The first Mega Cat collection was excellent. A real
surprise, the collection of new games developed for retro systems had a
selection of the Evercade handhelds best games on it with the real standout
being the Strider inspired Tanzer. As such, this second collection of eight
games has a lot to live up to.
It doesn’t get off to the best start with the first thing
you see when you open the box being a leaflet letting you know that Roniu’s
Tale wasn’t finished in time for the collection and will be patched in later
via a system update. This is annoying as it’s exactly the kind of thing that
the Evercade is meant to be avoiding. It’s also a shame as the few levels of the
game that are included here in an extended demo show signs of it being a pretty
good puzzle/maze style game.
Puzzle games, mostly with platform elements, form the real
basis for this second collection. There is one pure platformer here in Devwill
Too though. It’s ok but somewhat uninspired. The between level comic scenes are
nice but the game repeats assets too much and just feels average all round.
Still, at least it’s quite short.
The trio of puzzle platformers fair a lot better. Alter Ego
is an excellent game where you have to control two versions of a character at
once with you movement being mirrored. The key is to swapping back and forth to
the ‘active’ version of your character at the right time in order to avoid
traps and monsters. Some creatures and traps will kill your active dude while
others will kill your non-active one so it’s a constant test of reflexes
throughout and certainly a game we’d like to see more of in the future.
Gluf, is also an excellent game which puts a twist on the ‘paint
all the blocks’ genre. Here you have to charge yourself up on a battery block
then move over tiles to change their colour. If you run out of charge you have
to go back to the block and charge up again. This starts out simple enough but
once you get platforms involved which can only be stepped on a certain number
of times it makes you really stop and plan a route around the levels. Yazzie
follows a similar style but here you are collecting gold bars and need to
consider how to use pick axes to remove blocks. There is also a bug in one of
the later levels which make sit impassable so you’ll need a code in order to
complete the game. This aside though, it’s also great fun and something well
worth playing through.
The puzzling continues with Romeow and Julicat which is a
cross between Tetris and Pipemania. Here you have a board where Tetris shapes
need to be placed. The idea is you need to complete a certain amount of
placements in order to complete the level. On later levels these can reach into
the hundreds so the challenge comes in placing shape so that they form lines
and disappear. This then means there is room to put more down. If you run out
of space it’s game over. We would have liked the levels to be a bit shorter as
it can be quite a slow game but it works well enough and you can always use the
save states to take a break.
Misplaced, is another inventive attempt at a puzzle game. Here
you view a single screen level from above and have to kind of draw lines and
shapes with your character. Once you have done this the idea is to match the
line up so it then reaches another part of the floating levels. Your character
can then walk along the line to the new location. While doing this you also
need to collect gems and avoid enemies. Sometimes the floor falls away as well just
for extra peril. Again, it’s not quite perfect but works well enough as a fun
distraction.
The one game here that stands out as being different from
the rest is Arkagis Revolution. This is a top down maze blaster where you
control a ship sent out on missions to blast stuff. It’s probably the most high
profile game on the cart and it’s pretty solid. The gimmick with it is you can
rotate the ship through 360 degrees as you zoom around in a sort of mode 7
style way. We would suggest playing around with the control settings as much as
you can because the thing plays a whole lot better if you can get as much of
the rotating on the Evercade shoulder buttons as possible. It can get a bit
samey and you feel like you can’t quite see enough of the screen but its solid
blasting action and doesn’t outstay its welcome.
Overall, the second Mega Cat Studio collection is pretty
solid overall. It lacks a bit of the variety of the first cart and there’s
nothing here as spectacular as Tanzer (but what is), but there is still more
than enough here to justify the price tag. The lack of a complete Roniu’s Tale
can’t be overlooked but we are hopeful that this will be addressed soon and the
game itself seems decent. The three puzzle platformers and Arkagis Revolution
are all great fun and the other games provide a good enough distraction. If
Mega Cat Studios keeps up this level of quality we’ll be more than happy to
have more carts from them in the future.
Alter Ego 4/5
Arkagis Revolution 4/5
Devwill Too 2/5
Gluf 4/5
Misplaced 3/5
Romeow and Julicat 3/5
Roniu’s Tale no
score
Yazzie 4/5
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