Short Game Reviews: March 2023

Guns, Gore, and Cannoli:

Pretty enjoyable Metal Slug style game in the Prohibiation era featuring zombies. The game nails the moment to moment shooting action with solid feedback for guns and the game has a decent selection of firearms if standard fare. Ammo is distributed for all of the weapons to the point where all of the guns will actively be used. The game is also pretty challenging even on easy, I am not sure if it's because the game is meant to be played in coop or not, but I do love how the developers spreaded out the checkpoints, every time it feels like the game may enter into the realm of frustration, the game always gives a checkpoint before that frustration truly starts to set in. Even on easy, the game is challenging but only in one instance was it ever truly frustrating. Level design is also solid for the kind of game it is. The story and writing is also pretty decent and engaging especially for the kind of game it is. Maybe it's because I find the whole concept of the heavily parodied gangster movie to be very appealing. The zombie twist also helps the game stand out too.

My only big gripes with the game that prevents me from calling it great is the Rat Boss that happens in the sewer level because he has attacks you can't always reliably dodge, and on top of all this, the game also commits a boss battle sin I dislike so much which is sending in fodder enemies while fighting the boss himself. I never liked this since the boss should feel like a threat on his own, him relying on goons for help just feels like a cheap of adding challenge since you are trying to focus on the boss and the fodder enemies get in the way constantly. Another issue is that you can really aim your gun and it can lead to odd moments where you want to be precise but can't, and finally the last two issues which are interconnected to me are the hitboxes and the game having a bad habbit of swarming you with too many enemies up close. I say they are interwined because there are moments where enemies will actively swarm you and you will be firing your gun up close and it feels like your bullets aren't even registering the hits. This can lead to some frustration.

Overall, I played the game because I enjoyed the recent Warhammer game by the same dev, and this game was a decent precursor to that game.

Freedom Planet:

Coming from a guy who doesn't really like the 2D Sonic games that much I enjoyed this game a lot more than I thought I was going to. I remember some people saying this game made improvements to the classic Sonic formula and I do feel it. The biggest addition was the fact that you didn't grind to halt and lose health every time you got hit. It's much easier to maintain momemetum in this game than any classic Sonic game due to not fumbling around whenever you get hit by an enemy you didn't see coming. I do like how you get more attacking options where you have generic swipe attack, a jump move and a super dash. The level design is mostly easy to tell where to go next compared to Classic Sonic, some levels did stump me in this game but it's few and far between. The final thing I will praise is that I like that losing all your lives does not mean a game over, you just simpily restart at your last checkpoint, some could point out why it's even in the game at all, but I prefer this red herring system over starting the level again from the start after losing all your lives, and this game can be pretty challenging on Normal which now segways into my next point.

The bosses in this game are super challenging, the first few bosses before the Dragon Boss were manageable on normal but once I got to him, the game would just spike up in difficulty, the platforming stages except for the Dreadnaught are generally easy enough but once I got to the bosses I was struggling like crazy. I am glad the game let's you switch difficulty in the start menu and I eventually lowered to causal mode to get through the bosses fast since you are going through the same motions but now, you are able to take more damage. My gripe with the bosses is that they have super powerful attacks that aren't really telegraphed all that well and combine that with the platforming controls that is meant for speed meant that I was getting hit and getting game overs like no tomorrow. I don't outright dislike them, but something about them felt off to me and these two above mentioned reasons could be big reasons as to why.

The final compliant is the story, not that there is one for a game like this but moreso how much of it there is and how much I didn't really care for it. It's not terrible, but so much of it just feels like stuff you'd find in some kind of generic action cartoon or battle shonen anime. There is a lot of, "don't mess with my friends" and how "friendship can win overall if you believe in it" stuff I didn't care for. The voice acting in the cutscenes is pretty good so it did make the long cutscenes bearable enough.

Overall, despite my complaining I do like Freedom Planet and it's incredible how I like a game even though it's based on a style of game I never cared for. I am looking forward to playing the sequel and see how it compares.

Katamari Forever:

I liked this game at first but the more I started to play the more I bored I started to become, simpily put there is just too many levels in this game, just too many, I started to get bored of the game after a certain point. I know this game is a compliation of previous Katamari games and it sure does feel like that, there is just no structure to the game it just feels like I am just going through level after level without much going on. I generally don't play games for the story but the cutscenes and how long the game is plus the reused maps makes it hard to care about the game. I had to force myself to play it after a certain point and even then, I slowly got bored, and then I preservered with the game just for the later levels to stop unlocking and the game not making it clear how to unlock them. I am just done with this game at this point, it's one thing to throw endless levels and terrible ones like Campfire and Hot Stuff at that but to make me replay them and not making it clear how to progress furthur into the game? You can just screw right off.

