Another year and another RWE. A lot has happened since the last show for me. At the end of last year, I changed jobs and some other life changes happened. And so I have not been as active on here as I would have liked. But I was excited to get out to this show as the opportunity afforded and I was thankfully able to make it out.
This year had one disappointing thing, and that was unfortunately for reasons they couldn’t go into (likely due to NDAs) very deeply, Headcannon was unable to come to the show. For those who don’t know, this is the developer who brought out the very well-received Sonic Origins a few years ago. But things understandably happen in every profession and sometimes plans just have to change on the fly.
Thankfully, this year there were still plenty of other guests and events to see. Some of the guests who made a return included the folks from RetroRGB and Retroware. The voice of NBA Jam Tim Kitzrow came back as did Big Bucks Entertainment and Blitzkrieg Pro Wrestling. Dan Larson of Toy Galaxy was there. 1Up alumni Jeremy Parish and Nadia Oxford also came back. The folks at Retroware had a booth with some demos (I didn’t get the chance to check out.) Some of the newer guests included voice actor Ian James Corlett (of Mega Man and DBZ fame), YouTubers Phoenix Resale, Retro Rick, as well as Tito of Nacho Nacho Productions. Terry Torok was also there. There were also many, many tournaments this year.
Despite not seeing as many returning names as some would have liked, this year still had a very high attendance. More people possibly came out to this year’s show than last year’s. As I entered the Hartford Convention Center this year the line was pretty massive. I spent close to an hour in line to check in after prepaying months earlier.
With that one minor inconvenience out of the way, I made my way to the floor and was immediately in the midst of a slew of vendors. This year leaned heavier into video game vendors than last year, something that oddly enough helped me less since I have a lot of what I want on my vintage console platforms. Still, throughout the weekend I did spend a fair amount of time looking over the booths several times over as it was so busy I was all but guaranteed to miss something good at any given vendor upon a first pass.
My buddy Russ Lyman brought back his venerable Mario Kart ride as well as his Yoshi Bike for display. I spotted the former on my way into the building. As I wandered past the vendor section I spied the returning Blitzkrieg staff setting up the ring for the matches they would hold throughout the show. I got in some early time in the free play area this year. This year they had a Frogger machine so as bad at that game as I am, of course, I had to give it several pathetic attempts at getting on the board. I didn’t make the cut. I managed to get a couple of boards in, but that was nowhere near the scoreboard.
But I didn’t do too bad when I stumbled upon an Atari 2600 running Yars’ Revenge. And who wouldn’t love to play Yars’ Revenge? I put some time into that game over the weekend. Periodically I would take another crack at the game to see how well I could do. I ended up somewhere just shy of 50,000 points.
There was also an impressive sight as there was a Sega Saturn set up with a multitap and 8 original controllers running a copy of Saturn Bomberman. This is something you very rarely see set up in the wild. And so seeing one for the first time in the wild in decades was awesome.
Of course, with the way Saturn aftermarket prices are going, I could never go get one of these for myself. So being able to play it in some capacity in public was remarkable. This was one of the more popular setups in the free play area with good reason. Saturn Bomberman is a classic.
After getting in some time with the games I discovered Big Bucks Entertainment had returned. They were doing a live Press Your Luck contest again so I joined the live audience. Two kids were taking on a college student and only lost due to a late game Whammy. It’s always one of the presentations I look forward to at RetroWorldExpo because it’s something you don’t see done at a lot of shows. It’s the same reason the inclusion of an independent wrestling show is a welcome addition for a lot of attendees.
One of the vendors, Pac-Family Games also did something a little interesting this year. They set up a small display of pre-NES-era platforms with some nice overviews written out about each of them. They thought to include some of the more esoteric machines like the RCA Studio II as well as some of the interesting PONG clones like Nintendo’s Color TV-Game 6. There was also a Vectrex along with Atari’s 2600 and 5200 which made me smile. I had a lot of 2600 stuff growing up, but never had the 5200 or the Vectrex. The Vectrex is one of those really great platforms that just came out at the most inopportune time.
But seeing all of these certainly reminded me of my early childhood. Seeing things like the Colecovision, 5200, and Intellivision games in a store back then blew a lot of people’s minds. But that was short-lived as the crash began and games moved to home computers. But of course, we didn’t know about any of that until our parents brought home a Commodore 64, Atari 400, or an Apple II. It was a while before many of us ever had an NES. Even after Nintendo took the US by storm a lot of the same games were on these computers of varying quality. So many kids didn’t get an NES until a few years after it came out.
It was especially nice seeing a couple of the failed consoles of the era as well. Not many people had the RCA Studio II, Bally Astrocade, or the Emerson Arcadia 2001. And so they’re not really known by most people. So having them out there was really cool.
I didn’t make it into as many panels this year but I did manage to make two on Saturday. The first of which featured Terry Torok. For those who don’t know he was the producer of the original Nintendo World Championships tour and finals presentation in Hollywood. In the panel, he talked a bit about his experience pitching the idea to Nintendo as a means to get parents to take a bit of an interest in their kids’ hobby at the time while also building interest from the general public. And he spoke of some of the parallels between what they accomplished with the NWC and with what many of today’s eSports events have done. He talked a bit about his hopes that collaboration could be a major factor in future events. Where eSports could not just focus on the games themselves, but how players could be incentivized to help each other get better, resulting in more people playing at a higher level. He also went over four main pillars of eSports, how there are pillars for the games themselves, the players who become personalities, the core audience, and the general audience. Bridging all of those is a major part of an organization’s success. He also talked about some of his work building events up in other parts of the world and a new analog board game in development. Two lucky winners got early versions as prizes. All in all an interesting panel, even if you aren’t following competitive gaming scenes of the past or present.
After that panel, I roamed the floor again for a bit and I managed to catch one of the undercard matches Blitzkrieg was putting on. It was a solid match with some old-school spots featuring a big man heel and a smaller performer in the face role. There was a fair amount of the face fighting from underneath and building up momentum. There was a swerve finish when both combatants knocked each other out for a Double K.O.. Overall not bad even if the finish was a little confusing for anyone unaware of a larger program between the two wrestlers. At certain points throughout the convention, former Brood member Gangrel made appearances, but I didn’t get the chance to see him.
After that, I caught some of the Street Fighter 6 tournament. While I didn’t see anything as crazy as one might see at a big show like EVO I didn’t expect to. What I did see was a lot of very good players that could still easily defeat me playing some very close matches. Not very many of the rounds were lopsided and for every one of the handful of Perfect K.O.s was a very close match to follow it up with. Alex Smith clinched the final spot, while Kite made an impressive run through a loser’s bracket to make it back to the top. But ultimately lost. But what a great showing it was with things culminating in a Juri mirror match.
I wandered around the floor a bit before going off to the next panel. I stopped by my pal Antionette’s booth and found a hilarious Silent Hill 2 parody featuring Doug Funny. She does all sorts of great pop culture-themed art. You can check out her Etsy shop for some of her work and get some items for yourself. Next to her was Hitbox Designs, which had some very impressive Splatoon-inspired pins I pretty much had to buy. Also returning was Tom Ryan Studio and he had a few great Masters Of The Universe pieces of art as well as pins. So I made sure I got myself an Orko pin.
After that, it was off to the next panel. Tim Kitzrow was back for a Q&A panel and it was quite entertaining. He was also very kind and down to Earth talking to a few of us before the panel started about growing up in Albany, NY, and visiting family in Connecticut and Rhode Island often before he moved out to Chicago. In the panel, he elaborated a bit on how he found work with Midway while working at a restaurant in Chicago as he was lining up other work at Second City. Yes, the same venue that gave us SCTV alumni. Some of his earliest jobs with Midway were voice samples for Pinball machines. Eventually, he would get the job on NBA JAM as the announcer which would carry over into many of Midway’s other arcade sports franchises like NFL Blitz and NHL Hitz. One of the questions he was given was if he got to meet NBA players during the creation of the game, and he said those meetings mostly happened after the game was out. He told us one story about how he waited on Michael Jordan which led to a custom NBA JAM machine being produced for himself as he had wanted to be a playable character in the original release but wasn’t included due to clauses in his licensing deals at the time. Interestingly someone found the Jordan player data still in the ROM files years later and was able to make him playable on a stock NBA JAM cabinet. I got to ask him what he does in terms of hobbies and it turns out he plays music for fun even to this day as well as outdoor activity.
After that panel, it was back on the floor for a bit before the first day ended. I was finally able to get the Splatoon 2 Inkling Girl Amiibo I’ve been hunting for a few years now thanks to one vendor having a sole mint on card figurine. They also had a mint-on-card vintage King Randor from the original Masters Of The Universe line, but I simply could not afford to buy it as even a loose figure goes for almost as much as a AAA video game these days. Still, it was awesome to see one not only carded but with a card in such great condition.
With day one under my belt, it was off to get some food and then some sleep as I would be commuting back to Hartford for day 2. I stopped off at Rosy Tomorrow’s which is an institution in my area of the State. The food is pretty good and the atmosphere is rather nice. They often have live music going on, but this particular weekend they didn’t. Still, I had some loaded chicken tacos and a nice pint of Guinness.
When I got back to the show for day 2 things weren’t quite as crammed with visitors but it was still a fairly busy floor. I got in some gaming before the free play area filled back up again. I was able to clear Third Strike on about 4 credits which is unheard of for me. Especially since Gil is one of the cheapest bosses in video game history. And I gave some love to Killer Instinct 2 along with a few more sad attempts at Frogger.
Somehow I had missed the panel with Ian James Corlett, but he was kind enough to sign a figure I had picked up for a coworker who is a huge DBZ mark. And he was also kind enough to do a few quips from the old Ruby-Spears Mega Man show, where he played the Blue Bomber himself. A very pleasant interaction.
I had also somehow overlooked the fact that Canvas Quest was back with its excellent line of video game-themed pins. So I picked up several of them for family members. We had a nice interaction about the T-shirt I’d gotten from Neatoshop. They turned out to be fans of both Duran Duran and Masters Of The Universe so the mashup really appealed to them.
Another booth I checked out was for a game called Below The Ocean a quirky puzzle platformer by Ismael Rodriguez. And after playing the demo I came away pretty impressed. At first glance, you may confuse it for Doinksoft’s Gato Roboto as it shares a similar vintage home computer look. But it plays nothing like it. For starters, it is not a search action game like Gato Roboto was. There are no cats driving vehicles either. Instead, I was reminded of classic computer games in the vein of Thrust and Bubble Ghost. The idea is you’re a deep-sea diver who consistently needs to find oxygen tanks to refill your air supply. Not only do you need to find these tanks for air you also use your air hose in a variety of ways to solve puzzles to progress to the next screen. It’s really cool.
He also had a demo for Tuttle, a game that combines 80s arcade platforming with inventory management as you grow giant flowers and then cut them down for their seeds so that you can grow bigger flowers for points. Before long there are giant insects trying to eat the plants and so you have yourself something unique that sits somewhere between something like Activision’s Pressure Cooker and Sega’s Fantasy Zone. Both of these are out on Steam, and I hope to eventually get to Below The Ocean. I know this past year has not gone the way I wanted in getting writing done. But I hope I’ll be able to adjust soon.
My pal Doug Mandeville was at the show vending and while I didn’t get a photo he had an elaborate hoax of an item as a conversation piece. He had a package of Super Mario Bros. Oreos in a plastic box with a grade facsimile on it. At first glance, you would be forgiven for thinking he’d actually sent a bag of cookies out to be graded, but upon further inspection, it was quite the convincing troll. That said, he did have some decent pieces including a sealed big box DOOM Shareware and a number of sealed 2600 games.
I was also able to see the tail end of a Deal Or No Deal that day. The contestant managed to get all the way down to the final two briefcases before making a deal with the bank. I didn’t see what he ultimately got for a prize, but it was really cool seeing someone do that well.
I did manage to get into my buddy Mike Levy’s panel. This year he discussed the EGM Fax he famously discovered which showed off some of the creative direction some of the Konami staff considered taking Castlevania in at one time. He’s a massive fan of Castlevania and is a wellspring of information on the series’ lore. As such, the rest of the panel focused on the earlier style of Castlevania games where the focus was predominantly on action platforming with exploration elements being secondary save for a couple of examples like Simon’s Quest. Then he analyzed why the series has shifted focus to more exploratory games like Symphony Of The Night before ultimately trying to clone Sony’s God Of War franchise with later PS2 releases and games like the Lords Of Shadows series. All in all, an interesting breakdown of the franchise and some of its spiritual successors past and present.
After that panel, I caught the tail end of an auction where I saw a few items of interest like a sealed Metroid Prime for the Nintendo Gamecube, a few Disney display standees, a case of unopened Kingdom Hearts figures, and a sealed Marvel 3 fight stick. With that, the end of the show was just around the corner. With that, I said my goodbyes and left the Convention Center.
But my weekend wasn’t completely done. I headed over to City Steam Brewery for my semi-annual visit. This year no one was able to meet me over there due to commitments but it was a good visit nevertheless. I had some of their Alan Is More Stout and an awesome Mac and Cheeseburger. The stout is terrific, with some notes of chocolate and coffee. I ended up getting a growler to take home with me and a pint glass to boot. Every time I have ever gone there the service has been great, the food has been amazing, and the beers are some of my all-time favorites. If you ever find yourself in Hartford and you’re of legal age give them a visit. They even have frequent stand-up comedy shows and karaoke nights.
