CloverPit Review (Switch 2)

Making its jump from Steam, CloverPit arrives with an already established cult following. Promoted as the slot machine version of Balatro, the game is a roguelike built around the core concept of pulling a demonic leaver and trying to make enough money to survive to the next round.

In terms of aesthetic the game is minimalist but effective. You start locked inside a small room. Inside you can see a locked door, the fruit machine, a toilet, bin, a machine to buy charms from and the money machine. There are also a couple of information boards that display the odds of certain symbols showing up and the deal or no deal style phone which rings between rounds.

The aim of each round is to reach a continually increasing set number of coins. Spare coins can be put back into the coin machine to gain interest. You get three turns in each round and early on you’ll realise it’s a careful balance between getting coins and the tickets you need to get charms which alter things like the likelihood of certain symbols showing up or giving rewards for certain combinations.

All this said, the game still comes down to a lot of luck. Using the right charms can change the value of symbols and make things show up more often but if you get a bad run there isn’t much you can really do. This is frustrating as even when you know the way you need to go with a build you can still play every turn as well as is possible and still not get enough coins to get through. It means, unlike games like Balatro, it can become tiring as decision making is nowhere near as deep.

If you reach the end of a round without enough coins the floor gives way and you fall to your death and need to start again from scratch. The only permanent things you can add are when you gain a key to unlock a draw. When draws are unlocked it means items can be placed inside them to give options in late game or even carry certain things over to the next run. At this point you at least get a bit more of an ability to plan ahead.

Achieving the gold needed for a round has the player set a new and higher coin target to reach. After a while you will also activate the ‘666’ numbers, which, if they come on the slot machine will see you lose all gained coins for the round. Of course, this can also be changed with charms to turn the so called ‘curse’ on its head. Between rounds the ominous phone also rings. Answering it allows you to pick from three further upgrades. Sometimes though you’ll get a cursed call which, if you can ignore, will grant greater upgrades later.

There is also a small DLC available at launch. The Unholy Fusion add on allows for players to forge various charms together to create new effects. However, it’s not available until you unlock all the draws in the game (which requires four completions). It’s both very cheap to purchase and also fairly non-essential unless you have really rung everything else out of the game.

Overall, CloverPit is an interesting game. It starts out a bit confusing then you’ll start to work out how you are meant to play it. However, if you don’t start seeing success in yuir runs due to the luck element it’s hard to see players sticking with it as long term as over rogue style games. What’s here works pretty well, it just feels a bit light weight at times and may leave you looking for something with more depth.

Overall 7/10

Skautfold: Moonless Knight Review (Switch)

We’ll admit to not being aware of the Skautfold series. Apparently, there are a ton of games out there set in this interconnected indie world across a range of genres. What drew us to Moonless Knight was the notion of a top-down action Metroidvania set in alternate ancient Japan featuring demons and samurai’s. It certainly sounded like something different, and it claims to have a unique battle system as well. 

Stylistically, Moonless Knight sets the tone really well. The eerie, cursed environment comes across strongly with some suitably spooky music and mist drifting across the place. The ancient Japanese setting is also handled well enough with the thing looking not a million miles away from Rocky and Pocky if the colour palette had been toned down. If anything, there is a bit too much detail at times and some of textures don’t blend together in the best way. A slightly cleaner design approach would probably have benefited everyone. 

The story goes that you have been sent to retrieve and ancient relic from the emperor’s castle. Upon arriving you find that a luna cult has taken over and now there are cosmic barriers keeping the rest of the soldiers getting in to win the castle back. As such you must head the resistance from within your hiding place in the castle grounds and keep the emperor hidden.

Combat is certainly unique, but we didn’t find it something that ever really clicked or became enjoyable. There are ways to avoid and block attacks, and of course doing so with split second timing creates bonus effects. There are also a ton of different weapons to get hold of and upgrade. But it always felt too sluggish, I do wonder if it would have been better almost as an auto striker kind of game as you have a strength bar which effectively acts as a timer to say when you initiate an attack. It’s also quite difficult to tell if you are making contact with the enemy when striking and keeping an eye on the various armour, strength and damage bars meant we never were never really sure who was winning a battle until someone keeled over. 

When you die you return to the main base with any money you’ve found and are free to go out and explore again. While in the base there are a lot of different characters to talk to get advice or fill in sections of the back story. Unfortunately, this has some of the most frustrating text skipping controls we’ve come across. We read quite quickly but the option when in dialogue is either to let it run at its slow pace or skip the sentence completely. You can go back and then check the conversation log, but would it have been so difficult just to make text appear a full sentence at a time? This, perhaps more than anything else, really took us out of the game experience. 

Overall, Skautfold: Moonless Knight is an interesting idea and if you do end up gelling with the combat then its certainly intriguing and interesting enough to take up a considerable amount of your time. We just found it a bit too slow and clunky though. There’s certainly something good in here but there were too many rough edges for us to really get into it. 

Overall 5/10

R-Type Dimension III Review (Switch)

It’s been a mixed bag to be an R-Type fan other the last few years. Dimension EX was a strong remix of the original two games but then R-Type Final 2 was a considerable letdown. It leaves fans stuck between wanting remakes of their favourite games and still holding out hope that something new will appear. We should say that we are deliberately reviewing this late. With this review coming after the second major patch for the game and after the developers vowed to address some of the many issues raised by fans.

R-Type Dimensions III takes the Super Nintendo game R-Type III: The Third Lightning and rebuilds it from scratch with new graphics. This is of course where all the controversy started. In rebuilding the game and adding the 3D graphics the hit boxes and enemy behaviour has been changed so much that an already crushingly difficult game was made ever tougher.

We always find it an odd choice for developers to rebuild games like shoot’em ups from scratch like this. It runs the risk of alienating previous fans as things have been changed in terms of the flow and is unlikely to attract new fans as they will want to experience the original. It’s even more bizarre in a sense as you can change the graphics back to the 2D pixel style of the original, except of course it isn’t. The game does look great though, in that respect you can’t fault the visual upgrade.

Where it gets a bit confusing is with things like the lack of quality-of-life features or other things you tend to associate with these sorts of releases. This may have redesigned assets from the ground up but in some sense, it would probably have been better to but an HD filter over the original and add in the usual rewind and save features. At least that would have kept the gameplay the same and probably avoided a lot of fan unrest. It’s certainly an argument for having the original game available on any of these remakes and upgrades in the future. What is here is an ‘infinite’ mode where no matter how many times you die you just keep going but there should be some middle ground between complete death and invincibility.

