Sonic the Hedgehog first appeared in 1990’s Rad Mobile for arcade a few months before the first Sonic the Hedgehog game. He appears as an ornament dangling from the ceiling of the car.

I wanted to get that bit of trivia out of the way because it’s often all anybody knows about Rad Mobile. That is, if they even remember the name. I say that because I could never really remember it. Not until I became interested in pre-3D racing games.

This is mostly because Rad Mobile was only once ported to console and never in North America. That is, until it was chosen as one of the games for the Sega Astro City Mini. That’s still a pretty niche platform in this part of the world, so I’m still waiting for it to finally get the spotlight over here.

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That pesky hedgehog

Rad Mobile is interesting to me because it uses the “Super Scaler” pseudo-3D technique that Sega built their hardware around. It’s best remembered for Space Harrier, but it was used in OutRun and Hang-On. However, both OutRun and Hang-On used raster effects for their pseudo-3D road, whereas Rad Mobile just makes heavy use of scaling sprites. This is the same technique used by 1988’s better-remembered Power Drift.

So, rather than your car driving on a background layer or single sprite, you’re actually riding across a steady stream of overlapping sprites that gradually get bigger to simulate parts of the road getting closer to the screen. It’s as obvious as it is effective. Because it was easy to create bridges and hills using Super Scaler, racing games that used the effect typically had a lot of variation in elevation, to the point where they can sometimes feel like roller coasters.

Despite being designed by Yu Suzuki, Rad Mobile is hardly the best racing game of its era. The floatiness of the car and the difficulty in gauging depth with 2D sprites combined with the first-person perspective makes it feel quite janky. However, it still has a lot going for it and I love it all the same.

[caption id="attachment_399103" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Are we there yet?

Rad Mobile is your typical story about a race across the United States, from West to East coast. This would also be seen in Turbo OutRun and Cruis’n USA, among others. The journey is separated into 20 short tracks, each depicting a different location. Like many racing games at the time, you have to make each checkpoint within a short time limit to replenish your clock. However, on top of this, you compete against other racers on the same trip. If you’re careful, you can drive across the U.S.A. in less than half an hour, so I’m not sure why planes exist.

I’m not sure that Rad Mobile was ever intended to be played with a digital controller. The Astro City Mini version allows this, but most cabinets I’ve seen have a steering wheel. It’s a Sega System 32 board, so it most likely could have been installed in a real Astro City arcade cabinet, but the car controls are so sluggish and pressing an arcade button to accelerate is so uncomfortable it feels like a racing wheel is necessary. Still, it plays okay with a normal arcade stick.

[caption id="attachment_399102" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

A long drive for someone with nothing to think about

A lot of Rad Mobile’s appeal comes from the variety it has stretched across the continent. Some tracks play at night, and you have to activate headlights to get a better view of the road. Meanwhile, it rains on others, and a pair of wipers keep your windshield clear. My favorite, however, is one that forces you to drive on train tracks and puts an impending locomotive in your rear-view mirror, threatening to clobber you if you clip a wall.

Speaking of clobber, there are police in some legs of the race. I’m not totally clear on why, but sometimes, if they get ahead of you, they’ll pull you over. Then, a police officer walks up to you and absolutely crushes your (formerly) radical automobile with one punch. It was a weird era in video games where people beat up a lot of cars, I guess.

One of the strangest parts, however, is the Rocky Mountains. If you slip off the edge of the track, you fall through nothingness for a few seconds before the road reappears beneath you and catches your car. It wrecks your car, but it was at least nice of the level to loop back around to give you something to land on.

[caption id="attachment_399100" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Scaling for consoles

The Sega Saturn version of Rad Mobile, Gale Racer, is something of a strange conversion. Largely, it’s a pretty reasonable port of the arcade game, but it’s also not as good. Mainly, this is because every track is separated by a loading screen, whereas the arcade version feels like one continuous journey. This not only kills the feeling of long-distance travel, it also eliminates the competitive feel of the game. You still pass cars on your journey, but it seems more like you’re doing it for score rather than to win a race.

Also, your speed tops out at around 300km/h for some reason, compared to the arcade's 170km/h. You still move at the same clip, the speedometer just reads differently.

