Overboard the PS1 game

45. Jitsu Squad - PS4 (2.5hrs)

Reasonably well received modern belt scroller that can't hold a candle to Streets of Rage 4 but doesn't necessarily need to imo.  It certainly adds to the impression that the genre has been successfully resuscitated in recent years.  Just quickly, for a genre once considered beyond the brink of death, in the past 10 years we've had SOR4, TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, Wulverbalde, Fight 'N Rage, Mutant Mayhem, Mother Russia Bleeds, the Slaps & Beans oddities, at least two Asterix efforts, Coffee Crisis, Battletoads, Final Vendetta, River City Girls 1&2 (and a further spin-offs), The Takeover, Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, 99 Vidas, Super Punch Patrol, Viking Squad, Dawn of the Monsters, Streets of Red, Way of the Passive Fist, Raging Justice, Paprium and some faux 8-bit efforts, plus more I'm either forgetting or haven't heard of (and that's without mentioning the 3D visuals/2D gameplay efforts like 9 Monkeys of Shaolin and Young Souls).  Toxic Crusaders is also coming in hot.  Right - your two minutes on genuine golden age belt scrollers starts now. *BUZZER*.  Could you name 30?  Castle Crashers and to a lesser extent Scott Pilgrim Saves the World/Dagon's Crown get an assist, but the majority of the resuretion thanks should go to SOR4 really.  It's a stealth boom and I'm loving it; next time I raise a glass I'll raise it to the humble belt scroller's second wind of rude health. 

This is a good one.  I thought it looked borderline horrific from screenshots but there's plenty of appreciation for it online if you look in the right places (i.e. feedback from people who play and enjoy games like this, rather than people who treat themselves to one per decade or prefer to turn their nose up at TEH OLD FASHIONEDS while playing whatever it is they like).  It turns out it's actually quite a looker, albeit in a style that might be off-putting to some.  8 levels of exquisitely repetitive brawling, 4 playable characters, an XP system for unlocking moves along the way and tunes that occasionally have lyrics sung by the bloke wot did the ghastly metal tracks on some modern Sonics.  If you're in the minority of people who might find that fun it's a mid level [7] for sure, with a point shaved off if you have to pay the full £25 (I nabbed mine for £14.99 on Amazon).  

It's not perfect.  Helper specials felt particularly off as they're just dropped in specific positions - screen clearance moves feel a bit pointless if there's no much leeway to time when you use them.  Grabbing and throwing isn't as meaty as I'd like for crowd control but there's plenty of scope for juggles and combos.  The increasing reply damage on parry moves is a nice touch though (you can build up extra attack power by successfully parrying without taking a hit).  All complaints here are quite minor; it's plenty of fun regardless and would probably go in the upper-mid tier for modern examples of the genre.  

There is one big problem though, and it's ridiculous: there's no drop-in co-op and only one save slot.  So if you start a game solo you have to restart to add more players, and if you start a game in mp you have to wipe your save to play solo.  Great work, numpties.  There is an 'unlock everything' option in the menus, which I assumed would be what I needed to enjoy co-op with Tilly but it doesn't unlock all the stages so you're still locked into the whole one playthrough at a time thing.  Madness.  



46. Tenchi Wo Kuau (Dynasty Wars) - Arcade (40mins)

I cant belt up about belt scrollers and it might be my specialist subject now. I own this glorious book about them and it's probably the only genre I'm always up for playing, hence have the guff I review in this thread looking similar to the screenshot below.  

This is the absolute definition of 'serviceable' for a scrolling beat 'em up, albeit with the curio curveball of mounted horseback gameplay.  The whole thing plays a bit like a one-shot bonus stage stretched put over a full game.  One button attacks to the left of the screen, one attacks to the right, a third is basically the Golden Axe magic button (or SOR squad car, depending on your preference of touchpoint).  You can also charge an attack by holding a button down, which is useful-ish (and makes the character art at the bottom of the screen grimace with concentration the more you charge, which is a nice touch).  The sequel to this is called Warriors of Fate, and unless you're deep mining the genre I'd suggest ignoring this in favour of that (or perhaps playing neither if you're fussy).  It's worth mentioning that the final boss in this is such a bigbadass he's mounted on two horses at once, which got the chef's kiss from me.  I enjoyed myself tbf, but I can't go higher than a [2.5 out of 6] for the sake of consistency.  Not great, passed the time nicely.

