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Umihara Bazooka is an incredibly fun multiplayer game, one that I couldn’t help but have mountains of laughs produced while my friend was over! The multiplayer focused modes are sparse in number, but they’re very solid and get the job done exceptionally well, and I really wish that the online community was more active so that I could recommend the online too, since if it’s even half as fun as the local experience, multiplayer fans are in for an exceptional party brawler with a fun mechanic.
Trails of Cold Steel III was a very fun RPG, containing all the good parts from II which I loved, with better pacing thanks to the Turbo Mode, and a story that sets up the next entry rather well. The story’s the main draw for returning fans, and newcomers are better off starting from Cold Steel I, but if you can only join in on this entry due to the Switch exclusivity, then you will still be able to get tons of fun from this game. Just be absolute sure to beat this before starting Cold Steel IV, as that’s definitely not a game to make your first under any circumstance, recaps be dammed. Thankfully, Cold Steel III is well worth a full playthrough, even if it’ll take you quite a bit to do so.
Deleveled is a paint by numbers, minimalist platformer, entering a swamped genre with not much on offer. The controls are fine, the puzzles are pretty tricky, and the concept is fine, but there really isn’t that much to write home about with Deleveled.
Like before, the RPG Maker Player app does make buying the full game for play purposes feel a little redundant, and the region locking is incredibly stupid, but I can gladly say that even newcomers will find fun reasons to tinker around and just goof off, and this game did the series justice on Switch. I really can’t believe the tutorial is unaccessible after the first attempt, though, since that is a mind boggling design flaw that will no doubt frustrate newcomers, but if you somehow can get past all that and are willing to become creative, this is a enjoyable tool to take up learning if it interests you and you have no access to a PC.
Herzog Zwei was a great conclusion to the Sega Ages line, cramming as much references and bonus stuff as I could have possibly wanted in such a release, and truly feeling like a proper sendoff. As one of my first RTS games, this was a really fun introduction to the genre, and the helper and tutorial modes do a great job of making this a customizable experience for newcomers and veterans alike!
I may have been quite late in getting to covering YIIK, but in the end, was this worth the wait and time for me, as an RPG fan and a fan of 90s games and visuals? Honestly, I did come out really enjoying the art style for its cool quirky looks, and some of the music is legitimately awesome, but on the other hand, you have a horrid battle system and some voices that sound as if they were recorded from a tin can. It’s a weird mess all around, and even now, I don’t recommend you check this out. Just buy the soundtrack if you have to get anything out of this game.
Hakuoki Edo Blossoms was one of the two PS Vita long-haulers I had always planned to cover, but never got around to before shelving my PSTV. Thankfully, I’m back in the fray and was able to check this adventure out on its intended hardware, and it’s fairly enjoyable, following up on Kyoto Winds rather well. The fact you can pick your route immediately is a huge plus, and I enjoyed learning glossary terms as much as I did years ago in Kyoto, but otherwise Edo Blossoms is a fairly typical visual novel that you’d probably be best to play after the original. The MSRP for this game has lowered on the PSN, and for the $10 price point, I absolutely think it’s worth a buy to continue the story, though if you’re a physical hunter, this one’s more rare than the original, so be wary.
Liege Dragon is a rather boring adventure, and it didn’t do that well even as a remake. The game’s mechanics feel even more simplistic when combined with the rather unpleasant presentation, and when the old version from 2011 looks way prettier and more fitting of the simplicity, that’s a pretty sad sight to see for a remade game like this, and I feel that some sort of option or tribute to the game’s original look would have been a pretty neat feature to see.
Serious Scramblers was really fun in spots and gave a good glimpse into how this experience could be refined into an addictive time waster. Unfortunately, the slow lack of variety along with the lack of a vertical mode in a game screaming for it makes Serious Scramblers something that I can only really recommend if you’re into short and cheap experiences, rather than as an addictive arcade-like time chaser.
La-Mulana 2 is an excellent sequel to the original masterpiece. The combat is still just as satisfying as before, the puzzles aren’t nearly as cryptic but are still fun to solve, and the adventure is a fun one overall! My only real gripe is that it does have a slow start, unlike the first game, since it tries to ease the player in before opening up to the same sort of glorious open-ended exploration that made the first game magnificent, yet it’s still a great adventure with lots of different ways to replay it.
