Grazza Posted May 23, 2019 Posted May 23, 2019 Gato Roboto caught my eye earlier on the eShop - so nice to see a clear visual style - and now I've seen the video, it actually looks like a brilliant game too! 1
S.C.G Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 (edited) Another days passes, another Indie title gets a release date. Warlocks 2: Godslayers is coming to the Switch eShop on 7th of June. Edited May 28, 2019 by S.C.G
S.C.G Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 (edited) Another space shooter type game, I swear we get a new one every week or so. Red Siren: Space Defense is out on the eShop on 4th of June. - - - - - The surreal fantasy adventure Another Sight is coming to the Switch later this year. Worth checking out the trailer in the article on the main page, could be a title to watch for later on in the year. Edited May 28, 2019 by S.C.G 1
MindFreak Posted May 28, 2019 Posted May 28, 2019 (edited) Crystal Crisis embargo has been lifted. I have it a 5/10 because I couldn't cope with the fact that I never felt in control of the game like I do with Tetris and Puyo Puyo, but many other reviewers seem to like the game with dealing it about 7-8 of 10. What I mean is that you can't pop your crystals when you want to because you need som randomly generated spark crystals to do so, while in Tetris you can almost always remove a line and use your skills to remove the lines, and the same in Puyo Puyo. This frustrated me in CC. Then Timed Crystals thrown by your opponent cannot be used for a few rounds and this can make it impossible to recover even if you get the Crystals you need. Furthermore, the crossover is totally needless and only used as a skin. Peel that off, and you have what is essentially a mobile game priced at 40 euros. Edit: sorry, perhaps it's 30 euros. Edited May 28, 2019 by MindFreak 1
Hero-of-Time Posted May 29, 2019 Posted May 29, 2019 This is pretty well regarded game, if a little unknown. Last year Colin on Sacred Symbols had it in his top games of the year and spoke very highly of it.
S.C.G Posted May 29, 2019 Posted May 29, 2019 Good shout on that one Hero posted on the main page. There's also an explanation in there from the developer on why the 3DS version was cancelled. (technical reasons) But still... it's really good to hear that this is coming to the Switch, obviously I feel bad for anyone who backed it and chose the 3DS version. It looks to be an impressive title for what it is though regardless of which platform you choose to play it on. 2
Hero-of-Time Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 Looks like a Japanese Indie Direct is on the way. It starts at 5pm JST, which I think means a 9am start for us. We could get a few surprises or a better look at some of the already announced indie games that are heading to the Switch. 1
Ganepark32 Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 Timespinner is a great little game. Played it last year on the PS4 (and it's a relatively easy platinum trophy for those interested though there is one bit that relies on chance encounter of the right boss but you can always quit and reload in the hopes of getting the right boss and the right drop from it) and really enjoyed it. It's a simple metroidvania title with some good ideas and I felt like I was playing one of the DS Castlevania titles (was it Order of Ecclesia where you had weapons/magic assigned to two different buttons and could mix and match for combo attacks?). It's not the longest game as I managed a second playthrough to wrap up trophies in a couple of hours but it's well worth a go. 1
Hero-of-Time Posted May 30, 2019 Posted May 30, 2019 4 minutes ago, Ganepark32 said: Timespinner is a great little game. Played it last year on the PS4 (and it's a relatively easy platinum trophy for those interested though there is one bit that relies on chance encounter of the right boss but you can always quit and reload in the hopes of getting the right boss and the right drop from it) and really enjoyed it. It's a simple metroidvania title with some good ideas and I felt like I was playing one of the DS Castlevania titles (was it Order of Ecclesia where you had weapons/magic assigned to two different buttons and could mix and match for combo attacks?). It's not the longest game as I managed a second playthrough to wrap up trophies in a couple of hours but it's well worth a go. I bought it earlier in the year when it was on sale on PSN but i've yet to play it. You saying it's a pretty short game has me thinking I may fire it up sooner rather than later.
RedShell Posted May 31, 2019 Posted May 31, 2019 So Cadence of Hyrule and My Friend Pedro are both releasing in June?! Damn, they'll probably be staying on the watch list for a while then... I'd somehow not seen that art game before (despite it having been available for some time now), looks cool though. Another one for the watch list.
