Visual novels have found a bit of a home on the Nintendo Switch. The combination of portability and easy pick-up, put-down feel of the Switch goes really well with lo??ng, involved, engrossing visual novels. Hence I decided to put together this lis??t of the best visual novels on the Nintendo Switch.

Ever since I got my Switch, I've read a good amount of VNs on it, whether in a hotel bed, on the couch, or on a plane. It helps that the genre has been drawing more attention, with mainstays like Ace Attorney or surprise hits like Paranormasight offering plenty of promise. There's also a lot to sift thr??ough �?another reason I threw this list ??together.

These are 20 fantastic visual novels to try, whether you're a newcomer to the genre, or just looking for something a little different. Of note: I'm trying to keep this list mostly to a traditional VN interpretation. (I brought up "what's a visual novel" in Slack and it started a mild conflict.) So if you're wondering where fantastic games like 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim are, there's a decent chance I excluded them, in the interest of keeping this list narrow and focused. (I do wholeheartedly endorse 13 Sentinels though.)

With that in mind, let's open up the Switch library and talk about visual nov??els.

The House in Fata Morgana

Why not start the list off with a heavy hitter? The Hous?e in Fata Morgana?: Dreams of the Revenants Edition brings the 2012 c?lassic to the Nintendo Switch with both the main story and a bevy of extra content. After waking up in a stran??ge, eerie mansion, you relive the lives of various people with the assistance of an unnamed maid.

Events will intertwine across history, with lots of intrigue and suspense. If you like period dramas and/or ghost stories, this will probably be up your alley, as it's also frequently ?hailed as one of the best visual novels to grace the Switch.

Danganronpa series

Okay, I'm twisting the rules a bit, mostly because many of these series are in collections like the Danganronpa Decadence physical version for Switch (each entry is available individually on the eShop). Each entry in the series centers on some sort ?of killing game, where the best and brightest students are locked in a location and told they can only leave if they "graduate." As in, kill a fellow student and ge??t away with it in the ensuing trial.

Your job is to find the culprit!

Alongside roaming the world and hanging out with characters for soci??al?? links between murder investigations, there's also a bunch of trials with minigames to help you find the truth. It's a compelling, interesting series that pulls a few fantastic left-field twists out.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy

The original run of Phoenix Wright games on the Nintendo DS opened me up to this genre in the first place. With the collection on Nintendo Switch, it's easy to play the trilogy of Ace Attorney entries that set the stage fo?r many to follow after.

As defense lawyer Phoenix Wright, you have to defend your client from going to jail. Individual cases are good fun, but they also wind together throughout the whole trilogy in ways that make this a very, very fun read. Absolutely recommended for cautious first-timers looking f??or a visual novel for their Switch.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

If you're looking for something that feels more modern, then head back in time for the historical fiction take on Ace Attorney. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles follows Ryunosuke Naruhodo, as he gets swept up in courtroom drama in the late 19th century. This particular version packs the two Great Ace Attorney games together into a duology that is, honestly, still some of my favorit?e storytelling on the Sw?itch. It's a roller-coaster of ups and downs, with some great sleuthing and deducing, memorable characters, and incredible payoffs in the second game's trials. It's good for newcomers, but an absolute no-brainer if you liked the original Ace Attorney and want some more.

Steins;Gate Elite

Another classic and often-recommended visual novel, Steins;Gate is the story of an amateur scientist who accidentally discovers a method for time manipulation. Obviously, th?is leads to some complications. Different branches and alterations get messy, and Rintaro Okabe has to try and figure out a way to fix everyt??hing.

The Elite version packs in animations from the also popular anime adaptation, which is good; I really like the art of Steins;Gate, but the last?? time I went back to it, the early?? hours wore on a bit. With a little bit of polish and an ideal form factor, it's much easier to see why this made such an impact.

Paranormasight

As one of my favorite visual novels on the Switch, Paranormasight is a haunting meta-narrative about several ??people gathered in the Sumida Ward of Tokyo, Japan. ?They all have reasons for being there, mostly centered around the Rite of Resurrection; a promise that, if they indulge in some cursed entanglements, they can bring someone back to life.

Things don't go so neatly, however. While "horror VN" might lead you to think this is all about the scares (and there are some good ones, to be clear), this is really a good get for those who like the meta-narrative twists of games like NieR: Automata or Undertale. Square Enix's VN is a sleeper gem with some serious legacy behind it.

AI: The Somnium Files / Nirvana Initiative

The Zero Escape series has, sadly, still not made it over to the Nintendo Switch. We do have another series from writer Kotaro Uchikoshi, though: AI: The Somnium Files.

The Somnium Files follows Date, an investigator for a special crime unit that's able to brain-dive into people's memories to elicit information. The first is good, but the follow-up Nirvana Initiative is where I felt the series truly hit its stride.

Shifting the focus to two protagonists, the Nirvana Initiative has a lot of that twisting, winding narrative that makes a visual novel great, plus some genuinely intruiging puzzle room concepts. It's standalone, so you can play Nirvana without playing The Somnium Files, but both are certainly ??w??orth your time.

Raging Loop

This is a personal favorite of mine, and one I wish got a bit more chatter, so here we are. Raging Loop sees protagonist Haruaki Fusaishi stuck?? on the road, leading him to wander into ?a remote village in rural Japan, Yasumizu.

Here he befriends some locals and gets ready to head back out on his way, when oh no, the mist rol?ls ??in, and now he's wrapped up in a yearly ritual of the feast, where a villager becomes the embodiment of a death god and kills another each night until they're found.

Yes, it's a game of Werewolf. But it's a surprisingly well-told story around this classic set-up. A few weird tone issues aside, this is definitely one to look into for som??e further reading.

VA-11 Hall-A

What more do you need to know about VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action than a title and scre??enshot could suggest? It's a visual novel-meets-bartender ??sim, with an instantly recognizable look.

It's got a UI that would feel at home on the PC-98. It packs in heavy anime inspiration, alongside a ple??thora of goofs and gags. It's got some heart, too. And an absolutely solid soundtrack, to boot. Do you want to serve drinks in a cyberpunk future to a bunch of anime girls?

This is the game you want to play. For more like it, check out the less alcohol-infused Coffee Talk.

The Silver Case 2425

While you might know Goichi Suda for his work on killer7 or No More Heroes, there was a point-and-click adventure that came before it all. The Silver Case 2425 is a collection of The Silver Case seri?es, which combines all the disparate and strange elements you'd be looking for in a Suda game. You'll follow ??three perspectives to track down the truth behind a series of supposed suicides.

Like the other murder mysteries on here, there are plenty of twists and turns to uncover. But the reason to pick up The Silver Case is not just the story alone, but the vibes. ?It's got a style and aesthetic that keeps fresh as the story goes along, where I never really felt like I was just reading text, but also taking in an over-stimulus of visuals in the best way.

That's what makes?????????????????????????? it?? one of the top novels on the Switch.

Famicom Detective Club

This collection of two Famicom Detective Club games is a?? bit of a historical pick, if nothing else. Nintendo's remakes of the original Famicom mysteries are absolutely gorgeous, paying homage to a series that carved the path for many to follow.

It's a two-pack, with The Missing Heir following a rich family's tragedy and The Girl Who Stands Behind di?gging into the supernatural horror elements. Two distinctly different flavors, but it's a really neat way to see how the medium has evolved, and even how old pieces of it? still hold up today.

Necrobarista

Another personal favorite of mine, Necrobarista dumps you into the Terminal, a hipster coffee bar that also serves as a segue between life and death. For one night, the dead are allowed to hang out among the living h?ere, getting some coffee and exploring the meaning of it all.

It's not just the emotional story that?? really caught me, but the way it's told. Route 59's approach takes as much from film and anime as it does from visual novels, using text as a visual and framing the camera as conversations bounce around.

It's stylish, memorable, and might even make you tear up a bit. Definitely worthy of it's status as one of the Switch's top ??visual novels.

Collar X Malice

For this Switch visual novel list, I knew I would need to include at least one otome game. For those who don't know, that's a genre that's generally focused on dating cute anime boys. I am, admittedly, not a knowledgeable connoisseur of these games, so I turned to the internet's experts for guidance, and one game kept popping up: Collar x Malice.

You play as a young police officer who, after an attack, has a venomous collar attached to their neck. Your best chances, it seems, rest with five dif??ferent hot cops who can help you figure out wha??t's happening.

I know this list has been a bit crime-and-mystery heavy, but I like the premi??se here, and the art looks great too. This seems like an obvious get if you're into the boy-dating subgenre with a so??lid narrative hook.

CLANNAD

I was honestly a bit torn on this one, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention CLANNAD. It's arguably one of th?e most recognizable stories from developer Key, following third-year high school student Okazaki?? Tomoya, dealing with the direction his life has taken, and meeting a variety of anime girls along the way.

It's a love story, but with a lot of heart, and e??veryone who's made it to the end usual?ly has good things to say about it. I have not, as the writing has always just worn on me.

You can't ignore CLANNAD's historical importance though, and I think if you want an easy-going, slice-of-life story with some gut-punches as it goes further in, CLANNAD and its side stories may be worth your time investment.

Witch on the Holy Night

Speaking of genre pillars, writer Kinoko Nasu's Fate, Tsukihime, and other related works are absolutely massive. These works, undoubtedly brilliant, have given rise to plenty of spin-offs and related games.

One of these, and one deserving of its place as a fantastic Switch visual novel, is Witch on the Holy Night. The well-received story that t??akes place within the broader Nasu-verse. I'm only a little ways in at the time of wri??ting, but so far, it has everything you'd want from this particular subset; absolutely gorgeous visuals and lots of magical fighting.

Witch on the Holy Night is solid on art alone,? but the writing also looks to put it as a solid recommendation for anyone wanting a little more action in their Switch visual novels.

If Found

For the (literally) more Annapurna take on the genre, let's turn to If Found. This tale follows two stories. In one, astronaut-scientist Cassiopeia heads to Planet X, only to find a black hole that will soon destroy Earth. Back on Earth ??in the journal portion, we follow Kasio, a transgender woman who's ju??st finished her Master's degree and is headed back home to Achill Island, Ireland.

It's not an emotionally easy read, as it's got some real heart-rending moments and a tense final act, along with lots of family drama. But if you're down to explore that narrative territory, I think you'll find something quite special in the pages of If Found.

Gnosia

Okay, this is where I twist my rules a bit. Gnosia is, arguably, more of an RPG or management game than a "proper" visual nove?l. But after some internal discussion, we felt it passed the VN vibe check.? And also, it's a particular favorite of mine.

Gnosia is, like Raging Loop, framed around a Werewolf-style social deduction game. But rather than a narrative framing for a t?raditional VN-style?? story, it plays out in story segments, as you literally fight debate battles each day to determine who is the intruding Gnosia on board the ship.

From gorgeous art to an underrated soundtrack, to some highly memorable characters that?? endear themselves to you thro??ugh text and their individual debate quirks, this is one for folks who want a heavier helping of buttons to push and game to play amid their visual novel reading.

Doki Doki Literature Club Plus

Okay, I know at least a few people scrolled pretty far down this list wondering, "where's DDLC?" Yes, Doki Doki Literature Club is on here. Yes, it's worth reading. It's got some neat twists an??d feels like a good representat??ion of what the medium can do with its framing devices.

It's also neat that this visual novel got put on Switch and other consoles, considering all the hijinks happening that, to me, felt best suited to PC. That said, there are caveats. I do think Doki Doki Literature Club relies heavily on its surprises, so don't read up too much on it, unless you feel you need a content warning; in that case, please do look for?? that online.

I also wouldn't recommend anyone play this as their firs??t VN. T??hat's just my personal recommendation, but I definitely think it's better to have some familiarity with the format going in.

We Know The Devil

Three teens named Neptune, Jupiter, and Venus are at summer camp, and they have one task left ahead o?f them. They have to spend 12 hours in a cabin in the woods, waiting for the devil. Will they live or die? Well, that might just depend on what you do.

We Know The Devil is a short, interesting game that could probably fill just one evening, but leave you thinking about it for a while. It's also priced at $6.66. Very good. Sadly, Pillow Fight and Worst Girls Games' also excellent VN Heaven Will Be Mine is not on Switch, but do?? seek it out if you enjoy this ee?rie night in the woods.

Perfect Gold

Let's close the list of Nintendo Switch visual novels off with a selection from our own Zoey Handley. This romance VN is all about two people falling in love while figuring themselves out, and while it's not heavily choice??-driven, it does have multiple e??ndings.

This story about two mages learning their craft??s, while also sneaking out of detention to attend the local Sunflower Festival, seems like a good time for those who? want a little love in their virtual life.

And that's where this list of the best visual novels you can find on the Switch. There are many more to choose from, and some I wish I could've included on this list, so don't let your visual nov?el journey end here.

Consider this your in??troduction, and the rest is up? to you!

The post 20 of the best visual novels you can play ???on Switch right now appeared first on Destructoid.

Sony’s inaugural console had a pretty deep library, so it’s no wonder the list of standout titles is so long. It's also a well-loved console, so the PS?1 is well-trodden terri??tory now. What would go on a "best of" list is generally well-solidified for most people.

So, this isn't a ranked list, and it isn't a list of the best, but rather games you might have overlooked. I don't particularly like ranked list, since I don't think they're that useful. I say this as someone who's written a few. There's no accounting for taste and comparing something like Metal Gear Solid to Twisted Metal 2 isn't very insightful. Also, I don't really like Metal Gear Solid, and you probably already know how you fee?l about it. Me throwing it at a low rank i?sn't going to change your mind.

I prefer to just talk about games and make recommendations. So, rather than being insincere, I’m just going to list X games you should play on your PS1 if you haven’t already. Maybe you haven't heard of them, ????maybe you have. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but let’s start with these, and then you can get back to me.

Um Jammer Lammy

Parappa the Rapper is a staple of the PS1 library. When I think of its most prominent titles, it sticks out. We eventually got a direct sequel in 2001's Parappa the Rapper 2 on PS2, but before that, the formula was revisited in Um Jammer Lammy Instead of following the lyric-spewing dog(?), you play as Lammy, the ??riff-rocking lamb. That is to say, she plays a guitar rather than rap.

It’s quirkier than the original, and while there’s nothing quite as good as Cheep Cheap’s rap, the soundtrack is overall a bit better. Parappa also focused and pretty normal teenager problems like taking a drivers test and having to poop really bad. The only problem here is that the North American version of Um Jammer Lammy changed the part where Lammy is sent?? to Hell. Rock & Roll is the devil’s music, after al??l.

Bloody Roar

Or Bloody Roar 2, honestly. I like fighting games, but it's hard for me to get invested these days without a rival. Also, when I play them online, I get really jittery from nervous adrenaline that it makes me physically uncomfortable and I need to stop. However, I still try them out when I can. Bloody Roar is the first 3D fighting game in a ??long time to really get its hooks into me.

Bloody Roar sort of follows the Virtua Fighter formula, but has walls around the ring like Fighting Vipers. That's the only real distinction. Oh, no, wait, the characters can also transform into furries. That is to say, anthropomorphic animals. You have a bar that fills up over time, and?? whenever you've got it full, you can transform in a blastwave of energy and immediately be given a whole new repertoire of dangerous moves. It's a surprisingly effective twist that adds an unexpected layer of strategy to the fighting.

Rogue Trip Vacation 2012

After a confusing series of contracts and acquisitions, Singletrac, the original creators of Twisted Metal were unceremoniously ripped away from the series following Twisted Metal 2. They went to make a range of games before they were closed down. One of these was a similar vehicular combat game titled Rogue Trip: Vacation 2012.

While the premise still involves cars flinging missiles at each other, it also includes a monetary system that allows you to trade cash earned from shuttling around tourists for upgrades. Was it better than Twisted Metal 2? No. Vigilante 8? Not really. But is it a better option than Twisted Metal 3? Most definitely.

Incredible Crisis

I have a personal grudge against Titus. Most of the games the publisher released are terrible, such as Carmageddon 64 and Superman (also N64, but that's not actually in the title). I always say, "Ain't no fun if there's a fox on the box" when picking up one of those game. But one of the best things they ever did as a publisher was localizing Incredible Crisis.

Incredible Crisis is actually a bakage (stupid/weird game) from Japanese arcades. It follows a family of four as they try to make it home to celebrate their wrathful matriarch's birthday. Unfortunately, nothing goes as planned as they get involved in explosions, bank robberies, and an alien invasi?on. Gameplay is actually just a series of mini-games, which may give you whiplash as you try to figure out new styles of play on the fly.

Germs: Nerawareta Machi

I was originally going to keep this list specifically focused on North American releases, but I don't want to. There's some bizarre stuff that never made it out of its home country. Take Germs: Nerawareta Machi for example, which plays like the basis of Deadly Premonition. You're let loose on a? desolate?? but fully explorable city that is having trouble with a strange virus. This virus is possibly being spread by aliens. I don't know, you're the reporter, you figure it out.

It's an ambitious game. There's a full day/night cycle. To find your way forward you often need to return to your office to take calls from people and check your email for where to go next. You can get there by driving (or walking, if you're determined) or you can catch a ride on the subway. When you get to certain scenes, you need to pull out a gun and engage in some very Morrowind-esque real-time RPG combat.

But what makes Germs so memorable is its strange atmosphere. The city is pretty empty aside from some key peop?le. There is no color to most of the buildings, just slight splashes every so often. You're given very little information to work off of a lot of the time, which leaves you free to just exist in this world sometimes. As I mentioned, it never made it out of Japan. However, a preliminary fan translation can help you figure things out.

Mad Panic Coaster

Speaking of bakage, I'm not even sure where to begin with introducing Mad Panic Coaster. Do you remember when 3D clones of Roller Coaster Tycoon started ha?ppening? One of the big selling points was often that you could ride on the roller coaster. Okay, now make the entire game tha??t.

That's sort of Mad Panic Coaster. You ride on a roller coaster, but rather than being strapped into your seat and sent down the rails, you have to do laps around the track while avoiding various hazards and not falling off the track. It's not as easy as it sounds, especially sin??ce your cart moves at Mach 10. It can be difficult to the point of frustration, and it's by no m??eans a short game.

But what really makes it worth recommending is its outstanding soundtrack and expressive art style. It was created by a development studio not really known for making games, and by people who seemingly weren't in the industry for long. Yet, despite that, it carries an immense amount of personality. There'?s not much like it. It's just unfortunate that? it was never released outside of Japan and, even there, is extremely rare.

Parasite Eve

This one is a bit more high-profile, but I feel like a lot of people still missed it. It’s a Squaresoft title, but while they would normally lean into fantasy, Parasite Eve is more contemporary. It’s still an RPG, but while it uses an active-time system, it allows you to move in real time. It’s also stylish as ?hell, full of melty people and flesh monsters. The audience at an opera is set on fire, helicopters explode, and a dude jumps from a helicopter and is set on fire. Doesn't get much better than that.

It goes in a few batshit directions when it comes to narrative, but works as a disaster plot. It absolutely hammers on the word mitochondria. A lot of what it spouts is accurate, but the whole plot hinges on your abil??ity to believe a portion of your cells are able to gain sentience. Absolute batshit. It gets a little Kojima-esque with its exposition at times, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.

Unfortunately, the sequel drops the unique combat system and becomes a lot more like Resident Evil. But that just makes the original Parasite Eve a lot more unique.

Road Rash

I really don’t know why EA chose to just call this one Road Rash, as it’s not a remake of the original, and it came out on the 3DO before Road Rash 3 hit the Genesis. There's also a sort-of downport on the Sega CD which isn't the same as either the original or this version. It's confusing, so a lot of the time, this one is called Road Rash 32-Bit.

Regardless, it’s probably one of the best titles in the series if you don’t find Road Rash 64 side-splittingly hilarious. While the gameplay follows the same formula of motorcycle racing mixed with bashin??g your rivals with crowbars, it plays a bit smoother on 32-bit consoles and features much more detailed 3D graphics rather than the old raster trick of the original. It feels pretty great and has a lot more personality. It also had some really tacky cutscenes, which is a good taste of how tasteless that era of gaming was.

Army Men Air Attack 2

I talk about the Army Men series often, and whenever I do, someone usually says, “Oh yeah, I liked the helicopter one.�?There wasn’t a single helicopter one. If you only count original titles and exclude some markedly different ports, there were three of them: Air Tactics, Air Attack, and most importantly, Air Attack 2. Yes, a lot of (some) people talk about Air Attack and don?’t even realize there was a direct sequel.

There was, and it's fine. The gameplay is the same action-heavy helicopter action lifted from the Strike series (Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, etc.), and it still works. It doesn't come close to the inventiveness of the first game and, to be honest, there are a lot of cut corners here, probably owing to 3DO's very tight development deadlines. The series was already speeding downhill fast when Air Attack 2 came out. But, in general, Air Attack 2 still contains a lot of the same shooty winchy action. Plus, there's co-op if you have someone in your presence. If you liked “the helicopter one�?you may consider check??ing this out.

On second thought, I'm not sure why this is here. I guess because I wanted to include an Army Men game given my history with the series. PS1 was where it was most prolific. There were 10 Army Men games released on the console, and Air Attack was easily the best. Although, I do have a soft spot for the World War games (not Land, Sea, Air).

Moon

Okay, so we didn’t exactly get Moon over here in North America until 2020, but it’s one of the first examples of Love-de-Lic’s formula of helping people for the good feels. It’s technically a parody of the typical RPG, containing no real combat and the s?imple goal of spreading altruism about. You wander a strange world, talking to strange people, and helping them with their strange problems.

Moon just feels meaningful. While the gameplay is simple, it feels deep and profound. You get insight into the lives of the game's inhabitan?ts and experience a new perspective on things. It helps that there is a fantastic soundtrack (largely by one of my favorite composers, the legendary Hirofumi Taniguchi) that you actually have to collect and compile in a playlist and an art style that continues to influence developers to this day.

While Love-de-Lic would only release three games (none of which were released in the West) before disbanding, the feel-good formula would be carried on by its star players who broke off into their own studios and made games like Chibi-Robo and Chulip. Unfortunately, for a long while, the genre was doomed to frequently overlook a North American release with later games like Endonesia and Giftpia staying exclusively in Japan.

Medal of Honor Underground

If there’s one area that the N64 trounced the PS1, it is in first-person shooters. While Goldeneye 007 and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter haven’t aged the greatest, what did the Playstation have? Not none, but while I can list off quite a few decent N64 games in the genre, with the PS1 it’s a bit more difficult without adding the caveat “I guess.�?Medal of Honor, however, is ?easy to appreciate since it helped launc??h the WWII shooter sub-category that dominated the shooter space after.

Medal of Honor: Underground is one you might have missed, however. A big score for me was its female protagonist, Manon Baptiste, b??ut it also added enemy tanks and friendly soldiers to the mix. It isn’t ne??cessarily better than the original, but it is more of the same that you might not have already experienced.

Vagrant Story

Another one of Squaresoft’s often-overlooked PS1 titles, Vagrant Story is a ridiculously deep RPG with a number of intricate systems all mashed together. It’s something that shouldn’t work, almost doesn’t, but somehow does. At the very least, it requires you to develop a great deal of familiarity in its systems to truly make the most of it. You play as Ashley Riot, with the task of investigating a cult in the city of Leá Monde and the ruins ?beneath it.

Like Parasite Eve, Vagrant Story stands out because of its unique style. It actually won a bunch of awards from various publications, but unfortunately released alongside games like Final Fantasy IX and Chrono Cross. Because of that, Vagrant Story is often left out of many discussion??s of Squaresoft’s glory days. We’re lo??ng overdue for a remaster.

King’s Field

In the wake of Dark Souls�?success, the often-overlooked King’s Field series has been re-examined. That's because Hidetaka Miyazaki has stated that Demon's Souls is something of a spiritual successor to that series. Don't go in expecting too many similarities, however. Both games are distinct from one another, essentially just sharing their dark fantasy leanings. It shares more with early PC?? dungeon crawlers tha?n it does with later FromSoftware titles.

The localized King’s Field for PS1 is technically the Japanese King’s Field 2. It’s a shame we never got the first one, but the second title presents the same dungeon-crawling goodness. Beyond just being a nicely stiff and enjoyable action adventure, it also feels distinctly PS1 in ??its level geometry and texture work. It'??s a look that defined the console.

Tecmo's Deception

Speaking of looking distinctly PS1, Tecmo's Deception was the progenitor to the long-running series (last seen in 2014 with Deception IV). Despite that, this plays almost nothing like later games. Oh, ?sure, the gameplay based around setting traps for your enemies is still there, but it's very rudimentary compared to what would come back. While later games? would have you set up Rube Goldberg-style combinations of traps, that wasn't even possible in this game. Instead, traps work more like RPG spells; you lead an enemy into them, then trigger it at the right moment.

However, it had charm that later games lacked. You could customize your evil mansion in a lot of ways. This was largely a useless feature, but there's something satisfying about creating the backdrop to your murders. It also has a pretty unusual plot where you more or less play as the villain in the story. It's packed full of bad design choices to the fact to the point where I'd have a tough time describing it as a quantifiably goo?d game, but, at the very least, it is one worth se?eing.