The game itself was always a tough one, and never the finest R-Type cut. It is the first in the series to allow players a small amount of customisation in the form of being able to pick from three different force units, each with their own attack styles. The level design is also strong enough to be worth revisiting, be warned though, it really throws you straight in at the deep end and new players will probably struggle to get off the first level for a significant amount of time.

In terms of the version we now have there have certainly been improvements. The hit boxes do seem a bit better now and the game certainly runs at a crazy speed and incredibly smoothly. The 3D graphics are still be a bit too busy at times though and it can be difficult to tell what is in the foreground or background and what is something that needs to be avoided.

Overall, it’s clear that the intentions with R Type Dimensions 3 were good, and the continued support by the development team to try and fix the issues is to be commended. That said, we still would have preferred to have access to the original game as it was. To not have access to that in some way just seems like a huge oversight. As it is, the game looks great but there are still some frustrating issues that stops it reaching the greatness of other games in the series.

Overall 6/10

City Hunter Review (Switch)

For many out there you probably have never heard of the City Hunter Manga. We first became aware of it via the Hong Kong movie featuring Jackie Chan. Even after this though we didn’t realise there was a host of other City Hunter material available and we certainly had no idea that there was an obscure Japanese game released on the PC Engine. Now, like many an obscure retro game before it, it is being brought to a wider audience with a slightly new coat of paint.

Like many action games of the time, City Hunter is a side scrolling mix of shooting and platforming. It has heavy arcade roots but is set out over three chapters. You can choose any chapter you wish but in all honesty they all play very similarly. You move left and right, enemies continually generate and you can also move up and down stairs or go through doors into new rooms. Some rooms will have quest items or people in to talk to. There are some slight variations where sometimes you have to avoid traps but on the whole, you are walking, shooting and looking at identical looking doors.

There are a few additions to the package but nothing that really makes it a must own. Theres a nicely presented representation of the original PC Engine box and a juke box. There are a few filter options and you can also play the original version of the game as well a the more refined one. It is a bit lite overall though and while all these things are nice to have it nots going to make the game essential unless you are already a fan.

Overall, this is going to have a very niche appeal when it comes to players deciding if it’s worth adding to their Switch library. For someone out there I’m sure this will be the easy access to an obscure Japanese game on an obscure console that they have been looking for. For the rest of us though there just isn’t enough here to really warrant the purchase. The game was never that amazing to begin with and this is just a slightly shinier version of that same average game.

Overall 5/10

Constance Review (Switch 2)

It was only a matter of time before some of the more interesting games that were bundled on Evercade cartridges started to find their way to other systems. And Biomechanical Toy is certainly one of those. A fairly obscure arcade release, it never received a home computer version, so this really is one for gamers looking to experience a little piece of cult arcade history.

In terms of how the game plays, the Amiga influence is very clear to see. It has the graphical look of all those weird Amiga platformers and also the slightly lose controls that tended to be the characteristic of any of these games not released on consoles. The levels are all set in a surreal sort of theme park/circus and your goal is simply to get to the end of each, blasting as much as you can.

In general, the game plays well. The main character is responsive and the weapons have a good weight to them. The levels are tough but its not as unfair as most arcade games of the time. It certainly seems like at some point there was an idea of porting this to home systems in terms of how it plays as there is a fairness and sort of balance to it. It’s still pretty tough though, just not in that way that most arcade games are designed to suck up all your money.

In terms of extra content there is n’t anything revolutionary here. You get the usual selection of filters and borders and some quality of life features such as being able to save and also rewind. The rewind is always useful as it stops the need for the constsnt reloading you would otherwise have to do. There is also a gallery included and you can listen to the games soundtrack via a jukebox mode. Some more info about tis development would have been welcomed as its so obscure but there’s enough here to peak the interest for a little while.

Overall, Biomechanical is a fun release and one that sits alongside some of the other weird and wonderful cult games nicely. We are always happy to see these more obscure games brought back into the light and the fact it’s a pretty decent one just makes it all the better. The usual reservations will apply for anyone who struggles with these older games but retro game fans and fans of arcades will love it.

Overall 7/10

Biomechanical Toy Review (Switch)

It was only a matter of time before some of the more interesting games that were bundled on Evercade cartridges started to find their way to other systems. And Biomechanical Toy is certainly one of those. A fairly obscure arcade release, it never received a home computer version, so this really is one for gamers looking to experience a little piece of cult arcade history.

In terms of how the game plays, the Amiga influence is very clear to see. It has the graphical look of all those weird Amiga platformers and also the slightly lose controls that tended to be the characteristic of any of these games not released on consoles. The levels are all set in a surreal sort of theme park/circus and your goal is simply to get to the end of each, blasting as much as you can.

In general, the game plays well. The main character is responsive and the weapons have a good weight to them. The levels are tough but its not as unfair as most arcade games of the time. It certainly seems like at some point there was an idea of porting this to home systems in terms of how it plays as there is a fairness and sort of balance to it. It’s still pretty tough though, just not in that way that most arcade games are designed to suck up all your money.

In terms of extra content there isn’t anything revolutionary here. You get the usual selection of filters and borders and some quality of life features such as being able to save and also rewind. The rewind is always useful as it stops the need for the constant reloading you would otherwise have to do. There is also a gallery included and you can listen to the games soundtrack via a jukebox mode. Some more info about tis development would have been welcomed as its so obscure but there’s enough here to peak the interest for a little while.

Overall, Biomechanical is a fun release and one that sits alongside some of the other weird and wonderful cult games nicely. We are always happy to see these more obscure games brought back into the light and the fact it’s a pretty decent one just makes it all the better. The usual reservations will apply for anyone who struggles with these older games but retro game fans and fans of arcades will love it.

Overall 7/10

Psyvariar 3 Review (Switch 2)

The Psyvariar franchise has been around for some time. The first time we encountered it was via the PS2 version where it was a fun, if not top tier shoot’em up with good potential for high scores. There was a sequel and then Psvariar Delta in 2018 which acted as a sort of remix/compilation, but this is the first new game in the franchise proper for a very long time.

