Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake is fairly loose about its objectives. While the remaster makes things more straightforward with optional quest markers, it can still be unclear on wha??t you should be focusing ??on. One of your first tasks is to get the Thief’s Key.

The Thief’s Key will grand you access to red doors that dot the early areas of the game. You won’t even be able to get off the first continent without it. Thankfully, it’s in an incredibly conspicuous spot. Chances are,?? if you spend any time exploring, you’ll eventually?? make your way there.

The Thief’s Key is located in the Dreamer’s Tower, which could be considered the first dungeon of the game. To get there, you first want to head North from Aliahan (the starting town). You’ll see a bridge, so head West over it. Once across, start making your way North until you hit a town called Reeve. You’ll probably want to visit f??or some rest and shopping.

Once you’ve had your fill of Reeve, head South to the forest. There’s a clearing? there with a square building. Enter that location and take a look around. There’s a small opening tucked away with a stone archway. Step right in.

You’ll find yourself in a passageway. Head straight south down a long corridor and you’ll find a set of stairs leading up. The?re are passages going East and West, but to get the Thief’s Key, you’ll want to take the stairs. This will lead you to the Dreamer’s Tower.

Getting the Thief’s Key in the Dreamer’s Tower

The Dreamer’s Tower is a rather straightforward dungeon in Dragon's Quest 3 HD-2D Remake. There’s no boss, and all you need to really keep in mind is that you should be climbing up. The first floor has an Inn, so if your party wa??s battered on the walk here, then you should take the opportunity to heal up. Across from the inn is the stairs to the second floor.

If you’re looking for the direct route to the Thief’s Key, you’ll want to go south once you arrive on the second? floor. Follow the south side of the tower, then, once you hit the end, curve back up N?orthward to find the stairs to the third floor.

On the third floor, you’re looking for a spiral staircas?e near the center of the map. Just head north, and then east into a hallway. You don’t have to go far before you can head south into a room with the central staircase.

This will take you to the fourth floor, right to a rooftop penthouse with the guy you’re looking for. He has the Thief’s Key and will happily hand it over to you. As I mentioned before, there’s no boss in Dreamer’s Tower. If you headed straight to the top, you may want to spend some time poking around for treasure. Some extra experie??nce from battles wouldn’t hurt, either.

What should you do with the Thief’s Key?

As mentioned, the Thief’s Key is used to open red doors. Did you take note of any of these doors while you were looking around? If so, you can head back? to them for extra treasure. Howe??ver, the important reason for having the key is so you can reach the guy who makes wrecking balls in Reeve.

Of note, there was a red door in the corridor near the entrance to the Dreamer’s Tower, south of Reeve. You can also head back to Aliahan to pop open some doors around the castle. Note that the key is not used up when you open doors. It never breaks, so you can use it as often ?as you want.

Once you’re done kicking around, head back to Reeve. There’s a house there that’s locked with a red door. Within it, you’ll find an old man upstairs. He makes wrecking balls, which are essentially just bombs. Once you have one, head Eas??t and then South around the island and you’ll find a shrine. Within it is a blocked passage. Blow it open and head through the teleporter. You’ll arrive near Romaly, which is essentially the start of the wider adventure.

The post How to Get the Thief’s Key in Dragon Quest 3 appeared first on Destructoid.

Very early into Elden Ring, I kept seeing these random, cracked, conspicuous-as-hell statues with a blue or ??turquoise light. And 50 hours in, I finally know how ??to break them open.

Backing up a step, there are many different types of statues in this game, some of which you can directly interact with. I'm not talking about those. I mean the statues that are partially sliced open, and often embedded in the ground or toppled over. You'll pro?bably recognize them when you see them. Like this one!

**Spoilers below**

If you're anyt?hing like me, you might've tried two-handing your weapon, various jump attacks, and explosive throwables, to name a few tactics that seemed like a good idea at the time. No dice �?at least, not that I've seen. Instead, you'll need to source some outside help. You need to use a big boy.

That's right, a big boy

Had I spent more time scoping out this cracked glowing statue on stormy Limgrave hillside with several trolls roaming nearby, I probably would've figured out the solution way sooner. In fact, on a return visit, the a-ha moment happened organically: a giant just casuall??y strolled through it on his way to my character, and the cracked statue exploded, revealing a shiny reward.

What was inside? Unfortunately, just some low-level smithing stones �?a useful find in the early game, but far less helpful down the road when they're ??more p?lentiful.

If you missed the statue pictured above, you might've seen this sta??tue with a glowing crack in the heart of Stormveil Castle, which you would've gone past on your way to the boss.

It's not-so-conveniently resting next to a large, gnarly enemy �?large enough to make me think it could also be strong enough to bust open the statue... but it didn't work for me. Appearance isn't always everything, but once you get a feel for who (or what) has the magic touch to bust open glowing statues in Elden Ring, you'll probably be able to ins?tantly recognize them.

What I simply had to do upon luring this troll was to have it casually walk on top of this statue. It could have also just swung its weapon at me and broken the statue as collateral damage, but at lowe??r levels, that could be very risky.

Interestingly, it seems that other large-scale enemies in Elden Ring are capable ??of opening these glowing cracked statues. When we mean big boys, they don't have to be on the s?cale of the aforementioned trolls. You just need to be able to look and them and think, "Yeah, this guy could probably eat rocks."

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Other ways to break glowing cracked statues in Elden Ring

Depending on the area you're in, you will have to do some scouting on what the biggest enemies are??. You'll have to train a beast or two and bring them to the statue with the glowing cracks. In the example below found in the Sealed Tunnel, this statue is against the wall, so you can't just hide behind it in hopes of your enemy walking right into it.

What you will have to do is put your back against the statue as an enemy is about to attack you. At the right moment, dodge its attack ??and hopefully, they'll open the thing for you. Not the safest thing to do, but you probably won't get anywhere just asking politely, either.

What do glowing cracked statues contain?

In terms of reward, from every example I've seen, these glowing cracked statues just give out various tiers of upgrade materials like Smithing Stones for your weapons and shields. A potentially good haul, but not nece??s??sarily something I'd want to go out of my way to get, if that makes sense.

This is just the latest in a line of "Wow, I really overthought that!" moments in the game. I'm loving it. Especial??ly now?? that I've hit a brick wall, and it's time to go wandering again.

The post How to break glowing bl??ue cracked statues in Elden Ring appeared first on Destructoid.

There are quite a few flavors of damage in Once Human, ??which can make things a bit confusing at a glance. Very confusing, actually, because the game lists Elemental Damage and Status Damage as distinct values, even though t?hey’re quite similar.

In this post?, we'll go over everything you need to know about Status damage in Once Human.

Status Damage explained

To understand Status damage in Once Human, you'll first need to get a basic grasp of the different kinds of builds that are available. We have builds that focus on weapon damage and builds that focus on Elemental damage. T??he elemental builds utilize both Elemental and Status damage to varying degrees.

Status damage applies particularly to the Burn and Frost elements, where continuous Status damage can be triggered as a weapon effect. This deals direct Status damage to the targets affected by or?? within the trigger effect's range.

But the popular Unstab??le Bomber and Power Su??rge builds also utilize Status damage.

So what's the difference between the two?

The difference between Status and Elemental damage in Once Human

In a nutshell, Elemental Damage ?is a special kind of dam?age like Blaze, Blast, Shock, or Frost. Status Damage is a damage-over-time effect such as Burn or Frost Vortex. Status Damage sometimes has an Elemental, er, element, but they’re essentially different concepts.

• Elemental Damage: A specific type of damage that some enemies may be strong/weak against.
• Status Damage: Status effects damage over time.

Almost all of the Elemental builds in Once Human require a combination of Elemental and Status damage to be more effective damage dealers. This is even true of builds like Power Surge, which makes no mention of Elemental damage in th?e description, but yet relies on Elemental damage within damage calculations.

However, Status Damage doesn’t have to have an elemental attribute. If you have a weapon that causes vulnerability, then that will simply make the enemy take more damage for a length of time.

When you’re buffing your character, ?you’ll want a combination of both. If you’re focusing on frost damage, you’ll want to build the Frost DMG stat. However, if you’re using a weapon that? causes Frost Vortex, then you’ll also want to build up Status Damage to increase how long an enemy takes damage from its effect. You’ll benefit by giving a bit of love to both categories.

The post Once Human Status damage explained appeared first on Destructoid.

I consider the N64 to be my main stomping ground, comprising a large p??ortion of my video game library. Although I recognize the considerable drawbacks of both the hardware and the era in which it was spawned, I love it all the same. I suppose the fact that it’s a contrasting mix of good and bad is really the cause of my attraction. The PS1 is too good. The Saturn is too lacking. But the N64 is like fine art played on a vaseline-smeared screen.

It had some great titles, though. While I’m confident in my picks for this list, I’m leaving out a number of titles that I could gush about. That’s sort of why I don’t like lists like this, I’d rather talk in-depth about the merits and problems of each game in their own context, not compare them. However, if someone is going to do it, I’m definitely the most qualified. I’m fairly sure everyone thinks that about themself, but only I am correct in this assessment.

And lucky you, I've updated the list from a meager five select choices to a sprawling 20. At that point, we start to get into muddier territory w??here numerous games could fit the spot. I could keep going, though. One day, I might revisit my list and do just that. Keep me around, and we could reach the whole library one day. But for now, it's 20.

20. Goldeneye 007

When Goldeneye 007 was released in 1997, it was a phenomenon. I remember that wherever I’d go to rent it, I usually had to put down a reservation on it because it was constantly out of stock. Even at the Blockbuster the nex??t town over, it was elusive. I? eventually got my own copy for my birthday.

Nowadays, however; yeesh. I’m someone who doesn’t think that games really age. They can be superseded if a later game takes all the same features and improves them, but what was great then is great now. However, after years of being used to cleaner graphics and reasonable framerates, Goldeneye 007 is rough. The game runs like everyone is wading through pudding, and the framerate drops into slideshow territory whenever the action heats up. It’s also so blurry that, on certain levels, it’s extremely difficult to tell where the enemies are until the autoaim po??ints your gun at them or you see a muzzle flash. Playing the Jungle level was a good way to tell if you needed to dust off your CRT screen.

At its core, it’s still great. It has a unique formula where you need to explore levels to locate and accomplish objectives. You also need to exfiltrate, which is something that FPS games rarely ever had. The successor to Wolfenstein 3D’s key hunt formula for first-person shooters would wind up being Half-Life’s linear narrative, but if you ask me, more games should have copied off of Goldeneye’s sheet.

19. Mario Kart 64

I probably would have put Mario Kart 64 higher on the list, but I think there’s some childhood trauma there. It was a game that my entire family would play back when it was released, and whil?e I was the big gamer in the family, this was one game that my parents and sister could beat me at. I would have been around 10 in those days, so even if I still would play along, my developing ego was fragile.

I think Mario Kart DS was when the series really nailed the series�?feel, but Mario Kart 64 had it where it?? counts. Maybe the speed wasn’t quite there, ?and the drifting didn’t feel right, but the tracks are some of the best the series has ever seen. Its battle mode also took what was already great on the SNES and lifted it even higher. There was better verticality, more interesting level design, and, of course, four-player support.

I think what makes Mario Kart 64 still worth playing these days is that it still has a sense of danger. There’s more risk and reward, and it wasn’t afraid to make you freeze or crush you under the wheels of a much bigger car. It is, quite possibly, the meanest Mario Kart.

18. Diddy Kong Racing

If you’re just looking at screenshots, Diddy Kong Racing just looks like a differently-themed version of Mario Kart. In reality, it’s only partially that. Rare went in a bit of a different direction by combining the weapon-laden racing of Mario Kart with a sort of collect-a-thon metagame. Not only can you get ball??oons for winning racers, but you can also find keys to unlock challenge races, T.T. Tokens for time trials, and more. Plus, there were boss rac??es.

But beyond that, racing isn’t relegated to carts. There are also planes and hovercrafts, and certain side modes challenge your mastery of the vehicles. The races are heavily themed, and while they’re not quite as varied and unique as Mario Kart 64’s, they still give you a lot to chew on.

The best part, however, is that you can play through adventure mo?de with a?? coop buddy. You have to unlock this with a code for some reason, but it makes for a fun afternoon.

17. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Listen, I have opinions about Star Wars, and it’s hard to talk about the games without touching on it. To put it as succinctly as possible, the galaxy far, far away is dead to me. But before the nails started getting pounded into the coffin by the prequel trilogy, we got some of the best games from it. Games like Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

Rogue Squadron certainly wasn’t the first space combat game based on the series, but while Star Wars: X-Wing went in sort of an (awesome) simulation direction, Rogue Squadron was s?impler and more narrative-focused. Well, “narrative-focused�?might be stretching it, but it covers the period between Episodes 4 and 5. It still stayed very true to the look of the films, drawing from the extended universe novels, as well. It’s just too bad about the escort missions.

16. Blast Corps

1997 was kind of a stupid year for Rare. Good stupid. They came swinging onto the N64 with three of the games on this list. But as much as I love Goldeneye and Diddy Kong Racing, Blast Corps is the one that has endured for me. In fact, right ?now, I’m keeping myself pinned to my chair so I don’t get up and slot it into my N64.

Blast Corps is just lunacy. It tells the story of this truck with nuclear devices on it that gets locked on a completely straight course. Naturally, there are buildings in the way but, somehow, no steep drops, cliffs, or mountains. The only people who can save the day is a hardcore demolition company. ??Their plan is to just level everything in the path of this carrier, and also everything in the vicinity. If we’re just demolishing everything anyway, I’m not sure why we need to stop a nuke from going off. There was actually a comic about it in Nintendo Power, but it doesn’t actually answer a lot of questions.

So, it makes hilariously little sense, but it lays fine groundwork for a game about knocking down buildings using heavy equipment. And not just, like, a bulldozer. There is a bulldozer, but there ar??e also cartwheeling robots and off-road rocket buggies that ramp into buildi?ngs to knock them over. Absolutely incredible.

One of the only reasons I've ever been tempted to own a more recent Xbox is because of Rare Replay, and a big part of that is because I want to play HD Blast Corps. I just can't justify it when I own a PC, but for everyone who owns Rare Replay, I have one question: How ??awesome is it to be you?

15. Mario Party 2

Mario Party essentially launched the party game genre for a while, even before it exploded during the Wii’s early years. It started off modestly enough, giving people palm blisters with its stick-rotating mini-games, but Mario Party 2 is where it hit its st??????????????????????????ride. Or possibly its peak, if you ask some people.

While Mario Party 2 adheres well ?enough to the board game-like formula of the first game, it introduces facets like duel mini-games to keep things more interesting. It’s also home to Horror Land, the creepiest board to ever hit the series with its strange night/day happenings. But, perhaps most importantly, it nixes the stick-rotat??ing games, which may have saved a lot of joysticks and palms.

