About a billion and six years ago, I played an indie puzzle game about connecting and stacking little balls of goo in order to reach an end goal. I realize I'm probably not selling that idea well, but it's exciting to know that the sequel �the aptly named World of Goo 2 �will be releasing at the end of this week.

Scheduled to come out on August 2, the follow-up to 2008's World of Goo has been in the pipeline for almost 16 years. So much has changed since then, but 2D Boy's upcoming game looks as though it's retaining what made th?e original such a charming experience.

According to Tomorrow Corporation �which is collaborating on the project �the sequel will be "bursting with u?nd?iscovered new species of Goo," adding that we'll be able to explore a "new story spanning hundreds of thousands of years and watch the world change."

More like World of Two...amirite?

One thing about World of Goo 2 is that �according to the studio �while you'll be able to buy it off the official website completely DRM-free, it's a??lso going to be available on the Epic Games Store and the Nintendo Switch eShop. Doesn't look like it's coming to Steam or an?y other platform. Whether this will change cannot be said at this stage.

Personally, I am?? looking forward to this one. The original had lashings of character, a unique style that blended colorful landscapes with cutscenes that look like they wouldn't be out of place in a Tim Burton animation. Plus all that Goo, innit.

It is a shame the new game won't be on Steam, as the first World of Goo is on there. I w??ould definitely urge anyone who's interested in physics-based puzzle games to give it a go. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You might even goo a bit.

The post World of Goo?? 2 drops this Friday, 16 years after the orig?inal appeared first on Destructoid.

After targeting iOS and Android devices in November, Hitman: Blood Money - Reprisal has a new console ??on the hit list. The upgraded version of the 2006 stealth classic is coming to the Nintendo Switch eShop on January 25.

Like the iOS and Android versions, the Switch iteration will see vast improvements over the initial title that launched on PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Xbox 360 in 2??006. Some of which you may notice in the Sw??itch release date trailer below.

Feral Interactive handled the iOS and Android ports of Hitman: Blood Money - Reprisal, and they're taking care of the Switch version as? well. The game's visu??als haven't changed much since 2006, but there are a lot of quality-of-life features being introduced to make Agent 47 feel a bit more modern.

Instinct Mode, something that was introduced to the Hitman series later on, is incorporated into Reprisal. It helps players out by highlighting important mission objectives and targets on the level's map so you have a clearer idea of what you're b??eing tasked with and where you should be headed.

2006's Blood Money didn't have a mini-map for players to utilize, but Feral Interactive implemented one to aid moment-to-moment gameplay in Reprisal. It's dynamic too, showing instant feedback for Agent 47 as NPCs grow suspicious?? of his action?s.

The controls have been reworked too since the initial PlayStation 2 and Xbox/Xbox 360 releases of Blood Money. This will surely make playing through the stealth title's 12 replayable sandbox missions much s?moother on Ninte??ndo's hybrid console.

While the iOS and Android versions of the game launched at $19.99, the Switch iteration of Hitman: Blood Money - Reprisal is being listed at $29.99 on the Nintendo eShop. But those who head over there and preorder before the game's January 25 release will earn themselves a 16% discount, knocking the ove??rall cost down to $24.99.

The post Hitman: Blood Money – Reprisal sneaks onto Switch January 25 appeared first on Destructoid.

Recently, a Nintendo Switch game called The Last Hope: Dead Zone Survival caught the internet's attention, particularly because it looked like a shoddy knock-off of The Last of Us. Well, it turns out this poorly received title has now been pulled from ??Nintendo's eShop.

According to a report from Eurogamer, VG Games' open-world post-apocalyptic shooter is no longer available on the storefront. In fact, attempting to go directly to the download page for The Last Hope will only return an error. Searching for it won't do any good either, proving that the Last of Us clone has all but been erased.

//youtu.be/NVRAItS4a18

The report goes on to say that the game's removal was the result of Sony issuing a copyright strike, though at the time of writing, the PlayStation manufacturer doesn't appear to have made any s?tatement about this. It also appears as though trailers are being taken down, though you can still find some on YouTube, along with gameplay footage.

