Booting up Cave Story+ was a truly nostalgia-infused experience. Seeing the opening cutscene and hearing the catchy menu music immediately hooked me back in after dabbling in the original release around a decade ago. This time around, I was determined to see the game through to the end, and I’m happy to report that I did just that! Doing so wasn’t without its difficulties, though, and it’s left me with some complicated feelings to parse out. Does this indie gem from years ago still hold up? For the most part, I’d say, “Yes”.
Superliminal Review
It boggles my mind thinking about what went into programming Superliminal. This is a game where you can pick up a dollhouse, hold it in the air and let it fall to the floor at ten times its previous size, then walk inside it and find a whole new part of the level to explore. The game centres around the idea of playing with perspective, where objects that appear small at a distance suddenly are small when you pick them up. Objects phase into existence by lining up abstract pieces at the correct angle, or turn into streaks of paint on the wall when looked at the wrong way. It can be a bit of a head trip, with the game using its setting of dreams within dreams as a means of excusing these impossible occurrences. However, what surprised me most about Superliminal wasn’t the strange perspective shifts or occasionally trippy visuals, but how I ultimately found the whole experience to be … boring.
Kitsune Tails Review
It’s said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if that’s the case, Super Mario World had better feel the sincerity emanating off every inch of Kitsune Tails. From its aesthetics to its gameplay to even the game physics, so much of Kitsune Tails feels like it’s cribbed from or paying homage to Super Mario World that it initially felt uninspired. That’s not to say that it does nothing new, as its cozy, lesbian love triangle narrative gives it a far more progressive spin than anything Mario’s been in, not to mention its setting inspired by Japanese folklore being a far cry from the Mushroom Kingdom. With such a classic game as its inspiration, though, the real question is whether Kitsune Tails can manage to slip out of the shadow of its ancestor to stand on its own.
Tinykin Review
Take a pretty standard collect-a-thon 3D platformer, throw in a healthy dose of Pikmin, and add a dash of Tony Hawk, and you have the delicious dish that is Tinykin. I went into the game knowing next to nothing about it, just that it had a cute art style and seemed to be a charming little platformer. It turned out that I wasn’t prepared for just how charming Tinykin could be, and after some initial issues with getting my controller working with it, I was off to the races and playing for hours on end. Tinykin is a delightful little title, and one that surprised me with just how great it was from start to finish.
Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge Review
Despite being the year of the dragon, in the world of gaming, 2024 is starting to seem like the year of the frog. Between Frogsong, Croakoloco, and now Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge, my gaming life this year has been full of froggy friends, and I can’t say I’m disappointed. Frogs are lovely little critters, and getting to check out more games where they play a starring role is always a delight. In the cases of both Frogsong and Croakoloco, the results were games that, while not perfect, were still compelling and enjoyable experiences. The question is: does the same hold true for Kamaeru?
Croakoloco Review
Incremental games are an odd breed, in that they tend to be as much about what happens while you’re not playing the game as what happens while you are. As I write this, Croakoloco is idly running on my desktop, with frogs happily hopping around and munching on flies, all while earning me in-game money. Of the 50+ hours I’ve put into the game, less than half of it has been spent actively engaging with the interface and systems. Rather, it’s effectively acted as a screensaver that I periodically return to in order to acquire upgrades and more frogs, all in the name of progress. Progress towards what? Well, that’s the rub.
Katana ZERO Review
“This is just sidescrolling Hotline Miami,” was one of my first thoughts upon starting Katana ZERO, and I have to say that I wasn’t immediately sold on the concept. Sure, it had the same fun brand of gory, balls-to-the-wall action, but it didn’t feel as visceral and animalistic as its top-down cousin; it felt, dare I say, sanitized. Fast forward a few hours, and I found myself spiraling deeper into a gradually unfolding non-linear narrative, punctuated by bursts of hectic gameplay that had me simultaneously holding my controller in a death grip and wanting to hurl it across the room. Katana ZERO is a harsh game, both to the player and its characters, but it managed to draw me in like few games in recent memory have and transcend its inspirations to become a real hack n’ slash gem.
Anarcute Review
Riots and revolutions are rarely beautiful. The outcomes can be, particularly if they result in meaningful social changes that aid the disenfranchised. However, the process is almost universally messy. Loud protests, fights, and injuries are all common; one need only look at any number of recent movements – BLM or Free Palestine come to mind – to see how hard the state will crack down on noble goals. Into this complicated subject matter enters Anarcute, a game which simultaneously sands down the harsh realities of protesting with an adorable visual style while also laying the consequences bare, with protestor bodies littering the streets after major confrontations. It’s a weird little game, but one that managed to captivate me despite some occasional hiccups.
Hitman: Absolution Review
For quite some time, I’ve found myself attracted to the black sheep of franchises. Dark Souls II’s controversial experimentation with the Souls formula caught my attention before I’d even played the first game. DmC: Devil May Cry’s attempted reinvention ended up being my introductory point to the series. Now, Hitman: Absolution is the latest game I’ve looked at that has garnered a lot of attention – both positive and negative – for being different from what came before and after. In Absolution’s case, this differentiating factor is a greater emphasis on storytelling and linear design than is typically synonymous with the Hitman series. But how well did this change work for me, and was it enough to make me a Hitman convert? The answer, as always, is complicated.
Firewatch Review
Playing Firewatch was a rollercoaster of emotions. For starters, immediately after finishing the introduction, I had to quit out and go lay down. The game’s store page says that the protagonist, Henry, “has retreated from his messy life”, but I wasn’t prepared to learn just how messy that life was. It hit like a tonne of bricks, leaving my head spinning thinking of all the personal pain it brought to the surface. When I finally managed to sit back down with Firewatch, all of that raw emotion from the intro rapidly evaporated, to be replaced with a strange mystery and a gradually ratcheting tension that made me all but forget about the difficult opening. It felt like two separate stories had been smashed together into a strange homunculus of a narrative, and I couldn’t decide which one I hoped would win out to become the focal point. Eventually, though, questions were answered, the mystery was solved, and all the tension disappeared like a plume of smoke in the wind. All I was left with was a sort of hollowness, and the sense that, while captivating, Firewatch missed the mark to becoming truly special.
Olive's Game Garden 