14. Perfect Dark

If you could withstand Goldeneye’s blurry visuals and nauseating framerate, Perfect Dark has a new challenge for you, since it inherits many of the same problems. Howev??er, it also pushes the system much harder and has a level of detail that few games strive for, even today.

It’s a sequel to Goldeneye in everything but name, taking all the standards set by that game and extrapolating on them. It continues the objective-based mission structure, takes it to the near future, and throws in some aliens and presidential clones for good measure. There’s also a greatly expanded multiplayer mode, including many of the same rulesets as Goldeneye, but expanding it with bots, a greater arsenal, and bigger maps. You can even play the standard missions with a second playe??r. It’s rad!

Except, as mentioned, the framerate will drop into the gutter with little provocation. An updated HD version was later released for the Xbox 360 and is still available on Xbox platforms, and simply because the hardware’s horsepower is up to the task, it’s a much better experience. Perfect Dark w??as always a great game, the N64 just isn’t the best plac?e for it.

13. Paper Mario

Super Mario RPG was among the last big games to hit the SNES before the focus moved to the N64. It was a pretty big deal, featuring a collaboration between Nintendo and Squaresoft and graphics that felt like they pushed the console. So, excitement was pretty high to see a follow-up, and we never quite got one. Paper Mario was originally in development under the name Super Mario RPG 2, but with a different developer, different art style, and different gameplay, the only thing? the two games really have in common was the fact that they’re JRPG-lites.

Okay, that’s not the only thing the two games have in common, but Paper Mario is a different beast entirely. It further boils down the RPG side of things while still keeping Mario RPG standards, like its reflex-based button presses to enhance damage or defense during battle. However, it’s quite a bit sillier and, in a lot of ways, helped bette?r define the underlying sense of humor of the Mario series.

12. Star Wars: Episode 1: Racer

You can refer to the entry for Rogue Squadron if you want to hear me circle around my feelings on Star Wars, but to sum it up, I didn’t like the prequels to the point of disillusionment with the franchise in its totality. However, Phantom Menace did lead to some great games, and while Battle For Naboo was an okay follow-up to Rogue Squadron, Episode 1: Racer finds the best home for the movie’s pointlessly ostentatious pod-rac?ing scene.

The result is some of the best high-speed, edge-of control future-racing since, well, F-Zero X, which is further down this list. It also ties in a layer of depth around upgrading and maintaining your machine. The tracks start o??ff as small samplers of what will be sprawling circuits in the later stages of the game. Narrow canyons and track obstructions challenge you to keep your pod in one (three?) piece. It’s only let down by some pretty awful sound design.

11. Pilotwings 64

One of the launch titles for the N64, Pilotwings 64 takes the ???strangely relaxing flight school aesthetic of the original SNES title and expands it to a celebration of polygonal 3D. It features detailed physics and a massive draw distance that was extremely rare to see in the era.

It’s something of an unassuming game, featuring goofy characters and offbeat challenges such as firing them out of a cannon in?to a giant target. Others?? have you taking pictures while keeping your hang glider aloft. A couple involve shooting rockets at a giant metal man. It also contains a lot of the tangible optimism of early N64 games, where devs experimented with the over-promised and under-delivered hardware.

Pilotwings 64 is something I return to every so often because, like the original, it’s quiet and relaxing without sacrificing the challenge. I mean, I’ve played it so often that there’s very little challenge left for me, but it’s not like i?t’s effortless and meaningless.

10. WWF No Mercy

It’s rarely disputed that the best era for wrestling games was exclusive during AKI’s tenure on the N64. And that’s not just because they hit during the Monday Night Wars. They first began with the WCW for a couple of titles before moving on to the WWF. And really, WWF: Wrestlemania 2000 was great in its own right, and WCW/NWO Revenge has “Macho Man�?Randy Savage in it. Personal preference might put either of those games here instead. Or even Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 if I was including N64 games.

But, for my money, I’d give it to WWF No Mercy by a healthy margin. The gameplay itself was at its most detailed while it took concepts like backstage brawling in a direction where it’s actually a lot of fun. When AKI moved to WWF, the WCW license moved to EA who made a game based entirely around backstage fighting, and it was complete trash. No Mercy effortlessly makes it worth experiencing.

It also had multip?le story modes with branching moments based on how well you do. A person could get lost in the create-a-wrestler mode as they dream up their own wrestling narrative. And as anyone who was into wrestling at the time will tell you (I wasn’t, this is just what I was told), it was hard ??to beat the four-player modes.

9. Battletanx Global Assault

After the failure of the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, 3DO had to pivot hard to being a software company. And while they’re often associated with the maligned Army Men deluge of games, it’s easy to forget that they had a lot of talented staff on board. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the two Battletanx games that hit the system. The original game was already pretty great, but Global Assault took that and expanded on i????t in every way possible.

Battletanx takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where gangs roam around in surprisingly abundant tanks. You play as Griffin Spade, who le?ads his army across America and Europe to save his son. The story isn’t all that special, but the tank-on-tank fighting is hard to b?eat. Levels are almost entirely destructible, and you’re given a tonne of weapons to bring down the house. Nothing can quite beat the nuke, which is quite literally a nuclear bomb that levels most of the map, destroying or badly damaging everyone in the area with an explosion/shockwave combo that is visually impressive for the time.

If it’s not already abundantly clear, it’s not exactly a simulation take on warfare. The tanks run like they are fueled ??by Pixy Stix, and the main gameplay mode is a variation of Capture?? the Flag where the flag is a woman. Incredible stuff.

8. Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is essentially the b??asis of how a platformer should work in 3D. The N64’s controller was more-or-less designed around how Shigeru Miyamoto’s vision for how it should be done. The result is something extremely ambitious, very experimental, and damned impressive. Also, it’s a bit unwieldy.

The early 3D days were littered with the bodies of mascots from 2D games that weren’t able to make the transition. It makes sense Nintendo would want to have things?? perfect for their central character. I??n a bit of an abstract adventure, Mario jumps through the various paintings in Peach��s castle to collect stars that allow him to advance further. It’s a formula that would be adopted as the standard for collect-a-thon 3D platformers.

It’s a bit divisive nowadays, as later games, especially modern ones, have really ironed out some of the flaws in the game’s movement system and camera. Personally, I get the complaint, but I still find Super Mario 64 to be a lot of fun whenever I pop it in.

7. Beetle Adventure Racing

While you might be tempted to lump Beetle Adventure Racing with any later licensed advergame like, say, Ford Mustang: The Legend Lives, the developers clearly didn’t have hawking wares since the game they came up with is a much more whimsical approac?h?? to driving. The fact that the central and only vehicle is a Volkswagen Beetle is completely secondary.

Beetle Adventure Racing is unique in the fact that its tracks are comprised of a circuit of braided shortcuts. Your success isn’t determined entirely by how well you can handle your wheels, but more in how willing you are to explore. A perfect run doesn’t come from perfect cornering but whether or not you can take advantage of each route through the track. Crates are scattered about the track, with nitro boosts t?o give you a kick of speed and points that can help you out by providing continues or unlocking stuff. In order to get all of them and stay?? supplied with nitro, you essentially need to follow a different route each time you circle the track.

There really isn’t anything like Beetle Adventure Racing, even today. It??’s another demonstrati??on that, in terms of arcade racing games, the N64 really was its own little ecosystem.

6. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

We’ve established that Mario made the transfer to 3D unscathed, so the pressure was on for Zelda. For a long time leading up to its eventual release, Ocarina of Time was shown off as Zelda 64, and it had a very different look and feel. I kind of have to wond??er what the early version felt like, but it clearly wasn’t good enough for the developers, so they made some big changes, and what we wound up with was worth it.

Ocarina of Time, in some ways, feels a lot like a remake of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Structurally, it’s very similar, with an initial set of intro dungeons before expanding to larger ones. However, its look and feel, as well as a greater focus on narrative, makes for a completely different beast.
Video games were becoming a lot grander at this point in time, and Ocarina of Time is a good example of this. There’s a heavy focus on atmosphere, with it even delving pretty close to hor??ror at times. Its soundtrack had the biggest impact on the series going forwar?d, and it nailed down the last lingering standards of the formula. It was a big deal when it first released and is still worth playing today.

5. Star Fox 64

The on-rails shooter is a sub-genre that remains widely untapped. It’s bizarre to think that the best example of it is still the 1997 classic, Star Fox 64. While largely a re-do of the SNES original, telling the same story but in greater detail, it manages to be a bett??er realization of the concept while ??still being equally experimental.

Anyone who has played it probably has a bunch of favorite moments from the game. Was it when the train explosion made the rumble pack go ballistic? How about when Star Wolf appeared in their upgrade??d Wolfens? To top it off, if you had any extended experience with it, I bet there’s a tonne of voice lines burned into your brain that you can repeat pitch perfectly.

Nintendo has never really topped it, and unlike some other series in their pocket, they have tried. It's pretty sad when it looks like the series barely got off the runway, but maybe we just have to accept t?hat it?? reached perfection quickly.

4. Ogre Battle 64

Ogre Battle on the SNES was a great game with a lot of problems. Its follow-up, Ogre Battle 64: A Person of Lordly Caliber, solved a lot of those problems, feeling more like a realization of the intended formula. The only problem is that the N64’s horrible gelatin blur makes the whole game look ugly. Not the art style, which is fantastic, it's mostly j?ust the textures and the filtering over the sprites. Yeesh. If any game needs a remaster, it’s this one.

But it’s 60 hours of troop-upgrading fun and semi-strategic combat. The back of the box says 50 hours, and it’s lying. The narrative is surprisingly deep, combining some groundedness with a healthy dash of whimsy. Building your perfect team of units is extremely engaging, and while the strategy isn't terribly deep, it's hard ?to pull away from.

3. F-Zero X

Have you ever truly appreciated what a fever dream F-Zero X is? The ridiculously fast speed that keeps you on the edge of control, bizarre aliens and robots piloting strange amalgams of metal and glass, foggy tracks hovering in the midst of nowhere. That’s to say nothing of the sound design here, which sounds like the outer limits of a concussion. F-Zero X is a legend. While the console follow-up �?F-Zero GX on GameCube �?may have tightened up the gameplay,? it also added an unhealthy dose of sanity. I prefer my racing games to be nauseatingly abstract.

F-Zero X established the series as one of the best racing games around, and it should be a gem in Nintendo's st... stable? However, it's only been recently that they suddenly seem aware that it even exists. Many of the games have made their way to the Nintendo Switch Online retro catalog, with F-Zero X being one of them, and F-Zero 99 is a succ??essful, new-ish entry. It would just be nice if they gave it a proper return.

2. Banjo-Kazooie

The N64 was the best era for Rare, with the developer putting out a number of games that are close runners for this list. I consider Banjo-Kazooie the best for a number of reasons, but mostly because it’s as tight as cling-wrap. The controls are basically stolen wholesale from Super Mario 64 and presented in a ??less hyperactive manner. The var?iety is on point, and some fantastic pacing ensures there’s always something cool up ahead. Plus, Gruntilda is a fantastic omnipresent antagonist who taunts you all through her lair.

You may wonder why Banjo-Tooie isn’t here instead (or anywhere on the list) since it did see a major reassessment a few years ago by some fans around the internet. I also reassessed it and found it to be?? a bloated sack of boredom. The best thing I can say about it is that Banjo makes the best noise when he takes a nap in his backpack. Other than that, it’s a slog.

But we're not talking about that. We're talking about Banjo-Kazooie, which is platforming perfection. Concise, but winding? and varied. Full of personality. Absolutely joyful in every facet. It doesn't get much better.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

Majora’s Mask is not just my pick for the best game on the N64; it’s one of my favorite titles of all time. While I love the Zelda series in general, Majora’s Mask transcends its kin. While its gameplay sticks largely to the established formula of overworld exploration and dungeon delving,? it’s thematically dense. It presents a world gradually coming to terms with its? imminent destruction, depicting characters that respond with anger, denial, sorrow, resignation, and even disassociation. Most of the world’s inhabitants don’t have many lines of dialogue, but each one encapsulates so much emotion.

As a person, Majora’s Mask added a dash of whimsy to my perception of death. It covers so many facets of this unifying experience and how?? we individually approach it. We’re always staring it down, constantly trying to find meaning, yet still, we hold onto our failures.

Hm? The gameplay? Oh, it’s goo??d. I like the mountain area, especially.

The post Top 20 best N64 games of all time, ranked appeared first on Destructoid.

Get your friends together and party like it’s 2011 (holy crap) again, because the Elder Scrolls: Skyrim: Adventure Board Game is currently 39% off on Amazon as we approach Black Friday. Or maybe don’t get friends together, because you can pl??ay it with one player, just like the PC game it’s based upon.

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim: Adventure Board Game tosses you into the eponymous province of Tamriel as one of the last remaining members of the Emperor’s personal guard, the Blades. You find yourself pitted against enemies found in the video games, i??n??cluding dragons and Daedra, and travel between the various holds, such as Whiterun and Solitude. You and (possibly) your friends can (cooperatively) customize your characters and take on two campaigns and six chapters to decide the fate of the province.

It’s recommended for players 14 and up, and some have commented that it has a bit of a learning curve to it. It takes around 1-2 hours for a full session. ??The overall game is (usually) quite pricy but completely within the realm of your typical adventure-in-a-box, so now is a great time to d?ive in. It’s also worth noting that the box contains:

• Player Figures x6
• Skill Test Dice x8
• Enemy Dice x1
• Health Cubes x4
• Stamina Cubes x4
• Magicka Cubes x4
• Armor Cubes x18
• Track Limit Tokens x12
• Final Blow Tokens x4
• Skill Tokens x72
• Experience Tokens x42
• Gold Tokens x42
• Component Tokens x72
• Threat Tokens x100
• Player Quest Markers x16
• Quest Markers x24
• Starting Player Token x1
• Horse Tokens x4
• Ulfric’s Militia Token x1
• Character Boards x4
• Game Board x1
• Rulebook x1
• Tutorial/Scenario Book x1
• Quest cards x296
• Dungeon cards x54
• Encounter cards x67
• Follower cards x25
• Character cards x6
• Item cards x196
• Upgrade/Enchantment cards x46
• Status cards x41
• Event cards x68
• Wilderness cards x20
• Town cards x19
• Dungeon Challenge cards x6
• Reference cards x4.

That’s a lot. Like, I wasn't sure how it would look typed out. I wasn't prepared. But if you fall in love with it and need even more, there are expansions that you can purchase to get more out of it. In fact, the From the Ashes and Dawnguard expansions are also on sale alongside the base game. Meanwhile, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim: Adventure Board Game is 39% off putting the price at $84.99 for a limited time. To note, that's actually the lowest price the game has seen.

The post Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Board Game curre?ntly 39% off on Amazon ahead of Black Friday appeared first on Destructoid.