Ghost in the Shell

I've never actually watched the Ghost in the Shell movie, which is maybe okay since this game is based more on the manga. But, like, I'm not familiar enough to know what the difference is. Anyway, you play as a member of Public Security Section 9, and the action takes place with you firmly planted inside of?? a spider-like tank. It's maybe not what you'd really expect from the license.?? Yet, despite that, it's actually a really great tie-in.

It has extremely interesting combat with your tank being able to climb on walls. However, it's most fondly remembered for it's era-defyingly terrific controls and strikingly well-executed art style. It has its flaws and can be a bit frustrating, but it's so strong that it counts the most that it's practically timeless. It's apparently even better if you're already a fan of Ghost in the Shell, but I wouldn't know anything about that.

Brave Fencer Musashi

Not my favorite game on this list, but I do think it's an extremely memorable one. Brave Fencer Musashi is an often-overlooked game from Square that falls outside the JRPG format that the company was renowned for at the time. It's a strange game where ??you play as a diminutive samurai who is sucked into another world to fix its problems. And he's not happy about it.

While the gameplay maybe didn't click with me entirely, it's hard to forget its attitude. Musashi was roped into this adventure against his will, and he's not shy about telling people that. His catchphrase is practically "Not my problem, pal." In a way, it feels like a parody of the usual action-adventure game where the protagonist will allow themselves to get wrapped into petty sidequests that don't really concern them. With a day/night cycle and plenty of exploration to do, Brave Fencer Musashi is incredibly memorable, if nothing else.

Tail Concerto

The progenitor to the “Little Tail Bronx�?series by Cyberconnect, Tail Concerto technically shares the same floating universe as Solatorobo: Hunter the Red and Fuga: Melodies of Steel. Each game is a little labor of love which makes it all the more confusing that you can only really download Fuga these days. The second-hand market has Tail Concerto, in particular, pegged at a ridiculous price.

Is it worth it? I’d probably argue that no game is worth as much as a North American copy of Tail Concerto, but it’s still one you should check out if you can. The story involves, erm, the oppression of cats. Dogs and cats are living together on islands that float in the sky, but the?? dogs are the majority and use that position to oppress the cats. It's a bit like the leadup to World War 2, which is a bit distressing. You play as a dog, just to make sure you feel more uncomfortable.

Despite that allegory, Tail Concerto has bright,?? ?charming graphics, a simple but unique narrative, and inventive gameplay that harkens back to a simpler time. It's easy to forget that it's about an underclass trying to get out from beneath the boots of their oppressors. Or rather, you might not notice at all. It’s just unfortunate that it’s so short.

Street Fighter Alpha 3

This might seem like a strange inclusion because Street Fighter Alpha 3 is an arcade game, and that version is available in at least three collections on digital storefronts right now. But the reason it's here is because there are a lot of added features that make it more at home on consoles. Specifically, I'm talking about W??orld Tour mode.

World Tour mode has you traveling the world with your chosen character and gradually making them more powerful along the way. Not only that, you unlock characters as you progress, with more fighters on the roster in this version than there was in arcade. The added bit of progression mak??es the game more fun to play when you're on your own without a rival to take on. Or you could just grab one of the online-enabled ports available today and play against o?thers all over the world if you prefer, but there's still value in World Tour if you think you've seen it all.

Colony Wars

The space combat genre (or 6DOF, there's no name for this genre I'm happy with) has been stagnant for quite some time now, but it really shone during the early 3D era because of the fact that it was easy to render large environments when most of it is an empty vacuum. During that time, we got some cherished games like Star Wars: X-Wing and Wing Commander, but some excellent titles were lost in the cracks, such as Colony Wars.

Colony Wars isn't too far removed from other games in the? genre, but it impressively ??features a branching storyline and multiple endings. For the time, the graphics were impressive to see on PS1. Its depictions of large space battles was more spectacular than most at the time, helped by a rather striking lighting system.

Colony Wars was very well received at the time of its release, garnering awards from publications at the time. It spawned two sequels on the console. So, it's kind of weird that it fell into obscurity. After the PS1 trilogy, it tumbled off the face of the plane??t, which is kind of ironic, since it takes place in space.

I.Q.: Intelligent Qube

If I had to choose a favorite on this list of outside-the-norm games, it would be this one, I.Q.: Intelligent Qube. ?If you were alive and gaming during the PS1's lifespan, there's a decent chance that you played it on a demo disc, but did you ever actually own it? I'm not sure if I had seen one in person?? until far later in life. It was hard to get attention in those days unless something was exploding, gushing blood, or getting wrecked.

I.Q. is just such a game. It's almost like a puzzle game; that's probably the closest genre you can relate it to. You play as a simple dude on top of a very cube-centric playing field while cubes roll toward you, threatening to chase you over the edge or crush you. Or both. Your job is to set bombs on the ground and wait for the right moment to detonate them to remove some of the?? enemy cubes. Some of them cause bigger explosions, others you need to avoid taking out at all. It's hard to describe, really, but it takes a lot of concentration and can be almost zen to play.

What adds to the experie??nce is a soundtrack that sounds like an orchestra scoring a bar fight and a reverb-soaked announcer who will give you a verbal pat on the back every time you flawlessly clear a set of cubes with a satisfying "Perrrrrrfect!" There's a sequel, but unfortunately, the announcer isn't as amazing, so that's a shame.

The post Try These 20 PS1 Games – A Few Of The Best Playstation 1 Games Of All Time appeared first on Destructoid.

Pinball has a visual style all of its own, a tangible reality that most interactive entertainment fails to capture. And while the past few decades have seen the release of hundreds of great-looking, great-?sounding, and completely compelling games, some examples stand out in the memory of the pinball community more than others. They might not necessarily be the best games, but they are the embodiment of the pinball age at its most lucrative. Stalwarts of the genre. Masters of design. Icons.

The past few decades have seen the release of hundreds of great-looking, great-sounding, and completely compelling pinball machines. However, some stand out more than others. Here are 18 of the most iconic pinball machines of all time.? Take your Skill Shot.

The most iconic pinball machines of all time you absolutely must play at least once

Below, we've listed what we believe? are the 18 most iconic pinball machines of all time. While your tastes may vary, these ones stick out to us above all others for the reasons we'v??????????????????????????e described.

20. Super Mario (1992)

Mario helped put arcades on the map in the 1980s, so it only makes sense that Nintendo would strike while the iron was ho??t when pinball made a massive comeback in the 1990s. The red-capped plumber turns almost any game he's in into an instant classic, and the same holds for this simple but endlessl?y amusing pinball cabinet.

This cabinet is a love letter to Mario fans, right down to reusing many of the original game's sound effects. A spinning Pirahna Plant watches as you try to shoot your balls into the Warp Pipe and tag the Bowser flag in the top-right corner. This game isn't that deep, bu??t its colorful charm more than makes up for that.

19. Dirty Harry (1995)

Much more than an elusive Clint Eastwood fan collectible, this pinball machine has some quirks that set it apart from anything else you'll have played. Named after Eastwood's iconic character, Dirty Harry boasts some nosta??lgic elements that transport you back in time while you play. Staring at it brings back memories of hard plastic toy replicas of every movie that hit theatres, the kind of stuff you just can't get these days.

Maybe the best part of the Dirty Harry pinball machine is the moving .44 magnum replica that can and will shoot pinballs at targets, the ramp, and the sinkhole. That uniqu??e part makes this one of the best pinball machines of all time for us because there aren't many you can point to and say you remember them for such a specific reason.

18. Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast (2018)

The fact that Iron Maiden has a pinball machine is no surprise, is it? The band has everything else, from its own brand of beer to skins in Dead by Daylight, so this machine makes a lot of sense. What we do find sur??prising is that his 2018 machine is actual?ly a sequel to one Stern released around 1985.

Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast builds upon the band'?s mobile game of the same name, in which its mascot, Eddie, battles The Beast. The main reason to play is for the stunning artwork because the game modes see??m to be pretty standard. Of course, they're Iron Maiden's level of standard, which kicks them up a notch.

17. Godzilla (2021)

Stern's 2021 masterpiece, Godzilla Pro Pinball, packs in a meaty storyline worthy of the modern Monarch timeline. Evil aliens known as the Xilians have mind-controlled King Ghidor??ah, Gigan, Megalon, Ebirah, and Titanosaurus and are destroying the world using their immense powers. Players use Godzilla and its allies, Mothra, Rodan, and Anguirus, to fight back against this threat and ultimately annihilate Mechagodzilla.

This one is something special, with the limited edition featuring a functionally collapsing skyscraper that will capture three balls and send them through every floor as it crashes down. Multiballs are a bit of a nightmare to keep track of, but they feel thematically accurate here?? because you're trying to cause as much chaos and destruction as humanly possible in a pinball machine.

As if the iconic Godzilla theme wasn't enough??, the machine also plays the track, Godzilla, by Blue Oyster Cult just to really ham things up. We can't imagine a better pin??ball machine for fans of the radioactive lizard and his ensemble cast of misfit monsters.

16. Cirqus Voltaire (1997)

Considered one of the last icons of pinball's golden '90s era, Bally/Williams Cirqus Voltaire i?s one of the most colorful, vibrant, and visually ambitious games of all time, as the player pushes through the various acts of an electric, arthouse circus �?Its unique aesthetic is reflected in its psychedelic playfield, and bolstered by bright neon lighting, ethereal sound, and fluo?rescent tubing built into the ramps. CV is also well-remembered for its sinister "Ringmaster", a mischievous head that rises and falls to taunt the player.

15. Black Knight 2000 (1989)

The direct sequel to the more modest 1980 release, Black Knight, pinball veteran Steve Ritchie's Black Knight 2000 supercharged the follow-up with faster gameplay, an electrifying visual design, a totally radical dude 'late-'80s aesthetic, and, most notably of all, a blaring banger of a theme song, written by Brian Schmidt and powerful enough to drown out the sounds of every other machine in the arcade. When someone was playing BK 2000, you knew about it, bub.

"YOU GOT THE POWER! GIVE ME YOUR MONEY!"

A machine that embodies the hedonism and raucous nature of the 1980s, BK 2000 is almost twee when viewed by modern eyes. But, make no mistake about it, no pinball machine was more determined to make you, and everybody else, sit up and take notice. Oh, and it was also hard as nails to boot. An incredible three decades later, the sequel Black Knight: Sword of Rage would follow.

14. Scared Stiff (1996)

Scared Stiff is the second of three pinball machines starring The Mistress of the Dark, Elvira. While we personally prefer 1989's Elvira & the Party Monsters, (and we're sadly yet to play 2019's Elvira's House of Horrors), Scared Stiff is the most commonly found of the three games. Featuring the look and vibe of her iconic TV show, Scared Stiff features comic-book gore, a backglass "Spider Spinner" and plenty of callouts recorded by the great woman herself. Gameplay is a tad on the easy side, but SS is a much-loved machine within the community, and a great bookmark for modern pinball's "mid??dle era".

13. Xenon (1980)

Released in 1980, Xenon is a stunning and trul??y iconic trendsetter for the decade to come, wonderfully stylized in the fonts, colors, and architecture that would typify the following years. Not just in pinball but in all forms of new-wave fashion, mu?sic, art, and culture.

Xenon features a future-noir silver/blue color scheme, electronic music, a litany of dazzling lights, and the sultry, beckoning voice of composer/sound designer Suzanna Ciani, who entices the player with flirtatious callouts and �?let's just call it what it is �?"orgasmic" sound effects. Xenon defined a new era for pinball, which would step away f?rom the bells, chimes, and rootin' to?otin' cowboy themes of yore, to be replaced with an era of solid-state sound, sci-fi, and sex.

12. Monster Bash (1998)

One of the most popular machines in the collector's community, Williams' Monster Bash takes the Universal Monsters, (Frankenstein, The Bride, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mu?mmy, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon), and reimagines them as a retired rock band, who are digging themselves out of the grave for a reunion tour. It's up to you to get the band back together and back on stage.

Monster Bash is surprisingly straightforward, gameplay-wise, but is hugely popular due to its cast of characters, fun dot-matrix animations, and amusing playfield features. These include Frankenstein's revolving lab table and a ball-stalking Count Dracula. Some of the music tracks, (but not the great main hook), are a little cheesy to modern ears, but Monster Bash's overa??????????????????????????ll concept is great fun, and the machine sits proud?ly in many a collection.

Universal should'??v??e based The Dark Universe on this.

11. Centaur (1981)

Arguably the most Heavy Metal pinball machine ever made, Bally's Centaur is in a class of its own where visual design is concerned. Styled almost entirely in black & white, the Centaur playfield is one from which no color will ever escape and is intricately detailed with the dark, comic-book artwork of Paul Faris. Centaur recalls an era of horror comics, Dungeons & Dragons, and the parent?-bothering "Satanic P?anic" that would tear throughout the 1980s.

The "half monster-half motorbike creature" is, quite frankly, funny "af" today, but even that staple of metal cheese just adds to the machine's perfect "time capsule" of the dawning 1980s. A well-maintained Centaur stands today as a thing of beauty.

If pinball did drugs, then Centaur is a cabinet of whiskey and coke.

10. The Machine: Bride of Pinbot (1991)

While 1986's Pin-Bot is undoubtedly one of the most beloved classics of the pinball era, its 1991 sequel The Machine, (more commonly known as "Bride of Pin-Bot"), is pinball royalty. The Machine has the player attempt to build a robotic waifu for our boy Pin-Bot. The construction is presented as an epic event, and The Bride comes to life with a soothing and flirtatious voice (ala Xenon), as well as a wonderful sequence where the entire playfield shuts down, The Bride's birth ??represented by an evocative "heartbeat" light show.

The Machine: Bride of Pin-Bot is perhaps the shallowest of the Pin-Bot trilogy (1997's Jack-Bot eventually followed it), but The Machine's knack for special effects and story??telling made it an incredible smash hit on release, becoming one of the first "Must-Play" pinball machines of the '90s renaissance.

9. Medieval Madness (1997)

Easily the most popular and recognized of pinball's latter-day period, Williams' Medieval Madness is something of a Crown Jewel within the collections of those able to afford it. And it's quite easy to see why, with its intricately detailed playfield, physical models and effects, and galley of hugely satisfying shots. The audio package features amusing callouts, including Monty Python????????????????????????????-esque comedy, and a roster of fun allies and enemies.

Whether smashing castles, bashing trolls, defeating dragons, or rescuing damsels, Medieval Madness is a fast-playing, hugely gratifying game, and the ideal title to put in front of a newcomer to help them understand why pinball is so compelling. For these and other reasons, Medieval Madness is also one of the most expensive machines on the market, with original '97 models usually trading well into five figures. No wonder it's considered a ric?h man's pastime.

8. The Simpsons: Pinball Party (2003)

Are you really surprised that The Simpsons has its own pinball machine? America's most dysfunctional family is infamous in arcade circles for inspiring one of the most addictive beat-em-up machines ever made, but they're also the theme of not one but two colorful, melodious pinball machines. The original The Simpons pinball machine is well-regarded, but The Simpons: Pinball Party is legendary.

Moving parts fill the playfield of this cabinet, and all of them are charming references to the Simpsons' iconic home, including a couch you can load your multi-balls into and a bashable garage door you can use to get to the upper floor. The real selling point here, though, is the shockingly complex rule set. The Simpons: Pinball Party lets?? you stack up multi-balls and bonus rounds like you wouldn't believe, and only an elite few pinball wizards have ever activated the cabinet's Super Duper Mega Extreme Wizard Mode.

If this section gives any aspiring pinball enthusiast?s any ideas, good ?luck.

7. Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure (1993)

In the early '90s Williams' went hard on licensed titles, often to great effect. A great example of this model is 1993's Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure. This "widebody" game, (around five inches wider than the standard pinball dimensions), is a celebration of the original Indiana Jones film trilogy, and features characters and modes inspired by Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade.

The playfield features numerous physical effects, including moving idols, a rotating temple gate, a revolver shooter, and a World War biplane. Powerful new DCS sound technology allows for great replications of the famous theme tune, along with voice samples from characters such as Indy, Indy Sr, Marion, Short Round, Willie, and Sallah. Still, today, Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure is one of the very best licensed games.

A second In??diana J??ones game was released by Stern in 2008.

6. FunHouse (1990)

FunHouse truly turned heads upon its 1990 release. As pinball entered a transition period from early solid state and alphanumeric titles into a new world of gimmicks, games within games, and bold ideas, FunHouse became instantly iconic thanks to the disembodied head of mechanical carnival barker, Rudy, who taunts the player, offers hints, and even swallows balls! (behave). Fun fact: Rudy is voiced by Ed Boon, who was a Williams employee and would soon co-create the Mortal Kombat franchise.

FunHouse is perhaps the quintessential pinball game. It's fast and fluid, it's loud and colorful, it's compelling and frustrating, and it's one of the final titles that pushed the then-limitations of the market to the brin??k, right before the launch of a bold era of technically s?uperior, highly polished, licensed games.

5. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

One of the most popular games devised by pinball designer Steve Ritchie, (also the original voice of Mortal Kombat's Shao Kahn), Terminator 2: Judgment Day was a part of the then unheard-of billion-dollar marketing drive for James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster. As a typical Ritchie title, Terminator 2: Judgment Day features high?-speed gameplay with a heavy emphasis on complex combo sho??ts.

T2 features numerous firsts: It is the first pinball machine to feature a button-activated auto-launcher, it was also the first game designed with a Dot-Matrix Display (DMD), and to feature a built-in mini-game, as players use the shooter to blast approaching T-800s on the DMD. Terminator 2: Judgment Day is far from the best game on this list, but it was very widely distributed among arcade centers, and, as such,?? is remembered by even the most casual of arcade attendees today.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, also desig??ned by Ritchie, was released by Stern?? in 2003.

4. Gorgar (1979)

While the oldest and arguably most simplistic title of this list, Williams' Gorgar perhaps embodies the identity and culture of pinball more than any of the other games. The storyline sees the player battling the titular demon ??in an apocalyptic showdown, and the playfield is emblazoned in heavy metal iconography, parent-bothering themes, lurid horror-comic artwork, and half-naked humans, all while offering a brutal, quarter-munching challenge.

Gorgar was the first pinball machine to utilize synthesized speech, with a seven-word vocabulary that forms crude sentences. Gorgar eschews music in exchange for a constant pulsing "heartbeat", which adds to the game's unholy appeal. The kind of pinball machine that would likely appear on '80s news broadcasts as "encouraging devil worship", Gorgar's rudimentary? gameplay only adds to its old-school char??m.

3. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1993)

Williams' Star Trek: The Next Generation might have hit the scene during the show's twilight years, but that didn't stop fans from flocking to its huge, stunningly designed cabinet. Another "widebody" title, Star Trek: TNG took an age to come to fruition, with the design team having to almost move the stars themselves in order to score the license from Paramount �?reportedly bagged on the insistence that the game's action upholds "The Prime Directive".

ST: TNG is not only a great-looking game, but it is packed with tricky shots, satisfying combos, a Borg Multiball, and a bevy of challenging missions, culminating in a "Final Frontier" endgame. Seven original cast members recorded new dialogue for the sound package, adding to its authenticity. Today, some 30 years later, Star Trek: The Next Generation stands up easily to any modern machine �?a testament to its ?timeless design excellence.

2. Twilight Zone (1993)

Submitted for your approval: One of the best and most iconic pinball machines of the 1990s. Offered a "blank cheque" after his success with The Addams Family, designer Pat Lawlor followed up with this excellent adaptation of another classic of Americana: Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. The pinball version of the groundbreaking TV series featu??res references to various? familiar episodes, including "Living Doll", "The Hitchhiker", "The Invaders", and "A Most Unusual Camera".

Twilight Zone sports some of the most difficult gameplay in pinball, which turned away all but the most dedicated of players. Despite this, the game is a classy-looking and highly polished delight, with a cabinet that could be found in arcades across Europe and North America for years. TZ doesn't quite capitalize on its theme as well as it could have, but the cool backglass and its rendition of the famous theme tune should instant??ly spark nostalgia in any arcade goer of a certain age.

1. The Addams Family (1992)

Tell anybody who was around in the '90s that you're into pinball, and never fail, you'll be met with some variant of "Oh yeah, I remember pinball!.. Yeah... Addams Family!". This is with good cause, as Williams' The Addams Family is officially the best-selling pinball machine of all time, having shifted a staggering 20,270 units since its initial release. TAF is, of course, an adapt?ation of Barry Sonnenfeld's 1991 movie, but nobody could have quite anticipated the game's incredible popularity.

Designed by Pat Lawlor, The Addams Family features a memorable, comic-book playfield with modes based upon various scenes in the movie. These include the secret staircase, the living bear rug, Wednesday's toy train, the family vault, and, most importantly, THHHE MAA-MUSHKAAA! The playfield utilizes hidden magnets to play havoc with physics, while an animatronic Thing emerges from a box to lock balls. As a final touch, Raul Julia and Angelica Houston recorded new dialogue especially for the game, reprising their roles of Gomez and Morticia Addams. 'Tish.

The Addams Family pinball machine was unavoidable �?/em> a cornerstone of practically every single arcade, bar, beachfront, bowling alley, and nightclub in town. You can still find them on site today, though often in upsetting states of disrepair. But perhaps the best example of The Addams Family's enduring?? legacy is that, whether you personally play pinball or not...

...You already knew that this was going to be number one, right?

Don't get tilted

The past two decades might have seen pinball become something of a niche, rich folk's pastime, powered by a massively inflated collector's market and ?the increasing rarity of machine components, but for those of a certain age, there was, truly, a time?? where you couldn't enter a public building and not fall over a pinball machine or three. Arcades, bars, clubs, laundries, restaurants, theaters, corner stores, and gyms. If there was a five-foot empty space, then it had a pinball machine plonked on it.

There have been thousands of machines produced since the 1930s, from coin-operated bagatelle tables, through to the delightful electromagnetic (EM) machines of the '50s-'70s, these would give way to the Solid State (SS) machines of the '80s, pinball's golden renaissance in the '90s, and ultimately lead to today, with companies such as Stern and Jersey Jack cont??inuing to roll out brand new, exciting, hi-tech games for people who? have much more money than should ever be legal.

The post The 18 most iconic pinball machines of all time appeared first on Destructoid.

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Over the last year or so, I’ve inexplicably joined the ranks of people collecting big, bulky vinyl soundtracks. Albums are enjoying their second coming in a mostly digital era, and initially, I picked up a few with the sole intent of hanging them on a barren bedroom wall. Yet somehow, somewhere along the way, I wound up with a record player listening to the Silent Hill 4 soundtrack. It gives me a sort of haunte?d, pinky-out ambience.

Anyway, I’ve got no technical reason for it. My vinyl expertise doesn't extend beyond 'that sounds good' or 'that sounds bad'?? �?and I don’t own any albums that could fund my retirement or make them worth all the fuss. Really, I just like how holding the unwieldy discs feels, and I'm especially into the ones that look a bit like vintage splatter art. I like looking at the sleeves, blowing away the dust, and using a medium society had long aged out of by the time I was born.

A lot of people making games seem to share that sentiment, too. I recently spoke with Sabotage Studio president and Sea of Stars creative director Thierry Boulanger, who seems inspired by what drives us to revisit those little rituals with older media. In the interview, Boulan?ger offered Destructoid a peek into the studio’s process. It's a look into making s?omething both new and retro, maintaining integrity between mediums, and how you decide where Yasunori Mitsuda slots into all of this. 

It’s all about touch

“From the get-go, it was a must,�?said Boulanger, in reference to the decision to give Sea of Stars the retail and vinyl soundtrack treatment. The studio released its first game, The Messenger, in the same nostalgic vein back in 2018. They were already familiar with the path to getting something tangible made, and with Sea of Stars, Boulanger says it was always part of the pl??an. 

“We want there to be intent in everything that we do. We don’t wanna just move plastic. It’s not so much about the units. It’s that we make something people want to touch, they want to own, they w??ant to be able to keep. They want it to exist in their lives, more than the abstract, digital part of everything.�?nbsp;

The holding, the touching, that’s all part of the retro experience for plenty of enthusiasts. It’s, mostly, a good-inte??ntioned longing for different times or something comforting and familiar. For me, it usually boils down to some combination of childhood favorites and just wanting something a little simpler to manage. However, working within the limitations of yesteryear doesn't merit praise by default, despite what my nostalgia insists, and by no means is the process truly ea??sier.

Sea of Stars gets that, I explained as much in my review, but eschewing what’s needlessly obtuse doesn’t detract from recreating classic RPG designs with modern sensibilities. The limitations, however, still exist when you mo?ve between mediums  �?like making the jump from a limitless digital library to the more restrained, plastic discs.

