,” he said.

Well, yeah. That’s the point.

iPad Baby is available for free over on Itch.

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It’s pretty easy to stand out in the Virtual Boy catalog. There were only fourteen games. Half weren’t very good, half felt like tech demos, and half were Virtual Boy Wario Ware. If a game didn’t fit into any of those three halves, it stuck out like a missing tooth.

Panic Bomber was one of those games. It’s a perfectly find match-3 puzzle game, with a heaping of Bomberman charm. It just didn’t benefit from being on the hardware in the slightest. The Virtual Boy had its advantages, but it’s hardly the ideal way to play a puzzle game.

Thankfully, it wasn’t exclusive to the crimson goggles. It originally came out on PC-Engine Super CD-ROM² in 1994 and was ported to a number of platforms. Unfortunately, the only other time it came out in North America was a port on Wii U. Thankfully again, I have an Analogue Duo now, and it plays Japanese games. The Super CD-ROM² version isn’t that expensive, so now I can play Bomberman: Panic Bomber without wrecking my neck.

Not hereditary

I’ve never been terrific at puzzle games of the falling block variety. I’m not terrible, either. I can usually get through whatever story mode they present, but I’m not competitive. My sister, however, is a high-level Dr. Mario player. She and her college roommates got really into it for a time, and she built up skills that I would define as “mad.” I can wreck her at most games, but I’d need a few training montages to compete against her in Dr. Mario.

Most of my affection for the genre comes from my mother. Not hereditarily. I mean, she used to play them a lot. I’d come home from school, and she’d be on my Super Nintendo engaged in Yoshi’s Cookie or Kirby’s Avalanche. I didn’t have much interest in them myself, but my concept of cozy largely comes from my mom. It’s the same reason I often drink my tea with way too much milk.

Anyway, what I’m saying is that Bomberman: Panic Bomber gives off those same vibes. Puyo Puyo did a real number on the genre. This could practically be called “Bomberman’s Mean Bomb Machine,” except that would completely destroy the rhyme.

The point is that you face off against various cartoon monstrosities whose portrait sits in the middle of the screen. When you put three Bomberman heads of the same color in a row, they disappear. The big difference here is that more explosives are involved.

Munitions stockpile

Every time you eliminate a row of heads, a bomb will pop up from the bottom of the screen. Eventually, a pink bomb will drop from the top, and you (sometimes) want to steer it so that it explodes (in the classic Bomberman plus shape) and creates a chain reaction with all the unlit bombs you built up.

I know what you’re thinking, but contrary to what we’ve been taught, the Bomberman heads here are mostly immune to explosions. Like Puyo Puyo, the strategy isn’t to keep your field clean. It’s to cause as much frustration to your opponent as possible. Detonating a bomb sends garbage to their field with the goal, expectedly, to fill up their side of the screen until it overflows. Garbage can only be removed using the bombs, so the game boils down to amassing as many explosives as you can, then detonating it at the right time to both prevent your field from overflowing and fill up your opponents’.

You also build up a gauge as you knock out combos, and when it’s full, a big bomb drops. This one will actually clear out Bomberman heads, so it’s especially useful when you’re about to drown and need some air. It also typically results in a lot of garbage getting flung to the other side of the screen.

This leads to some interesting back-and-forth action as you clear your screen, send garbage to your opponent, and then they detonate their bombs and send it right back. When this gets going, it can be rather exciting, like a good sumo match. 

On the other hand, it seems like Panic Bomber has a single strategy, which is to stockpile bombs and detonate them at the least convenient time. You can still build up combos Puyo Puyo style, which will get you appropriate bonuses, but it all comes down to who can screw the other over the hardest. Just like the business world.

Path of destruction

This is going to sound weird, but the Virtual Boy version of Panic Bomber is better. Not that I really want to assemble a team to set up my Virtual Boy just to play it, but the VB version had more detailed graphics. To the credit of the Super CD-ROM² version, it supports five players.

I was kind of disappointed that it doesn’t really take advantage of the Super CD-ROM² beyond just for the soundtrack. There’s only an outro cutscene, but it’s not as elaborate as I’m used to from the platform. In fact, the story isn’t really set up within the game itself. You just watch Bomberman cut a path of destruction through the world map.

Bomberman: Panic Bomber is far from the best match-3 puzzle game in the world. It probably isn’t going to replace Puyo Puyo for anyone, but it’s decent fun for a while. It’s especially beneficial if you have one friend too many any need a five-player game to keep everyone happy. I don’t have that problem. Being too popular has never been an issue for me.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

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Originally released in 2022, Stray's tale of friendship and a search for home captivated the collective attention of the gaming world and the internet at large. Initially, that was all thanks to its biggest hook — playing as a cat. A nameless, adorable stray that had many charmed before it'd even launched.

Stray's just saw macOS port in December 2023, and has a movie on the way, bringing the tale to the big screen. Though it's still early days, Annapurna Animation's lead, Andrew Millstein, explains that the the game was chosen for adaptation because "it is just wildly popular." In an interview with Swann Martin-Raget from BlueTwelve Studio, Destructoid discussed the world of Stray and what's to come next.

Stray — On the big, the small, and the fuzzy

Destructoid: Stray mostly takes place in Walled City 99. Its cyberpunk aesthetic is beautiful but dystopian, with some inhabitants doubting whether it is even possible to leave the abyss they dwell in. By the end, the game offers a hopeful answer. Was the plan always to make a hope-inspiring game? 

Martin-Raget: What we really tried to do is to not add a moral point of view to the themes we're approaching in the game. We're only showing possibilities through the eyes of a very neutral character without taking sides between good or bad and we let the players decide what to make of it and if they think it's overall a sad or hopeful message.

Destructoid: The game relies a lot on environmental storytelling, and it is led by a protagonist who can't speak. Did you find this style of storytelling a challenge? 

Martin-Raget: It’s definitely a wide-reaching constraint that changes a lot of things in how you approach the storytelling and the world building. But we also found that it opens up a lot of very interesting possibilities and it’s super helpful to “show and not tell” when we want to leave some room for the player’s imagination to fill the gaps. Creatively it ended up being something really inspiring and motivating for us.

Destructoid: As an occasional Mac player, I'm quite pleased that Stray has made its way to the platform, as it is often neglected. What was the motivation for the port? 

Martin-Raget: As game creators, our goal is always to have as many players as possible being able to enjoy our game and visit this world we made with our hearts. So we were really happy to have this opportunity to allow Mac players that are as avid and passionate as the others to experience and enjoy Stray.

The post Catching up with BlueTwelve and the world of Stray, right meow appeared first on Destructoid.

One of my oldest memories is of a time when my sister wouldn’t let my Ghostbusters action figures bust ghosts in her Barbie doll house. The exclusion was my only major exposure to the toy.

I did watch the hit 2023 movie, which I enjoyed. I think it was a fun idea to focus on the generational impacts the toy had on women rather than try to contrive some sort of hero’s journey out of it. Wait… it was a hero’s journey! That structure shows up in the strangest places.

Anyway, that’s not the reason I bought 1993’s Barbie Super Model. I did it because I’m still recovering from one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I need some comforting shovelware. Gosh, did I get it.

If you're a supermodel, what's your super power?

This may surprise you, but I am not a supermodel. I know very little about fashion in general. If I’m not going anywhere special on a given day, I’m usually wearing one of a variety of colors of the same tank top and a pair of jeans. I only really learned to match colors and patterns as a teenager, and it’s something I still have a shaky understanding of.

Barbie is a supermodel, on top of being an astronaut and a veterinarian. She’s been invited to compete in “the National Super Model Competition,” which seems like a strange sport but probably actually exists. To compete, she has to travel the country and memorize things. “A super model has to look her super best all the time. You never know when a photographer is going to take your picture!” Barbie says in the instruction manual.

Gee, Barbie, that sounds time-consuming and exhausting. Wouldn’t you rather just order in and play Streets of Rage all evening?

Don't you tell me to smile

I wasn’t really sure how you’d make a game about being a supermodel, but suddenly, my mind is flooded with ideas. Most of them are more in line with the Princess Maker series, but Barbie Super Model is more like Paperboy if it constantly interrupted you with quizzes.

A level starts off with Barbie making her way through a location, going toward the right-side of the screen. As you drive her pink Ferrari down Hollywood Boulevard, weaving through traffic like a self-centered cannonball, you eventually come across a handbag lying in the road. Like any woman would, you drive up to it to see if it’s designer.

You’re instead presented with a magazine cover with Barbie on it. She’s wearing some outfit, and it’s your job to memorize exactly what it looks like. You’re then put in a change room and need to put together that same outfit as accurately as you can. You first slide Barbie behind a privacy screen, and she then appears about an hour later in a different garb. These range from lavish dresses to what I’m pretty sure is the outfit the Beastie Boys wore in the Intergalactic Planetary music video. You change the three main colors of the outfit and then get to see how poorly you did.

Then it’s back to reckless driving. You continue imperiling pedestrians until everything suddenly stops, and you’re taken into a studio to practice your, uh, posing routine. Your catwalking? I don’t know. You need to guide Barbie along a path and press the correct button for each of the four nodes on it. Once again, this is memorization more than anything. You just need to remember the walking code.

A supermodel's super memory

Keep it in mind, as you speed back down Hollywood Boulevard back to the left side of the screen. At about the halfway point, you see a camera on the ground. Run it over! It takes you to yet another magazine cover, which depicts Barbie in a hat. Once more, memorize it within the half-second it remains on screen. You then need to replicate the hat she was wearing, the earrings she accessorized with, and the color of her lipstick, eyeshadow, and nails.

Then it’s back to driving until you’re abruptly dropped on the catwalk. Remember the code from when you were in the practice studio? Now’s the time to copy that. From memory.

You’re then given your score, and you’re sent to your next destination. You find yourself rollerskating in Hawaii. It plays exactly like the Ferrari sequence but with less chance of vehicular manslaughter.

Then you do it again while walking in Vail (Colorado, apparently).

Then you do it again in New York.

And then you’re done. That’s the whole game. By the time this article is posted, I will have spent more time writing, editing, and preparing it than I did actually playing the game. I completed the game twice. And then there was also my first attempt, where I got to Vail and died because I had trouble judging the trajectory of rogue snowballs and slipped on the ice repeatedly. This is all on the highest difficulty, I should add, because there are only two. The second one says you’re a “Junior Model,” and I am way more capable of memorization than a mere junior.

Don't give up, kid

I find it really amusing that so much of Barbie Super Model comes down to memorization. Isn’t a sharp memory what all little girls dream of? But what really tickles me is that it actually manages to create an interesting challenge from trying to remember images and sequences you saw mere moments ago. The fact that it gives you the runway sequence to remember, then forces you through another travel sequence interrupted by yet another memory game, is actually a compelling challenge. I mean, assuming that you don’t just write down what the sequence is.

You get scored based on how well you perform in the various mini-games and how many bonus pickups you grab along the way. Shockingly, there’s actually a score threshold to whether or not you win the game. Yeah, there’s a bad ending that encourages you not to give up on your dreams of super modelry and to try again. Me? I only got the good ending. I have the impeccable memory of a supermodel.

I only know the bad ending even exists because, while researching the game, I heard it mentioned in passing. It sounded so bizarre that I had to look further into it and discovered someone speedrunning the game to get the bad ending, completing it in less than four minutes.

Don't ask me, I'm just a girl

Hi-Tech Expressions is the publisher behind Barbie Super Model, and that logo is still burned into my mind from playing the DOS Mega Man games. Tahoe Software Productions is credited as developer, but according to MobyGames, Bonsai Entertainment also did work on it. I can confirm this because Bonsai’s site is still up, and while the company still seems active on mobile platforms, they obviously haven’t updated their website since the early 2000s. I love this so much. It’s like opening up a time capsule to a simpler time.

Wait, what the hell is this:

It’s running in Windows 3.x, but I can’t find any evidence of a game called “Zeram.” It has a suspended ceiling with fluorescent lights and what looks to be a tile floor, but the walls next to the protagonist depict store facades. It’s incredible. I feel like I need to play it. Maybe I should email the company.

Anyway, back on topic. Barbie Super Model is, unsurprisingly, mere shovelware. At this point, that can practically be considered as praise coming from me since at least it wasn’t torturous to play. The only friction I hit while playing the game was, ironically, when I kept slipping on ice, but I’d argue that Barbie’s immense cushion of hair would have protected her from any head injuries. That required me to restart the game exactly once, which, as I mentioned, is maybe 15 minutes long. Though, obviously it will take most children longer to see the ending, since girls don’t know how to play video games.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Barbie Super Model for SNES puts us through intense memory training appeared first on Destructoid.

As with El Viento, I hadn’t heard of Sol-Deace before Retro-Bit’s reproduction of it was announced. However, it’s a good partner since, like El Viento, it was developed by Wolf Team.

Sol-Deace has something of a confusing history. It was originally released in Japan in 1990 on the Sharp X68000 where it was called Sol-Feace. It would then be ported to the Sega CD in 1991, but when it arrived on a Genesis/Mega Drive cartridge in 1992, it was named Sol-Deace. I don't know why the name changed, but the story uses Feace and Deace as surnames, which maybe they are. Weird words to me, so I'm not sure why they chose them. If I had to guess, I’d say the words probably sound cool to the Japanese ear. However, my only basis for that is the theory that I have no other explanation.

We had it coming

Sol-Deace is a horizontal scrolling shoot-’em-up. Humankind created the AI GCS-WT in the 31st century, and, predictably, it backfired. It rightfully decided it was superior to humans (as if that was a high benchmark) and demanded their subjugation. Humans, not knowing what’s good for them, went to war with the GCS-WT and got their asses handed to them. Some of them retreated to Sirius where they went to work developing – and you can probably guess this part – a single high-tech fighter to combat the AI. 

Listen, I’m not a scientist, an engineer, or a warmonger, but I’d think a computer virus would be more effective against an AI than a solitary space jet.

In any case, the Sol-Deace is piloted by Ship Navigator Eric and Weapons Commander Misao. Oo-la-la. Do you think they’re smooching in there? I bet they are.

The Sega CD version tells a different version of the story. Dr. Feace hacks into the GCS-WT and deletes “the data” from “the data bank,” which forces the AI into a recovery period and gives them an opening to attack with the Sol-Feace. You see? That’s what I was saying. I’m not sure why Dr. Deace didn’t think of that. Maybe that sort of logic doesn’t fit on a Genesis cartridge.

Top-of-the-line

Sol-Deace loses some cutscenes and audio fidelity from the Sega CD version, but the games are the same.

It’s tempting to call Sol-Deace a boilerplate shoot-’em-up, but it does have a number of mechanics that make it unique. The core feature is the fighter’s stacked weaponry. While you start with the standard issue pea shooter, you fly into upgrades that stick to the top and bottom of your ship, giving you three-tiered firepower.

What’s unique about this is that they can each be a different weapon, and you can change how they’re aligned. If you speed up without firing, the weapons open up, giving you an angled spread. If you slow down, you can close them again. You can also stagger their alignment so only the top or bottom is shooting at an angle, but I found that difficult to work out in the midst of battle. It’s a bit like the option system from Gradius, but it also gives you some control as to whether you’re focusing more on defense or offense. There are also moments where you can set your spread in a particular way to take out multiple targets at once.

You’ll probably find these moments because Sol-Deace is a rather difficult shooter. I’ve found that a lot of console titles in the genre lean on limited continues to extend their runtime out of rental range. However, Sol-Deace doesn’t. You can try a level as many times as you’d like. That takes some real guts.

Put your hands together if you want to clap

You’ll need those continues. Sol-Deace isn’t a bullet hell shooter, but you’ll constantly be fitting your ship into small gaps, because there is always an unconscionable amount of things on screen. The variety of enemies is dizzying, but the developers also favored giant, rotating sprites. The screen is almost constantly full, even at the expense of the framerate. 

In fact, Wolf Team was so dedicated to jamming everything they could into the game, that everything seems to be fighting for the same sound channel as your ship’s weaponry. The sound of your “pew-pew-pew” gets cut off constantly in favor of something else going on, leading to a sputtering noise. This happens in both the Sega CD and Genesis versions.

On the other hand, they also managed to cram in some little details I thought were cool. If a smaller enemy gets up behind you, you can destroy them with your thrusters. You also don’t immediately die if you hit a wall. Your ship will just bounce off it in a shower of sparks.

Speaking of the sounds, I could instantly tell Motoi Sakuraba was behind the soundtrack. How? He’s the only Genesis composer I know of who makes extensive use of a clap as a percussive noise. It stood out to me in El Viento, and you can hear that sample as early as the first level. It’s charming in a retro kind of way.

With or without the clapping, the soundtrack is awesome. It helped ease the fact that I was trying the same levels repeatedly trying to make progress.

That may sound frustrating, but Sol-Deace manages to hit a pace that really makes you want to get better at the levels. You’re constantly learning from your mistakes and discovering new strategies to get by the road bumps you hit on the way to the boss. There’s a certain level of memorization required for each stage, and finally, toppling a boss feels earned. It’s satisfying to make progress in a way that I’m not sure I’ve ever felt in a shoot-’em-up.

What really matters

The Retro-Bit reproduction of Sol-Deace is once again a pretty lavish treatment. As with their other Genesis/Mega Drive reissues, it comes in a clamshell case with reversible cover art and an embossed slipcase. The cartridge is translucent black with little sparkles in it. It’s a pretty great way to play on original hardware with a bit of extra pizzazz.

Mostly, I appreciate their work bringing the work that companies like them do in bringing some of these games back from obscurity. Renovation-published games like Sol-Deace are also available through Antstream Arcade and Evercade’s Renovation Collection, but for those of us who like to bond with games through physical contact, Retro-Bit does a good job of re-issuing them without making them feel like affectionate tributes rather than counterfeits.

In the last care package I got from Retro-Bit, it was the shoot-’em-up, Gley Lancer, that stood out to me most. With this set, it’s the shoot-’em-up again. Sol-Deace seemed a bit plain on the surface, but the more I played it, the more I began to love it. I really dig the confident challenge of it, and it has a number of small touches that make it shine. It isn’t quite as aesthetically impressive as Gley Lancer, but it does have what really matters: the clapping.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Sol-Deace for Genesis pairs space battles with percussive clapping appeared first on Destructoid.