But with dinner taken care of it was time to leave the State capitol. I had a great weekend and I can’t wait to see what they do next year. Hopefully, some of the previous years’ guests will return. Hopefully, some of your ideal guests will get booked. Hopefully, there will be some other attractions and even more tournaments. Hopefully, I can stop saying “Hopefully.”. In any event, I’m looking forward to next year’s event already.
I apologize for being so late to the party getting this out. How do I go on about this one without sounding redundant? I don’t know that it’s even possible at this point but I’m going to try. Sometimes the best moments of creativity and innovation come about when your back is against the wall. Other times, they come about from analyzing what you have and refining it. The original Splatoon came about in an environment of the former. The Wii U was not a big seller and in a bid to move the needle, it became something of a phenomenon. It took a popular genre, the third-person multiplayer shooter, and combined it with the fast pace of the classic PC arena shooters. But it also created its own unique gameplay loop with its core Turf War mode.
With that one stroke of genius, it made a competitive genre palatable to not only hardcore veterans who had played since the days of DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D but to the many who had barely touched the genre. Because the focus was now on an objective that anyone could do. You might not be confident in your ability to hold down a giant flashing letter in Battlefield, but you could look down and paint a floor. And doing it contributed something. But Splatoon didn’t end there, you had a well-rounded package. It eventually had Ranked Battles, modes that were akin to those in its contemporaries, as well as one that was a microcosm of the Turf War in Splat Zones. Now you didn’t worry about the whole map. Just designated areas in the center. But it also included a campaign with a lighthearted tone atop a surprisingly deep and dark storyline. It had characters nearly everyone who played the game fell in love with, and it began a tradition of stealthily teaching multiplayer mechanics through its Super Mario Galaxy meets Metal Gear Solid level design.
PROS: New mechanics. New weapons. New specials. Greatly expanded lobby system. Stellar campaign. Salmon Run is no longer limited to specific hours. TableTurf card battles.
CONS: Connectivity issues. Not all of the improvements are visible at face value.
DEEP CUT: The latest idol group is a trio, and bring along some real bangers in the soundtrack department. But they haven’t forgotten about Off The Hook or the Squid Sisters either.
Splatoon 2 would follow 5 years later and that game was the latter. It added a lot of new stuff to an already great formula. It too had a great storyline campaign mode. But it expanded upon it. It also stealthily taught beginners the basics and gave them a lot to do. Every multiplayer mode returned from the original and it introduced Clam Blitz, a new mode with elements of Unreal Tournament 2003’s Bombing Run, and the Salmon Run horde mode that became very popular with a segment of the fandom. Splatoon 2’s Octo Expansion gave the single-player 80 challenges that played like a combination of Splatoon 2’s main campaign and puzzle stages with the tone of something like Portal. And clearing it lets fans play as the Octolings introduced in the original game’s storyline. Clearing 100% of that Expansion Pack unleashes one of the toughest secret boss fights of all time on you as well. And successfully completing that gives you a multiplayer item that tells the world you did it.
So with all of these improvements and iterations, one can only wonder what they could possibly add to make the game even better? And the answer to that is quite a bit. Not everything is going to be obvious to everyone at face value. The graphics are improved a lot over Splatoon 2, but in such a way you have to start to analyze it. Geometrically it isn’t a major leap, but the texture work is much sharper. There are improvements to some of the special effects, and it all runs at a pretty solid 60 frames per second. At least in the actual game modes. Once again you’ll spend time in a hub world upon booting up the game in any instance after the first one, and it has much more going on with background details and animation. The emphasis on the new city and the world that gets explored reflects this and so you’ll be running around half that when in Splatsville.
By now, Splatoon has settled into a formula that long-time fans will be familiar with but is easy enough for newcomers to get a handle on. When you first turn on the game, it immediately hits you with an important question. At least it does if you’ve played Splatoon 2. That question is “Would you like to import your Splatoon 2 data?” Choosing to do so nets you a few benefits. The first is that you’ll be given Sheldon Licenses. These will let you gain early access to some of the weapons you would normally have to grind for. If you mained a weapon in the previous game, it is nice because you can jump right in and use it. All of the base weapons from Splatoon 2 are here, and I know I’m very late getting this published, so at the time of this writing there are already some new ones you can try. Speaking of new ones, this game introduces a new bow class of weapons where you can shoot ink arrows in horizontal shots or vertical shots. The latter happens when you fire while jumping. The other is the new Splatana class, where you essentially have a weapon you would brandish like a sword. There’s a stamper and a windshield wiper for example.
Beyond getting your hands on weapons early, importing your data means that you can enter Ranked Battles earlier. In Splatoon 3 they’re called Anarchy Battles, and you can play them in either a single match called Open, or you can do a first to five called Series. Normally the game would have you grind up to level 10 in the general Turf War mode, then open up the Ranked Battles. The Ranking system has been slightly altered from the previous game. Whereas Splatoon 2 had a system that went from C to S with a -, standard, and + sub-rank in between before moving on to S+ and then X where you had a four-digit ranking Splatoon 3 does not. Instead, Splatoon 3 goes from C to S+. Recently, X was added to the game. X Rank works the way it does in the previous game, where you’re given a four-digit power level that goes up or down based on your wins and losses. However, it is separated entirely from the other letters.
That said, to access X Rank mode you’ll have to attain an S+ Rank. One thing that makes the goal a little easier in one respect is that you won’t rank down from losing games. Should you fight your way to an A+ Rank, for example, losing too many games will not take you back down to A or A-. Instead, the game has a point system in between the grades. You’ll need to attain enough points to enter a Rank Up series where you need to play three games and hope you earn enough points from that to get you over the top. If you manage to get to S+ you’ll unlock the coveted X Rank.
All of this means on paper, that the Ranking system is easier and will be more beloved. But it isn’t the whole story. Because the inability to lose rank also means that you can’t be sent back down to people with the same level of talent should you find yourself unable to win enough points to move further. Especially if you lose so much that you go into a large number of negative points. To alleviate that issue, the game does reset ranks every season, by knocking every player down by one grade. You can also get one mulligan to knock down if you choose to do so once per season. So it isn’t quite as simple as things would seem.
With all of that out of the way, during your first boot-up of the game, you’ll be tasked with creating your avatar. You can now choose to be an Inkling or Octoling right out of the box. You then customize the look of your character. This time around they’ve expanded the starter options. There are more hairstyles than there were in previous games. Eye color is a new customization option and you now get a pet salmonid (One of the enemies from the Salmon Run mode introduced in Splatoon 2.) that you can also customize. You then guide your character through a brief tutorial to get you used to the basic controls. At the end of which you catch a train to Splatsville, the new hub world that resides a long way from the desert you begin in.
Once you arrive in Splatsville, you’ll find the concept of the hub world has greatly been expanded upon. You’ll have the manhole cover where you can follow Captain Cuttlefish down to play through this iteration’s campaign. You’ll also see the shops where you can purchase weapons, clothing items, and new to the series, locker equipment. Splatoon 3’s city block hub also has a new card battle minigame you can play. And there’s also the returning Salmon Run mode. And of course, there is the expected tower you can enter to go play various modes online.
It’s recommended most newcomers to the series play the campaign first, though even veterans may want to as there are a few new mechanics to learn here. The story mode in all of the Splatoon games stealthily teaches you the game mechanics while giving you a substantial single-player experience to play through. In Splatoon 3, you don’t have to have played either of the other Splatoon titles to enjoy it or understand it. But for those who have played them, there are loads of nods to the older games, with a lot of little details that tie the three games together. One of the ways the games have allowed the players to affect the storyline is with their Final Splatfest events, which I’ll get to later. But the winners of that event in each of the games have driven the development team on what theme to lead the next title’s storyline with.
In Splatoon 2 that event was Chaos Vs. Order and with that battle, Team Chaos won. As such, Splatoon 3 has elements of chaos throughout its story mode campaign. The setup this time is that many of our favorite characters have left the upscale area of Inkopolis to visit the city of Splatsville. Splatsville is surrounded by desert landscapes, and the city embraces its fair share of the musical counterculture. This is reflected in the soundtrack, which continues the influences of punk rock, and hip-hop. But there has been a bit more of a new wave influence in many of the campaign stages with some synths and bass lines you could almost mistake for the likes of Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, or Simple Minds. There’s also a continuation of electro-pop and some post-punk influences as well.
There are two hub worlds to go through. These work like the previous games but they’ve been expanded. There’s a prologue set where you’ll see the familiar kettles you enter throughout a small map. Each of these leads to an individual level where you’ll have to get from the beginning to the end. Most of these work like a Super Mario Galaxy level structure, with you facing platformer challenges in a linear fashion with checkpoints you’ll continue on from if you lose a life. Each level gives you three lives. If you lose all of them, you’ll lose points (represented by power eggs) as you’ll have to spend some of them to continue.
In this iteration, you’ll find a lethal fuzzy substance all around the hub map. Much of which covers the kettle entrances to levels you’ll need to play. You may be wondering what purpose your pet salmonid serves as it follows you around the hub worlds and levels of the game. What he does is remove the aforementioned fuzz. You’ll have to spend a different amount of power eggs on each removable portion. This stuff also appears in some of the individual stages. So keep note of that.
In addition to helping you remove fuzz, the salmonid can find secrets within the levels for you to uncover. They’re often invisible and can hide anything from more eggs to sunken scrolls that tell you more of the lore to locker decorations which I’ll also get to later. Once you get to the end of the first hub world you’ll face a boss who is familiar to players of the first two games. Beat this encounter, and you’ll find yourself in a subterranean arctic world called Alterna.
You’ll move on as you did in the previous hub world. But Alterna is much, much larger. At the end of each section, there is a pipeline that takes you further into subsequent hubs. Think of them like the worlds of a Super Mario game’s structures. Sometimes you’ll be given a branching path, and each of these pipelines costs eggs to enter. So not only do you have to worry about removing all of the fuzz, but you’ll have to keep earning enough to continue onward. If you run out of cash though, fear not. You can go back and replay earlier maps, perhaps even looking for secrets you may have missed originally, to earn more.
The other thing that changes is the fact that in Alterna not every stage follows the same formula. Taking a page from the previous game’s expansion pack; Octo Expansion, some of these stages take a challenging approach instead, which gives things more of the first-person puzzle stage feel found in games like Portal. All of this gives the game a lot of variety. Beyond that, each of these stages whether they’re a platformer, puzzle, or boomer shooter-feeling horde battle, will teach you many of the game’s mechanics.
Splatoon 3 also continues the trend of larger-than-life boss fights where it’s one part arena shooter and one part pattern memorization. Some might feel familiar to those who played earlier titles, but many of them are entirely new experiences. Some actually reference some other Nintendo games, so for fans of Nintendo IPs in general, they are nice nods.
As for those mechanics I talked about, they can become pretty complex and deep. The basics are you can, of course, shoot floors, and swim underneath your own ink. But swimming also reloads your weapons, allows you to move faster, and at higher levels learn how to trick jump around areas faster. Splatoon 3 adds two new moves into the mix. A squid roll that allows you to parry shots fired at you, should you become proficient enough. Quickly jumping in the opposite direction while swimming can net you a free hit during a small window of animation. The same can be said about the squid jump, a move where you can charge while swimming to get an extra boost. Useful when climbing walls.
Going through the campaign can get you acquainted with the basics of each of these, but of course, playing online matches is where you’ll really learn the advanced mechanics and unorthodox uses of the different move sets. Not only will learning these kinds of things benefit you in online matches, but there is also a super-secret surprise waiting for you if you 100% the campaign. One that opens up after the credits roll and will require the use of every aforementioned mechanic to overcome. If you can pull that off you will get a nice little perk for multiplayer.
All of the major multiplayer modes are back as expected. Chief among them is the Turf War where both teams vie for control of the map by painting all of the floors their respective team colors. It is the flagship mode most will be familiar with. There are a wide variety of different weapons to use to do so. At the end of the three-minute battle, the team with the most paint laid down is the victor.
Beyond that are the modes we mentioned earlier; the Anarchy Battles. Anarchy Open battles are single rounds of the game’s ranked modes. As in Splatoon and Splatoon 2, the modes and maps are cycled every hour or so which means every combination is eventually played. The difference here is that the Anarchy Open battles can be played by anyone of any rank at any time. Whereas the Anarchy Series will still pair people up in solo queues with other players of the same rank, Open matches are a little loose with it. That’s because, in the Open, you can pair up with friends of all stripes.
Ranked Modes in Splatoon 2 could only be played with friends of the same skill level unless you were all B+ or above and played in a league together. Or, if you wanted to stick to private matches where none of you would gain experience to level up. In Splatoon 3 Anarchy Open changes things by letting your friends join up on you even if you’re all from different ranks. What’s nice about this is that not everyone is going to have the same interest level in the competitive end of the game. If you’re someone who wants to grind your way to S+ so you can play X rank, but you have 2 friends who don’t, you can still enjoy the modes together. Beyond that, it also gives newer players and casual players incentive to go beyond the base Turf War mode.
