XBLIG + XBLA = too many games

Hey I’m back (that was fast, sorry) and I’m hopefully less full of bullshit this time. I’m gonna try, honest.

This is what happened: I got a 360 to play Import Tuner Challenge (aka Shutokou Battle X aka the last Genki Racing Project game) and Shadow Assault -Tenchu- (aka Tehcnu meets Bomberman) and then I remembered that there was this big unknown. That huge blob of digital-only titles. It’s ridiculous. If wikipedia is to be believed, it’s well over 3000 indie and over 700 Live Arcade games. To put it into perspective, that’s about as much as the number of NES, SNES and GB games combined. And there’s still a slow but steady trickle of new releases. (Until later this year when Microsoft is shutting the development side of things down unfortunately. Fortunately it doesn’t seem to affect the ability to buy and play games.)

Mind-boggled. Anyway, that’s a challenge I can’t refuse so I browsed a lot. And looked at thousands of thumbnails. Downloaded hundreds of free trials. And bought about a dozen games at the end. Here’s what I got (caution: I only played the trial and not much of the full game most of the time but I’ll prolly gonna give some updates later after playing more):

#Explosionade (80 points)
Single-screenish (there’s some scrolling but you can zoom out) arcade-ish 2D mecha platformer with a neat shield mechanic that makes you bump around like a flipper. Bit too easy for my taste. I guess the point is to go for high scores instead of completion. Good fun nonetheless.

review by Toll

#Tekkou Houhei (80 points)
3rd-person mecha shooter where you are put in small levels having to shoot other mecha. No z-targeting in this one, gotta aim yourelf! I like it a lot. PS: Don’t quote me on this, but I think it has split-screen coop? I’m a lonely person and only have on controller so I can’t confirm.

namako team review

#Prismatic Solid (80 points)
I started up the trial and that attract mode fucking sold me right away. I didn’t even need to play the game before I confirmed purchase. I am that shallow. So many flat-shaded prismatic solids! Could not miss such a lovely looking and sounding 2D shooting, I thought. And it plays fine too, maybe (I suck at shootie games and I don’t allow myself to have an opinion on them). It has some weird tentacle force power up system. I bought this over Revolver 360, cause it’s not “just” a high-score hunt, but has “more standard” level progression. Also, I think there’s a PS4 port out? Huh.

#Ogre’s Phantasm Sword Quest (240 points)
What a name. And what a game! This reminds me a lot of EDF is why I had to have it. Actually, I think it reminds me more of the forgotten EDF game, Zangeki no Reginleiv, with its fantasy setting and fighting giants with swords and such. So yeah, you’re thrown in an arena and there’s lots of orcs and you gotta pierce them with your sword and there’s health and money drops that you can spent on better swords. Some orcs have helmets (the big ones, usually) and you gotta jump on them pointing your sword downwards and bounce of their heads multiple times and it’s hilarious like the pogo stick move of Scrooge in the DuckTales game. It’s bit grindy like EDF and you gotta repeat levels to farm money, but there’s decent level variety and I don’t mind too much. Juggling sword-first on orc heads is fun!

#Adventures of Captain Becky (80 points)
Now this is where it gets a lil embarrassing. Scantily-clad over-sexualized woman navigating single-screenish platformy levels filled with spikes and monstas and shit. You can unlock other skimpy outfits and look at them in the creepy voyeur mode. So yeah, I don’t really know why I like this game so much. I guess I like boobs, I mean the simplicity, I mean I was a fan of Solomon’s Key on the GB is my excuse. I don’t know, okay. It plays well. There’s a clunkiness to the controls I like and the levels in the trial put up some challenge. It’s not just the cleavage! Don’t look at me like that!

#BioErosion (80 points)
Now this is some shit. 3rd-pseron shooter that looks (and plays?) like a Dreamcast launch game. Aiming is terrible. Walking around is slow. The level is just a square city-scape, kinda like EDF but even smaller and cheaper. And there’s some floating balls you gotta shoot them all and sometimes there’s some ugly monstas walking towards you and shooting stuff and oh boy. I basically got this because of the outlandish sound effects (startling synthesizer noises kinda reminiscent of old arcade games) and how surreal it all is. Oh yeah, and the distorted guitar music in the “how to play” menu. Anyway, level 2 is level 1 but adds some bottomless pits ad that is how far I played. Yeah I wouldn’t recommend buying this.