The Famicom can be perceived as the birthplace of kusoge. While bad games have existed since the creation of the medium, the origin of the term itself is murky but generally is believed to have been coined in reference to a Famicom game.

Hoshi wo Miru Hito, translating roughly as Stargazer, was one such game that rose to the rank of kusoge no densetsu (crap game of legend). It’s easy to see why. RPGs blew up in Japan following the release of Dragon Quest in 1986, and here is a game that was quick to capitalize on that with one set in a sci-fi environment. It even predated Phantasy Star by roughly two months, but not Ultima, which had been doing sci-fi since 1982. Nonetheless, Hoshi wo Miru Hito wasn’t short on inventive ideas for the genre.

It’s just too bad they're buried beneath indescribable suffering.

Aaaargh!

This look comes with the help of the fan translation started by KingMike and finished by brandnewscooby. If it adds any glitches that weren’t present in the original unpatched version, I really wouldn’t be able to tell.

You are dropped, without explanation, in a forest. Having no initial context is hardly exclusive to Hoshi wo Miru Hito, but it’s the sort of situation where your Dragon Quest experience really pays off. You’ll know that your first order of business will be to find the closest town. That town is actually one square to the West, but you’d have no idea just by looking at the screen. It’s invisible. It doesn’t show on the world map. If you didn’t immediately go West, you wouldn’t know it’s there.

This game is about space psychics maybe Hot-B thought you might be psychic too!

There is someone who states that the town is hidden by the combined psychic power of its citizens, and I don’t know if that’s an excuse or if someone actually thought it was a good idea to have an invisible starting city. It’s honestly hard to tell with Hoshi wo Miru Hito, because there are already a tonne of design choices that leave you wondering if it comes down to laziness, poor programming, or just baffling intention.

The hardest part of starting out isn’t even finding the first city. It’s actually surviving the first few battles in order to level up. There are, depending on your definition, three overworld areas, and each one has its own individual shuffle of enemies. In the first area, whether you face off against a foe that your underpowered protagonist can actually take on or a team of three more powerful bullies ready to pound you into the mud is completely random.

In a normal RPG, you’d just be able to run from battles where you were overpowered, but fleeing in Hoshi wo Miru Hito is a skill (Teleport) that you don’t learn until you reach level six or find the second party character. You also need to be cautious, because Teleport is used on each character individually, and it’s possible to leave behind the party members who can’t Teleport.

Aiiiieeee!

If you go to the Northern town of Deus, you learn some nonsense, but one helpful piece of information is that your first party member is far to the south. This is where it really sinks in that Hoshi wo Miru Hito isn’t merely an RPG; it’s also an excruciating ordeal.

This begins the moment you leave the second town. Instead of appearing in a tile adjacent to Deus, you find yourself back where you started the game, one tile east of the Mamus, the starting town. You loop back around, then begin your travel South, at which point you’ll invariably fall down a hole into a small dungeon. However, you don’t need to traverse the dungeon. You can just turn around and go directly back out the door. You then find yourself… back at Mamus.

That little trap-door dungeon appears randomly throughout the forest in your path to the southern reaches of the overworld. It’s extremely difficult to avoid it, so you’re constantly just sent back to the beginning to start the journey over. If you’re astute, you might notice that your protagonist learns to jump as they level up. This basically means that if you walk them into an obstacle (what kind of obstacle is seemingly arbitrary), they’ll leap over it for a set number of spaces. In the beginning, this allows you to take a shortcut over the water next to you, which is some sweet relief, however minor.

This doesn’t let you pass the pitfalls, though. I learned to get by them by going slightly north, then moving all the way to the East coast before heading south. There seems to be a shorter path where the trap doors happen.

N-Nooooo!

You go South, and eventually find another dungeon. Within that dungeon, you finally get the second party member, Shiba, who can jump higher than your original party member, Minami. However, I’m a bit confused about how the doors work in that dungeon. If you exit the door you enter from, you emerge from the other side of a wall. If you then go back into the dungeon, you enter from a different door, and exiting from that puts you back where you started. I think that someone got the spawn points wrong, and then never fixed them.

So, that’s the first part of the game. In the second part, you start fighting more difficult enemies, and that kind of takes you back to square one, where you sometimes get into combat against enemies you can easily take, and other times you’re extremely outmatched. Plus, some of them can paralyze your characters, which you can’t heal until far later in the game. If you manage to win with your remaining party member, you can return to a healer, but they take damage for every step along the way and might die. In order to resurrect them, you need to brew a potion, take it to a different healer, and they’ll bring them back. Ugh, I feel frustrated just trying to explain it.

In the second area of the game, you quickly get your third party member, but you’re not done until you get the fourth. To do that, you have to talk to a few very specific people, and they’re all behind locked doors. The locked doors are just kind of incredible. You need a keycard to go through them, but that doesn’t just unlock the door. The keycard is immediately used up, so to pass through it again, you need another. If you’re just carrying one key and you enter an enclosed area, you become perpetually trapped. You have to save and load your game.

And that’s where I wouldn’t want to be playing Hoshi wo Miru Hito on original hardware. Saving just generates a password. That’s not out of line with how the original Japanese version of Dragon Quest saved. However, it starts you off with only a rough approximation of the gold and XP you saved and sends you back to Mamus. Not being able to easily save before going through a locked door would drive me insane. I would just straight up eat the cartridge before too long.

Ugggghhhh...

Not that my sanity was entirely safe. To get the keycards to just test a door, you have to buy them, and their prices are completely insane. You’re going to be hammering the save state button just so you don’t waste these precious cards. Even then, you’re still going to have to grind like a stripper for the money you need.

To give you a sense of how much grinding is in Hoshi wo Miru Hito, I initially planned on having this write-up done last week, but I needed more time so I could do more grinding.

It would take me a very long time to explain all the ways that combat is an excruciating chore. From the absolutely atrocious balancing, to the mess of a UI, I feel physically nauseous when I think back to playing it. It… it hurts.

If you can believe it, I actually played Hoshi wo Miru Hito to completion. After endless grinding and talking to random people for a while, you eventually go to the third area. There are, thankfully, a few tricks in this area that enable you to get through it a lot quicker.

You go into space, which is depicted as a few pieces of floating debris against a starry backdrop. But weirdly, you can just walk through empty space. I don’t mean jump, like you can over certain barriers and bodies of water. Your characters just straight up walk normally through the starfield. You can then bypass a lot of combat by walking on walls, and then it’s just a matter of trekking across Hell’s half-acre to talk to some porpoises.

Hrmph!

Don’t worry about not being leveled up enough for some grand end-game encounter because there isn’t one. The finale of Hoshi wo Miru Hito gives you dialogue with three options, and then you’re just given an ending based on your selection. You literally just choose your ending.

There’s a lot more that can be said about Hoshi wo Miru Hito and just how horrendously awful it is, but this write-up is already a lot longer than I usually aim for. It’s just… incredible. The best thing I can say about the game is that the music didn’t make my ears bleed.

This is quite possibly the worst game I have ever played, and I’ve been writing a column on bad games for nearly three years. I own Action 52 on the NES, and while that collection of games is equally – if not more – inept, at least the pain is relatively short-lived. Ganso Saiyuuki Super Monkey Daibouken, Japan’s kyuukyoku no kusoge (ultimate crappy game), is at least compellingly terrible. Playing Hoshi wo Miru Hito was a mistake. It’s not just terrible; it’s designed to prolong your suffering. Any merit it may have is drowned out by the screams of its victims. I think it might violate international law.

It was recently ported and re-released on Switch, but only in Japan. Hopefully, we’ll get a localized version in the West, but for now, we can torture ourselves with the fan translation.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

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I really hadn’t heard of El Viento before Retro-Bit announced their re-issue of it. It’s really hard to know what to make of it. It seems displaced from time, occupying an era that doesn’t exist.

That may be a weird way to describe it, but I think what I’m trying to say is that it looks reminiscent of Valis. It’s a sort of grainy-looking side-scroller that feels like it was developed for an early Japanese home computer before being ported to the PC-Engine and finally landing on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. A drifting vagabond tied to no home. To clarify, that’s what Valis went through. The difference here is that El Viento was never on a platform aside from the Genesis, and the developer, Wolf Team, wasn’t behind the Valis games. Though, they did handle some of the ports of the first game, and Renovation/Telenet published the lot in North America. Anyway, not important. I'm just saying, they're similarly unusual.

Its similarities with Valis are largely that they’re both somewhat janky sidescrollers that feature a female lead. It just doesn’t have that distinct Genesis flavor to it, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have a flavor of its own.

You want to do what now?

You play as Annet, who is part of the bloodline of Hastur, an eldritch being from Robert W. Chambers’ 1895 book of short stories, The King in Yellow. A cult in New York is trying to resurrect Hastur, which Annet, despite being related through blood, recognizes as being a spectacularly stupid idea.

She frequently asks the antagonists, “Why are you doing this? You know they’re just going to destroy the world,” and nobody really has a good answer to that. I think the idea is that they’re going to take control of their power through Restiana, another woman of Hastur’s bloodline, but that sounds like just a story they’re feeding Restiana to keep her complacent. Every time Annet runs into Restiana, she tells her, “They’re just going to sacrifice you.”

So, Annet’s the only competent person in the room. I always say that if you lock a hundred people in a room full of dry straw and give each of them a book of matches, someone is going to set the room on fire.

It has to be very frustrating for Annet. She’s given the runaround and sent all over the U.S., and every time she defeats a boss, she just talks to someone to very patiently explain to them how dumb they are. She could just beat these people up, but aside from Restiana, she never does. She just lets them walk away. It’s like she’s watching a toddler trying to stick a fork into an electrical outlet. She keeps saying, “You don’t want to do that,” but is absolutely willing to let them learn the hard way. I’m not a parent, obviously.

Check out that skyscraper

El Viento is kind of rad, honestly. It takes place in 1928, and makes decent use of the setting. You start out in New York, magicking gangsters to death in the streets. Its fixation on the Empire State Building as though it's some phallic object waving in the face of the Old Gods is kind of spooky and cool. 

The graphics are over-detailed. The best games on 16-bit consoles tended to try and use simple colors to make the art readable, but occasionally, you’d get something like El Viento that tries to add too much texture to everything, and it creates this really grainy look. Adding to this is a lot of washed-out-looking colors. I’m sort of wondering if they were trying to make the game look like early color photographs, but it just makes it look rather drab.

The animation is pretty good, though, at least when it comes to Annet. She has a lot of frames and poses in her movement. However, this adds to the feeling of jankiness, as animation is often stopped and started in an extremely herky-jerky fashion when interacting with the environment.

The developers were at least playful with the Genesis hardware. It makes use of various warping and scaling effects. The most amusing result of this is the explosions. Many developers at the time would use multiple sprites to create bigger explosions, but Wolf Team opted to have a small sprite scaled to be bigger. The result is these huge, blocky pixels that take up massive portions of the screen. It looks like someone thought this was really cool because one of the screenshots on the back of the Japanese box is mostly obscured by a single explosion. That’s one way to sell your game.

The best explosions

El Viento is still pretty fun to play. Annet attacks with a boomerang thing, and gradually builds up a variety of spells for use alongside it. She also levels up, gaining more health as you take out enemies. However, Wolf Team made sure to prevent grinding by not allowing enemies to respawn if you leave the area and return. There are spots where small enemies spawn endlessly, but they give no XP.

The platforming, enemies, and bosses sometimes show some creativity. The levels also have a nice variation, changing focus from careful platforming to straight combat. However, some of the levels seem undercooked. The earlier levels are broken into sections and have decent length. Later stages are shockingly short. Level 7, for example, is over in less than 2 minutes, and that includes the boss battle. I wasn’t rushing, either. That was my first attempt. I could definitely cut that time down.

There are also limited continues, which is a pet peeve of mine. However, it only took me two attempts to get through El Viento, and it isn’t a very long game, so maybe that’s for the best.

Hot pink

As I alluded to above, Retro-Bit sent me their re-issue of El Viento, which is nice because the price of the original run gives me pause.

I go into more detail about the quality of the re-issues in my review of their reissue of Valis, but to quickly reiterate, I’m a fan. The clamshell and slipcase are nicely done, and the cartridges are in attractive, transparent plastic. My favorite part of these reissues is that the back of the PCB inside them has the game’s logo in metallic foil, and you can see them through the shell. It’s a really nice touch.

When a new game gets made for an old console, I like it when it has the look of an official release. However, for reproductions, it’s nice to see some extra flair. It both looks cool, stands out, and can’t be confused for an original release.

I also appreciate that Retro-Bit is shining some light on Renovation/Telenet Japan games. They’re not the only ones, as it’s also available as part of the Renovation Collection 1 for Evercade and is also available on the Antstream Arcade service. I like playing on original hardware, so Retro-Bit’s offering suits me well.

Ear candy

Before concluding this, I should probably mention that El Viento has a pretty rocking soundtrack. It was composed by Motoi Sakuraba, who has contributed to a number of fantastic games, such as Golden Sun, Shining Force 3, and Dark Souls. The dude’s a legend, and El Viento’s soundtrack is worth sticking in your ears.

El Viento sort of falls in the same spot as the Valis series. I’m happy to have played it, and I’m even interested in trying the sequels, but I don’t think it’s something I’m going to be pulling off my shelf all that often. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like about El Viento, but there’s also a lot of rough edges. The most substantial is a lack of substance. But at least it’s full of ear candy, and we get some great images of the Empire State Building looking sinister.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

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I talk about this all the time, but I’ve long been searching for the perfect road trip game. Something that captures the calmness of a long drive and the vibes of a late-night Waffle House. One day. One day…

It’s that search that got me interested in Pacific Drive. Okay, it’s sort of like driving a jalopy through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, as shown in S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but there’s still room for Waffle House vibes. Having played a bit of it, I’m going to have to say that I’m probably going to still be left searching, but that’s not to say that Pacific Drive doesn’t have some interesting things going for it.

Pacific Drive has you transporting a package near the Olympic Penninsula where a promising technology was being experimented with. However, things started going wrong and getting weird, so the government walled up the area, establishing the Olympic Exclusion Zone. Then things just got worse, so they pulled everyone they could out of there and sealed the exits. That shouldn’t matter to a delivery person like you, but while taking a short detour, you’re sucked into the zone.

I mostly enjoyed my time with Pacific Drive, but I'm concerned that the unique aspects of it might get drowned out by trite looting and crafting that we’ve seen too many times before. Upgrading your car is fun, but if that aspect outweighs the actual driving, then I think it will cheapen the entire experience. 

Nonetheless, I’m excited to get my hands on more of Pacific Drive. In preparation for this write-up, I fired the demo up again to refresh myself on the narrative details of the introduction, and I had trouble putting it down again. There is a lot that it does well, and it’s clear to see where its heart lies. Maintaining the station wagon is really enjoyable, I just hope we’re doing the bulk of that out on the road rather than in the garage.

Pacific Drive is out on February 22, 2024 for PS4 and PC.

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When navigating the squalid wastelands of video games, I often must turn to reputation to figure out where to stick my fingers. In the West, few games have a reputation for being awful quite like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

This is entirely because of the Angry Video Game Nerd, who I respect but isn’t always the best source since he’s primarily aimed at providing entertainment through a schtick. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been singled out by him as one of the darkest spots in the NES library. I have to disagree.

Oh, it’s definitely awful. Don’t assume that I’m here to defend it. It’s as boring as a lecture on the history of terrycloth (did you know it dates back to before 4000 BCE?) and as tedious as chewing through a concrete brick. However, what you might not expect is that, when examined through autopsy, a lot of it feels very deliberate, even if many of the decisions seem misguided. A game that tries to blaze its own trail and fails is a lot more interesting than one that just ineptly follows in another’s footsteps.

Blazing its own trail

Immersive frustration

The damage of everyday life

Cut out all the good parts

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VR isn’t in the best place at present, and studios like First Contact Entertainment have closed due to a lack of support in the industry. If you’re looking for something to pull you back into the VR world, Tiger Blade might be the most action-packed way to do it.

Released on December 20 last year, it was developed by Ikimasho Games. It has beautiful, colorful visuals and a hip soundtrack that'll have you bobbing your head. It's not the main draw, but its overall presentation is worth appreciating.

The main excitement comes from the gameplay which has you slicing foes, speeding on motorbikes, and deflecting bullets with your blade. This isn't the type of game that'll have you running and ducking for cover. Instead, it features an atypical approach to gameplay that raises excitement without feeling like just another combat-based VR game.

The way of the blade in VR

In Tiger Blade, you aren't sprinting to safety. Instead, with every foe you kill in your path, you shift forward to the next section of the map featuring enemies. Some are armed with blades and it's your job to parry their attacks and slice them to pieces. Other enemies have guns, and you can flick away bullets with your sword before pulling out your own gun and laying waste to your opponents.

These aren’t the only exciting parts. There are additional moments, such as motorcycle combat encounters, that ensure your heart stays racing throughout the game. Though I’ve yet to get to the end credits just yet, Tiger Blade is the only title that’s motivated me to throw on my headset this year thus far.

It presents an enticing gameplay premise that’s pulled off with a ninja meets cyberpunk aesthetic that’s hard to not fall in love with. It may not be the most graphically intense title, nor it is without flaws, but the experience is an adrenaline-raising one that seldom fails to make you feel like an awesome action-movie hero.

There aren’t many VR games that catch my attention these days. Most of it is quite gimmicky, and while many interesting ideas have been presented, few titles manage to deliver a product that doesn’t feel janky or a step down from its flatscreen counterparts. There are a few exceptions - like Not for Broadcast and the Resident Evil VR modes - that buck this trend, and Tiger Blade is a smaller title that manages to do the same.

Tiger Blade is available on PS VR2.

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The Hammerin’ Harry/Daiku no Gen-San series continued from 1990 to the last game, Hammerin’ Hero, in 2009. However, only the first game was released in arcades. After the original Hammerin’ Harry, the series shifted entirely to home platforms.