There’s always been some debate around whether or not games are art, but in the late aughts and early �?0s, some decided to really push for it. Sometimes, this resulted in kind of mostly successful experiments like Citizen Abel: Gravity Bone or Limbo, while other times we got more unfortunate, pretentious attempts like The Path.

It was a really insecure time for video games. We seemed to want some sort of permission to take this hobby seriously, so it’s like, collectively, as players and developers, we tried to prove video games were something they weren’t. Oh, they’re totally art. You can see that in games about flipping eggs and trimming hedges. But it’s more about harnessing the interactive element to get that piece of yourself across. A developer might try to capture how they think or see the world by asking you to live it. I’m not sure what The Path was supposed to say. Don’t do what you’re told?

We’ve largely moved past that, or at the very least, games that are 100% message have more of a purpose. A self-assuredness. It often feels more earnest and less pretentious. Which makes Miniatures something of a blast from the past.

Miniatures (PC [Reviewed], Switch, Mobile)
Developer: Other Tales Interactive
Publisher: Other Tales Interactive
Released: November 14th, 2024
MSRP: $5.99

Now, I’m not actually saying Miniatures is pretentious. No, I'm the pretentious one today. But, it’s at least making no mystery of the fact that it’s a digital art exhibit. What I mean is that it is only interactive-adjacent, and it is very art. I wouldn’t even call it narratively focused because the stories are pretty abstract. You’ll ?either connect? with them, maybe just find them amusing, or maybe you won’t.

For me, it reminds me of extremely late nights of being bored in front of T??eletoon. Nights when my parents were out, so I had free reign of the TV and could watch whatever bizarre ??concoction was on the station in the later hours.

Teletoon would often air things from The National Film Board of Canada, which was actually the butt of a Simpsons joke back in th??e day (not while they were still good). Very cultural stuff, but a lot of it was extremely strange. Sometimes, it would be something relaxingly amusing. Ot?her times, it would be a piece of Canadiana, with the deepest of it being something from our aboriginal cultures. When you’re a pre-teen at 11 pm, it doesn’t matter what it was. Any attempt by an animation student to stretch their legs would hit like some sort of forbidden fever dream.

That’s what Miniatures took me back to; a decaffeinated Saturday night in my father’s La-Z-Boy. It’s four short chapters that sometimes make you poke the screen. On Switch and mobile, you can literally poke the screen, but here I was just poking i?t with my mouse pointer. Clicking, if you wi??ll.

I’m not trying to be dismissive, but the interactivity is very basic in Miniatures. One of the chapters has you trying to arrange a band of small sand-critters in a little sand-critter town in an extremely roundabout way. This was by far the most amusing one for? me, as you largely press on places you think something should happen and then watch while that something happens. It’s well-animated and am?using, so that’s something.

There’s one where you pan the screen around to follow a story, and every so often, you need to cl??ick on something in the environment to uncover a trigger that allows you to move on. This one was my least favorite, not because of the lack of interactivity but because I didn’t connect with it. As far as I could see, it was a directionless story that wanted to look like it had something to say but didn’t say anything at all. Or maybe I just didn’t see the message.

As for the other two, I can at least understand what they’re trying to communicate, but I think a lot of Miniatures fails because it will elicit a feeling and then not do anything with it. They don't use that feeling to deliver any sort of message. These are short, short little chapters �?miniature, if you will �?so if they want you to just soak in the feeling, then there isn’t much time to do so. One strength in the artistic side of video games is that by having the player take part in something, you can hold their head beneath whatever you’re trying to convey, and when they're good and soaked, hit them with what you want to say. Miniatures neith??er has a point nor does it drown you for very long.

But, with those last two, I at least got the vibe they were putting down. One seemed to focus on childhood loneliness and discovery, while another gave a sense of tension and dread. I’ve found I’m typically able to pick up on subtext, even in games that aren’t taking an art-first approach, so I’m not deaf to what’s going on in Miniatures. I mostly have two problems. Number one: ?I don’t think it leverages the advantages of an interactive medium for conveying ideas. Number two: I don’t connect with the ideas that are here.

This makes it kind of hard to review a game like this because its effectiveness will vary from person to person, and I can’t speak to what you’ll feel. Maybe you’ll see yourself reflected in one or all of the games here. What I can say is that from an interactive standpoint, as well as a narrative one, I find Miniatures lacking. In compa??rison to other games that I would applaud for their contributions and approach to the art form, this wouldn’t be high on the list, but I woul?dn’t throw it away wholesale, either.

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

The post Review: Miniatures appeared first on Destructoid.

Hooded Horse has announced that Long Jaunt’s noble family management game, Norland, has reached Patch 26. This one might be the l?argest yet, as it adds family trees, new NPCs, and �?perhaps most notably �???an overhaul to the world map.

Norland launched into early access in kind of rough shape. The framework w??as there, but I found it to be unbalanced and required too much juggling to really enjoy. As I described it in my early access review, none of its facets have any time to breathe, leading to things breaking down.

Since the time I played it, the devs have been hitting it hard and fast with updates to address player concerns. The gusto is admirable. I haven’t jumped back into the game since my initial encounter, but I ??have seen certain tweaks that seem like they would make things more palatable. Things like cutting down on the amount of babysitting the peasants need.

Here’s what information I have on the update: “The latest update for Norland completely overhauls the world map with new sprites, more topology, and more regional diversity. Players will start each game battling for control over a single region before transitioning to the “world�?stage and fighting over nation-states of different cultures. The overall map size is also bigger now, and a previous patch allows players to compel nearby vassals to tackle distant issues, freeing their own nobles to focus on matters closer to home.�?/p>

On top of that, an added family tree means you can keep track of your lineage so? that, I don’t know, you can keep second cousins from marrying each other. If you can stop them. The??re are also new “guest�?NPC characters such as cultists and pilgrims. I’m not sure why “guest�?is in quotes, but that’s how it is in the press release.

Norland is currently in Early Acc??ess and available on PC. Also, it's on sale for 35% u?ntil December 4, 2024.

The post Noble simulato??r Norland gets a ??map overhaul with Patch 26 appeared first on Destructoid.

Is your Nintendo Switch Pro Controller dead? Well, thanks to this post on reddit by imnotgoats that's been gaining traction this week (update note: not actually this week), you might hav??e an option before sending it off to ?Nintendo for repair.

If your Switch Pro Controller is dead, try the sync button

Although Switch Pro Controllers have a fairly goo?d reputation, it isn't foolproof. Some folks, even after years of use, have reported that their controllers have entered a weird s??tate where they seem completely dead. As in, the battery seems to be out of operation, and no amount of charging will work (the charging light won't even come on).

As the reddit thread points out, even swapping docks/cables might not solve the issue. However, upon pressing the sync button, the controller "sprang to life," and hasn't had the same issue. It's such a simple little fix but it's not something a lot of folks wouldn't think of in the moment. I mean logic would dictate that plugging it into a perfectly working cable and dock and not having the charging light come on indicates a critical ??battery issu?e, but there is one last ray of hope with the sync button.

Someone in the post even mentions they've had one that's been ??sitting on a shelf for at? least a year with this problem! Another good point is that a lot of folks play with it permanently plugged into a PC, and wouldn't even think to ever press the sync button for any reason.

2024 Update: It could still actually be the battery

It's been a couple of years since this was first written, so I'd like to add to this PSA with a PSA of my own; it's getting to be about time to check the batteries in your most trusted controllers. Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries like the ones in Switch controllers (not just Pro Controllers) don't last forever. After frequent recharging and especially if it tends to get hot in your gamer mits, the batt?ery can start to bloat.

A bloated battery might still work. In fact, it will probably still work until it hits a certain point. However, if that battery cracks or becomes pierced, it can let out the gas that is causing it to swell. It can also explode or catch fire. Obviously we d??on't want that. So, if ?you've had a controller since 2017 (or whenever) and it's not working, this is something you'll want to check into.

Thankfully, the casing of a Switch Pro Controller is translucent. You can see the battery through the back. It's not the best visual, but the rows of text on it can give you a decent indication if thi??ngs are starting to bloat in there. If you're not sure, then checking up close isn't too much of a chore. If you have a small enough screwdriver, the handl??es are held on by Phillips screws, once they're off, there are four more screws and the back battery cover will come off without needing to get too far into the controller's more sensitive parts. You can then check to see if the battery is bloated. If so, take it out, take it to a place where you can recycle batteries. Usually, Best Buy or Home Depot offers drop-offs. You can then talk to Nintendo about repair or replace it yourself with a CTR-003 Battery.

You definitely want to try the sync button method first. Even for old controllers, battery bloat isn't a certainty. However, making a visual inspection of the battery through the casing is a good best practice. You want to catch a bloated battery before it becomes a problem.

The Switch Pro Controller is still incredible

The Switch Pro Controller might be my single favorite device of this generation, just because of how stable it is. It holds a charge for...forever, to the point where I just don't even need to think about it. Plus, the Monster Hunter Rise special edition Pro looks ?gorgeous?, so I get to look down every once in a while and enjoy the design. Functionality and flair: win-win!

The post PSA: If your Switch ??Pro Cont?roller seems dead, there might be an easy fix appeared first on Destructoid.

Words have weight, which is why I swing them around with reckless abandon. I’m not sure that’s what Great God Grove is about unless you only take it literally. It��s more about identity, authority, communication, and misunder??standing.

It’s the follow-up to Smile For Me by Limbolane. But while the two games have similarities, you might miss the relation just by looking at it. One game has you interred in an asylum, whil?e the other has you fixing the relationships of the gods. However, what they have in common is head nods and fixing people.

Great God Grove (Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PC [Reviewed])
Developer: Limbolane
Publisher: LimboLane, Fellow Traveller
Released: November 15th, 2024
MSRP: $19.99

Great God Grove puts you in the boots of a Godpoke, which is, as far as I can tell, a sort of courier. To?? be honest, I’m not clear on a few concepts here. For all I know, a Godpoke might just be someone who wears a poncho. You arrive at the eponymous grove just in time to see the gods close a giant rift in the sky that threatens to end the world. The problem is that the gods aren’t entirely interested in saving the world. They’re far too wrapped up in their own problems.

Previous to your arrival, the last messenger of the gods, the mysterious King, sent letters out to all the gods. The letters are obvious attempts to drive wedges between them, but as King had al?ways been a trusted friend and reliable enough to be elected to become the next god, they took those words at face value. Now, nothing is right in the grove despite being a crucial time for the whole world.

Before you even get to the grove, King’s trusty mail can??non, the Megapon, lands directly in your lap. With this device, you can suck the words out of one person’s mouth and slap them in the face of another. Or just right back at them. That happens sometimes.

Being the wise pers??on you are (or maybe just because it’s a linear narrative), you set to work righting King’s wrong. Immediately, you’re deputized by Inspekta, the God of Leadership, to help their lackeys, the Bizzyboys, figure out what happened to King and why they decided to hurt everyone’s feelings. However, the leader of the Bizzyboys, Capochin, is only out to please his boss, while the rest of the members are completely incompetent and hapless. So, it all comes down to you.

Largely, Great God Grove resembles a point-and-click adventure game. You can’t suck up any sentence or grouping of words you want; only specific, highlighted things that characters say can go in your Megapon. In this way, they work like any item in something like Secret of Monkey Island. You find hints in the wor?ds of the people you’re talking to and deliver something that will get them to perform some task for you, even if that’s just moving out of the way.

There’s a bit of a learning curve. For the first area, I wasn’t picking up on the cues, but after th??????????????????????????e second, I was able to proceed with some expedience. I didn’t get hung up very often, but I have to wonder if that’s going to be everyone’s experience. Great God Grove has an unusual design language built around its central hook, and I’m not sure if gaming literacy will be as important here as actual literacy. I’m not sure if every player can adjust, or maybe I’m the odd one because I had some issues in the first area. I can only speak to my own experience, though, and in my experience, I didn’t have much of a problem for most of the game.

Each area of the grove is home to one or two gods. In each one, King has spread some sort of misinformation to throw things into chaos, and your overall goal is to sort things out to restore the status quo. Sounds easy, but being an adventure game, it takes more than an ??apology to work things out.

What really elevates Great God Grove above a typical adventure game is an abundance of style. It mixes 2D characters and objects with a 3D world Paper Mario-style. It’s based around Day Lane’s distinctive, sketchy, expressive style. While animation is sparse, each character has a massive range ?of poses and emotions th?at they transition to each new window of dialogue. It can be quite captivating.

Many of the gods are rendered in full 3D, but they’re styled in such a?? way that it can be hard to tel??l. Like the 2D folks, the gods spring from pose to pose, with more traditional animation thrown in occasionally to spice things up.

There are also live-ac?tion puppet vignettes that you can watch for not much reason aside from enrichment. They generally just involve the Bizzyboys giving advice and some background information about what’s going on in the world. As it turns out, I’m really into puppets eating sandwiches. 

There isn’t much out that that looks quite like Great God Grove. The style is executed so consistently and with so much blunt-force pizzazz that it’s incredible that just a handful of people ??put the whole thing together. There are so many facets of its visual style that ??look as though they would be very difficult to execute, so the fact that they didn’t choose an easier, more conventional route is impressive. It pays off because, if absolutely nothing else, the way this game looks will be seared into your eyeholes.

Great God Grove has a lot to say about identity and the way people will stomp on others just for recognition. The gods themselves aren’t much different than ordinary people. They just exist on a less accessible plane of existence. As such, even though you can walk up and talk to them, their followers seem to just believe what ??they hear and speculate on what they might be thinking, which often is what leads to miscommunication. Misinformation is rife, a??nd people take advantage of that.

Humans seem hardwired to climb. There’s a fear that our lives will be meaningless or forgotten, so we strive for recognition. And to secure our recognition, we’ll often stomp down the people beneath us. We yearn to wear the stomping boots, and a decent person can turn awful the moment they put them on. You face a lot of that in Great God Grove.

At the same time, it’s a ??very optimistic game. With your intervention, the troublemakers you meet see the error in their ways and express a desire to atone for their actions. Call me cynical, but I find most people are more likely to become defensive when faced with the consequences of their actions. People dig their stomping boots in and seek justification for what they’ve done. Maybe I just need a stronger word cannon.

In terms of gameplay, I could honestly take or leave Great God Grove. It ha?s great pacing and a unique approach to the adventure genre, but I find the situations in which it’s applied generally unexciting. Not overly mundane, but I think with urgent focus on the threat and more dangerous situations, the dialogue would h??ave more of a chance to shine. But it already shines pretty brightly.

Great God Grove is an immensely polished and precisely executed game, and that’s the most impressive part about it. Its pacing and aesthetic are finely honed and there’s nary a loose thread to be found. A bit more punch and the narrative would be perfect, but it ?presents a good amount of depth to sink into. It also features puppets gnawing on a gigantic hoagie, and really, what more can you ask for?

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

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GOG has announced the GOG Preservation Program, a collection of over 100 games that the com??pany intends to improve and maintain to ensure they run in modern system environments.