In terms of presentation this is what you come to expect from your standard post 2010’s vertical scrolling shooter. The ship sits at the bottom of the screen, flies over 3D environment scaling below, avoids bullets and shoots things. The twist with Psyvariar though has always been about really pushing your hit box as close as you can in order to powerup and maximise you score. You must get the enemy bullets to skim you which continually boosts the bonus the pot. You can also spin you ship which makes it a bit slower but helps with the hit box and also changes the intensity of your own bullets.

Speaking of those 3D environments, Psyvariar 3 looks beautiful beneath the chaos. A lot of care an attention has gone into making the stages look as stunning as possible. Unfortunately, this is also a bit of a problem. The environments are so busy and fully constructed that it can be very difficult to judge incoming fire, enemy ships and even what is and isn’t an actual obstacle. This would be a major problem if it wasn’t for the fact you can go into the settings and change the brightness. Doing so helped to resolve the problem and it at least allows for the individual player to find something they are comfortable with.

The game contains a good amount of content for players to get stuck into. There are seven characters to choose from (including Cotton from that series as a guest), Arcade mode, Arrange mode (which allows upgrading to make the game easier), Caravan, Endless and Mission Modes (49 short challenges). It plays out over seven pretty large stages as well with the expected spectacular boss battles at the end of each. It’s a nice package for fans who really take to the game as there is always something to go to when you want to change things up a bit. It’s certainly not just a quick arcade style port. It also runs buttery smooth, even in handheld mode, something essential for games in this genre.

If there is a downside it's that the overall design aesthetic does seem a bit bland. If you think about the iconic games from the genre there will be bosses, ships and levels that instantly spring to mind. Who could forget pretty much all of Ikaruga for instance? But here, though everything works well, nothing really stands out to that degree. As a result this isn’t as essential as games like Radiant Silver Gun or some of Caves output. Instead, it becomes as must play for those that are really into the genre.

Overall, Psyvariar 3 is a well put together shoot’em up with a gimmick that makes it unique and keeps it separate from others in the genre. However, it’s not up there with the real top tier shoot'em ups. If you are into these types of games you’ll get a lot out of this. But we suspect most players will have a list of a fair few games to buy before they reach this.

Overall 7/10

Citzen Sleeper 2 Review (Switch 2)

 

The first Citizen Sleep was a resounding success, with its space styled cyber punk aesthetic and the mixture of rich storytelling and board game and RPG elements. In fact, it garnered a dedicated following and even had a card game version appearing. It’s not a massive surprise then to see a second game in the series.

There is no direct link to the story of the first game here. Continuity wise it is set a little later in the time period, but new players won’t feel left out if they start here first. To add to this, your character is a malfunctioning android who has no memory of anything either so it’s very much about discovering the world for the first time.

There are a handful of classes to choose from, and you can also upgrade skills and buffs as you get points from completing various missions and objectives. These then add modifiers to your dice or allow you do things like create rerolls or fix them should they become damaged.

The premise is simple, at the start of each cycle (or day) , you get a number of dice that are randomly generated with which to carry out actions. The higher the number of the dice mixed with your affinity for carrying out certain type of task will decide if you are likely to be successful at it. Once, you have used all your dice you can end the cycle and start again with a fresh set.

Of course, things are never that easy and there is normally some kind of cycle timer counting down to a major story event that you need to be aware of. Time is very much essential so resetting a day just because you have bad dice is never really an option. On top of this you need food and need to think about damage caused by stress to your body. There really are a whole host of things keeping you on the edge of anxiety and always watching the clock.

You’ll spend much of your time investigating around space stations or out on salvage operations. The interface is simple, pick the location to move to and then the options of what you can do will show up when you get there. There are options to work or find food, as well as hunt for clues or interact with the population. When you are off the station for salvage missions you need to also think about fuel and the amount of supplies you have with you. These missions are normally perilous as the hulks you try and get salvage from tend to breach and fall apart, just in case you needed yet another time clock to think about.

The initial goal is simply to stay one step ahead of the people chasing you. After that the mystery deepens and you’ll also encounter new characters and crew with their own skills and agendas to deal with. The human interaction element is key to the games philosophy as you will live or die by your network of crew. In this respect it’s important to think about how you are interacting as you’ll want as many options as possible as you venture on your space road trip.

Overall, Citizen Sleep 2 is a beautifully thought out and refined experience. It’s certainly tough but can be progressed through with careful thinking (and there are easier difficulty settings as well). It’s quite unique in its approach to the genre and still manages to stand out from the crowd. If you are looking for an immersive sci-fi adventure with a twist, then this comes highly recommended.

Overall 8/10

Super Scram Kitty Review (Switch)

 

After wooing us with the wonderfully named Floating Cloud God Saves the Pilgrims and The 2D Adventures of Rotating Octopus Character the mad cap humour of Dakko Dakko (now Kumogami) studios returned with the then Wii U exclusive Scram Kitty and his Buddy on Rails. Many years have passed and despite a quick return on the PSN Scram Kitty has been mostly silent until now, arriving in a remixed form and looking better than ever.

The plot is mad and sends us back to the 16-bit days of lunatic ideas. Basically, your cat sends you a message from the international space station saying super intelligent mice have taken over and you need to get up there and rescue all the cats and take it back from them. What this amounts to is jumping on your spinner and blasting, leaping and spinning your way around some top down puzzle/platform levels.

The puzzle elements are based around shooting switches, finding different weapons to destroy obstacles and simply working out how to make jumps to different rails. It’s nothing massively complex but when combined with the past paced gameplay and onslaught of enemies it’s more than enough to deal with.

The game draws a lot of influence from previous game Rotating Octopus but there are a ton of new ideas going on here. Working out the movement is key to success and your character controls in a fairly unique way. Your spinner is magnetic and attaches to any rail. You can move along the rails under your own steam but the only way you can reach another rail is to jump to it. What this means is that you need to use the rails carefully to get the right angles to jump and fire.

You will be attacked by various types of mice on your adventure and making sure you can actually hit them with your variety of weapons forms part of the crux of the game. Your character only fires directly in front of themselves so if you are on a side rail and they are coming at you from below you need to jump to a rail facing towards them in order to hit the pesky vermin. It starts out tricky but you soon get the hang of how it all works, and it adds to the puzzle elements of certain levels. 