Even the developer doesn't acknowledge the game

For those who haven't seen it, The Last Hope unashamedly takes inspiration from Naughty Dog's critically acclaimed series. Proof of this can be seen in the young girl who's pretty much the spitting image of Ellie??.

According to Wikipedia, the game's plot follows Jason Lee (no, not that one), who's been "sent to the future as part of a governmental investigation on an inevitable zombie outbreak." Along the way, he happens upon a young Eva (or possibly Eve) who needs to be escorted across the city. Digital Foundry reviewed the game a couple of weeks ago, de??eming it "one of the?? worst" releases they'd ever played.

As for the studio itself, it doesn't appear as though there's any trace of its game on the developer website or any of its social media channels, save for maybe one promotional image. There's certainly nothing to suggest The Last Hope was front and center in any case.

It's easy to speculate why VG Games may have been quiet about this game in ??the first place, or why all traces of it are being quickly scrubbed from the internet. No comments have been made from Nintendo, Sony, nor VG Games as of this writing, but it certainly is an oddity.

The post The Last of Us clone ‘The Last Hope’ is taken off Nintendo eShop appeared first on Destructoid.

This game has two buttons dedicated to the Butt-Only Alien

I think one of the reasons I fell so hard for Animal Crossing back on the GameCube was it transported me back to a simpler era in my life. In the fall of 2002, I started my senior year of high school amongst strangers as my family moved to the area just a few weeks before. It was the third and final high school of my academic career, and while in hindsight I appreciate the fact I didn’t bother to get too close to anyone because I was zipping off to college the next year, it was a less than ideal situation for an awkward dweeb on the precipice of adulthood. That’s why I spent so many hours retreating into my Animal Crossing ?town, spending my evenings hanging out by the river and walking through the trees just as I did when I was a ??kid in Western Washington.

To be honest, I still use Animal Crossing as an escape whenever I get fed up with life as an adult. I need that break, that opportunity to retreat into my rose-tinted memories of an uncomplicated youth where the only responsibility I had was making sure I got home bef??ore dark. Maybe it's just a form of arrested development, but the part of my brain that doesn’t want to grow up will always get excited about simple, laid-back games that loosely connect to those adolescent years.

That part of my brain is the reason I’ve been obsessing for the last month about the localization of Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation -The Endless Seven-Day Journey- even though I couldn’t tell you a single thing about the Shin-chan manga or anime series.

Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation -The Endless Seven-Day Journey- (PC, PS4, Switch [reviewed])
Developer: Millennium Kitchen, Star Factory
Publisher: Neos
Released: August 11, 2022 (Switch), August 25, 2022 (PS4), August 31, 2022 (PC)
MSRP: $39.99

Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation -The Endless Seven-Day Journey- is a spin-off of the never-localized Boku no Natsuyasumi series. Developed by Millennium Kitchen, the franchise taps into those nostalgic feelings of the past by putting players in the shoes of a young boy visiting a small town for a month in 1975 (or 1985 for Boku no Natsuyasumi 4). Rather than offer players the thrills of their contemporaries, Boku no Natsuyasumi games have settled on a far more quaint and quiet experience, one t?hat revolves around catching bugs, going fishing, playing games, and chatting with the locals.

The formula is more or less the same with The Endless Seven-Day Journey, only it’s been given a significant dose of Crayon Shin-chan. The Nohara clan has relocated for a week to the tiny mountain town of Asso, where five-year-old Shinnosuke will spend his days exploring the beautiful countryside as various storylines play out around him. The central ??plot of this jaunt has to do with a wannabe evil Professor who keeps reaching back in time to transport dinosaurs to the empty streets of Asso.