Sabotage’s Iam8bit vinyl collaboration is a 2xLP collection, so it doesn’t contain the entire, hefty 200-song tracklist from Sea of Stars. Instead, it has to work as a sampling representative of the OST’s best pieces, capturing the work of composer Eric Brown and his legendary collaborator, Yasunori Mitsuda of Chrono Trigger and Xeno-series fame, in a curated format. It’s a gauntlet of bangers already made within a li??mited framework, and for the vinyl, they’d have to be culled again. 

“In capturing retro, we do like to work with the limitations because we sort of aim for the type of experience or the type of things that emerge from really harsh boundaries,�???said Boulanger. 

“So, any track has to be a two minute loop maximum. You need to have a hook in there in like three sections, you know? You can't do this drawn-out intro into a symphonic thing that just goes on. So it's, it's less of a score and more of a classic soundtrack there. But since we don't have the memory limitations of a cartridge, then we can do as many tracks as we want.�?/p>

For Sea of Stars, that meant any important cutscene could have “bespoke audio,�?leading to its whopping 200 tracks. It’s not the usual setup for many of the games that inspired the RPG, so that meant the vinyl would get picky?. 

“The first thing we did w?as [say] ‘okay, we’re doing 2xLP, right? So, we’re gonna save one side for Mitsuda, because this collaboration is straight-up legendary.�?Boulanger laughs describing the process, but that harsh curation left to the rest of the soundtrack was important to get Mitsuda’s 12 tracks on the physical album. 

From there, Boulanger and Brown worked to sa?mple a selection of its more iconic themes into something that could flow outside the larger, digital collection. They needed the basics, like the town and battle themes, but Brown was l??eft to much of the curation process to ensure the round-up was not only representative but balanced. 

“Eric also put care into the idea? of the listening experience, trying to pace everything properly. Of course, you want all the heavy ba??????????????????????????ngers, but you also want to sometimes take a bit of a break. So we feel it flows really nicely, but it was really something [of a process] because when you're doing digital, you're kind of boundless, right? You can just do however much you want to do.

And this kind of brings it back to now, ‘but what if you distill your idea?�?It forces you, it puts you in this mindset of like, ‘what's the nugget? What's the, the crystallized form of it that's concise?�?It was a super fun journey to do that, even though it was a bit hard.�?/p>

Moving with purpose

I describe my own recent affinity for vinyl with a bit of annoyance. If anything, I’m mostly embarrassed to be so sentimental about just stuff. I’ve already got an untameable retro collection of cartridges, discs, and guides eating away at a finite amount of closet and shelf space. But there’s comfort in holding something, purposefully removing the ??cartridge, or smashing a physical reset button. It compels me into keeping a sea of N64 games. 

If anything, Boulanger’s enthusiasm for th?at sensation offers a far kinder look at the type of person hoarding a stash of CDs to unlock creatures in a decades-old PlayStation game. 

“There is this understanding, there is a commitment to being in the moment. If you're just playing some playlist on Spotify or whatever in your Bluetooth speaker, it's like, yeah, you just go back 10 seconds to keep getting the dopamine hit of your favorite spike in the melody, or you hit next the second you're not like 100% vibing with the current track or whatever.&nb??s??p;

Whereas when you have a vinyl, it's kind of like, in a way,  it's a presence. It's not just a thing that you consume. And just all the steps that you have to do to even get it to play, I feel like, your entire body understands that you are committing time to listening to music more mindfully.�?/p>

It’s a process he sees as almost meditative, or at least shares roots with the grounding, purposeful steps involved in physical media. While there’s no shortage of stories from the director rooted in childhood nostalgia that leads to the creation of games like Sea of Stars, he seems just as compelled by the little processes. “For me, a vinyl is that, I’m going to actually sit down and listen to music. Not on the side, but that's my activity this afternoon, I want to listen to music fully.�?/p>

I grew up using CDs, but I’m incredibly nostalgic for the physicality of the whole playing-a-record process. It’s certainly far more cumbersome to pull out the Silent Hill 4 vinyl and listen to 'Room of Angel' on a device drastically bigger than my phone, but I ju?st brood be??tter that way. I’m more emotional.

Ultimately, there's always a more critical read of my desire to buy another SNES game at a pawn shop or order more pieces of plastic to stack on a sh??elf, and I get it. I don't necessarily need every pie?ce of digital media I own as a tangible, physical item, but there's value in that very purposeful, involved way an old concert or vinyl setup makes me interact with it. It's certainly a commitment, as Boulanger described, and in the attention economy where focus is a constant struggle, I appreciate the occasional game or album that demands I slow down.

Sea of Stars launches its retail edition worldwide today and is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Series X. The exclusive edition with a retro game man??ual, digital game soundtrack, poster, and other collectibles launches in Q2, 2024. The 2xLP vinyl soundtrack is available for pre-order now and is scheduled for release in Q3 2024. A digital download code with the full soundtrack is included with the vinyl.

The post Sea of Stars creative di?rector talks crafting physical game releases and our craving for ?the tangible appeared first on Destructoid.

The NES library has north of 700 games on it. That’s a lot, but in terms of successful consoles, it’s k??ind of in the mid-range. It still makes it difficult to choose any number of the best games. That’s probably why no one has been brave enough to make a Top X NES games list. I’m not saying I’m the bravest person in the world, but I am saying I have no shame.

One thing to note is that while I’ve played a staggeringly wide range of the NES library, I haven’t played everything. For example, I haven’t played Bases Loaded 3, and I’m open to the possibility tha?t it’s the apogee of the NES library. This also isn’t about which games were most popular or inf??luential. That’s another topic. These ones are the best for a myriad of other reasons.

I’m also not including Famicom exclusives, though I’d love to. If I was, just know that Metal Max would be stomping all over these games. That and Kunio-Kun. But, alas, here are the top 18 NTSC NES games.

18. Super Mario Bros. (1985)

I mentioned that this is not a list of the most influential games on the console because, if it was, Super Mario Bros. would top it each time. The NES is essentially a console built on the back of Super Mario Bros., and it's impossible to overstate its impact on consol??e games.

Also, it's still an extremely fun game. While its vintage ensures that the gameplay remains rather basic with little variety in enem?ies and obstacles, it makes up for it with sheer creativity in its level design. From World 1 to World 8, it stretches its mechanics in new and interesting ways. Improve??ments in the technology within NES cartridges would enable its predecessors to push new boundaries, the original holds its own through sheer craftsmanship.

17. Maniac Mansion (1990)

NES ports of home computer games were often rather lackluster due to differences in capabilities. However, it feels like no compromise has been made with the NES port of Lucasarts' seminal point-and-click adventure, Maniac Mansion.

What makes Maniac Mansion such a unique and exciting game among point-and-click titles is the more freeform nature of solving its puzzles. You select three characters and your path to the finish line changes depending on the combination you put together. The time it takes to get from start to finish in this game is extremely short, but it's unlikely you'll reach it on your first attempt. Maniac Mansion is a game that you'll play over an??d over, and surprisingly for a point-and-??click adventure, it remains fun each time.

16. Mega Man 6 (1993)

You're probably expecting to see at least one or two Mega Man games on this list. If multiple mega men are listed, you are probably expecting two specific titles to be here. I'm not going to spoil it, but Mega Man 6 is my choic?e for the second-best in the series. To be fair, all six titles are pretty much ju??st one game repeated, but each brings its own wrinkles that either add to or detract from the series.

What Mega Man 6 add??s it the ability to couple the blue bomber with his dog?????????????????????????? in a number of transformations that remain unique to the series. What it detracts is essentially any challenge. It has some great levels with branching pathways enabled by the Rush transformations. However, it also has no teeth. It's up to you whether or not diminished challenge bothers you, but for me, it's not all that much.

15. Duck Tales (1989)

While we have some big-named licensed games these days, most games based on movies or cartoons during the 8-bit years weren’t very good. Some of them were extraordinarily terrible. Capcom, on the other hand, had a good track record for making some terrific games based on Disney licenses. One of their early endeavors was Duck Tales.

There were a lot of directions you could go with a game based on Duck Tales, since it was??n’t purely an action show. Capcom chose to do hop-and-bop with a twist. You play as Scrooge McDuck who can somehow use his cane as a pogo stick, allo??wing him to eliminate enemies. The platforming was fine, but the real treasure was, er, searching for treasure. Not only were you rewarded with gems for messing with the environments, but there were also secret treasures located in each stage.

14. Super Mario Bros. 2 (1988)

Originally released in 1987 on the Famicom Disk System as Yume Kōjō: Dokidoki Panic, Nintendo tweaked and rebranded it as a Mario game for North America because the real Super Mario Bros. 2 is kind of butt. It’s d??ifficult, but in a really unfair and cruel way.

The Super Mario Bros. 2 that we got is a whimsical game about throwing dudes into other dudes. It doesn’t have much in common with the original game, but if you didn’t know about the Japanese release, you probably wouldn’t guess. It’s a challenging platformer with a jaunty soundtrack. It is, in my opinion, better than even the first game and miles better than the Super Mario Bros. 2 Japan received.

13. Kirby’s Adventure (1993)

I often say that I enjoy the idea of the Kirby, but don’t necessarily love the games. Kirby’s Adventure is an exception t??o that. It was a late release in 1993, and it kind of shows. Beyond having a lot of technical trickery, Kirby was given the ability to consume his enemies and adopt their powers. It’s not a terribly difficult game but it manages to be entertaining the whole way through.

12. Metroid (1986)

I totally get that some people don’t dig the original Metroid. The floaty controls, annoying enemies, and unforgiving life system can really be abrasive when you first approach the game and don’t get me started on the massive passwords you use to save your progress.

However, if you get acclimated to the enormous friction Metroid puts up front??, there’s a lot to like underneath. It’s a challenging game with a great progression. It was also very influential, with the impact of its gated exploration formula being immediately felt on the console. It can be hard to get into today, but it’s still worthw??hile.

11. Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse (1989)

Not far off from the original is Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse. Some would probably rank this one above the original, but I feel it has some areas where it’s not nearly as tightly designed. Difficulty is one such area, as changes were made in the North American version that aren’t in the Japanese version, Akumajou Densetsu. In particular, the damage the player take??s is more of a linear increase and is less fair.

Nonetheless, Castlevania 3 contains a lot of the original’s terrific sense of style and control. It adds branc?hing routes to the end, multiple characters to recruit and partner with, and a better variety of obstacles and challenges. All in all, it’s a great follow-up.

10. Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988)

This is going to be the top pick for a lot of people, and it’s here because I do love Super Mario Bros. 3; it just doesn’t get my thighs grinding. There’s a lot to love about it, though. For one thing, it plays like something that belongs to another console generation, effortlessly pulling off 4-way scrolling and fast movement. The level of variety on hand is insane, the level design is practically in a class of its own, and there’s a tonne of extras and secrets tucked away. Decades later, it still stands as one of the plumber’s best house calls. The fact that there’s such a night and day difference between Super Mario Bros. 3 and the first Super Mario Bros. while them both belonging ??to ??the same console is impressive.

9. Dragon Warrior (1986)

You can feel free to substitute your personal favorite Dragon Warrior (or Dragon Quest) game, but the original still feels the best to me. I prefer its simplicity and open design. Final Fantasy and the three subsequent games in the Dragon Warrior series take the formula in interesting directions, but if this list tells you a??ny??thing, it’s that I value focus and polish over scale.

I love the twists Dragon Warrior throws at you, and I’m happy it can be completed in, like, ten hours. Its cheerful design makes it a bit more inviting than CRPGs at the time, and its simplicity makes it a great fit for consoles. Really, I love the complete NES run of Dragon Warrior games, but if I had to pick just one, it’s ?the original.

8. Contra (1988)

In arcades, Contra was a merciless quarter-muncher. It was difficult to see even a fraction of it without giving up most of your allowance. In its home 8-bit form, it’s still extremely brutal, but at least it took all your money upfront. Contra on the NES is the seminal run-and-gun shooter, and it made a home for the series on console. It’s smooth, easily readabl?e, varied, and nicely polished. Plus, its soundtrack is pretty kicking on top of it.

Contra would be followed up by Super C, which is fine but not quite as excellent as the first. This would lead to console-exclusive titles in the series, like Contra 3: The Alien Wars and Contra: Hard Corps. None of those are as good as Metal Slug, but we had to start somewhere.

7. Batman (1989)

Batman: The Video Game has very little to do with Batman the 1989 movie. It has more to do with Ninja Gaiden and Castlevania, but you play as purple Batman and spend most of your time in sewers fighting robots.

The thing about Batman is that it’s like Ninja Gaiden if it was better designed. There’s wall jumping and gadget throwing, but it never resorts to simply spam??ming enemies at you and completely changing the rules just to screw you over. It’s one of the most difficult games I’ve completed, but I feel like I earned it. Learning to time those jumps in the clock tower, mastering everything on the utility belt, and somehow toppling Joker made for a satisfying conquest.

6. Mega Man 2 (1988)

The first Mega Man title sold in North America about as well as a box of live wasps. Thankfully, Capcom reluctantly green-lit a sequel, and even more thankfully, they tried it again over here. With an easier difficulty and uglier box art. Look, Mega Man 2 is already one of the breezier of the original 8-bit titles, but if you’re playing on “Normal�?difficulty, it’s stripped of all challenge. The inappropriately named “difficult�?is the way the Gods of Thumbs intended, and I’m not just saying that as a flex??. It’s actually equivalent to the Famicom version’s setup.

When you’re on the proper difficulty, Mega Man 2 has it all. Great soundtrack, solid level design, and memorable boss battles. A lot of people prefer Mega Man 3 to this title, but I think that’s bupkiss. Mega Man 3 is too long, and I fi??nd it has the visual flavor of wallpaper paste. Awesome opening song, though.

5. Punch-Out!! (1987)

I respect Punch-Out!! because I feel it’s a solid idea perfectly executed. Technically, it’s a port of a game that was released in arcades years earlier, but the mere fact that it was refocused to not just being a quarter-munching monster makes it a lot more enjoyable on console. As long as you’re on a setup without horrendous input lag, the visual cues? and timing all make for a perfect challenge. Well, until you get into the top tier of boxers. I still can’t actually topple Mike Tyson, because when my attention span faces off against consistently getting my ass ??kicked, my attention span never makes it three rounds.

4. The Legend of Zelda (1986)

I often associate the original Legend of Zelda as the game that got me into gaming. I was extremely young at the time, but watching my father play through it gripped my mind. However, there are a lot of formative games from my youth that I rarely return to, and Legend of Zelda isn’t on?e of them. For whatever reason, I’ve developed a habit of returning to it almost annually for another playt??hrough.

Zelda had a massive impact on the direction of game development, but, as I’ve stated, this list isn’t about influence. Stripped of that, The Legend of Zelda is an open game that respects your abilities as an inquisitive human. M??aybe a bit too much, but somehow I was able to figure out which bushes to burn, and that’s m?y mind isn’t letting that go.

3. River City Ransom (1989)

With the severe graphical memory limitations of the NES, beat-’em-ups were a tricky genre to pull off. However, we did get a few gems, including some of the most ubiquitous ports of the Double Dragon and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Those are fine, but I think Technos�?weird experiment in the Kunio-Kun series stands as the best.

Upgrading your character through food and items, River City Ransom has as much to do with shopping as it does with fighting. When fists go up, it becomes a ridiculous brawl, taking full advantage of its expressive art style. It’s one of the few games I can name ??that allows you to use the second player as a weapon.

I would include more Nekketsu/Kunio-Kun games on this list if they weren’t Famicom exclusive. Check out the Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun: Retro Brawler Bundle if you??’d like a taste? of what we missed in the west.

2. Gun*Nac (1990)

The NES had some great shoot-’em-ups in its library, though many of them were ports of arcade titles, and many more didn’t even make the journey to our front-loaders. Gun*Nac is a major exception, and it’s easily the best on the console.

Featuring amazingly fast scrolling and near-flicker-free graphics, it’s a technical masterpiece. To add to that is an unending variety of enemies and a slew of weapons and bombs to clear the screen. Gun*Nac is unbelievably robust, especially considering its 8-bit trappings. If you haven’t tried it or ev?en heard of it, you’re missing out.

1. Castlevania (1986)

There’s no question in my mind that Castlevania is the best game on the NES. From both an aesthetic and design standpoint, it’s flawless. Featuring tightly refined controls, perfect enemy placement and behavior, a stiff but fair challenge, and a surprising amount of variety, I still consider it to be the best in the series and on the system. Considering the Castlevania series already has enough banger titles to fill its own highly subjective top 18 list, I think that says it all.

Don’t think this is an off-the-cuff decision, either. When my NES library explorations finally reached Castlevania, I knew I had reached the peak. Now that I’ve dug even further, I’m even more certain of it. Castlevania is what 8-bit perfection looks like.

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Within any traditional Final Fantasy XIV party, there are three roles to fill: one Tank, one Healer, ??and two DPS in a light party or double that in 8-man groups. For a long time, I checked that last box as a strictly DPS-only player. It wasn't until years into my adventures that I'd stray from my comfor?t zone, thrust headfirst into tanking.

I’ll never forget my first proper tanking experience in FFXIV. My FC (Free Company) mates at the time, whom I will ??honestly never forgive but always be grateful to, insisted I give the role a try. They promised to go easy on me and promised I’d be fine. Reluctantly, I agreed. I was among friends; it couldn’t be that bad, right?

Wrong. But before we get into that, let me explain something. I had tanked before, but never with actual people. I’d clawed my way through the l??evels using Duty Support and a seemingly never-ending list of side quests and, eventually, by avoiding people in Eureka, the Bozjan Southern Front, and Zadnor. My Tank Job, a Paladin at the time, sat comfortab?ly at level 80, and I was happy never to never reprise the role until the call of peer pressure.

Then, the leader of our ready-made light party dropped us directly into Paglth’an. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite dungeons of all time now, but back then it was a horrifying hellscape that I was quite happy never to visit again. When I tell you that I tanked that dungeon while screaming both internally and externally, shaking like a leaf and almost hyperventilating, I am not exaggerating. It was, in equal measure, the most enlightening and terrifying experience I’ve ever had in FFXIV. I was horrified at the tho??ught of leading the party in that way.

For a while, I refused to jump back onto Paladin. I never wanted what felt like so much responsib??ility again, at least not with other people who would need to suffer through my mistakes. But then I saw the blasted Amaro mount, the reward for reaching level 80 in each class. 

The Amaro is, to this day, my favorite mount. I call mine X-Wing and it ties me irrevocably to the one main story char??acter who has ?touched me most deeply in my journey throughout Eorzea �?Ardbert.

So, of course, I had to have it, and that meant I had no alternative but to pick up a sword, axe, and gunbladeto get there. This was the start of my deep dive into tanking, and through this, I’ve become a tank main. I overcame that miserable tanking anxiety, and it wasn’t easy, but it’s taught me so much. Mostly thanks to X-Wing, but helped along by the tank titles and rewards. They gave me something purposeful, something actionable ??I could work toward to feel a little proud of the baby steps there.

I threw myself in with full force, learning a laundry list of important MMO skills �?like the importance of frank communication. I lost count of the number of times I immediately announced that I was new to an instance, asking for a little patience and grace. Sometimes people just dropped without saying a word, which I understood to mean they didn’t want to play with a rookie tank. I can’t say I didn’t take it personally at times, but I pull??ed up my pants and gave myself a pep talk while we waited for a replacement.

Most of the time, though, people were unbelievably understanding. They’d give tips, tell me I was doing a good job, and help me along the way. It’s this kind of behaviour that kept me going. It’s also this kind of behaviour that drove me to become a mentor, to help others with those same anxieties.

When I met my fiancé, I strove to help him try other roles one and only Job �?Summoner. Not against his will, I should add. Summoner had just been completely overhauled with the Endwalker expansion, and he was complaining that he was bored. After my own experiences, I was already ge??tting a knack for teaching, and now he's got?? a full roster of level 90 jobs, including Tanks, and mains Healer. Yes, we’re the dreaded healer-tank couple, but try not to judge us for it. 

That was two and a half years ago, and it’s hard to believe it’s been that long since Endwalker dropped. But now here I am, a Dark Knight main, and I can’t DPS without getting bored. Of course, I’m going to level everything after Dawntrail releases, but I will always go back to tanking. 

Tanking did more than teach me a new role, too. It gave me perspective on fights I didn't have before. I get why and when a Tank will move so early in some boss fights, so it doesn't catch me off? guard. I see the impo?rtance of a wall-to-wall pull in certain dungeons and how much time the DPS have to light the mob up before, well, the mob lights the tank up.

That’s not to say that I’m a perfect Tank. I’m pretty far from perfect. I forget my tank stance more than I’d like to admit, I still manage to lose aggro on stragglers in a big pull, and I still get a little annoyed when I’m watching the other Tanks battl?e it out for aggro during an Alliance Raid, but I’ve learned not to take it too seriously. 

What’s the worst that can happen? We wipe? That’s not ?so bad. If someone else wants aggro in an Alliance Raid, I’m happy to give it to them and turn myself into a blue DPS. If I forget to turn on my Tank stance, I laugh it off and send a quick “well that could have gone better�?in chat. Humor helps, and people seem to appreciate it. 

B??elieve me, I know how petrifying Tank anxiety, or anxiety over any role, can be. Even if it's not in the Job description, your party often looks to you as a de facto leader, and that comes with pressure. But if you’re unsure about it, or feel like you can’t do it, I’m here to tell you that you can. It may not come easily at first, but communicating your fears and inexperience is part of venturing out of your comfort zone on a new Job. Laugh it off; people are, usually, more understanding than you think. Give it a few runs, and I promi?se you'll not only be a better player for it, but maybe you'll pick up a new main Job, too.

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No matter the genre you play, I ?guarantee that at some point, somewhere, you've encountered a fishing mini-game. There's no stopping them. They're anywhere with a body of water and time to kill, and, for the most part, I can't ??stand them.

I hate fishing mini-games. I’ve made no secret of it, and anyone who knows will tell you that if I can avoid any fantasy fishing, I absolutely will. This is a bit of a problem, considering the fact that I tend to favor ‘cosy�?games, which invariably have some form of fishing mechanic. Even while playing Final Fantasy XIV, I’ve had no choice but to level Fisher and take part in Ocean Fishing, but I’ve never done? it without complaining the entire time. 

My biggest complaint is just the sheer monotony of the task. Pick a spot, press a button, and voila, the line is cast. Then it's time to wait. When you do get a bite, you press a button again and you’ve caught a fish. It’s hardly the most thrilling kind of gameplay, even when those clicks are timed. The timing becomes muscle memory and fishing just ??feels so�?Bland. 

So herein lies the issue I’m currently facing �?fishing in Stardew Valley seems to have caught my attention, despite the fact that I have spent years actively avoiding it to the point ?that my fiancé has had to visit my farm and complete the Fishing bundles for me, because I point blank refused to pick up a rod. 

When Stardew Valley 1.6 dropped, I started a new save file, as many players did. I chose the new farm, marveled at the benefits of the new?? Blue Grass, and went about my life in Pelican Town, all while never picking up a fishing rod. I did complete the bundles, though, thanks to my long-suffering fiancé. 

On the first day of Spring in the second year, I woke up to a visitor. Willy, everyone’s favorite s??cruffy Fisherman, showed up at my door asking why I seemed to be avoiding his favorite pastime. With no answers to give him, he ins??tead handed me a Training Rod. I could almost hear the disappointment through his dialogue box.

Even then, despite this humiliation, I avoided the sport. My fishing level remained at rock bottom until halfway through Summer of year two, when I realised that in order to access the Mastery Cave and get my hands on the sweet rewards, I had no choice but to level my own Fishing skill and I couldn’t rely on someone else to do it for me. Alas, I would have to suck it up ?and go Fishing. 

Reluctantly, I tried. My first fishing experience took place during the Trout Derby, and I didn’t do well. I caught some fish, sure, but no trout, and th??e experience was horrible. The frustration was immeasurable, I got no rewards, and I stormed home after catching my fifth Bream. On the plus side, I did get one Fishing level out of it, so not all was lost. 

Then a few things happened:

• I unlocked Mr. Raccoon and realised I’d need a Smoker, the recipe for which contains three things that can only be gained through fishing
• I started unlocking higher quality fishing rods and more useful bobbers
• I attended Squid Fest

Squid Fest is what did it for me, because I finally learned how almost enjoyable fishing could be. Every time I hit a maximum cast, or scored a perfect catch. Fighting the Squid as they tried to escape my line and figuring out how to tell what fish I was catching just from it’s behaviour during the mini-game�?It was satisfying. I achieved an Iridium scor??e on both days, got my Squid Hat and felt a strong sense of accomplishment. 

To my horror, I found myself wanting to do more fishing and actually going out of my way to catch fish at a certain time of day. I want to reach level 10, even if it’s just for the Mastery, and I want to catch all of the fish the game has to offer. Even the legendary ones, which is something I never t??hought I’d say. I even have a dedicated space on my farm for Fishing related things.

I’m no longer shying away from fishing quests on the board outside Pierre’s or the Special Orders board outside ?Mayor Lewis�?house and the next time I start a new save file, I’ll be able to complete the Fishing bundles all by myself, which is certainly going to be a little different to my previous save files. 