Here’s a youtube:

#Axeh (80 points)
Card game / board game / RPG? combo kinda like Culdcept but different. I just had to get this. It’s all Japanese but I plan on clicking my way through. Can’t say if it’s good or not.

#Ancient Trader (240 points)
This is kinda like a simplified board game version of Pirates I guess (I am somewhat ashamed that I haven’t played that classic). You are pirate ship and have to battle other ships and trade goods and stuff. It looks pretty cool! Like old illustrations and cartography stuff and I’m just a sucker for board games in general so yeah. I think this is also on IOS and got a sequel on PC.

#Yukkuri no Meikyuu (80 points)
Or how I like to call it: Smilie-Punch Dungeon Crawl. Because that’S what you do. Because you’re one of three selectable waifus and you gotta punch your way through a blocky Wizardry dungeon in 1st-person mode and you throw left and right punches with your L and R triggers at big smiliy faces and that’s stupid fun. Actually, those arems don’t look like waifu arms, I guess you’re a guy trying to rescue your waifu because after each level there’s a picture of her getting harassed by ghosts things which are driven away depending on your smilie-punch dungeon crawl performance. Oh, and you can level up your stats depending on what colored smilies you punch and I recommend to look for the yellow ones cause that gives you an automap. I really find this quite addictive, I don’t know.

#Maid San’s Caving Adventure (80 points)
In this 2D stealth game you are maid and have to sneak by orcs (which represent terrible customers I suppose, I don’t know if there’s a hidden message in here okay). There’s platforming too. The clunky kind. And I like it a lot. It looks super polished. Real nice sprite-work and animations. And the orcs throw out a Japanese line every time you sneak by, acting all confused, the stupids, and I find that funny. Don’t judge me.

#Irekae Maho-chan
Also called Swapping Mahoro-Chan? Now you may think this is just another 2D single-screen platformer with cute sprites but here’s the trick: you shoot a star that allows you to swap places with the enemy you hit. And that’s kinda cool and I had a lot of fun playing through the trial and even though 240 points is a lot I decided to go for the full version. Gonna report back if I did the wrong thing.


Now, there’s some more trials sitting on my HDD that I haven’t decided on buying yet:

#Revolver360 (80 points)
This looks and sounds maybe even better than Prismatic Solid! But it did’t have a cool attract mode. So I had to play it first. And that’s the problem. Cause I think I saw everything already? Like, there’s a quick and endless mode but both seem to offer not a whole lot in terms of progression. Like, there’s levels and bosses but everything switches so fast and loops maybe? There’s hidden options in the menu but I don’t know. Should I buy this? I’m not really into scoring-based shooting. There does seem to be a monochromatic sequel on Steam that fixes exactly that issue though. (My laptop is ancient technology otherwise I would’ve tried it out.)

#Qoccer (80 points)
Turn-based physics-based board game-ish soccer game that plays more like mini-golf with three clubs against an opponent (who also has three clubs). I like these abstract sports video games that play nothing like the real sport a lot (Is why I was kind of devastated that MLB Bobblehead Battle had been delisted, RIP Konami). But! You know? I think I’ve seen it all already within the trial time limit? Like I played a match and I won and I liked it and the AI is pretty easy. (Yeah, okay, maybe I do need a friend.) There’s an ice field and the option to play 3vs1 but I don’t know. Should I? Maybe if I have some money left at some point.

#Opposites (80 points)
Woah! This has to be the coolest Tetris clone idea! I just looked at a screenshot and was like: “Of course!” So simple. So fucking obvious. Why hasn’t it been done before? (Has it been done before?) This is fucking great and I love it. But again, I played some rounds and I lost and then I won and I think the full version only unlocks online play which I am not a big fan of for some stupid reason (I guess mainly because I’m shit at Tetris and would get my ass whopped) and I guess I can just wait for that hypothetical future IRL friend of mine and save myself 80 MS dollars (local vs seems unlocked?). Huh?