Shinnosuke’s vacat?ion is only supposed to be for a week, but in a fit of rage, the eponymous Professor traps him in on??e of those infinite time loops you might have heard about. Every time Shin and his family leave, he falls asleep and wakes up back at the beginning of his trip. Hence, the “Endless Seven-Day Journey.�It’s a pretty decent setup that results in a lot of good feels and neighbors banding together for the greater good.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfimgCLsIAk

Groundhog's Week

Because of some machinations of the narrative, you’re not really starting back at square one whenever Shin-chan loops. Everything you collect and all of the areas of Asso y??ou unlock carry over with each reset. Additionally, the storylines you start during one week will keep going into the next, which is just one of the reasons tying the narrative to a time loop doesn’t really work for this game. Even when you’re given a further explanation about how the time loop works, it doesn’t adequat?ely legitimize the narrative relying on the plot device rather than just extending the length of Shin-chan’s trip.

Thankfully, it’s an enjoyable trip and one I don’t mind extending long past the 10-hour run ??time and into New Game+. Fishing and bug collecting are the type of peaceful and stress-free activities I need to unwind after these ridiculously hot summer ??days. Stress-free describes most of what you’ll do in Asso, from growing vegetables to taking up a job as a reporter in the local paper. For that, you just need to play the game as you would anyway and the stories will write themselves along the way.

The only bit of stress you’ll find in The Endless Seven-Day Journey is the dinosaur card battles. Using a simple rock-paper-scissors formula, you’ll do battle with neighboring kids to see who can drain their opponent’s health first. Each of the dinosaurs the Professor brings to Asso is a playable character in the game and cards you collect from chocolate boxes can be used to augment your chosen dinosaurs' strength or abilities. The difficulty of these ?battles does escalate quite a bit, and there are so many cards to collect I didn’t get a full deck until New Game+.

Unmatched Beauty

Of course, even if I did fill out my deck in my first go, I was coming back to this game anyway. The Endless Seven-Day Journey just provides a pleasant and gorgeous world to be in. The hand-drawn background art is exquisite, on par with what you see in well-funded anime films. There isn’t a corner of this game that isn’t dripping in detail, and going through it I couldn’t help but compare it to Studio Ghibli’s Only Yesterday,? which also features a trip to the Japanese countryside.

As beautiful as the background art is, the character art is definitely an acquired taste. I’ve more or less avoided the Crayon Shin-chan manga and anime because I didn’t care for the character designs and this game did nothing to chan??ge that. What it did do, however, is cement the fact that I’m not a fan of its humor either. Or at least, this twee country version of Shin-chan humor.

I’m not talking about the fart and butt jokes, which don’t really bother me and are pretty sparse across the game's runtime. I’m talking about the ??constant mishearing ?and correction jokes. A character says one thing. Shinnosuke repeats it back as another thing. The character gets angry with Shin-chan. It’s just that again and again until you just want these people to shut up.

Outside of the poor humor, I think this is a very well-written game with endearing characters and enjoyable dialogue. Sure, the narrative around the time-travel aspect does get a bit wobbly as you ente??r the home stretch of the story and one or two of the character arcs you’ll watch unfold do come with a bit of an ick factor attached. But beyond that, I’m pretty pleased with how these storylines play out and resolve.

I came into The Endless Seven-Day Journey expected to revel in its recreation of the leisurely days of summer. I didn’t expect I’d leave it with a whole town full of characters I’m genuinely delighted by. And that’s why I enjoyed being in this world as much as I did. It’s an altruistic bit of nicecore gaming that plays like a warm memory of youth. Even if I don’t care for Crayon Shin-chan, this is a game I’m going to r??eturn to when I need a break fro?m adulting all day.

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

The post Review: ?Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on ??Summer Vacation -The Endless Seven-Day Journey- appeared first on Destructoid.

Long Live The Queen

The Queen TV-Game 2 starts with the distorted voice of a wistful woman. "I remember when we first met nine years ago. Love Hero was on TV." Then sudd??enly, her nostalgia turns to bitterness.

"It got fucking canceled."

Wa?it, did ??this random two-cent 3DS eShop exclusive just say fuck? The 3DS fucks now? And this is how I find out?