The other vehicle are rendered in polygonal 3D, for some reason. The car also handles a lot crappier. There are police vehicles, but I don’t think they can pull you over anymore. The worst part about it, however, is the draw distance. It’s a lot smaller than the arcade version, which I’m guessing is because the Sega Saturn doesn’t have the same dedicated sprite scaling hardware. However, it could also be because it released in 1994, and most games of that time were rushed for the new hardware.

On the other hand, there’s a two-player mode. The soundtrack is a lot better. It’s also interesting that it didn’t come to North America, because it’s entirely in English. There’s even a text crawl at the beginning that is completely in English, but has Japanese subtitles.

Still, Rad Mobile is better than no Rad Mobile.

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Sega Arcade Arena

Sega seems to be having trouble figuring out what to do with all its arcade classics. They’ve provided a slow trickle of their best games through series like Sega Ages, but a lot of them are still inaccessible. The Sega Astro City Mini is nice, but it’s expensive and works better as a showpiece than as a mini console.

They need something like Capcom Arcade Stadium. Some sort of bigger compilation of their arcade titles that don’t absolutely need online connectivity. That, or they need to let Hamster dig through their back catalog for the Arcade Archives series. Or something. I just hate having to scour through old ports to try and find specific titles.

Rad Mobile is worth scouring for. It pokes me directly in my love for road trips and appeals to me through its weirdness. Too often, racing games are just monotone and serious. It’s no wonder I just cling to any driving game that offers more than just four wheel and an engine.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Sega’s Rad Mobile deserves to be remembered for more than just its dangling keychain appeared first on Destructoid.

Nintendo has announced that the next game joining the Nintendo Switch Online (Expansion Pack) line-up. Excitebike 64 will be arriving on August 30.

Excitebike 64 is generally remembered as being a better-than-expected motocross game. It was a rather strange title where, if you looked past the rather generic visuals and excess of dirt, you’d be rewarded with a lot of strangeness. This includes a soccer mini-game that the internet likes to call the original version of Rocket League and an endless desert.

It also got an unexpectedly awesome trailer:

https://youtu.be/mVHhNyEQeio?feature=shared

I rented Excitebike 64 back in the day and loved it. When I reunited with it years later, I couldn’t find that same spark. I pick it up every now and then, trying to remember why I loved it so much, and still can’t do it. There’s too much dirt. Too much bike. Not enough excite. Still, remember when Nintendo had its own line of sports games that didn’t involve Mario? I prefer Mario sports games over real ones, but I also love variety.

This is the fourth of five games Nintendo promised us for 2023. Many have been pointing out that somehow Mario Party 3 is currently the one left out. Considering the first two Mario Party games were released in 2022, it’s kind of strange that they aren’t in more of a hurry to complete the trilogy.

It would also be nice if they added more non-Nintendo titles. The Star Wars games, maybe? The Goemon games? Hybrid Heaven? It doesn’t really matter to me, personally, since I have an extensive N64 collection. However, there’s more to experience on the console than just Nintendo’s contributions.

Excitebike 64 will be arriving on the Nintendo Switch Online N64 app on August 30.

The post Get ready for dirt bike soccer, Excitebike 64 gets added to Nintendo Switch Online on August 30 appeared first on Destructoid.

Nightdive Studios has announced that the N64 version of Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion will be among the next games to get the remaster treatment. Not only that, it already has a release date of November 14 and is coming to PC and consoles.

Originally released in 2000, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion was an interesting turn for Acclaim’s Turok series. It really shows the awkward evolution of the first-person shooter genre in the wake of 1998’s Half-Life. While the first two games were largely just fast-paced key-hunting games like early FPS, Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion incorporated more story elements and cutscenes. It involved two would-be Turoks trying to fight back against an encroaching threat in the wake of Joshua Fireseed’s apparent death.

https://youtu.be/SdCaj5ZRp-A

It’s the last numbered Turok entry and, really, the last good one. The level design kind of gets mired in the muddy brown industrial look of the late ‘90s, and the action isn’t as swift as the earlier titles. A lot of the real Turok identity gets lost in the pursuit of gaming trends. Despite that, it’s an interesting early-3D game.