Okay fine, I admit it. I enjoy fishing in Stardew Valley. It’s rewarding, it’s challenging and while it’s not exactly intuitive, it does keep you on your toes. It’s immensely frustrating when you lose a fish and infuriating when your tackle wears out or you run out of bait just?? when you need it most, but it’s fun. It’s j??ust taken me a very long time, a lot of denial, and some public humiliation from Willy to get here.

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Something peculiar happened to me recently, when I was playing Unicorn Overlord??. I was on the review coverage, and also on deck to hit a few guides along the way. And at one point, somewhere in the game's fourth major area, I got a notification screen I hadn't seen bef?ore: I couldn't take any more screenshots.

Considering the size of the SD card I have in my Switch, it seemed absurd I filled it up that fast. So I went into the settings and got a notification that I had exceeded the amount of screenshots I could capture. The amount, for those wondering, seems to be 10,000 screenshots.

Now, it seems like this 10k cap isn't for a single game, but for cumulative screenshots. Given that I still have a giant repository of other screens for other games I've covered on my Switch, like Tears of the Kingdom and Mario vs. Donkey Kong, it makes a little more ?sense. (At least to me and my brainworms, it doe??s.)

What it did do was make me so much more conscious of how often I was hitting the screenshot button. It's a lot more than I realized. Sure, my guides-seeking brain was firing the snapshot-neuron every time I saw a rewards screen or detail I might not be able to easily resurface. But I was also just grabbing cool images; art that looked nice, dialogue I enjoyed, and battle scenes that struck me. Going back to my PlayStation 5, I saw the same was happening in games like FF7 Rebirth and Dragon's Dogma 2. I ??was instinctively hittin?g the snapshot button, all the time.

I can remember the time before screenshotting was widely accessible. In the late aughts, when I was grinding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with my friends, it was a big deal when one got a gameplay recorder. He'd upload clips of one-shots and throwing knife kills onto a YouTube channel, just so we could relive silly moments from all those night??s spent running Search and Destroy inhouses.

It's funny to think that not even five years later, both Sony and Xbox consoles would come with capture tech packed into the hardware, and Nintendo followed suit in 2017 with the Switch. Capture on PC got easier, too. Programs like OBS made it incredibly simple to link with Twitch and share gameplay. By college, I was recording Hearthstone Arena runs and League of Legends matches with relative ease.

Both of those situations seem like a far-cry from now, where streaming gameplay is possible within a console box, and the growing prevalence of gaming PCs means everyone can be a streamer. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: the biggest impact the PS4 and Xbox One generation had was the Share button. The ability to take a screenshot, without any additional hardware, meant all those moments don't just look better than cell phone snaps and off-screen video, but they're easy to take and share. (Well, they used to be easier to share on a certain site.)

I remember the time before built-in capture well, but the margin is thinner for concerts without phones. Growing up, I loved going to live shows. And for a long time, they were just giant pits of people. Then, as technology advanced, I started to see those hands in the air holding more than just lighters. Digital cameras, cell phones, iPhones, even Nintendo 3DS handhelds.

I'm not really lamenting the? before-and-after of it all. I'm not the Old Man Yelling at a Cloud today. But at some point, advances in technology did fundamentally c??hange the way we engage with media. It became easier to record live video and audio, and so people started wanting to capture those moments, to share them or preserve them, to send to crushes or boast a little online. The same thing happened to video games. And now I've got 10,000 screenshots on my Switch.

Over the weekend, I had to fix my install on Final Fantasy XIV and was terrified, for a brief moment, that I had lost all my screenshots. Hundreds of snaps, chronicling the long journey of my Warrior(s) of Light throughout Eorz??ea. Why did I want them? Well, it was like a scrapbook. I don't crack it open as often as I should, but when I do, a flood of warm memories washes over me. Huge story moments, funny gags, and posing in front of cleared raids alike all remind me of good times in this digital world.

For Final Fantasy XIV, taking copious screenshots seems encouraged by how powerful its Gpose tools are. But so many games now account for the love of snapshotting perfect moments. The "photo mode" has become ubiquitous, and even games like Tears of the Kingdom have entire mechanics based around their camera? functions.

So let's get back to the quandary that started all this: how many screenshots is too many? Is it possible to over-do it? Maybe or maybe not, though I know which answer my Nintendo Switch is giving me. Moreover, I think this whole saga has only made me more conscious of why I take screenshots. Am I doing it instinctively? Do I want to preserve this moment? Am I??, honestly, sometimes caught up in trying to take a perfect sn??ap of a character or scene because I know it'll make for a good article image later? (That's a distinctly games writer problem, I know.)

I do think the screenshot function is an ultimate good for the industry. I also thin??k it has fundamentally altered the way players perceive games. When I reach a new vista, I absolutely stop to see if the lighting looks good for a new photo mode snap. This can be an inc??redibly rewarding way to engage with a game; it can, at least in my experience, also prevent me from taking in the moment as-is. I've spent more than a few cutscenes just snapping away. It's not quite the same as staring at a concert through an iPhone viewfinder, but it does frame how I'm viewing the game in the moment.

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Some RPGs sell themselves on epic, sweeping tales. Others on their complex, robust battle systems, or their unique approach to actual role-playing. Visions of Mana doesn't necessarily lack in these departments, but its draw for me after some t?ime spent in its world is ??simply cozy, familiar comfort.

I was surprised that was the takeaway, after spending roughly 45 minutes or so blasting through a two-part demo at PAX East 2024. To be clear, I don't hold any particular nostalgia for the Mana series, as I never played it growing up. Any personal attachment I have is mostly for the Secret of Mana box art, an all-timer if ever there was one.

Yet the second I started swinging weapons and bashing monsters in the overworld of Visions of Mana, it felt familiar, like I'd done this before. Maybe it was the influence of the Mana series surfacing. Or maybe Visions of Mana is just a cozy adventure to mosey through.

There's always a hero, there's always a tree

Val, the hero of Visions of Mana, is a guard for his elemental al?m and childhood friend Hinna. The two are off on a journey, a pilgrimage to the Tree of Mana, and countless perils and obstacles likely await.

I didn't get a great sense of what the story is about in Visions of Mana, aside from a trip to the Tree of Mana? and dealing with a lot of elemental ??affinities along the way. I'll say that I didn't really need an infusion of story to sell me on this, either. Most of the setting and vibe is communicated through the world and its characters.

Visions of Mana is bright and cheerful, even in frigid areas like the snowy Mt. Gala I battled my way across. Characters like Morley and Careena, my two party members alongside Val, clearly stick out. The world incorporates much of the Mana iconography you'd expect, and that's on purpose, as Mana producer Masaru Oyamada expla?ins to me in an interview after the ?demo.

"In terms of the world building, really, we started off with ?the visual of the Mana tree and kind of built things around that," said Oyamada. "Thinking again, about you know, how much of an expansive field we wanted to achieve with this game. We originally started by kind of assessing the technological elements, how feasible that would be, and through that, that was really how we built the game and the world within the game."

The open fields are fun to run around in, either on foot or on the back of the pikul, adorable dogs that act as the party's mounts. They are perfect,?? and I swear to protect them from? all harm.

This also means a world full of quests to accomplish, whether on the main path or through? side quests. Oyamada says there will be reason to back-track too, thanks to the traversal options that different elemental triggers in the world offer. For example, the vessel of Sylphid, the Wind elemental, can control air currents; and so when faced with a rocky outcropping without many places to platform across, an elemental trigger can open new paths across.

Scrappin' time

I also got a chance to dig into Visions of Mana's combat, which sees your team of three fight monsters and enemies in real-time, action-RPG combat. To put it simply, fighting feels good in Visions of Mana. Move sets are fairly simple, with two standar??d attacks and a small allo??tment of extra moves based on your class. It'll feel right at home for anyone who's played an action RPG in recent years.

The customization and skill application comes in when you start accounting for classes. Different elemental vessels open up new classes for each character, not only changing their arsenal of attacks, but incorporating elemental effects into their strikes. The Vessel of the Moon, for example, can create pockets of slowed time. I had Careena pick up the Luna Globe and she became a Moon Charterer, dropping tiny pockets of slowed time like Dio from JoJo's, freezing enemies for Val and Morley to beat up.

Each character feels distinct in their own way, though. Morley wields blades and knives, at times reminding me a bit of Vergil from the Devil May Cry series. Val, meanwhile, has big Protagonist energy, often taking up the vanguard and providing defensive options on the field. I didn't get a great feel for Careena, as her moves felt pretty varied between classes, but she definitely came off as both technical and able to really employ elemental effects. Oyamada says the team definitel?y wanted each character's actions to reflect their individual personality and characteristics, and that comes across.

There are plenty of options, but they rarely felt overbearing. Even the difficulty felt tuned just right; fights had some challenge, some push-back, but I still managed to cruise through without too much trouble. I did run into a pack of ultra-high level foes in a lower level area, which seems like e??ither a reason to return or a challenge waiting, for those willing to dare i?t.

A new Mana after all these years

It might feel a bit superficial to simply say, "Visions of Mana is a co?mfort food ?RPG," but it really is. Characters wear their emotions on their sleeve, the world is bright, the combat is fast and enjoyable and rarely feels arduous. The music, something the team has talked about before in a recent Xbox showcase, ties it all together to feel like a grand journey.

On my end, I was curious why the team finally chose to pull the rip cord on a new Mana. While the series has seen some remakes and re-releases, this is the first fully new Mana game in over 15 years. As Oyamada pu??ts it, the team had been working on remakes, but throughout the process he did think about what would be a good way to create a new installment.

"But at the time, you know, a lot of the original staff members who worked on the game, including [Koichi Ishii], had actually left the company," Oyamada told me. "So again, you know, I was very much focused on, what can I do? In terms of like, if I were to make a new installment, what would be a version of it that people would accept? What would be, sort of, a game that would be worthy of being called Mana?"

Trials of Mana, the 3D remake of Seiken Densetsu 3, is the "big turning point" that Oyamada identifies. It was ambitious an??d fairly well received, and it got the team thinking about what it could do for a new installment.

Series creator Ishii had his own philosophy for the Mana series where, according to Oyamada, he wanted to give himself a "challenge," in terms of making something new and in game systems. But Oyamada approaches it from the standp??oint of "someone who just loves the series."

"And so whether that be you know, the monster designs that [Ishii] originally came up with, or whether that be the visuals of the Mana tree," said Oyamada. "Or whether that be, you know,? like the way the system and the lore with which like, these elemental spirits reside in this world. I've always felt that those are some of the strongest parts of the past games, and so I wanted to ??be able to incorporate them into this newest game too."

Indeed, Visions of Mana feels like a passion project from a Mana fan. It's a sentiment that comes across even to me, someone not quite so well-read in his Mana. But I also think Oyamada and the Visions of Mana team are tackling something fresh here, too. The open zones and linear battle sections tying together, with elemental traversal and good, solid action, layered over with great art and music, all gives me the feeling of booting up an RPG classic on a Saturday morning. It's even pushing the established envelope a bit on the tech side. Oyamada says that scope of work from increased platforms, and what the team wants to achieve on the technical side, are why Visions is launching where it is; notably, not on Switch.

Maybe that's what Visions of Mana ends up being: a cozy Saturday morning RPG. If it does achieve that, I think it'll be something worth keeping an eye on. Visions of Mana is c??urrently planned for summer 2024 on PS4, PS??5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

The post Visions ?of Mana preview: Creature comforts in RPG f?orm appeared first on Destructoid.

We're closing in now on a year since the launch of Final Fantasy XVI, the most recent (non-remake trilogy) entry in the long-running RPG franchise. Its second DLC, The Rising Tide, is just around the corner, and a PC version? is on the docket ??too.

Final Fantasy XVI received a fairly warm response at launch, though its more action-oriented framework has certainly been the topic of fervent discussion since then. For what it's worth, I enjoyed it, and am admittedly in the target demographic for what's coming next: a new DLC framed around Leviathan, my personal favorite Final Fantasy summon, with more story, quests, and more.

At PAX East 2024, we got the chance to sit down with the upcoming Final Fantasy XVI content drop and its leads: DLC director Takeo Kujiraoka, producer Naoki Yoshida, and localization director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox. There were a few questions on my mind, ranging from their perspective on XVI thus far and what they still felt they could add to the RPG, to what the future m??ight look like beyond the PC.

I also just wanted to know how big the sea-serpent fight would be. And the good news is, it sound?s like it's pretty?? big.

Reclaiming what's lost

When it came to how the team feels now, almost a year removed from the initial launch of Final Fantasy XVI, feelings seem positive. The goal was to bring something new to the series, while also taking it back to some fantasy roots; Yoshida noted that recent Final Fantasy games had leaned a bit into the scienc??e-fiction side? of things.

"There was a lot of pressure on us," said Yoshida. "But with the launch, seeing the feedback, seeing the player response, seeing how people really connected with Clive's story, and really kind of fell in love with Clive and these new charact??ers, we were very relieved at that??."

Going into this, I was curious about how the decision got made to finally do DLC after all. Over time, the sentiment went from no plans, to the possibility, to what we have now. Even then, the door hasn't been entirely shut. So I as??ked the team why sentiment shifted, and how Leviathan came about.

"We wanted to make the main game a perfect game," Yoshida said, about the XVI team's original plans. "That's not to say, though, that we didn't have?? an idea of what we would do in a DLC if the players reacted to the main game well."

Indeed, there was a little nugget left in the story, through the mention of "Leviathan the Lost," an Eikon that mysteriously did not appear ??as part of Clive's adventure. As it happe??ns, there was some talk of Leviathan, though extremely early on; Yoshida clarifies that while Leviathan was something the team thought about, it ultimately turned out that the legendary serpent would be the lost Eikon. It wasn't finished content that was sliced out or anything.

"The plan was always to do those ori??ginal Eikons and not have Leviathan in the main game," Yoshida clarifies. "And then if we had th?e opportunity, we could add it into a DLC."

So why Leviathan? Well, it helps that everyone knows Leviathan. It's in a lot of early Final Fantasy games, and still makes prominent appearances in recent entries like Final Fantasy XV. As for what Leviathan brings to the table?

Clive's got a (water) gun

As revealed during the panel at PAX East 2024, Clive will get a new Eikonic form with The Rising Tide, based around Leviathan. Interestingly enough, its signature trait is that it's a ranged weapon, something new for Clive's arsenal. You can see the hero of XVI shooting out vario?us blasts and projectiles in the DLC trailer here:

Though it's a slight paradigm shift for Clive, it was important for this to feel distinct from Clive's other options. Kujiraoka cites combat di??rector Ryota Suzuki's vision, of each form having it??s own distinct feel.

"The concept for creating Eikonic abilities up to now has b??een, you don’t want overlap betwe??en the elements," said Kujiraoka. "You want each kind of set to have its own unique feel. And so the concept for designing Leviathan was, again, we needed something that was going to feel completely different from the existing abilities."

Through playing and testing though, the team at Square says it doesn't feel awkward. The ranged attacks? end up fitting in with Clive's playstyle and other a??bilities, feeling fluid while still being pretty distinct.

"We found that since we’ve added it internally, a lot of the dev team members and the QA tea??m members have now switched one of their three, their favorite three, to Leviathan because they love how this works so much," said Kujira??oka.

Jill's turn

Those extra tools will help some of the endgame content coming in The Rising Tide update. There's set to be a new zone, new items, and much more as part of this DLC; the DLC director likens it to an expansion for an MMO, saying you can probably expect at least 10 hours of new game content, which is notably higher than the previous DLC Echoes of the Fallen.

And another important note for fans of a certain ice-wielding fencer: Jill is set to play a larger role in The Rising Tide. The new area is in the Northern Territories, where Jill hails from, and thus w??ill incorporate a bit more of her ?character.

"The theme, one of the themes for both of the DLCs, was that it’s going to be this adventure with not just Clive, but that Jill and Joshua and Torgal, we’re all going to be together for these two final quest lines before the end," said Kujiraoka. "So while Echoes of the Fallen kind of focused a little bit more on Joshua, he had a lot more of a forward role during, in The Rising Tide it’s going to be Jill that’s going to have more lines and more connection to th??is story in th??is one."

Weaving all this into the existing story and lore was challenging, the DLC director tells me, but ultimately The Rising Tide should feel like it slots right in as another part of the main game. This include??s some more difficult endgame content, too.

"Once he gets that final element [from Leviathan??] there, then Clive is going to have all these new abilities," said Kujiraoka. "We ??want to have a place for him to showcase those abilities as well."

Ultimately, that likely lies in not just the quest content, but in the new roguelite mode that's on the way too. It seems to add some really high-difficulty challenges, including one that Yoshida and Kujiraoka teased at the XVI panel at PAX East, leading to a secret encounter.

Come to me, my Ifrit

Of course, a new set of Eikonic abilities and a new Eikon obviously means a new Eikon fight, too. Though the DLC turnaround time was tight, between the launch of XVI and the imminent arrival of The Rising Tide on April 18, the team wanted the experience of fighting Leviathan to be "equal" to the other m??assive Eikonic battles??. And they also wanted to turn another knob, while they were at it.

"The Eikon-versus-Eikon battles up until now well, they are again, those setpieces," said Kujiraoka. "We didn’t make them over-challenging, because ??they’re parts of the story and we want people to be able to experience them and get through them, so they can continue the story.

"However, this one being the final Eikon battle before [the finale of the game] is that we wanted to make this challenging," Kujiraoka continues. "We wanted to make it kind of have that worthwhile feel, and so we wanted to be focused really on the combat of this Eikon-versus-Eikon battle, even more so than the previous Eikon battles, so that players will have that sort of feeli??ng of becoming Ifrit and using all the skills they’ve built up o??ver all the other Eikon battles and using all of those here to defeat this final Eikon."

It's especially interesting to hear that the Eikon fight will incorporate more of Ifrit's moves. The team points to The Rising Tide as the "peak" of?? Ifrit-versus-Eikon fights, and considering how big and gorgeous the base game's battles were, I'm now very curious to see what they've put together for Leviathan.

A future on a new platform

The Rising Tide isn't the only XVI project in the works, though. Square Enix is also currently working on a PC port of Final Fantasy XVI, which Yoshida says is "going smoother than we thought it would," from the team's perspective. Currently, one project the team is working on is figuring out where its optimization and technical?? specs will land, taking the loading speed of the PlayStation 5 into account.

"It creates that seamless type of gameplay that we had as one of our main concepts," said Yoshida.? "We want to have no breaks in the game, we want everything to be seamless. And so, to replicate that is the thing that we’re working on right now. And so to replicate that on PC, you’re going to need a pretty high-spec PC. So right now, what we’re doing is we’re testing the game, and our current optimization, on a lot of different systems to see, again, what are going to be those minimum specs for playing the game in a way that is similar to the PS5 experience."

Yoshida confirms this does mean a demo is on the way, so players can test their systems and see if they can handle the load. On top of that, Square Enix is also working on customization settings, the kind that "players have come to expect from a PC game," and making sure those are included. Plus, creating a package that includes both base Final Fantasy XVI and its DLC.

Of course, with Final Fantasy XIV just recently hitting Xbox Series consoles, I had to broach the subject: could Final Fantasy XVI see another new platform after PC? As Yoshida chara??cterizes it, the DLC and PC version is what's in front of them right now.

"And once we get that done, that’s when we start thinking about 'okay, can we expand this to more systems?' and working on it, because again, I don’t want ??this to end with just the PC version. I want to continue to expand," Yoshida said.

The takeaways

As the interview was winding down, I was curious about what lessons each of the leads felt they'd learned from the making of Final Fantasy XVI. It's a back-pocket question I like to ask developers once they're on the other side of launch day, and though the XVI team is still working on projects like the PC version, I was curious what parts of this Final Fantasy they felt would carry into their future projects.

For Yoshida, it was about the workflow and creating stories with current technology. “There's so much detail and so many tiny things that you have to pay attention to now, you know, when creating an object, like how are you going to use that object? How are you going to create that object? How is it going to be used in these cutscenes," said Yoshida. "And you kind of have to have planned everything out ahead of time, you can't just do it as you're going because production will stop if you don't have a certain thing. And so learning what things you need at what point in time and learning to have those beforehand to make your whole process more efficient, is something you have to take into account.�?/p>

He goes on to point out how having detailed plans ahead of time, even for tiny little details, can speed things up, which helps with efficiency and cost reduction. It's not just about the money, though. It helps with tying everything back into the story, a crucial part of games like Final Fantasy XVI.

"I think one thing that Square Enix uses as a selling point for a lot of their games is the story and that user experience of the story within the game," said Yoshida. "And I think ??by being able to do this, not only do you lower those costs, but we'd better tie things into that story experience and make it more seamless, and that's going to that's goi??ng to help us moving forward."

Kujiraoka notes how the team came together to produce The Rising Tide soon after Final Fantasy XVI's launch, as a sign of taking knowledge from making the game and being able to ??make more, faster. The Eikon-versus-Eikon fights are a great signpost of this.

"These kinds of battles take a lot of people a lot of time to create, and we got it down, we got it streamlined down into this process, where we're able to put this together quickly and efficiently, because of that time that we had spent together, creating those prev?ious ones for the base game," said Kujiraoka. "And, you know, getting this process down where we can create it quickly, but also have something very exciting. Something that a lot of other projects would look at this and say, ‘No, we don't want to do something that is way too much work, especially in this amount of time,�?we're able to do that because of the work that we put in together."

As for Koji Fox, the localization director, he highlights the English-first approach to Final Fantasy XVI and the surprising dynamic it created.

"This project kind of spoiled me, in the sense that we got to record English first," said Koji Fox. "And Square Enix games never do that. It’s always, you do the Japanese first, and then the English and other languages have to kind of take that, do the ADR, match the motions, do ever??ything afterwards."

The localization lead goes on to point out this introduced some interestingly different obstacles, though. "I mean, there were more challenges because now you're creating it, you'd have to work with ad-libs and you have to change things on the fly and make things kind of work, in a sense that, because the?? work isn't already done, you're the one creating it," said Koji Fox. "But on the other hand, there's a lot of freedom there. So it's going to be difficult going back to a project where I have to go from the Japanese."

How all of this plays into whatever these developers go on to produce, we'll have to wait and see. It won't be much longer for the next stage of Final Fantasy XVI, though. The Rising Tide DLC goes live on April 18, 2024.

The post Final Fantasy 16 interview: The Rising Tide, PC porting, and why Le?viathan was ??lost appeared first on Destructoid.

If you take a look at Metacritic, you can see that the best-scoring entry in the Alone in the Dark series is the original trilogy from way back in the '90s. The first game was such an inspiration within the survival horror genre, but that term didn't really exist until Resident Evil came alon??g a few years later. Yet its impact is undeniab??le.

Now, with Pieces Interactive's new take on the iconic series doing the rounds, we once again find ourselves wondering whether we can welcome AitD back to the fore. At the time of writing, reviews for the latest game are trickling in, but from what I've seen, there's an overall feeling that the franchise is struggling to make an?y kind of significant comeback.

I was fortunate enough to receive an advanced copy of the 2024 remake (reimagining or whatever) and made it through Emily's story at the pace most anticipate finishing at least one playthrough. My findings left me feeling like Alone in the Dark just doesn't stand a chance in the modern games industry?, and it's hard to understand wh?y that is.

This isn't our Destructoid review, as it is more about whether or not there's any breath left in the old beast. Now, maybe you really like the new game, and that's absolutely fine. Steam currently has it sitting pretty on "Most Positive." However, is it enough to truly revitalize the series? Or has the bar for remakes of classic survival horror games been se?t so high by Capcom, that attempts by others �?even ?the genre's OG �?struggle to compare?

The birth of an elder

Back in 1992, gaming was still very much in its infancy. We were one year away from the likes of Doom and the SNES console only hit the US market a year before that. What I'm saying is, it was a long time ago. But a new 3D adventure was about to launch on MS-DOS, bringing with it gaming visuals that had never been ??seen before, a ?story that encompassed mystery and Lovecraft-inspired horrors, and gameplay that favored fleeing over mindless fighting.

The original Alone in the Dark by Infogrames has cemented itself in the annals of gaming history, its legacy still living on to this day. Its genre-defining aesthetic and puzzle mechanics went on to inspire Resident Evil, which released in 1996. For good or ill, Capcom's ?legendary series has remained a staple in horror ever since, but its enormous success likely means that a lot of people probably don'?t even know where its influences began.

A sequel to AitD was released in 1993, followed by a third entry in 1995. This culminated in a trilogy pack, which came out in 1997 (according to Metacritic). After that, the series went on hiatus until the early 2000s. By this point, we'd had three Resident Evil games and the emergence of something even more boundary-smashing: Silent Hill.

Enter a new nightmare

With such mighty names building reputations in survival horror, even the likes of Alone in the Dark had its work cut out for it. Capcom and Konami (or Team Silent, I should say) were coasting on the success of their respective franchises, so the granddaddy of them all lay dormant until 2001. Then along came The New Nightmare by Darkworks.