S.C.G Posted May 31, 2019 Posted May 31, 2019 And it's on the front page. I just went with a brief summary, grabbed a list of what was shown, and re-ordered it to what's relevant for over here on the releases. Then a link to the video and I also posted a handful of videos of titles we either haven't seen before or that are still anticipated. Good to know that Cadence of Hyrule is still set for a June release. 1 2
S.C.G Posted May 31, 2019 Posted May 31, 2019 Paper Bugs anyone? In the absence of any Paper Mario sequel or remaster of the first two games, I'd probably go for Bug Fables as it certainly catches the essence of the series. It looks good anyway and well worth checking out the trailer in the article, it started out as an Indiegogo funded title and consoles versions were announced at Bit Summit. One to watch either way. 1
Glen-i Posted June 1, 2019 Posted June 1, 2019 Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons It's a N-Europe review by some bloke who doesn't even have a brother! 4
Hero-of-Time Posted June 2, 2019 Posted June 2, 2019 I snapped up Gato Roboto this morning and pretty much finished it in a single sitting. Spoiler I'm not a cat person. Heck, I'm not a fan of pets in general. I've never seen the point of them. So when a developer tries to sell their game by shoving an animal in it in order to create some kind of cute factor, it has very little effect on me. I'm also not a huge fan of the Metroidvania genre. Saying that, I have started to like more and more of these types of games as the years have gone by but I do find that it is a genre that has become very over saturated in the indie market. On paper then I really shouldn't like this game at all. Is that the case? Lets find out! The game starts off with a space pilot named Gary. He is talking to his superior officer via a video call about a nearby planet he is going to investigate. Before the conversation is over, his pet cat (Kiki) steps on the control panel and the ship ends up crash landing. This proves that no good can come by having a pet cat! With the ship crashed, Gary is pinned inside of it and it's up to Kiki to carry out his mission. He informs Kiki that there should be some kind of mech suit nearby and that he will guide her where to go using a communicator that's inside her collar. Like a lot of these games, you start off with very little. You are just a small cat that's all alone on a hostile planet and with no way to attack. All you can do at the start is run and jump. The jump move is pretty neat though. If you were to jump near a wall then Kiki will start to scramble up it. Continuing to press the jump button will keep up the momentum and allow Kiki to climb the highest ledges. It's very reminiscent of the wall running mechanic seen in Super Mario 3D World on the Wii U and it's still just as fun to use here. Find all of the hidden items to unleash the potential of the mechsuit...saying that, Kiki looks pretty happy with it the way it is. Not long after you have crashed on the planet you soon comes across the mechanical suit that Gary mentioned to you. This acts very much like the Power Suit in the Metroid games. You can now fire projectiles at enemies, jump higher and take a lot more damage. However, it does have limitations. For example, you can't swim while in the suit. If you were to try and enter water while inside the suit you would take damage. To get around this you have to hop out of the suit and play as Kiki on her own. The feature of jumping in and out of the suit adds another layer to the adventure. Swapping between the two modes makes for some interesting puzzles and you'll find you will be doing this quite a bit while you are searching various areas. This has it's own draw backs though because you can no longer take damage. In fact, a single hit will kill Kiki and you will be sent back to your last save point. Speaking of save points, These are made to look like the old floppy disc format. I'll admit the game did get a smile out of me when I seen this and those who are old enough to remember the format will no doubt get a rush of nostalgia upon seeing them. It certainly had me thinking back to my youth and playing on my Amiga 600. Happy days! Who else is an old git and remembers using these for home gaming? Anyway, early on you will get the missile weapon power up. This will allow your suit to fire out powerful missiles (obviously) that can help break through various bits of scenery, which will in turn usually lead to hidden paths or upgrade items. If you've played a Metroid game before then you know how powerful such a weapon can be but also that you need to manage the rate at which you fire them, especially early one when you missiles are in short supply. This isn't really the case here. There is a meter at the left hand side of the screen that rises every time you fire a missile. Shoot too fast and your gun will overheat, meaning you will have to wait a while for it to cooldown before you can use it again. It's not a huge issue and later on in the game you can get an upgrade that allows you to fire more before the gun overheats. If you carefully manage the rate of fire then you can use this gun instead of your main blaster. I found that's what I was doing a lot of the time . Once the mech suit and missile power up have been unlocked, the main game really starts to take shape and you get a good idea of what your mission is and where you will be heading. The main hub area has a huge elevator that needs unlocking. To do this you must travel to 3 different areas within the game world and complete 3 different tasks. You must empty the aqueducts, unclog the ventilation system and cool the heater core. Only when these tasks are complete will you be able to access the final part of the game. It sounds like a quite simple thing to do but each of the 3 areas are quite large and will require you to navigate various terrains and enemies and power up your suit in order to progress further. Shades of Super Meow-rio Land right here! There are a number of power ups and collectibles to find. There are 10 health upgrades and 14 cartridge hidden throughout the game. The health pick ups do what they normally do - increase your health, but the cartridges have two functions. The