While Nightdive previously remastered the first two Turok games, a rerelease of Shadow of Oblivion wasn’t guaranteed. The first two titles already had PC ports that the studio could work off of, whereas Turok 3 never left the N64. However, since they were able to “reverse engineer” and provide the N64 campaign of Quake 2, I had hoped that they put in the effort because they were working on a port to Turok 3. And sure enough…

Does this mean we'll get Turok: Rage Wars someday?

Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion is getting the KEX Engine treatment. Nightdive is boasting a lot of the same enhancements that the Quake 2 remaster received, including real-time lighting and updated models. It’s coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch on November 14.

The post Remaster of tentacle-filled Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion coming from Nightdive Studios November 14 appeared first on Destructoid.

Atari has partnered with Plaion to recreate its classic entry in the console landscape. The Atari 2600+ will play games from both the 2600 and 7800 consoles.

The Atari 2600+ is based on the classic wood-grained, four-switch model of the console, which has become the most recognizable look for it. It comes with a reproduction CX40 controller and supports USB power and HDMI. Also, the Atari logo lights up when it’s on. It comes packed in with a 10-in-1 cartridge that has a selection of classic games.

https://youtu.be/SgAcNwG5vCo

The store page also says that it has “been lovingly recreated to the same specifications as the original,” which is kind of vague. I mostly want to know whether the hardware is similar to the original, if it uses FPGA, or if it’s software emulation. It sounds like the latter since it touts a Rockchip 3128 SOC microprocessor. Most games are compatible, as seen in this list. The Atari 2600+’s HDMI is certainly tantalizing since the hardware had previously only supported RF-out. I had actually modified my personal Atari 2600 to support composite out. Modern TVs, even late-era CRTs, tend to hate RF signals.

I wish more companies would do this. Being a retro gamer progressively requires more soldering skills to maintain and modify consoles to work on modern setups. Would I buy an official NES from Nintendo that supports HDMI? Absolutely yes. On the other hand, would I buy a reproduction Atari Jaguar? Yeah, actually, I totally would. The fact that Atari has even gotten into producing new titles for their old consoles is just more tempting.

The Atari 2600+ is available for preorder now for $129.99 USD. The console is expected to ship November 2023.

The post Atari 2600+ is an official recreation of the classic console appeared first on Destructoid.

Everyone loves the Dreamcast. Okay, when the console needed people to buy it, it seemed like nobody loved the Dreamcast, but everyone loves the Dreamcast now. It was Sega at their best. The Genesis had some identity issues, and the Saturn compounded on them, but the Dreamcast presented a confident and focused Sega as they plunged toward the spot on the ground where they were about to leave a crater.

Like many people, I skipped out on the Dreamcast during its initial run, but I’ve been making up for it ever since. However, I never got around to Space Channel 5, one of the more unique experiments that came out for the system in 1999.

So, why now? I’ve been watching GameCenter CX again, and there’s an episode where Arino makes an attempt at it, and he’s just so bad. Completely awful. I wanted to see if I’d be similarly as bad, and of course, I’m not.

[caption id="attachment_397527" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Whaaaao!

1999 was still very early in the evolution of the rhythm genre, and Space Channel 5 shows its age. You play as a reporter for the titular future TV station, Ulala. She travels from one crisis to another perpetrated by the Morolians, an alien race of adorable Gumby people. They’ve been going around forcing people to dance, so it’s up to Ulala to go and save the day.

Which is a strange thing for a reporter to do. The whole news program thing doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense, but it ties into the twist at the end, so whatever.

Gameplay involves being in various situations where dance moves play out in front of Ulala, and she must repeat them. It’s a lot like the old Simon games where you have to repeat a sequence of colored lights. It’s also a bit like Parappa the Rapper, but without the visual cues, and that kind of drives me crazy.

[caption id="attachment_397528" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Space Cats

You repeat dance moves by pressing a direction on the stick or either the A or B button. You use the A button to zap aliens and the B button to save people. The scenes change between shootouts, dance-offs, and hostage situations, which is an absolutely bizarre mix. The dance-offs give you a healthbar that gets whittled down whenever you make an error in a section, but for everywhere else, you just need to keep your ratings up. You need to push ratings up past a certain threshold by the end of each level or you fail and have to repeat it.