Anarchy Series battles are where individual players will want to play the ranked modes when they want to push to level up. In these battles, you’ll be tasked with getting five wins while paired with three other random people. You’re allowed to lose up to three games. If you win the majority of the series you’ll get a lot of points to level up. If you lose, you’ll lose a number of points. Consistently losing as I mentioned earlier, can get you into negative points, but if you get a good streak going you’ll reach the point level needed to enter a Rank Up series. If you can win that you’ll make the next letter grade.
Returning are Tower Control, Rainmaker, Splat Zones, and Clam Blitz. Tower Control works similarly to push cart modes seen in other shooters. There are paths set up along the map that the tower follows. Getting to the tower and standing on it moves it along that path. The goal is to move it to an endpoint in the enemy base for a win. There are checkpoints along the way you’ll need to capture in order to progress.
Rainmaker is similar. It’s a bit like a combination of a push cart mode and an escort mode. There’s not a set path in the map, but like the Tower Control mode, you’re tasked with moving an object from the center of the map into an endpoint in the enemy team’s base. The difference is that this time it’s a giant gun shaped like a fish that can shoot a powerful blast of ink. Each team is trying to get ahold of it. Once someone on your team gets it, it’s up to the others to escort them across enemy territory to get it onto a podium. That means constantly shooting down the opponents who will be trying to kill them to take it for themselves.
Splat Zones is a competitive microcosm of the Turf War. Unlike Turf War, you’re not tasked with painting the entire map. Rather, you need to paint one, or two very specific zones in the center of the map and control them until a timer hits zero. If the enemy team takes control of it from you, you’ll have penalty seconds added to your timer for if and when you take control back of them. If you do, they too will be penalized with extra seconds. Get to zero before time runs out and your team wins.
Finally, there’s Clam Blitz, where each team tries to invade the other team’s base and fill a basket with clams peppered throughout the map. In order to do this each team will need to destroy the opposing team’s shield with a football. How do you get a football? By collecting enough clams you’ll create one. Chaos then ensues as both teams shoot at any football they see, as you can’t carry a football under the ink with you, and it gives away your position. So it’s up to each team to divide duties between escorting football wielders into enemy territory and staying behind long enough to play goalie against enemies charging into your team’s territory.
All of these modes can involve a wealth of strategies to employ. It’s astonishing how deep all of them become at a high level where analyzing the maps, weapons, and how the gear system ties into all of it really come into play. For those new to Splatoon, the gear system is another one of the series’ hallmarks. When you go into the shops to buy the costume options you’ll find each of these has a perk. Which is referred to as gear. Some of these perks may refill your ink faster when you’re swimming. Some may fill your special meter faster. Some make you run faster. Or a number of other perks. You will also see question marks on these clothing options. These will be filled by random perks after so many experience points gained in the competitive online modes.
Advanced users have some other options when it comes to gear. One can go to a character in the plaza hub named Murch, who returns from the last game. Except now he’s older. Murch can put specific perks on your gear if you have enough ability chunks to do so. You get these by either grinding them in online matches or having him scrub your gear off of clothes you’re not using. You can also get gear randomly when you go into the tower to go into online matches. There’s a vending machine you can spend points you earn in online battles on the machine for random items and sometimes those items may be a bundle of a variety of ability chunks.
If you have at least 10 chunks, you can have Murch place them on one of your question marks. So it gives you the opportunity to build a very specific set of perks over time. If you have clothes you want extra question mark slots on for more perks you can also have Murch place those on them. But you need to give him Seasnails. You get these through the Splatfest events Nintendo runs throughout the year.
In these special events, the city hub will turn into a late-night block party and when you go online you’ll be placed on a specific team you choose at a table. This table will give you three options to choose from, and once you do, for the duration of the event you will play Turf War on behalf of that team. During the Splatfests, there are different variants of the Turf War. There are the open battles that are open to well, everyone hence the name. In open battles, you’ll be able to group up with friends. Similar to how you can with the Anarchy open battles where you play the various ranked modes.
Then there is the Turf War Pro mode. These battles work the same way as the open ones, except you can only play them in a solo queue. You’ll have to be paired with three random teammates and try your best to get the big win by being a team player. Probably more so than in the open version because there are more clout points at stake. More on that in a moment. As it does mimic the Anarchy series battles in that you have to play it with random players, you’ll find a lot of the people you’ll be playing with are more competitive. That’s because in the Anarchy series players are trying to grind their way up the ranks. That mindset will likely translate to the Splatfest open Turf War battles since the ranked modes are disabled during the event.
After the latest patch, they began opening up the option to play in Tri Color Turf War battles after the halfway point during Splatfests. In these matches, one team of four faces off against two teams of two. It’s still very much a Turf War. Where things change up a bit is that at the center of the map, a beacon will spawn. Two teams will have to attempt to get them when they appear. If either of those teams manages to get one or both of them, a giant octopus-shaped sprinkler will appear on the map, automatically giving them a big boost in acquiring turf. The defending team not only has to stop them from getting these super sprinklers, they also have to come away with more floor coverage than their opponents. The attacking teams have a disadvantage as they’re two-person teams against a four-person team. But anything can happen. The two underdog teams can temporarily align themselves to ensure the defending team doesn’t have said numbers advantage. But they can also go into business for themselves by trying to sneak away with both of the sprinklers.
All three of these Splatfest Turf War variants will give your team a number of clout points. Clout points are a big deal during the event because the winning team in each category will get a point toward victory. Each of those three modes ultimately adds up to three points. Beyond those points, there is one given for the most popular team (ie: the team most people joined). and one point for whichever team ended up with the most conch shells. Not to be confused with the sea snails mentioned earlier. These shells are picked up whenever you update your catalog level during the event. Which you may want to do even outside of the event as you’ll unlock some cool stuff for doing so anyway.
There are also the Festival shells you’ll get if you end up in a 10x battle and win. these give you a better chance of getting into 100x or 333x battles. If you get into any of these multiplier matches and win, you’ll gain a lot more clout points on your team’s behalf. So it really behooves you to take what would normally be seen as the most easy-going match type a little bit more seriously. That’s because, at the end of the event, you’ll be rewarded with a certain number of sea snails depending on how much you leveled up and where your team placed in the event. You can then take these snails to Murch who can boost your star power on clothes with them to get you more slots.
As you can see, this gives competitive people more depth to work with as they shoot toward higher levels. “What kind of gear should I pair with what weapon?” they may ask themselves. As far as the weapons go, there is a wide variety to choose from as denoted earlier. Every weapon class returns along with the new ones. So between the weapons and gear, you’ll have to decide what kind of role you’re going to attempt to fill in each match type.
When you do go online to play in a Turf War or the Ranked modes the lobby system has also been greatly expanded upon. No longer do you simply stand in an elevator, select your mode, and move on. Instead, when you enter the tower you’ll find a large room where you can practice on training targets. There’s also a training dummy you can turn on to practice combat with. The Targets work like the ones in Sheldon’s shop in the first two games. But by being in the lobby you can do some aiming drills while you wait to connect to other players in a match.
Connecting to friends is also, much, much easier now. Where the old games required you to plan to be on at the same time to coordinate a league battle so you could play the other modes, form a lobby for Turf War, or even set up a private game, Splatoon 3 gives you some quality of life updates. As I mentioned earlier you can easily choose “With Friends” options on Turf War or Anarchy Open battles. If you see any of your friends listed as online and in a game of either, you can join them on the fly. You won’t always be on the same team, but you can surprise them. The game does still let you set up lobbies. But they don’t have to be League Battles. Now you can ping your friends to join your lobby be it a public or private game. In a public game, you’ll usually wind up alongside one another too.
The online experience also lets you record your matches for a period of time so you can watch replays of them and see the perspectives of every player involved. This is a fantastic tool for people who want to go back and find their mistakes so they can rectify them in future matches. Next time, they may expect a splat bomb around a certain corner. Or realize that a wall they thought obfuscated them from a sniper’s perch actually didn’t. Plus they can give you codes you can give out to friends that they can punch in and watch the same replays. The feature also works with the Nintendo Online phone app. As in Splatoon 2, you can also use the app to find brief windows to get clothing items the in-game shops might not have at that particular moment. You can still use it for voice chat, but that seems pointless when you can just conference call friends or use an app like Discord. Still, the integration is nice in some respects.
Also returning is the LAN feature. This is actually a key one because it allows for people to not only host an offline LAN party in the vein of a late 90s fare like Rise Of The Triad, DOOM or Duke Nukem 3D but also for tournament organizers. Splatoon had a more niche scene due to the low base of the Wii U, but Splatoon 2 quickly became a noteworthy title on the Switch. One that had a notable scene grow up around it with several high-profile events from Nintendo among others. Splatoon 3 has already eclipsed those numbers and has gained traction, growing that community further. So retaining this feature is big.
Another addictive feature of the lobby is the locker area. Once you level up enough a room opens up where you can fill a locker with stickers, posters, collectibles, weapons, and other decorative models you can get at the new store they opened in the hub world. Run by a character named Harmony, the store gives you a catalog level as you splurge on more stuff. It’s mainly a silly side thing you can take part in to personalize your lobby experience a bit.
Speaking of personalization, Splatoon 3 adds some stuff other popular shooters have had for a while. Now you can get your own banners that display behind your name at the beginning and end of matches. You can also get titles in prefixes and suffixes that you can combine over time. Some have direct references to in-game lore, while others are more about other aspects of the game. And you can also decorate your background banner with badges you earn by completing challenges and objectives in any of the game’s other content. On paper, it sounds small, but in practice, it’s quite endearing.
And while you may miss Crusty Sean and his food truck of wonder. You can still get drink and food tickets. The lobby does have a snack bar where you can purchase them with the money you get from online battles. They’ll also sometimes show up in the balls you get from the vending machine of random chance using the same money. Speaking of that machine, you can also use concha shells (not to be confused with sea snails) you earn during Splatfests to get random chance capsule balls from it as well.
I can already hear some people screaming about the other stuff I haven’t mentioned yet like the return of Salmon Run. It returns from Splatoon 2 and is the series’ take on the player vs. environment horde mode popularized by games like Gears Of War. You and three other players get sent on extermination missions by Grizzco CEO Mr. Grizz to continue gunning down waves of salmonid sea creatures and their boss counterparts for power eggs. To truly succeed you’ll need to survive three waves and within each bring back a certain number of power eggs to your team’s basket. You’re all given random weapons every wave, and you have to work together to survive. Especially when bosses show up as they all take different strategies to defeat, and they tend to hold the power eggs. If you can survive all or most of the waves you’ll be rewarded with experience to level up. Salmon Run has its own separate ranking system and you can also unlock certain costume options that are only available to attain in that mode. Since you can use them in competitive modes, it gives fans of PvP a reason to jump into PvE. Periodically you may get a bonus wave where a mega-boss salmonid shows up like Godzilla and takes a ton of punishment before you can put them away.
Rounding all of that stuff out is the new TableTurf Card Battle minigame which is found in a separate part of the hub world. You’ll earn cards over time that represent different weapons and sprays as they’re placed on a board in a turn-based card game. The idea is to cover most of the board with your ink the way you would cover a map in a Turf War. Some cards do more work than others, and depending on where you place them you can take over some enemy turf. You also can’t place them anywhere. They have to line up on a grid in very specific ways. It takes some getting used to, but when you do it is a fun break from the other modes.
And they also brought back the plaza posts from the other two games. There’s a mailbox you can visit that brings up a rudimentary drawing program. I highly recommend you use it in handheld mode so you can draw freehand with a stylus rather than trying to draw with a thumbstick and buttons. Once you’ve created something you can upload it to a Facebook or Twitter account and in doing so, your art may appear in someone else’s plaza or even a match.
One other enhancement they’ve made is that the recon mode has been greatly expanded. You don’t have to be in an online queue to access it anymore, the same character in the lobby selling tickets is out in the plaza for you to visit. And they’ll allow you to choose any map in any mode to explore for up to an hour. This is really nice for anyone who wants to study the map layouts or experiment with unorthodox means to get around them. Very handy for anyone who wants to get a little bit more competitive with friends or strangers.
As you can see, Splatoon 3 is much more than a facelift to the previous game. It’s a lot more apparent to longtime fans than it might seem to newcomers. But it truly is fantastic in almost every way. I have to say almost because there are a couple of Mr. Grizz-sized elephants in the room. The first are some of the bugs that were thankfully caught early. Some of these potentially ruined certain modes, as they were forced off until the bugs were fixed. One of which made Rainmaker nearly instant winnable by achieving a single checkpoint. Another affected certain brush weapons. Nintendo is usually very good about catching this sort of thing before release, but sadly some of these slipped through during the launch weeks.
The other that has improved for me a bit, but not for everyone is connectivity drops. Sometimes you will be disconnected for seemingly no reason. The game will think you lost an internet connection when you haven’t. And while this doesn’t happen every day you play for a few hours, the frequency is random and can be really annoying when it happens. Especially if you’re about to win a ranked match, and then you lose points because the game thought you disconnected on purpose in a fit of rage quitting. While it’s great it punishes actual rage quitting, it is a pain in the neck to get a false positive.
Fortunately, post-release the more egregious problems have been patched out with the latest updates. And the connection issues have been greatly improved. But it still isn’t perfect. You’ll run into the occasional disconnection. Sometimes you may have a night where you see several disconnections close to one another. In which case exiting the game and rebooting the game may temporarily keep them at bay. And while it’s a lot better than it is in other Nintendo Switch games like Super Smash Bros Ultimate, it still isn’t perfect. Over time they’ll hopefully, get the situation to a better state. As it stands it’s almost gotten on par with Splatoon 2’s occasional drops.