Look, having never played the game myself, I can't offer up any personal insight. What I can say is that, for the most part, a lot of people didn't seem to look too favorably on the latest installment in the influential series. With a meta score of 66, an argument could be made that it's not really a terrible game, just that it's more of an average horror title at best, judging by ??scores then.

A few more years passed us by, then we got 2008's Alone in the Dark by Eden Games, which seemed like an attempt at shaking things up by offering a different play style. According to the Wikipedia entry:

It is set out through DVD-style "episodes", where the player can choose to start the game from the beginning or choose to skip to a section if they get stuck. If they choose to do so, the past events are recollected in a "Previously on Alone in the Dark�? cutscene at the start of the episode.

That does sound like a pretty interesting take on the series, but with a score of 58 ("Mixed" on Steam), the gaming world seemed to collectively show, at best, vague disinterest in Alone in the Dark. Having said that, I hear the fire effects were pretty phenomenal for the time. But that didn't appear ?to be enough to rescue an iconic horr?or franchise from the deathly claws of obscurity.

Then we got Alone in the Dark: Illumination in 2015, an e?ntry that flew so far under the radar I'm willing to bet some of you reading this hadn't even heard of it until now. That includes me. Then there's the Uwe Boll-directed movie adaptation. But we don't talk about that.

Fast-forward to 2024, and Pieces Interactive (along with publisher THQ Nordic) is giving it a go, perhaps more in a "return to form" sort of way, but with a flavor that leaves a Resident Evil 2 remake aftertaste. Not always a bad thing, mind, but you have to admit that AitD was always going to be compared to Capcom's modern interpretation of the RE brand.

Hopes fading?

Although the 2024 version of Alone in the Dark has only been out a day, it doesn't feel like it's going to be a reboot worthy of much note. Maybe extra content or patches to fix some of the more egregious issues could stop it from falling into the gaming abyss any time soon. But I don't have a lot of hope, and I can't point to just anyone one thing making Alone in the Dark struggle so hard to return.

While it's tempting to compare it to Resident Evil �?both in terms of the classics and the newer remakes �?the one thing RE has done is remain in the limelight, and therefore relevant. From the first three installments back in the '90s to the way RE4 massively switched up the genre with its now-influential over-the-shoulder look to reinventing the name throug???????????????????????????h the seventh and eight installments, the remakes have been more of a ballast.

In the case of Alone in the Dark, it just went away, came back, went away, came back. Rinse and repeat. Maybe there's something to be said about the fact that studios not typically associated with horror have been having a crack. Pieces Interactive was mainly known for the Magicka games, while Darkworks was relatively new, having only developed one game prior to New Nightmare.

I'm disappointed more that Alone in the Dark 2024 may go down as yet another example of the franchise struggling to keep its head above the water by the fact that Mikael Hedberg's name is attached to it. While it's not always about the writing, I have to ponder the notion that if the writer of SOMA (what I consider to be one of the greatest horror games of all time) can't make it work, then maybe there ??isn't much hope for its future.

But that's my take. It just feels like we've circled the airport several times now, and no one knows whether a lan??ding will take place.

The post Alone in the Dark: is it time to l?et the series go? appeared first on Destructoid.

Being an avid fan of 2.5D ray casting engines, I have a strong fascination with Ken Silverman’s Build Engine, which was the foundation upon which Duke Nukem 3D was built. That somehow led me to William Shatner’s TekWar.

Despite Duke Nukem 3D being what made the Build Engine famous, it wasn’t the first game released on it. There were a few that came befo?re it, and Capstone was responsible for more than one?? of them.

Capstone Software is a kusoge topic in itself, as much of their catalog is either crap or sub-crap. While researching DOS games to cover in this column, many of their games rose to the top thanks to the preservation efforts of SNEG. However, a good many of Capstone’s worst games were based on terrible licenses, so they are no longer available. One of these unavailable titles is 1995's William Shatner’s TekWar whi?ch, for a multitude of reasons, I’m pushing for having it re-r?eleased. Come on, Nightdive.

William Shatner’s TekWar is based on a 1989 novel called William Shatner’s TekWar by William Shatner (ghost-written by Ron Goulart). In the early �?0s, William Shatner’s TekWar was picked up for comic books, a TV series, and this game as a way to prove that William Shatner’s face was an effective marketing tool ?to sell g?arbage.

It was poorly received, but people are still trying.

If you don’t know who William Shatner is, he played a small role in a niche 1960s TV series called Star Trek. Since then, he’s coasted on that success and recognition, mostly in the aforementioned effort of selling garbage. Today, you might know him from shows like Weird or What and The UnXplained where he tells you that, while it’s just a theory, Alien Nazis definitely built the pyramids. Aliens just love piles of stone and use them to refuel their invisible spaceships. His entire existence now see??ms to be thrashing against the forces of irrelevancy, and he will tell you anything you want to hear if you’ll just make him feel important.

Unsurprisingly, William Shatner’s TekWar starts with an ad for the TV show, William Shatner, elaborate logos, bad ??CGI, and William Shatner. 

You’re an ex-police officer who is awoken from cryosleep imprisonment by William Shatner. It’s maybe the 2043, and there’s a new drug on the market called Tek. It’s an addictive experience that puts its? users in a blissful simulated environment where they can briefly feel happiness until the drug kills them.

That may have sounded nefarious in 1989, but these days, it sounds like the next product that Elon Musk or Mark Zuc??kerberg would take credit for.

In the future, the cure for a drug problem is murder. William Shatner forces you to use your police skills of assassination to take down seven drug lords and stop their plan to spread addictive happiness through the internet. You’re judge, jury, and executioner? all in one, and rather than try an??d get to the societal root of addiction, you’re just going to kill the people supplying the demand. Law and order 101, baby.

You’re given the choice of seven “TekLords�?to take down, and I don’t know why. Judging by William Shatner’s lectures and the environmental storytelling, there’s a chronological order by which you’re supposed ??to tackle the levels. Nothing fancy, just left to right, but I’m not sure why they bothered giving the option.

Not that it matters. You absolutely can tackle the levels in any order. Aside from William Shatner trying to tell William Shatner’s TekWar in a li??near f??ashion, there’s no real difficulty curve. Each level starts you off on a subway platform with your pockets emptied down to the bare essentials. Every time you enter a level, you have to rebuild your arsenal. Only keys carry between areas, and they get taken away when you go after a new TekLord, anyway.

I don’t even know how I would quantify difficulty in William Shatner’s TekWar. Every level has you entering a city area. You’re supposed to avoid causing too much commotion??, and if you keep your weapon holstered, rent-a-cops will ignore you. However, it won’t take long before someone who doesn’t like your face just starts blasting at it from some unseen corner of the map.

One of the best parts of the Build Engine is its handling of map sectors that allow level designers to create the illusion of verticality without true room-over-room. This enabled the creation of levels that resemble real-world environments, which was something that games were pushing for in those days. So, William Shatner’s TekWar features areas that, in superficial ways, feel like urban environments. However, Capstone fell into the pitfall of those early games, which is that the levels are designed to feel like real places first, and how they function as the setting for gameplay is a distant secon??d.

As such, many of the rooms and areas you enter are entirely pointless. Much of William Shatner’s TekWar is pointless.

You’ll undoubtedly find yourself circling areas trying to l??ocate the chosen TekLord without success. That’s because, while each TekLord drops you in what seems to be the same subway platform, the levels are often broken into different stops. So, one TekLord might require you to disembark at one spot, scour the level, and then, when you find yourself stuck, return to the subway to move to another platform and repeat the process.

But, like I said, the only items with permanence here are the keys. So, you might think that you need to search for the keys on earlier platforms to take them to the final area and unlock the door to the boss, b?ut that’s not always the case.

There are only two unique keys: red and blue. When searching for any given TekLord, ther?e are always multiple places these can be found, and often there are copies in the area where said TekLord is located. This means any earlier levels are pointless. You can’t even use them to load up on munitions because, like ??I said, guns get dumped when you transition to new areas.

It’s so distressingly confusing. It feels necessary to search the earlier subway stops just in case there isn’t a required key in the last area. I don’t trust that William Shatner’s TekWar won’t just reload all the enemies again.

The baffling mission framework would be bad enough, but William Shatner’s TekWar isn’t fun to play to begin with.?? As I said, the levels are designed m?ore for looks than function. They’re confusing mazes filled with areas that would be pointless, even if you were allowed to take your toys with you.

T??he enemies are just left to sort of roam the environment. Anytime you enter an area, they’ll start blasting at you indiscriminately. Since they just fire bullets that don’t show as projectiles, your character just begins taking damage. There’s no way to avoid it. Your screen starts blinking red, and your life bar starts depleting slowly. Very slowly. In the meantime, you need to try and hunt down everything in the vicinity that is making your screen flash.

In any other game, taking such constant, unstoppable aggression would mean you die a lot, but I didn’t see the game over screen too often. That’s because, in order to balance the difficulty, Capstone just piled on the health. Even while taking continuous damage, your character’s healthbar is massive. Rather than meticulously place enemies to create a fun and challenging experience like a video game is supposed to d??o, Capstone kept tweaking player health until you had a fighting chance. That’s, uh, a very unique way of doing it, I suppose. I mean, it feels god-awful to play, but it’s a way to ensure the player can suffer their way to the finish line.

Speaking of which, each TekLord you kill awards you with a symbol. At some point, you’re supposed to take these symbols into the Matrix ?(the virtual internet, of course) and put them into slots scattered throughout. I wouldn’t recommend doing this until the end, but regardless, it’s one of the worst sequences of gameplay I think I’ve been subjected to.

To its credit, William Shatner’s TekWar does a decent job of presenting a virtual world within the Build Engine. It differentiates itself from the rest of the game qu??ite well. Unfortunately, it’s filled with inescapable traps and obtuse puzzles that take forever to solve. While I was trapped in this part, my partner asked me what I was playing. I told him.

He cringed and asked, “And how is it?�?/p>

“I’m in Hell,�?I replied.

It feels almost merciful after you complete the Matrix section and you're dropped back into normal gameplay. It's a short fight and then William Shatner tells you what a good job you did. Speaking of merciful, there was never a William Shatner’s Tekwar 2.

I’ve discovered that playing Build Engine games as they were released is next to impossible for me. The lack of mouselook feels awkward to hands that have been trained with that control style, and I can never find keybindings that feel right. Thankfully, there’s a Build source branch called BuildGDX that supports William Shatner’s TekWar, much like eDuke32 enables Duke Nukem 3D to run on modern setups. I’m not sure how thankful I should be that someone made William Shatner’s TekWar more accessible to me, but at least I didn’t stru??ggle with PGU??P and PGDN to move my virtual neck.

One of the reasons I like playing bad games is trying to analyze the decisions that make them so terrible to play. William Shatner’s TekWar, for all its ineptitude, seems to have come from a pl??ace of ambition. 3D environments �?even fake ones �?were a new frontier in video games, so the playbook was still being written. When the trail hasn’t been worn, it’s easy to wander off in the wrong direction and be unable to find your way back.

If I had to imagine the design document, I’d say that the initial idea was that they’d drop players in an environment, and then they’d discretely have to find their way to the target and eliminate them. The problem there is t?hat it’s difficult to then throw obstacles in their way, and it creates a lot of variables that need to be planned for. Eventually, when all the loose ends need to be tied together, your player winds up with a towering health bar.

We get so caught up populating pedestals with games that set precedence that we miss out on the other half of the story. But while a soufflé that successfully rises looks much better, I’m more interested in the one that collapsed after the house was shaken by a Buick driving through the front door. Anyone can succeed, but it takes talent to fail as hard as William Shatner’s TekWar.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post William Shatner’s TekWar is the technological future of crap appeared first on Destructoid.

We need sites like MobyGames now more than ever. With the ongoing e??nshittification of the internet, where useful and trustworthy information is being buried under a mountain of worthless garbage, user-driven databases are becoming the last reliable, trustworthy sources. Ho?w standards have changed.

It’s been 25 years since MobyGames was founded. However, its future was never guaranteed. In fact, I’m not sure I recall a time when it wasn’t at risk of disintegrating. But roughly two years ago, in 2022, the website landed in the hands of Atari. At the time, I thou?ght that was another twist in a series of bad turns, but now, I’m not sure that’s the case.

I was given the chance to speak with Atari CEO Wade Rosen and the general manager Jeremiah Freyholtz about the state ??and future of the?? site, which is something I couldn’t pass up given my history with it.

I joined the MobyGames community in 2009. While I made some small c?ontributions to the database, my main reason for joining was to cut my teeth writing about video games. What I did there 15 years ago led me here. Users are able to submit reviews for any game listed on the site, so that’s how I taught myself to be a critic. All my reviews are still up there, including the first I ever wrote, and it’s awful. I keep it up to show how much I’ve developed my craft, but I’m not going to link you to it out of shame.

More importantly, however, I connected with the community there. At the time, ?the forums were an active place just? for talking about video games. Just a bunch of people who loved video games from all eras, all who had very particular and eclectic tastes. I fit right in.

In 2010, the founders of the site sold it to GameFly Media, and the results were catastrophic. It was done without informing anyone in the community. One day, there was just a GameFly logo at the bottom of the screen. Some longtime approvers and contributors resigned immediately. Even the most optimistic, however, quickly lost faith when the company rolled out an updated look for the site sometime in 2013.

The original look of MobyGames was aging ??fast, but the new version wa??s broken and unusable. The remaining community crumbled. The forum conversations dried up. Even I left after it felt like there was nothing for me there anymore.

One day at the end of December 2013, one? of the community members messaged me over Steam. The old site was back. Suddenly, and out of nowhere. It was a gosh-darned Christmas Miracle.

GameFly ??had sold the site to Jeremiah Freyholtz (who we knew as Reed at the time) and Simon Carless of Blue Flame Labs. They had rolled everything back. More importantly, they were planning to do the work to help restore MobyGames.

The community, having been so badly burned by the Gamefly deal, was skeptical. Work was beginning on Blue Flame’s own refresh on the site, and while Reed was communic?ating and taking the community’s feedback into consideration, it would never be possible to please so many passionate people. In retrospect, Blue Flame saved MobyGames. At least from my perspective.

Unfortunately, the community would never quite be the same. Don’t get me wrong; a good many of the people w??ho I used to converse with in the forums are still there, and a lot of people still contribute to the site. But the random talk about video games in general and their history never really came back. That probably moved to the Discord server, as is ofte??n the case these days.

However, the updates slowed down pretty quickly. In 2014, Simon Carless clarified that MobyGames didn’t make much revenue. This meant that Freyholtz had to focus on other things and couldn’t devote all his attention to the ??site. They brought on community member Tracy Poff to maintain things and fit in what upgrades the??y could.

I made regular donations to the site. I thought this was the primary, and I have no idea why because the site always had ads. Freyholtz told me, “Actually, for most of our history, the site was supported primarily by ads and affiliate links. Although we had donations at times, it was a smaller piece.�?/p>

Sometime in 2020, Antstream bought the site, but things remained very much the same. So much so that I didn’t even notice, and neither did much of the community. However, it did open up Atari’s entry.

According to Wade Rosen, “We made a strategic investment in Anstream back in late 2021, which owned Mobygames, and as part of that investment secured the option to buy Mobygames outright. We exercised that option in early 2022. MobyGames was something that I had identified pretty early on as something I thought made sense within the Atari family.�?/p>

“For me, Mobygames has always been the source of truth for information about video games,�?Rosen said. “That has been particularly valuable to me in game publishing, first at Ziggurat and now at Atari.�?/p>

When it was announced in 2022, I thought Atari’s acquisition would just be a repeat of the GameFly situation. The Atari I knew up to that point was coasting on past success by occasionally releasing (very) substandard entries in older series. But since Rosen took over as CEO, the company has made strides in proving that game preservation is their business model. Now it doesn’t seem like such a bad fit.

Development on MobyGames went into overdrive. The site got another interface update, but beyond that, a number of additional features were added. One of the more interesting additions is still in beta, whi??ch is MobyPro, a paid subscription tier that provides improved analytics. Little changed for users who just want to access the database for free, but for people who commonly research games, like myself, it’s an appreciable addition.

“Originally, I wanted to do MobyPro about a ??decade ago,�?Freyholtz explained, “but felt that it and the overall long term vision was untenable with the old backend from 1999. So instead, we put our efforts into first building a new site and infrastructure - effectively a new foundation from which to work from. Tracy Poff (the other developer at Moby) and I worked on that part-time, on and off, over the course?? of many years. Along with feedback from the approvers as we developed it. Ultimately Atari’s investment and support enabled us to get it over the finish line!

“It was a massive project and I’m relieved we made it to the other side,�?he added. “Especially since the site and database is now in the best shape it’s ever been.�?/p>

As for how the community responded, Freyholtz says, “The community has been energized by the rapid pace of development we’ve been able to achieve since the upgrade. Prior to that improvements and bug fixes took *forever*. And with MobyPro, it’s still very early days, but it’s off to a good start!�?/p>

I asked if ?contributions have picked up si?nce the site’s update, and Freyholtz provided a graph to illustrate.

That is certainly a graph. We’re missin??g a??n axis here, but it definitely goes up.

Things are still in the midst of improvements, howev??er. MobyPro is available, but it’s still in early access. The site is already in better shape than I�?�ve ever seen it, but I was curious about what other additions were planned, so I asked Freyholtz.

“Oh absolutely, there are many!�?He replied. “And some have been added since launching the new site. A favorite of which is Game Relations. Which allows contributors to link games to any of its expansion packs, DLC, conversions, compilations or special editions.�?/p>

“But overall we’re focusing more on improving the UI and processes for our existing data types before expanding too much into other areas.�?/p>

Game relations, in particular, have been someth?in?g requested by the community since the time I was active there. Things like expansion packs and DLC would be listed with their own entry in the database, and you’d typically need to look at the description to see what they related to. The game relations panel just shows it at a glance.

Speaking of community requests, I had to ask a cheeky question about whether or not the Famicom Disk System would become its own platform.

“As for Famicom, there are differing opinions about that (and some other platforms) in the community, and I’m not sure where we’ll land on that yet,�?Freyholtz explained. “Currently we document it as a tech spec, which you can find here.�?/p>

Yes, this has long been argued about in the community, even as far back as when I was active. If it’s not clear, I’m on the side that thinks it ?should be a different category. After all, the Sega CD and Turbografx CD are listed as separate p??latforms.

25 years is practically ancient on the internet. 1999 was even before the dotcom bubble burst and ?ended Web 1.0. To close out the interview, I asked both Rosen and Freyholtz what they think MobyGames will look like in 25 years.

For Wade Rosen, “I am excited to see the professional layer added to an already rich body of information and active community. As you look forward to how the site will document and discuss more modern games, it opens up a host of possibilities. It is hard to predict exactly what it will look like, but my expectation is that MobyGames will continue to excel at its core mission, and it will remain the most authoritative source for video game information.�?/p>

As for Jeremiah Freyholtz, “I think it will make the current MobyGames look like a baby in comparison, in terms of capabilities and scope of video game knowledge. And will be an increasingly important part of the industry.�?/p>

MobyGames has gone through ?some rough patches in the past, and there’s no guarantee that it won’t hit anothe?r. However, with Atari providing Jeremiah Freyholtz the ability to implement his vision for the site, things are looking more optimistic than ever. Here’s hoping that the new owners and, more importantly, the hard-working community volunteer contributors and approvers can keep this important resource going strong far into the future.

As Freyholtz puts it, “Check back on our 50th Anniversary!�?/p>

The post Talking MobyGames’ 25th anniversary with Jeremiah Freyholtz and Atari CEO Wade Rosen appeared first on Destructoid.

In the early �?0s, Hulkamania stopped running wild as Hulk Hogan pursued his dream of acting and testifying at trials about steroids. The result was godawful stuff like Suburban Commando and Mr. Nanny. However, he also had a short-lived TV show called Thunder in Paradise.

I have never watched Thunder in Paradise. It’s ??not because it’s something I wouldn’t watch �?I’ve intentionally watched tonnes o??f terrible things �?it just hasn’t been a priority.

But then I learned that I could satisfy my job, my passion, and my chronic Hulkamania with one swipe, thanks to 1995's Thunder in Paradise Interactive. That’s right, the Hulkster’s show somehow had a video game. Appropriately, it came out on the maligned and ridiculed Philips CD-i. I don’t own one, but the game also came out on DOS because one platform can’t hold back the most powerful force in the Uni??verse, brother?.

It took some DOSBox magic to get running. I’m not sure if it was particularly picky about hardware back in the day or if DOSBox just wasn’t prioritizing compatibility with Thunder in Paradise Interactive for some re??ason, but I had to pull out the big guns to get the glorious mixture of boats, bikinis, and 24-inch pythons on screen. I felt really smart after I cleared those hurdles, but then I burnt my hand taking a pizza out of the oven.

If you’ve never seen the show, it features Mr. Hogan as “Hurrica??ne�?Spencer and Chris Lemmon as Martin “Bru�?Brubaker. They are two guys with a boat who spend time on the beach and fight people. That’s about all I know.

For the interactive version of the show, you play as Zack, who might be ?the nephew of Hurricane. I’m not sure why he’s hanging out with two slabs of testosterone and beef. The game is a typical FMV game based on the episode “The M.A.J.??O.R. and the Minor.�?I’m not sure if Zack was always a character in the show, but I do know that he was in that episode. Here, he stands in as the player character.

The game opens with Hurricane Hogan strapped into a neural lin??k thing that is maybe supposed to allow him to control a steroid-infused slab of human beef with wires coming out of his dick. It’s not really well explained.

After nearly frying the Hulkster’s brains, the eponymous M.A.J.O.R. stomps off. I can’t remember if it’s really explained what the M.A.J.O.R. wants? to do, but apparently, having him on the loose with only half a brain puts the former WWF Champ’s daughter in danger. So, they get in their boat to chase him and strap the child?? into the brain-scrambling device so that he can control their boat’s weaponry.

I’m aware that the further I try to explain this, the more questions get raised, but this is what happens in Thunder in Paradise Interactive. This weird sort of augmented reality angle comes up as well since Zack is using a “soft gun�?to shoot dudes. ??I imagine that this is so they didn’t have to show a minor murdering a bunch of people, but once again, it raises a bunch of questions. What are the stakes here? Do?es the robot man also have a boat?

These questions may have been answered by watching the episode, whic?h I didn’t do. That’s? how I live my life: ignorant and uninformed. The CD-i version came with a disc that had the episode on it, but I don’t think that was the case on DOS.

While the cutscenes hurry you through the episode’s story, it gets interrupted in three parts to provide you with gameplay. It’s routine FMV cursor shooting, sort of like Corpse Killer. The first part ??has you protecting the Hulkster’s boat from missiles and flying cubes. You have a normal energy gun, rockets, and maybe ??a shield thing. It’s just marked as “Q�?on the HUD. There’s a database menu after the first battle that tells you what Q is, and I know I watched it, but my brain rejected that information.

Either way, your rockets are limited, Q only has a few uses, and your energy gun takes ??a long time to charge up. I did not succeed here on any of my attempts. Every so often, the game would cut away so I could watch Hulk Hogan and Chris Lemmon tell me what a disappointing pie??ce of shit I am and how I should be humiliated for sucking so badly.

When you lose, th?e scene ends so the heroic duo can further explain how you let the whole team down, and then it proceeds to? what looks like a luxury beach resort.

In this section, it’s another cursor-based shooting section, but it’s more like House of the Dead or, more accurately, Area 51. Guys in hazmat suits pop out from cover and try to kill Zack, and your job is to click on them with ?the cursor to make them stop. I would swear that this section always had the first dude take off half my health, and then, no matter how well I did after that, Zack would get worn down over time.

Once again, Hulk Hogan would interject and chastise me for not saying my prayers and taking my vitami??ns. Eventually, after getting shot enough times, Zack collapses into a pathetic heap in the sand. This results in Hogan’s daughter being kidnapped for some reason. You’re essentially told that they soft-pitched you the hero role, and you still swung and missed somehow.

So, the whole team goes to some industrial factory or something. All the vats make me think it’s a brewery. Once again, the big strong dudes set off in one direction while sending the questi??onably armed kid with the egg scrambler glued to his head in another. This leads to another shooti??ng section.

While the slow panning around of the luxury beach resort was pretty boring, the factory is even lamer. Thunder in Paradise Interactive seems to realize this because the bad guy (who we learn now is actually Rampike and not M.A.J.O.R.) eventually sends you to a virtual reality city. For some reason. Again, I don’t get the virtual reality angle here. So then you watch the camera slowly roam around the city, stopping to let guys shoot at you. This is marginally more fun than the brewery because you get to play “Guess the City.�?/p>

That doesn’t last because eventually, you’re sent back to the factory to fight because Rampike wants in on the laser tag. Despite the fact that now Rampike sometimes pops out from cover instead of the hazmat dudes. I was able to take him down once, and then I was sent down to? the? basement, where Zack was killed instantly by the M.A.J.O.R.