Oh yeah, here’s a screenshot:

#Ninja360 (80 points)
This is kinda like those Ninja games where you are Ninja and have to collect all dots navigating 2D platforms afap doing jumpy jumps and floaty floats and clinging and climbing walls. And I guess the gimmick is that you turn the level when you run around circular platforms. Or something. And you get a medal depending on your time. So yeah, 2D time trial platformer. I find it neat that you get a video of the gold performance as soon as you get a silver time. And that you can unlock levels by collecting either a bunch of bronze, silver or gold medals (you need less of the latter than the former), so that newbs like me can get somewhere too. I think this is by a Japanese developer as well? Has some nice menu artwork anyway (The levels look pretty plain, and for some reason you can choose the textures you want). So yeah, I dunno. It feels good and I wouldn’t mind unlocking some of the full version levels, but again, I’m not much into this kind of scoring-based platformer with generic looking levels, I prefer to go on adventures and progress through different environments and beat the boos monstas and have a bit of a story (waifu or perferably husbando to save) and I don’t know. I provably won’t shell out the 80 points.

#Undead Syndrome (80 points)
This is by the same developer than BioErosion. So yeah, it’s a bit trippy. Or very trippy, depending on your perception of reality. It’s kinda like Resident Evil. You shoot magic tho. Includes grotesque abominations to shoot, of course. Trial doesn’t allow saving, and I don’t know if I wanna do again. Is kinda scary if played with headphones after sunset. (I’m a wuss tho, you may not be scared or for other reasons.) There’s a sequel too, but it looked like really dumb SciFi and also might contain spoilers? Huh, anyway, I kinda wanna buy this because it’s probably better than BioErosion and I really dig the trashy aesthetic. I am stupid.

#T.A.R.A. (80 points)
1st-person shooter with robot enemies that look like the characters in Ballz (anyone remember that? No? Okay, well the limbs are made up of individual balls and they flail around, like the Space Harrier dragon, you know?). Uhh, it’s pretty terryfying actually, because if you shoot the robots, they make crazy noises and tumble over in messy ways but sometimes they aren’t dead and then they still move and get up again and oh my good I almost pissed my pants. Seems to be pretty standard Doom-ish find-a-switch-to-open door otherwise, but yeah I had fun. Wonder if it introduces new enemies later? Hmm.

#Arrow Diamond (80 points)
Aka what the fuck even is this? It’s weird! And very tricky to find, cause it uses symbols as it’s name. And that’s why it’s also easy to find in the dashboard. Just look for action & adventure and sort by name and it should be the first result. So yeah really though what is it? Well, you are green god hand (not quite) and you hover over small sprout things and you push them and I don’t wanna spoil the magic experience of figuring out this crazy trip of a “game”. You may have already watched a youtube of it I don’t know, it might’ve been a little infamous among XBLIGs and got some coverage, back when it came out. Anyway, I like it lots. I haven’t bought cause I dunno if there’s more to it than maxing out your score doing the same thing over and over though. Anyone know? I wouldn’t mind getting this just to see if it goes anywhere beyond what I could do in the trial.

#Bloom Block (80 points)
I am a big fan of certain types of what I call “pure” puzzle games. That is, turn-based no real-time action component. (Because all the Tetrises and PuyoPuyos and Columns are too much to handle for my stupid brain that is too slow and the somewhat sedate pace of Mario Picross about the upper limit of stress-thinking I can take). Yeah, I really like those gams that give me all the time I need, especially when they’re about geometric shapes or numbers. Like Tangram! (Is there a good Tangram video game?) Or … uh … I guess what is sometimes funnily called “puzzle mode” in many action puzzle games, where you get a set amount of steps to “solve” a problem without a timer ticking down. And yeah this game, it basically fits the bill! It’s kind of what I’d call ingenious actually! You have basic 3D shapes made of cubes, like numbers and Katakana? (it’s a Japanse game alright) and you gotta traverse them, like walk on each side/face, without stepping on one you already traversed. I bet there’s some games that did this concept in 2D already (blood potion reward for anyone who can name that game(s)) but I gotta say this is news to me in 3D. Such a neat concept! I bet the designer of the game looked at textures of basic 3D shapes and tried to wrap/unwrap them in his head or something. So why did I not buy this yet? It’s so gosh darn hard! And it doesn’t need to be quite as? Like, the camera is pretty zoomed in and uncooperative, and I just couldn’t make it zoom out to get a look at the whole shape to plan out my route better. And maybe that’s intentional? Like, you’re supposed to draw the whole route in your head and I couldn’t do it with 3. Yeah, that’s where my brain said: oh boy this is work and I stopped lol. I am not smart. Maybe I’ll get better at it, if I think about it some more. My takeaway is that I also don’t like the kind of puzzle games that rely heavily on sequencing. Like, I hate the Sokobans. And among the hated action puzzlers, I hate Tetris way less than the more combo-oriented stuff like Tetris Attack. It seems like I am more into combining things in not necessarily a particular order. Maybe. Oh boy, this is some theoretical game talk here, sorry I’ll stop. I think this game is pretty cool regardless of my weird personal preferences.