It takes a lot of guts to add fucks to an otherwise all-ages eShop title, cursing it with an M-rating and pushing away millions of potential buyers. On one hand, it takes integrity to stick to your guns like that. On the other, it's totally self-destructive. Genuine, hopeless anger lies at the heart of The Queen TV-Game 2. I guess when the world is about to end �or in this game's case, when the online stor?efront you call home is about to be shut down for good �nihilism comes naturally. Now, thanks to this 3DS eShop oddity, you can hea??r directly from your 3DS about how bad all that really feels.

The Queen TV-Game 2 is actually the second-to-last of a series of four games on Nintendo consoles from Butterfly, an indie dev f?rom Savannah, Georgia.

The first was Daikon Set, a 100% free Wii U eShop game from 2017. That's another one you should grab before that shop closes down. Next was Love Hero, a $1.00 3DS eShop game from 2019. Then came The Queen TV-Game 2, released in 2020, nine years after the launch of the 3DS. By that time, everyone knew the system was on its way out, but despite the futility of it all, Butterfly still squeezed out Gal Galaxy Pain in late 2021. It's a $0.50 3DS eShop game about comput??er programming, Suda51, and misery.

When taken as a whole, the four games tell a story of a developer who's sweet and optimistic at the start, then joyless and zombie-like at the end. The Queen TV-Game 2 i?s the bittersweet penultimate chapter in this tragedy, the one where the main characters are already infected, but they take one final pained swing for the fences before they succumb. I can't think of a better send-off for an online storefront filled with amazing, unique exclusives that are about to become extinct.

Perseverance in the face of certain doom isn't just the theme of the game's narrative. It's also the key to playing it. There are three levels, each with its own secrets, and all can kill you in seconds. The first stage sends two bouncing squares at you. You have to dodge them until the time runs out, coping with hypnotic repetition of their bounces and the constant risk of sudden death. Stage two is basically Pong but for one player, but with two ?bouncing balls instead of one. Th??e third and last level is a little shmup where you have to dodge those goddamn squares again, this time while blasting a giant rabbit to death.

There are no lives. If you take a hit, the screen says "FUCK" for exactly half a second, then you either try again or give up. In the two hours or so that it took me to beat the game, I probably died 100 times. Like so many one-screen arcade titles of yesteryear, it might look like you? could beat it right away �but for a long time, you just won't. It's harder than it should be, and that's what makes it compelling. Every time I lost, I wanted to prove to the game, and to myself, that I wouldn't let it win. I knew my brain could do it. I just didn'?t know if it would be long enough for me to hear the queen's final message.

It takes a lot for a game to inspire that kind of curiosity, and The Queen TV-Game 2 certainly doesn't much have in the way of production values to help it get there. Every screen looks like programmer art. The music sounds like it was pilfered from a smooth jazz public domain library, and the mechanics are bone simp??le. But it all fits. Frankly, I might have felt guilty paying so little for the game if it looked and sounded more expensive. That would have felt like punching a kid while they were already down.

Instead, The Queen TV-Game 2 feels like it's meeting me exactly where I'm at. I gave the developers my ??two cents, and they gave me theirs in return. They are pissed off, and they want to piss me off too, using frustrating in-game deaths to share their feelings about the death of the eShop. But they also share the peace they've made, accepting that all things must end; the 3DS eShop, video games, and everything in-between.

[embed]//www??.youtube.com/watch?v=ngUqglMKnJk&t=15s[/embed]

As the game p??rogresses, the voice-over continues, and the fact that this really is the 3DS talking to you becomes unmistakable. "Things were easy when the TV was off," it says. "No one will ever fucking play me again. You've all switched over and moved on, but it's OK."

I may have switched over, but I'll always keep my 3DS close to my chest. I'm going t??o miss the 3DS eShop, and I'm so glad it had one big surprise for me before it blinks off for the last time.

The post Say goodbye to the 3DS eShop with this two-cent console exclusi??ve appeared first on Destructoid.

