New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe:
Game is solid and controls well and I like the addition of Nabbit since I suck at 2D Mario's 1 HP system but at the same time, it really feels like if you played Super Mario Bros. 3 or Super Mario World, you played almost every 2D Mario game ever made. I haven't played many of them but I feel like if I did, I would be much more lukewarm on this particular title. Not bad, but it is a very iterative game.
However the save system in this game is absolutely terrible and is just unacceptable even at the time of the Wii U's release of the game instead of autosaving after completing each stage, it insteads doesn't save until you beat a boss so if you lose all your lives at any point, you restart at the last boss you beat, so if it wasn't for me using Nabbit and me relying on the infinite lives exploits, this game would be borderline unbeatable for me. So was antiquated even back then considering Rayman Origins autosaved after each stage beaten, it's an antiquated save system that I am amazed still persisted even in the Switch re release of the game. I know apparently for some that lives comes plenty but I suck at 2D Mario so this save system felt like it wanted me to cheese the levels with Nabbit.
Overall, not a bad game but I can see why I prefer 3D Mario since those games tend to be more experimental and don't play so similarly to each other.
HROT:
Pretty solid and enjoyable boomer shooter. It can be pretty challenging especially with how fast projectiles can move, how there are so many enemies on screen and they can do a lot of damage to they land a blow on you even once, it got so challenging that I lowered to easy. You get the beer bottles that allow you to restore some of your health with every sip and I did wish these were around in Episode 1 instead of being in more plentiful supply in around the half way point of Episode 2.
Episode 1 suffers from the issues many shooters of these types suffer from when the devs are making the game as they are going along so as a result, while I did like the idea of barely scrapping by with ammo for my guns at first, towards the later parts of Episode 1, I had so little ammo to take on the enemies that I offically lowered to easy.
Episode 2 started off better but it has the issues of too little ammo, enemies hitting hard and depleting hp quick started to annoy me and I lowered to easy. Then I got to the halfway point of Episode 2 and I was at the halfway point of Episode 2.
That's another thing, the game didn't get more consistently enjoyable for me until getting halfway through Episode 2. The level design got more consistently enjoyable for me to traverse and it got more creative too like for example you get to visit a castle, drive a motorcycle to go to a farm and going to a hospital to name some examples. All though at times the electric boxes used to progress through the levels were a little hard to see for me especially in one level where it was so high up that I couldn't even see it but I didn't mind it that much.
Other than those, and while I enjoy this style of game and I did have fun with it, and this is a style of game that is inherently fun for me, I can't deny that there just isn't enough new here. The game just feels like Dusk in a lot of ways but not as consistently good. Amidevil had the the supercharged attacks, Project Warlock had the upgrade tree, Forgive Me Father had the abilties. The game reminding me so much of Dusk with the art style, models, enviroment design and damage animations that it is hard not to see that game when playing this one.
Once again, I had a solid time and it's good but it's because I have a bias towards these style of games, if you aren't and are one of the people who getting sick of the retro shooter revival, I suggest you skip this or if you haven't played this style of game in a while.
Quake 2: Ground Zero:
I don't think this expansion is as bad as others make out and this could be because I played on easy but at the same time, this is nothing remarkable either. It's just more Quake 2 and if you didn't like the base game, why would you even play this? But if you did like the base game there is nothing new here to make it worth going through. Going to be honest, I only played this at all because you get a Platinum trophy for beating the Q2 base game and expansions on any difficulty and I wanted to get through this game before I eventually play Call of the Machine.
With all that said, I will admit I did use the waypoint marker on the remaster Q2 a lot more and that along with playing the game on easy probably reduced a good amount of frustration I otherwise could've had with the expansion. The level design does seem to be inferior to the base game. I was able to play the base Q2 without ever needing it, could be because I played the original game years before the remaster came out but I could still navigate the levels pretty well. Ground Zero, I had a harder time telling where to go and while at times I was able to figure out where to go on my own, I became a lot more reliant on the waypoint marker. Levels relied on backtracking a lot more and the objectives just sounded too vague for me at times.