This is already too much text, so I’m just gonna rep it up by mentioning the sites that helped me find games. Because the Xbox dashboard and search is kinda hit and miss and the marketplace is offline for me all the time and some games have non-romanized (is that what you call it?) names and you can’t search for Katakana and stuff (I don’t think).

http://xblig.co/
This site has a handy overview of some good (and not so good imo) games and links to reviews.

https://thexblig.com/
This covers some of the more recent releases (last review was yesterday). Haven’t checked it out much.

http://www.xboxindies.com
This has been invaluable in looking through lots of games quickly, as it basically is just a copy of the original xbox marketplace website, but seems to be working better for me. You can even click on the developer and see what else they did. It has game links to the official site too (Very handy, in case you have a credit-card (I don’t), because then you can initiate trial downloads from your PC, which is a lot easier than searching for the game through the 360 dashboard.)

I used the gamefaqs names of the games btw. When they are in Japanese, they’re usually called something else on xboxindies. I found it helpful to just look for the developer’s name, in that case.

Soooooo … yeahhhh … not gonna proof-read all this sorry. And thanks if you somehow managed to read it all and also thanks if you only read parts of it. Pls feel free to give me some XBLIG recommendations, I kinda wanna see all the good things (and the good bad things?) there is among this impenetrably huge library. Let us cherish those indie gems!

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you totally 100% need to get this game
also why not make this thread in kop?
i’ve written about a few other xblig games on my blog too, if you look in the “xbox 360” tag, including “arrow diamond”

Thanks gonna check it out.

Yeah I dunno I am always unsure about my trashy threads and I just wanna get it out my system and talk a bit and I am not that interested in preseriving it and some poeple post only in the axe? Huh.

http://www.ancient.co.jp/~game/mamotte_knight/en.html (go to the jp lang version too)
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/まもって騎士/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d802585504f8

As far as XBLA goes, the only truly great game that isn’t also on PC or PS3 is Bangai-O HD Missle Fury

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I had a lot of fun playing Avatar Fighter Online with friends. It was another 80msp XBLIG title, and played like a hybrid between a simplified Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat with customizable movesets. Great value.

The first post mentions that Explosionade is pretty easy. There’s a PC port of it that includes another difficulty level, which I personally haven’t been able to beat.

It’s good! It’s real good. Costs four times as much on Steam than the original 1bux XBLA version, but easily worth it for the full price and absurdly worth it on sale.

There’s also a lot of ports that aren’t anywhere else for some reason! Cough radiant silvergun cough 3rd strike

But yeah missile fury is really good

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… i think it was felix (?) who brought this up a while ago, or I am imagining things. But this has been discussed here before, iirc, and the outlook (ho-ho) was bleak, to say the least.

[quote=“http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/xblig-ending-service-in-2017/”]New Xbox Live Indie Games will continue to be published through September 9, 2017. At that point, Microsoft will close its XBLIG online storefront, remove all existing games for sale, and pay out all revenue owed to featured developers.

Players who bought XBLIG content in the past will still be able to re-download their purchases after the shutdown. Microsoft also assures that it is taking steps to preserve existing XBLIG content for future study and analysis.

“Longer term, over the next two years we’ll be working with game conservationists and creators to preserve the legacy of XBLIG content,” Microsoft’s Chris Charla and Andy Dunn stated. “We look forward to sharing more details in the future.”[/quote]

Not THAT bleak?

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Speaking of preservation, move this to KoP, ffs!

