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If you’re looking for a horror game to play, Yomawari: Lost in the Dark is a solid example of atmospheric storytelling and tackling daunting subjects without hammering the point home too much. It plays great on the Switch and benefits from the console’s portability. Playing with headphones in and in a dark room really adds to the tension. You can also grab it on Steam and PlayStation consoles.
My own house party days are long behind me, but Boo Party definitely brought back some fond memories and, for the four hours or so it took to beat the game, made me almost feel young again. And for this old fart, that’s more than reason enough to wholeheartedly recommend the experience.
For those looking at the Cowabunga Collection as a complete package, though, I suspect The Hyperstone Heist may well end up as a bit more of a fun novelty than one of the main games you spend your time with in the compilation.
It’s a shame we’ve never been able to see how the story continues in English with the subsequent two games, but as noted above, perhaps with the release of Prinny Presents NIS Classics vol. 3, Nippon Ichi and their western partners will consider some brand new localisations for modern audiences. There’s always a market for good RPGs, after all — and there’s something wonderfully distinct about RPGs from this late ’90s/early ’00s period, with Rhapsody being a fantastic demonstration of that.
Pitstop in Purgatory is macabre yet soothing. It’s a wholesome and, at times, wickedly cruel jab to your heart and senses that still manages to feel like a virtual comforter due to its sheer optimism about death — or rather, the celebration of life after death. With lovingly caring and considerate messages, memorable characters you’ll fondly appreciate and care about, and two key mysteries that will keep you interested and committed to solving from beginning to end, Pitstop in Purgatory is a must-play.
I’m not going to declare Super Jagger Bomb the best retro-style arcade game you’ll ever play or anything, but it is a competently put together game, a loving homage to its source material and a rather playable little diversion that is well worth having on hand for when you fancy something simple and easily digestible to enjoy. And for £4.50 that’s nothing to complain about whatsoever.
My only other real criticism of Pretty Girls Escape is that I maybe question its longevity a little. There do not appear to be online leaderboards implemented, so you can’t compete against others for the best score at a stage — though your own best score and time for each stage are both recorded, so you can at least compete against yourself. It would also be nice to see some sort of “Endless” mode implemented — perhaps a more direct adaptation of BreakThru! — as this would definitely keep people coming back after clearing all the stages.
So if you’ve never played Pilotwings 64, now’s a great time to give it a go for yourself. And it’d be nice if Nintendo brought this series back one day, too.
Destiny Connect: Tick-Tock Travelers may not be the sort of RPG that many people find truly life-changing in the same way as some of the higher-profile games of this world. But it is a thoroughly lovely game that I suspect nowhere near enough people have played.
As noted, The Silver Case isn’t an experience that everyone will enjoy or want to engage with. I’ve seen people on Steam go so far as to request refunds because of the simple presence of the “solve the puzzle for me” button — it’s fair to say that people like that were never this game’s intended audience. If you’re up for what this game has to offer, though, which is a fascinating story told in a particularly fascinating way, you’ll have a thoroughly enjoyable time. And you’ll be left wanting more.
It’s perhaps not a game you’d take on as your “main gaming project” at any given time, but that’s why it’s a cheap, downloadable title for a handheld system. It’s wonderful gaming comfort food, great for playing on the toilet or in bed, and if it sounds like something which appeals you should make a point of checking it out sooner rather than later — because remember, after March 27, 2023, there will be no means of acquiring this game officially any more, and since it’s a game specifically designed for the 3DS, I suspect we won’t see any kind of port, reissue or physical preservation of this game. Once it’s gone it’s gone, as the saying goes.
Ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter too much, because as previously noted, this is a game where mechanics are king. And those mechanics are very, very solid indeed. So long as you can deal with the low-budget presentation — the game is clearly built almost entirely out of royalty-free assets — there’s a super-fun arena shooter experience to be had here. And, best of all, it doesn’t feel like yet another Vampire Survivors ripoff, as good as many of those are!
The Bathhouse arguably isn’t Chilla’s Art’s strongest game, but it’s by no means their weakest either. It’s atmospheric, well-presented and offers an intriguing story — albeit one which perhaps could have been developed a little further to answer some lingering questions.
Little Witch Nobeta is a quality game that deserves to do well. It’s a pity The Internet had to happen all over its Steam reviews, but try and ignore the stench and just enjoy the game on its own merits. It’s a well-crafted, challenging but accessible game with solid mechanics, an intriguing story and plenty of things to discover across multiple playthroughs. And I’d love to see plenty more games like this.
I suspect The Silver Case still has plenty more to offer beyond the point I’m at — I’ve only cleared the prologue chapter and the first main “case” in the Transmitter scenario — but I’m already thoroughly intrigued. If you’re looking for something very, very different from pretty much anything you’ve played before then The Silver Case is well worth checking out. I will certainly be continuing to do so in my own free time.
Casual Challenge Players’ Club is a good idea, executed extraordinarily poorly. There’s definitely scope for a pool game with a narrative — in fact, it’s been done before, if you check out the excellent and vastly underappreciated Backstreet Billiards on PS1, which couples a full-on adventure game with 3D pool action — but Casual Challenge Players’ Club does not provide that in any way, shape or form. Couple that with the atrocious physics of the pool action and the inability to just play a simple game of pool, and you, regrettably, are left with a game that really is not worth bothering with.
It’s great to preserve the original arcade experiences as much as possible, of course — particularly with real arcades being a dying breed, and physical arcade machines often sadly ending up discarded and unloved — but Turtles in Time shows us that there’s still a great deal of value in a game originally designed for the arcade being significantly reimagined for its home release.
The arcade version of Turtles in Time is definitely worth playing, then — but, as we’ve previously noted, a lot of people actually hold the SNES version in even higher esteem than its source material. So we’ll take a look at that next time, and see if that’s an attitude still worth holding in 2022, now we have easy access to both versions via the Cowabunga Collection.
Slightly underwhelming boss fights aside, then, Splatoon 3’s single-player definitely lived up to expectations, and is once again well worth spending some time with if you can drag yourself away from the multiplayer. It’s also nice to see Nintendo taking Splatoon’s lore admirably seriously; there’s a thoroughly interesting setting here, and it’s cool to see that it’s clearly been thought about in more depth than simply “there’s kids, right, who are also squids”. It’ll certainly be interesting to see where the series goes from here.
Soulstice celebrates the great things about its biggest inspirations while being memorable in its own right. The presence of Sir Donovan as a capable male Chimera fills a void from Claymore, and how the game explores and shows memories reminiscent of the Vestige fragments in Code Vein makes for a nice interlude after countless battle segments and heavy plot reveals.