To put this into perspective, as a game ages and PC technology changes and advances, compatibility is often lost. An older game may not have support for higher resolution monitors, game controllers, or even operating systems. Some shaders that were used decades ago might not look right, or new bugs may crop up on newe??r drivers. A lot of the time, fans need to step in to create fixes or patches to keep these games running on new machines. 

GOG has always done some work to make sure games on its storefront run correctly when they’re added. Usually, this just involves creating a DOSBox launcher for pre-Windows games. It works a lot of the time, but for some, the results are less than desirable. There are games like Interstate �?6 that have bugs that can be game-breaking. In I76’s case, its physics are tied to the framerate, and it runs too fast on ?modern GPUs. One mission in particular has a j?ump that is already difficult to pull off under normal circumstances, but completely impossible on faster hardware. So, fans have had to solve the issues, and even following their instructions, it can be tricky to get it right.

Interstate �?6 isn’t on the list (unfortunately), and that’s largely because, as I found out, GOG sometimes can only get games on their platform under the?? condition that they don’t edit the build. So their hands are contractually tied. However, that’s clearly not the case for the games on this list.

As of right now, as I’m writing this, I don’t have a lot of details on what’s been changed with these games. I’m curious about titles like SimCity 2000, which people have complained that the version available on GOG is the DOS version, rather than the superior Windows one. Considering the work that GOG did on the Windows versions of the Resident Evil games, I have to wonder if they put in the effort to create a new Windows build of SimCity 2000.?? I’ll probably know the answer shortly after th??is article goes up. (Update: still DOS version.)

Speaking of which, the initiative developed from GOG’s work on their work on getting Alpha Protocol and Resident Evil back on storefronts. As the company puts it, “These releases embody our work: reviving games built on outdated, bespoke tech that original creators can no longer maintain.�?Essentially, they're taking maintenance responsibilities over from the original devs. Not everyone can be Petroglyph, who still releases regular updates for 2006's Star Wars: Empire at War.

As someone who frequently spends time trying to get old games to cooperate on my computer, I appreciate the effort and look forward to seeing the results. Maybe they could help me get Extreme Paintbrawl working.

Starting today, games will be stamped to signify that they're being maintained by GOG. This includes titles like Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. The team hopes to certify hundreds of games with their stamp o??f approval by the end of 2025.

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Whether or not you side with Techni?kki to turn Shipshape Island into an airship or Adaphne to turn it into a submarine, you’ll need to borrow something from Bowser. An airship engine, to be precise.

I’m going to be hones??t here, this is probably the only time in the game I got snagged. Reviewing a game early means I don’t have access to guides to get unstuck, so I did circles for a while to figure this out. The solution is something that might be obvious to you, I might have even missed a subtle hint ??spouted by a character, but it left me temporarily flummoxed, so you can learn from my mistakes.

You may have seen the airship engine on your first visit to Wayaway Island. When you enter Bowse?r’s store room?? to get the ampberries, the engine can be seen on the other side of a barrier. I want you to forget that you saw that, because it’s very misleading.

My first course of action was to return to that room, then find the way into it based on its layout. However, if you check where the door is and make the assumption that the entrance?? is on the same floor, you’re not going to find it. You don’t need to backtrack through Bowser’s Castle on Wayaway Island. In fact, in order to get to the airship engine, you don’t need to go back through Bowser’s Castle at all.

Instead, before you would enter the castle the usual way, instead go east down the path that runs in front of Bowser�??�s Castle. Along this way, you’ll find the back door. In there, you’ll need to use a Bros. Bomb (Ice/Fire charged attack) to break the boulder in the way. You can now proceed onward.

From there, it’s a bit of a tricky labyrinth to get to the storage room. It’s mostly skill-based, and it’s a straight shot to your destination. A pretty big relief if you had trouble finding where you were suppos??ed to go in the first place.

The post Where to find the Airship Engine in Mario and Luigi: Br??othership appeared first on Destructoid.

This might be a spoiler, but I assume you’re reading this guide because you’re at this part: Bowser shows up in Mario & Luigi: Brothership. He plays a?? decent role around Gulchrock Sea, but one of the first things you need to do is find the guy. You’re told his castle is on Wayaway Island, but you need to find it first.

If you’re someone who is heavy on exploration, this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. You mostly just need to poke around the right Islet after you first start the quest. This ha?ppens through the normal course of the story, but if you visit the entrance to Wayaway Island early, it won’t be there. Or, at least, Mario and Luigi won’t know what they’re looking for and, therefore, can’t activate it.

Anyway, in Gulchrock Sea, if you sail to the Northwest, you’ll find four Islets Meeger Islet, Mynor Islet, Paquette Islet, and Nanoh Islet. They all have a series of fences and pipes, but no real practical use unless you ??want to grind out some early XP on Spinies. I would??n’t recommend it. But it’s here that you find your way to Wayaway Island.

How to get to Wayaway Island

To get to Wayaway Island in Mario & Luigi: Brothership, you first need to go ??to Mynor Islet first. Mynor Islet is essentially just one long strip stretching?? from West to East. Once you arrive, go East and jump down the pipe you find there, which will take you to Paquette Islet.

On Paquette Islet, go south to the pipe at the bottom. This?? one leads to Meeg??er Islet. Jump through that one, and you’ll arrive at the islet with three trees that were hinted at. Between the three trees is a small switch that you can interact with. Flip it, and a new pipe will show up that will lead to Wayaway Island.

Once you’re on Wayaway Island, you still won’t be able to jump straight back to Shipshape Island. It can’t be linked up, as there is no lighthouse. However, you don’t need to retrace your ??steps through the Islets. There’s a pipe switch on Wayaway that will create a route straight back to Mynor Islet where you can take the cannon back to Shipshape.

I should also note that this isn’t the only route? you can go through. You can go from Mynor, to Paquette, to Nanoh, to Meeger, but you’ll note that there’s an extra step in there. Mynor, Paquette, Meeger is more direct.

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When you’re sailing the Brrrning Sea (third area) in Mario & Luigi: Brothership, you’ll come across Compac Islet on the far east side of the area. On it, you’re presented? with a puzzle in??volving sliding ice blocks. Here’s how to solve all three.

The sliding block puzzle on ice sheets has been around for a very long time in video games, so it’s no? surprise that it makes an appearance here. If you’r??e not very good at these sorts of things (or just can’t be bothered), I’m sure the history behind this type of puzzle isn’t very comforting, so instead I’ll just tell you how to do them.

How to solve Compac Islet puzzle #1

The first puzzle in on Compac Islet in Mario & Luigi: Brothership is reasonably simple, but it’s easy to move the wrong block and wind up stuck. You first?? want to go ??around to the far side of the blocks to the top-left of the islet. This will be easier to explain with pictures, but here are the steps.

• Move the offset top-left block right.
• Move the block below it down.
• At the end of the bottom corridor, shift the block right.
• Move the block obstructing the path to the guy to the left.

Not too difficult, but following the picture will probably be easier. When you reach the dude, he’ll give you a Stache Bean DX, which will improve a brother’s Stache stat by +3. You??’ll then be able to take on additional challenges.

How to solve Compac Islet puzzle #2

The next puzzle on Compac Islet is a bit trickier and involves some non-conventional moving. The goal is to break the two boxes tr??apped within the blocks. The first block is pretty easy. Here are the steps.

• Hit the top-left offset block down.
• Hit the block next to you to the right.

That’s it f??or the first box. You can ??then head South, squeeze between the two blocks and get to the box to smash it. Now comes the tricky part.

• Hit the block that is two blocks up from where the box is (fourth from the bottom) to the right.
• Shimmy in behind the block at the bottom of the formation and hit it downward.
• Hit the block next to it to the right.
• Scooch into the narrow opening created and knock that block left.

Okay, now things get a bit easier because you’re essenti?ally just zig-zagging up towar?d the second block.

• Hit the block above you up.
• Hit the block beside you to the left.
• Hit the block above you up.
• Hit the block beside you to the left.

Done. You can grab the goodies in the box. Then, it’s on to the next (a??nd final) puzzle. 

How to solve Compac Islet puzzle #3

The last puzzle on Compac Islet is almost insu??ltingly easy compared to the last one. There are more boxes but fewer steps and less chances to screw up. In fact, I can do this in one image and a few steps.

• Move the top, protruding block to whichever lateral direction you feel like. Just not down.
• Slip into the narrow gap at the bottom of the corridor and move the bottom block down.
• Move the block next to you left.
• Slip in and break the first box. Proceed to the end of the corridor. Go up into the gap and hit the left block left.
• Hit the block above that upwards, then break the box.
• Move the block to the right towards the right and break the last box.

S??ee? Easy. And it doesn’t get any harder than that because that’s the last of them. Return to Shipshape and conti?nue with your quest.

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Kaseda Games has announced that Beard Envy’s tactile repair experience, Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop, is coming out on PC December 5, 2024. Mark your c??alendar.

Not familiar with Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop? There’s a hefty demo you can try. Don’t want to bother playing the demo? I wrote about the demo over here. Don’t want to click a link? Let me explain.

In Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop, you’re cast as a hapless fox-man who is starting their job at an interstellar service station. You’ve been given no training and have to learn how to diagnose and repair various modules on spaceships based entirely on what you can learn in a h?efty manual. You only have a few days to scrape together enough R.E.N.T??. to survive your employer’s wrath. Not easy when you’re faking it until you make it.

There’s a roguelite-style run?? format where you keep repeating the days until you can finally succeed. I don’t recall specifically, but largely, the only thing you take back with you in a new run is knowledge. You have to build your knowledge and skill when it comes to repair and diagnosis. You need to learn the various ship modules to ensure that you can fix them with maximum efficiency. Only then will you ?survive your workweek.

The main hook is that each repair job has a bunch of tactile elements to it. You have to turn cranked and remove parts, disa??ssemble, and reassemble. It’s just so satisfying. Absolute brain candy. The whole thing is set alongside a brutally humorous story. Really dark stuff. Really leaning into the “comedy is tragedy from far enough away�?mentality.

Uncle Chop’s Rocket Shop releases on PC December 5, 2024.

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I have so many arcade games available on my Switch; it’s obscene. Also, kind of expensive, which we’l??l get to. But with the short length of your standard arcade title, they’re easy to dive into when you need a snack.

So, here’s Irem Collection Volume 2, which is, as you have most likely guessed, the follow-up to Irem Collection Volume 1. Irem is perhaps best known for their R-Type series, but the developer was among the best in the arcade days with hits like Kickle Cubicle and Undercover Cops; games that could go under the radar and a??re therefore ripe for inclusion in collections.

But perhaps the most important contribution from Irem is Metal Slug. Not the actual game �?that was Nazca and SNK �?but it was the place where the staff behind Metal Slug first stretched their legs before setting out on their own. And nowhere is this more apparent than in Gun Force II, one of the games in this collection. There are also two other games ???here.

Irem Collection Volume 2 (Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Switch [Reviewed])
Developer: Irem
Publisher: ININ Games
Released: November 14th, 2024
MSRP: $24.99

I’m going to go through the individual games included in this collection, but I want to give a word about how they’re packed: awkward. Kind of awkward. Not every game collection needs to be Atari 50, but Irem Collection Volume 2 is barebones on top of unintuitive. The volume of the menu, for example, is substantially higher than the games themselves. Each game has a “casual�?and “classic�?mode, the difference being that you can’t? participate in the leaderboards in casual mode, but you get access to game settings, cheats, and rewind. I’m guessing that they’re presented separately for leaderboard reasons, but I don’t see why they can’t just?? warn you when you try to turn cheats on. You can use autofire on both, which seems strange.

It uses an emulation platform that I’ve seen before in Ratalaika/ININ re-releases like the Cyber Citizen Shockman games and the Ninja Jajamaru: Retro Collection. That’s not necessarily a good or bad thing. ?I just want you to know what you’re in for, if you’re familiar.

There’s no supplemental documentation or credits for the original games, which lacked them at release, and we still don’t know who some of the developers were for the games. What’s galling is that the physical collec??tor’s edition of the game comes with things like reproduction arcade flyers and a visual compendium, so it’s not like they don’t have anything to show, they just chose not to include them in a digital format.

Annoying, but let’s talk about the games.

Air Duel

The odd one out in the collection is Air Duel. It’s the only scrolling shoot-’em-up of the bunch. It’s extremely challenging, but you’re?? not exactly going to run out of quarters here. It'll be a real climb if ?you want to place on the leaderboards, though.

You can choose between a helicopter and your typical futuristic jet-thing. The jet thing works about how you’d expect one to work in this kind of game, but the chopper’s gunfire will turn in the direction you’re pressing. It’s awkward at first, but learning to use it gives you the advan??tage of being able to stay out of the direct line of gunfire and still attack. I didn’t like it the first time I tried it, but after clearing the first level, I can’t imagine playing without it.

About a zillion of these types of games were released through the �?0s and �?0s, and you can get a lot of them on Switch. In comparison, Air Duel is fine. I like it, but it’s not likely to be the game I reach for next time I’m in the mood. That will probably be something like Raiden or Raystorm. On the other hand, I now have the worldwide high score on this game. Take that, three other people who have early access to Irem Collection Volume 2. You suck.

GunForce (Arcade)

I’m technically going out of order here, but I feel like the arcade version should come first. GunForce is a run-and-gun like Contra, except with more vehicles and way clunkier. Its subtitle is �?em>Battle Fire Engulfed Terror Island,�?which is just an incredible mash of words.

GunForce is so clunky that it might take a bit to acclimate. Your dude moves so stiffly, and enemies just pour in from the side of the screen. Crowd control and learning to dodge don’t come as naturally as you’d probably find in a Contra derivative. 

Once you do get a handle on things, it can be an enjoyable game. It gives you a new vehicle practically every few steps and these range from jeeps to helicopters. Powerups drop constantly, and you’re able to grab onto overhanging objects. It’s just getting into or out of a helicopter, climbing a ladder, or letting go of an object that can take a bit of fighting, and in a game like GunForce, a li??ttle bit of fig??hting can mean another lost life.

GunForce (Console)

I keep forgetting that GunForce even came out on SNES/Super Famicom. That’s probably because it’s not talked about all that much. Not in my experience, anyway. Its inclu?sion here is more of a “good to have�?than a “need to have�?situation. It’s largely the same as the arcade version but squished down for less powerful hardware. It plays very faithfully, with the biggest difference being that, on classic difficulty, you’re saddled with a handful of continues. Occasionally, there are too few continues since a bad situation can make you drop lives fast. Other times, there are too many because there are only a few levels.

The biggest drawback is that it’s a lot less colorful. GunForce w?asn’t a colorful game to begin with, but anything vivid it did got flattened out on SNES. It’s a shame because the console was capable of more. It’s still an okay translation of an okay game, but being a shadow of another game in the collection makes its inclusion feel somewhat unnecessary. Good to have, though.