The goal of each level is to rescue four cats and reach the exit door. You can just find the exit if you want but you’ll need cats to unlock levels as you go so replaying earlier stages is vital to progression. The four cats each have their own characteristics to be found. The lazy cat just sits by the exit and the lucky cat requires all the lucky pennies to be found in a level before appearing. The black cat requires a super tough mouse to be destroyed before it will come out and finally the scaredy cat, when picked up, will run off to somewhere else on the station and requires chasing around and capturing in a strict time limit.

Scram Kitty is a tough game and you’ll need both patience and perseverance to get through. You have an energy bar but once it’s gone you’ll have to start the level again from scratch. This includes finding cats, coins and weapons again or taking down the big bad mouse commanders. The levels are fairly compact but the amount of skill required from the player means dying near the end of a stage can be exasperating. 

The main problem with Scram Kitty from the Wii U version has now been removed. On The Wii U proverbial Scram would appear on screen to give advice. When this happened he pretty much took up the entire screen and this led to a number of deaths and missed jumps as we simply couldn’t see what was going on. Scram no longer does this. While this means you don’t get the advice it also makes for a much smoother experience overall.

Overall, Scram Kitty is still an excellent game. There’s a lot of invention and originality on show in terms of the games mechanics and we certainly haven’t played anything like this for years and there’s nothing else like it on the eshop. It says a lot that even now, this is a pretty essential purchase for anyone who wants an old school challenge mixed with some clever design.

Overall 8/10

 

Soccer Kid Collection Review (Switch)

 

Once Soccer Kid appeared as the headline for one of the Evercade collections it was only a matter of time before it made its way onto the Switch. A semi successful attempt at creating a new mascot, the character that started on the Amiga went on to grace a host of platforms from the SNES to the Atari Jaguar and Playstation. What is a little disappointing is that only two versions of the game are included here.

What you have here is the most controllable version of the game – the Super Nintendo one, and the one with the all the cut scenes – the MS DOS version. So while that makes sense to some degree it begs the question of why call this a collection when so many other platforms have been overlooked?

That said, the little dude certainly has something of a cult following and it’s easy to see why. This can’t hide its Amiga platformer roots with the loose feeling controls, but the main gimmick helps to keep it above its peers. We are of course talking about the football that Soccer Kid uses as his main way of dispatching enemies. Control of it can be a little tricky to begin with but once you’ve worked out how the momentum of it works it’s a satisfying experience belting it at the many caricatured people that inhabit the levels.

While there are only two versions of the games here it doesn’t mean they have skimped on the general features. All the usual quality of life features such as rewind and saving are included along with screen filters and borders. You can even activate various cheat codes. There is a decent gallery as well with instruction manuals and materials from the other versions of the game not included. It’s actually far more than most of these collections have.

While the game plays a bit lose it is fun. There are a few frustrations like too many leaps of faith and not being able to properly look up or down. This seems like a minor thing until you release that if you really want to finish the game properly you are going to have to search for football cards that let you try and reclaim a piece of the missing world cup. Think of the chaos emeralds in Sonic and you aren’t too far off.

Overall, Soccer Kid is a fun game that we are glad getting some attention again. It’s release around the World Cup was somewhat inevitable and we really do love it when games a little more obscure are given the time to be ported. It’s not perfect by any means but there’s fun to be had here for those willing to master the controls.

Overall 6/10

Sektori Review (Switch 2)

While the landscape is currently filled with Metroidvanias and indie rogue-likes there was a time when twitch shooters were all the rage. Driven in part by the return to high score culture brought about by various online services, games like Mutant Storm and, most prominently, Geometry Wars developed a huge following. 

Sektori is a game heavily drawing on the Geometry Wars ethos and it does it so well that you might just start to forget about the shape-based blaster for a while. It does have serious pedigree behind it though as the developer used to work for the company responsible for Resogun. 

This is clearly a love letter to Bizarre Creations pinnacle game though, and the identity runs through it so strongly that changing a few shapes around would easily make this a direct sequel. As such, this is a crazy twin stick shooter that relies on its pumping techno soundtrack to keep adrenaline high. Too start with you are tied into the campaign mode, but other modes become available the more you play. 

The basic gameplay will be familiar to most. You control a ship, moving with one stick while blasting with the other. You can pick up power ups which move rewards up a scale, and you can then cash in on the one you want with speed ups being low down and things like shields and level wide strikes higher up. You must collect little triangles to fill you powerup meter (a mechanic used to multiply the score multiplier in Geometry Wars), and if you touch anything you die. You also only have one life so make sure to make it count. 

There is a unique trick in here as well with the player being able to do a sort of charging forward manoeuvre which creates a small explosion around where you end up. If this is down with the player landing on a particular icon it creates a much bigger explosion which can take out a host of enemies.

As you progress through the campaign the level will shift and change shape, creating barriers which raise from the floor. There are also boss fights with creations that take up most of the screen even early on. Your standard enemies are a host of neon shapes that form into things that dart towards you, move along fixed rails or turn into swirling snakes. This may well sound very familiar, the one Geometry Wars mechanic that isn’t here though is the black hole which does help create a little separation. 

Once you have played the campaign for a while you’ll start unlocking challenge modes. These are more score attack minded pursuits and seem to be the developer’s favourite modes from Geometry Wars 2. As you achieve a D rank score in each more challenges open up. These include things like gate mode where your weapons are disabled and you must destroy enemies by moving between exploding gates, Charge Mode where you only have the charge move and things like a boss rush and classic score attack modes. There’s certainly a lot here for players to get the most out of if they connect with the game. And it all works beautifully. 

Overall, Sektori is a stunning game. It looks and sounds amazing and plays incredibly well. While we can all wish for some kind of Geometry Wars collection or sequel this really is the next best thing. It’s so successful at what it does that in some ways it has really surpassed those games. Comparisons may be inevitable but the brilliance on display here means it is worth considering as something far more than just a love letter to an iconic franchise. 

Overall 9/10

Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege Review (Switch)

One day Konami might get the hint that we need Castlevania games to come out a bit more often. At least we have Belmont’s Curse nearly upon us. During those long periods of drought, it seems indie developers have taken it upon themselves to try and fill the void. We have covered a fair few here and Saint Slayer in the next in line.

It’s curious that side scrolling, linear, Castlevania likes always stick to the 8-bit pixel look. You would think someone would take on the 16-bit era at some point. Saint Slayer is another that looks a lot like the first three NES Castlevania games. It follows a standard linear level structure and even has a little between level map just in case you still didn’t get the inspiration.