Hey baby I hear the blues calling, tossed salad and scrambled EGGLIA

One of my favorite developers of the past 20 years has been a little production house known as 1-Up Studio. You probably best know it from its work as a support studio, assisting in the development of games like Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Ring Fit Adventure, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. But that’s not why it's one of my favorites. I like it for the games it helped developed before it became known as 1-UP Studio. Originally, the developer was called Brownie Brown, and it helped create some of the most interesting games of the 2000s and early 2010s. Games like Fantasy Life, Magical Starsign, and Professor Layton's London Life. Oh, it also helped develop Mother 3.

In February 2013, the developer decided to rebrand as 1-Up Studio. Shinichi Kameoka, one of the founders of Brownie Brown, departed to set up his own shop called Brownies Inc. The studio got its start with two mobile games: Seventh Rebirth and EGGLIA: Legend of the Redcap. In 2019, it joined forces with Marvelous to create Doraemon: Story of Seasons, arguably the best Story of Seasons game available on Switch. While Brownies cou??ld have easily gone back to the mobile market following that release, it remained committed to consoles, even if that meant porting its previous mobile titles over to console.

Some games excel when they jump from sma??rtphone to console. Dandy Dungeon, Part-Time UFO, and Retro Bowl are three great examples I can list?? right off the top of my head that made the ??leap with style and grace. EGGLIA Rebirth, an updated version of the mobile title with all in-app purchases removed, attempts the same jump. Unfortunately, unlike those titles list??ed above, it doesn’t quite stick the ?landing.

[Editor's Note: As has been pointed out since publication, EGGLIA on iOS and Android originally launched as a premium-priced game before transitioning to a free-to-start game. The writer of this article apologizes for any confusion this might have caused. The rest of this impressions piece remains as it was originally published.] 

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=sivRTG-sYE4

EGGLIA Rebirth tells the story of a red-capped goblin boy destined to destroy the world. Or at least, he was until his horns were removed, rendering him docile. With his horns gone, the kid can carve a new path for himself, one where he is the ?hero rather than the enemy. After a chance encounter with? a young girl, he sets out on a quest to revive the land of Egglia and make friends along the way.

The world was torn asunder years before the events of Rebirth, with its many different lands sealed in glowing eggs that only the redcap can open. On the overworld map, you’ll pick an area next to the hub town to release each part of this trapped world, expanding ??and restoring the kingdom to ??how it once was. Each new piece of Egglia the redcap unlocks gets you access to a handful of levels teeming with monsters to kill, supplies to gather, and new friends to meet. And story. A whole lot of story.

The gameplay of EGGLIA Rebirth is grid-based with hexagons dotting each level??’s map. Movement is determined by the roll of the die. With each turn, you can move and perform an action, such as attacking an enemy or opening a chest. Once you complete that action, your turn is done, so don’t think you can stab a monster that’s in the space right next to you and then run away. The die also decides the power of your attack, so striking a monster after rolling a six will do more damage than if you roll a two. Sometimes, the number on the die can mean the difference between a one-strike kill and having to attack a second time.

The redcap’s basic attack is a melee swing, but you can also equip up to three spirits that grant offensive and defensive magic spells. Initially, these are pretty weak in their execution and range. As you build up and evolve your spirits, they become more useful in the battle. Of course, doing all that leveling will take a lot of time, which is just one of the ways EGGLIA’s origins as a ??free-to-play ?game hampers the experience on Switch.

When I take a step back from Rebirth, it’s clear to see just how much of the game is a checklist of free-to-pl??ay concepts that are rife in the mobile marketplace.

There is a town you need to settl??e and build, tons of objects to collect, seeds to grow, gacha pulls, timers, recipes to cook, characters to level, and relationships t?o build. And that is to say nothing of the grind. Going on missions and quests has the same format as you find in games like World Flipper or Dragalia Lost, where there is a little bit of gameplay sandwiched between a? lot of story exposition that is lather, rinse, repeated with each new map you unlock. 