Gun Force II

Gun Force II is the last arcade game to be developed by Irem. Named Geo Storm in Japan, it’s largely a different beast from the original GunForce. What links them is the fact that they’re both run-and-??gun shooters, and they have you jump into a tonne of different vehicles throughout the levels. Otherwise, they feel pretty distinct.

There’s still a noticeable degree of clunk to be found in Gun Force II, but it makes up for it by being absurdly over-the-top. Your dude comes equipped with two guns at all times, and at any given time, 80% of the screen is covered in explosions. It’s a game that never lets up, constantly throwing new situations at you. Turning on autofire ju?st makes things more insane. And more fun.

It’s not Metal Slug, but you can see the similarities. You rescue captured people who, in this case, are scantily clad women in torn clothing. The enemy's screams are exactly the same. You can also see a lot of art style similarities between the two, though it’s less pronounced and consistent in Gun Force II. Only Takeshi Okui is confirmed to have worked on the art, but I’d be very surprised if he was the only one from the Metal Slug team.

The Collection

Gun Force II is easily ??the standout of the bunch. I’ve talked to smaller developers who have worked on run-and-gun shooters, and they often cite it as an inspiration. It maybe doesn’t make the whole collection worth it, but it’s definitely worth playing.

And that’s kind of the hang-up here: whether or not the collection is worth it. It’s one standout title (Gun Force 2), a good one (Air Duel), and one that is simply okay (GunForce). You get different regional versions where applicable, as well as the console port of GunForce. There isn’t really any supplemental material (which isn’t totally unusual), and the UI could be better. The value isn’t quite where it should be. It’s slightly more expensive than buying three Arcade Archives titles and worse value than something like Taito Milestones.

So, overall, Irem Collection Volume 2 is less than spectacular. ?If the games really appeal to you, then the collection doesn’t diminish them, but it also doesn’t elevate them. In terms of value, you could do worse, but it’s not an immediate recommendation. They’re your quarters, do what you want with them.

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

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When I reviewed the 8BitDo Mechanical Retro Keyboard last year, I had one solitary complaint: it doesn’t have a?? numpad. Later, 8Bitdo released a separate numpad,? and it’s pretty awesome. Everything’s right in my world. But if you are looking for a more all-in-one solution, the company is now releasing a full-sized variant with the numpad stuck right on there.

To clarify, the full-sized variant is only available for preorder in the NES and Famicom color versions. There’s also a Commodore 64 version and IBM Model M ve?rsions of the original size. I’m going to assume they’ll get full-sized versions of those out later, but they haven’t been confirmed yet.

You can read about how much I love these keyboards in the aforementioned review. I’m not really someone who typically gets excited about keyboards,?? but 8BitDo found a way ??to get me there. The retro color schemes harken back to a day when fire retardant chemicals would turn white, gray, and beige electronics yellow when exposed to sunlight. They tap into my passion for hella old stuff without going too far into woodgrain territory.

I don’t exactly know a tonne about what makes a good keyboard good, but these use “Kailh Box White Switches V2.�?They’re hot-swappable if you like the look and function of the keyboard, but prefer different switches. I’ve spilled multiple beverages on mine and it still functions, though I did once have to take it apart to get some of th??e matcha latte out of it. Still works like new.

This i??sn't a sponsored advertisement, by the way. I'm just real??ly enthusiastic about this keyboard.

There’s a volume knob. It works wirelessly using Bluetooth or with a 2.4 GHz dongle. It can also just be left plugged in. It comes with two “Super Buttons,�?which are just huge, programmable buttons that you can ma?p to particular keys or macros. There are also two A/B “Supper Buttons�?(I’m serious, that’s what the software calls them), that can also be programmed in the same way. One thing that is on these new full-sized versions that are not on the original are “magnetic foldable feet�?so you can adjust the ??angle of your keyboard. I kind of wish my keyboard had those, but I’ve gotten used to just typing on a flatter angle.

You can preorder the full-sized 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keybo?ard now. It looks like it officially releases December 12, 2024.

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Black Friday is a few weeks away, but you won’t need to?? wait to enjoy some fantastic deals on board games. Whether you want to buy something for your collection or friends, there are some great options to explore. All the games on the following list are not only excellent options in their own right, but you can save a decent amount of cash by purchasing them right now. 

Catan

• Players needed: 3-4
• Regular Price: $54.99
• Discounted Price: $43.97

Catan will always remain one of my favorite board games due to the fantastic blend of luck and strategy. While you’re relying heavily on your dice draw, you’ll also have to place carefully to ensure getting a steady stream of resources to reach the victor??y condition. Again, the game emphasizes heavily what you want to do with your resources, and this is one title where hoarding is strictly discouraged.

Monopoly

• Players needed: 3-6
• Regular Price: $21.99
• Discounted Price: $14.97

Can there ever be a listicle about board games without Monopoly on it? Entertaining kids and adults alike since 1935, Monopoly is a fantastic way to spend some quality time with your friends and family. Like Catan, you depend on dice draws to decide your fate, but what you ?do with the outcome always relies on your decision-making. Buy properties, set up hotels, or go to jail - everything can happen du?ring a round of Monopoly. 

Splendor

• Players needed: 3-4
• Regular Price: $39.99
• Discounted Price: $21.98

Surviving as a royal jeweler (not literally) isn’t an easy task, especially when you’ve become the very best. Essentially a pretty simple game, Splendor is about collecting gems and then using them to get the mine?s. There isn’t much control over the gems that you receive, but using them strategically to secure the mines relies entirely on you. In fact, short-sightedness can cost you heavily in this board game, which makes it an amazing strategy board game as well. 

Wingspan

• Players needed: 1-5
• Regular Price: $65
• Discounted Price: $52

Wingspan is a beautiful game for nature lovers, which can get deeply compelling and extremely strategic at the same time. The core objective is to build up your engine by collecting unique bird ca??rds.  Then, you play them strategically, feed them with tokens, and help lay eggs. As you build up your aviary, you’ll need to make critical decisions at every stage. In fact, the hard part is picking between four different ac??tions every turn. Wingspan can feel a bit complex for beginners, but you’ll get good at it in no time. Additionally, the game can be played solo as well.  

Ark Nova

• Players needed: 1-4
• Regular Price: $74.95
• Discounted Price: $51.07

Ark Nova is one of the newer additions to the board game segment, and it’s perfect for those who enjoy management games?. Relying on the cards that are dealt to you, the objective is to build the ideal zoo for your animals. This means placing the right animals in their correct habitats. Unlike titles like Wingspan, Ark Nova does allow you to chain the cards in your hand when required. There are five types of core actions, so you’ll once again have to pull out a sound balancing act. Like Wingspan, Ark Nova?? can be enjoyed alone or with your friends and family. 

Pandemic

• Players needed: 2-4
• Regular Price: $44.99
• Discounted Price: $35.99

While Pandemic requires you to at least have a partner to play with, it’s a co-op experience. In simpler wor??ds, you and your buddies will be using the cards to stop a global pandemic from happening. The objective is to win and win together instead of trying to outwit each other. Coordination might be key, but your chances of success will mainly depend on how well you use the cards in your hand. If you enjoy Pandemic, there are plenty of themed versions available on the market as well.

Ticket to Ride

• Players needed: 2-5
• Regular Price: $54.99
• Discounted Price: $43.97

Ticket to Ride is one of those board games that look incredibly simple to play, and it is, but after a few turns, you then realize how complex it can get. Another board game that relies on cards, the core objective is to build the longest train possible. But you can’t place the bogies anywhere you want, and the color of your cards will drive it. ?You’ll also have to connect the location cards in your hands for bonus points and avoiding penalties. It’s not an easy job at all, as your opponent will be doing the same, and the ch?aos begins if both of you have to lay down tracks on the same path. 

Arkham Horror

• Players needed: 1-4
• Regular Price: $59.99
• Discounted Price: $47.96

Halloween might be over, but the season of spookiness is yet to go away, and what better board game to play during this time than Arkham Horror? Themed around the Cthulhu mythos, Arkham Horror requires you to don your investigative hat and figure out what’s going on in the mysterious town you find yourself in. To solve the mysteries in Arkham, you’ll have to rely on the instructions on the cards. The core gameplay is divided across different campaigns, and you can pick up several expansions (which all?? fit with the core set). 

7 Wonders Duel

• Players needed: 2
• Regular Price: $34.99
• Discounted Price: $21.99

The original 7 Wonders requires you to build the finest empire possible across different ages. The Duel version has the same fundamental mechanics, but it’s tailor-made for two people. Winning in 7 Wonders Duel can be achieved in different ways - you can invade your opponent, research something marvelous, or build a city that takes yo?u closer to the victory condition. The Duel version also results in quicker games, and you don’t have to set up a full board game night ??to get enough people to play in the first place. 

Everdell

• Players needed: 1-4
• Regular Price: $75
• Discounted Price: $59.98

Everdell is perhaps one of the most beautiful board games that I ever played. Unlike Catan or Monopoly, Everdell is about going on an adventure where you get to build up your own civilization. The playing board is absolutely gorgeous, but Everdell i?sn’t about visual gimmicks. You create your own civilization of critters and cute animals using different cards. You can play alone or with your friends in a competitive way. The Standard edition is currently available at a discount, and it’s an amazing deal. If you love Everdell, you could also pick up expansions in the future.

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Chicken Police: Paint it Red grabbed me with its weird, photomanipulated animal-people characters, but held me there with its heart. It features a storytelling that shows a love of worldbuilding and warm characters in a noir setting. So, I’ve been greatly anticipating the follow-up, Chicken Police: Into the Hive.

It’s been given a good runway. A lot of the seeds for its events and characters had already been planted in Paint it Red, as well as the prologue side-game, Zipp’s Cafe. It ??was ready to be bigger and better than what came before and was poised to launch a new chapter in the Wild Gentleman’s World of Wilderness setting. Then, halfway through the game, the wheels came off of it, and now things have become more complicated.

Chicken Police: Into the Hive (PC)
Developer: The Wild Gentlemen
Publisher: Joystick Ventures
Released: November 7, 2024
MSRP: $24.99

Into the Hive starts in much the same way the first game does. A dame walks into the home office of Detective Santino “Sonny�?Featherland, asking for his help with an off-the-books case. Her husband has gone missing, or rather, her ?husband’s body. But it’s not a murder that he’s trying to solve. None is sus??pected. It’s the mystery of why someone would dig up his body (as well as others) and steal it.

To make matters more complicated, the man was an insec??t, one of the oppressed citizens of Clawville who have been segregated to a part of town known as “The Hive.�?Insects aren’t allowed ??out of the hive and animals, especially cops, aren’t allowed in. Undeterred, Sonny grabs his partner, Martin “Marty�?MacChicken, and they set out to crack the case.

Things play out very similar to the original game. You travel Clawville, gathering clues and talking to people. Occasionally, you’ll play a mi?ni-game. Then there are other times that you have to interrogate someone by asking a series of questions to endear yourself or annoy them enough to get some? sort of revelation out of them.

There aren’t too many surprises in terms of gameplay; it’s still heavily a visual novel with adventure aspects, but not many of them. One of the biggest improvements here are with its art style. This may sound weird, but the lipsyncing on the animal heads is way better. Rather than a generic jaw drop, they move in different ways to pronounce syllables. It’s such a strange thing to focus attention on, but it’s actually a pretty slick and appreciable ch?ange.

Also, if you, for whatever reason, hated the black-and-white film noir look from the original game, it isn’t long before you can change it over to garish technicolor. While?? I played in color for a while before switching it back to monochrome for most of the game, the color is well done. It’s not just turning off a filter, instead, a lot of attention has been given to making color mode having as much of a distinct look to it as the original black-and-white. The colors are inappropriately bright, with even neutral colors popping off, and Characters wear garish outfits. It’s a great alternative if you get? bored of the simpler shading.

The narrative itself starts off more confidently. At this point, the lore has been built up ?around it, so it doesn’t need to throw off as many off-hand comments to try and set the scene. It doesn’t have to make things up as it goes along. It fits together a lot better, and that comes through in the dialogue.

The first two acts are excellent, giving pieces at a time and getting you to figure out how they fit together. It can be pretty heavy-handed at times. You’ll no doubt know who the real vill?ain is and what is happening to the? stolen bodies well before the game overtly tells you. I was expecting this to lead to some sort of twist, but the red herrings seem to be only for the characters themselves and players will get no surprises. Things become to come undone from there.

There are five chapters to the game, and you begin to see things weaken in the third. It becomes most obvious when the characters know a location? they have to go, but are aware that it’s dangerous and will likely be a trap. Rather than figure out an elegant plan, they just do the obvious and go in the back door. Then things just happen because they’re scripted to. There’s an excellent mini-game here, but I wonder if the visual novel format has caused an issue with the storytelling. It feels like there sho??uld have been a greater amount of action in this scene that just wasn’t there.

??Nonetheless, it’s not too bad at that point. After that, however, I’d say it’s just bad. For the final two chapters things just move around in the most obvious of ways. The characters form a plan that even a child could think of and band together. It’s hard to understand the stakes, overall motivation of the antagonist, and why many involved would have a personal intere?st. Little threads that were left dangling aren’t tied up at all, but rather just swept aside, and they will never get properly tied into what’s going on.

And then you move through what feels like sets that should have had greater purpose and screentime, but are largely just ther??e to be moved through. Everything gets wrapped up without much understanding of how anything has really been solved by the conclusion. It seems that the antagonist had ev??erything worked out, but they had missed one little detail: gun. And that’s that. Job well done.

It’s obvious something went wrong here, but I’m not sure what. The credits begin with what sounds almost like an apology starting with, “This game was difficult to make.�?It then explains that COVID-19, the?? industry downturn, a c?hange of publishers, and “personal tragedies�?had made development challenging. It then says, “But the story seems to have been stronger than all of these. We had no choice but to make it, to close this saga, and still give it a new beginning…�?That’s broad enough to be interpreted in different ways, but just reads to me as a wrench got thrown into their plans.

The second half of Into the Hive feels like something that has been ??merely blocked out. The central plot points and events are there, but you’re just led through them with little agency of your own. No real puzzles, just hop on and get where you’re going.

Beyond the reasons given in the credits, I feel that a few things have gone unsaid. From my perspective, it looks like Into the Hive ran up aga??inst the limitations of the visual novel format, its own ambition, and the universal rule that something eventually has to ship. Whether that last part was more motivated by publisher deadlines or development fatigue, I obviously have no idea.

There were a number of scenes, especially at the end, that should have had some sort of action sequence or cutscene. Like the first game, you can head down to the police shooting range for target practive. Here, you’re even given the opportunity to try out three guns. Unlike the first game, which had scenes where you put that training to use, Into the Hive doesn’t even feature one gunfight. I’m not s?aying that Sonny and Marty should have started mowing down foes, but the gang war setting would have really facilitated it.