Ultimately, Splatoon 3 is a major upgrade over Splatoon 2. At first glance, some may make the mistake of seeing a prettier version of the last game. But as you can see, digging beneath that superficial surface reveals that it is so much more than that. While this could have been pointed out a bit better by Nintendo’s own marketing, at the end of the day it didn’t seem to hurt much as it has already eclipsed the numbers the previous entries put up. The enhancements to Salmon Run make the mode more viable. The tweaks to the ranked modes and the process of leveling make them more viable for the general audience to dabble in whereas in previous games they may have stuck with Turf War. The new catalog system, locker system, tags, banners, and emotes give the series a lot of customization and personal attachment. The soundtrack is excellent and brings back familiar songs from its in-universe character bands, to entirely new efforts most anyone will love. One of the best is Deep Cut’s “Til Depth Do Us Part.” which plays during the Splatfest events. There are always great puns in Splatoon games.
The new mechanics add a lot of new utilities for the more competitive end of the player base to experiment with and master. Particularly the ability to parry with the squid roll. The Tableturf card game can be a fun diversion from shooting each other, and it can even be a pretty substantial mode in its own right. The expanded Recon mode and returning mailbox feature may seem like small things, but really can be greater than they appear at face value. The connection issues keep it from being perfect and it’s a shame some issues weren’t addressed until after release. But this is still one of the best games you can buy for the Nintendo Switch despite its faults. Whether you’ve poured thousands of hours into Splatoon 2 or you’re a shooter fan new to the series, Splatoon 3 is an easy recommendation.
It’s not very often I get into the FOMO-fuelled side of game collecting. But if there’s something I’m a huge fan of I’ll make an exception and be a sucker. During the final E3 as we know it, Devolver Digital premiered their last prerecorded lampoon of Nintendo’s Direct video series where new games and products get announced. Of course in their parodies they have their own zany storyline going on and do in fact, still tell people about the new stuff they’re publishing.
PROS: A fantastic shoot ’em up with some humor by the folks who gave us Gato Roboto.
CONS: The music could be better. The protagonists’ sprites look bland. Controversial launch.
SECRETS: There are a lot of unlockables for such a small game.
In a more controversial move, Devolver partnered with Special Reserve Games for the subject of this review. There would be two different physical releases you could only get through the SRG store, and once their fulfillment was made that was it. They did two batches, one during E3, and one a bit later. But that was it. The game’s branding even touts “Only Physical. Never Digital.” But going this route over a mass-market production also really limited the number of buyers, which no doubt would include many a scalper. Which there were. When the game got announced there were already listings on the site with insane prices.
But how is the game itself? If you were lucky enough to get an order in like I was, then you’ll find you’re actually getting a pretty great title. If you were not, however, not all is lost. I’ll be telling you why at the end of the review. Which will be shorter than usual, because the game isn’t very long. Made by Doinksoft, the studio that brought us Gato Roboto, Demon Throttle is a shmup. Or Shoot ’em Up if you will. It’s blended with some Run ‘N Gun elements. Your characters are on foot. You shoot demons down as if they were troops in Capcom’s seminal Commando. But by and large, it’s a shmup. The screen auto scrolls vertically, and you have free reign most of the time. It reminds me a bit of Dragon Spirit or Gunbird. Shmups where you pilot a person or creature instead of the more traditional spaceship or vehicle.
Where Doinksoft differentiates things further is in how the game plays. Instead of always hovering over everything you are still traveling on foot. So you’ll have to shoot not only enemies but huge swaths of scenery in the hopes of finding power-ups and life replenishments. You’ll find a lot of the staples you’d expect in the genre. There’s a temporary shield that acts as an extra point of damage. There’s a mace that acts as an orbiting option that can take out enemies. There are speed-up icons that make you move faster. And there are others that benefit your characters in different ways. That’s right, characters. You’re not just flying solo. You have to take control of two characters.
You get introduced to them in the opening movie. It’s made of cinema screens, replete with lo-fi voice samples to emulate the thrill of playing The Adventures Of Bayou Billy on the NES. You find yourself controlling a cowboy, who wants revenge on the head demon for “Kissing” his wife. You’ll also control a vampire who wants to get back four magical chalices the demons stole. And it’s here you’ll start the game.
The game is a short, but brutal four stages. You’ll go along blasting away demons and scenery until you get to the boss. It sounds par for the course, but remember you control two characters. You swap between them by pressing X. You can jump onto scenery or over bullets with B. Shoot with Y. While A fires off your bombs. The cowboy gets dynamite, while the vampire gets homing daggers. When piloting the cowboy you’ll shoot in a straight line. Six bullets at a time, and you can take five hits before dying. When using the vampire, you’ll get a crossbow that acts as a spread gun. And you’ll only be able to take four hits before going down. If both characters die, it’s game over. Demon Throttle has no continues.
The lack of continues or 1Ups really makes the game a challenge. Demon Throttle is tough. Fortunately, the game does have its own take on the Konami code called the DoinkSoft code in the manual. It doesn’t give you thirty lives though, it just starts you out with a shield for one extra point of damage on each character, and gives each of them two lives on every stage instead of one. The game is still going to kick your ass. Like many of the toughest shooters, it’s a game where the more you play it, the more enemy and power-up placements you’ll remember and improve over time.
The other feature that will help even the most frustrated player is the leveling system. Each of your characters gets experience points for killing bad guys. So if you try to kill as many bad guys as possible you’ll level up. Each character can get up to level five before being maxed out. And you’ll want to do that. The cowboy will shoot extra bullets and gain speed shooting. The vampire’s spread will be further and become more powerful. Each of the four bosses has a different series of patterns to memorize and maneuver around. Oftentimes, including moments of bullet hell.
When you finally do beat the game it’s probably not over. Because there are two endings. Remember those chalices the vampire wants back? Each stage has a secret stage in it a la Dragon Spirit where you need to uncover a stairwell. Run into the stairwell and you’ll be in an underground cave stage unique to each main stage. Defeat that stage’s boss and you’ll get the chalice. But you’re still not done because it takes you back to the current level’s midpoint and you have to finish that stage to go onward. So in a way, you actually have to beat 8 stages on two lives per stage. Four lives with the cheat code. Also, the stairs are in a different place every run. Beating the game unlocks a hard mode too, where you play remixed stages with far more enemies in them.
Over time and multiple plays, you’ll unlock a bunch of cute extras. With different screen borders you can enable before your play-throughs, as well as a sound test and even a bestiary. Once you unlock that, you can find hidden meat, or as my pal, Hungrygoriya says, “Meatsticks”. Find that, and then the game will put you into a random battle that plays like a turn-based RPG battle. If you defeat that monster they’re unlocked in the bestiary where you can read more about them. And I should mention if you have a friend over, you can play a two-player co-op mode where you each control one of the characters. One or both of you may like the CRT filter left on.
So DoinkSoft squeezed a lot of extra stuff to keep you going back to the game. Even a harder mode unlocks when you do manage to clear it. As with Gato Roboto, they went for a specific retro look. Where the previous game had a lot of monochrome DOS, Apple II, and Commodore 64 influence, Demon Throttle is very much an NES influence. There’s a similar color palette to it, the stages have that early NES look, while the pixel art for the enemies, bosses, and cinema screens are dead ringers. DoinkSoft clearly has a lot of love for the post-crash years of North American gaming. And as in Gato Roboto, they still appreciate crass comedy. Demon Throttle has its share of dirty jokes. And they’re pulled off well. In my several hours of playing through to the bad ending, I also never ran into any major technical issues.
The soundtrack and effects aren’t as memorable as they were in Gato Roboto, but they’re still good. They fit the motif of the game well, and the echoey effects that a lot of the NES games Rare made are here. Every now and again, there’s even a little bit of C64 SID influence, but it sounds very NES 95 percent of the time.
Now earlier, I said if all of this sounded good to you, you don’t have to fear that you can’t ever get it affordably. After playing through it on stream a nice person pointed out to me that there is a wider release coming and you can pre-buy that on Amazon. People who do will get a download code for Gato Roboto. What you won’t get in the wider release are the extras that the initial Special Reserve versions came with. And these extras were stickers and an instruction booklet for the base version, while the extra ten dollars got that stuff plus a fancier box for the premium version. The SRG limited releases were also numbered. Mine is 1,275 out of 10,000 for example. It’s a nice showpiece, but unless you just have to have every conceivable variation of every game for your Switch, just nab the wide release when it launches in September.
Overall, Demon Throttle is a fantastic time for any shmup fan or anyone looking for a retro-styled challenge. It’s just too bad that neither Devolver or SRG really made an equal attempt to let people know it wasn’t going to be impossible to find after enthusiasts and resellers got their copies. Still, if you stumbled upon my review, let people know they don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on something they can buy for $29.99.
The steep difficulty and potty humor won’t be everybody’s cup of tea. But if some crass toilet or sex jokes on par with something out of Family Guy or South Park don’t bother you, you may want to give it a look. if you’re looking for a challenge not seen since the days of quarter-munching Toaplan games and not afraid to blister your thumbs, you might want to give it a try. Demon Throttle is a fantastic little game, marred by a marketing misfire. Hopefully, there will be an official “Hey! don’t worry guys, we made plenty!” follow-up campaign.
Back in 1984 Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird struck gold when their comic about four turtles saving the world became a minor hit, and then a major one. Three years later Mirage Studios would have a cartoon based upon the book out and Playmates would have an action figure line that coincided with it. As the end of the decade approached Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would become a major franchise that seeped into all facets of pop culture. Video games would be inevitable. Konami would get the video game rights, and proceeded to create some of the best licensed games ever made. Based upon the 1987 cartoon show, these would start out with an adventure game on computer platforms and the NES. But most memorably would be the several beat ’em up titles that spanned across the Arcades, NES, Super NES, Sega Genesis, and Game Boy. Flash forward to today, and it’s an entirely new landscape. But now Tribute has entered the fray with a new TMNT brawler. But does it hold a candle to those old Konami games?
PROS: Terrific pixel art, animation, gameplay, music, and more. 6-player co-op!
CONS: Some minor but annoying bugs. Technical hitches in some versions.
TURTLE POWER: There’s an obvious amount of love for the glory days here.
In a word; yes. Shredder’s Revenge is fantastic. However, I’d be remiss if I told you to expect a carbon copy of the vintage Konami experience. Because while there are plenty of callbacks to the old games, it doesn’t play identically. If you’re coming into this game expecting another Turtles In Time, you’re not going to get that. That’s because Tribute has implemented its own entirely new set of mechanics. Yes, you’ll be mashing the attack and jump buttons. But not in the exact same way you did in the arcade or on your Super Nintendo.
You’ll have an attack button, a jump button, a button for supers (More on that in a bit), and a button for dodges. There is also a button for helping up a friend when they get knocked out when you’re playing multiplayer. You can also do taunts. Beyond that, there is a whole set of underlying mechanics. The biggest of these is a robust combo system that could fit well in a fighting game. You have your typical attacks, but you’ll get auto combos, juggles, air juggles, and more. Beyond that you can get some light tech elements too, allowing you to get up quickly upon falling down.
The combo system is important too. Because throughout the game you’ll need to use super moves to get waves of enemies off of you when they surround you. They’re also very useful in boss fights as they make quick work of many of their health bars. Combos can also have a challenging element in trying to keep your hit counter as high as possible. Every time you get hit by an enemy the counter will reset. If your counter gets reset before your super meter gets filled, you’ll also drain your meter before you can use it, and you’ll have to fill it again before you can use it again. You can also use taunts to try to fill the meter, though if your taunt is interrupted it will be for naught. That said, on lower difficulties you can essentially cheese your way to supers by taunting in between waves of baddies.
There are two main ways to play Shredder’s Revenge. The primary mode is the story mode. This mode plays each of the game’s 16 stages across a map made in the vein of the overworld section in the initial TMNT game on the NES. Playing through each of the stages unlocks a path to the next one, and within each of the stages, classic secondary characters from the original cartoon series can be found. Finding these characters will then place them on their own specific points on the map. Going to these has the characters telling you to find a certain number of items across the campaign. For example one of the characters may want you to find diary entries or another may want VHS tapes. These items then get hidden within the stages so over the course of a few play-throughs you’ll be breaking every conceivable crate, or other destructible pieces of scenery to find them all. If you do, you then drive back to deliver the items to the corresponding character. Find every item and there are little surprises waiting for you at the end of the game.
The story mode also takes a page from the NES version of Double Dragon, where you’ll unlock some moves over time. You can also level up your super meter to three bars, allowing you to have a little bit of an easier time with some of the later levels. Because some of the later stages throw a lot more enemies at you at once. Having the ability to do three supers helps immensely near the end game too.
The other way is the arcade mode. This eschews the map and its character-driven fetch quests. In turn, leaving you with a cut-and-dry experience. You’ll start at stage 1 and power through to stage 16. Playing this way also does away with the story mode’s leveling-up system. So you’ll have to be more selective when deciding when to use a super. The arcade mode also limits the number of continues you can use. To supplement these continues, you can earn 1-Ups throughout the game by earning enough points. At roughly 200 points or so, you’ll earn one. The thing is, each enemy only nets you one or two points. While playing solo this isn’t a big hindrance. But if you’re playing this mode with a group, you’re going to want to divide the workload evenly if you don’t want one player walking away with the lion’s share of lives. Fortunately, the game’s aforementioned help-up function is going to mitigate that.
