It does seem to be, for some.  I got what I was expecting and what I wanted though, so satisfaction levels were sky high (although there are few kinks that could be ironed in patches for sure).  It's a new version of the old Turtles template - better than any of the old games to boot - and they were always a different kettle of fish to SOR.  I'll dip in for local/online co-op now and then, and it'll be great.

I beat Turtles 4-player co op story last night. It’s ok when you chat shit and have a laugh but that’s more the company than the game. It’s probably a 6 for me, maybe 5. SoR4 was a 6, but in hindsight now should probably be a 7.

SOR4 is the genre goat and unless the same team create a sequel probably always will be. I look at Shredder's Revenge like Sonic Mania - a bang on update of game series that doesn't quite have full clout as a modern title unless you already love it.

SOR4 dlc is among the best I've played. Huge VFM if you already love the base game.

That's all I needed to hear, cheers.

hylian_elf wrote:

SoR4 was a 6, but in hindsight now should probably be a 7.

Starting to think that Muzzy might have a point about Elf.

You misspelled “worse taste”.

89. Battle Axe - Switch (2hrs)

I've been umming and ahing over this for well over a year now.  The majorty of reviews aren't overly positive and the pricepoint is approaching ridiculous for what it is.  Whatever your opinions on value I'm pretty sure most would agree that a non-roguelike four stage top down shooter (with a successful run time of around 25 minutes) shouldn't weigh in at £24.99.  For some reason I knew I was powerless to resist buying this eventually, and ended up grabbing it at 50% off yesterday (paydaydance.gif).  It's probably because I'm an elderly graphics whore at heart.  I might not care much about Ray Tracing's 4K scratch 'n sniff reflective wheel nuts, but if a game would've made me drool in 1995 for some reason I'm still a bit of a floozy.  This looked wonderful in trailers and the full game is a thing of divine beauty.  Imagine an ST-V powered arcade cabinet from the mid-90s that doubled down on the 2D sprite flexing capabilities of the architecture rather than blootering down the texture mapped polygons route.  It's easily one of the nicest looking pixel art games I've ever seen.  

Of everything I've played in the past few years I think general opinions on the game itself would vary more than pretty much anything else.  I'd enjoy reading a glowing [8], and would happily find places to nod along with the reviewer, but at the same time I'd understand the thought process behind an exasperated [3].  Whereas something like Xeno Crisis took a small smattering of modern design sensibilities and used them to enhance a peak (pretend) 16-bit package, this aims to be little more than an arcade cabinet from the same era.  Remember how games were often enhanced for their home ports?  Even Golden Axe received an extra stage.  This doesn't bother - it's basically a nu retro coin-op, over in the blink of an eye if you know what you're doing.  I've not played many Neo Geo games but I'd imagine this is what a lot of them were like.  If so, ignore my Saturn/Megadrive touchpoints - it could well be an attempt to mimic the sort of overpriced carts kids lied about owning 30 years ago.

It plays a bit like The Chaos Engine.  There are a small handful of recurring enemy types to dispatch per stage, with some bases to destroy to open gates for progression.  You get three lives to complete the whole thing, with zero scope for earning extra credits and no save states.  Fail and it's good/bad old fashioned Game Over stuff.  Stage layouts are fixed, with the only randomised element I spotted being the contents of the chests (which can really affect any attempted playthrough as gems and bombs are useless, while potions and coins are useful, with chicken and scrolls sitting somewhere in between).  You can shoot in eight directions, dash/teleport - depending on character, which is on a short cooldown - and perform a melee attack.  In a bizarre design choice there's no dedicated button for strafing, forcing you to hold one of the face buttons to lock the direction your character faces, all of which are already used for something else.  There's no config options either, so you're stuck with it - as you would be in a four button arcade cab, I guess.  Which means you'll be forced to melee to direction lock, for example.  The main sprite is chunky and takes up a fair amount of the screen: Monkeys be warned.  The druid and [whatever class the female character is] didn't feel too useful on a solo play, so I stuck to Rooney, his beard, and his baffling shoulder canon (which he totes on his left shoulder....unless he's facing left, when it suddenly snaps to his right - annoying as the projectiles are slightly offset from straight ahead, so you have to adjust your tactics due to an animation oversight).  Each stage contains a number of captured villagers to rescue, which don't seem to do much other than add to your score.  Speaking of which, although the game feels ultra-slight initially the score chasing element is pretty good.  There's a rudimentary chaining system in play and stages are graded on kills/speed etc.  The leaderboards are local only, which smacks of laziness to me, but the score challenge is still the big reason to revisit.  Every time I failed I improved a little on my next attempt, until I eventually twatted the final boss with a slither of health remaining.  Pure joy.  