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I wanted to write about XBLAs already but life got in the way. Just kidding, I played too much PSP. This is the problem when I have more than one console. Priorities. But it’s hot and I can play my PSP sitting on my couch, while the 360 is hooked up via VGA to an old 4:3 LCD monitor (that my brother left behind) which sits on a desk (that my brother left behind) and I have to sit on my FitBALL to play it (because my brother didn’t leave behind a chair). And that’s good for my back I suppose, but bad for my motivation.

But the weather forecast is promising (cold weather) and I’m pretty much done with a particular game that sucked up over a day of accumulated hours over the last couple of days. I just watched the credits roll in Grand Knights History. And I guess that means I can add another game to my “jarpeegees you beat” list. Kinda impressive, considering that the last one was 11 years ago. Maybe I’m back in business. (I hope not tho.)

Here’s the list, btw. (Don’t click it! Read the rest of this off-topic post that goes nowhere first!)

And admittedly today was already a cloudy day, but still pretty hot and my Xbox gets pretty hot too, and that makes my room too hot. So I watched videos of Japanese-only PS1 SRPGs on my laptop instead, because, while I was looking for a comprehensive list of PC88 and PC98 tennis games, I found this cool site that has what seems to be pretty comprehensive lists of games (with screenshots) sorted by genre. (Not so fun fact no one cares about: SRPG is my 2nd favorite genre behind drift racing and before tennis games.)

Here’s the site, btw, showing one of the SRPGs that piqued my interest.
https://refuge.tokyo/playstation/ps/01225.html

Kinda seems to have a weirdly clunky pausable turn-based system? And quite elaborate rotatable isometric 3D maps. Like this multi-story building, where you can see characters on the other floors walking and talking. I could not find a brave soul on youtube who tried this. So I had to watch my first Japanese let’s play on nicovideo. I mean download it, cause I don’t have an account (or a twitter (or a facebook)). I will link it tho, cause I assume you will either not give a fuck or know a way to watch it. I also wanna know if discourse can do nicovideo embeds (It probably can’t).


What a useless post why did he make it he's so stupid is what you might or should be thinking right now. Guess I could try to redeem myself a tiny lil bit here by talking about the one XBLA game I bought that is not an XBLA exclusive (though it is better on 360 cause 360 triggers are ergonomic wonders compared to the human interface design nightmare that is PS3 triggers). The game is called

#Daytona USA (800 points)
The first game I got when I had a Dreamcast a couple years ago was a CD-R of Daytona USA 2001 with the original music restored. I played it for hours. I never finished first. I just couldn’t drift. And I love to drift, you may know that already. SEGA arcade drift racing classic? Hell yeah! This should be among my favorite games! It’s embarassing. I got this XBLA port cause I am shit at Daytona USA. Maybe I was spoiled by OutRun2’s ease of driftiness. Or the Dreamcast version really had bad controls. Either way, I had to make things right.

Enter Challenge Mode. Which is all I wanted it to be and more. They should’ce called this Drill Mode. Or License Test. I love how it breaks up each track and teaches you to approach each corner. This would’ve taken me soo many quarters. Maybe I would’ve never gotten it on my own. But I got the achievement. Finishing the last challenge and having to bring it all together was truly satisfying. I am still not good. But I think I get it now. I completed the circle. I have closure. (I haven’t tried Arcade Mode yet.)

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Oh, Yuukyuu no Eden! Yeah, that game looks really great, and it’s interesting to consider versus other isometric SRPGs. Most are fairly open visually, like Tactics Ogre, but Eden more strongly resembles Neverland’s Energy Breaker with the dense, cramped design. Being FFT/BOFIV-style rotatable allows the maps to have a lot more visual obstructions and initially-hidden areas than was probably a good idea.

Psx data center page: http://psxdatacenter.com/games/J/Y/SLPS-01928.html

I played a little bit of the game and got stuck in one of the tutorial side rooms of the first area. You probably saw more than me if you watched Nico videos. My impression was that there is a much heavier focus on navigation and puzzle-esque design than pretty much any comparable contemporary release. I remember coming across a Japanese blog post that didn’t Google translate well, but it basically said the game looked really nice, but it was so weirdly/poorly conceived and designed that it was a borderline-kusoge waste of money, and the blogger beat the game without ever figuring out why they were fighting the final boss.

