Category: Reviews

So, how was it?

GRIS – Comfortable Discomfort

You’ve lost yourself. Material objects lay scattered under a decorated tree, endless plates of food are spread across a table, but the holiday spirit has drained the life out of you. There’s no reason for any of this when you just want to lie down. You open the eShop in a desperate search for salvation, but it paralyses you further. So many meaningless titles. Pages and pages of sales. Now you are falling perpetually with no landing in sight, as the bottom of the screen never fills. Suddenly one name stands out, GRIS? The gameplay is a bit unclear but it’s a game about loss with some very high quality art. This might just do it. This might fill the emptiness within your soul.

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1979 Revolution: Black Friday

Forty years ago, revolution swept Iran. The western backed autocrat, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was ousted from power by a popular coalition of forces and an Islamic republic, led by Allah’s apparent representative Ruhollah Khomeini, was established. 1979 Revolution: Black Friday tells the story of Black Friday, a turning point of the revolution, through the lens of fictional photo journalist Reza Shirazi. It’s less a traditional video game and more a kind of edutainment interactive historical drama, with developer iNK Stories borrowing heavily from the Telltale Games formula to immerse the player in the chaos of revolution.

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Chasm – Comfyvania

In the depths of the Nintendo eShop lies a treasure. Navigating through randomly generated sales offers, new releases and upcoming titles, you’ll find this gem buried somewhere a few pages back. Chasm is an ambitious game that takes the modern procedural approach and applies it to the classic handheld Castlevania formula. Groan, another randomly generated game? I know, I know. I am sick of them too, but I picked this game up because I wanted a new GBAvania experience so badly. There’s a lot of action games and loot games in the formula, but nothing based on exploration quite like this. It’s a very specific itch that needed scratching.

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Rise of the Tomb Raider – Press A to Rise

This game starts off in the most disorienting way possible, with a dramatic climbing sequence in the snowy mountains full of quick-time button prompts. Press A. Press X. Twirl the stick and mash Y. It’s a great way to not learn how this game plays at all. It’s not too hard, just confusing. You’ll be holding up on the analog stick most of the time, watching Lara jump perfectly across gaps and grab her wall of choice. You are left guessing which direction Lara is going to jump as the camera swings wildly on its own. Just press A and hope for the best. Press X to grab the wall. Oh, okay. I did that I guess? Oh no, I fell. Wait, I’m meant to fall. Really got me there, game. The whole scene is just overly stressful despite barely any button inputs happening at all. It gave me a horrible first impression as the game felt very phony and I hadn’t even played a Tomb Raider game before and didn’t know any backstory to this game. I was ready to delete the game after this and move on.

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Project Highrise – A Vertical Empire

Project Highrise, by Somasim Games is an unabashed homage to Yutaka “Yoot” Saito’s 1994 hit SimTower. The two games share the same premise and aesthetic, with Project Highrise’s art style firmly planted in the early 1990s. It’s a game where you’re tasked with constructing and managing a building, leasing out space to offices, shops, hotels, restaurants and apartments, with the revenue going into services for the tenants and further construction. It’s a sandbox management sim and I think it’s a really good one, but there’s a lot to talk about and the comparisons to SimTower have to be made. Continue reading “Project Highrise – A Vertical Empire” →

The Switch Online NES App is Amazing and Has Tons of Potential for Nintendo Classics

I know most of you have said this:

“I’m not paying $20 a year for online NES games!”

Well, first, whatever. I’m sorry your precious on-system voice chat isn’t there (and quite frankly those features were things I never liked in the first place, thanks experience on 360 Live!), or the fact you are now bitching about Cloud Saving despite that being a thing you wanted. I bought Switch Online membership for the year, and so too did Deguello. Why? Continue reading “The Switch Online NES App is Amazing and Has Tons of Potential for Nintendo Classics” →

forma.8 – 8.amrof

You might remember forma.8 as one of the Wii U demos in the Nindie promotion from 2015. It was one of the games that impressed me most at the time, and has stayed in my mind ever since. Every time the demo icon showed up on the eShop scrolling puzzle, I wondered when it would come out. The full game was finally released this month, and I have to give the team props for not cancelling the Wii U version like other devs have been doing. I’m glad I finally got to play it before Switch comes out. Before getting deep into this review however, I have to get one thing off my chest.

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Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World – Enhanced Multi-thread Technology

Something strange has happened to Woolly World! A yarn ball has unraveled in a distant thread of the Woollyverse, causing Woolly World to shift platforms all the way to the 3DS! As if being pulled by a string, we have arrived on a different gaming system. This new atmosphere has all the same levels with some slight changes in the weather, and brand new 3D depth. Poochy has also joined as a full-time friend, and Yoshi is now ready to have more fun than ever.

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Twilight Princess HD – I’m a Hero Now

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A lot has changed in a decade. Suddenly I’m holding a baby and the world is mirrored. I must be getting old too, because my movement feels sluggish. It takes me longer to stop, and I can’t even walk and aim at the same time. It’s like my legs lock into place, I can’t move anywhere until I pull the camera back. I feel sorry for whoever has to stare at my butt while crawling.

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Lifespeed – Ups & Downs

Exclusive to New 3DS, Lifespeed is a futuristic racer with a lot of speed, weapon powerups, a story mode, and online leaderboards. It’s the first game by Irish developer Wee Man Studios and a very ambitious concept to start your industry portfolio with. After extensive play I have to admit the game has a lot of flaws, but at its core the racing experience is very enjoyable.

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Dragon Quest VII – Post-Game Party Time

What a videogame. After completing the 100 hour story of Dragon Quest VII I felt a huge sense of pride and satisfaction. Without spoiling what happened, the ending was epic, interesting, and a highly suitable way to end such a game. It was an outstanding journey I will never forget, and one of the greatest RPGs of all time. The story has a very large scope yet every town and little moment feels special. It’s so rewarding to solve people’s problems, with some of the best writing I’ve ever enjoyed in a videogame.

However, even after hours and hours of dialogue and traveling, one thing was still stirring in my mind. After beating the end boss and completing the story I was still only level 44. Out of a potential 99 levels this felt a bit low and I still felt like I had unfinished business. I knew there was still more to explore with the Monster Meadows mechanic, tablets, and more fragments to collect. I enjoyed the game so much, I immediately went back into it to see what else I could do. I won’t bother with a spoiler warning here, because you should know what you’re getting into if you read further. It’s EVERYTHING! It’s the post-game!

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Those gaming thoughts and feels: Quadrilateral Cowboy

Sometimes I half-jokingly tell my friends I think gaming is a degenerate medium. Obviously I cannot claim to truly believe this as I spend so much of my time playing games. But really I think the lived experience of most games is that, played in excess, they are an affront to the human spirit and mind. That is because many games require you to repeat a certain enjoyable task over and over, training you to be dumber and less expectant of creativity and originality in the fictional world.

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Art of Balance – Collapsing Into a Puddle of Tears

Shin’en have crafted a finely balanced library on the Wii U. To offset the speed and destruction of FAST Racing Neo, Art of Balance is a game about being as slow as possible. I held off buying this game for a long time for that reason, it just looked boring. A bunch of shapes on a plain background. I finally downloaded the game and assembled my own opinion of it.

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