Katamari Damacy Reroll is the far superior game to this one. That game is shorter and never overstays it's welcome unlike this game.

Tinykin:

A solid 3D platformer with elements of games like Pikmin despite me not playing the latter. I thought there was going to be combat since it's a 3D platformer but it's more of a chill relaxation kind of game and the game does do a good job at keeping me engaged. What makes it so engaging is the exploration and puzzle elements of the game, the game does have platforming but you also need to find little minions with different abilities to help you make it through the platforming and puzzle challenges. The exploration element comes in where you have to find them in order to progress through various parts of the level so when you start you explore, then you engage in the platforming and puzzles. Each minion has their own special ability so you need to use them effectively to get through the levels, and each level uses their abilites in clever ways like making bridges to get large objects across, connecting electricity to a power socket, or using them as a way to reach higher platformers, so the game doesn't have combat or health bars but still gives you a challenge to overcome while keeping it's relaxed tone. If you only go on the beaten path, the game can be beaten pretty quickly too.

My only big gripe with the game is that at first it was hard to tell if I was going the across the beaten path or I was getting collectibles and I was confused at first but the more I played the game, the more I got used to the game's level design quirks.

Overall, Tinykin was a pretty big surprise, I was expecting a traditional 3D platformer that just so happen to feature "pikmin" but instead it was a solid relaxation game that managed to keep me engaged.

Viewtiful Joe 2:

Solid sequel at least at first, I enjoyed the game until the boss with Frost Tiger. The game plays like the first game for the most part with addition of playing as Slivia. Joe still plays as well as he did in the first game with all the same moves and attacks like he did in the first game. Slivia feels kind of pointless since she doesn't play as well as Joe and I mainly just used her the mandatory puzzles. Combat is still solid even if it suffers from the beat em up problem having moves you are never going to use and you just use the same basic combos while using slo mo, it isn't as big of an issue as the Bayonetta games in that regard. The slo mo VFX powers still has that satisfying punch to it like it did in the first one. The first half of the game overall has that same VJ fun the first game had, you fight bad guys solve the occasional puzzle which can still somewhat be imprecise due to the controls but the overall structure is still solid.

Then you get to Frost Tiger and the boss fight is decent while a bit obtuse at first, it's almost like Fire Leo from the first game, but then the game's pacing really starts to get screwed up. After the fight with Frost Tiger, you then fight a long and overstaying boss rush that really slows everything down and get tiresome very quickly, the only thing making this bearable is that you get to save and get a health refill inbetween each fight. You also fight Frost Tiger again which doesn't help either since you are fighting the same boss within close promixty of each other. Then you get to a levels with multiple bosses, multiple puzzles that take a while and some obtuse platforming sections, the difficulty gets so out of whack that I am surprised you are supposed to do this with limited continues.

Overall, I do like VJ2 and while I do think the difficulty in the latter half gets out of hand later in the game, I do think the first half of the game is a solid sequel, and you could argue the first game was just as very difficult as this game is.

Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai:

It's DBZ Budokai on the go, it's about as solid of a portable "spin off" as it gets. I had a fun time with this game, despite the Budokai series not being as technical and complex as other fighting games, I always found the games charming for being distinctly "Dragon Ball" like the use of powering up Ki and how it has a risk reward system of possibly getting hit but you can gather enough energy for a powerful attack, and you got to time these high damage attacks correctly in order to make effective use out of them.

Stuff exclusive to this game is the story mode that has a retelling of the DBZ movie Fusion Reborn, which I'll be honest due to the dialogue not being fully voiced made it hard for me to pay attention to the story, it is a pretty wild and crazy story from what I gathered and it offered some innovation of DBZ games going from either Raditz to Buu or Raditz to GT with the movies thrown in. It does a decent job at provinding some context for fights. The fights end a lot quicker now, probably due to the game being on portable and the fighting in general has a fast pace with how combos connect and how quickly the health bar drains compared to how Budokai games play on console. Special moves and especially utimate attacks can drain your opponent's health bar really quickly.

There is also a ki dash attack which I used at first but stopped using since the attacks drain a lot of ki and it's hard to be precise with the attacks. I do like how fast it feels and looks though.

Overall, there is not a whole lot of things for me to say then it's a solid portable Budokai game. If you like the console games, you'll probably like this one, if not you could possibly prefer the fast paced nature of the game but I doubt you will like it a lot.