Maximum Utmost
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It occurs to me that if Star Fox Zero never happened, I’d probably be a lot kinder to this remake. A lot of Star Fox 2026 is what I want from a proper remake of Star Fox 64, but it’s still Star Fox 64. Again. Some of the rough edges are sanded down, but they’re still there. Even $50 is pushing it for what it has to offer. To anyone at Nintendo or Valen Studios who would listen, I beg of you. No more remakes. Take what you have here and build on it with a new installment. Let this franchise finally step out of Star Fox 64‘s shadow again. Or, if you must do another remake, do Star Fox 2. That game needs a remake even more than Star Fox 64 did. Or bury the franchise for good. At this point, I don’t care which.
But that makes giving an opinion on Wax Heads a bit difficult, because clearly, it had effective messaging overall. It got through to me on some level. I think its approach to retail is really creative. It’s full of likeable characters. It’s just the narrative is trite and idealistic to the point of being saccharine. And that was enough to turn me off it completely. I appreciate Wax Heads, but I don’t see myself playing it again, and I don’t know that I recommend it. It’s time to find a different job.
I wasn’t hating my time with MOLE. Getting from beginning to end was mostly breezy, barring a few encounters with that pointless monster. It’s just I don’t feel I got a lot of nutrition from it. While it doesn’t outright copy anyone, its adherence to its inspirations is so stark that it seems like it doesn’t have its own voice. It’s buried somewhere in there. Deep down. I’ll get my shovel.
It’s somewhat of a high pricetag for four simple arcade experiences that you can burn through in a couple of hours. That’s often the nature of arcade ports, though. However, all four of these games are worth playing, two of them allow you to rope a friend in, and they’re all readily replayable. Personally, I think Space Gun alone makes it all worth it. It helps that most of these are relatively obscure. Except Operation: Wolf. Everyone’s heard of Operation: Wolf.
Without my son, I wouldn’t have ever bought Astronook, and I certainly would not have powered through the last handful of puzzles. The game is cute, for sure, but the puzzle difficulty and clunky controller controls begin to betray the coziness at times. My son probably gives this game a 10/10, and we have revisited it many times since beating it. I love it because I love seeing him happy, but I am mostly hoping that we move on to something new soon.
And if you haven’t played R-Type III before, you absolutely should. This is a solid way to do it, if only because it removes the slowdown endemic to the SNES version. R-Type Dimensions III is a loving renewal of an outstanding shoot-’em-up. I do wish that they found a balanced middle-ground for easing the difficulty beyond its all-or-nothing approach. As it is, you either feel pain or nothing at all.
As a means of crafting a narrative I could connect with, many books accomplish with ease what inKONBINI: One Store. Many Stories attempts. As a konbini simulator, you’re better off grabbing Convenience Stories from Kairosoft. From my experience, self-described cozy games strike out far more often than they hit, sounding nice in theory but fumbling the execution. inKONBINI avoids most of the pitfalls of its contemporaries, but that is a low bar to hurdle. All in all, it’s a perfectly nice game. An average one, but certainly nice.
The console release gave me a terrific excuse to replay this fantastic compilation. Having it on Switch feels like being able to take one of my favourite books along with me. Anthology of the Killer is just something special, and while this compilation has the feeling of finality to it, I kind of hope that this isn’t the last we see of BB or the world she exists in. But, if you haven’t yet played Anthology of the Killer, then count yourself lucky because there’s still so much to experience. And then you should play it. You should play it right now.
Combining magic powers with a realistic combat setting is an inspired decision for a strategy game. It brings the tactical view and fanciful powers of a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 into the hard realism of a world beset by private military corporations. The setting is rich enough that I look forward to what Suspicious Developments does in this space going forward, especially if their next outing sees them come back with an even bigger budget for more things like voice acting.
Retro Rewind accomplishes small things with accuracy. It doesn’t lean heavily on asset stores to fill out its world (though, I would like to talk to whoever made the arcade cabinets 3/4 scale on risers, wtf), it’s not as janky as a lot of its peers, and it maintains a tight scope. There are places where it can grow (they’re adding video game rental in the future), but not a whole lot to complain about. It might not blow you away, but it might suck you in. And it might also make you pine for the days of Blockbuster Video. We didn’t know how good we had it.
Crabmeat’s horror atmosphere is breathable. Its crabbing manages to claw its way out from under the darkness without compromising it. Its outstanding work-a-day gameplay alongside a great attention to detail creates a very involving experience all around. The restraint it shows in certain areas, especially when it comes to narrative and runtime, allow it to succeed in just about every facet. I can’t remember the last time I found a horror game so satisfying, which is a weird thing to say about horror. I’m a little afraid.
Which means you should probably check it out. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and there’s a substantial chance we’ll never see anything like it again.
A little more TLC with the boss battles might have resulted in a more memorable experience, but Lovish is a satisfying adventure nonetheless. It’s a timeless type of entertainment that takes a simple a premise and runs with it. As the gaming industry continues to get more complex, bigger, and frustrating, it’s a solid reminder that at the end of the day, what matters most is creating a product that people can have fun with.
Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that I appreciate that the gen-AI art has been ripped out, but the rest of the experience should have been left alone. Still, as it stands, should you play Future Racer 2000? Yep. It’s short, it’s relatively cheap, and it still manages to be a unique horror experience in many ways.
There are glimmers of brilliance in Dead Format, and a lot of it shines through. Unfortunately, the whole thing is uneven. Parts of it needed more refinement, or rather, needed to be rethought. Just brought entirely back to the drawing board. It’s breaking my brain trying to reconcile the high highs and low lows. I’d like to compare it to a B-movie, but it’s difficult. It’s mostly like Street Fighter: The Movie where I’m glued when Raul Julia is on-screen and then pull out the Rubik’s Cube every time he isn’t.
It lacks some of the frills that would normally make a roguelite into a long-term experience. There isn’t a tonne of unlockables, and it barely has a story, which also means no side diversions. While it lasts, it’s entertaining. It doesn’t know any tricks, but it’s still a good boy (or girl). Yes it is. Oh, yes it is!
A solid remaster of a decent game. I’m not going to make a The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly reference, but here’s a fistful of review points.
It’s a fun game to see, even if the whole thing is sloppy and dumb. Its humour certainly isn’t sharp, but it’s entertaining enough to stand out. The brevity is, at least, offset by the rather reasonable pricetag that Ratalaika has given it. $6 greenbacks or $9 Canadian loonies (fewer loonies on Steam for some reason). That’s, like, a Blockbuster rental circa 2005. I miss game rentals, but I… Sorry, I got distracted there. You could treat this like a rental for that price, is what I’m saying. Make it a bakage night.
But regardless of how other people might feel about it, Chulip is among my favourite games. I can hear and understand the criticism toward it, but I don’t care. And that’s how I feel about Stray Children. I’m not ready to put it among my favourite games. That will become clearer with time. For me, I know that despite all the trials, I walked away feeling I gained something. I’m not happy. I’m moved. The walls of my heart have been broken.
If GameMill had taken the Cruis’n Blast approach and added extra challenges and cars, it would be much easier to recommend. If they had tuned the game to offer something more than what you’d get with a pocketful of dollars at the movie theatre, it might be worth it. As it is, the fun in Fast & Furious: Arcade Edition is gone in sixty seconds.