It can be a bit harsh. You only need to make one mistake during a section of dance-off for you to lose a heart. Likewise, you might not know until the final tally if your rating will meet the threshold to pass a mission. Whenever you fail at one of these criteria, you’re pushed back to the start of the level. They aren’t very long, but I could only stand to hear Ulala say “Fab-u-lous” so many times before I needed to take a break.

Likewise, there are only four levels. While you’re unlikely to beat all of them on your first try, getting through Space Channel 5 doesn’t really take long. Unless you're a Japanese comedian with no rhythm. After that, there isn’t a whole lot of replay value. You get a harder mode, but I found this absolutely maddening.

[caption id="attachment_397530" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Blood on the dance floor

Don’t get me wrong, I found Space Channel 5 to be a pretty enjoyable game. It’s interesting in its absurd flamboyancy. It’s like a late ‘90s Brittany Spears music video on some mind-opening hallucinogens.

The strangest part is when you rescue “Space Michael,” which is a cameo appearance by Michael Jackson. By the late ‘90s, you were either holding onto the notion that Michael Jackson was still cool, or you found him deeply creepy. It’s really unclear which side Space Channel 5 is on because, for one thing, it’s a celebrity cameo, but I don’t know how anyone could see his appearance as cool. To put it charitably, a skin-tight chrome bodysuit doesn’t suit him.

On the other hand, I really had trouble with the lack of visual cues present on screen for a lot of the segments. There are some places where you can see how many button presses you need for each direction. But a lot of the time, it falls on you to memorize. I can do that. Mostly. However, I can’t predict when the game is going to throw it back to me. Sometimes, it will be going through a steady pace of a few prompts before sending it back to you. Then it'll suddenly switch to throwing out one or two prompts before switching rapidly, and it’s impossible to prepare for.

From Parappa the Rapper to Rock Band, most rhythm games have a visual way of telling you when you need to press buttons. That mechanic hadn’t been proven necessary by 1999, and it hurts the fun of Space Channel 5.

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The show's been cancelled

It also has a weirdly immemorable soundtrack for a rhythm game. It’s not bad, but it really gets lost behind the “Left, shoot, right, shoot, up, shoot, shoot.” I’m not saying it’s a huge issue, it just puzzles me that a rhythm game wouldn’t have more focus on providing a killer soundtrack.

It might sound like I didn’t enjoy Space Channel 5, and that’s not true. I have reservations, but I think it’s an interesting landmark in the gaming landscape. I mostly respect it because it’s such an extravagant presentation of something bizarre. Parappa the Rapper feels like an easygoing experiment, whereas Space Channel 5 busts through the door and starts pelvic thrusting while chanting its own name.

So few games have been so confident of their weirdness and so secure in their flamboyancy. Space Channel 5 is the unemployed couch surfer you defend by saying they have a “great personality.” I’m honestly curious about the VR-only Space Channel 5 VR: Kinda Funky News Flash simply because I honestly don’t believe that the sheer naked style of the first two Space Channel 5 games can convincingly be replicated today.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Space Channel 5 for Dreamcast is a brief flash of sheer naked flamboyance appeared first on Destructoid.

To put everything I’m about to say into context, I don’t know if anyone has anticipated Hammerwatch 2 as much as I have.

The original Hammerwatch, released in 2013 by Crackshell, was the co-op indie game I played for months. It was a Gauntlet-style dungeon crawler with distinct character classes, lite RPG elements, and neat mod support. It’s a short game that you can clear in under four hours, but I got so much replay value out of it in part thanks to Crackshell’s ongoing support. Heck, it got an entirely new campaign, Temple of the Sun, as free DLC. Steam says I put over 40 hours into this one.

Meanwhile, 2018's Heroes of Hammerwatch remixed the original game’s assets into a Roguelite structure. Man did I put hours into this one. Heroes took that arcadey co-op fun from the original and gave it enough progression elements to make it really hard to put down. It offered so much to upgrade that it was easy to want one more run before falling asleep at 3:00am. This too had great post-launch support; I even double-dipped on the Switch version just so I could play it with more people.