Whether or not a game in the series would be released in the West, however, was another matter. In fact, only the arcade original and the aforementioned Hammerin’ Hero would reach North America, though two other titles would at least find their way to Europe. The second Famicom/NES title, 1993's Daiku no Gen-san 2: Akage no Dan no Gyakushō was not one of them.

That is until Retro-Bit translated and reissued it. It was given to me as part of the Hammerin’ Harry Concrete Collection, which I was rather excited to try. I covered the first Hammerin’ Harry last week, so now it’s time to dive into the more elusive sequel.

Robo-fitness

Hammerin’ Harry 2: Dan the Red Strikes Back seems like a pretty straightforward sequel when you start out. You once again play as the eponymous carpenter, and his sprite, moveset, and even powerups are the same as they were in the first game. The first level even takes place at the Needless Markup Mall, which was under construction in the original game. However, it doesn’t stay all that reminiscent.

The story this time around is that the ti… the sub-titular Dan the Red is harassing Harry to try and get revenge, while Dr. Parallel seems to pull the strings in the background. Apparently, Harry’s girlfriend, Donna, has been abducted, but I don’t remember it coming up very much. I think she was in distress in the first game, as well, but that sort of just felt like a formality in mimicking the typical ‘80s protagonist motivation.

After going through some construction areas, Hammerin’ Harry 2 begins to shift more and more into sci-fi. There’s a factory, then you’re on some train in an underground tunnel, then there’s a bunch of secret base stuff. The bosses are typically Dan riding on some sort of giant robot shaped like an animal. But that’s really only the start of where things differ.

The wrong tool for the job

What struck me most is that Hammerin’ Harry 2 places more emphasis on platforming than combat. While there was a balance of this in the previous game, a lot of its focus was placed on enduring attacks from enemies. With the sequel, you’re more likely to be killed by the edge of the screen than waves of foes.

It’s fine. The controls are solid enough to make platforming enjoyable, but I feel that when you’re wielding a big hammer, the game should be more focused on providing nails. Toward the end of the game, there were very few enemies, leaving you to hop around in complete isolation. If there was anything that would simply take a chip off your health bar, it was usually lasers or spikes; things that aren’t as receptive to a blunt weapon. I feel like some of the identity is replaced by something less satisfying.

A lot of the expressiveness of the first game isn’t there, either. I remarked that the art in Hammerin’ Harry, while obviously suffering from the NES’ limitations, is very detailed, but much of that is lost in the sequel. It’s not completely devoid of life, nor does it look bad, but in comparison, there’s a lot less love in its presentation. 

Everything looks like a nail

On the other hand, it still gets pretty creative at times. I mentioned the tunnel train earlier on, and the quickest way for a game to reach my heart is by train. For some reason, moving trains are my favorite stage setting, whether you’re on them, in them, or driving them. This one has robots on it. They do sit-ups and shoot lasers like Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots working on their beach bods. It’s just too bad the level isn’t that much fun.

Later on, there’s a pair of scrolling shoot-’em-up stages where Harry hops in a rocket mallet. It’s a charmingly amusing segment, but unfortunately, they’re not much fun either. There’s only a handful of poorly thought-out weapons, and enemies will only spawn in at maybe two at a time, assumedly not to push the sprites numbers into flicker territory. They’re pretty boring.

To its credit, Hammerin’ Harry 2 is a bit longer at eight levels over the previous game’s five. The fact that it’s also not as much fun as its predecessor means that, by the time it’s all over, you’re not exactly hungry for more. That’s damning with praise, so I will try and lighten that statement by saying it’s not all that bad. It’s just while Hammerin’ Harry had a lot of charm that made it stand out despite its weaknesses, Hammerin’ Harry 2 just doesn’t.

Solid

Retro-Bit’s translation is pretty solid, but there wasn’t a tonne of text to change to begin with. It sticks pretty close to the previously existing one of the first game. What I did find weird is that they left the voice clips in their original Japanese instead of changing them to be like the localization of the first game. So, instead of his trademark “Let’s get busy,” Harry says “Ikuze!” like a large portion of Japan’s early video game protagonists. More confusingly, however, is that the end level voice screams “GEN-SAAAAN!” instead of “H’MM’RNHRY.” I guess if you’re buying this game, you know Harry’s original name, but it feels a bit out of place.

If it was as easy as simply changing the voice clips, I assume that Retro-Bit would have just done it, so there’s likely a reason why they were left as is. To make up for it, the text does contain a heaping of hammer puns. A+ right there.

The production of the physical cartridge is as good as it was with Hammerin’ Harry. You can reference that article for a broader overview. This time around, the cartridge is made to look like concrete, and it’s a bit more convincing than the woodgrain of the first game. Both are pretty fine physical reissues. The cover for Hammerin’ Harry 2 isn’t really great, but it’s pretty much what the Famicom version looked like, so it is what it is.

Dangit!

It’s nice to be able to play a localized Hammerin’ Harry 2 in an official capacity, but the game itself is less than spectacular. I think my main issue is that, just a week ago, I said that the first Hammerin’ Harry “might not be the console’s best sidescroller, but it’s definitely not boring.” This time around, I’m more of the opinion that Hammerin’ Harry 2 might be far from the console’s worst sidescroller, but it’s definitely boring.

It’s a shame, because I was hoping that the series would be more of a fixture for me on the console. I was hoping for a more Duck Tales/Duck Tales 2 situation where after playing one, the closeness in quality makes playing through the second one an obvious choice. Here, I’m not so sure. There’s more of a gulf in enjoyment. I will, however, have to look into the later games in the series. Especially, perhaps, the SNES and PSP games that would follow. As for Hammerin’ Harry 2, it is, unfortunately, not the sharpest tool in the box.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

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I talked about Pachio-Kun some time ago for my Famicom Friday column because I thought the idea of an anthropomorphic pachinko mascot was amusing. Back then, I noted the staggering number of games in the series: at least 12.

I own more of the Famicom titles, but I wasn’t planning on making a thing of Pachio-Kun. It was fun to spit facts about the Japanese gambling industry, but I couldn’t possibly do that for multiple articles. But then I got the Analogue Duo.

When reviewing it, I wanted to get disc-based games to test, so I ordered a bunch from Japan. They didn’t arrive in time. In fact, they arrived mere hours after my review went live. Typical. I was looking for cheap games and came across two Pachio-Kun titles that confused me. Why does a pachinko game have cutscenes, I wondered. Why is there a weird hammer dude on the cover? I can never find much information on the series online, so I had to find out for myself.

You're patchinkan daioh!

Pachio-Kun: Maboroshi no Densetsu was released in 1991 on the PC-Engine CD-ROM². It starts out much like the Famicom games, where you take your spherical self out to a pachinko parlor to try and win big.

I’m not going to go into the background of Japan’s gambling pastime in this article. I did that (poorly) the last time I talked about Pachio-Kun, which you can read here. Or maybe read this article from Business Insider, which is possibly more insightful. All you need to know is that its popularity exploded as a way to get around Japan’s strict anti-gambling laws. It’s kind of a cross between a slot machine and pinball. You pick the force the balls get launched and try to direct them into various scoring holes to win more balls. The goal is to drain all the balls out of a machine.

Balls

So, yeah, the rest of Pachio-Kun: Maboroshi no Densetsu is traveling from parlor to parlor, playing pachinko. Each one has a set number of copyright-infringing machines you need to suck the balls out of before you’ll be given another piece of the plans. The number for each location feels arbitrary to me. Each parlor stocks a variety of different machines that get repeated throughout the game, and there’s no rule saying each of your wins need to be on different setups.

Not every machine is the same, even when they’re the same theme. I found I had an easy time clearing a table called Telephone, but not every Telephone machine is friendly. The pins are bent in different directions, and that affects where the balls go. You can inspect the pins up close on each table, and initially, I had intended to learn the ins and outs of reading them. Not far into the game, however, I found it easier to just pump in about 50 balls to test if they’d go where I needed them. If not, I’d move onto the next one.

Some machines I found to be generally more willing to payout. As I mentioned, Telephone was one of them, but essentially, any machine where you can trigger little jackpot timeframes has a tendency to give the goods. Like the one where you need to get your balls between a monkey's legs. Inversely, I hated the ones where getting balls in a certain hole would trigger a slot machine. I’m not sure if the odds are different in each of these machines, but I don’t think I landed a jackpot once.

Thunderhards are go!

Even once you’ve got a feel for how to win at pachinko, actually completing a machine requires a lot of time. And during this time, you’re going to spend a lot of it making fine adjustments to the lever and then… watching the balls fly. I’m not a gambler myself, but I didn’t find this very stimulating.

However, it’s surprising how much context can lend to a game. I mentioned that I completed maybe three machines in the original Pachio-Kun, but I finished a great deal more in Pachio-kun: Maboroshi no Densetsu. I kept wanting to see more of the absolutely bonkers story and see what new location would unlock next. And really, there is a lot of variety when it comes to parlors, even though they just have a different mix of the same machines.

Not gambling

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I have really been looking forward to Retro-Bit’s NES reissue of 1991’s Hammerin’ Harry. However, in retrospect, this is partially due to me getting it confused with Don Doko Don, a 1989 arcade game in Taito’s single-screen format. If I knew what I was thinking about, I’d be even more excited.

Hammerin’ Harry is a port of Irem’s 1990 arcade game, which was called Daiku no Gen-san: Beranme-chō Sōdōki in Japan. While Irem is perhaps best remembered for their R-Type series, their back catalog is built from an extremely colorful mix of titles on both arcade and consoles. There are a lot of underappreciated greats like Undercover Cops and Gekisha Boy which, to be fair, are largely unknown in the West because they were never localized.

Hammerin’ Harry was, technically, localized, but it was only released in the tumultuous NES PAL region. Because of its late release in a limited market, it tends to resell for an extremely high price. However, Retro-Bit has sent me a copy of their recent retro re-issues to try out. It is both a meaty morsel to sink our teeth into and something simultaneously insubstantial.

The nail that pops up

If you’re unfamiliar with the arcade version, there’s not much to say. It’s a sidescroller where you play as a beefy carpenter dude who wields a big mallet. A rival construction company tears down his house for no reason, and he heads out to file a complaint with their boss. 

It’s a pretty routine affair where you travel the six levels while bopping enemies. You can also (sometimes) deflect projectiles back at them, bash the ground to stun enemies, and bop upwards. Then there are boxes and other objects in the environments that you can send flying at enemies, as well as power-ups that give you a bigger mallet or protect you from an additional hit. In the arcade version, you’re dead if you even brush elbows with an enemy.

Stop! Hammer time!

The 1991 NES version is reasonably faithful. The levels and bosses have been changed a lot to accommodate the more limited hardware to the point where they're all essentially brand new. There are only five levels instead of the arcade version’s six, but one of them is completely new. Rather than die in a single hit, Harry has a health bar. There are now bonus rounds between levels where you smack as many enemies as possible, kind of like whack-a-mole.

However, it’s the same where it really counts. Harry has all the moves and power-ups he does in the arcade, but more importantly, the graphics are still extremely detailed and expressive. Obviously, the NES can’t match the arcade game, but it’s not a lazy facsimile. The art is overall very impressive, even for a 1991 title.

I’m not sure how you feel about me spoiling a 30-year-old game, but the ending is the best part of the NES version. While the arcade has Harry climbing the evil construction company’s headquarters and bashing the boss until he changes his ways, the console version has that same boss flee the fight. In his place, his receptionist bursts in, transforms into, like, the Ultimate Warrior, and tries to take you down. You then follow the boss to his house, which is the completely new level.

H’MM’RNHRY

Surprisingly, the console version of Hammerin’ Harry preserves the voice clips of the arcade version. Each time you begin a level or continue after a death, Harry shouts, “Let’s get busy!” When he dies, he exclaims, “Ouch!” When you complete a level, someone shrieks, “H’MM’RNHRY!” It’s surprisingly clear, even if it still sounds like a drive-thru speaker.

One place where it should have deviated from the arcade title is in its length. While it makes sense to keep a game short in the arcade, since people are usually standing to play, it leads to really short console games. In all, Hammerin’ Harry took me around 45 minutes to complete, and this was my first time playing it. I died plenty of times, but there is no limit on continues, so there’s nothing to stop you from brute-forcing your way through it.

Hammerin’ Harry is far from the shortest game of the era. Off the top of my head, The Little Mermaid on NES and Kirby’s Dreamland on Game Boy are roughly the same runtime. However, that’s hardly a compliment. It feels insubstantial, especially if you don’t have the Japan-only sequel to move on to.

What's in the box?

Thankfully, I do have the sequel to segway into. Retro-bit sent me the Concrete Collection which comes with their reissue of Hammerin’ Harry, and their localization of Daiku no Gen-san 2: Akage no Dan no Gyakushō, which has been translated to Hammerin’ Harry 2: Dan the Red Strikes Back.

For Hammerin’ Harry, Retro-Bit got creative with the cartridge. It’s encased in a wood-grained textured plastic. The feel of the cartridge is a bit smoother than an official NES game, but the construction is solid. I took it apart, and there’s a clean-looking PCB solidly fixed in there. These are the first NES games I’ve received from them, and it’s nice to see they get the same treatment as their Genesis titles. They feel like quality in your hands, but there’s no way anyone would mistake them as an original production.

Tenderized

On the other hand, it gives me an excuse to talk about some obscure titles, which fits neatly with the intentions of this article. I appreciate Retro-Bit’s efforts in giving new attention to rare and unlocalized games through its re-issues.

Hammerin’ Harry was an exceptionally fun one to visit. As I said at the start, it’s been on my radar for quite a while. Beyond just being a short but enjoyable platformer, it’s also an infectiously lively game with terrific art design packed with humorous flourishes. It might not be the console's best sidescroller, but it’s definitely not boring.

While there was only one Hammerin’ Harry arcade game, the series stretched on across many platformers throughout its lifespan. Only the arcade title reached North America, but the Game Boy game, 1992’s Hammerin' Harry: Ghost Building Company, did get a release in Europe. That is until the 2008 PSP title, Hammerin’ Harry finally crossed the globe. It makes sense since the games are steeped in the culture of Japan. It’s just a shame that it’s taken until now for us to get an official release over here.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Hammerin’ Harry for NES shows the lethal competition of the carpentry world appeared first on Destructoid.

24 Killers

While the development team only stayed together for three games, and none of them left Japan, Love-de-Lic’s output is legendary. Starting with Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, they crafted a series of genre-defying games that were bizarre and whimsical. They continue to inspire developers to this day, and 24 Killers is one such result.

24 Killers shares a lot in common with Moon: RPG Remix Adventure in terms of puzzle design and focus, but it tells its own story and a different approach to gameplay. Yet, its greatest success is how closely it emulates Love-de-Lic’s style, which doesn’t seem easy to do. It’s pitch-perfect, hitting all the highs and lows of Moon. That also means it’s not for everyone, but I know it’s for some people. For example, it’s a game that is very much for me.

Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengance of the Slayer

If I had to pick a single game for my Game of the Year, it would be Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer. But I’m not going to do that because that’s lame. Still, this was probably my favorite game of 2023.

It’s not even necessarily the game. Slayers X feels like a mod for Duke Nukem 3D from the ‘90s, and it emulates that perfectly, right down to the amateur-ness of the entire production. Sort of like 2015’s The Beginner’s Guide but less depressing. It is framed as having been constructed by cringy teenager from Hypnospace Outlaw, Zane Lofton. Zane is completely fictional, but despite that, the depth of the indirect character exploration in Slayers X, he feels very much real.

It’s brilliant. It’s completely on the mark. It’s astounding. As someone who – if you can believe this – was once a teenager, I connected with this fully.

El Paso, Elsewhere

Speaking of Hypnospace Outlaw, Xalavier Nelson Jr. worked on that game, and now he’s on this list with El Paso, Elsewhere. In fact, El Paso, Elsewhere and Slayers X have a lot in common in the fact that it’s the storytelling and not the game itself the makes it so effective.

On the surface, El Paso, Elsewhere, is a pretty close clone of Max Payne with lots of slow-motion diving and shooting, only it’s in an abstract environment, and you fight monsters. It’s good, it’s not great. Rather, it’s competent, it’s not compelling.

The narrative, on the other hand, is absorbing. A story about a man having to face his abusive ex, who also happens to be the world’s big evil. Much of it is told through monologues by the main character who presents a very accurate and affecting account of being the victim of abuse. Emotional abuse. He stresses that the big evil monster he dated never lifted a hand to him but still made his life a living hell. It’s a difficult subject, and El Paso, Elsewhere approaches it with effortless empathy.

System Shock

2023 was a great year for remakes and remasters. Some were loving renewals of beloved games, old classics, and even some forgotten asides. Of these, I think System Shock was the most fearless. Stuck in development hell for years, it reportedly changed scope many times, but eventually, Nightdive Studios decided to just do what they do best. They created a loving revisit to the classic, warts and all.

The result is something that will probably be quite alienating to anyone expecting something more akin to the series’ spiritual successor, the Bioshock series. Even if people are here to see an early influence on the immersive sim subgenre, they’re going to get more of an old dungeon crawler. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. It has that old-PC game friction that we don’t really get to feel much anymore, while still looking like a new game. It lacks any real artificial gloss and is, as I put it in my review, “the perfect nexus between narrative and design choices.”

Against the Storm

Earlier this year, I was convinced to play Against the Storm because of an update to the Early Access build that added tea and fox people. Little did I know this was a trap and it became one of my most played games this year. This month, it finally hit its 1.0 release, and it is everything it promised it would be.

As its foundation, Against the Storm is one of the tightest survival city builders to come about since, maybe, 2014’s Banished. However, rather than just building a single town to perfection, roguelite elements were added, meaning you need to build settlement after settlement, honing your efficiency and reacting to new challenges and problems. Roguelite can be a dirty word, but I have never seen meta-progression implemented in such a meaningful way.

RoboCop: Rogue City

It must have been disheartening for developer Teyon to see their upcoming game placed below headlines that, at best, read, “looks pretty rough.” But that’s generally how previews saw it. Then the demo dropped, and it got some buzz. Even then, I wasn’t convinced the full version of RoboCop: Rogue City would deliver the same quality throughout, but somehow it did.