While the narrative doesn’t do anything for me, the wor?ld of Egglia does. If you look at the screenshots and think “Boy, this looks like a Mana game,�there’s a reason for that.

Shinichi Kameoka did the char??acter design for several Mana titles, including Secret of Mana, Friends of Mana, and Legend of Mana. The art direction, character design, and monster design of EGGLIA i??s easily its bes??t quality, as playing through the game often feels like playing through a treasured children's fantasy novel.

Despite not particularly caring for the die-centric gameplay or the adolescent dialogue, Egglia is an inviting world I loved being in. In an interview with 4Gamer in 2018, Kameoka said his studio was going to start “making ‘game-like�titles like we used to before.�I’m not sure if EGGLIA Rebirth is part of that plan, but if there is more on the horizon for consoles from Brownies, I can’t wait to see what’s next. Because I need more games in my life that look like this. I just need them to play a hell of a lot better than EGGLIA Rebirth does.

If you’re at all curious, EGGLIA Rebirth is now available for Nintendo Switch for $19.99.

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

The post EGGLIA Rebirth can’t escape its free-to-play origins appeared first on Destructoid.

Deck the halls with indie Switch games

It's the holidays, which also means it's time for various digital sales. PlayStation kicked off their sale yesterday, and the annual Steam holiday sale is underway too. And now, Nintendo has launched the Indie World Holiday sale, discounting a bunch of solid Switch indies.

A few are indies from years past, like River City Girls and OlliOlli: Switch Stance. And others are ports that just made it over this year, like Slime Rancher: Plortable Edition. But some of the?? standouts of the Nintendo eShop's holiday indie sale are the little hidden gems.

Take Cozy Grove, for example: a cute breath of fresh air that seems like a pretty relaxing game for the holidays. Or Axiom Verge 2, a sequel that was fairly different from its predecessor but still had some cool ideas going for it. TOEM is a black-and-white isometric photo-puzzle game I've had my eye on for a while, and Dodgeball Academia is a sports RPG that I never quite got around to in the summer launch season. Or The Longing, a game with an absolute??ly fascinating mechanic: real-li??fe patience.

Basically, this seems like a good time to catch back up on the games that flew under the radar this year, and in years past, too. Plus, Oxenfree is literally only $2. I've paid more for coffee. Go buy and play Oxenfree.

The full Nintendo Indie World Holiday Sale lineup:

• Axiom Verge 2 - $17.99
• Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! - $12.74
• Among Us - $4.00
• TOEM - $15.99
• Hades - $16.24
• Cozy Grove - $11.24
• Slime Rancher: Plortable Edition - $18.74
• Cris Tales - $19.99
• Garden Story - $15.99
• Subnautica + Subnautica: Below Zero - $35.98
• Islanders - $3.99
• Boyfriend Dungeon - $16.99
• The Jackbox Party Pack 8 - $22.49
• The Longing - $11.20
• Cyber Shadow - $15.99
• Last Stop - $16.99
• art of rally - $18.74
• Dodgeball Academia - $19.99
• Curse of the Dead Gods - $13.99
• Necrobarista - Final Pour - $15.39
• River City Girls - $20.99
• A Short Hike - $5.59
• Streets of Rage 4 - $14.99
• OlliOlli: Switch Stance - $2.99
• Oxenfree - $1.99
• Risk of Rain 2 - $6.24
• Sea of Solitude: The Director's Cut - $9.99
• Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove - $21.99
• Don't Starve: Nintendo Switch Edition - $4.99
• FAR: Lone Sails - $3.74

A few other indie publishers, as well as major publishers, are hosting sales on the eShop for the holidays too. You can check the full list out on Nintendo's landing page here. There's a bit too many to list out, but I strongly recommend perusing the Annapurna and Humble Games sections. Florence is only $2. It's a no-brainer.

The post Nintendo Indie World? Holiday? Sale includes some good hidden gems appeared first on Destructoid.