Death’s Door?

Ah no. Just seen your post elsewhere.

71. The First Samurai - SNES (70mins?)

Serviceable hack 'n slash platformer that would've just about passed muster on the Amiga in '91 but must've been shuffling its feet a bit on SNES in '93.  It does some MODE 7 stuff here and there, which I presume was added to the port, and the so-bad-it's-good sampled speech remains, but it's miles behind the standards set by, say, Actraiser or Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.  The levels insist that you collect certain items scattered around the stage to unlock passage to the boss, and the warp pots make it slightly different to most similar games.  Many of these items are hidden in places that require a magic spell to be cast in a certain spot, and even following a Youtube walkthrough I was scratching my head with half of them.  Plenty of the solutions just seemed like a bit of a stretch.  At the time I presume it was lauded for trying something a little different, but in hindsight the format is a massive ballache and drains the fun out of the whole thing.  And being honest it wouldn't be much cop as a straight left to right jobbie.  It gives you an energy bar - and a second one tucked behind the first, interestingly - where you lose your [on no, my] sword and have to rely on fists.  'Interesting' doesn't always equate to good though, and that's kind of annoying too, so I mostly pushed through spamming save states without allowing myself to get hit much.  As was often the case with energy bar games as opposed to one hit pops types, it lacks any real finesse and you'll find things chipping away at your health in a multitude of annoying ways.  The bosses are particularly bothersome as the controls aren't really tight enough to put a plan into practice without energy sapping trade-offs, so even expert runs on Youtube seem to consist of a standoffish approach to guardians followed by a Leeroy spam attack once they've taken a few measured hits.  The plot is nonsense, so it gains a few percent, but it's not something I could recommend to anyone these days.  56%.

22: Grid 2019 (PC) 7/10

This was mostly a game I played whilst listening to internet shit and laying in bed, trying to keep the bitter winter weather at bay.  On one hand it might not be fair to rate a game when you're only semi paying attention to it.  On the other there's no way I would have finished it otherwise.

There's plenty of good stuff.  Really nice looking game.  Car games have looked good for a long time but there's a lot of detail here.  Cars can get really scuffed and smashed up, there's some nice lighting and weather (stuff in the rain looks top.  I think rain and puddles on tracks is the big boy show off thing for racing games atm).  Even the spectators look good.  The tracks look pretty good for a realistic game; they don't have the cool arcade stuff (events like coming over a hill just as a jet flies past low) but there's some nice looking stages.  I like the shedding cherry blossoms on the Japan stage especially.

The cars feel quite grippy and do what they're told.  Look I don't know much about driving but they seem fine, if not all that fast.  Also it has the rewind feature which is handy for when you're barely paying attention to the game.

The single player stuff is a bit dry though.  There's a massive amount of championships (1-4 races) with a rotation of car and track combinations.  To me there didn't feel like any progression; one championship is much the same as another.  It didn't feel like anything was leading to anything else.  So, not much excitement and I doubt I'll remember anything about this in a couple of months.

Errr Steam Deck?

I’m on me hols at the moment and I’m increasingly under the impression that the Switch is getting on a little too much for some of the larger scale indies. There’s a couple I’ve stopped playing that I’ll now wait until I get back and play on GP or PS instead. I could put up with the poor screen, pins and needles and hand cramps for games that worked but everything about the system is starting to feel a little too compromised to me now.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

It's a maybe.  It looks like something that might place 8th on a 'best cheap handheld emulators of the year' list though.  Why do the buttons sit so close to the top right of the unit?  Plus non console gaming is uncharted waters for me.

So I’ve had a bit of a think about this. Initially I was dubious but the more videos I see the more it makes sense. With it being a weighty machine you want your hands high up so it rests down your wrists. Button placement initially looked too far out but in relation to the sticks it seems to make sense.

As for PC as long as you stay in the Steam store, which will limit some of your choices, at least initially, then it should be a pretty console-like experience.

The good thing is you’ve got at least a year before you could get your hand on one anyway as they are preordered to the hilt.

72. 9 Monkeys of Shaolin - Switch (3-4hrs)

Scrolling beat 'em up that pretended to be legit with its arm-chancing £24.99 RRP.  I nabbed it when it dropped to £4ish in a flash sale when I was sulking about the SOR4 DLC delay, but having played the demo on Bone a year or two back I knew not to expect too much.  The genre is a comfortable pair of slippers for me, and the monotony of trudging from left to right has never really lost its appeal. One man's comfortable slippers are another man's...[uncomfortable clogs] though.  Or woman's ofc, don't want to put my foot in it here.  Even I wouldn't put the bins out wearing these though, as they'd scream 1999 so loudly they'd probably have 'Morpheus is fighting Neo!' emblazoned on the side.  The problem is, this isn't a game from the previous millennium, it just does an incredibly authentic job of pretending to be one.  Warts and all, as they say.  Given that this is a 3D effort rather than traditional 2D sprites affair it's a bit more whiff whaffy than I'd like, which occasionally brings to mind genre missteps such as Jedi Power Battles and Fighting Force.  There are sections where you need to somersault over gaps which feel tacky and outdated for example, but the basic brawling is actually kinda fun, thanks in no small part to the satisfying wet-fish-on-watermelon thwack! of a heavy blow landing.  The weak, heavy, distance attack, dodge and parry stuff is actually pretty rhythmic, and once you're in the zone it's - surprisingly - not a bad brawler at all.  In terms of quality it's probably around the Die Hard Arcade/Zombie Revenge level, which is to say pretty good for the time, but, y'know, Streets of Rage 4.  