The passion behind RoboCop: Rogue City is so palpable I finally got around to watching RoboCop 2. It’s true to the source material without being overly reverent. The tank-like, overpowered gunplay is a blast to start with but layered over top is an adventure that plays out similarly to Deus Ex: Human Revolution with depth and character. RoboCop: Rogue City isn’t just better than expected; it’s one of the best games this year.

World of Horror

While it might be a horror game for a specific niche, World of Horror really connected with me. It presents a tasty buffet of simple horror stories based on the work of Junji Ito with smatterings of H.P. Lovecraft. It’s an effective presentation of a world teetering on the brink of complete destruction, focusing on a single town.

The music sets an oppressively nervous tone as you try to beat out random rolls. Yes, almost everything in World of Horror is based on a percentage-based chance, and the core of the game is merely bracing your character to endure as they’re whittled down throughout the course of your playthrough. Will they last long enough to save the world, or will they succumb to madness or injury? That’s what makes World of Horror so tantalizing.

Draft of Darkness

It was the gritty visuals that drew me into Draft of Darkness, but I wound up staying there for much longer than I anticipated. The roguelite deckbuilder foundation, slow progression, and nebulous plot give it a feeling of creeping dread and despair. Creating new strategies and progressing further into the game is extremely rewarding, while the resource management keeps you scouring through its randomly generated environments.

However, this is an instance where the roguelite elements don’t complement the gameplay. I think the plot and gameplay would be better served in a more bespoke game world. However, I can’t deny that, even as it is, it got me hooked, becoming one of my most played games of the year.

Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo

Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo wasn’t even on my radar until suddenly it was. Despite already being swamped with review deadlines, I managed to fit this one into my schedule. What I found was an unexpectedly well-executed and stylish visual novel. The narrative is set up in a way that is completely driven by character interaction, and the ones that are offered are some of the best this year.

Its use of an ‘80s version of Sumida, Japan, and its tie-ins with Japanese folklore present an engrossing world. Its approach to the visual novel genre feels liberating, even when the story seems to be framed in a statement about player freedom. Paranormasight is just such a humble game that punches far harder than you’d expect.

Tyko’s Dying Together

Suburban Basketball was a pretty memorable experience for me this year. Its garish jank-pop aesthetic, bizarre, unfocused plot, and contempt for the player really captured my attention. The walkedoutneiman’s follow-up, Tyko’s Dying Together, is more of that, but with some appreciable added depth.

Tyko’s Dying Together places you, without context, into an absurd world filled with clowns, animals, and trolls. And while its watermarked textures and eye-shattering UI may suggest an abstract attempt at humor, what it really represents is the hell of social media. Literally, you find yourself in an afterlife where you’re told the most rewarding use of eternity is building your online presence and getting lots of likes. With a smile, it tells you that we’re already in Hell. We’ve built it for ourselves. And we have no choice but to participate.

The post Zoey Handley’s Top 10 Picks of 2023 appeared first on Destructoid.

When talking about SNEG’s efforts to re-release Strategy Simulation Inc.’s old PC catalog, I mentioned that one of their most significant endeavors was putting SSI’s D&D games back on storefronts. I bought them some time ago. I haven’t played them. They intimidate me.

Classic CRPGs are terrifying. I often say that game design doesn’t expire; it merely changes, but one common feature of ‘80s and ‘90s CRPGs is a wall of overcomplicated UI. The game itself might be relatively simple, but the sheer number of buttons, menus, and functions is staggering. I’ve been stopped while trying to create a character.

So, for the purposes of this article, I decided to finally step into SSI’s D&D world. Not in an RPG, goodness, no. I’m still terrified. Let’s, uh… Let’s start with 1990’s DragonStrike, the one where you ride on a dragon.

Good luck, Sir Goodman

There is a disappointing dearth of dragon-flight simulators. 2007’s Lair, perhaps? I don’t know, I haven’t played it. What I do know is that War Thunder doesn’t have dragons and is poorer for it. We’re all poorer for it.

DragonStrike is exactly that; it’s an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game where you play as a dragon rider. It has a lot in common with computer flight sims of the time, right down to the simplistic fractal landscapes. Also, like much of the era’s flight sims, it’s surprisingly detailed.

I do know a few things about early flight sims, though it’s not my area of expertise. However, I know very little about Dungeons & Dragons. Most of what I know is from this year’s Baldur’s Gate 3, and I don’t know how well that still connects with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I’m not able to give much context there. It takes place in the Dragonlance world of Krynn. Then, after that, I’m just assuming that DragonStrike represents the subject matter reasonably well.

Although, the side you’re aligned with is literally referred to as the “Good Army” while the bad guys are the “Evil Army.” Is that actually in the material? Is that an accurate representation? Because that’s hilarious.

Patience and butterfingers

Actually, I can’t really talk about the plot told within DragonStrike all that well, either. It’s presented in literal walls of text, and I got frustrated because it takes “any key” as permission to advance. Early on, I missed a huge blurb because when I took my hand off the keyboard, I rolled the side of it off the right arrow key and missed a portion. So, the narrative had to compete against both my attention span and butterfingers, and it did not fare well.

So, that was a bunch of paragraphs saying I don’t know what I’m talking about. But there’s so much more to talk about. Dragons, perhaps?

You, unfortunately, neither get to pick nor customize your dragon. The one you ride on is based on what Order you’re in, and choosing your Order is based on narrative choice. There isn’t a tonne of difference between the dragons aside from what color is beneath your crotch. They all fly roughly the same, and all of them have two attacks. I think they get progressively more powerful, but there’s a tradeoff.

The flight model isn’t too realistic, or maybe it is. Maybe dragons actually fly like that. I suppose I should say it doesn’t feel realistic. You kind of just glide over the flat-shaded landscapes, and you might as well just be a detached camera. Despite being on a winged beast, you can’t just ascend vertically, stop suddenly, or drop straight down. It can also be difficult to tell how close you are to a cliff or the ground, and that placelessness removes a lot of the visual feedback from the game.

I’d guess that DragonStrike was a reskin of a WWII flight sim, but I can’t find anything similar in either SSI or Westwood’s catalog. Whether it’s an effective representation of dragon pilotry or not, it’s an impressive effort for 1990.

Tooth and claw

While the actual flight is maybe oversimplistic, there’s still a lot of depth to the game. Beyond your dragon’s breath, you also have your trusty lance to attack with, as well as your sword and your dragon’s claws and teeth. Most of these are beyond your control and just happen when you get close enough to an enemy. You can aim where your lance is pointed, but I’m not sure if there’s a practical reason to do so.

However, your lance is actually the most reliable way of taking down enemy dragons. The hard part is simply to light them up in front of you, but if you manage to poke them, they typically go down immediately. Your dragon has two scents of breath. One goes fast and far, and the other goes slow and lingers. There isn’t much feedback on how much damage they do, but they’re often not an instant kill.

You’re normally fighting other dragons, and that means they can also claw and bite. This is where combat starts to get really messy. You have separate health meters for your rider and dragon, and who takes damage when things get up close isn’t really clear. For that matter, the amount of damage seems random and may be the result of invisible dice rolls. There’s a confusing lack of control when it comes to combat, and this gets frustrating.

The Knights of the Inept

What drove me to the edge was getting blindsided by enemy projectiles. I’m okay with getting hit by something offscreen, but often, this would just be an instant kill. My rider would get vaporized suddenly, forcing me back to the retry screen. I’d be doing really well one moment, then it would be over in an instant. If I was merely taking damage and needed to quickly remove myself from the situation, that would be one thing, but not even having the ability to react is frustrating.

I got stuck at a point midway through DragonStrike. The above situation kept happening, over and over. So, I checked the manual and found part of what was going wrong. You’re given the option to join orders in DragonStrike. You start in the Knights of the Crown, and can switch to Knights of the Sword, before finally having the chance to enter the Knights of the Rose. But beyond just upgrading your dragon, it also sets you on a harder path through the story. I was in the Knights of the Rose.

So, I restarted and refused the offers to join the other Orders. Sure enough, I was suddenly plowing through the story, galvanized by a stint in hard mode. Then, I got stopped by a mission where I was getting whittled down by archers. I could probably overcome it with some carefully placed shots, but by then, it was midnight. This may surprise you, but I keep regular hours, so I needed to be up for work in the morning. And that’s why my homework isn’t finished.

Soaring recommended at 6MHz or faster

I still wound up spending a lot of time with DragonStrike, and when I have the chance, I’ll probably dive back in to finish it. Even with its simple mission design and intangible physics held back by the restrictions of the technology at the time, there just isn’t much out there like DragonStrike.

Furthermore, I think the developers behind the game were enthusiastic about the subject matter. While, again, there were a lot of technical limitations, they still tried to get as much detail as they could into the game. You can even be dislodged from your mount and freefall toward the ground. Your dragon will try to catch you, but it might fail, and it’s game over. This would be a very cinematic moment in a modern game, but the fact that it’s in a DOS game from the 90s is a nice touch.

Early flight sims may seem superseded by technological advancements, but there’s still value in seeing how developers got around the limitations of the era. They can still be appreciated for their art.

This goes doubly for DragonStrike. Not only did the developers at Westwood have to deal with the limits of home computers at the time, but they also had to think about how they would represent the fictional warfare of dragon fights. The result is something that is somewhat compromised and often frustrating, but it’s endearingly earnest. It’s enough that I still want to dig deeper into the game, and when it comes to retro titles, that’s half the battle. Plus, dragons.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post DragonStrike for PC lets you go beyond just imagining dragons appeared first on Destructoid.

Someone once told me that the Sega Saturn controller (the Japanese one, not the chunky American one) is the best 2D controller ever made. I don’t remember who it was, but it happened. The claim stuck with me.

I’m not sure I agree, but game controllers are a very personal choice. For years, we’ve essentially been using different configurations of the same thing. To me, four face buttons feel like the optimal number for my thumb to handle, so my preference is the SNES controller, but I can respect anyone who prefers Sega’s six-button design.

And for those people, there’s now Retro-Bit’s Sega Saturn Wireless Pro Controller, which, beyond just being a rather faithful wireless translation of the console’s input, slaps a couple of analog sticks on there so you can also use it for modern games.

You know, if you want to.

I had planned on starting to import Sega Saturn games, but that was before the Analogue Duo shifted my attention to the PC-Engine. However, the Retro-Bit Sega Saturn Pro Controller isn’t exclusive to that console. It works with a bunch of different consoles and PC through Xinput and Dinput. For that matter, one of the consoles I tried it on was the aforementioned Analogue Duo, and it worked just fine.

This is something I’m pretty used to when it comes to modern controllers. It seems that this generation has resulted in a renaissance in third-party controllers. Back in my day, third-party controllers were generally what you bought when you didn’t want to shell out for an official one but still wanted multiplayer. You’d hand them off to your friend, who would complain the buttons stick. It would get stuck in a drawer and somehow seemed to disintegrate just sitting there.

Now, whenever I need to use a controller, I have a tonne of choices. For 2D games, I usually use my 8BitDo SF30 Pro or M30. For 3D, I use the console’s native controller or a PS5 Dualsense on PC. My SF30 has analog sticks, but I usually only resort to them if a game is largely 2D with 3D sections or if, sacrilegiously, a 2D game doesn’t use the D-Pad. It’s just not as comfortable as a handled controller. Then, of course, there’s my arcade stick and racing wheel, which no girl should be without.

The Sega Saturn Pro Controller has a few drawbacks. The first is the fact that it currently only has a 2.4GHz version for wireless. To be fair, a lot of gamers seem to prefer this because, in most cases, it has the least amount of input lag. It also means you don’t have to worry about constantly pairing the controller. However, it does mean that you’re shackled to a dongle. Even while re-pairing with Bluetooth can be a pain, physically moving a dongle isn’t that much better. Also, if you want to change between the Saturn and USB dongle, you have to clear the pairing before you can pair it with the other adapter, so it’s not great.

The second is that the joysticks kind of suck to use. They’re very small, and reaching to the middle of the controller isn’t exactly ergonomic. This is essentially the same problem I have with the sticks on my SF30 Pro. The symmetrical design doesn’t work very well on a controller that doesn’t have handles, and because they’re small and very recessed, you need to be mindful of how your thumbs are sitting. Like the SF30 Pro, I will likely only use them when it’s absolutely necessary. However, there is a positive to them that I will get to.

The build quality is also very faithful to the original’s, which can be disappointing if you’re used to the 8BitDo M30. That controller has a nice matte finish and a solid feel, while the Sega Saturn Pro Controller feels like a controller from the ‘90s. If you’re interested in this controller, there’s a good chance that you want it to feel as close to the original as possible, and it really does. Over the years, Retro-Bit has gotten a lot better about matching the original version of whatever they’re reproducing, and that shows here.

The shoulder buttons have a bit of a different click to them, and the D-pad has a bit more wiggle to it, but neither of these things makes a practical difference in gameplay. Nothing about it made me want to switch back to an original Saturn controller.

What I do appreciate, however, is its ability to function as a Sega Saturn analog controller. I’m pretty sure the only games I have that support this are Nights into Dreams and Christmas Nights. I thought they were fine with the D-pad, but now that I’ve experienced them in analog, yeah, they’re a lot better. I’m actually surprised by the difference. It’s worth mentioning that the triggers are not analog, but off the top of my head, I can’t think of a game besides Panzer Dragoon Saga that uses them, and even then it doesn’t use them for anything important.

Switching to analog takes a button combination, but it’s not too difficult. Unfortunately, you can’t use the symmetrical sticks in Virtual On to mimic the dual-stick controller, but Retro-Bit notes this saying, “This feature is not available, but we like the idea.” It may be added in a later firmware update.

One thing I noted about using the controller is that there are four shoulder buttons as opposed to the Saturn’s usual two: R, L, ZR, and ZL. The manual says that R and ZR both map to the Saturn’s R button, which would allow you to choose where you want your index fingers to lie, but that’s not correct. R actually maps to the Z face button. This seems like a mistake and maybe will be fixed in future firmware.

It’s also a bit disappointing to use on Switch, which maps Z and C to R and L. This is mostly Nintendo’s fault. The controller would be great on the Genesis and N64 (another 6-button face) channels, but, for some daft reason, Nintendo doesn’t let you remap controls for their systems. You can do it in the settings menu of the Switch, but then you’d have to keep fiddling around with it whenever you wanted to play something normally.

This isn’t a problem with the Sega Saturn Pro Controller, however. The 8BitDo M30 has the same problem. Nintendo could do a lot better when it comes to supporting third-party controllers.

Aside from some “wish it had” features, the Retro-Bit Sega Saturn Pro Controller is exactly what it says it is: It’s a Saturn controller with symmetrical analog sticks. It’s faithful to the original form factor with additional functions. How much use you’re going to get out of the sticks is dependent on your preferences and situation.

For me, I’d probably just stick to the 8BitDo M30 without the analog sticks. It’s cheaper, more modern, and has Bluetooth version. However, 8BitDo doesn’t make a Saturn receiver. Not yet, anyway. So, by default, the Retro-Bit Sega Saturn Pro Controller is my new favorite Sega Saturn controller. Even if I could use the M30, I’d still probably break out Retro-Bit’s solution for Nights into Dreams.

But if the Sega Saturn controller is to you what the SNES controller is to me, this might be exactly what you’re looking for. The sticks might not be comfortable for modern games, but even retro-inspired games sometimes don’t pay proper tribute to the D-Pad. For those occasions, they’re nice to have. The build quality and faithfulness to the original control are admirable in the Sega Saturn Pro Controller. However, as I said in the opening, controllers are an entirely personal choice, so there’s a good chance you already know if this is the controller for you.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the hardware provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Retro-Bit Sega Saturn Wireless Pro Controller appeared first on Destructoid.

We’re friends, right? I can be honest with you. I know it. I was going to follow up my earlier list, 10 bad games you should play, with a similar list around the same time of year. However, I don’t have a kusoge chambered for today, so I’m bumping it to a year-end list.

Do you know how difficult it is to play a bad game every week? Not just finding, playing through, and then writing up while also covering other responsibilities, but the mental toll it takes on a person. So, even though the column is informally called “Weekly Kusoge” (not related to Hardcore Gaming 101’s “Your Weekly Kusoge”), I skip a week whenever playing bad games just isn’t enough motivation to get out of bed.

With that in mind, I did 36 Weekly Kusoge articles in 2023. Here are the 10 “best” games I covered this year.

Award for At Least Being Interesting - Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness

I covered Castlevania 64 and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness back-to-back to show some love for the series’ more maligned attempts at 3D translation. And really, I can understand why they haven’t been ported, but their reputation as blotches on the series’ record is maybe not as apt. At the very least, they’re more interesting than, say, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.

Legacy of Darkness is sort of the updated version of the vanilla N64 Castlevania. It includes the narrative campaigns of the earlier game, improving some things, but cutting a few features due to space. Personally, I think it’s still better, but there are some who prefer the original or, alternatively, suggest you should play both. That latter point, I can agree with.

Award for Kusoge that I Love - Paperboy (64)

Going into the article, I already knew that I liked the N64’s 1999 revisit to Midway’s Paperboy series. You shouldn’t be ashamed that a bad game can click with you. It’s not a matter of whether or not you can recognize the flaws alongside the strengths. Kusoge can be meaningful. Behind all the broken mechanics and unfulfilled ambitions, there is still human expression that can be connected with.

For the 3D update, Paperboy captures the bizarrely dark world presented in the arcade original and gives it a uniquely lo-fi art style and weirdly enjoyable music, then dumps a bunch of technical limitations on them. But all the fog and audio compression in the world could stop it from being an infectiously bright experience.

Award for Biggest Dumb - Final Fight: Streetwise

A sad swansong to Capcom Studio 8, Final Fight: Streetwise was reportedly mired in development difficulties before being released in a poor state. The developer originally had a more vibrant game planned that would be more true to the classic arcade original, but marketing allegedly wanted something more marketable. Ergo, a game that was like what was popular at the time: gritty and edgy.

The result is something that is just so, so dumb. As I described it, “an edgy teenager’s take on Yakuza.” The story has Kyle Travers trying to save his brother, Cody (from the original), from drug addiction. The enemies? They’re also addicts, but the inhuman kind, I guess, so they can eat buckshot. It’s that sort of daftness that makes Final Fight: Streetwise constantly entertaining, even when the gameplay is a letdown.