Other than that the enemies are the same all though being able to take more damage probably helped me enjoy this expansion a lot more. I would be infuriated if I didn't. It's easy to get randomly ambushed and this time around the way to avoid an attack by the railgun enemies is to move so fast that he had a hard time hitting me. There is those enemies that resurrect dead enemies you kill, and this seems to annoy many and while I get it, me playing on easy probably lowered the frustration I otherwise could've had with them especially how in Quake 2, you are basically a tank and you can only take so much damage until you can recharge on energy with health packs, finding some in the levels allievates this since on easy, they are scattered all over the levels but overall, its easy to see how you can lose health slowly to weaker enemies as you try to take out the enemy that resurrect dead ones.
There is a "stealth section" late in the game that lasts about less than 5 minutes and I wonder why that was even in the game. It barely had enough going on to be nothing more than a pointless gimmick.
One thing that is interesting about this expansion that could be bad or good depending on who you ask is the amount of weapons you get. You have the plasma beam, ETF Rifle, the Proxmity mines, and many more. I will admit, not all the guns got use, the proxmity mines makes the grenade launcher useless since you don't have to keep track on when they will explode, the plasma beam is a more powerful technoblaster, and ETF rifle I kind of like, sort of makes the chaingun and machine useless. I like this idea on paper I just wish the game added more new enemies and different style of levels to make the new weapons and the old worthwhile.
Overall, while I don't dislike this expansion as much as others, I consider it to be middle of the road and just seems to be more Quake 2 content for the sake of making more content which is what a lot of "DLC/expansions sequels" can be a lot of the time.
Silent Hill: The Short Message:
I only played this at all because it was free, if it weren't for that, I wouldn't be even be typing my thoughts on this game since I stopped playing and dropping money on games in the style of this a while ago.
With that said, I'll give the Short Message credit in that like many "walking simulators", it knows exactly what it is and doesn't try to sugarcoat anything like say Alan Wake 2 does, Short Message knows it's a narrative driven "experience" game with some occasional moments of challenge where you have to run away from a monster, and say for the last monster chase, these sequences don't require too much thought or effort to get past.
Short Message also puts itself "walking sim" genre in other ways by being entirely free. Where the publishers of games like Gone Home and Dear Esther charges a $20 asking price for their games, Short Message is a download from the PSN store and it's also by bigger company so they could've charged people money to play it but chose not to.
The game has a lot of effort put into it's production values for a game that is free too. You got high fidelity visuals, lots of voice acting, a fair amount of cutscenes and returning long time composer of the franchise Akria Yamaoka providing the music. This is by far the most remarkable thing about the game. It's a free game that has a lot of money put into it where they didn't have to.
As for the game itself, I found the writing to be not that great and a lot of the female teenage angst and themes like cyberbulling and trying to live in a world with self loathing are things I had a hard time connecting to one in part due to me not being the game's target demographic and the writing itself just being too and I dislike using the term "on the nose" for me to be engaged.
The world building was interesting but these are just reserved for notes you read.
SH the Short Message is a strange game, the actual game aspect isn't anything special and the writing is too in your face and aimed at a target audience that I don't think are even long time fans of the series but I can't deny that it has a lot of heart put into it. If I paid money for this, I would be much more harsh but at the same time, I didn't so it's hard to hold the game in contempt. J
Jusant:
Got to give this game a load of credit, it's a game that attempts climbing especially in today's gaming industry where the climbing aspect of the game isn't heavily automated just for this novelty alone, I'd say the game is worth checking out.
With that said, many could be put away by the fact that Jusant has no fail states and you can't get any game overs but at the same time, I argue, you don't need fail states for a game to be good. You just need to feel like you are overcoming some kind of challenge or obsticle and Jusant does do that much like games like the Pathless and Prince of Persia 2008.
With all that said, what exactly will you be doing in Jusant, to be put it simpily, you are basically a mountain climber and what you will primarily be doing is climbing things. Sure other games attempted the idea but like I mentioned before, Jusant isn't as automated by comparison, the climbing where you move the analog stick while pressing and holding the right and left triggers. This by comparison to games like Uncharted, Survivor Tomb Raider, and the Horizon games is where Jusant feels like you are solving a puzzle of how and where to climb next as opposed to watching the character do death defying climbing feats, this game feels like you are actually doing them due to the fact that ledges and handholds aren't magnetized to the players hands. There is also a stamina meter but the thing is, you never really need to worry about it depeleting since and falling to your death since you can always regenerate it by holding R3. This could be an issue for some but I didn't mind so much.