Having revisited it earlier in the year I decided Scott Pilgrim Vs the World is all style and very little substance, but this is very little style with a medium-sized dollop of substance, so I'm gonna go with the same score I gave Scott: [6].  And then take a point off for anyone planning to play solo.  If you like this sort of thing you won't expect too much going in, and I reckon there's £4s worth of fun here for deep divers of the genre.  Better than Coffee Crisis, Super Punch Patrol and Slaps & Beans but on par with Fight 'N Rage, Scott Pilgrim and Ninja Saviors, which places it in the tier below the tier below SOR4 (for the record, the second tier contains Battletoads*, Wulverblade and Mother Russia Bleeds).   



*Dodgy bits aside the scrolling beat 'em up sections are strong imo.

SOR4 is above Mother Russia Bleeds on my convoluted tier scale, it's pretty much untouchable. Russia was superb though.

It's a scale that would stand up to mid-level scrutiny if I edited at least two of my previous review scores.

Thanks.

73. Streets of Rage 4 - Switch (2hrs)

Played through in 3p couch co-op this evening. Majestic, says the Matt Clay man. [10]

Busy doing fuck all this morning, family are the caravan until tonight so it's been hangover, game and snooze time.  

74. Ape Out - Switch (2hrs)

Second playthrough for this one, planned to give it a quick go yesterday but ended up getting sucked in.  If I had to give an answer to the question 'what's the most stylish game of all time?', right now I think I'd go for this.  Everything about the way it looks and sounds is fantastic, from the menu screens to the level titles to the death screen - surely the best ever? - to the syncopated jazz percussion that takes cues from your actions; it's all absolutely legit.  Unlike other artifice merchants (*cough*, Sayonara Wild Hearts) the gameplay loop is rewarding and moreish too - it's a two button arcade stormer at heart, and given that it's precisely the right length and difficulty I'm going to upgrade 2019's [8] to a [9].  Brilliant game.



75. Telling Lies - Switch (4hrs-ish)

Went back in to finish this off.  I'd tried to play it with the wife twice, first session went well enough but she played more solitaire on the second attempt iirc, and we both drifted away.  I think we both wanted to like it but were reluctant to admit that boredom had set it, so it was indefinitely shelved until I asked if I could go solo this morning (cue a terrible attempt to pretend she was enjoying it followed by a resounding yes).  It's an interesting game for sure with some genuinely nice touches, but it wasn't for me really.  I found the story itself a bit of a cheek puff, so given that it's not something I'd particularly enjoy watching as a film it was quite tedious to piece it all together, despite liking certain aspects of the file hunting set-up.  No score for this one as I'd probably be too mean, but I'd be willing to bet I'd get more enjoyment out of the infamously bad FMV game where you play as a deaf guy.

[8]

23: Skyward Sword (Switch) 8/10

This was mostly played on a gamepad, it MOSTLY worked but got a little too convoluted at times.  

It doesn't take TOO long to get used to holding down L1 and using the right stick to look around.  But having to let go of L1 to start swinging your sword is tricky.  Especially if you need to adjust the camera during a fight.  Worst is that your items all use the right stick in a different way.  So, for many battles, you'll need to swing your sword, adjust the camera and use an item.  That's 3 separate uses of the right stick in a matter of seconds.  It does your head in.  Simple fights end up being the hardest bits of the game!

On the other hand, some fights that seem like they'd be tricky with motion controls are now a pushover.  Flicking the right stick can be done more quickly and accurately than a waggle.  There's a nasty boss who keeps showing up and is supposed to be tough.  Link keeps wiping the floor with him.  Every time he comes back at you, shit talking and whatnot, you can't take him seriously.  

So while I appreciate that you don't need motion controls to play the game, it does come at the cost of making the difficulty go all over the place.  Hard bits can be easy, easy bits can be hard.

It'd probably need to be significantly re tweaked to be a properly great game on a gamepad; lose the 8 direction swordfighting completely and re think the fights based around normal 3rd person action games.   I'm not sure there was any motion control thingy in the game that would hurt the game if it wasn't there, and was replaced with a button press or whatever.  The graphics hold up really nicely though, it doesn't need a full remake in that regard.  Some of the environments are a bit plain and could do with a little more detail, but there's some truly beautiful stuff too.  The Master Sword is badass.  Zelda herself probably has her best design.  The final boss got a nod of approval from me.  

Beyond that it's a really well laid out game.  Reviews said they're glad the game is back so more people can appreciate its dungeons and I agree.  They're great.  Seem to be scaled perfectly to my (limited) puzzle solving skills.  I reckon every dungeon I got stumped for a little while, but never too long.  Just long enough to make me feel smart when I figured them out without looking them up.  There's a load of variety and ideas.  It does show its age somewhat, like a I reckon a game from the last 5 years would've given your bird more to do.  His sections feel disjointed from the rest of the game.  Maybe more could be done there.

There's a lot of game (took me 40-50 hours) but it's almost always clear what you're supposed to be doing (there IS a couple of 'hmm maybe we should talk to someone in Skyloft...' kind of bits.  I'm too old for this shit, just tell me where to go!  I can't be arsed checking houses and inns and talking to people!  It doesn't happen often though).  And over those hours, there are only 2 genuinely shitty bits.  We were talking about these kinds of levels in this very thread earlier in the year - The forced stealth level and the escort mission!  The colour drained from my face when I realised what was happening.  Zelda should be above this rubbish!  Oh well, 2 hours out of 40 isn't so bad.

Not a bad game overall, I guess you get used to putting up with dodgy controls after a while even if they don't ever become second nature.  Won't play motion controls or this version again but would check out a more thorough remake in a decade or whatever if that ever happens.