Over the course of the game, you’ll see it’s very clear the team at Tribute really love the classic cartoon, Playmates action figure line, and vintage Konami brawlers. The pixel art is absolutely fantastic. The characters are very detailed, with expressive facial animations and a slew of frames for each of the many moves. Enemies have that same amount of time and care packed into each and every frame. There are many nods to all of that classic TMNT pop culture too. Many of the vehicles and figures from the classic toyline are represented here. A lot of the 1987 cartoon series is constantly referenced with even minor characters showing up. The Neutrinos, Punk Frogs, Erma, and other part-time players are here alongside your major protagonists and antagonists. Each of the characters controls very well, and the collision detection is mostly very good. There are even a lot of nods to the Konami games of old. For example, when you do the grapple moves, they’re similar animations to the ones you saw in Turtles In Time.
The audio follows that same trend. The chiptunes on display are clearly inspired by Konami’s old classics but it doesn’t end there. There’s a lot of variety with Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, and Metal tracks. There’s even a track by Mega Ran in the game. Beyond that, they somehow managed to get the budget to bring in some of the original actors from the classic cartoon including Rob Paulsen and Cam Clarke. As such, the cutscenes can get a lot closer to the old arcade experience between stages as you’ll get to hear the fab four (The turtles, not the Beatles) sound off with the supervillains of Dimension X. Beyond that you’ll get to hear some classic voice quips during the combat. The punches, kicks, clangs, and explosions all sound top-notch too.
Again, Tribute has absolutely crushed it when it comes to presentation. Coupled with the excellent gameplay, there’s not too much to complain about here. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of things that can stand to be improved upon. The game’s online gameplay is one of the major areas. Depending on which version of the game you’re playing your mileage may vary. I bought the game on both PC (via Steam) as well as the Nintendo Switch (via the Nintendo e-shop). While I didn’t run into any major issues, I did notice the Switch version suffered some slowdown when certain sections of the game got particularly busy. It was also on the Switch I once found myself stuck against a backdrop item when in the middle of a jump kick for a couple of seconds.
And while I didn’t run into any bugs when playing online, my good buddy and fellow Twitch streamer 1UpJohn ran into severalmajorissues when playing the Xbox Series version on Livestream. Players would be invisible. Other times an enemy or boss would be stuck in a grounded frame of animation which in turn would essentially soft-lock the group from being able to progress. These bugs strangely enough only happened to him when playing online multiplayer. Not frequently enough to ruin the game by any means. But they did occur often enough that he had to replay a couple of stages a number of times.
These are some issues to be aware of at the time of this writing. And while in my circle of friends the Microsoft Xbox family had the highest number of occurrences, it doesn’t mean that these problems will never show up on Switch, Playstation, or computer versions. Beyond that, there is also the fact that the aforementioned taunt function abuse can cheese the game. To the point where those who play online with random players, may feel frustrated if they’re not looking to blow through the game with an exploit. Supers in the game do a lot of damage to bosses in particular. Fortunately, playing the game on the hardest setting can mitigate this somewhat.
Hopefully, Tribute will be given the resources to patch out some of these bugs, and possibly rebalance the game so those looking for a little bit more of a challenge can get one. Overall, though this is a fantastic beat ’em up. If you’ve been starved for more belt scrollers this is a solid buy. If you’re a child of the 80s or 90s who grew up with the vintage cartoons and action figures there’s a very good chance you’re going to love this. The amount of care and detail displayed throughout the game shows that the developers had a lot of reverence for that era of the TMNT IP. Nickelodeon could have easily slapped the Turtles on any fly-by-night project for another nostalgic cash grab. Thankfully, that was not the case here. If you’re a TMNT mega-fan there’s a lot to love here. And if you were looking for a 1:1 recreation of the Konami model, you’re not going to find that. This is still very much its own thing. But you should still check it out. There’s enough love of those old games here blended in with everything else you’d be hard-pressed to come away unsated. The gameplay isn’t better or worse than what those old games had on offer, it’s just a bit different.
Sadly, the problems hold it back from being as great as it could be. But it’s still a very enjoyable experience. Perhaps if this game does well enough for Tribute and DotEmu they’ll be able to make equivalent brawlers for some of our other favorite Saturday morning cartoons of a bygone era. Perhaps He-Man and The Masters Of The Universe?
I know it’s been a long time (too long) since I’ve been able to find the time to get in a review. But with the traffic at work slowing down a little bit (finally), and a snowstorm keeping us closed for a day, I can actually get in some writing. So today we’re going over a game I’m a little bit late to the party on, but one I’m glad I finally picked up for myself.
CONS: Rubberband A.I. returns. No online multiplayer. Some track section recycling.
WHAT!?!?!?: Is what you will shout upon seeing some over-the-top stuff. But in a good way.
Cruis’n is a series that hearkens all the way back to 1994 with Cruis’n USA. Midway’s foray into the series was a fun and sometimes weird take on Sega’s Outrun. It saw you driving through several tracks from one end of the United States to the other. It was a lot of fun. And due to the IP being co-published by Nintendo, a port to the Nintendo 64 was inevitable. And while the port by Eurocom to the console was a solid effort it still didn’t perform as well, and there were some of the visual gags edited out.
Sequels Cruis’n World and Cruis’n Exotica took the series into an even zanier territory. Where tracks took you into impossible situations. Like driving under the deep sea for example. After these games, Midway focused on their more grounded San Fransisco RUSH games which were technically superior racers that still kept a similar driving style.
What some people may not know, and it wasn’t until I looked at the credits that I learned it, is that after Warner Bros. bought Midway, Robotron 2084 creator and arcade legend Eugene Jarvis would go on with other Midway alumni to form Raw Thrills. And Raw Thrills has been making coin-op arcade games at a pretty steady pace over the last several years. You’ve probably even played a few of them at a barcade or a movie theatre.
Well, Raw Thrills would get the opportunity to make a new Cruis’n game in a partnership with Nintendo in 2016 with the Cruis’n Blast arcade cabinet. The first major appearance of the series since Midway published the ill-fated Cruis’n on the Nintendo Wii. The Cruis’n Blast arcade cabinet did well enough that Raw Thrills has ported the game to the Nintendo Switch, and they’ve expanded the content to some degree.
So what sets this one apart from the rest of the series? Well, the fact that some of the original people who made the first three games at Midway also worked on this one really shows. It feels like both a return to form and a considerable upgrade over those old games. That may seem like an odd statement to those who have seen the visual fidelity of other racing games in recent years. No Cruis’n Blast certainly can’t hang with something like the latest Forza game’s photorealism. And there are other arcade racers that still push more polygons than what you’ll see here. And yet Cruis’n Blast still looks pretty breathtaking even several years after the arcade cabinet release.
A big part of that is due to the wonderful art direction. Screenshots don’t do this game justice. When you’re playing this game, it really is a treat for the senses. It’s bright and colorful. It has fantastic texture work. Everything feels cohesive and while things can be really crazy and completely unrealistic, it all does seem like it belongs together. You can expect to see stuff you would ordinarily see in some blockbuster action films. One moment you’ll be driving through a fight between two yetis and then a second later sliding down a giant flow of lava and magma and somehow not bottoming out or destroying your car.
Like the Cruis’n and Rush games of old, the game ditches the usual lap-based tracks for some A to B line races. Along the way, you can find alternate routes and shortcuts in each of the tracks. You’ll have to avoid traffic as hitting cars that aren’t competitors will slow you to a crawl. You’ll also have to avoid grinding up against the guardrails, walls, and other things so that you can keep your vehicle going as fast as possible. But not only are there forked paths for you to choose from but there are also many ramps to jump over and many tricks you can use to maintain your lead.
Returning from older games, are the booster moves. You can double-tap the gas to get a quick boost while doing a wheelie. You can do it while turning to get the vehicle upon its side. You can do it off of jumps to make the car jack knife spin forward. The game also has a nitro system you can use three times per race. Though you can use the prize money you pick up or earn at the end of a race to add more. This game also has a proper drifting mechanic. You can slide around corners at high speeds and begin to fill a meter. If you can fill it out quickly and straighten out your vehicle you’ll get a quick boost. All of this stuff goes a long way to keep you going at an insane speed. On top of all of that, the game takes a page from Citerion’s Burnout games and allows you to get takedowns on your A.I. rivals. They’re big, flashy explosions that even use a splash of bullet time to make them feel as impactful as the other crazy stuff you’ll be seeing at the same time. It’s all a super fun sensory overload.
Being an arcade port, the game has all of the arcade version’s tracks in it. But that’s not all. The game also has six circuits, each with its own four courses that you’ll need to place highly in. In order to unlock the following circuit. You need to get a Gold trophy ranking in each circuit. So in order to do that, you’ll need to place first in the majority of the four tracks and never less than third place. Each of the tracks (including the arcade machine tracks) has three hidden keys in them. You’ll need to find all of them in order to unlock some of the vehicles. And with so many branching baths in the tracks for them to lie in wait in, it’s one way you’ll go back and replay the tracks a multitude of times for.
Speaking of unlockable vehicles, there are a number of crazy ones including triceratops, a flying saucer, and a unicorn. But there are other more grounded ones including some classic cars, an ATV, and a host of others. Beyond those, you can also level up each of them as you re-play all of the game’s tracks with them. You can get new paint jobs, decals, body kits, and most importantly some slight engine upgrades.
There are four difficulties, and you’ll have to get all gold medals in each of the circuits to not only get to the next circuit, unlock higher difficulty settings. Playing through the circuits does not unlock them in the next difficulty either. So if you play through the game on Easy you’ll have to do it all again on Normal. Do it all on Normal and you’ll unlock Hard. Do it all again on Hard and you’ll unlock extreme. Fortunately, you don’t have to re-unlock the extra cars in subsequent difficulties, and the arcade tracks are in a separate menu so you won’t have to replay those if you don’t want to.
That’s especially nice since the game has split-screen multiplayer. This brings back a great party game option for you when you have people over. And guests can use the crazy cars you’ve unlocked as well. It even performs pretty well in split-screen for the most part although the 4-player option is a notable cut from 60 fps to 30 fps. But the game also has a local wireless option where you can network four Nintendo Switch consoles for a quasi-LAN experience.
So with all of the good on display here, is there anything to be wary of? Sadly, yes. If you come into this game expecting some online racing like I did you’ll be disappointed. There are no online modes to speak of here so the only way you can play with someone else is if they come over to do so. Eugene Jarvis said in an AMA they *want* to do so. But that doesn’t confirm they will be able to.
Another thing that will drive some people nuts is the return of rubberband A.I. You can expect to be clowning the other racers on higher difficulty runs only to have the distant second place car, suddenly boost past you as you approach the finish line or the game to decide to move a motorist in front of you when you have a third of the course to go. This makes sense as the game was originally an arcade machine, and the old games were also arcade machines meant to get you to keep putting in tokens. Cheap computer opponents are a simple way to do this. But this doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. You can fully expect to flip a few tables here, especially once you get beyond the scope of Normal difficulty.
And of course, if your friends can’t abide a lower if understandable framerate they won’t want to play in four-player mode as the look and feel of 60 vs 30 is going to be obvious. I think the game is fun enough to grin and bear it but some of the arcade racing purists out there may find it unacceptable. If everyone has their own system and game card the local wireless option mitigates this. But not everyone does.
One other smaller nitpick I have with the game is that it does recycle bits of tracks in some of the later ones. Particularly the last two circuits where they changed some of the visual cues to go with newly introduced themes, but reused stretches of earlier tracks. Many racing games do this, and it isn’t a dealbreaker by any means. But I would have liked to have seen completely original tracks in the end. I could have also done without the pretend Katy Perry theme song that permeates the menus as it just isn’t my cup of tea. The rest of the soundtrack is pretty good though with elements of electronic dance music, funk, disco, and one rock n’ roll track. You can cycle through the OST while racing.
But overall, I really like this iteration of the Cruis’n series. Its bright colors, wacky vehicles, insane set pieces, and Split-Secondesque transitions are all fantastic. The addition of drifting mechanics pairs really well with the classic Cruis’n and Rush formula. Tracking down the different keys for the unlockables feels fun and inviting rather than a chore. The presentation is a huge reason for that. Cruis’n Blast isn’t the deepest racing game. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anything under the surface. You’ll need to learn some advanced drifting and the shortest routes for you to take first place. Especially in higher settings. Fans of Mario Kart’s gyroscopic options will also love that they’re an option here as well. But more importantly than that, it’s just a fun game. Whether you were playing the originals in the arcade and Nintendo 64 in the late 90s or you were raised on newer high-speed arcade racers, Cruis’n Blast is well, a blast.
I’ve never been a massive Role Playing Game player. I can definitely appreciate a good one for what it is. But the complexity and math in many of the deepest ones have always drained me. I always preferred the twitch, hand-eye coordination focused experiences of platformers, shooters, fighting games, beat ’em ups, and other action genres. That isn’t to say early TSR versions of Dungeons & Dragons games on my Commodore 64 weren’t good or fun. But growing up, worrying about mapping and spreadsheets felt more like playing Excel than action games ever did. But as I got older, I began to understand why other people preferred a more cerebral experience. Ys (along with Ultima) is one RPG series that made the genre more palatable to action fans like me.