This all leads us to Hammerwatch 2, which on paper looks to be the series’ greatest evolution yet. Not only do we have much prettier pixel art, but we have an open-world RPG filled with quests, optional dungeons, loot to find and craft, and a real storyline to follow. After having such fun experiences with the previous two games, I had no idea how something that looks this good could go wrong.

Unfortunately, it did. It absolutely, indubitably did.

[caption id="attachment_396690" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

It's a dragon attack

For full disclosure, I couldn’t finish Hammerwatch 2 in time for a full review. I put in nearly 20 hours, though that was between two characters for reasons I’ll discuss later. Take that as you will.

Hammerwatch 2 begins roughly 8 seconds after the good ending of the original Hammerwatch. Seeking to escape the first game’s castle, you’re taken through a basic tutorial that teaches you several basics that should come as second nature for Hammerwatch players. Afterward, you land in the game’s first overworld area, where you’ll need to figure out how to advance the story.

Hammerwatch 2 doesn’t exactly have a gripping narrative, but I do like how it contextualizes the original game. It reminds me of how Dragon Quest II made the original game’s map a small piece of its world just to offer some scale.

Assuming you follow the most obvious path forward, you’ll find yourself in a town full of NPCs with items to sell, quests to give, and dialogue to read. At this point in my adventure, I was having a grand ol’ time. I took every quest, helped a guy clear his cellar, and set off for more adventure. This is where the trouble started to begin.

[caption id="attachment_396691" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

I am afraid of the dark

The first, most obvious mechanic Hammerwatch 2 introduces is its Day/Night system. I really wish it didn’t.

Like an MMORPG, Hammerwatch 2 abides by an in-game clock that all NPCs adhere to. Most shopkeepers and important NPCs aren’t available at night, which is a complete and utter pain. Nearly every time I returned from dungeon crawling and just wanted to sell my excess loot, I’d have to buy an inn room to pass the time since no one was awake. Yes, you can’t just open a menu and rest out in the open like in The Elder Scrolls. You have to wait for the clock or pay gold just to make things open back up. Gold, by the way, isn’t exactly in excess in the early game, so this really bites.

Additionally, the game keeps track of how many days have passed during your adventure. Remember how I said I gleefully took all those side quests once I saw them in town? Well, take too long to fulfill them, and you’ll outright, permanently fail some of them. The game doesn’t tell you which quests have a time limit, nor does it tell you how long you have until you reach a fail state. One quest involved collecting materials for someone to make a filter in a sewer, and only after I returned to him with everything he needed did I learn that I apparently took too long. No rewards, just a bunch of garbage in my inventory I now have no use for.

I really, genuinely saw no purpose to the game having any time system at all. It literally only seemed to add inconveniences with no innovations or features to counterbalance them. And we’re just getting started here.

[caption id="attachment_396692" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Realistic shopping simulator

In the first town, the shopkeeper says that he can buy and sell anything, but his rates are quite bad. I didn’t think I'd miss this NPC as I progressed, but I'd gladly take bad rates for his sweet convenience.

Hammerwatch 2 likes to use multiple shopkeepers to make your basic gear maintenance way more cumbersome than necessary. Need to sell a pair of gloves in the main city of the game’s next central area? Better go to the vendor who deals specifically in leather. However, don't get that person confused with the vendor next to them who only buys and sells offhand equipment of two specific rarity tiers. These aren’t distinguished on your map either, so you better memorize what every specific shop does or have a pen and paper with you to take notes.

I can kind of sort of see what the developers were going for here. For example, every vendor’s limitations become a weird way you can optimize your gold if you know where everything is. But it’s so, so ridiculously cumbersome and adds so much minutia to Hammerwatch 2. I can understand that maybe there’s a market for games that deliberately neglect roughly two decades of quality-of-life features in gaming, but did anyone who enjoyed the previous Hammerwatch games want that? I hope for Crackshell’s sake that I’m the outlier here.

All I do know is that for all the RPG systems tacked onto Hammerwatch 2, I would really rather spend my time crawling dungeons than doing tedious, laborious management. And I wish I could say that the game knocks that classic hack and slash gameplay out of the park.