Not keen on the phrase reverse Whodunnit. Should have been Youdunnit.

Links to full list of 2022 and 2023 games - here. 

1. Marvel Midnight Suns
This is such a weird game. For those not in the know, it's a party-based turn-based card-based strategy game from the XCOM peeps, that also has a 2nd side to the game where you go full Persona / Fire Emblem: Three Houses social sim and have to manage your relationships in the Superhero Frat House that everyone lives in...



As far as the social side goes, your enjoyment will come down to a question - do you find it naturally funny to have a conversation with Blade (doing yoga) where he bitches about how Ghost Rider wants to pet your dog but is to much of a little bitch to ask you himself? If yes, you'll like the social side of this game...probably. 

For me, I can see there's a decent social sim here. And there's a pretty excellent tactics game too (eventually, once it opens up). But good god...everything in the middle!

The game is slow to get going, and so much of the main questline non-social dialogue is absolutely dour. And the animations...i fucking loathe the animations. There's so many of them. Opening a coil (a crate of cards to pick from) after a mission, watch this animation. End of turn? Reinforcements coming. Gotta watch this animation every. single. time. Oh, do you want to go to sleep? 3 animations for you (sitting down, establishing shot of the morning area, and a standing up animation) with a loading screen in the middle!

The character designs are ugly, and the music is forgettable, and most of the resource grind is utterly pointless and serves no real purpose other than to slow you down. There's some real good stuff, but the binding holding it all together is absolutely rotten.



Which is sad, because the game is so fun. This is not one of those things where it kinda averages out - the stuff that annoys me will annoy me forever, repeatedly, constantly. But the missions themselves feel so good (until your turn ends, or until you do anything, or until...well, until anything happens that means you have to watch another unskippable animation for the millionth time). 

I would devour a sequel to this, in all likelihood, but it seems that will never happen. There's a genuine 8 or 9 out of 10 game in here. But...as it is there are too many issues that make the overall experience miserable. Shame. [6]

2. Overboard!
I quite like inkle games, and I know several other members here do too. And, Overboard! is an inkle game, albeit slightly different from the likes of 80 Days and Sorcery.



In Overboard! you play a women who was very recently widowed. In fact, you just chucked your husband off the side of a boat last night. The game then becomes about avoiding suspicion and getting away with murder.

Unlike Sorcery or 80 Days, there's no randomness here - where a choice in 80 Days could go either way, and it was about adapting and making a new story for yourself with trials and tribulations, Overboard! is about learning locations, systems, timings. 

NPCs move around the ship at different times of day, different clues will throw suspicion onto or off of you. The first time you play, you'll likely get arrested, and then you'll replay with some foreknowledge. You'll clean up your mistakes. Suddenly, you find yourself getting off scot-free but then the question becomes about whether it could have gone even better. Is there a way you could have used this all to your advantage? After all, you got away with murder, but you don't get a life insurance payout when it looks like a suicide...



It's got a playfully sharp tone underneath it all - a boat of gossips, gamblers, cheaters, alcoholics and dreamers. Playthroughs are quick, 20-30 minutes can see a complete "run" and the game is built for trying new paths and possibilities. 

Is it as good as their best work? No. But I enjoyed it from opening narration to end, and will likely go back and try to see what other outcomes there are (the achievements hint at some frankly delicious possibilities). Plus, the opening narration is done by none other than Amelia Tyler aka the Baldur's Gate 3 narrator. [8]

3. Lunistice
A N64-ified 3D platforming throwback, this sits somewhere between an N64 platformer, Crash Bandicoot and a Sonic Adventure game. 



There's collectibles aplenty, but levels are somewhat linear, often with little side-paths that branch off and reveal extra items, then loop back onto the main path. There's lots of floating platforms, bounce pads in various guises, rails to grind and yeah...you know the drill.