PROS: The deepest storyline in the series yet. Excellent combat. Massive world to explore.
CONS: The world still isn’t 100% open. Don’t expect Skyrim or Breath Of The Wild.
HOURS: One of the longer games in the series. I spent 53.7 hours on my play through.
Ys as a series has always had a great blend of action and JPRG mechanics. It’s still very much an RPG. You need to find items, talk to specific people at specific times to get specific information. You need to go explore large sections and dungeons for gear. You need to grind for experience to defeat later enemies and bosses. You need to visit shops for key items. At the same time, you don’t have to worry about spreadsheets and such. You simply delve into a menu, grab the thing you need and go. You don’t have to have long drawn out menus in equally drawn out turn-based battles either. Combat is as immediate as playing Golden Axe. Early Ys games used a “Bump” system where you ran into bad guys off center to do damage. But later games replaced attacks with button presses and flashy animations.
Most of the Ys games have the typical fantasy lore, and storyline you would expect a general JRPG to have. Adol (and sometimes his pal Dogi) end up washing ashore in unfamiliar territory and somehow end up having to solve the problems engulfing the land. Usually some evil sorcerer is behind it. Sometimes it’s more of a sympathetic villain comparable to Darth Vader. Sometimes it’s something else entirely. But now and again the series will shake things up with new ideas. Ys Origin took place centuries before the original game, and explored a lot of the back story, introducing three character arcs to boot. Ys 7 had a robust party system. So what does this game do that the other games didn’t?
The big thing here is the world. Ys VIII gives you a massive map. One you can see things in the distance and get to. It’s so big that it’s easy to go into it thinking you’re going to get a major dose of Western CRPG influence in a huge world you can go anywhere in. And while at later points in the game things open up, this is not going to be like an Elder Scrolls game. So don’t make the mistake of thinking it will play like Morrowind or Oblivion or Skyrim. While the map is quite vast there are yellow lines around every major section of the map. These lines presumably do two things. First, they hide some loading. You can tell this by the fact that it resets and respawns the same enemy sets specifically for each section. Second, it blocks you from going into a section before the game wants you to. This ties into the storyline because some of the sections pretty much require you to have seen a particular cutscene or complete a certain event leading to said cutscene before you can go there. So as expansive as the world is, it isn’t like a Western RPG where you’re crafting much of the story through exploration. The main story progression demands some parts go in a particular order.
Fortunately, you’re probably not going to mind being stonewalled once in a while, because this is one of the best storylines in the entire series. Like most of the Ys games you will end up shipwrecked. But that’s about the only similarity to the narrative of the other games. Things start Adol and Dogi off on a cruise ship headed to what can only be compared to Bermuda. Near the island is a section of ocean where ships disappear and the crews are never heard from again. When things open up though, you don’t just get a setup cut scene. You play through a fairly interactive ship, talking to the crew, meeting the other passengers, and even getting some foreshadowing that doesn’t reveal itself as such until much, much later. Things culminate with a surprise battle against a giant Octopus like boss. Defeating the boss sends you to the meat and potatoes of the game. The ship is destroyed in the chaos and Adol is once again washed ashore.
But this time it’s a massive island. Marooned, prepare for quite an arduous trial. Getting off of the island is going to be much, much more involved than you would imagine. You’ll have to not only find other survivors who expand your party, you’ll have to built a new settlement with them. This gives it a bit of a Tower Defense element. Once you have found enough of the passengers, your hideout becomes an RPG style village where you have item shops, a medical doctor’s office, food shop, and more. One of the people you can rescue will also be able to tailor costumes for playable characters. In addition to those you can also buy costumes as DLC for the game. But I never felt the need to do so. There’s already so much stuff under the hood here it felt rather pointless to me. The game also has an underlying mechanic where you can choose to help fellow survivors by doing side quests. Doing so builds your reputation with them, and they’re more prone to helping you out either with beefier items, or in terms of the game’s story. Ys VIII also has multiple endings, so getting the best of them often means doing what you need to do to help your village.
Another new feature this entry adds is a horde battle/defend the base mashup, which gives things a bit of a Dynasty Warriors meets Plants Vs. Zombies. You’ll have to put up barricades, bait traps, gongs, and other stuff to impede monsters from getting into your makeshift town. But then you have to go out and attack the invaders with some hack n’ slash action. Doing this also gives you certain benefits although if it’s not your sort of thing you can choose to ignore most of them. There are a handful that tie into the story, so you will be forced to play those.
Combat also has a few changes. You can change between different combat styles which effects certain enemies in different ways. It is possible to brute force your way through without paying attention to it. But that also means grinding for a lot of health options like potions, and finding food supplies. Speaking of food, this game does take one page from Nintendo’s Breath Of The Wild by implementing a cooking system. Although it isn’t as Deep as the Zelda game’s it does come into play with the food, medicine, and general crafting. You’ll have to find so many pumpkins, or plants, or enemy bones or what have you to make dishes. The higher tiered dishes will refill more of your health, and revive fallen party members in fights.
That’s right, party members. As in Ys 7, you can recruit many of the characters you meet into your system, and change characters on the fly. Some are ranged characters that use magic or guns, others are more up close and personal. On top of this, some of the people you rescue will have talents that turn into even more shops. Shops that let you create new costumes with perks or a blacksmith that can level up whichever weapons you’re characters presently have.
And if all of that isn’t enough for you, you’ll still need to spend hours exploring the world, finding entirely new items, clues that lead you to other characters, and even shortcuts and entrances to new areas once you’ve rescued enough people. You’re also going to need to play a lot of the Sega Bass Fishing inspired minigame they’ve thrown within the game. Getting some of the exotic fish leads to key items as well as needed treasure and food ingredients. And you’ll run into some other NPCs who can level up your attack’s effectiveness as well.
Frankly, if you’re the sort who wants to 100% your RPGs there is a lot of stuff to do in the side quests alone. Even if you don’t, you’ll still find yourself doing a fair amount of the side stuff so that you can get a leg up on some of the harder points in the game. And while the game may have those narrative driven walls I talked about, that doesn’t mean there’s a straight linear experience. You’ll still be backtracking to areas you already visited to find alternate routes. You can still discover some things far earlier than I’m sure many intended.
Once you get pretty far into the storyline, you’ll start seeing elements that might seem out of place. But the narrative does do a fantastic job of tying it all together. The island features many, many secrets, most of them are intrinsically tied to our heroes escaping the island. And over the time you spend uncovering them, you’ll learn more about each of the characters various lives and backgrounds. One of the things that really struck me with this particular entry is how important everyone feels. Even characters that on paper might not seem to add importance to the story, still add a lot to the world building. Most of the characters do grow over the course of the storyline and come out richer for the experience. Some learn lessons. Some don’t. But the change in setting really reinvigorates the overall mythos while doing something different. It’s a far cry from the typical “Evil wizard wants to take over the world” fare you might be used to. And things feel really cohesive too. The answers might not come when you would like them to, but they do wrap up the loose ends pretty nicely. There are several endings as well. So there is a bit of replay value for those who want to experience everything.
As the story unfolds you’ll discover that the island is actually populated by dinosaurs. But before you can say “Jeff Goldblum” you’ll be peppered with numerous monsters and mighty reptiles. Before long Adol begins having dreams of a bygone era. You’ll play through these typically upon finding settlements to rest in. At least initially. Later in the game you’ll have to go into the past to affect the present and vice versa. Sometimes it will be necessary in order to make an area accessible. Other times it will be necessary in order to fill in gaps of the story. One of another new things are campsites which in turn tie into the food system. As you can set up a campfire and cook meals. Before long, the dreams partially become reality as the past and present begin to affect one another. Without giving too much away for those who haven’t played it yet, you’ll begin to learn the secrets of the island, the lost civilizations that once thrived there and how all of it is tied to the characters’ current predicament.
Returning from previous games’ are the fast travel crystals that allow you to get between large areas without having to grind away for miles. It’s also handy when your village gets raided by enemies as you can choose to get back and do the tower defense horde mission if you want to. Also, as in most of the series you’ll find items you’ll have to constantly swap in and out of use. Some of these let you climb to seemingly impossible to reach areas. Others let you breathe under water so you can explore for new areas or treasure. Still others let you walk over water letting you get through some of the swampy areas a little more quickly.
And no Ys game is complete without a plethora of major bosses. Ys VIII features a metric ton of them. Many of them are even optional fights but all of them are worth fighting and defeating. Of course, you can still run into some of them when you’re too low on experience or you don’t have enough healing items. So be sure to save often. That is one nice thing here, in most cases you can save whenever you want. Although during the aforementioned boss fights you cannot, nor can you change your party roster during a battle. So you’ll need to make sure you do that before encountering a boss. There are also a couple of times when the game is going to make you think you’ve gotten the final encounter over with and you’re ready to see the credits roll. Only to surprise you with more story. More grinding. More questing. Ys VIII is a massive game.
Beyond all of that are going to be a bunch of other side quests, and optional goals I didn’t get to touch much on. Like the giant Gorilla you’ll meet who can level up your characters and give them some new skills. You fight him in mini boss battles to do this. Win and you get the new moves. Fail, and you get to scour the world for food so you can pay them to do it again. Every playable character can be powered up this way, so you may find yourself swapping party members to give all of them a fighting chance near the end of the game. And the end of the game leaves you with a variety of emotions. Elation, poignancy, contentment, and perhaps some regret. But after beating the game it was nice enough to tell me that there are multiple endings depending on your choices throughout the game. So it does lend itself to replay value. Especially since it does so in a vague way. So unless you’re going to look up how to definitively get the best canonical ending, you may find yourself coming back to this one a couple of times every few months to play a bit differently and see if you’ve altered your literary destiny.
As you can see, the game looks terrific. As mentioned, you can see way off into the distance, and for the most part if you can see it you can eventually get to it. It isn’t so much the technical aspect that makes it happen here. The game doesn’t really have a lot of geometry at work. It’s almost all being done with texture work and art. And it’s all fantastic. On the technical side though there are some impressive lighting effects at play, especially when you find yourself in dungeon sections, caves, and underwater where you can see it at work. Falcom has always managed to do so much with so little in the Ys games and this one is no exception. This game is also on a wide variety of platforms so even on the less powerful options you’re getting something tremendous.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up the soundtrack. While this is another entry that experiments a bit more with different genres it still gives long time fans their hardcore, symphonic metal. Each area of the island seems to get its own score. Which is nice as it makes the games feel a bit more distinct. There are orchestral areas, rock areas, electronica areas and others that have more of a world music influence. Of course, encountering bosses introduces the majority of the crunchy guitar solo driven heavy metal the series is known for.
Anyway, Ys VIII could very well be the best game in the series. And while it might have launched with some well documented translation problems, I only recently got around to playing it. So for me the problems were nil. Though I suspect even with some inaccurate or broken dialogue one could have still gotten a rough approximation of what was going on. In any case, if you’ve been curious about this one for a while, check it out. And while there are other longer RPGs out there, this one never felt like it was wearing out its welcome to me. I never got bored or overly confused with menus or felt like I was doing anything pointless. Whether you’re a hardcore fan of the series, or a dabbler looking to try something new, Ys VIII is worth picking up. It’s got great mechanics, wonderful characters you’ll care about as well as loathe for the right reasons. It’s got a bunch of subtle and not so subtle influences. And the storyline will keep you interested over the entire 50 plus hours you’ll likely spend playing it. And the multiple endings might be something you want to go back to the game to in order to experience it all.
The Nintendo Switch has had a track record of being like my niece when she was a toddler. “I CAN DO IT MYSELF!” she would exclaim when she got interested in trying something. Like when she flew a kite for the first time. She’s a teenager now (Time flies)but she would never give up on anything at 4. Much like her, the Nintendo Switch has been running video game software most would not have thought possible. While visual concessions were there, we still saw Panic Button port DOOM (2016), we saw Shiver port Mortal Kombat 11 last year, CD Projeckt Red migrated The Witcher 3 with all of its DLC content onto the thing, and now Croteam has migrated Serious Sam Collection.
CONS: Minor performance issues. No gyroscopic aiming. No physical editions as of now.
BONUS CONTENT: A Horde mode, and Split-Screen multiplayer added.
While this bundle is on all of the current generation platforms I’m focusing on the Switch version here since that’s the one I bought. But I can compare the games with the original PC releases as I explain how well the transition to Nintendo’s tablet system has gone. I imagine the PlayStation 4, and Xbox One versions will look a little bit better as they share some technology with the PC in components. But the content will be pretty much the same, so if you plan on looking into either of those versions this review may still help you.
It’s hard to believe but Serious Sam has been with us for almost twenty years already. I can still remember working at an OEM when I played a demo for the first time. I would get computer game magazines and read up on new releases and this was at a time when often times demos of new games would come on CDs bundled with magazines. PC Gamer had given away one such demo disc with the Serious Sam The First Encounter demo along with the free Seriously Warped Deathmatch mod for those who bought the full game. It was one of the demos that hit home (along with the poor performance of UT, and SIN on my current machine at the time) that I would need a new computer.