Zack then wakes up from a coma, looking up at Hulk Hogan and Chris Lemmon. They’re just like, “Since you were busy dying, we had to do everything ourselves, idiot.�?Then after Zack passes back out due to inte??nse shame, it cuts to Hogan and Lemmon telling you, the player, that you embarrassed yourself but at least ?you can try again.

I did try again—a few times—and I always lost every game. Every once in a while, the actors would tell me ??I was doing great, but I think those instances were just glitches.

At one point, I learned that you? can skip the boring, camera-p??anning sections by pausing and unpausing the game. After that, I learned that your gun recharged during these moments, and I ran out of ammo and just died quicker.

This was some best-effort gameplay, too. I was using all of my ne??urons to try and figure out what?? I was doing wrong, and it got me nowhere. I just kept getting told I’m an embarrassment by a guy who managed to combine a racist rant and sex tape in a single scandal.

Aside from that, Thunder in Paradise Interactive isn�?�t the worst FMV game I’ve played. However, whenever you set your expectations to “FMV game based on a show nobody remembers,�?it’s really not hard to be pleasantly surprised.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Thunder in Paradise Interactive for DOS might be the cu?re you need for your chronic Hulkamania appeared first on Destructoid.

While no live-action film of Final Fantasy VII has been announced, it's not hard to imagine Hollywood doesn't at least have an overly?? eager eye on it. Depending on perspective, that's either a threat or delight to muse over, especially when you consider Square Enix isn't to?o shy to flirt with the big screen �?looking at you, Spirits Within and Advent Children.

For better or for worse, I often find myself musing over ideal actors for the inevitable, like Zelda or Shadow. So, in case Hollywood goes for it, I'm shouting out my choices now. In honor of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's launch, here are my picks for a live-action FF7 cast that I think, if ??made now, would be worthy ?of such a classic legacy.

Cloud Strife - Cody Christian, Darren Barnet

As one of Final Fantasy’s best protagonists, Cloud deserves someone who can understand him and his complexities. So who better than Cody Christian, Cloud’s current VA? The transition wouldn’t be too jarring, as his resume’s mainly live-action, being in Teen Wolf and All-American. Plus, he's proven himself to ????play the ex-SOLDIER quite well. 

If Hollywood wants more stardom, I offer up Darren Barnet. Striking success with shows like Never Have I Ever and Blue Eye Samurai, he’s done video games and adaptations, including Immortals of Aveum and Gran Turismo. He can grow into the role, much like Cody has been. It’s a tough role but I'm confident Darren could carry the Buster Sword an??d rock spiky yellow hair.

Tifa Lockhart - Britt Baron, Jessica Henwick

Who doesn't like Tifa? She has a heart of gold and kicks (and punches) some serious ass. You’ll need someone skilled in combat and not afraid to get their hands dirty. Britt Baron, Tifa’s VA, stars in many live-action projects including the wrestling-oriented show GLOW.

On the other hand, there's Jessica Henwick. She's portrayed many badasses on-screen in projects like The Matrix Resurrections, Game of Thrones, and Iron Fist. Whoever they go with, Tifa will be in ??good hands (or fists ??in this case).

Barret Wallace - Colman Domingo

The gun-armed Barret strikes fear into the hearts of Shinra yet has a heart of gold. You want an actor who can balance it with finesse and poise. That's where Colman Domingo comes in. His award-winning work in Euphoria and Rustin and his badassery in Fear the Walking Dead prove he has the chops. It's the perfect duo?? that I can't help wanting to see come to fruition.

Aerith Gainsborough - Hailee Steinfeld

As the last living Ancient, Aerith is a key figure in FFVII’s narrative beloved for her carefree and brash personality. I'd go with Hailee Steinfeld to deliver on all fronts. While she's done action-oriented roles, projects like Arcane, Dickinson, and True Grit show her versatility as an actor to handle those sincere mo?ments with wit and ease. If anything, it proves sh?e can blossom as the beloved flower girl.

Zack Fair - Xolo Maridueña

Being Cloud's mentor and the protagonist of Crisis Core, Zack is as charming as he is audacious. For the role, you need someone who exudes infectious energy and fierce determination. Enter Xolo Maridueña. His starring roles in Cobra Kai and Blue Beetle nail Zack’s qualities with precision aim, with the latter even letting him conjure a Buster Sword to use. It's practically asking for Xolo to become the SOLDIER we al?l know and love.

Yuffie Kisaragi - Karen Fukuhara, Stephanie Hsu

Energetic and vivacious, Yuffie brings more than her Materia and?? ninja moves to the party. The character requires someone not afraid to embarrass themselves and step out of their comfort zone. Enter rising stars Karen Fukuhara and Stephanie Hsu.

The Boys�?Karen Fukuhara’s very much capable of taking on the Wutai warrior with comedic finesse (as well as kicking ass). The same can be said for Everything Everywhere, All at Once's ??Stephanie Hsu, as her background in musicals and comedies fits the lovable ninja precisely. Either of these actresses can make Yuffie just as fun as she is in-game.

Red XIII - Max Mittelman, Regé-Jean Page

An experiment of Hojo's, Red XIII aids AVALANCHE on their quest to stop Sephiroth. Like others, I’ll throw in current VA Max Mittelman for the role. His performance is extremely impressive for someone who knows him as Ryuji from Persona 5. I also nominate Regé-Jean Page. Known for his roles in Bridgerton and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, his voice?? and range is pretty close to Re?d's tone now.

Cait Sith - Ewan McGregor

It's a magical Scottish cat. Need I say more to justify Ewan McGregor? Despite being a respected actor (and Obi-Wan Kenobi), he's not afraid to experiment with genres. Cait would be fun for him to do outside of Star Wars and various ventures. If ?anything, it'd showcase Ewa??n's versatility as a voice actor, something he hasn't done much of.

Vincent Valentine - Hayden Christensen

Many characters claim to be edgy but none come close to the immortal gunslinger Vincent Valentine. So, of course, I picked Hayden Christensen to play him. Known for Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, he's due for a vengeful comeback. Vincent wo?uld be a great character for Hayden to strut his stuff.

Cid Highwind - Bradley Cooper

Chain-smoking mechanic Cid deserves someone who knows their way around things. Luckily, there's one fit for the job: Maestro's Bradley Cooper. Sure, given?? his resume, it’s a rich pick, but I don't think anyone could d?o the role justice like he would. His charisma and nailing of a Southern twang is a major draw (or drawl) for me. While a surefire blockbuster, Cid is right up his alley.

Rufus Shinra - Taz Skylar

Nepo baby Rufus Shinra needs someone who can nail his cockiness. I vouch for Taz Skylar. His role as Sanji in Netflix’s One Piece radiates a sort of charm that makes?? him enjoyable to watch. Plus, given his recent fora?y into Hollywood, this would be a great way to make an even bigger name for himself.

Tseng - Andrew Koji

As the leader of the Turks, Tseng is intimidating and precise, so it requires someone who can command a room and kick ass. So, I turned to Andrew Koji. He's wrecked people in Warrior and wants to play Jin Sakai in the live-action Ghost of Tsushima. Whil?e he hasn't had many dramatic performances, Tseng may provide a good character for Andrew to? spread his wings with.

Rude- Kelvin Harrison Jr.

Rude is a tight-laced Turk of few words, opting for results rather than reason. An actor I think would knock it out of the park is Kelvin Harrison Jr. Starting from 12 Years a Slave, he's gained traction in Hollywood, leading films like Waves and Chevalier. Rude, while not as musical, is a ??role that can shine if done right. Kelvin may be the actor ??to do just that.

Reno - Brandon Perea

The funny man against Rude, Reno is quick to crack both a joke and your bones. While he's seen as comedic relief, he's pretty ruthless given his hot-headedness. With this, I chose Brandon Perea. He's new to acting, but his performance in Nope convinced me to choose him. He's witty, brash, and prime for another scene-steali?ng role. He's just the type of ??actor that'd make Reno as fun a character as he is.

Sephiroth - Robert Pattison

Sephiroth needs to be played by someone menacing and fierce. May I present to you Robert Pattison. Yes, I think the Twilight and The Batman actor would be a good Sephiroth. He's got insane range and can bring in lots of newcomers. Also, Robert’s a huge FFVII fan, calling it one of his favorite games. His portrayal ??as the perfect SOLDIER can strike plenty of chords with audiences. Also, he hasn't done many villain roles, so Sephiroth would be the best character to?? take a stab at.

The post If FF7 ever sees the live-action treatment, here’s who we would cast as Cloud and the gang appeared first on Destructoid.

My outlook on Tactician Mode in Baldur's Gate 3 changed when a goblin first pushed Lae'zel into a bottomless chasm. It wasn??'t necessarily a moment exclusive to this difficulty setting, but having what should've been an easy kill lead to a character's death made me rethink how I approached battles going forward.

Generally, Baldur's Gate 3 is a challenge on whatever setting you pick, but Tactician is brutal. The setting forces players into a new mindset: Fully take advantage of all the systems BG3 offers, or die. Ho?nestly, it's amazing how different the game feels with? the difficulty spike, and I love it.

After finishing the campaign twice as custom characters, I figured I'd try something new and play as the bullish githyanki Fighter Lae'zel. To experience the world as she does, I emulated her struggle for survival and cranked the difficulty up to its hardest setting. Thus began an amazing and grueling journey where Scrolls of Revivify are treated like candy, and Withers is suddenly my best friend. So far, I've only logged about 15 hours, with me being a decent way into Act II, but my experience is a lesson in how far I can push BG3's party.

Screenshot via Destructoid

Why is Tactician so grueling in BG3?

Tactician's one-liner in-game description notes it's a "tough cam?paign" intended for anyone eager to experience "strategic combat." That doesn't do the difficulty justice, though. Balanced expec??ts strategy, while Tactician pushes players to their limits. The former has challenging combat; the latter is a ruthless DM taking their frustrations out on players.

Enemies receive substantial buffs in Tactician, with the most evident being harder hits a??nd far larger health pools. They also sport better equipment, namely more elemental arrows, ensuring the entire party joins in on the pain more often. AI improvements made most encounters a fight for survival, as enemies utilized their newfound smarts to make life a living hell.

Some hours into the campaign, I considered giving up. Admittedly, I'm not great at CRPGs in general, and I was questioning why I wanted to challenge myself even further. With the changes to combat, Baldur's Gate 3 felt like a slog because, to me, the defau??lt setting was challenging enough. There were even points?? where constant deaths and overwhelming brutality became less frustrating and funnier, given how often party members crucial to specific plans would go down before they could even begin their turn.

I was cracking, but amidst those cracks was one where light shone through, and everything suddenly clicked. Baldur's Gate 3 isn't at its worst here in this setting. Rather, I was in the wrong and stubbornly sti?cking to habits formed mindlessly playing through Balanced. Like a follower of Loviatar, I learned to embrace the pain and wor??ked with it. If I hadn't, there would have only been suffering.

Screenshot via Destructoid

Falling in love with Tactician Mode

There wasn't one specific change that made me fall for Tactican; it just somehow happened. I looked into guides after realizi??????????????????????????ng something needed to give,?? and those helped to some degree. But what I really needed was to ultimately pay better attention to what was available.

In previous playthroughs, the first fight with Auntie Ethel is fun, if not grating, because of her clones. With some decent planning during the fight, it's not too bad to overcome in the normal setting. However, Tactician forced me to change. The witch kept killing me, so I'd have to rest??rategize long before the encounter began. She spawned clones as soon as the fight started, and they systematically took turns picking off my team. For a while, I was at a loss, then took a step back to examine the arena and my party's kit. The fight wouldn't trigge??r until standing at a specific point, leaving room open for the team to spread.

The clone's attacks lacked their previous focus as a result. This left everyone still up and allowed me to go forward with my plan. Since Astarion and Gale had access to Magic Missile, they dispatched the clones, leaving the real Ethel open for Lae'zel and Karlach to attack. It was a simple change in how the fight pl????ayed out, but it showed how effective strategy can turn fights around.

Screenshot via Destructoid

Positioning is key in BG3

A little positioning saved me again against the Grym. Initially, I positioned Shadowheart and Ka??rl?ach on one side of the map with Lae'zel and Wyll on the other. The plan was to scatter attention, bait the boss onto the forge, and then slam it shut, but it refused to comply with attempts to turn it to scrap.

I had to switch things up a little to win this one without turning the encounter into an endurance match. Everyone's positions remained the same, but I found a rhythm for baiting the boss from one side of the arena to the other. Through trial and error, I realized I'd need to juggle who was at??tacking to take advantage of the boss's targeting parameters. The Grym targets the last person who hit it.

I didn't want to change the construct's course, so I only used actions that wouldn't trigger opportunity attacks. Wyll's convenient new position also let me cast Cloud of Daggers, damaging the construct in a way that didn't draw aggro. Even with a beefy new HP bar, the Grym's potentially grueling encounter didn't take me any long, as the battle turned into a game of tag it couldn't win. It wasn't something I would have thought of in other playthroughs because BG3 never forced that consideration.

Screenshot via Destructoid

All differences in BG3 Tactician mode

Tactician mode is harder than Balanced, but that doesn't exactly explain how it is. Additions such as more advanced combat AI are what make it a blast to p??lay through. Others, like increased HP and enemy attack rolls, can make the experience more frustrating. It ??still helps to know exactly what you're signing up for when choosing this difficulty.

• Enemies receive a 30% boost to HP
• Enemies also receive a +2 for saving throws and attack rolls
• AI combatants react to their environment more (i.e. pushing foes off cliffs more or triggering explosives when needed)
  • They will also use items such as grenades or potions more often
• AI combatants also target opponents with low AC first and will kill downed allies
• Long rest requirements double from 40 to 80

The long rest requirement change isn't as bad as it seems. Food is plentiful in Baldur's Gate 3, so there's no need to worry about running out unless a string o??f combats go wrong. Resource management is more crucial since the AI's tactics will lead to using spells like Revivify?? more often. Otherwise, Withers will eat through your gold fast.

[caption id="attachment_474497" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Destructoid[/caption]

Is Tactician mode for you?

Tactician mode in Baldur's Gate 3 is unforgiving and brutal. It can feel like an absolute slog at times and probably induce a frustrated yell or two. At the same time, it's amazing at teaching players how to really take advantage of its tactical systems and learn classes. It requires stud?ying arena layouts, environmental hazards, and team builds. I'm still not done with my own journey, but it's become my definitive way to play.

It's by no means ideal for everyone; Tactician is demanding and can ask for too much. Even if not for the combat, Baldur's Gate 3 is well worth the time for the story, cast, and well-written dialogue, so it'd be a shame to skip it over a harsh difficulty curve. However, when everything clicks and a carefull??y thought-out plan goes well, the combat shines brightest and delivers the RPG's most satisfactory moments.

It's a little ostentatious to say Tactician is the "correct" way to play Baldur's Gate 3, but sometimes I feel that way thanks to how well it flows. In hindsight, those initial hours of suffering were more additive, not punitive, thanks to a new appreciation for all of my combat options. Baldur's Gate 3 is fantastic no matter what you choose, but Tactician made me fall in love all over again??.

The post The Baldur’s Gate 3 grueling Tactician Mode is the correct way to play appeared first on Destructoid.

Vanillaware's latest game Unicorn Overlord arrives tomorrow. The embargo is up, and by now, sites are already posting thoughts and takes on the latest from the studio behind Dragon's Crown, Odin Sphere, 13 Sentinels, and many other well-loved games.

And as I've written about previously, Unicorn Overlord takes an interesting approach. It's looking back on the strategy stylings of classics like Ogre Battle, utilizing real-time strategy and an overworld map, setting it apart from other recent throwback tactics projects. Units move and fight in automated conflict using logical progression that you've set up ahead of time, similar to the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII.

In the 20 hours I've played of Unicorn Overlord thus far, I've been fairly enthralled. It's a breath of fresh air in the strategy and tactics RPG genre, and feels like Vanillaware both broadcasts its str??engths (art, music, design, delicious-looking food) and breaks some new ground?? in tapping into the past.

So, ahead of the launch, I sent a few questions ov??er to the Vanillaware staff, to ask about their process. Why did they choose to go this route? What was the development process like? And what's up with the card game in the collector's edition? We got back some answers from Vanillaware's lead game designer Wataru Nakanishi and game director Takafumi Noma, as well as Atlus producer Akiyasu Yamamoto, to learn about all that and?? more.

With Unicorn Overlord, there are reports indicating it was in development for 10 years. What was that like, and
was development ever influenced by other projects the studio worked on throughout the decade?

Wataru Nakanishi, Lead Game Designer: Although it was a very long-term project, I did not work on it for the entire 10 years, but rather participated in the development of other projects in between, such as Odin Sphere Leifthrasir and Dragon's Crown Pro.

One project that had a direct influence on me was 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, which I was developing at the same time. When designing the Valor Skills for Unicorn Overlord, ??we incorporated elements of the meta skills system use??d in that title as an example.

How did you decide on the scenario and setting for Unicorn Overlord? Did the setting idea come before
deciding on making a strategy game, or vice versa?

Takafumi Noma, Game Director: We set out to make a tactical RPG first and foremost. The gene??ral framework for the world, like its setting, and world map were developed next. It wasn’t until the later stages of development that we created the story and detailed c?haracters.

The combat system of Unicorn Overlord is very intriguing, in the way it asks players to establish logic and priorities for what units will automatically do in battles. Why did you opt for this, over having direct command inputs for each unit?

Nakanishi: We wanted the focus of the game to be on troop building and the importance of preparing for?? battle. It would probably be overwhelming to have to give direct commands to all the units marching at the same time (laughing). The battle system itself was a result of our p??ursuit of combining strategy and ease of understanding.

Akiyasu Yamamoto, Producer: The project was proposed initially to ATLUS as? a Ta?ctical RPG with network elements which remained at the core of the game throughout development. The result is a unique Tactical RPG, offering a deckbuilding like experience that, even among Vanillaware, could only be brought to life by the minds of Noma-san and Nakanishi-san.

Why did you choose to forego tiles, and instead use a field map? How did that affect the way you think about
the world and battle maps?

Yamamoto: Perhaps you mean to point out that this type of game is not so common to see from a Japanese studio? As you’re probably aware, the strategy (tactical) RPG market here is quite different from that in the west. For example, the RTS genre has never really caught on here like it has with the numerous PC titles, indie titles, and more. But to return to your question, Unicorn Overlord does indeed stray from the “mainstream�?Japanese SRPG tile-based system. To put it simply, the creators of UO had a true passion for the '90s tactical RPGs they played growing up, and wanted to create a new game system based on their experience with said games. If one were to draw a family tree of the evolution of gaming, I think you would find Unicorn Overlord would naturally sprout out from the? same branch formed by those tiles which influenced it.

How did you go about creating some of the factions you interact with in Unicorn Overlord, like the elves and
angels? Were there any favorite factions to work on, amongst the team?

Noma: Since the guiding motif was 90's fantasy, I thought I couldn't leave out the elf. Initially I was thinking of using elves and dwarves which were common to Japanes?e TRPGs from that era, but after researching the original Norse mythology, we decided to stic?k to elves and dark elves instead.

Regarding the angel, although the original setting itsel?f was?? abandoned during the production process, the design remained, and I think it ended up being put to good use. I think each staff member likely has their favorites, but I personally like all races, so I don't have a favorite faction.

Unicorn Overlord is heading to PlayStation, Xbox Series consoles, and Switch, but not to PC - is there any reason in particular you chose not to aim for PC at launch? Has there been any discussion about a PC port later on?

Yamamoto: As a publisher, we would like to deliv??er it to PC users as well, but per our agreement with Vanillaware, we are only releasing on console??. In other words, there are no plans to port it to PC currently.

There’s been a resurgence in tactics games lately - including games like Triangle Strategy, the Tactics Ogre remaster, and even Mario + Rabbids. What do you think of this, and how do you think Unicorn Overlord stands out from other games of this style?

Nakanishi: As an SRPG fan, I am very pleased. Not only completely new titles, but also remasters of?? old titles are essential for the survival of the SRPG genre. I for one am very thankful for the recent trend of many SRPG titles being released.

This title, which was created in the midst of all these masterpieces, is full of unique elements such as field parts and batt?le systems. I believe that both fans of SRPGs of the past and those who ??have never played SRPGs before will enjoy this title.

Yamamoto: Going back to your previous question, the market for “tile-based�?SRPGs has been well explored by major developers and historical IPs for decades. What really drew ATLUS to Vanillaware’s proposal for Unicorn Overlord was how it was a blue ocean opportunity that avoided the red ocean of tile based SRPG. We ourselves had played many tactic??s games in the 16-bit era of? the 1990s and were moved by the proposal from Noma-san and Nakanishi-san, which led to the development of this title.

Vanillaware is well-known for its art style, especially its food. How did you decide on what kinds of food to have
in Unicorn Overlord, and does it vary by in-game region? Did you ever make any of the recipes yourselves?

Noma: At first, we wanted to be realistic and envisio?ned a scene of soldiers sitting around a campfire and eating porridge as their rations. However, we also wanted the food to? look delicious to boost morale, so we asked Shigatake-san, who has done cooking animations for our past productions, to do the cooking animation again for this game.

We asked Shigatake-san to choose the types of dishes himself. He chose dishes that looked delicious and made us want to eat them, while emphasizing visual differentiation. The dishes that can be eaten differ depending on the region in the game, so we hope that you will look forward to that as well in your a??dventures. Unfortunately, I have never actually made any of the in-game recipes myself�?(chuckles).

13 Sentinels had a fairly winding story with multiple viewpoints, while Unicorn Overlord looks to follow one narrative thread through the prince Alain. How did that shift your way of thinking about the story of this game, and what would you say the defining characteristics of Unicorn Overlord’s narrative are?

Yamamoto: First, I’d like to point out that although both are developed by Vanillaware, the director of both titles is different. Where 13 Sentinels came about as Kamitani-san’s vision of an adventure game, the genesis for Unicorn Overlord was rooted in Noma-san’s passion for the elements from the SRPGs from the '90s that left an impression on him. Things like giving as much gravity to the emotional connection with the characters involved as their actual battlefield functions and performance. Therefore, this work exp??lores the story of the more than 60 un?ique characters and their motivations for joining the liberation army. It highlights how even the seemingly weak can bring change to the world by raising their voices and working together against tyranny and injustice. To me, that’s the real message of this story.

I’m really interested in the card game that’s included in the collector’s edition of Unicorn Overlord. How did that
come about, and was this something the development team worked on themselves?

Yamamoto: It came about when our publisher, ATLUS, asked Vanillaware if it would be possible to create a deluxe version for users who wanted to continue to enjoy the Unicorn Overlord world outside of the main game. As for accessories, it would be difficult to use something metal for logistical reasons,?? so we requested a paper on?e, and the idea we struck upon was a card game. It was the first time for ATLUS to make such an accessory, but we were able to make it a reality by consulting with a long established company that handles card games and other physical games in Japan.

The reason for the extensive size is because the main game itself was created by staff who enjoy deck building and thinking-type card games. The accompanying card game was designed by Mr. Maeda who is a graphic designer at Vanillaware. Please note that although the setting and character classes are shared with the main game, each can be played independently, and this does not mea?n that you cannot fully enjoy the main game without playing the card game.

Unicorn Overlord is out for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, an?d Xbox Series X|S on March 8, 2024.

The post Un??icorn Overlord devs talk history, card games, and?? that delicious food appeared first on Destructoid.

Look, my chums, it’s Raya Systems! They’re the ones who brought us Packy & Marlon and Rex Ronan: Experimental Surgeon; ev?eryone’s favorite health-related edutainment games.

This time, I’m finally sticking a finger into Captain Novolin to check the temperature. Back in the youthful days of the internet, when making fun of bad video games was still considered a thing done by cool people, Captain Novolin was often a target of ridicule. I’ll admit that the concept is definitely a weird one, but I’d argue that Rex Ronan was much more fertile ground for jokes. Unless you like making fun of diabe?tics.

If you don’t know, Novolin is a brand of insulin. Captain Novolin is an edutainment game meant to teach diabetic children how to balance the??ir diet, teach them about diabetes, and it also suggests exercise. This is back when people could actually afford insulin, obviously.

Doctor codes

I personally don’t know a whole lot about diabetes, so definitely don’t take any medical or dietary advice from me. Most of what I know comes from Packy & Marlon and my first-aid training. As I’m sure is common, I know people with diabetes, but not in my immediate family. I have my own health-related issu?es,? but nothing chronic that I know of. Unless you count my depression, anxiety, and debt.

But that’s what Captain Novolin is for: education. Except, it’s probably for people who have actually been diagnosed with? diabetes. The first screen prompted m??e to “Enter the code your doctor said is best for you.�?I don’t even know what that means. I didn’t realize that diabetic people use secret codes. Thankfully, it provides the helpful tip that “If you don’t know your code, use 000.�?I was tempted to use the code 007, but I always listen to my doctor.

I think the number you put in might relate to the amount of insulin that the eponymous superhero administers to himsel?f.