[caption id="attachment_396693" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Controller needs support badly

Both previous Hammerwatch games were, overall, pretty controller-friendly titles. Characters like the Ranger played great with two analog sticks, so that was my expectation going into Hammerwatch 2. Unfortunately, I legitimately don't know if anyone ever thought about how this game would play on a controller.

Right off the bat, Hammerwatch 2 does not accommodate fitting essential inputs on a gamepad. Heck, your three quick item slots aren’t even mapped by default. Instead, the game expects you to use a radial menu that appears by clicking the L3 button and selecting items that way. The problem is, this thing is ridiculously finicky. There is not a single chance that anyone in the heat of combat would be able to bring this up, select the item they need, and use it before they just die instead. It well and truly might as well not be there.

Then we get to the skills. Hammerwatch 2 lets you map so many skills to your hotbar that you might think you’re playing an MMORPG. Except, as you may have noticed, controllers don’t typically support layouts like this unless you’re Final Fantasy XIV. While you can map skills to button combinations (For example, left bumper plus a face button), I found many combinations were downright unreliable in the heat of combat. Exacerbating this issue is how overworld items, like a shovel or a hookshot, also need to be mapped like skills.

On top of this, just navigating menus is nearly a non-starter on controller. Using the Dpad to select things in your main menu like in a normal video game was barely even functional. So instead, I clumsily handled everything with a virtual mouse cursor you can control with the right stick. Even this feels unfinished, especially when you need to use your right stick to scroll through text which winds up sending your cursor flying across the screen.

For a game that will release on all major consoles, the controller support here is straight-up unacceptable. In no way does this reflect something ready for launch.

[caption id="attachment_396694" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

I’ll play cards all day though

I will say that Hammerwatch 2’s additions aren’t all bad. An unexpected winner for me was the inclusion of a new card game called Walls of Gadir. Basically, it involves both players placing walls around a playing field to protect a fortress while building cannons to attack your opponent's weak spots. It’s a great mix of simplicity and strategy that makes it the perfect diversion from dungeon crawling. Earning some extra gold in the process is a bonus.

Additionally, you can use some neat equipment once you make sense of the obtuse menus and crafting system. For example, I crafted a piece of gear that summoned undead minions whenever I got hit, which genuinely felt impactful. And as mentioned above, the pieces of gear that give you new skills for your hotbar are… well, they’re nice on paper. It’s a shame that the loot system mostly seems to exist so you have to shuffle your gear around to have the right elemental resistance you need for a specific dungeon, which downplays the excitement you might feel from naturally finding equipment as you play.

Also, skills for each character class in Hammerwatch 2 do offer some nice progression now. Both active and passive skills have pages of different effects that you can invest points into, which does let players hone their own builds in ways not possible in past Hammerwatch games. In my case, as I played the Wizard class, I liked using lightning skills so much that I wound up investing my points specializing in them. It’s a great system that I would have loved to have seen in a previous Hammerwatch game. And that’s the biggest bummer about all this.

[caption id="attachment_396695" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

I'll Hammer-watch out for the future

I got this far and barely talked about what it’s like to actually dungeon crawl in Hammerwatch 2. That’s how deeply buried the core gameplay is. And it's absolutely baffling that's the case, because I did have some real fun here when I was in that classic loop of using my skills and my wits to dispatch hoards of monsters and collect the loot they drop.

Yet even this once reliable gameplay cycle began to feel like a slog. The tanky, aggressive enemies often made me feel like the game expected me to both have friends with me and optimized gear crafted via its clunky menus at all times. I actually had to start my original file as a Paladin over so I could switch to the ranged, offense-oriented Wizard on Easy Mode. Not because the game was hard, but because it became such a drag to make progress that that was the only way I could maintain any semblance of a decent pace. I would still like to see how Hammerwatch 2 fares in its intended multiplayer environment, but I absolutely can not recommend playing solo. For comparison's sake, I could play Heroes of Hammerwatch solo for hours.