first of which is to change the colour of the filter that the game is being played in. While it's a nice little feature it's one I didn't really bother using much. The second thing the cartridges do is help power up some of your weapons. You can trade the cartridges in to a NPC and it will give you upgrades depending on how many you have found. Like the health upgrades, these are completely optional but are definitely worth looking for and they come in really useful during boss fights. Other items, such as the double jump and phasing technique are needed to progress through the game and as such you'll end up picking them up during the natural course of play. As you can see by the screenshots, the game doesn't really go for visual flair. Instead, Doinksoft have went for a minimalist approach and everything is in black and white. It works well with the game and with it not being a graphically intensive bit of software, it does mean that everything runs buttery smooth. However, as I mentioned earlier, if you do want to liven up the picture a bit then you can give it a splash of colour using any of the cartridges that you may have found. How do you like the Meow-trix filter? I do have one niggle with the game though. The first is that the regular enemies in the game don't really offer anything of value. In most games like these the enemies will drop health and ammo pickups but this isn't the case with this game. Health can only be replenished when the game saves and ammo isn't needed because you have an infinite supply of it. Once you realise this it means that there is no real need to actually engage with the enemy. Just running and jumping over them becomes a much more viable strategy for a lot of encounters. The game does sometimes force the encounters on you though. There are times where you will be trapped in a room Devil May Cry style and it will not open until the enemies have been eliminated. It's not a huge negative but I thought it was worth pointing out. There are already a bundle of these types of games on the Switch and a lot of them are highly rated. Things like Hollow Knight, The Messenger and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, Steam World 2 are games that share the Metroid DNA, so why should you snap this up? For starters, the game is, at least at the time of writing, priced at just over £6. A cheap price for a new release. The game is also pretty short. I managed to clock it 100% in just over 3 hours. Yes, some may point this as a negative, but there are people out there who don't have the time to sink 30 hours into a game and would instead enjoy a more focused, shorter and tighter experience. The game certainly offers that. Conclusion Has this game made me a fan of cats? Not at all. But it has made me once again think about how much I do enjoy these types of games when it isn't Nintendo making them. Things like the Shantae series, Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, Guacamelle and now this are all indie games that take this genre and make it more appealing to me than most ( not all ) of the Metroid games. If you are looking for a Metroidvania type game and would like to actually see the end of it, then this game is certainly for you. Will it challenge you? Not really but it will offer a fun experience to those who are willing to give it a try. This is another indie game that Devolver Digital thought was good enough for them to have under their label and publish and it was a wise choice to do so. 4 5
S.C.G Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Dead Dungeon is coming to the Switch eShop on 14 June 2019. Looks a lot like Super Meat Boy in its style of gameplay and it seems to have been released on PC a few months ago. Check out the trailer in the article if you're curious about it.
S.C.G Posted June 3, 2019 Posted June 3, 2019 Gato Roboto Review written by @Hero-of-Time Thank you on behalf of N-Europe. And thank you to @RedShell for the graphics. 3 2
S.C.G Posted June 4, 2019 Posted June 4, 2019 Quite the selection of titles today... Even the Ocean a narrative-driven platformer coming in 2019. Blasphemous is a Metroidvania hack'n slash affair also coming in 2019. Vampire: The Masquerade - Coteries of New York seems to be a visual novel gateway into the table-top game due out in Q4 2019. 1 1
MindFreak Posted June 4, 2019 Posted June 4, 2019 Blasphemous looks crazy. Not sure that it's in a good way... And what a silly hat. 1
Sméagol Posted June 4, 2019 Posted June 4, 2019 (edited) That's why I dismissed it initally, but it looks better in motion, and I suspect the gameplay will be to my liking. Despite the hat. Edit: I also have an interest in the Vampire game. Seems to be a Telltale-esque take on that universe. I still need to buy Bloodlines on Steam at some point. Edited June 4, 2019 by Sméagol 1
S.C.G Posted June 5, 2019 Posted June 5, 2019 An interesting physics-based platformer called Deleveled is coming to the Switch later this year. Well worth checking out the trailer in the article.
S.C.G Posted June 5, 2019 Posted June 5, 2019 Dandy Dungeon is the next game from Onion Games, coming out later this month. It looks like quite the wacky "fantasy" RPG and after viewing the trailer I can't help but wonder if @RedShell might be interested in it too. I know I'm intruiged by it at the very least. (it also reminds me that I've got to get back to playing Black Bird) 1
RedShell Posted June 5, 2019 Posted June 5, 2019 49 minutes ago, S.C.G said: Dandy Dungeon is the next game from Onion Games, coming out later this month. It looks like quite the wacky "fantasy" RPG and after viewing the trailer I can't help but wonder if @RedShell might be interested in it too. I know I'm intruiged by it at the very least. (it also reminds me that I've got to get back to playing Black Bird) You know me so well. Yep, I watched the trailer for this the other day when browsing the eShop and yeah, it went on the watch list soon after. 1
S.C.G Posted June 6, 2019 Posted June 6, 2019 Super Skelemania come to the Switch... ...and it's available, right now! It's desribed as a single sitting Metroidvania, so it's perfect to pick up and play it would seem. Check out the trailer in the article.
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