Fast forward over the years and Croteam would make The First Encounter, The Second Encounter with GODGames, then go to Take 2 Interactive (2k) where they would make Serious Sam II, leave Take 2, and go to Devolver Digital (Founded by ex GODGames members) where they would put out HD remasters of The First Encounter and The Second Encounter before giving us Serious Sam 3 BFE, and The Talos Principle. These all ran on updated versions of their Serious Engine. Serious Sam II on Serious Engine 2, the remasters on Serious Engine 3, and SS3 on Serious Engine 3.5.
Since this collection runs under Serious Engine 3.5 you won’t be seeing Serious Sam II. Previously, Croteam did put out a similar collection on the Xbox 360 that came with one of the indie spinoff games normally on digital stores like Steam. So if you don’t have a respectable computer these days, but you do have that 360 collection and one of the current consoles, do you need to get this collection? Well this collection gives you a DLC that collection did not. So you may want to indeed if you’re a big fan of the franchise. But there’s more to it than that.
Serious Sam Collection for Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 here includes Serious Sam HD The First Encounter, Serious Sam HD The Second Encounter with its Legend Of The Beast DLC, and Serious Sam 3: BFE with its Jewel Of The Nile DLC. It doesn’t include any of the indie spinoff games like the 360 collection did, but you do get the DLC for the second title here that that collection did not include. So this feels a bit more complete.
Of course on the PC, there is Serious Sam Complete Pack which also included Serious Sam Fusion which acts like a similar launcher hub as the one built into this collection. So in either case you can play these three games from one executable program. But the PC collection also does give you the indie spinoffs as well as Serious Sam II. If you just have to have every canon game in the series, that’s one edge to getting these games on Steam.
On the other hand, while a few of the games and spinoffs have been on previous video game systems many have never heard of these games or played them outside of Europe. This is despite their massive popularity on computers and those previous ports and iterations Stateside. So getting these again on consoles gives people who have played them in the past a convenient way to play them again in their living room. The fact that the Switch is a tablet means it’s also an easy way to enjoy yourself while terrorizing patrons with the sounds of headless kamikazes when you get your morning coffee. But more importantly, it potentially introduces these games to an entirely new audience preparing them for the eventual day when they play Serious Sam 4 or try to track down Serious Sam II out of curiosity.
So for those who have never played these games, what do you do? Serious Sam is a series inspired by the id Software and 3D Realms games of old. Games like DOOM, Quake, Wolfensten, Duke Nukem 3D, and Blood. However, many make the mistake of coming into these games and playing them like those games. Serious Sam may be inspired by those old shooters of yore, but it plays nothing like them. It plays more like a First-Person version of a 1980s or early 90s twin stick arcade shooter. Games Eugene Jarvis made for Midway, like Robotron 2084, Smash T.V., and Total Carnage.
In all of these games you’ll be placed in long, intricate levels that feature massively open rooms, fields and arenas. You’ll explore rooms and areas looking for secrets, killing a couple of enemies here and there before getting into one of these battlefields. You’ll immediately be swarmed from all sides with hundreds and hundreds of enemies. Survive these onslaughts, pick up some health, and ammunition and continue the cycle over 15 levels or so. But that’s just the barebones version. These games do a lot with so little. Just when you begin to get the hang of fighting low-level enemies, the games introduce new enemies. Each enemy type has to be dealt with a certain way. The Kleer Skeletons are best dealt with by using a shot gun at just the right moment as they pounce at you. But get more than five of them and you may want a minigun. But while you’re dealing with those, the game will quietly send in Harpies from the heavens that require different tactics to defeat. By the middle of these games you begin to very quickly juggle different weapons for different threats while fighting them all at the same time. It’s crazy, stressful, and a lot of fun. On the downside, some might find it too repetitive. But honestly, the combination of 80s arcade gaming and late 90s PC FPS action is a winning one. You’re always doing something. When you’re not killing monsters you’re resupplying. When you’re not resupplying you’re hunting for secrets. And despite the name of our hero, these games do not take themselves seriously at all. Even the grittier newer releases with their more realistic graphics are still about being over-the-top arcade action. With funny one liners that could be in a Dolph Lundgren vehicle, and plenty of hilarious Easter Eggs.
So that’s a summary of what you do in general. I’m not going to review each game individually here as I’m talking about a collection. Though I will talk a little about the differences in each before getting into how well these games have made the transition from computers to consoles. The two Serious Sam HD titles are remastered versions of the original games that came out in 2009, and 2010. While Serious Sam 3: BFE was originally released in 2011. The DLCs for the second HD Remaster and Serious Sam 3 came about in 2012.
The two HD remasters have a slightly less realistic look to them than the third game does, being older. But the general play style is the same. Here’s where the series began in a sense of releases. Sam is sent back to ancient Egypt to defeat Mental in the past so that in the future the alien race is unable to conquer the Earth. You’ll spend hours in each of them and it’s important to remember these are technically two halves of one game. The second half has a much wider variety of settings than the first half, and really perfects the formula set up in the First Encounter. Moving onto Serious Sam 3 you’ll learn you’re playing a prequel. the BFE stands for Before First Encounter. So in that game you’re playing the events just before the original game. There are a number of visual effects that the third game has over the remasters. But that does come at a price of performance.
Serious Sam Collection does give you a remarkable number of options for a console release. And while the number of options are not as deep as they are in the PC releases over the years, it’s impressive. Very few console games give you any customization. Many of the core game options have made their way over as you can tinker with your crosshair, turn gibs on or off, change the color of the blood from red to different colors or even use the hippie texture which changes the blood texture to flowers. You can also turn the blood off entirely. You can change the order of weapons when cycling them, and you can pick which character you want to use for multiplayer modes.
But it doesn’t end there, the game will also let you choose from a number of preset button mapping settings including some that will swap the thumb sticks’ roles to accommodate left handed players. You can also disable auto aim and you can tinker with the sensitivity of the thumb sticks for your aiming. Croteam also migrated the color scheme graphics options here. So like on PC, you can change the tone of the colors to be brighter, darker, richer, or softer with different presets and then tweak the individual brightness, contrast, saturation, and gamma of each. But probably the coolest thing here is the fact you can optimize the game for graphics settings or performance. When you go into the actual game it doesn’t seem to make a dramatic change in visuals either. But you do feel the difference while playing the games. This is especially true in Serious Sam 3.
On Nintendo Switch the games look comparable to a computer running with lower and medium settings enabled. Things like shadows and Antialiasing are obviously set lower as you can see jag lines along things like cables or palm trees. Performance with the graphics set to optimize graphics over performance seems pretty similar to setting it to optimize performance in the HD remasters. The frame rate seems to hover around 60 most of the time, though when things got hairy with hundreds, upon hundreds of enemies setting it for graphics could sometimes see a split second dip in framerate into the 20s where things would chop up a second before going back to normal. Setting it to performance made this even rarer, and it would come at the cost of some less defined shadows, AA, and draw distance. Not that big a deal. Serious Sam 3 however, almost requires you set it to performance as the bump in graphics requires more from the Switch’s Tegra. It never gets unplayable on Graphics, but it does kick way down to the 30s in frame rate.
And while you may not physically see it with your eyes, you can feel the difference in your hands. Things are much less responsive and the dips that are uncommon in the remasters are more common. The performance setting seems to uncap the frame rate (I’m not a coder, I can’t say for certain) but it feels much closer to what it does on a computer. It still dips once in awhile, but it feels much better. And visually, it doesn’t look that much different. You can really analyze it and then notice some of the things I mentioned when talking about these settings on the remasters. But it’s not a massive difference save for the rare occasion you might notice something in the far, far, distance sprinkling into view.
While there will no doubt be some who downplay having these games on the Switch due to the lower settings, they’re missing another marvel. Serious Sam Collection joins the likes of Mortal Kombat 11, The Witcher 3, DOOM (2016), and Wolfenstein: The New Order, as games that probably shouldn’t have been possible on the system, not only running on the system but running well. And while concessions in the graphics were made, these games still look pretty great. And tweaking the color options can actually compensate a bit for taste. I tinkered a bit by starting out with the “Vivid” setting, and then moved the contrast, brightness, gamma settings around a bit and found it really made some of the moments in the third game look a bit more lively. The settings get shared across all of the games though, which is a little disappointing when you consider that the earlier games are more colorful, and so what you do for the third game may not work out as well for one of the other games for you. Turning off the blood, and gibs can also help you slightly with performance as it’s a tiny bit less for your Switch to draw and animate during the massive battles. And so if it saves you a couple of frames per second here or there, those who want the best speed possible may just do that.
To this day, there are some video game players on the PC end that will run games on the lowest settings possible, even on a new system with bleeding edge parts because they do not want a sub 60 FPS experience under any circumstances. And while there’s certainly a point where you can become so obsessed with framerate it keeps you from enjoying a game, there’s something to be said for having a framerate that stays high so that when intensive things happen and it has to drop, it drops from really high to high. That way as a player you’re not seeing or feeling it the way you do when it goes from high to low. Even some of those who buy this for one of the other consoles may consider this. I didn’t notice enough of a change to warrant leaving it off for myself. But your mileage may vary.
When compared to the PC versions of these games, obviously the PC versions are going to come out ahead, as they’re more feature rich on the computer and unless your computer is well over a decade old, they’ll probably perform better there. But that said, it is interesting to see how close these get to the computer versions. In terms of content, everything is here. The same stages, the same number of enemies, the DLC is here in its entirety. Everything is here. And it looks and sounds terrific by the standards of the Nintendo Switch. As I said earlier, that they squeezed all of it onto the little tablet that could, and had it perform as well as it does and still looking nice really speaks to the talent at Croteam. The console versions all also add split-screen co-op campaigns, horde modes, and deathmatches to the mix. Which is fantastic for anybody who has friends, family, or roommates as you can play together without everyone having to buy the game and a console plus a subscription. But like the computer versions, it supports online play as well. So you can still go through the campaign, or play deathmatches, or horde games together that way.
Be that as it may, there is one sticking point with the multiplayer and that is draw distance of enemies. Whether you’re playing the game online with friends or strangers or you delve into split screen you can expect this issue to crop up. It seems that enemies will draw into view six feet in front of you at times. This can be an issue because when you play the game normally, you may have harpies coming from the distance, or a large herd of werebulls gunning for you. Not being able to see them until they get close increases the difficulty a lot. Even if you’re playing on a lower setting with less enemies, it’s something to be aware of. This is presumably to keep the game’s framerate from tanking as it has to draw everything multiple times. And while it doesn’t break the game, it does increase the challenge beyond what was intended. It’s still going to be fun, but you have to expect some unfair moments. Fortunately, you can spawn right where you died during a multiplayer match, and you have unlimited lives unless you set it otherwise. So co-operatively beating the campaign is doable.
And while this isn’t going to look nearly as good as a computer running everything maxed out in 1080p, 1440p, 4k or 8k, it does look the part. Again, compare it to a 7 year old machine with a midrange card of the era in it, running at medium or low. It’s following the trend of those other PC games, and Mortal Kombat 11 I mentioned before. If you’ve never played these games before and only have a console, you’re probably going to love them on your Switch or PS4 or XB1. They’re fun games on any platform really, and they’ve made the transition to consoles pretty well. I do however have one major issue with the Switch version. In spite of all of the customization that made its way over, and amenities made for consoles it would have been a slam dunk to have motion controls be the icing on the cake. Splatoon 2, DOOM, Wolfenstein, and even Overwatch have gyroscopic aiming. This is one edge the Switch has when it comes to shooter games. While some might deride motion controls, when it comes to shooters on controllers, it has always been far superior than using thumb sticks. Because it’s much closer to the movement of a mouse on PC. It would especially benefit these games considering just how many enemies are thrown to you at any given time.
Still, in spite of the lack of motion controls, and some technical workarounds stifling multiplayer a little, I still recommend Serious Sam Collection. If you’ve never played these beforehand this is a fantastic way to become introduced to the series. If you have played them, this gives you the perfect opportunity to replay them in the living room, and in the case of the Switch version you can conveniently play them on the go, which is great because you can play these for five hours or five minutes. The occasional performance dip is disappointing but these are still very playable versions that perform very well most of the time. The lack of motion aiming on the Switch is a missed opportunity, but the games are still so fun its worth dealing with their omission. Plus you get all of the DLC expansion packs and you’re getting the bonus of couch co-op. Sadly, as of now there are no physical versions, so video game collectors might feel a little disappointed by that. But these are nevertheless worth picking up even if they won’t be booted from a card, or Blu Ray. For some it will be a new experience, and for veterans it’ll be fun reliving them and comparing them. And who wouldn’t love hearing the loud chorus of “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!” emanating from your Nintendo Switch during your morning coffee run at Starbucks? If the coffee doesn’t wake you up, the explosions of headless kamikazes will.
It’s no secret I’m a big fan of Splatoon. While I play a variety of games, it’s one of my most visited series on my Twitch channel. And while I am not at the same level in Nintendo’s team shooters as I was 14 to 20 years ago in Epic’s Unreal Tournament series, it is a game I’ve tried to master as much as I can.
This has culminated in me being part of an upcoming tournament hosted by Retro Game Brews. For those who don’t know, they do an entertaining podcast, but frequently host tournaments, and races on their own Twitch channel. Often times they’ve spotlighted retro games, and speed run contests. But this time they’re doing Splatoon 2.