Luckily, it plays a bit less clunky than the 8-bit Castlevania games though. You are limited to the usual jump, attack and special attack options, but there are also a few Metroidvania elements thrown in as skills which you can acquire, such as a slide which is vital for taking you under traps at certain points. There’s also a little bit of a Duck Tales inspiration with our hero able to use his spear to pogo around on spikes.

That isn’t to say the game is easy though. It’s pretty damn tough, especially if you have no experience with the rhythm and flow of these types of things. If you are happily playing on your NES or Master System though, you’ll have a much better time of it.

The loose plot follows a farmer in seventeenth century Europe who needs to fight through twenty-one levels to stop a mad priest from stealing relics and summoning all sorts of gothic horrors. It has a weird tone which moves between wacky dialogue (and one scene where a donkey knocks you off a cliff), to straight up horror with starving prisoners, bodies hanging from the ceiling and rotten meat which makes you sick if eaten.

You can collect orbs which act as the in-game currency which can then be spent at the travelling merchant. Interestingly the orbs stay with you through multiple playthroughs. This means you could potentially farm them on the easier settings and then use them when moving up the difficulties. It adds a light consideration about if you should restart the game after death or use the various passwords to continue your progress – minus any upgrades of course.

Level design is generally strong, and bosses are well structured in the ‘learn the attack pattern’ kind of way. An early fight with a monster riding a donkey is a bit silly and frustrating as you must keep dropping boxes on its head, but most others work well. Some levels are too long though. Level eleven is set in a prison and after your hundredth death it really does begin to look samey and bland. Generally, though the layouts and look are varied.

Overall, Saint Slayer: Spear of Sacrilege does pretty much what it sets out to do. It’s a huge homage to a NES styled Castlevania game in that its mostly successful. The biggest thing though about pretty much all of these is they are never quite at the level of the games they are influenced by. While this is a fun diversion, it won’t keep you away from proper Dracula slaying for too long.

Overall 7/10

Nine Sols Review (Switch 2)

Nine Sols came out a while ago but with the release of the physical version it seemed the perfect time to take another look at it. A 2D action platformer at heart it has some light Metroidvania elements and some of the most beautiful hand drawn graphics we’ve seen on the Switch. It attempts to merge Taoism with cyber punk, merging eastern philosophy with sci-fi.

It’s a complicated story to unravel but basically follows the idea that a virus wiped out an alien race, but they somehow managed to store their consciousness in a virtual reality system. If that’s not weird enough, to power the system innocent beings need to be sacrificed to it so their brains can be harvested for power. Or something like that.

Players control Yi, a sort of cybernetic creature that decides he doesn’t want his human friend to be sacrificed and sets out looking for the Nine Sols to defeat and harvest so that he can gain the codes to the Eternal Central Cauldron. Basically, you jump around beautiful levels and hit stuff with your sword, occasionally upgrading to a new skill and taking on awesome boss fights.

That’s doing the combat system a disservice though. Yes, you can bash stuff with your sword but there are also a lot more nuanced things you can also do. An early example of this is the deflection mechanic. If you successfully deflect an enemy blow, you can then dart past them, attach a bomb to them, charge it and then explode it. As you progress, you’ll gain more skills such as a dash, double jump and the ability to send a little robot out to get into places you can’t otherwise reach, a mechanic normally used for shutting down security systems and opening doors.

There’s also a cool grappling hook mechanic which lets you swing around the place, and you can of course wall jump and even run up certain surfaces. There’s certainly no shortage of ways to get around the beautifully stunning locations. It’s a good thing the game looks so great as well as it’s also pretty damn tough. Even early on enemies pack a punch so you’ll need to get to grips with the combat system quickly. If you die, you’ll need to go back and find your body to retrieve any lost experience as well.

Experience is important as there are various skill trees you can expand upon to boost your health and other stats. And in the style of Hollow Knight, you can equip talismans which add other changes and skills as well. When you get a good build together it’s certainly rewarding to go cutting through the enemies and at times, when it’s all flowing together perfectly you will feel like a complete bad ass.

Overall, Nine Sols is a really a very beautiful looking Souls game in terms of its approach to combat. Fans of Hollow Knight or any of the Sekiro games will soon feel at home, despite the bright colours and tech filled levels. It’s certainly rare to find a game with this much depth and such a clear design vision. It won’t be for everyone, but everyone should try it.

Overall 8/10

Blue Prince Review (Switch)

It’s unusual for us to come across something unique, we’ve been around a while and played a lot of games. Blue Prince, combines a number of different elements to achieve that, mixing parts from visual novels, rogue likes, puzzle games and a good helping of a big old mystery.

The story goes that you have inherited the estate of your uncle. Or at least you will do if you can do something that no one else has – find the elusive room 46. But far from being a simple mystery you need to do this with the knowledge that at the end of every day all the rooms in the mansion will reset. There is a lot of lore in here as well about the games setting and why everything is so mysterious, but we’ll let players figure that out as it is drip fed through the various books and letters that you find along the way.

There are a lot of different elements to balance as you go about your investigation. The most pressing of these is the number of steps you have. Each room you enter knocks one step off your total of fifty. Once you run out the day ends and the rooms reset. As well as these you need to manage gems, keys and coins. Keys open locked doors and chests, gems are needed to draft certain rooms and coins can be used to purchase various things along the way. All these need to be found in the various rooms along with other items such as a magnifying glass, hammer or shovel.

Players have a blueprint which acts as a grid with which to draft their rooms. The initial sort of goal is to reach the ante chamber which is nine squares up at the top. It’s not a simple of that of course as you will soon find out. When you open a door, you are presented with three rooms which you can draw. Some may require gems to draft, and all will have different exit doors or other special features. You’ll soon learn as well that there are different colours for the rooms which denote different things.

Red rooms for instance, normally have some kind of negative effect such reducing your steps or removing your ability to see what you are drafting. Green rooms in contrast normally contain dig spot or other goodies. There are also bedrooms to help you restore some of your steps, hallways and shops of various kinds where you can get items, keys or food.

Away from these rooms there are rooms with specific puzzles or special qualities. The security room allow for the manipulation of cameras and security doors, while working out the boiler puzzle will then allow you to pump power through the house. There are also rooms like the lab and the observatory which can give you permanent upgrades. Gradually, as you progress, you’ll learn what it the most important to you and unlock a few permanent upgrades and areas along the way.