And then there’s the fact that, between Paint it Red and Into the Hive, there was the standalone prologue, Zipp’s Cafe that was released, and another spin-off starring fellow detectives, Moses and Plato, in development. On top of that, there’s WILD Tactics, which looks like a bigger production overall. I have to wonder how many plot points in Into the Hive were set up specific?ally for later games and how much was adapted to accommodate. And that�??�s saying nothing about how busy the team must be.

It’s always strange to progress from a part of the game that seems so vivid, well-thought-out, and lovingly configured to a second half that feels like as many strings as possible were grabbed and tied together, which still left many more forgotten and dangling. In some ways, it reminds me of the ending of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2; you quickly snap from one of the best games you’ve ever played to a patchwork slideshow desperately holding together everything that wa?sn’t finished. It?’s like waiting for fireworks to go off, and someone walks up and pisses on the fuse.

It’s going to take a while for me to process my disappointment when it comes to Chicken Police: Into the Hive. Beyond just being excited about the game, I was excited to see how the World of Wilderness would develop beyond these tales of two detectives. I think I’m still interested, but now, something’s rotting in the midst of it al??l. 

Into the Hive isn’t the bigger and better follow-up that Paint it Red deserved. It’s? only half of one, and what happened to that other half is a mystery of its own. All?? that was found was an empty shell and some bloodied remains. Not the way it deserved to go out.

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

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Lottacoins Island in Mario & Luigi: Brothership is a unique place, not just because of its corporate culture, but also because it uses combination locks. I’ve been high and low in the ga?me, and I’m fairly confident this is the only place th?at has them.

There are actually ??three combination locks on Lottacoins Island, but only two are actually necessary to proceed; the third is only related to an optional side quest. For all three, the intended approach is to find hints and figure out the combination based on those. You might be here because you’re stuck or are maybe just not much for puzzles and would rather just bypass the problem.

I’ll tell you what you need to do to solve t?hem without spoiling things, then just give you the code at the end. So, if you’re just interested in the code, scroll to the bottom of each section. If y??ou just need help, don’t scroll too far.

What is the first combination on Lottacoins Island

To solve the first c?ombination lock on Lottacoins Island, you are given two numbers, but the other two you need to figure out. This is the easiest one by far, requiring the least legwork. The first hint you can get from one of ??the people at the counter. They give you this picture of a table with a plant on it.

The boxes in the? top-right corner depict where the digit falls. As for t??he plant and table; in order to get the digit for that box, you need to count all the tables in the lobby, the put that number in the far left box.

The second hint is in the office across the bridge to the east of the lobby. You’ll see a shining thing on the ground, pick it up and you’ll be given a much more vague hint. The boxes in the top-right show that this is for the third box, and you’re given a crude picture of, uh, something plus something. I don’t know how to describe it; just look at it. What it depicts is the cabinet doors on the shelf in the back of the room, and the utensil holders with, e??r, ?paint brushes. Count the cabinets and utensil holders and add those numbers together. That’s the third box.

For the last digits, talk to the radio thing in the corner. A Zokket thug will just give you the remaining two, “Second from the left: 3. On far right: 7.�?Simple enough, now you should have what you need. Punch them in order in the side room beside the gate in the lobby and hit the last ??box to confirm it. You should be told its correct.

The code for the first combination lock is: 5387.

What is the second combination on Lottacoins Island

The se?cond combination lock on Lottacoins Island is a bit tougher. Talking to the guy behind the bars, you’re given four? hints. Like the last hints, the diagram in the upper-right corner shows which box a hint corresponds to.

The first hint shows a drawing of two security cameras and a triangle. The two cameras you’re looking for in question are in the same room where you got your hints. You’ll find them in the Northwest and Northeast corners. If you walk up to them, you can interact with the screen beneat??h them. Doing so will show you what they’re looking at, and each will reveal a number of shapes set in a 3x2 grid. Among these shapes are triangles. Count the triangles depicted in both cameras viewpoints and you’ll have the first digit.

The next diagram shows potted palm trees (I think, I’m neither a botanist nor an arborist). You’ll find these palm trees in the hallway across the bridge. To decipher the hint, notice that there are four trees, then a gap for the doorway, then another tree. This should help you orient yourself. From the south side (closest to the screen), you’re going to wa?nt to look at the first and third trees. Examine their bases, and you’ll be given a greater-than number and a less-than number. Find the number that falls between those two and you’ll have the second digit.

Next up, we have four, uh, sandwich-looking things. Between them is arithmetic symbols, so if an “H�?represents a pillar, it looks like this H+H-H+H. On?? the lower bridge, you may have noticed numbers on the pillars, that is what the diagram is in reference to. So, you’re going to be looking at 6+4-9+1. Do the math and you have your third digit.

Finally, we have another camera diagram, this time looking at four boxes in a diamond pattern with the bottom one shaded in. This camera you’ll find on 2F in the corner. Once again, examine ?the screen below it to see what it’s looking at. You’ll find a diamond of squares with numbers on them. The bottom number is the one you need for the fourth digit.

Now that you have all your numbers, you can now punch them in. You should have found: 6529.

What is the third combination on Lottacoins Island

The last ??lock turns up in a side quest much later on, well after you complete the main quest on Lottacoins Island. It is also formatted differently because, while you still gather hints, they’re not diagrams and you get them from people sitting in the lobby. It’s also punched into a set of blocks you already used before; the ones that open the gate.

You can get the hints in whatever order, so I’m going to go from left to right. The first hint is “The secret code has four numbers. If you add them, the total is 23.�?Cool. Wit?hout context, that’s largely meaningless, so keep that in mind and let’s move on.

The second hint is, “It starts with a 3. The next three numbers get larger as you go right.�?Now we’re getting somewhere. The first numbe?r is a three, and from this, we can deduce that there is no 1 or 2 in the combination. Moving on.

The last hint is that “There are four numbers in the code. And two of them are?? less than 5?.�?Okay, so get ready to do a little deductive math here. We know the first digit is three, two numbers are less than five, and the numbers get larger as you proceed. That means the first two numbers have to be 3 and 4.

That gives us 7 in total, and we need 23. The difference is 16, but if the numbers get larger as they go right, that means they can’t be equal, ruling out 8??+8. It can’t be 6+10 because it needs to be one digit. That leaves 7+9 as the only possible two digits??.

Putting everything you found together, you’ll get the final code of 3479. ?Punch those in, and you’ll get some fantastic prizes.

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Nekcom Entertainment has released a new trailer of their illusive action RPG, Showa American Story, and gosh, is there a lot to unpack? It’s coming sometime in 2025, but the trailer i??s worth a watch right now. It will probably need more than one, honestly.

Really, we last heard about Showa American Story back in early 2022, and since then, it’s been pretty quiet. I had some worry that its development might have quietly ended. It looks like a pre??tty ambitious project, but then, it’s hard to really figure out w??hat’s going on in the trailer. Nothing in the marketing suggests it’s an open-world game, but there are many scenes of traveling through the desert. There’s exploration and combat and zombies; it’s how it all fits together that is a mystery.

Narrative details j??ump around a lot. What’s clear is that it takes place in an alternate reality where Japan became such an imposing economic super-power that it wound up unofficially “colonizing�?the United States. This kind of plays off an �?0s fear, which can be seen in some of the era’s movies and has left a lasting mark on the cyberpunk genre. It’s dated to take place in Shōwa 66. That references Japan’s informal way of basing the year off an Emperor’s reign. It underlines the historical divergence because, in reality, the Shōwa era ended in 1989 with Hirohito’s death.

And while the setting is interesting, it’s played up with bizarre humor. It seems to mash together the m??ore ridiculous elements of Japanese and American culture, specifically during the �?0s. Nekcom appears to be a Chinese company, but you wouldn’t guess it from the trailer. Or maybe you would, since it does have the whiff of an out??side perspective. It’s just top-to-bottom weirdness, as it shows off masses of chest hair, dudes in spandex exercise wear, and various American landmarks decorated with Japanese icons. There’s just so much going on.

But what really interests me is how conf?idently it shows off its jank. There are some great-looking Unreal Engine vistas there, but it will then zoom in on an awk??ward animation or a low-detail texture that you would normally overlook. It’s not hiding itself, even if I can’t fully figure out what it’s trying to be. I don’t know how it will turn out, but I can’t look away.

American Showa Story is coming to PC, PS4, and PC sometime in 2025.

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The Mario & Luigi series wasn’t in the best state following AlphaDream’s closure. The last actually new title was Paper Jam i?n 2015, followed ??by two remakes. It was a rough final chapter in the studio’s life.

Paper Jam was the worst reviewed in the series (to be fair, Laura Kate Dale, writing for Destructoid, gave it an 8 out of 10). The second remake, Mario?? & Luigi: Bowser's Inside St??ory + Bowser Jr.'s Journey, was the worst-selling to the point where it was a possible contributing factor to Alphadream's bankruptcy.

Thankfully, the series lives on with Mario & Luigi: Brothership. Being one of the successor series to Super Mario RPG with a unique focus on the two title characters, I feel it has a lot of merit. Brothership demonstr?ates that but falls ??way short of its potential.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership (Switch)
Developer: Acquire
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: November 7, 2024
MSRP: $59.99

Brothership is one of the more mundane premises in the series. Following digestion, dreams, and a crossover, this one simply has the two brothers transported to another world in need of saving. The central hook is that they find themselves in command of a ship-like floating island and ?need to travel the expansive ocean to visit other islands and link them together. It’s a mix of unique an?d trite.

The?? hapless world is Concordia. It was once a continent held together by the Uni-Tree, but someone came along and destroyed their uni?fying flora. The continent broke apart, with the pieces cast in all directions. The once united populace now struggles in isolation, and it’s up to Mario and Luigi to bring everyone back together. In a way, it’s the most obnoxiously overt allegory, but it still manages to hit narrative paydirt occasionally.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Mario & Luigi series, they’re RPGs that focus on the eponymous duo. Alongside Paper Mario, it’s a follow-up to Super Mario RPG on the SNES, which is to say it’s something of a JRPG-lite. It’s turn-based, like what you’d expect, but it ties in reflex-based actions wherein you can press a button at the right time during an animation to defend yourself or make your attacks stronger. This was first featured in Mario RPG, and Mario & Luigi extrapolates on this to the extreme.

Battles generally involve the two brothers assisting each other in combat, with even basic ??attacks having them help each other. Hammer and jump attacks are pretty straightforward, but then?????????????????????????? you get to Bros. Attacks, which have much more variety. In order to get the most out of a Bros. Attack, you have to master their associated mini-games which often challenge reflex, perception, and your ability to remember which brother is assigned to which button.

As for new features, a big one is “Luigi Logic.�?This has Luigi thinking really hard about a situation and coming up with a solution. This is really funny because sometimes the solutions are just impulsive and rely on nothing more than brute force and determination, which suggests that Mario is just not capa??ble of thought. But mostly, it’s just the pride on Luigi's face when he figures something out that really drills in the charm. Dude’s just so damned pleased with himself, it’s infectious.

The Luigi Logic moments often show up in boss battles, giving you a chance to do ??a lot of damage and sometimes stun the boss. They allow for some setpiece moments to crop up that really affect the battle, and some of them are pretty cool, even if they are usually cropped up at the worst times for me.

The dynamic battle system makes the Mario & Luigi games feel distinct next to their more typical genre kin, but it does have the downside of forcing you through the same mini-games repeatedly as you proceed through battle after battle. The repetition could be mitigated by keeping gameplay brief and offering palate-cleansing sections between more battle-heavy dungeons; it’s just too bad Brothership doesn’t do that.

No, not at all. When I finally wrapped up Brothership, it was around the 42-hour mark, and at that point, I was just done with it,? which isn’t totally uncommon?? for me with longer RPGs, to be fair. But Brothership not only suffers from the repetition of its battles but also from an inconsistent and bloated pace.

There are five sections to the game, and it starts off well enough. You hop from island to island, and they stay rather small affairs, giving you a taste of variety without getting bogged down. Then, Brothership sags through the second and third areas. It’s a protracted stretch that could have been significantly abbreviated. Nothing much happens narratively. Nothing that couldn’t have just been wrapped in as a sub-plot to another section. Honestly, I probably would have puttered out and lost interest in this part of Brothership if I wasn’t playing it for review.

Things pick up in the fourth part of the game and continue into the fifth, with some of ?the best moments happening during this time, but then it doesn’t know when to stop. You can’t maintain a climax for, like, 10 hours. Excitement doesn’t last that long. A narrative shouldn’t peak and then plateau, because then it becomes dull. The punch loses impact. If I had managed to survive the previous lull, I most likely wouldn’t have made it through the denouement, but I had to power through it.

Brothership is such an inconsistent game. It can be extremely witty one moment, then clueless the next?. At some points, it skirts with something profound in its narrative, then refuses to deliver. There are so many places in this game that could have been cut down or abbreviated, but a lot of it feels there just as a way of extending the game. It doesn’t feel rushed or unpolished; there’s just too much of it, and it gets i??n its own way.

And it’s a shame, because there’s a lot of charm that does a lot to keep the experience. It’s focus on connections and bonds works well with Luigi and his brother. There is so much fraternal devotion on display in every moment, it’s almost enviable. They are presented in such a way that their coordinated outfits begi?n to make sense. 

It’s expressed so well with its art style and lavish animations. Brothership is a great-looking game, even without a lot of graphical horsepower and trickery. It bursts with personality and gives so much depth to a pair of mute palette swaps. It’s just too bad that so much of the rest of the cast feels trite. The villains are vil?lainous, the henchmen hench well, and, as usual, the support character evokes my visceral rage. On the bright side, it means the brothers shine brighter.

When all is said and done, Mario & Luigi: Brothership isn’t a bad game; it’s just?? too much of a decent thing. If it had restraint and its pacing was planned better, it could have been the best in the series. Its transition from a strictly handheld platform to consoles is a great one, putting the additional horsepower to good use.

But because it was allowed to grow so long, what would have been easily overlooked inconsistenc??ies become major annoyances. Eventually, all of its?? problems start to overshadow its successes and they begin to fester. What would be a joyful experience gets washed away in a sea of grey leaving nothing to connect with.

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

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I wouldn’t have predicted that Nintendo would release a music streaming service, but more surprisingly is that it’s actually good. Their pre-configured playlists, the ability to extend music to allow it to loop repeated?ly for an hour, and the ease of the expe?rience is�?Well, look at the eShop. Nintendo has not always been the best at this sort of UX.

I listen to video game music quite a bit, and Nintendo has worked with some of the best composers in the industry. Most importantly, however, Ninten??do hasn’t fallen into the trap of having a??ll their game music sound like movie scoring. Big-budget games these days almost invariably fall to the orchestral side of things with their stings and swells, but Nintendo music still sounds distinctly video game-y.