I can't pretend I didn't love it, so despite its faults it's a [7] for me, but YMMV (a acronym I latched onto about a year ago and decided to wear out) has never been so true.  Some players would absolutely despise this - would love to hear Elf's take, for example.  Co-op mode is great, the tunes are fantastic, the slightly Toast-like sampled speech is amazing and overall, despite how odd it is compared to most modern retro efforts (which aim to be ultimate form versions of their inspiration) I had a great time.  I just don't think I'd recommend it to anyone other than retroking and perhaps @Eric.  It's from the team that made the recent Final Vendetta*, who do seem to have a knack for releasing modern games that could genuinely pass for old ones, warts & all.  A proper curio.  





*and Xeno Crisis apparently, which I didn't realise when I mentioned it further up the page.

It's not massively frustrating, just a bit old fashioned. If it saved progress it would've been over in about 40mins. Easy mode took a fair few goes, and once that's done you're probably ready for hard mode (the next step up) as it's not much different really. Health doesn't regenerate between stages and everything takes a couple of extra hits, otherwise it's identical. 75% off is about right I reckon

Pocky and Rocky is on the watchlist but it launched at a price I wasn't expecting.  Hopefully Norco gets a console port soon.

90. HOA - Switch (2hrs)

40% off at the mo, I've been waiting a while for this.  Tilly & I played through in two sessions over the weekend and it's a nice little game.  I was expecting something a little bit light world Limbo coupled with a less mopey Gris, perhaps with some Ori vibes, and that's pretty much what we got.  The hand-drawn art style is a delight and the 3D models that populate the areas blend in nicely.  Puzzles are as gentle as it gets, but unlike some games that plod down the well-trodden side-scrolling lite puzzle trail it plays quite nicely when it tasks you with actual platforming.  Dangling and swinging on hanging plants feels good and none of the jumping sections outstay their welcome (or irritate too much if you fall off).  Abilities are drip fed and do enough to mix things up over the course of the adventure, which only lasts about as long as your average non-spandex whizbang film.  

It doesn't do quite enough to stand out from the crowd (Inside and MO: Astray are a few levels above this imo, Gris probably shades it too), and it's hard to be overly enthusiastic about something that's 'lovely' rather than genuinely great, but we had a good time and I'd recommend it for £8.  Tilly enjoyed it, and we were both a little surprised by a late game occurrence.  The final stage is a departure from the rest of the journey and probably added a point.  [7]

Please play Toby: The Secret Mine.

Had Norco downloaded for a while sounds good will give it a go.

nick_md wrote:

I don't understand the 'why does cuphead use this art style?' question. Why does anything use any art style? Because the people making it wanted to. Not a dig, Jon, I get that you rate the game, I just don't understand that particular part.

I'm still thinking about why it seems odd in Cuphead. I think in most games that use a recognisable style there's a clearer link to the narrative or mechanics. Like Card Shark (thinking of a recent example), it's set in 18th century France and the painterly art style references 18th century French painting. Or, an older one, Yoshi's Island has that illustrated children's story look because it's about baby Mario and goes with the softer control of Yoshi compared to the sharpness of Mario.

With Cuphead, it's a hardcore platform shooter with 20/30s American cartoon art. Which, I don't know. It also rips from a narrative form and has no real narrative beyond the bookends. Most of its characters lack any kind of context and there are no stories as such in the battles themselves. That doesn't stop it being a very good game that looks great, but the two parts don't match up. Like why does that style/setting suit this kind of game? There's a missing link.

Great review Moot. It's a shame it never got an expansion really, but guess it never did the numbers to justify it. Double shame for the sloppy switch port, like you say I can't see how this can be pushing the system.

From a driving perspective this shits all over Hotshot racing, which was far less intuative and twitchy in comparison. I might revisit to see if I can sneak back into the global top ten now there's 11 of us playing it.

19. Ninja Gaiden Sigma - 9 Hours - 5/10 - Xbox Series X

Yeah…another one for now I’m abandoning…it’s good but Christ it’s boring. No real tactics or change of anything in each encounter, just repeat, repeat, repeat…so completely bored with it I get a headache every time I play it now…With the PS Plus stuff that yes I’ve already played, this is going right on the back burner.

5/10