Four years ago, What the Golf? was an incredibly fun surprise that I still fondly remember to this day. It was a silly and playful physics based adventure game that turned different genre mechanics on their head and I was somewhat surprised that the team behind that game decided to essentially repeat the idea with What the car?, after VR experiments with What the bat? This time it’s racing games, instead of golf, and while the results are still funny, something is definitely lacking.
Tag: game review
O tempora: Castlevania Dominus Collection
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
I’m glad that Konami keep releasing games and collections from the time when they developed good games and were respected. Three years ago they released the really cool Castlevania Advance Collection that collected all “IGAvanias” (Castlevania titles with “metroidvania” world design, usually produced by Koji Igarashi) released for the Game Boy Advance. That collection was full of absolute bangers, though it was a bit of a shame that the games were just emulated originals, with all of their faults and bugs intact. But at least it was preserving the classics.
Now its time for the titles, originally released for Nintendo DS, with a cool bonus game added in. Surprisingly, revisiting these games was somewhat less enjoyable overall.
Thoughts on: Silent Hill 2 (2024)
I still find it odd that Silent Hill 2 got remade. Original game was such a surprise to those who played the first game, but that one did not get a remake and is still exclusive to PlayStation 1. When I revisited both Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2 last year it felt “right” to play them in sequence, despite no direct story connection between the games. But that is far from the only reason I wasn’t exactly sure about what to expect from this new game. The franchise has been dead for over a decade and apart from few bright spots here and there, Silent Hill began losing relevance with SH4, 20 years ago. Was there even a point in reviving the franchise not just with a remake, instead of a new game, but also a remake of one of the most praised games in history?..
Well, whatever the case, Silent Hill 2 (2024) is here now. And it’s… alright, actually. I can see lots of people loving this game much more than the original. But only time will tell, if the remake will have the same “timeless” appeal. I have my doubts.
O tempora: Doom + Doom II
O tempora is a series of retrospective posts where I play games from ages before to see if they stood the test of time.
Well, it finally happened. I’ve finally played both classic Doom titles start to finish and even all of its official expansions. It might sound weird to some, given how huge and important Doom has been for the development of FPS and game industry as a whole, but it just so happened that I was never much of an id Software games player. Even though Spear of Destiny was my first introduction to this type of games, I just never really played through any of their titles start to finish until decades later. Which includes the classic Doom games – I have played and finished the original Doom (that is, the first three episodes) a very long time ago, but I’ve never played any other title in its entirety apart from the Playstation version of the Final Doom, which was my only point of contact with the Doom II expansions. And yes, I did get it back in the day, because I thought it was the “final definitive version of Doom”, not realizing that it’s a completely different game…
But now Doom and Doom II have been officially re-released on all modern platforms in a remastered package by NightDive, with all of the official, and even some previously unofficial, releases combined into one game. And I’ve decided that it was finally time to give it a proper go.
Disapprove: Visions of Mana
As someone who didn’t play any Mana/Seiken Densetsu titles until the Trials of Mana remake, that I really enjoyed, I don’t really have any specific expectations from the series. All I want these games to be is fun jRPG/action RPG adventure titles with simple but exciting plots and some curious, if not necessarily revolutionary ideas. And while I didn’t enjoy my time with the Secret of Mana remake (and doubt I would’ve liked the original either), I still admired what it was trying to achieve as a SNES game from 1993. Plus, its story, while basic, was still curious and the world had lots of interesting and unexpected elements to it.
Which isn’t entirely lacking from Visions of Mana either – it does have its moments, its visual style is like concept art come to life and there is an adventurous spark to it. But unfortunately, it is also tedious, way too long for what it actually has to say and the cause for it all might not be some series of bad calls from the development team. No, the real issue here is that Visions of Mana feels like a game made by several teams, none of which knew what they were doing and why.
Happy about: Hebereke 2/Ufouria: The Saga 2
Immediately after playing Hebereke for the first time, I’ve decided to see how the recently released sequel is going to tackle the seemingly same basic concept. The results were surprising, often pleasantly but sometimes not as much.