Tamiku easily nailed all the sweet spots I look for in a scorechaser: addictive gameplay loops, simple controls, trial and error, it’s all here, and Tamiku does a godly job with it all, to the point I honestly believe this could be made into a NES homebrew game due to just how authentic it feels! The only real gripes I have with Tamiku are a few: one being that I do wish the game would have an endless, randomized mode that would shuffle the order of stages around, and the other being that the lack of online leaderboards is a real shame, especially due to how this game’s practically screaming for them.
In conclusion, Warlock’s Tower is a simple, yet brilliant logic game with fun puzzles to enjoy during the 100 stage journey. It’s a simple concept that sticks to simplicity while not feeling repetitive nor hastily thrown together, the stages where you swap between characters are a ton of fun as well, and overall Warlock’s Tower is a Game Boy Puzzler tribute done justice, something that I was very pleased to see for a game I didn’t have much expectations for.
Golf Zero is a pretty fun and creative physics platformer, with a good amount of challenge and fun levels to play through! But the experience overall is rather short, and outside of doing all the gold medal or speedrun challenges, the game just doesn’t evolve into a replayable experience.
Lapis X Labyrinth is an incredibly average hack and slash with not much going for it. You enter a dungeon, beat up enemies, gain new weapons, loot and skills, and then repeat ad nauseam with little incentive to keep going or play this for long bursts at a time. On Switch, at least you do have pick up and play possibilities, but I found even when playing this game in those sessions, it just wasn’t that engaging.
Reason is a Sokoban game… That does the absolute bare minimum. The puzzles are fine, the game controls OK, but at the end of the day, that’s all that Reason provides. There’s no charm, no clever twist, no good looking visuals or assets, no good music, nothing of interest beside block pushing with a cute robot for fifty levels, in a format that you’ve probably done before. If you like these kinds of games, it works OK for more content of this type, but considering how there have been other Sokoban-likes on the eShop already, I just suggest you buy a prettier one like Box Land Demake instead, even though this is easily one of the more affordable takes on the genre, being only a dollar.
While Foxyland 2 is still a pretty basic platformer, it’s clear that the devs took the feedback from the first game and greatly expanded upon it: No longer needing to force gem collecting, hiding some clever secret coins around each stage, introducing secret exits, better level design, and more interesting boss fights all contribute to a fun experience all around, and with co-op this game can actually be a pretty engaging experience!
In conclusion, Foxyland was a very mediocre platformer, with only a good art style to note as any positive. The gameplay is boring, the gem requirement is stupid, and the levels aren’t that fun to play. Oddly enough, the halloween levels were more engaging than the main game, but the fact they don’t even record the stars you get and seemingly don’t save your progress for completing them makes that level pack feel utterly pointless. This is a done to death, mobile quality experience that if you’re familiar with, you probably don’t even need to give this a glance. It’s basic platforming bogged down by frustrating mechanics.
For a very, very short RPG, Archlion Saga was surprisingly enjoyable. The pacing was pretty good for the length of the game, the combat was simple enough to be entertaining while not too mindless, and there’s still some strategy to be had during the course of the five chapter adventure. I can’t help but find that Hit-Point still nailed their gameplay and presentation despite the shortness of the game, and the fact the whole experience was enjoyable and fun from start to finish is worth noting too. If you have funds to spend, Archlion Saga isn’t a bad way to spend an afternoon.
Arc of Alchemist is a catastrophic disaster on Switch. The game dips and climbs in framerate constantly, the visuals are so downgraded that it can be difficult to even make out key aspects, and the experience is overall miserable. There is a decent enough action RPG buried under all of this, but the abysmal performance should have never been accepted for release, and I’m outright ashamed they thought this port was in a good state to release, and haven’t fixed it since.
Chronus Arc is indeed a more dated RPG from Hit-Point. Yet, a lot of the tropes and common things that you have seen in a bunch of other Kemco RPGs are here, with crafting, quests, and material gathering, along with building your skills up and learning magic. The gameplay loop of Chronus Arc is well-balanced enough that the battles are fun, but the block puzzles can get a bit tiresome after a while, and the fact you’ll have to enter and exit certain dungeons to grind for materials at times can be pretty boring, so it’s not really that engrossing compared to Hit-Point’s newer titles, though I did notice that Chronus was quite a bit tougher than most of the other Kemco RPGs I played, which may be a plus for those who tend to find these games too easy.