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there were a looooot of mediocre jp-only SRPGs in that era. The Black/Matrix games come to mind.

not personally familiar with yuukyuu. odds are pretty good it’s decent looking but doesn’t play very well. (edit: wow, it doesn’t even have a wikipedia page)

there’s honestly very few unknown ‘gems’ that really play well, compared to the ones that had more mainstream success.

Thanks, Broco

i wrote about the most obscure ps1 srpg once

(yet another shameless self-plug itt, but they’re always apprpriate)

i hope someone releases a really awesome xblig game on the day before the deadline

#Bangai-O HD: Missile Fury (800 points)

Totally forgot about that one. Got it now. I only played the N64 game before, and this looks like more of the same enjoyable Itano Circus clusterfuck. And wow, this has a level editor and System Link co-op?

#Nin²-Jump (400 points)
Cave-made grappling-hook platformer! Looked a bit underwhelming and too score-centered to me at first, but plays nice, and gets proper difficult. And after I unplugged my Ethernet cable, it didn’t pause for a couple seconds after each level to upload my terribly low high scores. Thank god there’s a level select for noobs like me. I’m stuck at the 20th stage (2nd boss) atm.

#Strania (800 points)
This is the kind of shooter I like. Checkpoints, no crap-ton of scoring items littering the screen when you shoot stuff, looks good, catchy heart-pumping music, swords(!), a 4:3 mode too. I would’ve bought this, if the Steam release wouldn’t tempt the pirate in me. Maybe I’ll get it anyway.

#Omega Five (800 points)
I got this because of the cool announcer announcing the game’s title. And because it’s another more “traditional”, less scoring-based shooting game. Made by Natsume! And … it’s okay? Levels are long and enemies take quite a lot of hits and you have a health bar and I Game Overed at the 3rd level and didn’t feel like starting another attempt yet. I guess I’ll give it another go with the 2nd character at some point, but it just isn’t as brisk and doesn’t offer the weapon variety of Strania, which motivates me a lot more. Do I regret spending 800 MS $ on this? Maybe. Maybe I should’ve paid more attention to this sir:

#XBLIG full version experiences:

Normal mode kuria! ( Hard mode is still too hard.) I saved my “normal” waifu! And got some lovely montage of her standing around mountain roads amidst the chillest music. And then she started lying on the road and oh my gosh that’s dangerous! But then she got up again and started sweating and drooling before she was covered in a red “Game Over”. So I guess happy end? Also, did I mention that this games has some very, very lovely music in it (besides the ending song)? Totally up there with Prismatic Solid and that weird sushi serving game whose name escapes me right now.

[quote=“bug”]Prismatic Solid[/quote] has been a bit of a disappointment though. It does the thing where the first couple levels are very easy and therefore boring to play. The tentacle power-ups go around your whole ship and basically make you invincible to enemy projectiles. I got stuck at level 5, which threw some fast-moving instant-death obstacles at me. And I am not sure when I’ll find the motivation to start over from the beginning. I know you are a shooting game, game, but come on. Don’t make me play through the boring part again, be more interesting to play, or give me a level select pls.

Reaches Kaizo Mario levels of fiendish difficulty in its extra stages. Thanks. I like it.

A lot of the action games I tried have a level select and a scoring system to encourage you to repeat levels for high scores. Bangai-O, Nin²-Jump, Tekkou Houhei, Ninja360. So does this one. Except that it is utterly brutal. I have not gotten anything better than 0 points. This is kind of a stealth game. And every detection nets massive score reduction. And every jump, and every step even, reduces score. I am too impatient. I just run past enemies all the time. Because not getting detected is kinda tricky. And I would probably pull my hair out, if I’d try to go for high scores.

Again, what an ingenious concept. Enemies kill you on touch, but you can shoot them to swap places. I finished all 100 levels! Actually, I skipped a bunch, cause this game makes you auto-skip a level if you die a couple times. Which annoyed me when I was feeling close to getting it right, but was a blessing, when I got stuck. Also, this game is kinda weird, in that it has both a level select, and lives. If you lose all, it’s “Game Over”, but all it means is that your score is reset and you’re back at the level select screen. The ending encourages you to try and play through all 100 levels without losing all lives though. And then I realized something, if this would’ve been released on the Game Boy, you would’ve gotten a four-digit password after each level. This game is so old-school.