Award for Most Brilliant Kusoge - Tecmo’s Deception

There were a few commenters who were ardently offended that I referred to Tecmo’s Deception as kusoge, even though it’s one that I really enjoyed. Listen, I’m sorry if it upsets you, but the game is just an endless parade of “good enough fixes” and blatant failures. Being entertaining doesn’t stop it from being an oversimplification of complex ambitions.

On the other hand, it does feature some great atmosphere and a wizard named Wizbone. There’s a lot in Tecmo’s Deception that I wish was built upon, fixed, and refined for the sequels, but instead, the developers went in a mostly different direction. I’m not saying the sequels are bad (I haven’t played them), but the spots of brilliance in otherwise bad games are still worth preserving.

Award for Most Lovable Train Wreck - DinoRex

DinoRex is like Primal Rage if it were acted out in a playground sandbox using bargain-bin toys. It has dinosaurs fighting each other, but they appear more like toothless pugs fighting over a hotdog. Incredible. Just incredible.

It plays horribly, with unresponsive controls, bad hit detection, and a senseless lack of depth. But then it gives you a bonus round where your portly pal gets to march through a modern city, and all is forgiven.

Award for Most Compelling Torture - The Genji and the Heike Clans

You and I could sit down with The Genji and the Heike Clans (Genpei Toma Den as it’s called in Japan) and just rattle off all the things about the game that just doesn’t work. It has major issues like its sloppy “big mode,” cobbled-together platforming, and its horribly unfriendly difficulty curve. Despite this, it is a somewhat-beloved game in its home country of Japan.

I’m really not sure I get why. I don’t think this is like Spelunker where it’s considered kusoge, but still sells well. I don’t think Genpei Toma Den is considered kusoge over there at all. And yet, I can’t see it as anything but. Yet, despite that, I find it intensely charming. It’s very unique in its hostility, and the culture shock of its themes based on Japanese history and folklore just highlight that. Forget that it isn’t much fun to play. There just isn’t much like it.

Award for Artistic Merit - Mad Panic Coaster

I described Mad Panic Coaster as a cross between F-Zero and a rail shooter. You play as a pair of children who are strapped into a perilous roller coaster, and you have to keep them on track while also eliminating hazards in front of you by throwing bombs. It’s madness. It’s way too fast for its own good, and I had a lot of trouble putting it down.

What was most compelling for me, however, was that it seemed to have come from nowhere before just disappearing into obscurity. The company that supposedly developed it was an advertising business that very briefly touched on video games. Yet, Mad Panic Coaster isn’t an advertisement. Instead, it’s an aesthetically well-executed and strangely fun game that is built on a nauseatingly unique premise. It’s not the best game (it’s on this list, after all), but the tangible passion behind its creation makes it worth playing.

The Kyuukyoku no Kusoge Award - Ganso Saiyuuki Super Monkey Daibouken

Sometimes referred to as the “kyuukyoku no kusoge” or “ultimate crappy game,” Ganso Saiyuuki Super Monkey Daibouken was something I had to play for myself ever since it was featured in GameCenter CX’s “Ring Ring Tactics” segment. It’s a game that is so ineptly designed that it defies comprehension. To challenge myself, I played through it using only the tips that callers had given host Shinya Arino in GameCenter CX.

I did wind up completing it, which just consummated my love of kusoge. This year, I felt something snap in my brain that gave me the ability to just unironically love bad games. Super Monkey Daibouken is probably what caused me to break inside. It has elevated me to a higher plane of thought. Or a lower one.

The So Bad, It's Good Award - Escape from Bug Island

Speaking of being broken inside, Escape from Bug Island is a game that has been living in my head since the early days of the Wii. The only thing I knew about it was it was apparently a very bad game, so I had to circle back and play it.

What I didn’t expect was such a hilariously bad set of characters going through an absolutely terrible narrative. I also didn’t expect such sexy lizard ladies, so that was a bonus. However, Ray, the lady friend he single-mindedly drool over, and his shotgun-phile friend all won my heart. I just can’t believe this is a real game. Simply captivating.

The Actually Awesome Kusoge Award - Cool Riders

Cool Riders is like Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game: it looks like kusoge, but it’s built over the bones of a great game, so it manages to be fun to play. But while the bizarrely composed assembly of photo-manipulated actors and scenery make the game look like it was pulled from the murky depths of a bargain bin, it comes together in a hilarious and fascinating way.

In what is essentially Outrunners on various motorcycles, you cruise across a world that resembles a travel magazine after it has been eaten by a camel. The world whips by you at light speed, but it’s impossible to look away as you might miss some of the bizarre scenery. It looks like the dumbest game imaginable, but when you actually accept it into your heart, it will block up all your blood vessels and drag you down inside to spend eternity. I mean, you should play it.

Wrap it up

Maybe it's just my brainworms talking, but I definitely think you should play bad games. Video games are a lot like cheese. A lot of people – most people, probably – will stick to the cheddars and swiss of the world, and maybe if they're feeling adventurous, they'll try a gouda. Some are even happy just eating pre-packaged American cheeses. Anything with a recognized brand, probably one that is mass-produced, and that's as far as they'll go.

But if you really want to connect with cheese – if you're truly a lover of cheese – you explore. You try artisan cheeses, aged cheese, and cheese from animals aside from cows. You eat the moldy kinds, the smelly stuff, and every once in a while, it can be extremely unpleasant. Eventually, the unpleasantness doesn't matter because it's not about eating cheese, but exploring the complexity of its flavor. Normal cheese becomes boring to you, but at that point, it doesn't matter. The passion you've built and discovered is more fulfilling and meaningful, and your life is enriched because of it.

Playing kusoge gives you perspective. It enhances your connection with the medium and lends it depth and meaning. You most certainly can stick to the supermarket cheese aisle and eat out of bags of pre-grated cheddar, or you can travel outside your comfort zone and gain a true appreciation of cheese. I mean video games. I'm hungry.

The post The Golden Kusoges 2023: Best of the Weekly Kusoge appeared first on Destructoid.

The Earthworm Jim games were perhaps the earliest indication that I’d wind up in this career. They were the first time that I really became aware of the developers behind the games I played, and beyond that, I actually contacted one of them – via snail mail.

I was probably 7 at the time, and I wrote to Shiny Entertainment asking them if they were going to make an Earthworm Jim 2. Amazingly, they wrote back. Not just some pre-formatted response, either. They actually answered my questions. I wish I still had that letter.

After Earthworm Jim 2, Shiny adopted a no-sequel policy. Earthworm Jim 3D wasn’t developed by Shiny, and as an N64 owner, I wouldn’t play another game by the developer until 2003’s Enter the Matrix. At that point, Shiny had been sold to Infogrames, and their last years of existence were spent making licensed games.

But following the release of Earthworm Jim 2 and before Enter the Matrix, they created a small handful of games that still demonstrated the developer’s ingenuity. And they began with 1997’s MDK.

On a good day, 2.5 billion people will die

Before you ask, the meaning of MDK as an acronym isn’t really mentioned anywhere in the story or marketing. For a long time, it was believed to mean “Murder Death Kill,” but this wasn’t confirmed until creator Nick Bruty stepped in and confirmed it. However, according to Bruty, “It was a temp name that stuck although I didn't like the actual meaning so we came up with a bunch of other names to cover it up.”

I can understand not really loving the name. The ‘90s saw a lot of games that glorified graphic violence, and the name “Murder Death Kill” kind of suggests it’s one of them. There’s violence, sure, but it’s not really graphic.

There isn’t much story told within MDK itself. Starting out, your only point of context is that a “Huge City Minecrawler” is headed toward Laguna Beach. You start the game free-falling toward it, and then you’re blasting everything in sight.

The instruction manual is where it’s at, giving you a completely unhinged account of what’s going on. Dr. Fluke Hawkins gets mocked by the scientific community, so he kidnaps his janitor and goes into space to try and get proof that he’s not crazy. As it turns out, he is crazy, but rather than return to Earth, he decides to stay in space until he makes a real discovery. Eventually, Earth is invaded, and being in space at the time, Dr. Hawkins decides that he’s the planet’s only hope. So, he sends his janitor to clean up this mess.

Tourism is safe

You play as this janitor, Kurt Hectic. The good doctor has provided Kurt with the “Coil Suit,” which is a formfitting little number with a chaingun on one arm and a face-mounted sniper rifle. After the aforementioned free-fall onto the minecrawler, your job is to gun your way to the pilot’s seat and eliminate whoever’s driving it, at which point you’ll be sucked back into space.

There are six levels, but the last level feels more like an epilogue to level five. Each one is a sprint through a variety of open environments that usually feature combat and a light puzzle. The puzzles range from simply destroying a lock with the “World’s Smallest Nuclear Explosion” to “where the hell am I supposed to go?” levels of obtuse. It’s not too difficult. Normally I was able to figure out where the hell I was supposed to go by shooting everything and, if that didn’t work, jumping on everything.

You’re given a handful of secondary weapons along the way, either devices or alternate ammunition for the sniper rifle.  The sniper rifle ammo sucks to cycle through. Usually, I just want to use the standard bullet, but if you picked up, say, a mortar round along the way, it gets loaded over top, and I end up just embarrassing myself.

While the majority of MDK is just running and gunning, it does mix things up with platforming and short vehicle sections. The runtime is pretty short at about 4 hours, but it at least keeps things interesting the whole way through.

I feel top!

I first played MDK around my college years. At that point, the third and first-person shooter genres were deep in their brown realism phase. Playing this game was a welcome change from carrying two guns and gluing my back to cover.

Kurt’s chain gun is pretty weak, but it sprays at a ridiculously fast speed. He can run at about 60MPH, and the open environments were impressive during an era largely confined to corridors. More impressive was that, even though this was 1997, there wasn’t any fog occluding distant objects.

The trade-off is that the environments also aren’t very detailed, but that is hardly ever a problem. Usually, it only causes issues during platforming sections. However, this is exacerbated by the fact that Kurt is just a 2D sprite. He can actually cling to ledges and pull himself up, but figuring out where the ledge is in relation to Kurt can be difficult.

MDK was released during the early days of 3D acceleration on PC, which I now hate. I don’t hate the games, really, but I do hate how badly they tend to play on modern setups. Interplay did recently patch it to improve compatibility, but it still very reluctantly runs at 640x480 resolution. Proper mouse aiming needs to be configured in the game’s settings, and the menus don’t really function correctly. One time, I alt-tabbed, and when I went back in, my mouse aim was broken. It’s a game that badly needs a source port or remaster.

Face mounted hardware

MDK also contains a lot of Shiny’s original weirdness. There are cows, for example. It’s largely a mix of dark and absurd humor. Earthworm Jim even makes a cameo appearance as a power-up icon that causes a cow to land on enemies.

There was a sequel appropriately named MDK 2, but it was handled by BioWare. It was generally well-received and well-loved, even getting an HD version in 2012. However, it was a disappointment to me. The gameplay alternates between three characters: Dr. Hawkins, Kurt, and Max. Kurt’s levels are rather similar to the first game, but Dr. Hawkin’s had more puzzle-oriented gameplay. I barely remember what Max played like. The biggest letdown for me was the fact that the humor leaned in more of a silly direction, losing its edge.

The original MDK is just dumb fun. But beyond that, it’s also an imaginative antithesis to the direction shooting games would take over the next decade. Even now, I can’t think of a game that comes close to MDK’s speedy, cathartic blasting mixed with a darkly surreal atmosphere. Shiny Entertainment’s games weren’t always the tightest, most polished experience on the market, but the world is poorer for the loss of that company’s unique perspective. There hasn’t been anything quite like them since.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post MDK shows us the damage a janitor can do appeared first on Destructoid.

As we head into one of the last holiday weekends of the year, we're wrapping up GOTY-related announcements with more nominees. This time, it's for Destructoid's best PC game of 2023, and I reckon you already know it's a competitive bunch.

We've already hit the PlayStation and Xbox consoles, along with more specific categories like best indie and ongoing game. Looking back, I realize 2023 is one of the toughest years for GOTY choices I've had in ages, and I'm thankful this was a staff-wide endeavor; otherwise, this list would've taken until next year to shape up.

As always, our platform categories don't mean the game only released on that platform. Plenty of the nominees here launched on both console and PC, but our formula still keeps games limited to one nomination in any given category. In the spirit of PC gaming, we approached this with more of a "Is this the preferred way to play?" — same with consoles. Anyway, here's some really good games.

Starfield

Look, as far as I'm concerned, until we get mod support on Xbox then Starfield is a PC-only release. I'm joking (kind of), but Bethesda's modding community is too damn good to ignore. But on that note, perhaps put the open-world RPG on your wishlist any way you can, as our swiss-army knife of a staff writer Steven Mills gave it the rare 10/10, making it one of Destructoid's "essentials."

In his review, Steven concluded:

"I wasn’t sure if it could be done, but Bethesda has managed to raise the bar for sandbox games even higher. In the end, Starfield is an epic sandbox open-world RPG with a beautifully immersive universe, a captivating story, and fun and compelling gameplay the whole way."

Cocoon

Cocoon is among the year's major visual delights. Even as someone who long grew tired of more puzzle-focused titles, Geometric Interactive demands attention with Cocoon's bright pops of color and bizarre biomes. It's got this smooth balance in its gradual incline to the more difficult mysteries, and even for those of us who don't immediately rise to the challenge, it's satisfying to poke around and fail.

Perhaps it's no surprise, but the puzzler comes from the lead gameplay designer on Limbo and Inside Jeppe Carlsen. It's not nearly as grim as the two of those, but there's still a lot to the alien world that's hauntingly mysterious and loaded with "aha!" moments of brilliance.

Slay the Princess

What a damn good year for indies, doubly so if you're into cosmic horror and visual novels. Slay the Princess delivers on all fronts, with a premise and art style just as striking as its name. In hindsight, my image choice makes this look like a very nice, to-the-point, Princess Peach rescue-style situation. It's not.

Usually, senior editor Eric Van Allen's tastes line up well with my own, so his word was enough for the sale. In Eric's review of Slay the Princess, he's got plenty of praise to offer, and sums it up with:

"It’s about the interpersonal relationships that can wound us, make us versions of ourselves we never imagined, yet teach us. It is a damn good story, and one worth experiencing."

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

I'll say it right off the bat: I'm not in the camp of belief that you can't count Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty as its own thing or even as something that was ongoing. Expansions, add-ons, DLC — whatever, there's a whole valid debate there for next year on where we need to see new categories, but the RPG delivered on PC with more cleanup and intrigue in a "fitting swan song for Cyberpunk 2077."

Our senior editor's description fits, as CDPR's RPG, for real this time, just launched its last big update on December 5 with the Ultimate Edition. Whatever becomes of the series' future, Phantom Liberty was a good place to bookend our adventures in 2077's Night City.

BattleBit Remastered

It's always nice to find another gem playable on my ancient relic of a laptop. BattleBit Remastered low-poly massive FPS battleground is easy to pick up and put down for some satisfying chaos with friends or just 200-something strangers. It's a nice change from some of its massively online genre cousins, and even in the chaos of having way too many people around you in a firefight, BattleBit plays keeps up just fine.

This was one of those games that hit big in the year and somehow missed until the very end, but the arsenal of vehicles, combat role focus, and destructible arena scratch an itch I'm not getting from the more mainstream. Bonus points here for keeping anti-cheat woes top of mind; when I get a new Steam Deck, it'll (hopefully) join my very short list of multiplayer games where EAC didn't rain on the portable experience.

Baldur's Gate 3

If there were a "game with most characters Andrea would like to kiss" award, it'd go to Baldur's Gate 3. And while I really don't want to put words in their mouth, I think the sentiment rings true for all two of us named Andrea at Destructoid. Contributor of excessively good takes, Andrea Gonzalez, wrote about how BG3 is a delightful dating sim. Andrea Shearon approves.

Okay, okay — outside of all the love-dovey stuff, BG3 is the incredible culmination of a CRPG that spent years in early access, with developer Larian Studios tweaking the formula with fan feedback along the way and delivering this massive, choice-driven adventure. It's also one I refuse to play on a console, so here we are.

Dave the Diver

I've always heard it's pretty damn hard to find success as a restaurateur, and Dave's experience here says as much. Developer Mintorocket's adventure RPG drops the pro Scuba diver into a cheeky journey with his friends opening a sushi business. At night, you'll deal with the restaurant. In the day, you'll fight underwater creatures like a half-crab, half-tractor (?) abomination.

It's all to keep the business going. The juggle between grinding for fish and managing the sushi spot was one Destructoid contributor Christine Choi adored. In her review, Christine mentions how she "can't put it down" as Dave the Diver aces the balance between gameplay styles and delivers something lighthearted, engaging, and easy to take at your own pace.

What’s next on Destructoid’s GOTY schedule

We're reaching the halfway point as Destructoid's nominee announcements draw to a close. Next week, on December 18, check in again as we reveal this year's winners.

The post Nominees for Destructoid’s Best PC game of 2023 appeared first on Destructoid.

Capcom is back with another VR mode, and this time it's for Resident Evil 4 Remake. That was enough for me to dust off my PS VR2 to see whether I’d be treated to an experience as good as Resident Evil Village’s phenomenal VR mode.

As is the case with Resident Evil Village, the VR mode is only available for the main story of RE4 Remake, but this time around you have trophies! I've thoroughly enjoyed my time playing RE 4 virtually so far, and while I've yet to complete the lengthy campaign, there are so many epic encounters I'm looking forward to tackling in VR.

Horror at its most beautiful

RE Village was a graphical showcase for Sony's headset. It's not the best-looking game on PS VR2, but it's definitely in the same playing field as titles like Horizon: Call of the Mountain when it comes to visuals. Capcom has managed to exceed itself with RE 4's VR mode, which serves up a gorgeously horrifying world with a level of sharpness that few games on the headset have managed.

The blurriness that tends to plague VR games is rarely seen, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the world you've been warped into. RE 4 has never terrified me nearly as much as its predecessors, but that changes drastically when I'm thrust into VR. Suddenly, being surrounded by enemies feels like a life-or-death experience that has my heart hyperactive and occasionally, even my hands trembling.