For what is effectively a game where you wander around and solve the occasional puzzles it’s remarkable how engaging the game is. The balancing of all the elements and trying not to put yourself into a dead end with you Tetris style rooms works very well. Add in the uncovering of the law and the gradual realisation of how different rooms work means you always feel like something new is happening each playthrough.

There are a few issues to think about though. The most pressing of these is the constant reliance on colour with the puzzles. If you have any form of colour blindness you are going to really struggle with this. There’s several puzzles which use six or seven colours of similar shades and sometime we had no idea what we were even looking at. We did get round it with a guide but otherwise we would have had no idea what was going on.

Also, you can get a number of runs were not that much seems to progress. The game could do with giving you a bit more in terms of keeping the progression loop going and give a bit more in terms of rewards when you solve a puzzle you’ve been working on for days. The biggest issue though is that a lot comes down to luck. You can stack the deck in your favour but sometimes you simply won’t get the room you need drafted for what you are trying to do in that run. All that said, we did keep going back again and again to it.

Overall, Blue Prince is a refreshing, interesting and original game. All the individual elements may be small, but when they are brought together it has created a high quality adventure game that will keep you curious and wanting to venture back in for one more go. It’s not perfect but its about as close to as we have seen for a fair while.

Overall 8/10

 

 

Ghost Master Resurrection Review (Switch)

There was a time when strategy games of a certain type were pretty much limited to the PC due to the mouse controls. Games like Dungeon Keeper, Evil Genius and Ghost Master all provided level based, objective driven goals which normally required some building and trap setting. The last time we played Ghost Master was around 2003 so it’s been a fair while since we tried any spook-themed strategy.

The first thing to say is don’t expect much from a visual point of view. The game is pretty much just the original with sharper images. If you can imagine the sims with ghosts, you are close to the mark. But levels are clear and you can see what’s going on so it’s not something that really effects the way the game plays.  

The structure of the game sees you picking a location (normally based on a horror film or other haunting stereotype), then picking from a team of ghosts and heading into achieve whatever the objectives are. As you progress you unlock more ghosts, each of which have different powers and skills. More can be rescued from the within the levels by achieving certain goals as well – breaking a glass jar holding a floating brain for instance.

Generally, the objective is to try and scare people out of locations, but this does get mixed up quite a lot. One level has you trying to get characters to finish the summoning of a demon, while another requires you to get the people roaming the house to uncover the various dead bodies hidden within it. This is all done by possessing various objects and areas.

This requires some forward thinking as certain ghosts can only be bound to certain things so you need to have a team capable of doing the job. There is an auto select option for those not sure though. If you are going to need to attract people to a certain area you are going to need a ghost that can make noise for instance, or if you need to knock something down, you’ll need a ghost that can control wind or create tremors.

Scaring everyone is always entertaining but it can be frustrating at times to get characters exactly where you need them. Especially, if you want them to try and complete a specific task. Some of the trapped ghosts are also obscure puzzles as well that require a real knowledge of ghost powers. Generally, though the game is forgiving enough for anything not to be too big a problem once you get used to it.

In terms of the games transition to the Switch, it has worked well. It’s not the most complex game of its type in terms of mouse controls as you are generally attaching ghosts to specific, non-moving points and the movable cursors does a good enough job at this. The camera is a bit of a pain, but then it always was and it’s easy enough to move up and down the levels of a building with the press of a button. We also found we could play the game perfectly well in handheld mode without squinting to see what was going on, something a lot of these types of games suffer from on the Switch. One thing we are little surprised by though is there are no mouse controls or touch screen on the Switch 2 version.

Overall, Ghost Master remains the game it always was. It’s fun and silly with some good core strategy backing it up. But it can also be a bit fiddly and frustrating at times. If it’s a game, you remember playing or you are a fan of this genre then it’s well worth revisiting as it does hold up. But it always had some faults, and little has been done in this remaster to address those.

Overall 7/10

The Last Ninja Collection + Bonus Games Review (Switch)

Of all the collections we thought might make their way to the Switch, we didn’t have a Last Ninja collection at the top of our likelihood list. With the prevalence of C64 releases on the Evercade that seemed like a far more likely destination. We are however delighted to see one of the most iconic franchises of the 8-bit computer era find its way to a new audience.

One-time British powerhouse, System 3 has been pretty quiet for a long time. We had a Putty Squad release a long time ago and Constructor, but this is by far their most high-profile release for decades. Even then, it took a Kickstarter campaign to finally get the franchise over the line in some form. In terms of context of why a Ninja game was out on the C64, it can help to remember that the West was absolutely obsessed with Kung Fu and Eastern culture back in the 80’s, with martial arts movies prevalent at video rental shops.

What you get included here is The Last Ninja one, two and three and the Last Ninja Remix with the C64, Amiga and ZX Spectrum versions of the relevant titles. As well this Internation Karate and IK+ are added in as bonus games along with the easily forgettable Bangkok Knights.

There’s no hiding that anyone new to these games is going have a steep learning curve to go through. The games are difficult and the controls and isometric viewpoint will take some time to adjust to. The basic layout of all three games is similar. You explore a level, pick up weapons and key objects and then progress to the next. But you can leave key items behind and then find you can’t progress later such as the glove in the first game which is needed to pick up a poisoned rose later, or the shuriken’s in the second game.

There are also traps and puzzle elements to overcome and the river and swamp jumping sections were infuriating even in the 80’s. All that said, the first two games are stone cold classics and when it clicks, they still offer a unique experience. The Last Ninja 3 isn’t as strong sadly and the emphasis on almost constant combat makes things very frustrating.

Which brings us to the added quality of life features. Or lack of them. There is no rewind function which is the biggest shame as that would have really made these games accessible, and no way to implement any kind of cheat codes. There is a save function. But each game can only have one game saved and there is also no quick save and load option, meaning you have to quit and then reload when you want to load again. Why we couldn’t just have a load option in-game I don’t know. That said, the screen transition very quickly so we didn’t find it to be a major issue and we were loading a lot. It’s strange though as the Steam version seems to have one.

The other disappointment is the extras. It seems clear the museum text is pretty much all identical for each game with a few words (such as the platform) changed. That’s a real missed opportunity as getting a real insight into some of these titles would have been great.