I had a good time with this - each world has 2 stages and you can mainline through it pretty quick, if you're not looking to get all the secrets and the highest score. And that's kinda how I played it - after trying to get as much as i could in early levels, I realised it felt most fun when you exploit the movement system to hop and skip past enemies, across gaps and through checkpoints - turning each level into a little speedrun. 



That 2 stages per world thing is important too, as when discussing any kind platformer nowadays, you basically have to decide what you prefer out of 2 competing philosophies:

1. The Mario Odyssey philosophy - add a new mechanic, make it light and playful, throw it away and don't re-use it
2. The Rayman philosophy - add a new mechanic, mix it up, test the player and challenge them in a remixed setup with extra complications, throw it away

It's freshness versus challenge, keeping things moving and feeling easy versus making the player feel like they have mastery of something. I prefer the 2nd philosophy, and that's actually how Lunistice is structured, with each Stage 2 acting as a harder, remixed version of the previous stage's mechanics - the highlight being a fantastic food-themed world with platforms that come and go to a musical beat. Honestly, i enjoyed it so much more than Mario Odyssey's utterly awful (mechanically and visually) Luncheon Kingdom. 

So, best game ever? Naw. It's fun, and slight, and fast and fun and...that's it. A solid game, which offers optional challenge without making you play for dozens of hours to get it, doesn't waste your time, feels good to control and does most things well.

There are some flaws - it suffers a bit from those early 3D issues of not knowing where a jump will land, and a few sections are straight up trial and error, but the game is forgiving and there's no game over from what i can tell. You respawn instantly, you try again. That worked for me. [7]

__________________________________


Games number 4 and 5 will most likely be Supermarket Shriek and New Kiryu punch punch Singstar, both of which I have been playing recently. 



Next / The To-Play List:
Growing my Grandpa
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty 
The Forest Quartet 
Spare Parts: Episode 1 & 2 
Unpacking
NUTS
Super is Hot
Neurocracy
Evolution
Slasher U
Cannelé & Nomnom - Defective Agency
Prodigal
Scanner Sombre
Recursed
Kine
Vomitoreum
Moonring
Omen Exito: Plague
Marco & The Galaxy Dragon
Total War: Warhammer II
Inquisitor
Kiryu's Karaoke Sim featuring Punching with No Name
Alan Wake 2
Save me Mr Tako: Definitive Edition
Smushi Come Home
Sticky Business
Railbound
A Procession to Calvary 
The House in Fata Morgana (still going with this one...)

Ah, Midnight Suns. I got that in the recent sale. Looking forward to it, hopefully will enjoy it.

Got it in the current humble choice, looking forward to a dabble at some point

There's Hogwarts on a marvel game??

The X-Men Mansion type situation?

Yeah it all felt very Hogwartsy - sorry for getting you excited Muzzy.

There is a bit too much fluff in MS, or MMS, and yes, those bastard animations, but I really dug it. The turn-based tactics were tight and I always looked forward to book club night with Blade and Captain Marvel.

Completed Dead Space remake, in about 18 hours. Very mid game. 5 or 6 out of 10.
The character controls poorly, the storytelling is neither interesting in what it's telling or how it's told, changing weapons in the menu is tediously slow. Graphically nice but nothing on par with Resi 4.
The performance is bad frame drops and resolution drops are obviously in later parts of the game and that's on a VRR display. Weapons felt better in original. At least the early ones.
Locations are samey and the geography is sometimes hard to navigate, menus are slow and the way point system requires you to stop and stand still. Just many frustrations.
Worst is the enemies, some are fun to fight against, a few are unfair cheese but the amount of off screen attacks and little indicators to suggest where they are and poor sound design means you dont know where they spawned in.
I'm convinced the game teleports enemies behind you
It's competent but nothing special.

I might try it just to disagree with Muzzy.

There's some sort of correlation to The Witness in my head because I keep thinking 'if I play one of them it should really be The Witness'.

I played a couple of hours of The Witness. A definite 'I wish I liked it' game.

Pretty sure Heave Ho was the last game I finished about this time last year, even got the missus playing. Great game.

To clarify, moot thought Jusant was better than Alan Wake 2?

Some people are beyond help