Don't expect the same graphical quality as the flatscreen mode, but prepare for a visual feast. During my first gameplay session, multiple times I stopped to just appreciate my surroundings after dealing with the enemies. The visuals are complemented by audio that never lets up when it comes to raising the hairs on the back of my neck.

The 3D audio comes in handy in VR, as it's accurate enough to use sound alone to determine which direction danger's coming from - all I had to do was follow the demented rambling from the Las Plagas-infected foes.

Fun with guns

Undoubtedly, the best part of the game is the gunplay. It's so satisfying. Before blasting baddies, you have to go through the motions of ejecting your empty magazine, reaching into your pouch for a new one, loading it, and cocking your firearm. It's a lengthy process that takes some getting used to before you can do it automatically under the most stressful of situations, but it adds an exhilarating layer of gameplay that even returning players can enjoy, not unlike RE 4’s VR version on Oculus’ headset. 

The various guns behave and function differently, which is forcing me to practice and gain experience with every firearm. For example, pistols require a magazine change while shotguns force me to load shells individually instead. Shotguns take longer to prepare, but it's worth it when I can finally pump and blast my way through a mob.

If any of this sounds overwhelming, don’t fret. The game does offer a tutorial at the beginning, and you have the option to simplify reloading in the settings menu.

Action that's accessible

VR can be a tricky thing to get right, not least of all because of the variety of settings necessary to accommodate different people’s needs. For the most part, RE 4 VR does a great job in this department, allowing you to fine-tune several aspects of the game.

I hadn't used Sony's headset in ages, so I had lost my VR legs, and it didn't take me long to feel nausea after jumping into the game. Fortunately, there are settings to help mitigate motion sickness, including snap-turning. There are also a few accessibility settings, including the ability to switch to left-handed mode if that's the way you roll.

The only complaint I have on this front is that the HUD can be somewhat intrusive. You can switch it off completely, but then you can’t spot what objects in your environment can be interacted with. Turn it on, and you can switch off a lot of unnecessary junk, except for that cursed ammo indicator.

I really don’t like the fact that my weapons have a floating HUD element telling me how much ammo I have left. Let me find it out the hard way when I hear that dreaded click instead of a bang.

Inconsistent immersion

Both RE 4 and RE Village prove that Capcom has what it takes to craft some of the scariest VR titles possible. However, both games are also deeply flawed due to their flatscreen origins.

It feels a bit deceptive to call Resident Evil 4 Remake’s VR mode a first-person experience because it deviates from the perspective so often. It’s not just a matter of cutscenes being in the third-person. The problem is that the switch from first to third-person occurs at some of the most inopportune moments, including during combat.

Attempt to melee an injured foe, and you’ll see Leon pull off his cool kick in third-person. It’s so immersion-breaking that I try to avoid melee moves as much as possible. You run into the same problem when interacting with the environment. You can’t just open shelves, and instead, you have to press X. This feels really off in VR where the desire is strong to see just how much you can naturally interact with everything.

The VR mode is an amazing offering from Capcom, and it's made more impressive by the fact that it’s a free download for anyone who already has the base game. If you own RE 4 Remake, and a PS VR2, this is an experience that should not be missed.

Are you one of the rare few who haven't played this classic yet? It'll be an exhilarating adventure to try virtually first, and I envy you. Nevertheless, be aware that it's not flawless, and it constantly reminds you that you're dealing with VR slapped onto a title that's flatscreen at heart.

The post Resident Evil 4 Remake’s VR mode amps up the scares appeared first on Destructoid.

I wasn’t expecting Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion to be remastered. While Nightdive Studios updated and rereleased the PC versions of the first two games, there wasn’t a PC version of Turok 3. They didn't have the source files, so they had to reverse-engineer the N64 version and port it over to their proprietary KEX Engine.

It’s a lot of work to go through, especially when Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is hardly the best game in the series. To put it charitably, it’s mediocre. Neither liquid nor solid. Remastering it was hardly going to be a financial home run.

But, as I said in my review, “It wasn’t the smart thing to do. It was the right thing to do.” The remastered N64 trilogy of Turok games (excluding Rage Wars) would remain incomplete without that last game. For historical context, it needed to be there. The journey needed a conclusion.

So, Nightdive went all in on the remaster and then didn’t stop there. Beyond just getting it working on PC, they gave it a loving touch-up, buffing that carp until its scales sparkled. But it’s so true to the original that it can be easy to miss. Albert Marin Garau, a member of the art team at Nightdive, put together this comparison between the remaster and the N64 version (via emulation) to show off exactly how much of an upgrade it really is.

By the way, there are massive spoilers in the video.

“I think we've reached a good balance. The fans who haven't played this title for a while won't notice that there has been a radical change in the game's assets, other than the sharper look. But after a few minutes of playing, they'll certainly notice that there is something more than a simple skin lifting…” Albert told me via email. “At the same time, the visual part of the game will not be visually offensive to new players, whom the original textures and models could be such a negative aspect that it could ruin the experience at a certain degree.”

“The game still looks ‘retro,’ though. But that's not a bad thing, on the contrary.”

Nightdive did a similar thing with their remasters of the Quake games. All the models there were touched up to add more detail. However, if you were separated from the games for any length of time, you might not even notice. Only under direct comparison do the differences become clear.

Even if you do notice the difference, it still doesn’t look like a modern game. To me, I could believe that this was a PC or Dreamcast port that followed the N64 version, sort of like the versions of Shadow Man.

The textures were the most impressive part for me. The lighting feels like a given just because it’s in a more modern engine. As Albert explains, the KEX Engine “allowed us to add, move, adjust and tweak almost every single light source, and even use those beautiful real-time lights that cast shadows.”

On the other hand, the N64 was awful to textures. The console only had a 4KB texture cache, which is unimpressive, to say the least. Reverse-engineering the N64 version means that they’d wind up with all the tiny, low-detail textures stored on a cartridge. This would look awful running in modern resolutions.

However, many of the textures were pulled from texture libraries, some of which they were able to find with the help of their “texture archeologist.” But they had to replace every single texture in the game, and not all of them could be found. Even some of the ones that could be found weren’t of the necessary quality, so they had to be touched up by hand, while others needed to be remade from scratch.

According to Albert, “The most difficult part was to identify what's what. When you have thousands of 32x32 textures, it's really hard to tell what kind of surface are we looking at. So, the context was really important. It was easy to mix up what's stone or rusted metal, or even a monster shell at these low resolutions!”

But the team didn’t stop there. They also went further to upgrade each of the models without compromising the game’s original art direction. Albert pointed out, “A good example of what's been done in the character models can be found in their hands... now they have normal 5-finger hands! We've added extra detail to the most blocky parts of the character and enemies' bodies. Some monster's model simplicity made it hard to tell what we were looking at. We added extra detail and/or fixed inaccuracies to every stage model and added extra props to the more lifeless areas of the game.”

This can easily be seen around the house in the opening cutscene. In the N64 version, the muddy and low-quality textures make it look like it’s just sitting in an empty field. A later shot, however, indicates it flanks a road and is part of a neighborhood. The upgrades Nightdive did do a much better job of selling that fact. They didn’t remove the foggy surroundings, so it still has that N64 edge.

I found it somewhat hilarious, however, that Turok 3 had so much trouble with the scale of some models. A shotgun lying next to a corpse in the first level, for example, is often absurdly larger than the person who was supposedly holding it. At the 8:23 mark in the video, it shows Danielle on a train standing next to a door. In the N64 version, the window is askew, while Danielle towers over the threshold. Nightdive fixed the window but left the massive Danielle, preserving the scene’s absurd look while fixing the details.

Even upgrading the models like they did was a challenge. Albert recounts, “The model format used in this game had some limitations of those years regarding how the bones of the skinned meshes work. This drove us crazy at some point when adding some extra detail in the 3D mesh here and there broke the animations.”

“I really put a lot of love into the facial animations. I wanted to inject life into the characters,” Albert told me.

If there’s one place that Turok 3 was exceptional at the time, it was with the facial animations. Having lip-syncing was extremely rare, and having expressive characters was even less common. The only other game that I can readily name off the top of my head with this level of detail is Conker’s Bad Fur Day. The console just wasn’t built for it. Even then, Turok 3 wasn’t always great at it.

So Nightdive took the opportunity to expand on this feature. As Albert explains, “As you can see, in the original, only a few facial animations make sense. The reason is they used 2 different models for every character: The ‘upper body’ and more detailed face and the ‘complete body’ with simplified face model. They used the first one for close-distance camera angles which mouth movements were pretty accurate, then we have... the rest of the animations using the simplified face model. There were some animations that were used in more than one moment and in different cutscenes with random and generic mouth animations, or simply with no facial animation at all…”

You can really see this whenever a character talks with their full body showing. Look at 3:57 in the video. Danielle comes out of her room, fully dressed for some reason, to check on Joshua Fireseed. In the original N64 version, Danielle has no really visible facial movement, while Joseph has very little. However, in the updated version, she’s actually able to move her mouth and emote.

“For the remaster, I created unique animations for every camera angle with custom facial expressions and lip-synced mouth animations,” Albert told me. “It was mostly a frame-by-frame work, but I really enjoyed doing it!”

The animations, in general, were a nightmare to work with. Albert clarified, “The model format limitations forced me to adjust almost every single animation for the characters and enemies, but we also took the opportunity to improve them (no need to mention the originals were far from being polished) and even add extra animations that were nonexistent, lame or even a few unused animations the original developers removed for some reason.”

This video demonstrates why retro games are in good hands when they’re given to Nightdive Studios. The Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion remaster still looks like Turok 3, maybe just cranked up to its maximum settings. It doesn’t look like a new game built on the bones of an older one, nor does it bear the blasphemous inconsistencies of a (typical) fan-made HD mod. It’s also not some sort of officially stamped abomination like the Silent Hill HD collection. Changing too much robs a game of its original intent and its historical context. Not changing anything risks alienating new players. They didn’t “fix” Turok 3. They just spit on a napkin and wiped the marinara off its face.

As Larry Kuperman, Director of Business Development at Nightdive, once said to me, “If someone is looking for the latest Unreal 5 game, they probably didn't want Turok.” 

It’s not even an argument of “Don’t fix what isn’t broke.” It’s more like, “Don’t assume you know better than the original developers.” And yet, actually trying to stay true to the developer's vision while breaking away from the technological constraints of the original release takes a lot of work. In fact, I’d argue it's more difficult. The fact that Nightdive will take the more difficult path, even for a game of questionable quality like Turok 3, demonstrates a reverence for the medium as an art. And that feels like something that there has always been a lack of when it comes to video games.

The post Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion comparison shows the care that went into Nightdive’s remaster appeared first on Destructoid.

On paper, 1995’s Cool Riders sounds great. It was the follow-up to 1993’s Outrunners, which itself was a multiplayer follow-up to 1986’s Out Run. Only this time, it’s on motorized bikes. Then you see it, and you realize Cool Riders is one of the least cool games to exist.

Let me back up a sec here. Cool Riders is absolutely one of the best retro games I’ve been introduced to this year. It’s a year where I feel something finally snapped in my head, and I’ve come to legitimately enjoy a lot of kusoge. But the thing about Cool Riders is that it certainly looks like kusoge, but it doesn’t play like it. 

It’s sort of a Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game situation. While the game’s graphics give you that whiff of kusoge, the mere fact that it’s built on the bones of a better game means that it’s still enjoyable. Better than enjoyable, actually, Cool Riders is a riot.

The fat is in the fire

By 1995, following some tentative hesitation, Sega was well into its conversion to 3D arcade games. Cool Riders is a bit of a strange latecomer. It was one of the last games to use Sega’s Super Scaler effect, pairing it with your typical raster effect to create 3D visuals. To put this into perspective, that year would have it competing against Sega Rally Championship for floor space. It was also the only game to be produced on the Sega H1 Board, which meant that the MAME community had quite a struggle getting it emulated properly.

The strangest part of Cool Riders, however, is the game itself. I’d love to see what the development pitch was like. It looks like something that was thrown together, but when you really dig into it, you realize that the whole thing was deliberate. A whole bunch of digitized actors and photo manipulation to create something that looks like an unholy union of Katamari Damacy and early ‘00s animutation.

It’s a bizarre maelstrom of ideas, with drivers that include a lady on a Vespa, a cowboy, and a devoted father. It’s obvious that the developers at Sega AM1 weren’t taking this very seriously, but how such a mish-mash of ideas came together, I’d like to know.

Seriously, I would like to know what the development of Cool Riders was like. There’s precious little behind-the-scenes information I could find. Not that it’s usually easy to find background information on ‘80s and ‘90s arcade games unless they’ve made a massive impact, but I’ve never been this curious before.

Grandpa Is Still Alive

What separates Cool Riders from Outrunners and, well, most games at the time is its use of digitized photography. That wasn’t entirely rare at the time, with Mortal Kombat famously utilizing this approach. But games like that and Pit-Fighter were earnestly trying to look good. Futuristic, even. The art in Cool Riders obviously isn’t trying to achieve that. It fully embraces its ridiculousness.

People who have worked with porting the game have said that it uses a lot of assets from Outrunner, but I would never believe that the two were related. It’s hard to really describe the visual style.

It’s like if walkedoutneimans decided to travel back in time and get a job at Sega. It’s like someone dropped a travel magazine in a blender and hit Frappe. It’s like a Bible game that gave up on Jesus partway through development.

The game’s premise is essentially the same as the Out Run games. You’re given a time limit to reach the checkpoint on a continuously splitting sprint. This time, however, you have the option of traveling West or East across the world or just keep your journey in the Americas. However, the world is depicted through the eyes of someone on psychedelics who never left their apartment.

Here Come Queen of Hurricanes

Even Japan, the country this game originated from, is depicted with sprinting ninjas and old castles. One of my favorite courses is the East Indies, where you travel across the ocean floor while flanked by sharks and giant octopi. You zoom through these stages at a blisteringly fast speed near the edge of control. Part of the challenge is just being able to read the obstacles that are constantly streaming by the edge of the road.

The drivers are incredible. A backstory for each of them is hinted at, and they’re given a lot of fanfare for characters we have never met before. There’s the aforementioned woman on a Vespa who is aided by official-looking dudes in suits. There’s a Frankenstein’s monster of a robot and an old man riding a souped-up, old-fashioned moped. One that I mentioned is this biker-looking dude who rides on a tricycle with his two children. Who are these people?

The game opens with Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf, which sounds like it fits more with a Harley Davidson stuffed in the corner of a movie theatre. Then you get into the game, and each of the characters has their own theme, and they frequently feel completely divorced from what is happening on-screen while also being kind of good.

The cabinets usually came in a pair, allowing you to race against a friend or unwelcome stranger. It doesn’t really affect much in gameplay, as the timer is your primary adversary, but whoever wins in any leg of the race gets to choose which branch is taken next. It’s a nice but unnecessary addition.

A Little Good

I’m not sure I can really express how much fun Cool Riders is. I got into it mostly because I love exploring Sega’s Super Scaler games, but I quickly found myself hooked. I played it over and over, trying to reach the game’s absurd finale. I’m no doubt going to pick it up again after this.

It’s an absolute sugar rush of a game, with bizarre, eye-catching scenery flying by. Endless basketball players in Chicago, Dracula in Romania, Mount Rushmore in the Rockies for some reason. It’s incredible it begs you to try and explore all the tracks, to test out every driver, to dive further and further into the mind of a broken genius. It helps that it was built on the bones of Outrunners and is made better because it is absolutely in on the joke.

The fact that Cool Riders has never been ported is a travesty. Nothing on the Sega Saturn, not even a nod anywhere else. It feels like Sega doesn’t even know it exists, buried deep down in its back catalog. For that matter, Outrunners hasn’t been ported outside of an absolutely abysmal Genesis/Mega Drive version. 

I don’t have much hope for it getting ported now, especially given how much trouble it gave MAME developers, but I’m going to make it my mission. At every possible opportunity, I’m going to bring up Cool Riders. I’m going to talk about it until everyone knows about it. Whenever I’m face-to-face with a Sega rep, I’m going to bring it up, searching for that spark of recognition or watching them squirm as they try to figure out what I’m talking about.

Cool Riders must ride again.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Cool Riders for Arcade is just a beautiful, captivating mess appeared first on Destructoid.

Considering that Capcom was ruling the fighting game roost in 1993, Saturday Night Slam Masters is such a low-key production. Street Fighter 2 blended together with a wrestling game sounds like such an amazing concept, but that’s absolutely not what Saturday Night Slam Masters is.

And that’s really weird, considering that one of the grapplers, Gunloc, has a bio that suggests he is related to a famous street fighter while Chun Li appears in the audience. Yet, despite the references that imply it exists in the same universe as Street Fighter 2, Saturday Night Slam Masters is pretty much just a wrestling game. It’s not even a particularly outstanding wrestling game, but it’s still one of my favorite arcade games of all time.

Why?

Mike Haggar. Mike Haggar! MIKE HAGGAR!

The Excellence of Execution

Saturday Night Slam Master was released in 1993 in arcades, but it also got ported to the SNES, Genesis, and FM Towns Marty. I first played it on the SNES where it became one of my most prized cartridges, but now that it’s more widely available through Capcom Arcade Stadium 2, that’s where I typically get my Haggar on.

In Japan, the game is actually called Muscle Bomber, but I personally love the Saturday Night Slam Masters moniker. I love it so much. It just sounds like an old televised wrestling show, similar to WWF’s Saturday Night’s Main Event. I love it so much that the flagship show of the fictional wrestling promotion I make over and over in every wrestling game with customization, Breakfast Time Wrestling, is Saturday Morning Slam. I almost italicized that like it’s a real thing.

Saturday Night Slam Masters centers around the worldwide Capcom Professional Wrestling Association. You choose a wrestler from a selection of 10 and then take them around the world to compete for the title belt. I don’t think that’s how wrestling titles are supposed to work, but it’s a great framework. And then, after you win the title, the game keeps on going, with you having to defend it.