We are somewhat surprised that IK+ doesn’t get a bigger billing on this collection as it was arguably as iconic as the Ninja games back in the day. Here you have three combatants on a single screen trying to score points to win a round of karate. As these are 8-bit computer games, controls are based around a one button joystick configuration. In this case, you hold a button then press a direction to break out different moves. It actually works really well, and no matter which version you are playing it’s a great high score chasing games.

We found that the Last Ninja games where best played in their C64 guise. This makes sense as this was originally the main platform for games. The ZX Spectrum version of Last Ninja 2 is also remarkably playable. We found the Amiga versions, although they look a lot better, to be far less playable. And if anything, the extra graphical detail made the environments more difficult to traverse and objects more difficult to find.

Overall, we are just really happy that this collection exists at all. These are games that really should be preserved with Last Ninja 1 and 2 and IK+ being among some of the most iconic games the British games industry has ever produced. Yes, there could be more here in terms of the quality of life and museum features, but we can hope for that in an update. We just hope that this gives System 3 some latitude to get other release out the door, we would love to see a Putty or James Pond Collection in the future also.

Overall 7/10

Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf Review (Switch)

We were a little surprised to see Planet of Lana receive a sequel. The charming first game is one of the most beautiful looking and sounding indie platformers out there, but it felt like one of those flashes in the pan moments of genius and it’s not exactly like cinematic platformers are that prevalent.

The second game, somehow, looks even more beautiful and continues the story of Lana and her weird pet Mui as they adventure across the planet of Novo. It’s set two years after the events of the first game (which is deftly recapped) and shows how the various tribes and factions have taken to the now discovered technologies scavenged in the aftermath of the first.

Lana has a host of new ways to move around, with faster movement, sliding and things like wall jumps and the ability to swim now in place. As a result, movement is much more fluid than the original, but the platforming sections or also a bit more fiendish as well. The heart of the game though is about solving puzzles. Early on, Lana will normally be given requests from settlers and then head off to find something. This acts as a good introduction to her new skills while showing off the gorgeous visuals and setting up a healthy chunk of world building.

Almost all puzzles require you to use the two characters in partnership with each other. Mui can manipulate technology and pass control on to other animals. So, most puzzles fall into a pattern of working out how to get Mui to a point they can take control of something, then working out where that goes and then getting Lana to race to the new location. An early example of this is where Lana needs to retrieve a particular piece of seaweed from underwater. It requires getting Mui into a shallow pool of fish, then getting the fish through a dangerous area using its ink special skill and then getting Lana to clear a path and then trap a predatory fish before her air runes out.

It’s quite different from the original game in terms of how it plays out. In the first game you were normally hiding or running away from technological monstrosities. And while that is still the case in places, this is much more about using the different animals and interacting with the population. The game feels much more alive as a result.

With most puzzles having a clear timing element it means players need to be precise and agile to get through as well. Controls are slick and precise though, so frustration rarely comes from a clunky input. The game is also exceptionally well checkpointed, so when you do die there are no long sections to retrace. We also found the game was far less frustrating than the original with regards to its puzzle design with it being clear most of the time what we had to do.

Planet of Lana is a beautiful game, but the sequel is off the charts. From the villages to mountain tops and the technological encampments it all looks astounding. The score that goes with everything is also exceptional, really breathing life into the locations. Progress is rewarded with visual highlight after highlight, and it really does keep players pushing through the game. The art design here is akin to something studio Ghibli would be proud off, it’s simply breathtaking.

Overall, Planet of Lana II manages to somehow be even better than the original. Every aspect has been improved, and the original was already an exceptional game. The sharpening of Lana’s movement is a delight, and the majesty of how the game looks makes it irresistible. It might just be a touch short for a few people but then its still longer than the original. It’s hard to see anyone not liking this. It comes highly recommended.

Overall 9/10

Sands of Aura Review (Switch)

While the top down and ismoteric dungeon crawling genre has been an ever present on platforms like Steam, the Switch has seen far fewer titles make it over to the platform. Of course, there is the giant of Diablo and a few games such as Moonlighter but overall it’s all Rogue-likes and Metroidvania’s that dominate the indie sales of the eshops. Sands of Aura it a solid and content filled attempt to change that.

The game is an open world adventure where most of the world is buried beneath a huge sea of sand. Players spend most of their time delving beneath the sand in dungeons, looking for ancient relics with the overall goal of restoring life to the world. The dungeons are dark and complex with well-designed layouts that wind around labyrinthine like. They are perhaps a little too dark at times though as we kept falling off the edge of things we couldn’t see.

You don’t spend the whole time in the dark though as there are numerous settlements and islands above the ground to explore as well and players can take sand ships to sail around the sand ocean looking for new areas to explore. While you do have quests, you can explore fairly freely as long as you can stay alive.

There’s a certain Dark Souls feel to the game as well. It’s certainly not as crushing as the Souls series, but the linking level designs, combat pace and the fact you drop all your money when you die certainly show the rootes winding through this. It did make us wonder what a full isometric Dark Souls game might look like.

There’s certainly a lot for players to get involved with here as well. Your inventory is detailed and upgrading is the only real way to improve weapons and armour. You don’t pick up new weapons as such, but instead different parts such as pommels or blades and then forge them together to create upgrades and imbue special qualities. This goes for armour as well and you’ll find you are always collecting things, sometimes to the point that you aren’t really sure what you hard earned junk collection is useful for.

Combat is solid as well with a good range of moves and options. You have your standard light and heavy attacks along with rolls and dodges and both a shield and parry system. Add in special attacks and spells and you’ll find there are a range of options for players to think about in how they approach the bashing of enemies.

The only real issue with the game is that it’s quite ugly to look at. Its indie routes are very much on show above ground where we had a lot of noticeable pop in and there is a real blandness to colours and textures. A lot of the time you don’t notice this as the camera stays fairly close, but when you are looking out over the sand sea or in certain positions things really show their lack of details. This isn’t a massive issue due to how engaging the game can be, but if you find yourself repeating difficult sections it can quickly become dull and doesn’t help with getting lost in the maze like levels.

Overall, Sands of Aura is an engaging and deep game that if you dig into it will keep you engaged for the hours and hours it will take you to complete it. It does take engagement from the player to get the most out of it though and you’ll need to spend a good few hours getting used to how everything works. It’s the sort of games that Souls and Diablo fans should get on well with and just accessible enough for those not so hardcore to enjoy it as well.