You play as the super-hero Captain Novolin, who has the superpower of�?diabetes. I’m not saying someone with diabetes can’t be a super-hero, that’s ridiculous, but that’s literally all Captain Novolin has going for him aside from a speedboat and comfortable socks. He can’t even throw a punch, though that would be admittedly off-message here. I’m just finding ou??t that he can stomp on enemies, which would have been good to know before I spent two hours just avoiding them.

World domination

The narrative has Mayor Gooden being captured by aliens and taken to the peak of Mt. Wayupthar. The aliens are disguised as junk food. I don’t have confidence in my own plans for municipal domination, but I’m not sure ??that dressing up as a sundae would improve my chances. They’re not even trying to tempt Captain Novolin to eat them and throw off his blood glucose level. They mostly just try to bump in?to him. Maybe they’re trying to taunt him, but I don’t think the pharmaceutical company-sponsored superhero is self-conscious of his condition.

The Mayor is also diabetic and only has enough insulin to last for 48 hours. With this know??ledge in mind, your job is to walk briskly (because, remember, Captain Novolin has no superpowers) to the mayor’s rescue. I suppose it doesn’t matter if the mayor is undergoing some kind of alien brainwashing or intense probing during those 48 hours. The Captain is just going to take his time and make sure he eats a balanced diet along the way.

That’s literally th??e goal of the game. You start out in the morning and are given breakfast advice from a doctor. You have to balance your blood glucose levels by grabbing food in the correct amounts. If you overeat, your blood glucose will rise, and if you don’t eat, it will drop. 

While the doctor gives you very specific things to eat, that’s really all that appears within the level. That’s a good thing because he only tells you at the beginning of the level, and I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast, let alone what I need to collect and avoid based on a short message. I found that, as long as you only collect one of each item, you can generally keep your glucose levels in the ideal range. However, I think the best strategy is more ?about pacing your eating, but I’m really not interested in experimenting. ?On my successful run through the game, my glucose level only went too high or low a few times, so I was obviously doing something correctly.

Hyperglycemia

Surprisingly, the fluctuating glucose levels?? supposedly affect how the Captain performs. He’ll slow down if it gets too high or low, which isn’t something I really experience because I’m amazing at playing bad games. That’s actually kind of neat.

However, the real risk here is death. The aliens are playing for keeps, and Captain Novolin can only stand to be touched by anthropomorphic cereal boxes so often. You can take four hits before the super-hero will take a dirt nap. You start with three lives (more can be gained through points), and if you lose the??m all, it’s back to the start for you.

It’s pretty brutal, actually. A lot of the aliens have movement patterns that are designed to throw you off. There’s a cookie, for example, that has a low bounce that it uses to move, but the moment you jump, it takes a high bounce to deliberately bloc??k you. In order to get past them without being hurt, you need to leap at the last moment so you’ve already cleared them by the time? they take their big bound.

Of course, I can d?o that just fine with my seasoned, meaty thumbs. I’d expe??ct that a child would have more trouble.

It still took my beef thumbs a few attempts before I reached the final boss, Blubberman (heh). The cookies, for example, would sometimes travel in pairs, and I never found a good strategy to avoid both. It doesn’t help that the hit detection enthusiastically sucks. There was one part in the mountain stages where a hole in the gro?und extended far past its boundaries, so I kept jumping too late and falling to my death.

Hello, Ranger

To be fair to Captain Novolin, it at least seems like a decent way of framing diabetes for children. There’s advice from gian?t doctor heads, it makes all the care required for the dise??ase seem normal and cheerful, and, as is law in edutainment games, there are quizzes to help you learn more.

It is a pretty funny way of presenting a super-hero, however. I had to laugh when he walked up to a park ranger, and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Hello, ranger. I have diabetes.�?I mean, sure, it’s a good idea to let people who might soon be rescuing your ass kn??ow that you have certain needs, but I’m not sure it will do much good when they’re pulling your alien-mangled corpse out of a ravine.

It may seem like containing all this information in a bad game would seem ineffective, but let me tell you something about the �?0s: we’d play whatever we had. You couldn’t buy 50 games for $5 on a digital marketplace at the time, so if your well-meaning mom bought you something educational from the store, you’d play it because it was that or running through Super Mario World for the 80th time. It gave games like Captain Novolin a chance to be a fond memory instead of just a bad gam??e. That’s something that might not happen in ?today’s content-glutted world.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Captain Novolin on SNES has one really unfortunat??e superpower appeared first on Destructoid.

Final Fantasy VII was released in 1997 on PlayStation. In those days, the NES, despite Nintendo only discontinuing it ?in 1995, was considered practically ancient. Thi??ngs aged faster in the �?0s.

By the time the PlayStation had passed into antiquity in the aughts, the denizens of Web 2.0 became aware of a Famicom/NES demake of Final Fantasy VII. Since Final Fantasy VII was still f??ondly remembered and the retro gamer identity was reaching its maturity, this was ?a fascinating topic of conversation. Just hearing about it took your imagination to interesting places.

It was certainly fascinating to me. I didn’t know enough about the backend of video games to really have a??n idea fo??r how this was possible; a 3-disc epic on a diminutive cartridge. What radical magic!

I never took the time to play it, however. At the time, I hadn’t spent much time with OG Final Fantasy VII, so I didn’t have any attachment to it. In the spirit of the coming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, I felt it was time to finally try it. And? try it, I did.

I tried what I could before it crashed.

The Final Fantasy VII Demake wasn’t strictly some fan endeavor; it’s a Chinese bootleg. While the breadth and quality (compared to common Chinese bootlegs) suggest that i??ts creator(s) had some affection for the PS1 title, they either didn’t have the time or didn’t care enough to really make a convincing 8-bit facsimile.

Final Fantasy VII Demake, like so many other knock-offs, is made from the parts of other games. Music, sprites, the battle system; they’ve all been taken from other games. Typically these come from other games in the NES Final Fantasy trilogy, but some are pulled from a variety of other sources. One thing I haven’t b??een able to identify is an actually unique asset.

The game itself supposedly covers much of the PS1 game’s story but is filled full of notable omissions. I wouldn’t know for sure because it won’t let me precede past the part when you arrive in the Sector 7 slums. I can make it to 7th Heaven, but then the game freezes, ??often throwing the NES�?typical garbage scramble into my face.

I thought this might be a one-off glitch, an issue with my hardware setup, or maybe just a corrupt version of the game, but no matter how I approached it, the result was always the same. I ran thro??ugh the opening section three times, and it still refused to allow me past the bar. I blame Tifa.

In my troubleshooting, I found other people having the same issue, so I know it’s just not me. In 2013, fans hacked the bootleg and replaced all the stolen assets with ones that actually resemble the original game. 10 will get you 20 that the ne??wer patch wouldn’t have the same problem with crashing, but I feel like that defeats the purpose. Fans spending four years to make something better isn’t as interesting as some developer cobbling together a vague facsimile of a popular title to sell in an inconsistent market.

The Final Fantasy VII demake wasn’t technically for the Famicom. It was actually for a series of bootleg “Famiclones�?that were produced under the Subor name. While Subor would start making clones of more powerful hardware, for a long time, they created diff?erent configurations of Nintendo’s famous 6502 console.

Final Fantasy VII wasn’t the only game to get demade for the bootleg market. The Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap, Harvest Moon, Resident Evil, and Chrono Trigger are among the titles to get backported to the system. Beyond that, they’d mash things together or make sequels to games that never recei??ved one. Before you get too excited, however, most of them are of extremely shaky quality. Most of the assets are just recycled from other games, and there wasn’t a whole lot of quality control.

Still, it’s quite the rabbit hole that isn’t well documented outside high-profile discoveries like the Final Fantasy VII bootleg. Most Chinese bootleg games are just copies of existing games released in massive compilations. It can be an adventure. Just because it says 50-in-1 doesn’t mean that you’re getting 50 unique games, as often they’d just be duplicates with, if you’re lucky, the difficulty tweaked a smidge. It might have Super Mario 64 on the cover, but it’s probably just Super Mario Bros. 3 on the PCB. Other times, it will just bafflingly mix up art by having, say, Little Nemo: Dream Master on the cover with Pokémon written over top of it. Wild stuff.

For that matter, the Final Fantasy VII demake came on a cartridge labeled Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which, if you’re not savvy, was the game’s sequel movie. No?, none of the movie’s story makes it ??into the game.

The part that I did play was a bizarre experience. The story, or at least the translation, is almost v?erbatim from the original. However, Midgar has a lot more brickwork than I remember. The environments are a mishmash of medieval fantasy tilesets. The Mako reactor that Avalanche blows up in the beginning is a dragon’s head. The slums look like an idyll?ic forest village rather than shanties cobbled together in a desolate, sun-deprived wasteland.

The monsters that show up in random battles are a similar mishmash. What’s worse is that the variety of them in just the ??first area is extensive and not balanced. One fight could be a group that goes down with a few swipes of Cloud’s large scimitar (the original bootleg had no buster sword), while the next could be a grueling battle against armored foes that have healing spells. The reactor boss itself isn’t much of an issue, but it’s all down to luck if you make it to them at all.

You need a combination of extreme patience, a good imagination, and extensive knowledge of the original to really appreciate the Final Fantasy VII Demake. With no real cutscenes, memorable moments are kind of glossed over or omitted entirel?y. This is something that only existing fans would really appreciate. That, and people who don’t have access to the PS1 version.

This is just how some children in China experienced video games growing up, so many have nostalgia for the bootleg games and consoles that they had access to. It’s a unique way to experience the industry; chewed up ??and provided in whatever way they could manage. I’m almost envious?.

When the Final Fantasy VII bootleg was discovered and proliferated across the internet, some considered it an incredible achievement for the NES. On some parts of that, I disagree. The cartridge used a large PRG ROM to store everything, then moved CHR data to RAM. This is pretty much exactly how the Famicom version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as some other titles, did it. The scale of the game is also not much more impressive than something like Dragon Quest IV.

However, what was impressive is that a bootleg developer known mostly for hack jobs went to the effort of such an extensive remake. Demakes are a bit more prevalent today, with games like Bloodborne and Dead Space gettin?g the PS1 treatment. Even then, those efforts usually just stop after a small, reimagined portion. Shenzhen Nanjing Technology probably could have done Midgar and called it a day, but to actually go beyond that shows some dedication beyond just wanting to fill a cartridge with a recognizable knock-off. That’s a weird sort of respect to show when you’re cobbling something together from stolen assets.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

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I have a number of valuable games in my collection. Some I acquired through lucky timing, others I’ve actually shelled out for, but all of them are the result of questionable priorities. None are as valuable as my copy of Little Samson.

As of today, Little Samson is worth more than two months of rent for my small, one-bedroom apartment in a nowhere town. That’s really depressing because it both illustrates how ridiculous the collectors market is for video games and ??how ridiculously expensive it is just to afford a roof over my head for a fraction of a year.

But I don’t collect games to pretend I have some sort of valuable asset. I collect them to play and appreciate. And to demonstrate this, I put Little Samson in my NES. Then I kind of wiggled it around a bit to? get it to display properly because I really need to replace ?my console’s pin connector.

Son of the shining path

Little Samson comes to us from Takeru, also known as Sur de Wave. The company was pretty short-lived, which is a massive shame. In total, they only did about four games, and Little Samson is the only one that came stateside.

It’s hard to find much information about Takeru, but another game they made for the Famicom, Cocoron, was helmed by Mega Man creator Akira Kitamura. As for Little Samson, the director here was Shinichi Yoshimoto, who was one of the designers of Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Real Capcom royalty.

Given the company’s pedigree, it may be unsurprising that Little Samson is a good game. Perhaps not the maximum utmost, but it is Duck Tales good. It’s Super Mario Bros. 2 (US) good. Beyond that, it’s an impressive game for the NES. The graphics are solid, and the character animation has an anomalous level of detail. The characters move with a fluidity that seems almost impossible on the cons?ole. It flaunts it, too, with Samson doing a full twirl in the air every time he jumps. It’s practically excessive.

The clouded mind

From the outset, Little Samson gives the impression of heavy Mega Man influence. The game opens by allowing you to select from four ??levels, but really, this just allows you to select what order you play through the character tutorials.

There are four playable characters in the game that you can usually swap between during gameplay. Each one has different abilities and uses. Samson and the mouse, K.O., can climb across walls and ceilings. The ??dragon, Kikira, can fly and can charge her shots.?? The Golem, Gamm, has the most health, can walk on spikes, and has a punch that does a lot of damage. K.O. has the smallest amount of health but drops bombs as an attack. A single bomb placed well can do catastrophic damage to a boss.

Little Samson gives plenty of reasons to switch between characters. Rarely is a segment of level traversable by just one of them, but there are sometimes alternate paths that the right character can take. I don’t believe bosses have weakne?sses, per se, but you can sometimes work out strategies with a specific character that can make encounters easier.

Th??ey all have their own individual health bar as well, but if a character dies, it functions as a death for the whole party and kicks you back to the ?beginning of the stage you’re on. However, unless it’s Samson who dies, that character is eliminated until the end of the level. So, there’s a lot of swapping characters to try and preserve their health bars.

There are also branching paths, though I don’t think this is extensive. The only one I really know how to replicate is falling down a hole during a particular boss battle. This takes you to a sequence where the bell that all the characters live i??n gets st?olen from Samson and you have to ride a giant crab to a boss to get it back.

However, this time around, I wound up completely skipping an ice level midway through the game. I’m not entirely sure how I pulled that off. Nintendo Power Issue 40 says you skip ??the area if you haven’t maximized Samson’s life bar, but I’m pretty sure I did. Maybe not.

Acting under orders from above

Little Samson is an all-around good time, but there are some questionable design decisions. Most are minor. But the one that sticks out most in my mind is the fact that, when you die while playing as any other character than Samson, they’re unavailable unless you either have a potion in their inventory.

Potions are essentially like E-Tanks from Mega Man 2. You use them to completely restore a character’s health. However, each character can only carry one. The potion goes to the character that picked it up, and you ??can’t trade between your party members. This means that if a character is knocked out and they don’t have a potion, you can’t use them until you finish the level or hit a Game Over screen.

If Samson, on the other hand, dies, then you just g??et kicked back, and everything is fine. If you lose a character on a boss battle, you’re forced to retry the boss battle without that character. This can be fine in many instances, but on the last gauntlet of levels, I found myself expending my lives to hit a Game Over screen and resurrect my party. That’s re??ally annoying and shouldn’t be necessary. Have some sympathy for Samson.

More like Son of Sam

As for why Little Samson is so valuable, that’s a good question. While it’s no doubt a scarce game, Nintendo had a minimal print run for the NES, which former Nintendo of America President, Howard Phillips, recalls was about 10,000. Even if Little Samson was only produced in that amount, ??it’s not the only game on the console that was.

The answer is probably merely that it’s sought after because it’s always been sought after. The value of a game isn’t a mathematical equation. The concept of supply and demand only goes so far when explaining it. Before the collector’s market was really tracked and established, Little Samson wa??s already considered valuable. So regardless of how much circulation the game has, it’s probably always going to maintain a reputation for being expensive, and that reputation alone is going to keep the price high. Especially to people who collect as an investment, which is such an aggravating concept to me.

Ideally, Little Samson will get a re-release at some point. I’m actually surprised it hasn’t yet. Folks like Limited Run ?Games and Retro-Bit often do reissues of rare and expensive games, and Taito (now a subsidiary of Square Enix) has been delving into its back catalog and par?tnering with people to have them resurrected. 

It’s possible that the rights stayed with Takeru, and no one knows who owns them now, but that’s just speculation. Hopefully, we’ll see Little Samson again sometime. 1992 was an easy year for an NES game to get overlooked, and it’s a crime that it did??n’t get more attention. 

For other retro titles you may hav??e missed, click right ??here!

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Ah, Star Wars Arcade. No, not that Star Wars Arcade game. Not that one, either. I’m talking about the 1993 Star Wars Arcade created by Sega. Except I’m not. ??I’m tal?king about the 1994 port for the Sega 32X.

Ah, the Sega 32X. I own more games for that growth of a console than anyone should. One of the easiest to find, and one that I’ve owned since I picked up the console, is Star Wars Arcade, which ??is an expanded home port of the, well, arcade version. 

One thing to know is that the 32X was nowhere near as powerful when it came to 3D as the Sega Model 1. However, one of the things I kept hearing about Star Wars Arcade was that playing it out in the wild was very expensive. They may have been thinking of Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, but regardless, any home port is usually better than no home port at all. And since the 32X port is the only port of Star Wars Arcade, it could have been worse.

Save your quarters for laundry

The 32X is a fun piece of kit. At the time, Sega of America thought that rather than transition into the Sega Saturn like Japan was doing that year, they’d extend the lifespan of the Sega Genesis with an add-on that would end up being the 32X. It was a huge blunder that split developers and may have torpedoed the Saturn’s chances in North America. Sega of Japan also reportedly followed the advice of Sega of America because the Sega Gene?sis did so much better in North America than the Mega Drive did in Japan.

The 32X, despite being an obvious stopgap, isn’t a bad console. It has a really great port of NBA Jam: Tournament Edition, and that counts for a lot. However, beyond that, there weren’t very many games that were released in it. But why would you? Developers in North America knew that the Sega Saturn was coming down the pipe, so why d?evelop for something that was going to be obsolete in a year? As a result, there were close to 40 games released for the expansion system, which is sad for anyone who bought one.

Like with most of my personal problems, I blame the parents. M??aking the Genesis more powerful sounds groovy to me, but it was mistimed and strategically mismanaged.

There were a few good games on the console, and Star Wars Arcade was one of them. It’s n??ot the best game on the console, and it’s not even that great, but if I had played this when I was a kid, I would have been over the ??moon. 

That's no moon...

Star Wars Arcade puts you behind the joystick of an Incom T?-65B X-Wing Starfighter, or if you’re playing wit?h a friend, a Koensayr BTL-Series Y-Wing. It kind of follows the movies by sort of depicting the Battle of Endor (Death Star II), but also kind of, sort of mixes it with the Battle of Yavin (Vanilla Death Star). You start off fighting TIE Fighters. Then, once you’ve exploded enough of them, you move on.

The c?onsole version gives you the option?? for Arcade or 32X mode. Arcade gives you the four stages of the, er, arcade version, while 32X mode is significantly extended. Arcade mode is Tie Fighters, Super Star Destroyer, Death Star Surface, and Reactor Run. 32X is TIE Fighters, more TIE Fighters, more TIE Fighters, Death Star Surface, Trench Run, more TIE Fighters, Super Star Destroyer, more TIE Fighters, Death Star Surface, Reactor Run.

It’s a reasonable take on the space battles of the movies. The Death Star surface is particularly impressive, with turbolaser towers filling the skies with their beams. The level reminds me of the first stage in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 2: Rogue Leader??. Obviously, the scale and visuals are different, but the?? fact that it was pulled off reasonably well on the 32X is sort of impressive.

More TIE Fighters

What isn’t impressive is the combat. TIE Fighters kind of just appear on your tail, and your job is to get them in front of you. Rarely do you see them just wandering the area? in little groups. They’re almost always just right behind you.

You can’t do a loop or even roll, so evading them is mostly just speeding up and slowing down, and it doesn’t really seem to matter wh?ich you choose to do. If you’ve got the pedal down, they’ll still sometimes pass you, and if you slam on the brakes, they seem to be able to do so just as quickly. For many of the early levels, my best strategy was to just fly in a strai??ght line and continually vary my speed until someone got in front of me.

You have your lasers and your proton tor??pedoes. The torpedoes replenish over time, so whenever you hear the ??lock-on sound, you may as well just fire and forget.

The missions where you need to fly through weird spaceship tunnels are more interesting. It’s here where you mostly see the graphical difference between the arcade and 32X versions, but it’s honestly not that bad. While everything is flat-shaded and textureless, the level geometry feels pretty close. It’s more impressive than 1993’s Star Fox on SNES, but the framerate does drop quite? heavily in some areas.

Hook hand

But while it’s impressive Star Wars Arcade has some pretty hard-to-ignore deficiencies. The hit detection is questionable, for one thing. It’s very hard to see lasers or tell when a big ball of energy is going to hit you. TIE Fighters can also seemingly fly through walls??, which makes the star hole segments feel kind of janky. It’s definitely playable, but when you can’t tell what is hitting you from where, it loses some of its effectiveness.

My biggest issue, however, is with the controls. Decelerate and Accelerate are A and B, respectively??, while the C button is to fire your lasers. If you’re on a three-button controller, B and C together fires a proton torpedo, but th?at isn’t part of my issue. The problem is that accelerate and decelerate need to be held to maintain your speed, so if you want to fly slowly and fire your lasers at the same time �?which you often do �?you’re in for some finger gymnastics.

The proper way to play might be to set the right side of the controller on your thigh and work the ?buttons using your fingers. However, I’d often just use my thumb for?? A and B and my index finger for C, hook hand style. It got painful, especially since the edge of the buttons began aggravating my thumb.

?I’m not sure why X wasn’t used to fire lasers on ?a 6-button controller, since you could then use the end of your thumb to fire and the middle of it to maintain speed. Let the inferior 3-button people suffer.

Don't fail me again

Star Wars Arcade was a launch title for the 32X, which was a good decision, even if it didn’t overcome the bad decisions around the console. It showed the add-on’s 3D capabilities, which were decent at the time but would quickly be supersede?d by the PS1 and Saturn when they arr??ived in North America the next year.

It’s one of the top-shelf games for the 32X but, as I’ve established, there isn’t a whole lot of competition. In fact, a similar 32X game, Shadow Squadron, might be even better, but my attention span has yet to hold out past ??the second?? level.

It’s also maybe worth noting that Star Wars Arcade came out the year after Star Fox and Star Wars: X-Wing. Both of which are a lot more robust. But that alone just underlines the problems with Star Wars Arcade. It was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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I don’t think it’s really possible to quantify the “worst game of all time�?or even compare kusoge that well. There ??are so many ways that a game can be deficient, and it’s hard to say what the worst way is.

A game could be disappointing. It could be technically deficient for its era or mechanically lacking compared to others in its genre. For my money, the worst kind of kusoge is the boring kind. A broken game is at least fun to analyze, but an uninteresting game is just exhausting. As excruciating as it is, I would rather play Hoshi wo Miru Hito than, say, Dash Galaxy in the Alien Asylum.

But then there are the games which you just can’t believe anyone tried to charge money for. 1994’s Club Drive for the Atari Jaguar is one such title. It’s just not�?anything. It is a ??college student’s Introduction to 3D Design mid-semester project submission that someone stuck a price sticker on. Or, at least, that’s how it feels.

Cat loaf

The Atari Jaguar was a spectacular failure during a period of spectacular failures in the console market. Many pe?ople in North America like to neatly believe the �?0s were largely the SNES vs. Sega Genesis followed by the PS1 vs N64 (and the Sega Saturn, if you’re being charitable). However, the early �?0s saw a lot of consoles try to break into the market and?? fail, such as the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, Phillips CD-I, Amiga CD32, or the Neo Geo CD.

Atari was still trying to bank on the name recognition it built in the �?0s and early �?0s, and the struggles of the Atari Lynx had taught them nothing. In late 1993, they trundled out the Jaguar, which they marketed as the first 64-bit console, inadvertently making themselves another casualty of the “Bit Wars.�?A laughable 50 cartridge games came out for the console before it was discontinued in 1996. As bad as the library was, there were some unfortunate casualties, like Rebellion’s Alien vs. Predator.

Club Drive was not an unfortunate casualty. In fact, its inclusion in the Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration means it isn’t even a casualty at all. It was, by some acc?ounts, supposed to demonstrate the console’s 3D capabilities, and it failed substanti??ally.

A game, I guess

It’s kind of hard to describe Club Drive as a game. There are three modes: collect, race, and tag, with the latter be??ing relegated to 2-players. Collect has you collecting, uh, Everlasting Gobstoppers or maybe Koosh balls. Or, y’know, I guess they could be unstable molecules. In any case, you drive around four e?nvironments picking up some of these�?things.

Race is pretty self-explanatory. You drive around a track and try to cross checkpoints as quickly as possible. In single-player, you’re going for the best time. There are no AI opponents. In multiplayer, it’s actually a race, which is the closest Club Drive gets to being an actual game. However, the tracks themselves are really just suggestions. One track has you driving around a big house. It tells you the route you’re supposed to take exactly once a??nd then lets you loose. I b?ecame instantly lost but eventually blundered over the finish line.

The last mode is tag, which is a mode, I guess.

It doesn’t matter what you pick. You’re mostly just left to drive an ugly car (that has several color options) around mostly flat-shaded environments. The cars control like lobotomized shopping carts, the physics and collision detection are mere suggestions, and the levels are small and painful to look at. Thankfully, you can see all of it in less ??than an hour. If you have a friend, you rented the ga??me, and it’s still 1994, you might be able to trick yourself into enjoying it for a weekend, but otherwise, I’m sorry for your luck.