Thoughts on: Hebereke Enjoy Edition and Gimmick! Special Edition
A lot of people have nostalgy for games from Sunsoft and I can see why. However, for me it was never the case. I did play Blaster Master and perhaps Batman on NES a bit as a kid, but the only game of theirs I’ve played a lot was their PS1 Hard Edge/T.R.A.G. (which I do love). So, seeing the company return to making games recently and re-releasing their old classics on their own or through other companies wasn’t a big deal to me. I was curious, however, since some of their games are considered cult classics.
Two of such titles were re-released over the past two years in the new format that emulates the original NES game, but with cool quality of life editions and bonuses. These are Hebereke Enjoy Edition (known as Ufouria: The Saga in the European and Australasian release on NES) and Gimmick! Special Edition (also known as Mr. Gimmick in Scandinavian NES release). Which I was glad to finally play, because I don’t ever want to play them again.
Read more“Thoughts on: Hebereke Enjoy Edition and Gimmick! Special Edition”
Thoughts on: Sylvio: Black Waters
About 9 years ago a very unique and underappreciated game by the name of Sylvio was released. It dealt with a really curious concept of EVP – Electronic Voice Phenomena and made for a really cool and creepy ghost horror adventure with light combat mechanics. It had just the right amount of ambition for the one-person development team at Stroboskop, so while it was somewhat ugly looking and had lots of minor frustrating issues and bugs, the experience was unlike any other so the game was worth playing anyway. The game was to be followed up by an equally ambitious sequel that would move EVP research from audio to video, but, sadly, the Kickstarter campaign to support the development failed. Sylvio 2 that we got two years later was simplified in most ways in comparison to the original and while it still had cool ideas (and one of its sequences with spectrograms still gives me nightmares), it was somewhat disappointing. A few years after the release of Sylvio 2, the developer decided to stop making games.
However, the rise of the “Haunted PS1 Demo Disc” and “Dread X Collection” communities, releasing short form horror titles, got Stroboskop excited again and after participating in Dread X Collection 5 with the short title “Karao”, they’ve decided to return to bigger games with this new release of Sylvio: Black Waters. Which I’m very happy about… yet I can’t say that the resulting game is very good.
In love with: Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is not a game that I could call revolutionary or innovative. It is a very curious mix of hack and slash action game with a tower defense strategy and I haven’t seen it done quite like this before. But definitely not revolutionary. And yet, I can’t help but love this project and wish to see more huge development companies and corporations learn from it. No, not from the mix of genres, but rather from the approach this game takes. You see – this is very much a “AA game”, made by “AAA” standards, which is something you used to see all of the time back in the late 90s-early 00s, but which doesn’t really happen anymore. And playing this game reminded me of how much are we all missing out with the current gaming market trends.
Thoughts on: Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
I’ve been interested in the Prince of Persia series since experiencing the original game as a kid. And it’s hard to downplay the its influence on platforming games, both in 2D and 3D. The original (that hopefully may get the “The Making of Karateka” treatment someday, along with the sequel) established the methodical and precarious cinematic platforming that shaped the early platforming focused 3D action adventure games, most notably Tomb Raider. While Sands of Time established a new standard for 3D action adventuring, that can still be felt even in the recent releases. But the current rights holder of the series, Ubisoft, haven’t made any new Prince of Persia games for over a decade, with the last release being The Forgotten Sands in 2010 (a ironically titled game that is quite good, but, indeed, often forgotten). Instead, they focused on the franchise that began its life as a next Prince of Persia game – Assassin’s Creed.
Or at least they did until 2023, when Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown was announced. A completely new game that is going back to 2D platforming, but this time with a metroidvania-style world design, like in Warrior Within and PoP 2008. I was very excited about it, waited out the half a year of timed exclusivity on PC for EGS and… This was one of the most miserable experiences I’ve had in a while. And if not for the Prince of Persia title, I would’ve stopped playing pretty early on. That said, I won’t be surprised if there will be people with a mostly opposite experience to mine. A difference that will boil down to a simple question – do you like precision platformers?