If there’s one big downside, it’s that I can only play it off of my phone. But there’s another big downside, and that’s the fact that the music choices are extremely limited right now. It’s also a bit of a weird collection. How is it that we have Metroid Prime, the original Metroid, and the Famicom Disk System version of Metroid, but no Super Metroid? In fact, where are lot??s of other games? More specifi??cally, where are the following games?

As a note, this list will only include games that Nintendo could conceivably ?host? on their service. That is to say, game properties that they own. It would be great to see music from Nintendo-adjacent properties on here from other publishers, and that could happen, but let's stick with the easy stuff. Hopefully, Nintendo will add these games soon.

Super Mario Bros. 2

I was nearly going to say Dr. Mario, but the Game Boy version of the music is already on that. And, okay, while not completely ideal, I can listen to 60 minutes of extended Chill. It’s good enough for science. So, okay, failing that, how about Super Mario Bros. 2?

Of course, I’m talking about the North American version of Mario 2, and not what we know as The Lost Levels.  I feel the soundtrack of what was originally Yume Kōjō DokiDoki Panic is appreciated but underrated. It’s easily one of Kōji Kondō’s best works, especially on the NES. It has a bouncy, jazzy quality, but for some reason (possibly because its original association wasn’t Mario), it doesn’t get remixed into modern Mario soundtracks as often as tracks from Mario 1 and Mario 3 do.

I would imagine that we won’t have to wait too long for this one. Since Super Mario Bros. is Nintendo’s bread and butter and the music is so iconic, I expect getting?? all the soundtracks up will be a priority for them.

Pilotwings

Speaking of appreciated but underrated, here’s a soundtrack by Soyo Oka. I mean, all of her soundtracks should be on here: SimCity, Super Mario Kart, Famicom Grand Prix II: 3D Hot Rally. Jump Soyo knows how to spin a track. In the early days of the SNES, she created these songs that are paradoxically both haunting and intense?. They of?ten include a buzzy brass sound that just feels so emblematic of the console itself.

But while all her work belongs on the service, Pilotwings should be a priority. There’s something relaxing about the mix o??f slap bass and sweeping synth. It feels like calmly plummeting to Earth from 10,?000 feet. A good match for so many moods.

Star Fox

Star Fox 64 is already on here, and that’s a reasonable pick. However, as good as it is, the soundtrack attached to its predecessor is much more memorable. Star Fox 64 was aiming for spac?e opera and managed to hit it with pretty decent accuracy.?? I don’t know what Hajime Hirasawa was going for. Uncomfortable arousal in space?

The original Star Fox has an incredibly varied mix of songs ranging from mysterious to exciting to weirdly dancy. I’m not sure I even know of another video game soundtrack as loudly expressive as this one. The depth of tracks like Fortuna and?? Titania are just completely uncalled for, and it’s easy to get Corneria’s theme burned into your brain. I’m afraid that it might take a while for Nintendo to get around to adding this one, which is practically c?riminal. There oughta be a law.

F-Zero

It feels like Nintendo is just rediscovering the F-Zero series themselves, working to add all the games to their NSO services and releasing the well-received F-Zero 99. Now, if only they’d get around to re-releasing F-Zero GX or, y’know, giving us a new one.

Until then, it would sure be nice to get some of the series�?music on the service. Well, wait, remixes of Mute City and Big Blue �?arguably the most well-known of the series �?are available through the Mario Kart 8 soundtrack, so that’s something. However, those tracks, in all their modern glory, don’t hold a candle to how well the first game nailed its tunes out of the gate. After all, it’s where we got Mute City and Big Blue in the first place.

I’m not sure how to even describe F-Zero’s music. Excessive? If you play it while driving in your car, I can almost guarantee you’re going to find yourself unexpectedly speeding. I bet if you took your pulse before and after listening to a few of F-Zero’s?? tracks, you’d find a marked increase in your heart rate. It’s borderline offensive how high-energy this music is.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

The Zelda series has a history of great soundtracks, so it’s hard to mark one for priority. Personally, I could listen to the Song of Healing from Majora’s Mask on loop all day and just get super depressed. But instead of doing that, maybe Wind Waker would be a better choice.

Wind Waker is a stark departure from the tunes featured previously in the series. While it still plays off some of the themes, it mixes in a nautical theme that gives each of the major islands a very distinct feel. Not only that, but the Great Sea traversal music is relaxing in a way that you don’t really find outside of, say, Breath of the Wild. It still feels very adventuresome, but at the same time, ?kind of peaceful.

The downside is that a lot of the individual tracks are reserved for boss battles, which are fine if you’re in the mood, but I don’t find them to be as interesting. On the other hand, I think Farewell Hyrule Kingdom, which is a melancholy remix of the Hyrule Castle theme from Link to the Past, is just too? good. It can almost bring a tear to my eye.

Splatoon 2

Splatoon 3 is already on Nintendo Music, which seems appropriate since it’s the most recent. However, the playlist is pretty much just the songs that appear on the game itself rather than ones that were brought over from previous games (aside from remixes). That’s still pret?ty cool.

The problem I have is that I don’t really like the central band in Splatoon 3, Deep Cuts. I don’t hate them, either, but they don’t hit me the same way that Splatoon’s Squid Sisters, or especially Splatoon 2’s Off the Hook, does. Some of their songs ar??e available in the song. So, an itch is being scratched, but just not as thoroughly as I would hope.

It’s a good bet that Splatoon and Splatoon 2’s soundtracks will ??make it to the service, I just hope it’s sooner rather than later. I love the series�?OST?’s and being able to filter and sort by the in-game bands will be so rad.

Golden Sun

Back when Golden Sun first came out, every time I started up the game, I’d sit on the opening screen to soak in the overture. There’s a stunning amount of grandeur in every bit of the game’s music. By JRPG st?andards, the game itself isn’t terribly special (though it was ??impressive for a handheld game at the time), but the soundtrack itself feels huge. By itself, it made it feel like you were playing something important.

It’s a very unified soundtrack, so while you’ll get everything from relaxing villages to fights against powerful foes, it all feels thematically linked. You won’t suddenl?y get power rock out of nowhere like a lot of other games of its genre. Not that variation is a problem (it’s often preferred), but? consistency can make it easier to listen through an entire soundtrack.

Super Mario RPG

I’m a bit surprised this soundtrack isn’t already included since the remake is still pretty fresh in memory, having been released just last year. However, by the choices made on the service, it’s obvious that recency isn’t really an indicator of whether or not a game’s soundtrack will be available. So, I hope they get Super Mario RPG’s soundtrack on there soon.

Kōji Kondō is a tough act to follow, and it was probably very tempting to play off of his iconic themes, but Yoko Shimomura went completely off in her own direction. The soundtrack is rather bizarre but incredibly appealing. A lot of it is ?a bouncy, brass-h?eavy, percussive sound. Sometimes, it aims for whimsy, while other times, it’s just exciting and fun. Every so often, it gets surprisingly emotional. I’m not crying. I was just cutting onions. I’m making a lasagna.

It would be great to see the rem?ake’s OST on Nintendo Music, especially since the game also included the original score. When it was first released, I kept the game ??on my desk, listening to its songs while writing guides about balls.

Advance Wars

Speaking of recent remakes, Advance Wars recently got a gloss-up by Wayforward. If you weren’t familiar with the soundtrack of the classic GBA title, hopefully you ??are now. Advance Wars is a game that makes war uncomfortably cheerful. Like, cities are being occupied and fought over, bombs are being dropped, military hardware is being wrecked, and people are (assumedly) dying, but it’s treated more like a sport. It’s no more serious than if the COs were going out to play frisbee golf in the park.

And the soundtrack just completely underscores that. It’s largely just a collection of infectious pop-rock tunes with buzzy, distorted guitars and jaunty basslines. But what makes it stand out is the fact that so many hooks and riffs in the songs are as unique as they are catchy. A lot of these songs play on loop fo??r half-hour-or-more long missions, so it’s probably important that they don’t get old very quickly.

There are also a lot of songs on the soundtrack. Every CO has its own theme, so even if you exclude the var??iations of tunes that play u??nder different situations, you still have a long runtime. But there’s also a lot of variation in there. Beyond the pop-rock songs, there are more traditional marches mixed in alongside even heavier sounds. It’s a joy to listen to.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

This one feels kind of like cheating, since Super Smash Bros. Ultimate doesn’t strictly have much of an OST, rather it takes in songs from all the different series that get r?epresented in the game and more beyond that. Sometimes, the songs are presented as they wer??e in other games, and other times, the songs are completely remixed in interesting ways.

It’s maybe the least likely soundtrack on this list to make its way to the service. If it does, I’d expect it to arrive after a lot of other games are added to make overlapping tracks a lot simpler. But beyond that, SSBU contains a lot of songs that don’t belong to Nintendo. They would probably have to get permission from publishers like Capcom and Konami to put the whole soundtrack up. Otherwise, I guess they could ????exclude those songs. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s possible. I’m just not counting on it being anytime soon. I can’t predict the future, though, so who knows?

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Atari has announced that they’ve acquired Chris Sawyers�?1994 DOS hit Transport Tycoon. That is to say, they’ve bought the property. Although, since the game is largely unavailable aside from the free OpenTTD fan source port??, it would be a feat in itself to purchase it.

This is a move that makes sense. Atari already licenses Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Chris Sawyer has kept a working relationship with the company, even back when they were terrible, and even after a 2005 lawsuit. Atari recently bought a large portion of Microprose’s back catalog and is resurrecting the brand as a publishing label. It would make sense that they’d want Transport Tycoon, and that Chris Sawyer would be willing to sel?l it to them.

I haven’t personally played Transport Tycoon, but I’m aware of its impact. I’m also aware of Chris Sawyer’s technical mastery in the �?0s. Guy’s a legend, but I mostly know him from Roller Coaster Tycoon and Frontier: First Encounters. I could also play OpenTTD, an open-source port of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, at any time since it’s available for free.

Speaking of OpenTTD being free, I have to wonder what Atari plans on doing with the property. The press release only says, “Atari will seek to expand digital and physical distribution, potentially develop new titles or content, and explore brand and merchandising collaborations as part of a long-term plan to preserve and expand this classic sim.�?Maybe they’ll work with the community to port OpenTTD to consoles (I highly doubt they’d t??ry and hamper the fans working on it), or perhaps they’ll ?port the Saturn/PS1 version of it. One thing I do know for sure is that there will probably be T-shirts with a high probability of mugs and hats, as well.

Atari has done a lot to transform its image from a reviled publisher responsible for things like Asteroids: Outpost and Haunted House: Cryptic Graves to one that pays greater respect to its stable of IPs. They’ve bought up remaster houses Nightdive Studios and Digital Eclipse. As cynical as I am, their efforts seem very earnest. It all seems like way too much effort to just be in it for the money. Four years ago, I would have told you it would never happen, but here it is. Now we get to wait and see what they do with Transport Tycoon.

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Happy November. Or, at least, it will be. Wishes Unlimited (Wandersong, Chicory) has announced that turn-based volleyball monster game Beastieball will be ??launched into Ea?rly Access for PC on November 12, 2024.

I almost overlooked Beastieball entirely. I had my head down with other things when the developer emailed me. I didn’t look too closely at the email until they followed up later. I was skimming through it when I realized it’s being developed by the folks behind Chicory. If I’m not mistaken, out of all the games I’ve reviewed for Destructoid, Chicory has the highest score of 9.5. The only game to have breached the 9 threshold for me. Chicory profoundly impacted me, so much so that I haven’t played it a second time because I’m not sure I could take another blow, even if? I see it coming.

So, I’m hoping Beastieball doesn’t have quite the same impact, which might be a strange thing to wish for. I’ve played as much of the demo as my currently overburdened schedule will allow (it isn’t much), and while the writing is still sharp and detailed, I think Beastieball is aiming more to be an entertaining rather than profound e??xperi?ence. Although, truthfully, there’s enough setup here for an emotional journey of the burdens of fame and the cost of turning your hobbies into a job, but�?ah�?uh oh.

Beastieball is a bit like if you replaced the RPG-style battles in Pokémon with turn-based volleyball. It’s two-on-two beach-style, and you can win by either scoring points or exhausting the other team�?�s beasties. One of the opening tutorial fights demonstrates how you can beat a team that vastly outlevels you with careful ball placement. Pretty neat?, but I’ve only scratched the surface.

And it isn’t entirely just swapping out cartoon cockfighting with volleyball. The actual flow of gameplay and how you recruit new beasties onto your team is changed as well. I think that part of the design approach is to approach?? the formula in a way that removes the questionable cockfighting subtext. The Pokémon Company ten?ds to just skirt around the fact that you’re enslaving creatures and forcing them into battle by making it seem as harmless as possible. And to be fair, I think this is just a case of a concept not being thought completely through in its inception, and now that it’s popular, all they can do is try and throw friendship in there to try and temper things. I don’t think there was really any malice intended.

What were we talking about? I got off track there. Right, in Beastieball, it’s the choice of the creatures to join your volleybal?l team. You give them jerseys rather than cages. They have to respect you, which means I’m screwed because I don’t even respect myself. There’s also m?ultiplayer.

Anyway, Beastieball hits PC Early Access on November 12, 2024.

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It’s been a real “Will they, won’t they?�?dynamic between Vampire Survivors and Castlevania. It’s the crossover that makes the most sense, but i?t’s because it makes the most sense that I believed it wouldn’t happen. Time makes fools of us all.

Ode to Castlevania is funny because Vampire Survivors is already an ode to Castlevania. Nowhere is this more evident than with the new weapons that don’t have a lot t?o do with Castlevania. That’s because all the weapons most associated with the game were already in it originally, from throwing crosses to holy water.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. By default, a Castlevania crossover is going to be the best expansion for the game because I love Castlevania. However, it’s also the best expansion so far for other reasons.

Ode to Castlevania can be summed up as a lot of whips, a lot of music, a lot of Belmonts, and one big map. Unlike the previous two expansions, there is no new Adventure mode here; that one big map is the central focus. And it is big. It’s dominantly Dracula’s castle, filled with bosses and broken into sections via locked doors. It’s not exactly Vampire Survivors metroidvania, but that sounds?? like it would be a hassle anyway.

The castle is laid out in a more-or-less linear fashion. You kick down the door and march your way up to Dracula’s bedroom to put him back to sleep. Is he actually there? Does Vampire Survivors actually ha??ve a vampire?? in it now? I’m not telling because that would be lame.

Much like the last two crossover expansions, this is still Vampire Survivors, but it’s wearing Castlevania’s clothes. But unlike those games, Castlevania fits Vampire Survivors a lot better. The enemies, all torn from various games in the series, look as though they belong here, and the castle could easily be compiled from various stages already in the game. Uns?urprisingly, it isn’t much of a stretch.

The one big level is easily the best that the game has seen. It’s large enough that it’s extremely difficult to make your way through it, from start to finish, in a single round. Instead, after beating specific bosses, a nearby teleporter will be activated that you can transport yourself to from the start.?? This allows you to essentially continue from close to where you left off without havin??g to wade through everything again.