So I’m being set up with three other players on 10/30 over on Retro Game Brews channel and hopefully we’ll win. But even if we don’t it should make for a good experience. I haven’t been in a situation like this in years when I would be involved in Sunday night scrims in Unreal Tournament 2004. If any of my old UT teammates stumble upon this, hopefully I’ll see you there.
So I’ve been playing a lot more Splatoon 2 on the channel as I’ve been practicing up some weapons I normally don’t. Believe it or not, Splatoon 2 and it’s predecessor both have three positioning roles, and each of the game’s weapons fall into one of them. So I got to a point where I felt satisfactory with the Kensa Splatterscope, pretty good with the .96 Gal Deco, and surprisingly decent with the Kensa Splattershot Jr. Normally, I roll with the buckets in the game. But if I’m placed into a support or backline roll I would like to at least do competently.
Anyway, I won’t be the only one involved in this tournament. 1UpJohn will be there, as will MegaRetroMan. Neither of whom will be on my team, but neither of whom will be taken lightly. Leading up to the tournament again, I’ll be playing a lot of practice so you might just catch me online. When the time comes it will be up to myself, Kleyman, Baggins, and Princess Kitty Mew Mew when the time comes.
And while this tournament will largely be low key, and none of us are going to be what you might think of as an e-sports level, for anybody looking to improve at the game I highly recommend a few people. Wadsm is one of the best players out of Germany and has a fantastic video on Gear here
ThatSrb2Dude hails from the UK, and is one of the best players in the entire competitive Splatoon scene. Here he goes over an optimal setup for proper motion controls but do keep an eye on all of his material as it can be very beneficial to new and old players alike.
Latias is a phenom with chargers, the game’s Sniper class of weapons. Watching some of their material here is not only going to shock you with how good they are, but you may pick up some basic strategies on how to be a better support or backline player.
And while they’re sporadic with their video releases you can’t go wrong with watching FTWin playing through the North American Nintendo tournaments.
Why do I mention these people? Well one of the best ways to improve at anything is to analyze what some of the best people at a game are doing in the game, and seeing if you can’t adapt some of it to your own unique play style. It doesn’t mean you’ll be a pro overnight, but you may see some improvement. And in any game, hobby, or in life in general, seeing improvement can be as big a motivator as a big win can be. Best of luck to all in the tournament who might see this, and to everyone out there in your own quests to grab the proverbial brass ring! Hopefully this tournament will get a few more folks to check out Splatoon 2 if they haven’t already.
And if you’re interested in other tournaments, races, or other competitive old-school events, be sure to follow Retro Game Brews. A massive thanks for the opportunity to take part in this.
It’s no secret that I have been a big fan of Nintendo’s 2015 foray into competitive third-person shooters as well as its 2017 sequel. The subsequent single-player expansion pack was pretty cool too. It included 80 stages. Merely clearing the game lets you play online as an Octoling. But if you make it to completion? Well, then it even features one of the toughest secret boss fights since Capcom and SNK gave us God Rugal.
One of the best parts of the Splatoon games has consistently been their music. Whether you’re talking about Keity Pop & Mari Kikuma voicing the Squid Sisters, (Sea O’ Colors in Japan) Rena Itou & Alice Peralta voicing Off The Hook (Tentacles in Japan), or any number of the game’s many fictional bands like the Chirpy Chips (ABXY in Japan). The music goes beyond simply providing something to listen to during matches, it is used extensively in world-building.
So the music does a good job in the games but how does it fare on its own? In my opinion, it fares very well. Many game soundtracks these days feel like film soundtracks. Either grand orchestrated pieces that may fit a scene perfectly well. Or a collection of real-world musical tracks most of us know, or at the very least have heard somewhere else. These soundtracks hearken back to a time where several things were true. Video game music used to really describe a game’s identity. When you heard Guile’s theme outside of Street Fighter II, you immediately thought of Guile fighting another character like Blanka on the airstrip. Even today, songs like Going Down The Fastway immediately take anyone who has ever played Rise Of The Triad, back to 1995 sitting at their computer eating monk meal.
Outside of video games, throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and even the 1990s if you bought an album it potentially included tchotchkes. Sometimes they might have been replica ticket stubs for a show the album was a recording of. Other times they gave you fold-out posters. When CDs began to overtake Vinyl records in the 90s these weren’t as common. But now and again there would still be something spiffy showing up with one of them. 15 years ago some of them even tried to mimic the look of a vinyl record by coming in gatefold sleeves. Of course, nowadays CD releases are neither as sought after as the vinyl resurgence nor do they have the prevalence or simplicity digital downloads do.
But video games have also started to see an interest in their soundtracks over the last several years. And while many of them can be purchased on Steam or sometimes directly from their composers, Many of them have been going the film route. With a grand orchestrated score or a list of top 40 hits. Which may make sense for Grand Theft Auto. But it doesn’t make sense for everything. But oddly enough while a lot of soundtracks are available they’re not always available across the board. Sometimes they’re only on digital storefronts. Sometimes only on vinyl, in a very limited number. Or sometimes pretty plentiful, on CD, but not here in North America.
The Splatoon Soundtracks have yet to see a digital release as far as I can tell, and they have no international release so you’ll have to import them from Japan or buy them from a business that has already imported them from Japan. Or from an importer, or from an individual second hand. But it is a worthy endeavor.
No matter what kind of music you’re into, there’s likely going to be a few songs you’ll really like. The first album has a lot of electronic synthpop, New Wave, and Power Pop inspired by the early 90s Pop Punk sound. And this fits very well as the characters in the games are doing battle in malls, skate parks, and other places teens and young adults would be. But the OST also has many Experimental, Electronica, and Post Punk sounding tracks as that fits the campaign nicely. The Octarians are led by a Samurai Octopus DJ after all. The thing is, all of these fit a long car ride, or a commute nicely. Most of the music here stands out and even the stuff that doesn’t is still pretty good. The stars here are clearly the Squid Sisters, but there are a lot of good songs over two discs. And beyond that, you still get all of the sound effects they recorded.
The second soundtrack continues this trend, but Off The Hook has a blend of Hip Hop and dance genres like Funk and Disco. These tracks are really good and again, stand on their own. One of the especially catchy jams is Acid Hues which those who have played Splatoon 2 may remember from the Splatfest events. You’ll get a wider variety of music in the sequel with tracks like Fins & Fiddles having a Celtic rock band influence, Rip Entry having a very slick bass line that feels like it could hang out with a Red Hot Chili Peppers set, and Tentacular Circus mashing a bunch of effects together before erupting into something that sounds like DEVO had a few beers with Danny Elfman. It goes with the craziness of the stage it’s featured in. But by itself, there’s something captivating about it. Splatune 2 also has a lot of cool Jazz and seafaring Rock. And of course, the highlight for a lot of fans will be the Squid Sisters’ Spicy Calamari Inkantation.
But these albums also give you some of the extra little things I talked about with the albums of old. Splatoon gives you a couple of nice alternate covers you can use to simulate the fictional albums of the game’s universe. Including the breakout Squid Sisters record as well as DJ Octavio’s. Splatune 2 on the other hand includes a polybagged guitar pick with a rather nice Splatoon squid logo on it.
Do you absolutely NEED to get these? No. You’ll be paying more than the price of a typical album, and you’ll have to pay extra for importing them. But if you’re a big fan of the games and you like collecting physical releases of games, movies, and music these are something to consider picking up. Kadokawa has also released other official Splatoon series’ albums. Octotune (which I don’t have yet) includes all of the tracks that were added to Splatoon 2 through updates over the years as well as all of the music from the Octo Expansion pack. Beyond that, they have also done live album versions of the different live shows Nintendo has done over the years.
Besides giving us a Philip J Fry “I see what you did there.” meme moment, Splatune and Splatune 2 are fantastic soundtrack albums that hearken back to a time long before buying music on iTunes or streaming it through Spotify was how to get your music. With a wide variety of sound and some really cool feelies, these can be appreciated by anyone who likes good music. Though, importing these is still going to appeal mostly to the biggest fans. If you are one of those biggest fans you won’t be disappointed. If you’re not, you likely won’t be disappointed either as the music is really good. Still, it won’t be everybody’s cup of tea. Even if that tea is super tasty.
Man, the past several days were an on and off again situation with getting electricity. With the recent tropical storm, there were issues plus I lost it for a day this past Sunday after hearing a loud hum, then seeing downed wires outside. And the power was shut off after that so the five trucks of linemen could redo the street.
It got me thinking about the backdrop to Streets Of Rage 4. Mr. X is gone from the city and for a decade some normalcy returns. But suddenly the violent crime level skyrockets. The power of both electrical and local civic variety is transferred to a new criminal enterprise: The Y syndicate. Led by the evil Mr. X’s twin progeny. They’ve recruited a lot of the original enemies you remember from the Sega Genesis days, along with a number of new surprises.
PROS: Comic book visuals. Groovy soundtrack. Gameplay.
CONS: Some cheap A.I. May seem too short for some.
SEGA: Should have Lizardcube give Golden Axe and Comix Zone this treatment.
This new Streets Of Rage has a very nice comic book look to the whole affair. So much so, that I immediately began to wonder what a new Comix Zone might look like if helmed by Lizardcube, the studio that brought us this sequel. It’s bright, and colorful in a way that still fits the dystopian, chaotic remnants of a city now ruled by criminals B movie vibe it goes for. The artwork and animation here are fantastic. Streets Of Rage 4 also has a lot of cool galleries where you can see the concept art. And it goes a step further than some other games here because you get to see a lot of the work in progress rather than a handful of sketches or prerendered graphics.
Unlike many comic books, they haven’t kept the game in the same narrow 20 year period of the character’s lives. Old stalwarts like Axel Stone are… well, old. Not elderly just yet, but you can tell he’s been out of action a while. It’s like they took a splash of The Expendables movies and sprinkled it on top. But much like River City Ransom: Underground’s mainstays, they haven’t let themselves go either. And there are a couple of newer characters introduced here. Cherry, Adam’s daughter makes her debut along with Floyd who is this really cool combination of Mortal Kombat’s Jax and Final Fight’s Mike Haggar. Of the roster I found him to be the most enjoyable to use.
But everybody is viable and you’ll unlock other playable characters over the course of multiple playthroughs. You’ll also be enamored with the soundtrack here as you get renditions of classic chiptunes as well as some new jams that complement those nicely. It goes along well with the theme of bridging the classic trilogy of brawlers with some modern-day visual flair. But the game also has a number of unlockable retro characters seemingly right out of the Sega Genesis games. There are also some hidden boss encounters that take you back to the 16-bit console’s sprite style. Think almost like the retro stages employed in games like Shadow Warrior (reboot) or Rise Of The Triad (reboot).
The game also has several difficulty settings. If you beat them they open up tougher versions for you to try your hand at. Including a No Death Run mode where you can attempt to beat the entire game on one life. Yes, many games have added this feature as well, but it does still give a devoted fan something of merit to shoot for. This game, in particular, is one of the toughest games to employ this. Even on the lower difficulties, it can be pretty easy to lose lives when you get sandwiched between mid-card enemies or go up against some of the cheaper bosses. So expect to have nerves of steel should you want to attempt a no death run on the highest of challenge levels.
As for the gameplay, it’s classic Streets Of Rage. Lizardcube has gotten nearly 1:1 with the feel of the older games. It felt closest to SOR2 for me, though I’m certain any superfan who disagrees will tell me why I’m wrong. Be that as it may, it is a beat ’em up. On the surface level, it might seem like “Go right, and mash punch” is the only thing you do, but on further inspection, it really isn’t. Streets Of Rage 4 has mostly pretty good hit detection, if you miss, you likely weren’t close enough or were too far above or below the enemy for it to land. This follows a lot of the classics. Attack diagonally, and try to get in grapple moves for big damage. Though every enemy in the game needs to be approached differently. One enemy type may deflect or reverse holds. So you’ll have to punch them a million times. Other enemies are blocking happy so you have to bait them into whiffing an attack. And yes, you can expect the A.I. to employ the classic brawler bull of sandwiching you between four bad guys that interrupt you when you’re beating up one of them. But figuring out ways around it are a staple of the genre.
The thing is, with all of the tools and variety it doesn’t feel old or repetitious. The game also doesn’t wear out it’s welcome. It’s a relatively short game. One that honestly ends almost too abruptly for me. I would have liked to have seen some more stuff fleshed out. While this isn’t a game you’ll come into looking for a deep storyline, it does feel a bit too superficial. Outside of a little bit of exposition, we don’t get much about the new crime boss duo. We don’t see how or if Mr. X died. We don’t see how the kids come to power. It’s kind of like “Hey! Our dad is gone, but we’re taking over.” And the abrupt finish to it puts it a step below vintage brawlers in this regard. Again, B movie stuff, but even the old games in the series along with Final Fight, and Double Dragon did this a little better. Not by much. But enough that it’s noticeable.
That said, at this level, I’m really nitpicking. Overall, I rather enjoyed Streets Of Rage 4. There’s enough here for the old-timer teens of the 90s to love, and for those who are newer to enjoy as well. It’s as silly and over the top as always while letting you feel like a badass the entire time. And it’s a cut above some of the other beat ’em ups that we’ve seen recently. Whether you’re a long time fan who has waited for eons for this release, or you’re someone not experienced with Beat ’em ups looking for something new this is one worth picking up.
Comma Eight Comma One 