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Rapid Reviews: Part V

12/31/2019

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Check out parts I-IV for more rapid reviews.

Walking Dead: The Final Season (Switch) - I couldn’t help but play this game while thinking about how it was the last for Telltale. It was a bittersweet ending to a unique experience.
Mana Spark (Switch) - A simple and fairly bland roguelike. While the town dynamic provides a sense of growth and purpose, it lacks a true sense of a unique hook to make it stand out from a sea of similar games.
Kid Dracula (Castlevania Anniversary Collection on PS4) - Kid Dracula finally comes to the US. Big, colorful sprites pop, the levels have a smooth flow, and your character grows (gaining magic) as you progress. It’s a neatly packaged platformer that holds up well.
Ghostbusters (Switch) - There’s a risk in playing a game that’s 10 years old: it’s not recent enough to be cutting edge and it’s not old enough to be retro. And Ghostbusters (the game) is not aging well.
Castlevania: Fan Edition (NES) - This is one of the many Castlevania hacks, leveraging sprites, music, and mechanics from the first two Castlevania games. This version attempts to recreate the original via a modified experience. I applaud the restructuring vision, namely how the adventure twists and turns through ruins and abandoned towns (Castlevania II is to thank for these assets). The execution, on the other hand, leaves more to be desired (Why are so few enemies from the originals used? Why is the same Dracula battle the end of two levels? Why not add a scared towns person or text to the signs?), as there is a sloppiness to much of the level layout (Why are there random platforms moving under the town that you can’t reach? Why remove the guarantee of whip upgrades when you aren’t fully powered from those candles?), and some unusual bugs (e.g. items constantly falling through floors) that did not exist in the originals.
Cave Story+ (Switch) - A mild and overrated retro platformer. If there is a semblance of depth and substance later I won’t be sticking around to find out.

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Rapid Reviews: Part IV

12/10/2019

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Quick reviews of games. Short and sweet.

Link's Awakening (Switch) — This is easily the cutest Zelda game to date. And with some of the best diegetic sound I’ve experienced in a game. It respectfully doesn’t change up much from the original, providing mostly a facelift, which is all it really needed.
Castlevania III (NES) — A classic that, until now, I had not played through to the end. The level design is expertly crafted such that a difficult scenario, at first attempt, feels impossible, and through some repetition patterns are unveiled, leaving you washed in the glow of solution discovering excitement. The soundtrack contains some of the absolute best the series has to offer.
Undertale (Switch) — Silly, weird, playful, funny, odd, surprising, thoughtful, unique.
Untitled Goose Game (Switch) — What a wonderful jerk this goose is.
Katana Zero (Switch) — Katana Zero is visually stunning. The tiny characters and environments pack a ton of detail with richly decorated scenes, moody colors, and carefully crafted animations. The gameplay, on the other hand, while occasionally rewarding, requires a bizarre level of precision that frequently results in annoyance. Despite its shortcomings, it’s the mysterious story that kept me coming back for more. After hours of play I got used to the gameplay and mechanics, and eventually got into a rhythm. There is a richness to this game, in terms of story and mechanics, both of which grew to be increasingly interesting the deeper I progressed.
Return of the Obra Dinn (Switch) — It has a retro look not well tapped into yet and a unique twist on the mystery and puzzle genres. It's just not for me as I found the task before me to be daunting and stressful, rather than fun.
Cuphead (Switch) — It’s exactly what I expected: looks great and is really hard. At around the 7th or 8th boss I got frustrated and switched to some other games. After taking a multi-week break I returned, and this time, grinded my way to the end. Defeating a boss in this game is incredibly gratifying, and I felt accomplished when I KOed that last baddie.
Odallus: The Dark Call (Switch) — It's rough around the edges. This was not the retro style game I was looking for.
Control (PS4) — After a few hours my feelings are mixed. It feels unpolished and clunky at times. The battles are repetitive and lack a sense of thrill. Thematically, in terms of the story, it is something that interests me. I just don’t quite enjoy how it is being executed.
Retro City Rampage (Switch) — I was expecting a GTA 1 / GTA 2 clone and was pleasantly surprised to find something much, much deeper than that. It oozes 80s nostalgia, and mashes up classic characters in unusual and surprising ways.
Contra 4 (DS) — Contra 4 looks great and is extremely challenging, much like the original (more challenging than the original, in fact). Even with the extra life code I found myself getting destroyed.
Little Sampson (NES) — Wonderboy meets Mega Man. A diverse set of playable characters and level design makes for a game that sadly was not experienced by the breadth of audience it deserved.
Blaster Master Zero (Switch) — Poorly crafted level design with meaningless dead ends makes this a hard to love game. Bosses exhibit repetitive patterns and are extremely easy to defeat. While it retained my interest enough to see it all the way through, I can’t recommend it. It’s one of those games I played at a friend’s house on the NES originally, so the nostalgic value is what kept me going. The remake is mostly a face lift with a few other minor improvements, and my biggest beef is in the level and boss design, which carries over from the original. The caves you explore as Jason often have useless dead ends, and at times are completely devoid of anything to discover (you literally just find health and weapon refills that you don’t need). And the bosses can be obliterated with extreme ease. The dialogue is also cringe worthy. It was nice to revisit a childhood game. It just doesn’t have good bones.

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Rapid Reviews: Part V

Rapid Reviews: Part IV

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