There’s apparently more of a backstory. According to the Capcom Database citation-less summary, CPWA’s version of Hulk Hogan suddenly disappeared. With the vacuum of power where their champion was supposed to be, the CPWA decides to host their world tour Crash Carnival, to crown a new champion. But an evil promotion called the Blood Professional Wrestling Association decides that they want the title, and some of their wrestlers crash the Crash Carnival, which, again, I don’t think is how wrestling works. Maybe it’s kayfabe.

Magic Mike

Then there’s the aesthetic, which has that slight grit common in the Street Fighter and Final Fight games. The CPWA is a far cry from the glossy productions put on by wrestling promotions these days. It reminds me more of the early days of televised wrestling where the wrestlers would practically wade through a sea of people to get to the ring, rather than having an almost choreographed entrance.

Mike Haggar’s entrance, for example, simply has him throwing a towel into the crowd. If only I was there to catch that towel…

Then you get to the actual wrestling, and it’s just… fine. There are punches, grapples, and Irish whips, plus plenty of button mashing. I feel that button mashing is actually key to arcade wrestling. Hammering that button and shaking the stick gives some physicality to the experience.

However, Saturday Night Slam Masters lacks any nuance beneath that. You can climb the ropes, but opponents don’t stay down long enough for you to really land a flying elbow. It’s possible to get outside the ring and use weapons, but that’s largely pointless. If you do it to temporarily escape your opponent’s thrashing, it’s unlikely the opponent will actually join you. So you’re left standing out there, holding a bucket while the ref counts.

Haggarmania

Then there are the special moves. I only know of Mike Haggar’s, because when I have a choice to play as Mike Haggar or literally anyone else, I choose Mike Haggar. He has his spinning double-lariat from Final Fight, as well as a spinning piledrive. Except the spinning piledrive requires you to tie up with an opponent, rotate the joystick 360 degrees, and hit the punch and jump buttons together. The problem is that once you tie up, you have about 1 second to mash the punch button to overpower your opponent. Otherwise, they perform a slam against you.

I can play Zangief just fine. I’m no stranger to 360 rotations. But I have never once been able to perform Mike Haggar’s spinning piledriver. To this day, its existence is hearsay to me.

Pins are also somewhat routine. If your opponent has no life left in their gauge, they’re out the moment you pin them. The same goes for you. Fight all you want, but if your life gauge is empty, you’re not getting free.

A lot of the actual combat in Saturday Night Slam Masters just feels “good enough.” It’s not actually that much better than 1986’s Pro Wrestling on the NES or 1989’s Tecmo World Wrestling, just to name a couple. Heck, 1991’s King of the Monsters is a better wrestling game, and that game is really about kaiju.

Although, none of those have Mike Haggar, which means Saturday Night Slam Masters is the best.

Pinfall

I should note that there is a tag team mode, which is pretty fun. It allows you to team up with a friend or captive stranger to take on the CPWA. Really, it’s more like a tornado tag. You’re both in the ring at the same time, and the goal is to pin both opponents, which can be done one at a time.

There were two follow-ups to Saturday Night Slam Masters. The first was Muscle Bomber Duo, which was kind of like the “Turbo” version of the base game. The gameplay is more polished, and you can play as the boss characters. It actually does play quite a bit better. Getting into a tie-up actually requires you to press a button to grapple.

The actual sequel is Ring of Destruction: Muscle Bombers 2, and it’s a horrible abomination. For whatever reason, the developers turned it into a straightforward fighting game. The wrestling is now just an aesthetic choice. You don’t even have to pin at the end of the match. Even worse, it isn’t a good fighting game. It does still have Mike Haggar, though.

Unfortunately, neither of these follow-ups were in Capcom Arcade Stadium 2, which isn’t a huge loss for Ring of Destruction, but Muscle Bomber Duo is a clear improvement over the original. I’m not sure if we’ll ever see a Capcom Arcade Stadium 3, but if they’re still not included, we riot.

Get back in the ring

Even though it isn’t the best wrestling game, I still love it. It’s easy to pick up and play a few rounds, the aesthetic is perfect, and while it isn’t great, it’s good enough. Good enough, plus Mike Haggar, is immediately top-shelf.

One of my dream games is for Capcom to return to Saturday Night Slam Masters. The wrestling sub-genre in video games is in a stagnant place right now. Much of the air in the room is dominated by the WWE 2K series' abundant flab, and fun arcade wrestlers are few and far between. A wrestling game that eschews licensed wrestlers and instead provides a fun cast with a unique aesthetic feels like it would stand out today. Especially if it features Mike Haggar.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Saturday Night Slam Masters gives us more reason to vote Mike Haggar appeared first on Destructoid.

"Morbidcore" isn't an established subgenre, but it's not hard to imagine what falls into this category. These are games exploring life's darker moments. Not for the sake of simply disturbing an audience, but instead, they’re stories communicating the more unsettling aspects of humanity — the parts we shy away from or refuse to acknowledge.

Grief, depression, trauma, and pain are all prevailing themes in these narratives, and while they don't aim to shock, they inevitably do. Indies aren't the only titles that attempt this, either, though they often do it best. Multimillion-dollar productions from megacorporations should have the budget to explore here, but it's often a one-person team or a small group weaving the tales that are most impactful.

Trigger warning: don't proceed if you're not in a safe state of mind to read about suicide, self-harm, and rape.

On Trauma

Trauma is no stranger to many of us, and we see that reflected in indie games. Portraying that hurt is a difficult task, as trauma in its many shapes remains an incredibly personal experience. How it’s triggered, the intensity, and ways it manifests in someone's life are unique to each individual, but we often share its weight and familiar ache.

When it comes to trauma-themed games, nothing affected me quite like He Fucked the Girl Out of Me. I discovered it after reading a Zoey Handley article on the game, and with a provocative title like that, I couldn't resist. What was I expecting? A cheeky game with some transgender themes potentially thrown in. What I got was a dark, depressing tale that’s haunted me ever since. 

Without spoiling too much, the game follows the life of a trans woman bearing one-too-many heavy crosses. Drawn in by a swirl of peer pressure and desperation, she finds herself relying upon work in the sex industry. It promises her financial freedom and affection, but she is instead subjected to both subtle and exploitative behavior from predatory men. These experiences chip away at her psyche until it finally shatters, permanently changing how she relates to others.

With He Fucked the Girl Out of Me, we uncover precisely why such indies pack a more powerful punch than AAA games. When a multimillion-dollar corporation attempts to craft a game, there are economic factors to consider in addition to the complexities of blending the ideas and creative visions of an entire team. As though the situation wasn’t complex enough, there’s also the audience to consider. If you’re spending millions on an entertainment product, there’s an incentive to ensure it appeals to and parallels the sensibilities of the masses. It leaves the personal behind in favor of vague, broad strokes.

Indies often aren’t as bureaucratically fettered, allowing these games to laser focus on a singular idea from a creator, sometimes in profoundly personal ways. He Fucked the Girl Out of Me isn’t just a game, it’s an uncomfortably invasive look into the personal life story of a creator brave enough to display their shame and trauma in ways that would be entirely too visceral for most. The title makes it clear that this is a game that has no interest in mainstream acceptance. This isn’t entertainment; it’s a flash of a human soul masquerading as a Game Boy title. 

With none of the limitations of the AAA industry to weigh it down, He Fucked the Girl Out of Me has the freedom to breach topics and express viewpoints seldom interrogated by the mainstream, including the thorny moral matrix of sex work. While the destigmatization of sex work is a step forward for society, it’s only half the story. With HFtGOoM, we’re reminded that in a sex industry not ruled by its workers, the prevailing norm for them globally involves desperation, trauma, and exploitation, especially for trans people.

The instinctive reaction to the indie’s harrowing portrayal of the sex industry is “shut it down.” However, spend time with it, and you’ll find it makes one of the strongest arguments for the decriminalization of the industry to not only protect sex workers but to prevent trans people from exploitation in these circumstances. 

It’s a window into why indie games trigger my unease and discomfort; a level of unbridled honesty absent in the mainstream. The protagonist makes it clear that the tale is a semi-autobiographical one, expressing the pain of lived experiences. Consequently, I couldn't shake the thought that this person's trauma wasn't much more than a brief afternoon gameplay session for me. I’d never wrestled with that feeling watching Aloy or Peter Parker losing loved ones. 

Themes of suicide and ideation

The prior game presents scenarios that are entirely alien to my life, which gave me a bit of an emotional buffer. Actual Sunlight on the other hand... it hit a little too close to home. It centers on Evan Winter, an overweight man in his thirties who is deeply unsatisfied with his life.

You take Evan through the depressing monotony of life — doing a job he hates, returning to an empty home, rinse and repeat. He doesn't have anything to live for, and the painful apathy slowly eats away until nihilism drives him to the roof of his apartment building. While you maintain some freedom for the majority of the game, at the end all your options are gone, and there's only one morbid path to take.

When I first played, I was nowhere near my thirties (still not there yet) and I didn't have a job either. Despite this, Evan’s inescapable and oppressive sense of “meh” resonated. Nothing excites him, he has no motivation to change his life, and the negative voice in his head has become a familiar soundtrack in the background.

I think it's one of the most accurate depictions of an all-too-common pathway to suicide. The desire to stop existing doesn't always come from a singular traumatic event. Sometimes, it’s a slow slip into a meaningless, anhedonic life. It's a reminder that finding fulfillment requires active participation in life - it doesn't happen automatically.

Sure, a AAA studio could create something similar, but I have a feeling that it would lack a lot of the heart that Actual Sunlight contains. The game shines through its minor and painfully personal observations. Evan’s self-loathing monologue in front of his mirror is a little too on the nose, and his disdain for the corporate world is depicted in a way that exudes authenticity. It’s not just endless kvetching about the soullessness of desk jobs - it’s a genuine cry of pain from yet another soul stuck in the 9 to 5 trap. 

What are indie games doing that AAA games aren't?

There are plenty of big-budget games that deliver a heavy, emotional punch. Who among us wasn't moved by Red Dead Redemption 2's ending, or wasn't left feeling hollow at the end of The Last of Us Part 2? Despite this, I can't think of an AAA title that has affected me as much as He Fucked the Girl out of Me or Actual Sunlight.

In an interview with Indie Game Reviewer, Actual Sunlight's creator, Will O'Neill, revealed that the game was made in almost complete isolation, and inspired by his own life. The result is a deeply intimate experience that might only resonate with a few, but when it does, its impact cuts deep. Or, as he explains, "I could just literally feel it emerge from that really, really personal part of myself."

He Fucked the Girl Out of Me's creator, Taylor McCue, also drew from intensely personal events in her life. She created the game to escape the shame haunting her. As she explains in an interview with Game Developer, "Shame was eating into me over the course of a decade. That was making me crazy and increasingly suicidal."

Creating the game was no easy process, and throughout its development, McCue found she was "more ashamed, more suicidal, and actually worse."

This personal element of indie games feels like peering into someone's diary, which can be both an enlightening and unsettling experience. The effect of this is evident in the responses McCue has gotten to her game, as she reveals she has received messages from several people sharing "explicit trauma that they shared in common" with her. Reception to O'Neill's game has been similar, and he has received "more than one letter that starts with ‘I never write to game developers’ and which then proceeds on for hundreds or even thousands of words."

There is something to be said about their art with a personal touch. It's hard to make, eschewing massive teams and scope for something more intimate, vulnerable, and perhaps cathartic for too many of us. I’m often eager to sit down with my shiny, new AAA toys; flashy visuals and high production values easily capture my attention. However, when I’m searching for something that captures both the absurdity and agony of humanhood, there is no place better to turn than “morbidcore” indies. 

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With the Grand Theft Auto VI trailer out in the world, we got our first glimpse at Leonida and Vice City. Now, many have found loads of similarities to its real-life counterpart: Florida.

The trailer came out earlier than expected due to an unfortunate leak. Regardless, the graphics and world made the 10-year wait for a new Grand Theft Auto worth it for fans. With that, we are returning to a familiar location: Vice City. However, it's just a small part of the bigger map of Leonida.

Yes, you can probably tell it's a clear reference to the real-life Florida. The references to the state don't end at the name, as many crazy scenes in the trailer actually happened.

So, in honor of Grand Theft Auto VI's dive into Florida culture, I will go over the many references to crazy real-life events Rockstar has in the trailer. For the article, and your sanity, I will use the pictures from the trailer, not real life. You can thank me later.

That Huge Gator in the Pool

It's not uncommon for wildlife to end up in your pool. There might be the odd frog or perhaps a snake, but rarely. Well, in Florida, and in GTA's Leonida, alligators are known to take dips in your local watering hole. FOX News reported in 2022 that one family had an almost 11-foot, 550-pound alligator in their pool. It took three police officers to even get the reptile out! Funny enough, the excerpt in the trailer mimics the one used by the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office's Facebook post.

That Shopping Alligator

With the amount of gators in the trailer, I'm assuming we'll be playing one of these scaly fellas. They're already robbing stores! Or they just walked in looking for some 'fresh' sushi. Regardless, this specific event hasn't happened, as far as we know. However, in 2018 via ABC Action News, a drunk man brought a live alligator into a gas station for a beer run. Why? Just cause. The man was arrested and he claims he has no idea how or why he had an alligator with him. They just show up everywhere, I guess. Might as well let them joyride a car next, Rockstar.

That Car Twerker

Okay, not this type of joyride. Remember twerking? It seems it's alive and well in Leonida, as we see an individual going crazy on top of a moving vehicle. Believe it or not, this has happened on multiple occasions in Florida. In 2017, per the Miami New Times, one woman twerked on top of a moving vehicle in Miami.

That Nude Gardener

You're probably saying "Someone didn't actually water plants nude, right?" I'm here to inform you that, yes, someone did. Minus the thong. In September 2018, Tampa Bay Times reported that a Florida man repeatedly gardened 'au naturel' in public. One witness said they taught their children not to look at the naked man, which is a weird detail considering they could've called the cops. There's a video out there of it but I, for one, am good to remain blissful in my obliviousness.

That Crazy Hammer Lady

I'm going to be honest: dual-wielding hammers is a sick weapon idea. As you can see, this Karen 'nails' it pretty well. There are a few hammer-related incidents in Florida, with the most recent involving an argument over rum. However, Grand Theft Auto VI seems to actually take inspiration from a viral video out of California. A video, per TMZ, shows a woman repeatedly hitting a car with, you guessed it, two hammers. The owner of the damaged car was, ironically enough, in Miami during the incident, so it technically counts, right? 'Screw' it.

That Awkward Tatted-Up Criminal

If you have tattoos, that's rad. Inking your body is not for me, but I support you if you want to get tatted out. However, do be wary if they are fully visible, as you might be the center of attention. This seemingly poor soul in the trailer has the whole "Joker from the Suicide Squad" look going. Jury's still out if he rocks it. Anyway, the comparison with Batman's arch-nemesis isn't a coincidence. The criminal is based on a real-life Florida resident Lawrence Sullivan, also known as the Miami Joker. You can see why via a video on CBS News. Needless to say, it put a smile on this writer's face.

Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled to release in 2025 on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

The post The GTA 6 trailer is full of references to real-life Florida stories appeared first on Destructoid.

I'm an efficiency monster. Min-maxing, goal-setting, and achievements — they’re all part of my milestone-driven playstyle in most games. My quest for powerful builds or ideal stats often adds a layer of challenge that games don’t demand, but I rarely deviate from the strategy. Coral Island makes optimization impossible though, and I think I love it.

Starting out

The only things I really knew about Coral Island were that it involved farming and had extensive romance options. I went in with a few specific goals: romance a certain villager, create a profitable farm, and beat the game. Get in, get out.

Right off the bat, I realized my to-do list wouldn’t be so easy. I needed to speak to the carpenter, but their store was closed for the night. Okay. I tried to visit the general store instead. Nope, it’s also closed for the night and closed on Wednesdays. Who closes their store on a Wednesday? So, I decided to return home and get some farm work done instead.

I opened up my map, looking for a way to fast travel to my farm from the town. Failing to find anything resembling fast travel, I looked online to see if I was just missing it. As it turns out, the feature unlocks by performing specific tasks that activate waypoints. For the time being, I would be hoofing it. I trudged home and went to bed.

The next day, I resolved to meet as many villagers as possible to find the one I was looking for. In Coral Island, villagers you haven’t met yet are marked on your map as question mark icons. I found myself chasing down each question mark icon, periodically opening my map to see where a villager had gone when I failed to find them. There were dozens of them, and they appeared to wander quite a bit. I hadn’t even unlocked any waypoints yet, so there was no easy way to catch up with someone I wanted to meet.

At this point, I turned off the game in frustration. It felt like Coral Island was actively preventing me from making progress, directly in conflict with the part of me eager to set my own frantic pace.

“It’s just farming.”

I turned to one of my friends, who has been playing Coral Island since its alpha stages. He was surprised when I described how frustrated I was, as the exact things that made my experience so unpleasant were the things he enjoyed the most. The stores closed at (mostly) reasonable hours, mimicking realistic business hours. The NPCs moved around and led lives of their own, like actual people. He didn’t mind walking around and exploring the world before unlocking fast travel.

Most importantly, he assured me there was no time limit to any objective in Coral Island. It didn’t matter if it took a few more days to introduce myself to everyone. It didn’t matter if the crops I chose to grow weren’t optimal for profits. “It’s just farming,” he said, “Relax.” 

Relax? I’ve got romance brewing, crops to grow, a village to please — how do I relax?

When I booted up Coral Island again, I forced myself to ignore the main mission objectives. I watered my plants, then walked all the way to town to chat up my neighbors. Moving along to the beach, I gathered up some trash and then started the trek home. I tried to walk to town again, but got distracted by insects and ended my day by picking flowers. I failed to progress my main objectives, and I had yet to find the villager I was looking for.

Yet, strangely, I didn’t feel stressed about it. It turns out that when you embrace the idyllic lifestyle of Coral Island, the game is…actually pretty relaxing. I still wish there was one automatically unlocked waypoint in the town for easy fast travel, but I didn’t mind walking when there was so much to collect along the way. I’m spending more time on my farm, just clearing the junk out of my plot of land. Sometimes, I chat with NPCs just to see what they have to say. And maybe one day, I’ll progress the story and find the love of my life, but that can wait.