Sedative

The fact that positive-ish reviews for the game exist is pretty staggering. Although, a writer at GameFan said, “Some nice static screens and smooth play help, but besides cruising around ??the house, this cart is the equivelent [sic] of a sleeping pil [sic],�?before adding, “zzzzz.�?That’s what I look for in my games, “static screens.�?Yet despite those hurtful words, the writer gave the game 69/100.

At the time, some critics seemed impressed with the 3D graphics, which might just be them trying to soften their criticism. 1994 was the year that Stunt Racer FX hit the SNES. To be fair, Club Drive does run reasonably smoothly, and it outputs at 640x480 resolution, which was quite high at the time. These are both things that Stunt Racer FX can’t claim. Yet, the framerate sti??ll tanks when you add another player.

However, Stunt Racer FX is actually a game. It ?also has multiple modes beyond just racing, but these are actually designed well enough that I can recognize it as a finished product. Yet the S?NES wasn’t as powerful as the Atari Jaguar. The game was just better designed.

That, in itself, is pretty unfortunate. Club Drive was designed in-house at Atari where the developers should h?ave been the most familiar with the hardware. If that was the case, they? didn’t really put it in a good light. 

Deck chairs, etc.

There’s really little else to say about Club Drive. It feels like one of those E3 demos that console makers put out to try and demonstrate what their new hardware can do. Something like Nintendo’s Super Mario 128, which highlighted the Gamecube’s horsepower, but wasn’t actually a game that was intended to ship. But not only did Club Drive make it into stores, it doesn’t really feel like a good representation of what the Jaguar is capable of. I’m not certain there was ever a game that fully took advantage of the hardware??.

I have to wonder what working for Atari was like in those days. The company had been in decline for about a decade, and it seemed like there was no escape. As Paul Rose put it, “Between 1993 and 1995, a significant portion of Atari's income had not derived from Jaguar sales, but from a patent infringement lawsuit victory over Sega. The writing was on the wall.�?Sure enough, that iteration of Atari soon ceased to exist in 19?96. In �?8, the name and properties were sold to Hasbro, then later to ?Infogrames, who rebranded into the current Atari.

What I like most about current Atari is their acceptance of their past. Club Drive is an almost meritless game for a failure console, but they chose to include it in Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration. Unfortunately, there’s no supplemental material to explain the game’s nightmarish deficiencies, which would be a feature presentation to someone like me. They also kind of gloss over the Jaguar’s failure, which is too bad. It refers to Club Drive as an "interesting historical artifact of the early days of polygonal gaming," which I suppos??e it is. The industry is built on successes. The failures are far more inter??esting.

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Growing up, I played a lot of puzzle g??ames, but I didn’t have much love for them. This is because my mother loves puzzle games, and I probably didn’t like them much bec?ause it was one of the genres she could beat me at.

However, the experiences I had playing Yoshi’s Cookie and Kirby’s Avalanche with her have left me with some nostalgia for the titles. I don’t actually play them much,?? b??ut they feel good to my soul, at least.

One game I used to play with her is different, however. It’s a puzzle game that I’m actually enthusiastic about and dust off every so often. It's one that I can enjoy without the sentimental attachment, even if some sentiment is still there. That is 1997’s Tetrisphere for the N64.

Phearing Change

Despite the name, Tetrisphere has very little to do with Tetris outside of falling? blocks ??that remove other blocks. The blocks themselves aren’t even necessarily tetrominoes, though a few are.

It actually began development for the Atari Jaguar as Phear, which is a better name despite its lack of marketable brand recognition. According to the ancient tomb, Electronic Gaming Monthly,?? at the time, Nintendo was on the hunt for developers willing to stuff their games into a cartridge, so they scooped it up for their own.

It was created by H2O Entertainment, who would later create The New Tetris and Aidyn Chronicles (which I ?can’t believe I haven’t played) for the N64??.

The concept is that you have a sphere that is covered in various shapes of blocks, and with the power of block fission, y??ou need to ?burrow to its core, at least in most of the modes. Beyond just throwing blocks at the orb, you can also grab hold of them to shift them next to other blocks. While some of the block shapes just have to be touching, others, like the line block and square, have to be directly aligned, so you need to be careful and set up the best combos you can.

Enraged strip mining

It works so damned well. 3D block-breaker puzzle games rarely figure out how to put the added dimension to good use, but Tetrisphere nails it. The persistent cursor that you control over the su?rface of the orb is communicative and useful, even with the You ca??n grab blocks from beneath others and slide them up to the other layers if you’ve got the right setup. It feels good, which is extremely commendable.

Beyond that, it also has an amazing aesthetic. While the cartoon spheroid robots that act as the cast are a bi??t weird, you don’t see them much. Normally, you’re just looking at a colorful sphere floating in ethereal space. The soundtrack is this amazingly atmospheric techno, and all the sound effects have this reverb to them that makes them all impactful. 

All block-breakers are about destruction, but Tetrisphere feels closest to actually destroying something. On levels with the more easy-going shapes, you’ll often trigger huge combos that stretch across the surface ??of the sphere, popping like atomic bubble wrap. While you can peel the? sphere like a clove of garlic, the best strategy is to focus on a single area and burrow into it like an enraged strip mining operation.

And then there are the bombs (called magic for some reason) that you can?? pick up. While these change depending on what mode you play, in the “Rescue�?mode, you can upgrade them. It starts as fireworks that blast a massive crater into the sphere, but you can upgrade it to an Atom that completely peels the top layer away with a blastwave. Even in the versus mode, the standardized bombs are fun to use with their big echo-y booms.

Lonely Rolling Star

Singleplayer consists of rescue, hide & seek, puzzle, time trial, and vs. CPU. Rescue requires you to clear off enough tiles in an area on the core of the cube to release a little g?uy trapped inside. Hide & Seek, is similar, but you’re looking for a picture plastered on the core. Each level gives a bit of a variation. Puzzle gives you a certain number of moves and drops to clear the board of preconfigured structures. Time trial is lame. Vs. CPU is essentially multiplayer for lonely people like me.

They’re all decent variations of block destruction, but I feel like the versus mode makes the best use of it. Any of the one-player modes tend to be laid back, but it’s versus where you really need to strategize. As is typical, big combos result in garbage blocks being dumped on your opponent, and they’re not easy to get rid of. This can lead to panicked moments where you have to open a?? new hole to expose the last few core tiles to win the game.

In contrast, modes like rescue and hide & seek seem a little vanilla. However, there’s enough in Tetrisphere to suck up an impressive amount of your time. It does, however, lack the endlessness of something like Tetris. Unless you’ve got a rival to compete against, it’s likely that you’ll clear the single-player mo??des and move on.

The Core

It surprises me that Tetrisphere has been left on the N64. As far as I have been able to find, there has never been a sequel, Nintendo has never ported it, and I can’t even find any indie games that cop the gameplay. It’s not that I think Tetrisphere was wildly impactful, but it’s weird to see any game be so forgotten ?about, even one with the arcane knowledge of ?how to make a block-buster puzzle game work in 3D.

And really, I’d love a sequel. Tetrisphere already has a masterful aest??hetic that would be difficult to top, but it still has potential with shinier graphics. At the very least, I would like to see it on the Nintendo Switch Online N64 service. Does Nintendo not still own the publishing rights to?? it?

I suppose, on the bright side, ?it’s pretty cheap and easy to find on the N64.

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Between 1989 and �?6 was the best time to be alive. We ate sugar for breakfast, groceries were affordable, and the internet as we know it today didn’t really exist. Mark my words, the world started going to shit after American Gladiators went off the air.

The show almost feels like the embodiment of how excessive and unself-aware the time period was. Big ‘roided up guys and ladies in spandex with radical names battling the general public in colorful and ridiculous feats of strength. I barely remember it, and I still think it was awesome. I was a bit too young for it, but my sister and I would watch Gladiators 2000 (the children’s version of American Gladiators) some mornings before school.

Those are some cozy but very hazy memories.

I’d say that’s why I picked up 1991’s American Gladiators for NES, but that would be a lie. I figured it would be bad, ?but I couldn’t predict it would leave me nostalgic for a show that I barely remember.

If you’re not familiar, American Gladiators was sort of a proto-real?ity show where a number of contestants from the general public would try to win a tournament against each other. Most events also involved battling against the “Gladiators,�?who were essentially game show bosses. 

So, for example, “Swing Shot�?has the contestants try to grab balls and bring them back to their hoop while attached to a bungee cord that allows them to leap around. The Gladiators are just there to frustrate them by slapping those balls right out of their han?ds. That was the typical setup; the contestants tried to score points while the Gladiators tried to prevent that.

I say “general public,�?but really, most of the contestants are pretty fit in their ow??n right. They just aren’t drinking steroid shakes for breakfast, so they’re usually dwarfed by the Gla?diators themselves. 

The NES version (other console ports are different) of American Gladiators has five events from the show: The Wall, Human Cannonball, Assault, Powerball, and Joust. It supports two players if yo??u have friends, or just one player if you’re like me. However, it’s alternating multiplayer, so you’re not going to be ??directly jousting your friend. Instead, you simply compete for score with one person wearing blue and the other hot pink.

To complete one of the game’s four levels, you have to succeed in each of the five events without losing all your lives. This is terrible, because if you choke on one of the events, you have to complete the rest all over again, and some are much harder than others. Each of the mini-games is completely different, so I’m going to go through them from easiest to? most difficult.

Powerball

In Powerball, you find yourself on a field with five holes you need to drop balls in. There are three Gladiators trying to slap your balls, so you need to ?avoid them. You start with one? ball, and each time you either get slapped or sink a ball, a new one appears on the opposite end of the, uh, Powerball court (or whatever). You win if you fill all the holes.

This one isn’t so much the “easiest,�?but it’s just the one you don’t “lose.�?If you don’t succeed in jamming up the holes with your balls, you still just proceed. The event is marked as c??omplete. You just don’t get as many points from it. So, regard?less of whether you win or lose, Powerball is essentially a gimme.

Assault

In the show, Assault was probably my favorite event. The contestants had to shoot a target with a variety of Nerf guns while a Gladiator with a much bigger Nerf gun tried to snipe them. It was fucking awesome.

The 8-bit interpretation is, I think, a reasonable representation, even if they had to take a different approach. You run up a vertically scrolling screen, while the Gladiator slides side-to-side in a gun-chair. You just have to avoid their shots until yo?u make it to cover, where you find a little rocket thing, which enables you to shoot at the Gladiator. You only get a couple of shots, and the Gladiator takes a few to knock out. This varies as you proceed through the levels.

It’s not ??exactly how it works in the show. For example, the Gladiator doesn’t usually die in a fiery explosion when the contestant wins in the show. However, I think it does a decent job of capturing the general challenge of the event.

Human Cannonball

This one sounds completely made up, but it really existed in the show. A contestant grabs a rope and tries to knock a Gladiator off a podium by swinging into them. It sounds like a good way for someone to get injured, so I looked it up. Apparently, there was a documentary about the show made last year, and one of the Gladiators, Malibu, says he had his head split open on his first day on the show during this event. The official American Gladiators YouTube channel apparently had a clip of this listed ??as the �?a href="//www.youtube.com/watch?v??=d4UJLvRLpa4&t=33s" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hit Of The Century,�?and it got take??n down sometime after the documentary was re?leased. Yeah, the context kind of changes how impressive the hit might have been.

So, it’s a bit, erm, interesting that whenever you knock a Gl?adiator down in the NES game, they emit a rather high-quality digitized scream. Like, a real terror scream and I’m pretty sure it’s stock audio that I’ve heard before. It’s shockingly hilarious.

The event takes some getting used to, but it’s not too bad when you get a feel for it. You just have to learn t??o time your jumps so you grab the end of the rope and let go when y??our ass is basically right in the Gladiator’s face.

Joust

Most people probably remember American Gladiators for the Joust event. A contestant and a Gladiator would battle it out atop these tall pedestals with giant cotton swaps. In contrast to Human Cannonball, this event looks the most safe. As safe as, say, Sock’em Boppers, which I’m pr??etty confident?? concussed a few children.

The NES version kind of sucks in a way that reminds me of China Warrior. You kind of just flail at the Gladiator while trying your best to figure out whether it’s the high, mid, or low a?ttack that is most effective. You can read their movements to an extent, but it’s hard to tell if the collision detection is bad or if you’re just not hitting your foe correctly. As long as you’re hitting them more frequently than they�??�re hitting you, you can generally gain ground until they fall off their podium (screaming, of course).

Afterward, you do some quick platformin?g to the next podium to challenge another Gladiator. It’s not impossible, but it ?is rather unpredictable and hard to control.

The Wall

The Wall is just�?Okay, deep breath here. In the show?, The Wall is, like, a recreational climbing wall. In the NES game, however, it’s about a mile high. And sometimes, it also goes sideways. The goal is to reach the top, and every so often, a Gladiator shows up to try and knock yo??u off.

To move, you have to rapidly tap A and B to move your left and right hand to different positions. The climbable area is essentially just a grid. To its credit, it makes it pr??etty easy to tell where your hands are and if you can grab a certain spot. However, getting your hands on the same horizontal level i?s another matter. And if you don’t actually grab that grate, you’ll fall. There are some extremely narrow spots where you need to be very careful of where your hands are. Maybe I was missing something here, but sometimes my dude would grab too high, and then I was screwed.

Most of the mechanics here are fine. The Gladiators can be avoided by putting an ungrabbable spot between you and them. Hitting A and B rapidly while having to slow down ?for trickier spots works decently, and it only hurts your carpel tunnels a lot?. However, the fact that I couldn’t get my hands to cooperate and one mistake made during this massive journey meant losing a life, the whole experience quickly became frustrating. And physically painful.

And this is where I got caught up. I could rarely win all five games within five lives, especially when it came to The Wall. I managed to complete the first and second levels, but I gave up on the third because I hit a part in The Wall that I couldn’t figure out how to get around. After the rage subsided, I watched a video of someone playing through it, and I don’t even know what the hell they’re doing at that part. The spot they fit through is one tile too narrow to climb, but they manage it by doing a weird, one-handed shimmy. Is that a mechanic or an exploit?

When I started playing American Gladiators, ther??e was a really weird gl??itch. On The Wall, if I hit the A button, my dude would just fall to his doom. Just drop. It confused me to no end. I read the manual, and it just said, “B button for left hand, A button for right hand.�?However, that just wasn’t working for me.

And t?hen, on Assault, I’d press a button to start the round, at which point ?it would instantly end and start tallying up my time bonus. Pretty sure that isn’t how the game is played.

I thought I was doing something wrong, so I just moved on to other events while checking Assault and The Wall every?? so often to confirm the bug was still happening. Eventually, through no effort of my own, it just fixed itself. A started functioning on The Wall, and Assault didn’t just instantly hand me the W.

It’s kind of ironic that the real barrier for me to make progress in American Gladiators was literally The Wall. Aside from its unreasonable expectati?ons, it’s not really that bad. I think that if I played it with save states rather than on original hardware as I did here, I’d probably take the time to play through it.

No, wait, scratch that. I’d still have to figure out how to magically shimmy through that section of wall. Gosh, I think I just really want to like the game, so I’m forgetting that the third level actually requires arcane knowledge to complete. It’s just so close to being a�?well, okay, maybe not a good game, but one that would be worth a ??weekend rental. Agh, it’s so unfortunate. We could all use a little ?more Nitro in our lives.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Ameri?can Gla?diators on NES will give you a Gladiator Spanking appeared first on Destructoid.

Umihara Kawase is a weird game to explain, but I’m going to tr??y to anyway. It looks and sounds like an amateur production put out by some unknown publ?isher and created by some unknown developer, and maybe it is. But it’s also one of the best games on the Super Famicom.

I first heard about it on GameCenter CX (season 5, episode 1), and that was around the time that the series was finally making it stateside with Yumi’s Odd Odyssey (Sayonara Umihara Kawase). I finally jumped into the series in 2020 with Umihara Kawase Fresh, which was the topic of my second review ever written here at Destructoid. I absolu??tely loved it, which made me go back and finally play the earlier titles.

And you should, too.

Rubber banding

Umihara Kawase is a game that is built entirely around its central mechanic, sort of like, er, the Kuru Kuru Kururin series, maybe. I’m drawing a blank, but I don’t mean it’s like Bubble Bobble, where you blow a lot ??of bubbles but it’s still action platforming; Umihara Kawase’s entire identity is based around its core unique idea.

And its core idea is a fishing line. The eponymous Umihara can barely jump, but she can cast a line like an expert angler. Or Batman. Probably more like Batman. You use it as a grappling hook, sinking your lure into a solid object and then using it to swing across gaps and over hazards. And yet, this isn’t Bionic Commando. Umihara is as graceless as a fish out of water, and the fishing line appears to be made of rubb??er, so she bounces and slingshots around.

It’s tempting to say that Umihara Kawase is easy to learn and difficult to master, but it really isn’t that first thing. Getting used to the physics so you can perform even the simplest of ?tasks w?ill probably take a while, and getting to the point where it becomes second nature is a long journey. Even then, the more advanced maneuvers that the game enables may be out of reach unless you really get sucked in.

Legged fish

However, it doesn’t make things comfortable. Despite its cute appearance of a little schoolgirl working her way across abstract labyrinths, it’s an extremely brutal game, and there are layers to its ??brutality.

Beyond the unconventional movement system, there are no continues, and all ??death is instant. There are enemies in the form of various sea creatures that haunt the levels, and gently brushing against most of them will instantly drop Umihara to the floor. Aside from lives, there are no power-ups to help you. It’s just you and your fishing line.

The actual rules of the game are sim?ilarly difficult to get a grasp on. There are 57 levels, but they don’t progress in a strictly linear fashion. Some levels have multiple exits that will take you forward or backward to different fields. There are bosses, which are rather cryptic puzzles on their own, but running into them is neither a guarantee or requirement. But more mysteriously, it’s also unclear where the end of the game really happens.

In the GameCenter CX episode I mentioned, ???Arino reaches the end credits rather early. But then, his staff explains to him that, after 30 minutes, the game will just skip you ahead to the last level. They suggest that he needs to reach field 57 in under 30 minutes to get the game’s good ending, which, even knowing the quickest route, he fails to do.

However, after the show, the staff members go to work and actually manage to complete Umihara Kawase in under 30 minutes, at which point they get the same non-ending that Arino got. So, even the game doesn’t have any recognition for whether you took too long and got shunted to the end or if you beat it before its timer ran out. It just ends either way. So, what is even considere??d “winning�?here?

Child's play

I suppose it’s really up to you to challenge yourself. Umihara Kawase is more of a playground. A series of challenges for ?you to overcome, but contrary to its initial difficulty, it is easygoing about how you approach it.

Maybe, instead, you just challenge yourself to see every field. Or maybe, like the GameCenter CX staff, you try to beat it before 30 minutes are up. That’s kind of disappointing in its own way. I like to be told I did a good job. On the other hand, high-level play just looks incredible.

The fact that there isn’t really a set goal is one of the ways Umihara Kawase feels sort of amateur. Beyond that, the graphics look thrown together. The background is just a photograph of the ocean, which gives it the feeling of a neglected arcade game. The ice rink where I lived growing up had a few arcade cabinets, and one of them was Buster Bros. or Pang!, which did t??he same thing. In lieu of a background, they just slapped unrelat?ed images of, like, the Taj Mahal behind the action. It always seemed uncomfortably weird to me when I was a kid, and that’s the feeling I get here.

To add to that, all the platforms in the game are just abstract blocks of different colors. Every once in a while, you get something with a little more effort to it, like platforms made of pencils or giant eggplants, but they’re rather sparse. Mainly, you're just looking at blocks that look like ??placeholders. In a way, this gives the game an ethereal, dream-like (if not entirely monotonous) quality. The fact that all the exits are just modern Japanese-style front doors just adds to this.

Meanwhile, the music soun??ds li??ke the soundtrack to a series of travel promo videos.

And, by the way, the HUD being so close to the middle of the screen is how it's supposed to look.? That isn't a glitch on my version of the game or something.

Fish hooks

I don’t have any hard data, but I don’t think Umihara Kawase did all that well during its 1995 release in Japan. That’s kind of unsurprising because I don’t know how you draw attention to a game like this. In a market full of jump-guys and shoot-guys, a little girl with a backpack and fishing rod isn’t what people tend to look for. The developer, TNN, seems to have only done one other game before ceasing to exist. At that point, the key staff members formed Studio Saizensen, who are perhaps best known over here for Code of Princess.

Umihara Kawase would continue on with Studio Saizensen, first following up with Umihara Kawase Shun in 1997 on PS1, then Sayonara Umihara Kawase in 2013 on 3DS, with Umihara Kawase Fresh being the most recent release in 2020. While, again, I don’t have any sales data, I’m assuming that the series is being kept alive by a cult following and the studio’s o?wn passion.

And while no publisher was brave enough to release the games in North America until Yumi’s Odd Odyssey in 2013, all the titles are now available on PC via Steam. The original Umihara Kawase even made it to the Switch’s Online service, but only in Japan. Considering the game is completely playable ?without needing a translation, it’s a little strange that it hasn’t made it to other regions, but maybe Nintendo will fix that at some point because more people need to play this bizarre game.

Truly, though, if you're interested in the series, either Sayonara Umihara Kawase or Umihara Kawase Fresh are better starting? po?ints. The rubber-band physics don't change a whole lot across the series, but both those games offer better progression. You can learn the basics from those friendlier experiences before your fish grappling skills are put to the test.

For other ret??ro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Umihara Kawase for SNES has legs u?nder its ba??rgain bin exterior appeared first on Destructoid.

Out of everyone in my circles, I feel like the only person left who hasn't beaten Baldur's Gate 3. The FOMO of missing out on everyone's new favorite toy isn't something that typically compels me, but god �?it's like I don't make a dent in exploring Faerûn. I know w??hy; I don't want to admit this, but at some point, I've got to stop picking up ??every bone, rotten basket, and fork I find.

Okay, in my defense, it's not that bad anymore. I stopped picking up hoards of goblin garbage at the end of Act I, though not of my own volition. After approaching the 80 to 90-hour mark �?that's shaving off a genero??us Early Access estimate �?a friend watching me stream over Discord gently prodded me in the right direction: "Christ, Andrea, you know you don't need an inventory of broken lutes?"

But what if I do? What if I get deep into Act II, and some wayward Bard asks if I have a dozen spare broken instruments? I could be one short, miss some weird Karlach-related lore, and spend another hundred hours agonizing?? over my decisions.

Baldur's Gate 3 doesn't really do that, though. It's far better about the item situation than I gave it credit for. It wasn't until I hit that Act I conclusion that I really began accepting my trash-collecting anxiety wasn't really rational. I say it tongue-in-cheek, but al??so completely serious: I'm definitely neurotic in the way that impacts how I interact with some ga?mes (a lot of games), but hot damn does it ever come out in RPGs.

For context, I'm ??the type to fuss over talking to t?hat lone NPC hidden upstairs in the back of a dark inn, refusing to move on until I know what they say before, during, and after my battle against god. It's led me to a lot of cool experiences that aren't exactly useful day-to-day life skills, but knowing stupid facts about my favorite worlds does bring me some joy.

But the BG3 item thing? I swear it was killing me. Not only was I picking everything up, but I was organizing them all by value of the trash, type of trash, if I fancied the trash, so on, so on. I never really once asked, "Should I be doing this?" and let my habits spiral into disaster.

While my desire to be thorough, put in the nicest way possible, led me to some neat finds, I've gotta wonder how many hours I wasted picking abandoned cellars clean and sorting the junk neatly into boxes. I reckon it was tickling the same part of the brain tadpole that likes PowerWash Simulator or collecting everything in Final Fantasy XIV, but I highly recommend not playing BG3 like that.

What I will rationalize as fine, though, is combing for the neat stuff and keeping it. I've got every pair of undies I could ever want to drop Karlach and my Tav in, and my growing BG3 li?brary is a lore-laden treasure trove of goofy in-universe fan fics, letters, and books on Mindflayer anat??omy.

It's been months now since most of my friends finished up their first playthroughs, and while I've got maybe one or two quests left, I'm still? not done. I have no idea what my real timer is at anymore, thanks to a few extended periods of leaving the game running, and maybe that's for the better. I've abandoned my worst habit of picking up anything and everything, but I still dig through every single container in some strange man's attic, looking for actual goodies. And then I go back and double-check, you know, just in ??case I missed one.

I still organize my inventory just so, too, while limiting myself to a select few containers. By some standards, I'd like to think my BG3 inventory is incredibly tame after selling off all the junk. I will, however, still spend an hour or so of my time after a session carefully moving and tossing items. There's the incredibly handy Better Inventory UI mod, which is surprisingly one of the few I've neglected, but my friends swear by it, so I'll get?? it going eventually.

Until then, give me a pat on the back for making it to Act III and dropping ??the chests of rotten cheese. I'm excited to finally beat this behemoth of a game myself before looping back to do it all over as Dark Urge. I swear this time, I won't spend a decade rearranging my chest of scrolls, either.

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