There are a tonne of bosses torn fr??om the series�?history, and while many of them are just the sort that you keep your distance from while bashing on them, a few have some unique attacks that make them interesting. There are also moments within the castle where things turn into a sidescroller, which can be disorienting bu??t feels appropriate.

If there’s one place that the Castlevania conformity actually hurts the game, it’s with the whips. Most of ??the Belmonts come packing one, and while they’re all different, most of them kind of suck. They’re often short-range and only attack in specific directions. The whips that were already in the game are far better; it’s just sort of a drag that you can spend time turning yourself into a whip machine for less reward than you’d usually find from holding a whip.

Sonia Belmont has the Sonic Whip, however, which absolutely wrecks house. It’s not all bad, but when you’re shoveling more junk weapons on an already threatening pile of them, it can become difficult to effectively create your desired build. There are other much more useful weapons that were added, fortunately. Although, as I mentioned before, some of them don't have much to do with Castlevania and feel like t?hey were added because they needed to ad??d something aside from whips and spellbooks.

This is all backed by an extremely impressive list of songs and remixes from the Castlevania series. The composers working with Poncle did a great job with Contra in Operation Guns, and the same is true here with tracks torn from all over the series. There are even some tunes that I wouldn’t have thought to include that are made irresistible through their loving remixes. Easily, one of the best parts of this expansion is ??the soundtrack.

Overall, It’s a loving tribute from a developer who is a clear fan of the Castlevania series. So much of a fan that there isn’t a Gabriel Belmont in sight, but there is a Sonia. That’s how you really know.

It’s also only $3.99, which is a buck-and-a-half more expensive than something like Operation Guns, but ??I think the remix soundtrack is worth the value alone. In a world with h?orse armor, it’s a great value.

As a fan myself, this is easily the most fun I’ve had with the game since diving into the base version. The big map adds a lot more playtime than you might expect, and being able to unleash hell on various foes from the series while a frantic remix of Bloody Tears plays is, as one would expect, rather arousing. The way that Vampire Survivors has matured over the years almost feels like it was preparing to wear the Castlevania dress. And it fits so?? well. It’s almos?t like it was made for it. 

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It’s hard not to trip over the first coffin in Vampire Survivors�?new Ode to Castlevania map. It’s practically sitting right next to the door. The second one, on the other hand, requires you to?? do a bit more looking. I’ve got you covered. I did all the wall-humping so you don’t have to.

The first coffin on the map will net you your first Belmont (presumably), family progenitor Leon Belmont (Lament of Innocence). He is easily the Belmont with the most well-mai??ntained hair.?? I didn’t know such conditioner existed back in the 11th Century.

The second coffin is, in my opinion, more exciting. It contains the family’s most modern vampire hunter, Julius Belmont. He first appeared in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrows before returning in its immediate sequel, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrows. He was also a playable character in the multi-player spin-off, Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. 

He’s not even the main character in the Sorrows games. But do you know how badass he is? He beat Dracula, but for real. In 1999, he and Alucard defeated Dracula and sealed his castle in a solar eclipse; no mo??re coming back every 100 years for him. 900 years of conflict ended by this dude.

But enough about who he is, let’s get into how you can unlock him in Vampire Survivors.

How to get the second coffin in Ode to Castlevania

The second coffin is in the area that is unlocked after you defeat the Puppet Master boss and get the Scorpion Gate. The area is a library, with (not literally) endless rows of bookcases. If you have the map and you look at it while in this area, you can see the question mark in an a?rea south of the entrance. However, it’s in a grey area that does not really show on the map.

There’s no visible door to the area with the second coffin. To get into the hidden area, you need to look to the far right of that spot on the map. If we’re starting from the bottom, the entrance between the first and second book??case. You’ll see a bloodstain on the wall. Simply push against it to enter the area.

When you reach the coffin, touching it will create a circle of enemies. Defeat them, then touch the coffin to release Julius Belmont to your collection of heroes. While you’re t??here, there’s also an Arma Dio to add a Passive Item to your stock and a boss you can take on. 

He comes equipped with the Vanitas Whip. He starts with Arcana XIX: Heart of Fire. This means, he’s more powerful when his health is low. The Vanitas Whip evolves when paired with the Hollow Heart, and it’s�?fine. Not the best whip, and the evolution isn't really that great, but it gets the job done. I ju??st wouldn't prioritize it for your builds.

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Team17 and Piraknights Games have announced Sintopia, a god game where you play as the devil. Wait�?It’s a management ga?me where you manage Hell. That’s better. It’s set to release in Early Access sometime in 2025.

The trailer and press materials don’t really do a great job of explaining what goes on in Sintopia, but I’ll do my best here. It has two sides to its gameplay. There’s Hell, where you gain profit by punishing people for their sins. They’re eventually resurrected back to Earth, where you then influence them to sin more, then when they die, you can punish them ??all over again to m??ake more money. I hope I’m describing this right.

The trailer depicts something that looks like a game Bullfrog or Lionhead would do back in the �?0s. The overworld reminds me of Dungeon Keeper (though the game itself looks nothing like it). The Hell segment of the game have a bit of a Startopia or Theme Hospital look to them, but also the souls you’re punishing look to be on a conveyor belt, perhaps. I’m? intrigued.

I’m also curious about the overworld. The trailer shows of?f a succubus seducing an army and a building catching fire. It seems like there’s a balance yo?u need to keep regarding influx and sins. As in, you can’t just get greedy, push everyone to sin, then kill everyone for massive gains. In one of the press release’s more lucid statements, they say:

“Make sure your souls go through an effective "re-education" to avoid a buildup of their Sins across many lives... no one wants to face the demonic invasion that will inevitably result from having too much corruption in the world.�?/p>

I’m interested. As I said, it looks like a Bullfrog game, and while a lot of those games would deliver on ambition but often fumble parts of the execution, the fact that there was n??othing really like them makes them memorable. And that cou?ld be the case here, but I wouldn’t know, there’s a weird dearth of information.

We’ll no doubt learn more as Sintopia approaches its early access launch in 2025.

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An internal email from Hermen Hulst today has revealed that Sony is shutting down its mobile studio, Neon Koi, as well as Concord developer Firewalk Studios. It has also announced that t?hey have reached the decision to “sunset the game�?rather than attempt to salvage and re-release it in some form.

Many of us were bracing for this possible outcome. Concord may have been one the most prolific and expensive failures to launch. It’s been reported that Sony bet big on the game, seeing it as their entry vector into the live service games market. Firewalk started development on the game in 2018, and Sony acquired the studio and the property in 2023. It would appear that they had plans for the license to be a pillar for them, with a storyline based on the game planned as part of Amazon Prime Video’s show, Secret Levels. The game was officially?? launched on August 23, 2024, and yanked offline exactly two weeks later on Sep??tember 6.

It may seem like its removal from storefronts was a hasty decision, but player counts were so staggeringly low at launch that it was unlikely to recover. After it was retracted, announcements were made that sounded as though the company was going to reposition the game and relaunch it in some manner, but as Destructoid’s Steven Mills said at the time, it seemed unlikely.

There was hope that the developer wouldn’t take the brunt of the repercussions as many of the more damning decisions around Concord seemed like they would have been made higher up at a publisher level, such as pricing the game at $40 while positioning it against free-to-play games like Overwatch and Fortnite. Unfortunately, as it always seems in these situations, that’s not?? the case, and the developer is being outright shuttered.

Neon Koi, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have really been given much of a chance. As far as I can find, none of the “mobile action games�?that it was working on were announced. The statement reads, “While mobile remains a priority growth area for the Studio Business, we are in the very early stage of our mobile efforts.  To achieve success in this area we need to concentrate on titles that are in line with PlayStation Studios�?pedigree and have the potential to reach more players globally.�?/p>

The email includes a rather galling message: “I am a big believer in the benefits of embracing creative experimentation and developing new IP. However, growing through sustainable financials, especially in a challenged economic environment, is critical.�?I somehow doubt that the developers losing their jobs are going to take comfort in the fact that their sacrifice was to enable growth through “sustainable financials.�?/p>

The only real shred of optimism to be found in the statement is here: “We will work to find placement for some of those impacted within our global community of st?udios where possible.�?Hopefully, that’s sincere and many of the folks at Firewalk and Neon Koi won’t be out of work for long.

2024 has been a pretty hellish year for the industry. It quickly eclipsed 2023’s already substantial mountain of layoffs, and there r?e?ally is no end in sight. It’s a stressful time to be in the industry.

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[Update: Engine Software has stated via Twitter that they w?ill be adding an option to revert the cutscenes and upscaled textures back to the way they were originally in the port. Both cutscenes and textures can be changed individually, and the additional quality-of-life changes made in the recent update will remain. However, they have stated tha??t these are still the PS2 version of the cutscenes that the port used before, and not the higher quality GameCube version. Our original story follows.]

On Friday, I reported that the 2018 PC port of Killer7 has received a latter-day update that, among other things, remasters the cutscenes, which were previously just upscaled the old-fashioned way. Pretty cool! But like anything cool these days, it comes with a massive caveat: the remastered cutscenes are full of AI halluc?inations.

Remastering old video is probably one of the more benign uses of AI, specifically when it comes to upscaling. It uses the technology’s pattern duplication to simply guess what an image was supposed to look like and generates it automatically. It likely won’t ever be as good as a human’s guess, but it can be a reasonable shortcut. Companies (as well as fans) in charge of remastering old games and m?ovies have used it, but often, they touch up the AI’s output by hand to ensure consistency and accuracy; it’s clear that Engine Software didn’t do this.

I sort of noticed this in the original article. If you look at the fingers of the Handsomemen, you’ll see telltale inconsistencies. Some fingers are fat, others are mashed together. Nothing you’d necessarily notice at first glance, though your brain might pick it up. More often than not, I give the benefit of the doubt, but I?? should have probably listened to my doubts on this one.

For the introduction cutscene and some of the ones in Ulmeyda, it’s much like this; the inconsistencies are ugly but small. In particular??, the AI didn’t know how to deal with the depth of field blurring in a lot of the scenes, so sometimes you get stripes of blur in a way that doesn’t make any sense. It doesn't know what a telephone pole looks like, so it set up a bunch of crosses. If we're being super charitable, it’s ugly, but you could maybe look past it.

Then you hit the chapter with the Handsomemen and things come undone pretty quickly. An early news program turns abstract. ZTT Comics becomes ZK Comics at the sa????me time a character mentions their proper name. It can’t keep line weight consistent at the best of times. But my favorite moment is the inked comic version of Dan Smith. It couldn't differentiate elements in the shading on his face, so it guessed wrong on what was supposed to be his mouth and smudged everything together. It looks like he’s wearing a Shyguy mask. Forget that it doesn't know what hatching is. That is something you just can’t miss. Later, it shows the titular assassin group standing in a row and it can’t figure out where one ends and another begins, so they’re all wadded up.

The cutscene changes has resulted in the game being review-bombed on Steam. As I said, AI upscaling is a pretty benign use of insidious technology, but the problem here is that the “remastered�?cutscenes look like shit. Even at the best of times when things aren’t moving much, the robot’s struggle to keep everything consistent is pretty obvious. It barely skirts the line of “better than nothing�?before eventually descending into “please step away from my child.�?/p>

If the original masters of these cutscenes still existed, it would 100% be better if those were used instead, but that’s not always an option. I assume that Engine Software only had the 480p originals pulled from the GameCube version, so this sort of upscaling would be one of the only cost-effective ways to approach it. But even then, they should have touched things up by hand. There isn’t a tonne of movement in the Killer7 animated cutscenes, so it doesn’t seem as though it would be an unreasonably labor-intensive process. It would be nice to see some respect for the audience and the game being worked on instead of ??just having something shit out for a change.

The post I retract my previous excitement, Killer7’s remastered cutscenes use generative AI upscaling and they suck (Update) appeared first on Destructoid.

Retro-Bit has announced that they’re dipping back into the Toaplan Genesis/Mega Drive well for another collection. The Toaplan Shooters Collection Volume 2 is a physical set of thre?e Genesis/Mega Drive games by the legendary developer.

The games included are Twin Cobra, Grind Stormer, and Slap Fight MD. All of which are among the best of Toaplan’s output, which puts them up there on the ladder of shoot-’em-ups in general. But while Toaplan is perhaps best remembered for their pioneering efforts in the bullet hell sub-genre, none of the included games have reached that point (Batsugun is sometimes considered the first). Nonetheless, they’re a set of somewhat weird scrolling shooters that are something of a rarity on Genesis. In fact, this will be the first time Slap Fight MD is being released in North America, and I’ll get to t?he reason why that’s pretty cool in?? a minute.

Twin Cobra is the game that I’m most familiar with. That’s mainly owed to the fact that it got an NES port, but it was hardly scarce on Genesis. It’s one of the developer’s seminal games and helped establish their approach to the genre. It’s a vertical shooter where you play as a helicopter and fight tanks and other modern military hardware. It always felt to me like a bit of a midpoint between 1942 and Raiden.

Grind Stormer is a pretty goofy name, which is too bad because in Japan it was called V-V. Now that I look at it,?? that looks like an emoji, but is actually supposed to be pronounced V-Five. It’s pretty intense, but is still a bit more subdued than a?? true bullet hell shooter. It loses a bit of its visual arcade splendor on Genesis, but it’s made up for by including two modes: one exclusive to consoles and another that sticks closer to the arcade version.

Finally, there’s Slap Fight MD, which is a name that never stops being funny to me. You might expect that this is another funny localization title, but no, that’s the original Japanese. It makes me think of something like Twinbee, with the titular character actually using its massive hands to slap enemies out of the air. Instead, it’s a 1986 vertical shooter where the main hook is being able to essentially overpower your ship. The Genesis version is particularly special, however, as it includes a sort of remake/remix mode. That’s cool enough, but Toaplan had Yuzo Koshiro contribute his take on the score. If you aren’t familiar, Yuzo Koshiro is a legendary composer responsible for the soundtracks of Streets of Rage, Beyond Oasis, and Actraiser. He’s actually working on a new Genesis shoot-’em-up right now, Earthion.

A few years ago, Retro-Bit released the first collection, which was a set of four games. That one included Truxton, Hellfire, Fire Shark, and Zero Wing. Unfortunately, they have stated that they won’t be producing another?? run of the first collection to go alongside Volume 2. It’s a shame, since I missed it.

You can buy the games à la carte, or get the full collection with a slipcase, digital clock, interview with Masahiro Yuge, and a sheet of puffy stickers. Each one comes in a different translucent cartridge color and has a reversible slipcover. I’ve received a few of Retro-Bit’s previous releases, and they’re very high quality with lavish attention to ??detail. Feels great in the hand and as expected in the console.

Pre-orders for Toaplan Shooters Collection Volume 2 start today and run until December 1st. If you miss the window, you’ll still be able to buy it from select retailers like Castlemania Games and Rondo Products.

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