I beat this! It is fucking awesome! The music is so, so good! I entered the shop and just let it sit there for a while, while I leaned out my window, feeling the wind and the sun. And then, right there in that very moment I couldn’t help but think, that life is great.

Updated list of games that make me wanna get out there and enjoy life:

  • AdvanceGTA (credits)
  • Hot Wheels Advance (title music)
  • Qix Adventure (world 1 clear cutscene)
  • Ogre’s Phantasm Sword Quest (shop music, ending)
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I haven’t heard of Omega Five in ages. The folks that made it are now working on a 4-player remix of Wild Guns for PS4.

i miss my 360 :frowning:

I still never made the follow-up post I wanted to make. I have some stuff written down and some stuff is still stuck in my head, for better or worse. Here’s at least some stuff:

Is even better than I thought. This game really comes into its own as soon as the bad mechas get equipped with the same kind of weaponry (and even better weaponry) than I have. Shredding through my shield and tearing through my armor in milliseconds. Getting shields too. Eating up my precious bullet supplies. Even getting the same kind of dash system. That was my biggest advantage! Gone. Shit gets intense. Zipping around dodging missiles punching steel is, in its very best moments, as exhilarating an interpretation of anime mecha battles as any I’ve yet experienced. And shit gets brutal. Gotta be quick, gotta be efficient, gotta unleash hell and run like hell. Remember the next drop and get some shots in while they’re dangling defenseless from their parachutes. But it’s not enough. This game is too tuff for me. Doesn’t help that the new weapons I bought feel like sidegrades. And the new armor is never enough armor. Outnumbered and outgunned, I’m left devastated. But satisfied.

#KOF Sky Stage (800 points)
I’m still playing some Sky Stage here and there. I don’t know why, maybe because character-based shooting games with “story”, even though it’s just on the level of fighting game text blurbs, is much more engaging to me than being a silent, inanimate space-ship. (Maybe I would like the Touhou games. I am a little too scared to find out though.) It also seems to be closer to a Psikyo, rather then a Cave game (faster, more guided bullets instead of slower-moving bullet carpets). Which I like, even though I’m just as bad at it. I also tried the enhanced PSP version, but the levels just looked so drab in comparison. This is so much more blue-skies!

#Shadow Assault -Tenchu- (800 points)
I got this cause it looked like a weird Bomberman clone, and that’s just irresistible to me. It turned out to be a weird Bomberman clone. In which you run around laying bombs, I mean traps, in the way of enemies, who wander about. And it’s not just enough to not touch enemies, cause they came after you when you stand inside their visual cones. And you have absolutely nothing to defend yourself, even though your character model clearly has a weapon. You can get different characters, but they only differ in speed and health. Which is kinda weird. What’s even weirder, is that you even gotta pick up each of your “bombs” individually, and you can only carry one at a time, and it also takes a while for them to respawn. There’s trap variety though. Some of them act as bombs, some as projectile weapons, but you’ll mostly be using catapults to fling enemies into spike pits, cause that way you can set up elaborate combos, which is necessary for the later harder bad guys, who take more hits and regenerate health. All of that combined with a time limit, leads to some pretty neat puzzles. This is totally less of an action game than Bomberman was, and way more of a plan ahead kinda brain-teaser. And it gets pretty tough. And then it just ends. Even though the menu has slots and descriptions for traps that you never even got to use. And Your characters have special attack abilities for which you need to pick up items that you never got to pick up. This game is not finished! At least not the single player mode. There is multiplayer, but I only tried it against the bots, and the nature of the game (laying “invisible bombs”) makes multiplayer battles pretty much just a test of your memory, which I kinda don’t like? There is a DLC option in the main menu, but as far as I can tell, it never came out. I will never understand why From Software decided to release this in an unfinished state for 10 bucks exclusively on XBLA. Why did they not make a complete game and sell it for 40 bucks on the DS or the PSP? The concept would be so much more suited to a portable. Why? It makes me kinda sad. Because this is such a charming and unique little action-puzzler.

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