Overall 7/10

The Prisoning: Fletcher's Quest Review (Switch)

Here at Retro 101 we are huge fans of Elden Pixels and everything they put out. The Alwa games remain among our favourite indie games, and we have reviewed and rated the company’s entire output. We even had the good fortune to be able to review the physical NES copy of Alwa’s Awakening when it released some years ago. With that in mind we are always looking forward to a new release and The Prisoning doesn’t disappoint.

The concept of the game is that a developer is working through one of his nightmares and fighting off all those pesky inner demons. Along the way you’ll encounter a cast of very meta characters and there are lots of jokes and quips about the development and publishing process. In terms of the game design, what this amounts to is a platform adventure game with some Metroidvania elements. But one that plays more like an Amiga or old DOS platformer than what we are perhaps used to today.

Graphically, the game matches the Amiga aesthetic as well. It’s not a million miles away from something like Rick Dangerous or the original Duke Nukem platformers. It matches Elden Pixels general approach to the look of their games, although this is closer to a Void Hope than the purposely NES and SNES looking Alwa’s games.

The game plays out over one large level with multiple checkpoints throughout. These take the form of a sort of bar kiosk were every time you die you recycle through the vending machine nearby. Death is a near constant as you can only take two hits before expiring. Even that must be earned as right at the start of the game you are naked and unarmed, meaning you have a few tough sections to get through before the game opens up to you and you get your clothes and handy pistol.

The two-hit mechanic also makes boss fight pretty tough as you’ll need to pretty much perfect them to win. Even taking on a weird mechanical horse thing early on proved a tough obstacle as it was filled with attacks seemingly impossible avoid (until we learned the pattern), with and a health bar that stretched across the screen.

Collision detection is also a tiny bit lose which doesn’t help. Several times we found ourselves losing a hit when we were convinced we had avoided an attack. There’s nothing here that derails the experience, but it certainly can be frustrating at times as the game has a pretty high difficult.

Generally, though, the controls are pretty tight and responsive. Your character moves around at a crazy pace so zipping about from checkpoint to check point is quick and fun. Jumping and attacking is also precise, so everything is satisfying and enjoyable. You can warp from vending machine to vending machine as well which adds even more pace to the game. We can see this becoming a popular speedrun among indie games for sure.

Being in the Metroidvania mould you of course start to unlock new abilities as you progress such as a double jump and a slide which makes you invincible for a second or so. This in turn opens new areas to explore. Early on for instance you’ll find your new double jump allows access to a UFO which then takes flight into a short side scroller shooter phase before crashing into a new location.

Despite how many of these games we have played in the past we did find that the approach that The Prisoning took kept things fresh and pacey. It goes to show how slight changes to approach can keep things interesting and having this slightly closer to games like Switchblade in terms of style certainly helps it.

Overall, The Prisoning is another fun title from Elden Pixel that shows the studios unique humour and its ability to take tried and tested genres and add their own twist to them. This game may not have the same impact as Alwa’s Legacy on the wider market but it deserves to. For retro gamers or those who find humour in the subject matter this is an easy purchase.

Overall 8/10

Street Racer Collection Review (Switch)

I don’t think it’s a secret that we do love a QUByte collection here at Retro 101. As long time SNES collectors it’s great to see some of the more obscure titles out there being given a second life and we’ve been hoping Street Racer would get a release for quite some time. Indeed, back in the day there was a semi-sensible argument to be had that it might even be better than Mario Kart.

This collection may seem a bit strange as there was only one game in the franchise, but it becomes more coherent when you realise Street Racer was quite different depending on the system you played it on. Here we have the SNES, Mega Drive, Gameboy and DOS versions of the game with their various quirks and alterations.

We’ll start by saying that the Gameboy version is only here from a curiosity point of view and you’ll likely spend a few minutes with it as it’s not great. A bigger shame is that the package omits the PS1 and Saturn versions of the game. They are most closely aligned to the DOS version but much tighter in their controls so it seems an odd choice unless there were emulation issues, but then there’s no shortage of either consoles games on the Switch currently.  

The most well-known version of Street Racer is the original, SNES version from 1994. It was most notable for allowing four player split-screen via the multiplayer adapter. Something that’s seems crazy now when you think just how crushed the image would look and how small TVs were at the time. Still, it’s a crazy cross between street fighter (there’s even a sumo wrestler driver), and kart racing with a host of colourful characters in crazy, Wacky Races style vehicles.

Each character has a front and rear attack that can be deployed whenever you like and they can also punch to the left or right. Karts have health bars which when depleted see you really slow down. The only on track collectibles are stars, which can give bonus race points and turbo picks ups. The structure is like Mario kart in that you engage in a series of races across themed courses in different cups. You can get bonus points for punching, lapping opponents or a few other things though which means even if you finish down the pack you can stay competitive. One thing we will say though is the controls feel a tad lose compared to the Evercade version, which is odd.

The one real issue is that the tracks are really short. This is evened out by races having a higher lap count, but it can be almost impossible to get yourself to the front of the pack if you have a bad start as a race can fly by in under a minute. It will be a lot for new players to take as it’s very fast and frantic, far more so than other kart games. The SNES version at least gets to utilise its mode 7 to make tracks seem as dynamic as 16-bit consoles will allow.

As well as the standard racing there are two fun bonus modes included. There’s the rumble where all the cars are in an arena and you need to knock them off the edges, and a soccer mode where you are trying to score goals. Both games work surprisingly well and are good distractions.

The Mega Drive version by contrast doesn’t hold up as well. The lack of the Mode 7 magic means you get quite generic tracks which all seem to blend after a while as they snake away into the distance. It all feels a bit dull and samey, a real shame as the game still moves at a frenetic pace. Much like the Gameboy version it seems unlikely you’ll spend much time with this.

The DOS version at least brings something different to the collection. The game looks and plays quite a bit different with tracks designed to look more cartoon like and races taking a steadier pace. There are also a few collectibles and picks ups you can use. It reminded us of a slower Wacky Races than the chaotic SNES game, but it is something you’ll likely go back to a few times.

Overall, while we personally are happy to see one of our favourite games from the past revitalised there are a few problems here. The price of £17.99 is way over making it an impulse purchase and seems a strange price point for an obscure title. Also, missing the PS1 and Saturn versions is a real shame as if you are putting together a collection like this it now feels incomplete for the hardcore fan. That said, the SNES and DOS versions are fun, so if you can overcome the price and lack of completeness then there’s a lot to play with here.

Overall 7/10