Just for this all I mentioned alone, I enjoyed Jusant a good deal. The game also throws in new ideas every chapter for example Chapter 2 introduces your companion to extend plants to create new hand holds, Chapter 3 has disappearing hand holds, Chapter 4 has spirits that give you and extra boost when double jumping, Chapter 5 has wind shafts that can affect your direction where you jump and Chapter 6 has you climb a tower in a specific way so the game never gets montonous.
With all that said, it felt like the game could've had more, like the disappearing hand holds from Chapter 3 coming back combined with the spirits from Chapter 4 along with the wind shafts from Chapter 5, this isn't an outright deal breaker but it felt like the game could've combined all the previously introduced mehanics more.
The moment to moment walking movement can also feel awkward and stilted and it's easy to get stuck behind certain walls.
Overall, Jusant is an interesting take on video game climbing that has a solid execution that I do hope future developers try to borrow from. I enjoyed it a lot due to how much of a breath of fresh air it was from automated climbing in games.
Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge:
This such is such a tedious game. The combat isn't very good, the level design is super obtuse and it's full of padding. Its shocking Capcom even made a game like this. DMC1 never felt this problematic to play, Oogie's Revenge doesn't even a have a jump button. It feels like a combination of Onimusha 3 where you play as Jacques and DMC while being worse than both. In the former, you get a whip and a grapple ability and you can't jump. I would forgive the combat flaws but the game is padded beyond belief. Want to rescue Sally? Rescue 5 people and lift up tombstones to progress which both take up their own level. Want to get to Dr. Fricklestein? Give Igor a bone, before you do that, do a pointless quiz, destroy a generator and THEN you can reach him. Doing major damage to bosses also hinges on a rhythmn game that is divorced from the actual combat. The lock on is awful since it auto locks to random targets and you can't cycle between targets as well Jack's whip throw ability being hard to aim precisely where you want it since he will throw things based on when the game feels like it, and despite having a dedicated dodge button, it's useless since you can't cancel out of a combo. The game gives you a map but it's pointless since it gives you a vague idea of where you are and the objectives are vague.
It's shocking that this was even made by Capcom, the Van Helsing game played better than this and even something like Legacy of Kain Defiance is better. This feels like something an inexperienced game dev who really like the DMC games would create.
Astro Boy: Omega Force:
Astro Boy Omega Factor makes a good first impression, the controls are solid where you don't need to keep track of too many inputs just do there is a punch button, a jump, jets, a laser beam, a super laser beam and so on.
The visuals also look very nice and looks very vibrant and colorful. I also love how there are no lives and the game checkpoints pretty well especially for a portable game released in the early 00s.
I thought this was going to be purely be a 2D platformer but instead it's basically a 2D beat em up with very light platforming elements.
The combat is pretty enjoyable at first, do some punches at close range and hitting enemies with the laser beam and supers from far away all though once I learned super moves can stack up to 99 times, and even respawning sets me with 30, it was almost easy to take down regular grunts with them and there wasn't much in the way of challenge since the game is primarily a beat em up and combat gets one note due to this.
The bosses are pretty decent and provide slightly more challenge and the final boss ross on the World's Strongest Robot section is a decent yet fair enough challenge since your health refills and you respawn at the boss if you die. It feels very forgiving for a game like this.
However, the thing that holds the game back from being something I geniunely reccomend is the content and structure or should say lack there of any. Bascially, the campaign of all 7 stages takes you about an hour to beat but the game will give you doom and gloom world is screwed fake out ending and then you have to do all 7 stages again with the same enemies and bosses as the first time but with slightly different story outcomes then you also need to do some really obtuse things just to finally get to the "final stage" and by that point, I just gave up.
Either the story of Astro Boy only lasted long enough for the developers to make a 1 hour game, the devs could only make up to an hour long campaign with the budget they had or the publisher wanted the devs to have a game release at retail that can be beaten in an hour. Maybe it's all 3. Hard to tell but thanks to the lack of actual content and a good portion of the length if you choose to want to obtain even with the ability to Youtube search it is where the length comes from.
However despite all my criticism, this is one of the better licensed anime games you can find, all though if you want a 2d beat em up based on an established anime franchise that also happens to be on the GBA, Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure has Omega Force beat.
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