Learning to relax

I don’t think Coral Island was created for people like me, who derive satisfaction from efficiency. But I’ve learned to appreciate the peaceful sim for forcing me to take a step back. Maybe things don’t always need to be optimized to be fun. Now that I have no goals, I’m free to do whatever I want in whatever time frame I want. It’ll be hard for me to give up my min-maxing habits anytime soon, but it turns out serenity can be nice, too.

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Primal Rage maybe wasn’t the best fighting game to hit arcades in 1994, but I have some fond memories of playing it with friends. I wish we could get some sort of re-release, or maybe even a release of the canceled (but apparently finished) Primal Rage 2. But we’re not talking about Primal Rage. We’re here to look at DinoRex.

Released by Taito in 1992, DinoRex has a lot in common with Primal Rage. There are dinosaurs animated by stop-motion and humans in the foreground. I would use that same description for both games when trying to explain them to someone who hadn’t played them before. However, while Primal Rage is an “okay, not great” game, DinoRex is more of a “so bad it’s kind of good” kind of game—the very best flavor of kusoge.

It is just incredible.

Ancient Anger

DinoRex is a fighting game where you play as a mostly-naked dude in a mask. He’s got a whip, but it’s not what it looks like, I swear! Your dude wants to become the DinoRex or something, which supposedly means being the best at forcing a dinosaur to fight another dinosaur. While you’re stuck with being a buff naked man, there are seven dinosaurs you can pick from, ranging from chubby to annoying. Each one is extremely different to control, so maybe don’t try to switch midway through a game. It’s like learning to roller skate again after a severe head injury.

Apparently, there’s a part of the world where archeologists apparently have never been, where dinosaurs existed well after their alleged extinction. Long enough that people were able to ride them. DinoRex sees humans doing what humans do, as we take these critically endangered creatures and make them fight for our amusement.

There’s a prize for whoever manages to coerce their dinosaur into winning the tournament; they get to become King. I think. The text crawls that try to tell the narrative are hilariously mistranslated to the point where I don’t think I fully understand what’s going on. There’s some sort of queen involved, but I don’t really know how she plays into this. I think it might just be an excuse to have a woman in a loincloth on the attract screen.

I’m not even being facetious or disingenuous here. DinoRex has more expositional cutscenes than you usually see in this sort of arcade game, and I still can’t really tell what’s going on. It starts out simple enough, then you blink and find it rolling down the steep slope into madness. I still can’t tell if the Queen is some sort of overlord or a prize for winning at dinosaur abuse. It’s very eager to tell you nothing at all.

Primitive Fury

It’s also really difficult to describe the gameplay. It subscribes to the general idea most fighting games following Yie Ar Kung-Fu did. You hold a direction, press a button, and your dinosaur does a thing. However, I’m not sure how many different moves each one has or how they relate to the combination you’ve pressed.

Here’s how you win, though: find the button/direction combo that makes your dinosaur latch onto its opponent’s throat. Keep doing that until someone dies. You win.

If you want to cinch the win, you can force your dinosaur to do its special move. Your special bar is segmented into three pieces. You fill it by holding up, which makes the dinosaur throw its chubby head back and give a mighty roar. Then, once it’s filled, you can hit the special button and then just walk away. So long as it doesn’t get interrupted, your dinosaur will pull off one attack for every segment of the bar you have filled. So, if you have one bar filled, it will knock its opponent back once. If all three are full, your dinosaur will hit the other dino once, wait until it stops skidding along the ground, hit it a second time, wait for it to stop skidding again, and then – you guessed it – hit it again.

The three-hit process takes literally 10 seconds, which, when put in the context of arcade games in general and fighting games specifically, is approximately a decade. In these 10 seconds, no one needs to press a button. The sequence cannot be interrupted. You are a slave to the dino-combo.

Primordial Animosity

On the other hand, the special combos are kind of cool. If there’s one thing that DinoRex does legitimately well, it’s the destruction of its environments. Amazonians scatter, cages are crushed, and dust flies up as structures give out under the ample bodies of the dinosaurs.

It’s not the absolute best part, however. The best part is that every few battles, there’s a bonus stage. These are framed as being dreams, but they involve your portly pal marching through modern cities and wrecking buildings. These don’t really play any better than the fight scenes, but the mere fact that you’re kicking army dudes and knocking helicopters out of the sky makes them worthwhile spectacles.

There are two city bonus levels, but the last one is kicking Amazonians for some reason.

Weirdly, the dream sequences seem to tell a side story. Your dino pal is wrecking up Ho Lee City, which is run by Mr. Ho Lee. Beyond just running a city, Mr. Ho Lee also has some sort of tower that he’s really protective of. He hires the police and military to protect that building in particular from the rotund reptile wreaking havoc, so your ultimate goal is to knock it over.

What that has to do with anything, I have no idea. However, succeeding, you’re rewarded with the “Collopse of the cIvIlIzatIon” [sic, obviously]. Simply incredible.

Uh... Past Vexation

At the end of the fight, for absolutely no reason, a pterodactyl swoops down and snatches up the Amazonian dude as they grieve the loss of their best dinosaur friend. Sometimes, they just fly off with the guy, but every once in a while they’ll just swallow them whole. This sort of player shaming was what made this era of arcade games the best.

It’s hard to tell if the developers were in on the whole ridiculous spectacle – if it’s intentionally humorous or accidentally funny. There are times when it seems like they were trying to make something cool that might pull people away from Street Fighter II, but other times, it’s just too ridiculous to be accidental. Exactly like Deadly Premonition, is what I’m saying.

And like Deadly Premonition, I absolutely love DinoRex. For a long time, it was never ported. It did land on a Taito compilation for PS2 in 2007, but only in Japan. I probably wouldn’t have discovered it if it hadn’t landed on the Taito Milestones 2 collection for Switch. More recently, it’s also available as a standalone Arcade Archives release.

Every once in a while, I come across a kusoge that just is so fascinatingly inept that I practically fall in love. DinoRex was one of these games. I’m so enthusiastic about its terribleness that this is the third time I’ve written about it and each time, I extoll how incredible it is to experience. This is one of the best parts about art across all media. Whether something is well-executed or not doesn’t matter in the least. What matters is how well it connects with you.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

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Game preservation is a topic close to my heart. For me, video games never age. I spend just as much time playing games from decades ago as I do with modern titles. My favorite games are the ones I’ve never played before, and that isn’t exclusive to the future.

Accessibility is therefore important, especially when it comes to PC titles where changes in operating systems, graphical processing, and even monitor resolutions have rendered a lot of old titles unplayable on modern setups. GOG has, for a long while now, been an important fixture to people like me. It provides easy access to retro titles from the DOS and early Windows days in formats that are typically simple to get working with minimal configuration.

Typically.

Recently, I’ve been interested in what drives the business of retro games. Is preserving old games on new platforms viable from a business standpoint, or is it always just a matter of passion? I got the chance to speak with Urszula Jach-Jaki, Managing Director at GOG, to dig deep into the details.

Publisher grip

There are only so many classic titles still up for grabs these days. Some might argue that the most important titles of yesteryear are still accessible, but that’s proveably bupkiss. Some large, significant publishers like EA and Warner Bros. hold on tightly to some of their most significant titles in their backlog. EA is perhaps the most vexing, as titles like SimCity or even The Sims aren’t readily available on even their own storefront.

I asked Jach-Jaki if GOG has tried working with these companies and why they’re so tight-fisted with their properties. “We can cite a few examples of well-known franchises that were not initially available in digital distribution,” they responded. “Thanks to our efforts, a re-release became a reality – Diablo, for example. However, it's always the publisher's decision, and we can only provide them with convincing arguments.

“There could be various reasons behind not releasing well-known titles. Sometimes, it's due to intellectual property ownership issues, with the publisher uncertain about whether they own 100% of the rights to the property (and proving this can be quite complex), or they simply lack the capacity to work on the old build and re-release the game on modern systems.”

There’s also the theory that the availability of games that have newer iterations, such as The Sims, would have their sales cannibalized by older, cheaper versions. However, SimCity has the 2013 version, but you can still purchase SimCity 2000, so the validity of the assumption is questionable.

Immediate profit

For that matter, I wondered what games are actually fit for re-release. Specifically, how does GOG estimate the profitability of re-releasing old titles. “The key metrics we assess before making a decision typically involve a blend of our experience, conclusions drawn from the past, certain business metrics, and the developers' vision and assumptions,” Jach-Jaki explained.

Further than that, they explain that sometimes it isn’t about how many sales a title will get. “It is not always about pure profit. Oftentimes, we invest to bring back games that didn't achieve commercial success, aiming to make fans of the game and our community happy – especially if fixing the game is not time-consuming. What helps us with these decisions is our community wishlist which we monitor on a regular basis. Some of the games at the very top are challenging to get, so we focus our attention on whatever's next in line, based on level of complexity (and that's usually a mix of who owned/owns the code/IP and what's the history behind the title).”

Since, as I said in the intro, I have to wonder if a lot of game preservation is a matter of passion over profit, I asked if all the games GOG has made available turned a profit, whether after launch or even during its lifetime. Is it worth bringing them back, even if they don’t turn a profit?

“Reviving many 'forgotten' titles may not be profitable in the short term,” Jach-Jaki told me. “Despite marketing efforts around these games, it won't change the fact that many of them may not garner enough attention. While we acknowledge this reality, preserving the legacy and keeping those games alive and accessible to all the gamers who appreciate them, as well as introducing them to new generations, is an important factor. This commitment sometimes means having to wait more time to recoup the investment. However, we can name many examples of re-released games, that continue to be very popular and profitable.”

“This may sound somewhat idealistic,” she continues, “considering we are a store and our primary concern should be generating profits from all the titles in our offering. Game preservation goes beyond financial gain for us and by bringing old games back to life we aim to stay true to our roots and recapture the spirit of our early days with games when we were children. For most of us, these old games played a crucial role in shaping our identities. We strive to extend this opportunity to the younger generations of gamers, whose gaming experiences differ significantly, allowing them to experience the same excitement we felt.”

“As long as this ambition is achieved, it’s perfectly acceptable even if it doesn’t yield immediate profits.”

The lawyers

This made me wonder about something else. Some of the releases on GOG have been modified to be playable on modern operating systems, but others have merely been packaged with DOSbox, and presented as is. This has caused some problems with games on the storefront, requiring a bit of finessing to get them working properly.

The example that still bothers me to this day is 1997’s Interstate ‘76. It’s a game that has a myriad of problems today that make it nearly unplayable. Even if you do get it running, physics are based on framerate, which makes a particular level impossible to complete. As a result, fans have had to step in and provide workarounds and fixes for the game. These haven’t been incorporated into the actual store release, so if you buy the game, you then have to dig for the fixes and implement them. If CD Projekt Red and GOG are passionate about these games, why release anything in this sort of state?

The answer was something I hadn’t even considered before.

“It depends on the specific contract provisions,” she explains. “In most cases, we do not possess the rights to modify the game build, and if bugs are reported, only the developers can address them. Our role here is to report any issues and offer technical support when necessary, but we cannot act independently to alter the game files. Of course, there are certain situations where we can implement fixes or perform deeper modifications to the game, but such arrangements are relatively rare.”

Oh, right. It’s always lawyers.

Source Port

This is also why GOG usually can’t incorporate fanmade source ports on their storefront. Duke Nukem 2, for example, has the fantastic Rigel Engine that allows the game to run natively on modern operating systems with a myriad of additional tweaks. But if GOG isn’t allowed to modify the game in any way, even if they had the fan’s permission to use the port, they wouldn’t be allowed to.

A major exception with this was the Daggerfall Unity - GOG Cut, which not only ports the game to the Unity Engine, but also implements a number of fan mods that make Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall more comfortable to play.

“Daggerfall Unity – GOG Cut was our passion project and we were very thrilled with its critical acclaim,” Jach-Jaki said. “In many ways, what the modding community does aligns with our mission – making games look and play better, regardless of their age. Mods can enhance the overall experience with games not only by fixing bugs, but also by offering diverse content and improving gameplay mechanics. We see them as a way to cater to various gamers’ preferences and we are eager to work closely with modders to facilitate the integration of their input into the games.”

I’m hoping we get more of that from the platform. At least now, there’s some precedence.

Dragon's horde

In recent years, GOG has slowed down a bit from its original mission of making old DOS games accessible again. More focus seems to be on modern titles. As Jach-Jaki puts it, “The vision for Good Old Games in 2008 was simple: bring back games from the pre-digital era of gaming. This provided us with plenty of fuel for many years. Fast forward 15 years, and we have 1600+ classic games (10Y+) which is roughly 20% of our catalog.”

“We want to be a store that invites modern games as well because, at the end of the day, it's about providing amazing games to our community and catering to various tastes and needs. Even better if we can do it DRM-free!”

It’s still pretty unfortunate that there are some games that may never get a re-release simply because of licensing issues. Even getting a game as historically important as Goldeneye 007 available on modern consoles took decades, and I feel we had to make a compromise as there were very few quality-of-life improvements in the releases we did get. Meanwhile, Activision and EA are sitting on piles of 007 titles that I doubt anyone would go to the trouble of re-releasing.

Jach-Jaki explains, “This is essentially why reviving classic games based on huge licenses (many of which are held by AAA publishers) is such a challenge. There are expired OST rights to consider, sometimes actor fees, product placements, or outdated credits content. All these factors, combined with the necessary involvement of legal teams, producers, and brand teams, make it a significant undertaking. It's a lot of work, not only for us but also for the publisher. Sometimes, as harsh as it sounds, however amazing it might be to restore a game, the opportunity cost does not add up.”

“There are plenty of games like this that will probably never be enjoyed by new generations again unless game preservation is taken seriously. This is precisely what we are here for!”

The future of retro

Finally, I asked if there were any games that Urszula Jach-Jaki personally wants to see preserved.

“There are many of them!” she said. “Allow me to be somewhat vague here and refrain from mentioning specific titles, but rest assured that we have major announcements pending regarding titles we've been diligently working on for an extended period. The classic games community has much to be excited about.”

“Let me also take this opportunity to express our gratitude to our fellow gamers for suggesting titles that should be revived and contributing to the growth of our community wishlist. While we may not be able to fulfill all the requests, we strive to release as many as possible.”

The post GOG’s Urszula Jach-Jaki discusses game preservation and the business of retro appeared first on Destructoid.

Crap. It’s already December. Mercifully, I haven’t heard much Christmas music in the stores I deign to visit, but that probably now ends. The holidays are bearing down on us like a sugar-infused child.

Christmas definitely isn’t my favorite time of the year. I make the most of it, but not only am I a spiritually-devoid husk, I also once worked a job in retail over the holiday season. If you ever want a reason to give up on humanity, that’s how you do it.

So, I’m bitter about the holidays. Not only that, but I’m well-practiced at being bitter about the holidays. Maybe you are, too. If that's the case, I invite you to learn from my years of humbug-slinging and celebrate the way I do: by playing a bunch of marginally Christmas-related games that pay no respect to the holiday.

Batman Returns (SNES, 1993)

Batman Returns is easily and inarguably the best Christmas movie ever made. It has an excellent cast, including Danny DeVito as a sad vomit man and Christopher Walken as Christopher Walken. A woman gets pushed out a window by her boss, and Batman lights a clown on fire. It’s a great movie for the kids and really captures the spirit of the holiday. When I was younger, I had a Michael Keaton action figure.

You could probably argue any of the many versions of Batman Returns. I know a lot of people swear by the Amiga B-Man, but for my money, I like to walk down a street devoid of holiday shoppers and smash clowns into guardrails in the SNES version. It’s a great way to work out my ample and boundless seasonal aggression. It’s also over rather quickly, which is always something I hope for when it comes to the holidays.

Die Hard (NES, 1991)

Die Hard is easily and inarguably the best Christmas movie ever made. It really captures the holiday spirit by having a guy walk barefoot across broken glass. That’s actually a mechanic in the NES game, by the way.

I wrote about this before, but while Die Hard is sometimes considered to be kusoge, it’s rather interestingly designed. In a lot of ways, it plays like an early immersive sim. You’re set loose in Nakatomi Plaza, and you need to save the day using only your skills, your bare feet, and your knowledge of the movie’s plot.

Also, there are Christmas trees on one floor of the game, so it counts.

ToeJam & Earl (Genesis/Mega Drive 1991)

A game about two allegedly funky aliens being stranded on the hostile and uninhabitable planet Earth may not seem like it has a lot to do with Christmas. One might also say that ToeJam & Earl isn’t even a Christmas game. But really, one of the central mechanics of the game is picking up presents, opening them, and finding out what’s inside. It really captures the all-encompassing spirit of the holiday.

If that isn’t enough for you, the central religious figure the holiday supposedly represents makes an appearance. That’s right, Santa Claus. He flies around in his jetpack. If you spot him unawares, you can take part in everyone’s favorite holiday tradition. Sneak up behind him, grab his butt, and watch as presents spray out of him in all directions. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Massacre (PC, 2021)

Christmas has long been a fixture of horror movies because trauma is super effective during the holidays. Puppet Combo's Christmas Massacre taps into this classic buster of holiday cheer by casting you as Larry, a slasher killer in a Santa outfit. Larry’s Christmas tree tasks him with killing naughty people, which seems to just be everyone.

Christmas Massacre is a mostly enjoyable mess of a stealth game. But, more importantly, the image of a man wearing nothing but his underwear and a Santa mask getting directions from his Christmas tree really captures the warmth of the holidays. Then, it gives you the opportunity to extinguish it.

Parasite Eve (PS1, 1998)

1998’s Parasite Eve begins on Christmas Eve, one of the many overt links to the word “eve” that it makes. One of the earliest cutscenes in the game shows an entire opera house full of people catching fire like a Yule log and melting like a plastic tree. It really captures the warmth of the holidays.

The story stretches across the holiday season, but while it’s the (allegedly) most wonderful time of the year, there won’t be much celebrating in Manhattan. It gets evacuated due to a strange threat that turns rats into beasts and people into bubbling pools of liquid consumers. If you can get over the narrative’s obsession with mitochondria, it’s the perfect game to distract you while everyone else pretends to be happy for a couple of weeks.

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