Honestly, I’m at the 2000-word mark, and I could easily go on listing grievances. I didn't even touch on the main story often devolving into fetch quests, or the way the game would hitch whenever it auto-saved on my Steam Deck. Yet in spite of it all, I still do have hope for Hammerwatch 2. As mentioned at the top, Crackedshell has a good track record of providing post-launch support. With some heavy lifting, I could see Hammerwatch 2 becoming a special multiplayer experience. Maybe let players choose to toggle off the archaic time system, rethink the controller support, and streamline all the menus. That alone would strengthen the game. An open-world Hammerwatch sounds fun, it just needs to be a world that I’d actually want to introduce friends to.

In its current state, Hammerwatch 2 feels like a game that constantly asks if it could, but never if it should. A lot of effort is on display here, but that talent was put into so many weird, backward ideas that I could only recommend it to very specific audiences. I would love to return to this game in the future if it got a hefty dose of quality-of-life features that it desperately needs. But for now, I can only point anyone interested toward Hammerwatch or Heroes of Hammerwatch instead.

The post Hammerwatch 2 is a bold step in a baffling direction appeared first on Destructoid.

Another Japan-exclusive Famicom game has received new life thanks to fans. 1990’s Dai Kaiju Deburas has received a fan translation patch, turning it into the Anglophonic Giant Monster Flaburas.

Video games have a history of not treating kaiju very well. That’s partially because Japan kept most of the good ones and left us with games like Godzilla for NES or Godzilla for PS4. Dai Kaiju Deburas is a unique take on the genre by focusing more on strategy. You don’t play as the monster itself. Instead, you’re the military, and you’re trying to defend an egg while it’s transported across Japan.

It’s kind of like 1991’s Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters for NES. However, Dai Kaiju Deburas is less of a chore to play.

I actually own this game for Famicom, so I’m happy to see it finally get a translation. There’s a decent amount of text that makes it hard to play if you don’t speak English. My Japanese reading skill got me through a few missions, but I wound up putting it aside and never getting back to it. I had planned on playing it for my old Famicom Friday column, but it kind of fell by the wayside. I’ve even got a picture of it on my Mickey TV. Here you go:

[caption id="attachment_396649" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image by Destructoid[/caption]

Whether you love kaiju, are looking for something new, or just like a decent turn-based strategy game, Dai Kaiju Deburas is worth a look. You can find the patch for it right over here.

The post Dai Kaiju Deburas for Famicom gets fan translated as Giant Monster Flaburas appeared first on Destructoid.

I bought my Sega Saturn back when I was in college. Before that, I didn’t know a single person who had ever owned one. It had only been off the market for a decade, but games for it were tough to come by; still are. It sold nearly 10 million units. I have no hard numbers on this, but anecdotally, it seems to have barely made a ripple in Canada. Even knowing that the platform was mostly just popular in Japan, I would think I’d remember a section for Saturn games in Zellers.

Of the games I was able to sweep up in those early days, I mostly played Virtual On. However, a more absurd game got the second-most slice of my attention, and that was Street Fighter: The Movie. Or, as my roommates called it, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game. As it turns out, a sub-par port of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo plus a ridiculous ‘90s movie is the formula for magic. Embarrassing, nauseating magic.

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Educational television

If you didn’t see 1994’s live-action Street Fighter, I’m not sure I can make a recommendation. It’s a typical bad ‘90s adaptation of a video game, and sometimes it’s decent, sometimes it’s so bad it’s good, and then other times it’s just boring. For being based on a fighting game and including Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile, you’d think it would at least have some great fighting sequences, but it seems almost afraid of putting fists in front of a camera.

On the other hand, Raul Julia as M. Bison is transcendentally fantastic. Sadly the actor’s last role, he brings incredible life to the character. It’s a dude who’s evil just for the sake of being evil, but Julia really makes it seem like a dude who loves evil. Absolutely fantastic. You could have just made a sitcom involving Raul Julia playing M. Bison in his everyday life, and I would have been glued.

Actually, there’s this scene where Chun Li is giving this big expositional monologue, and Julia completely steals the scene just by taking dismissive glances over at her while she talks. Incredible.

But even though it was already based on an extremely popular game, the licensing machine demanded that the movie have its own game. I mean, it probably helped that Street Fighter was one of the hottest licenses of the ‘90s, so putting it on anything was essentially printing Bison dollars. But, it didn’t just get one game; the console and arcade versions were completely different. The Saturn version of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, as noted earlier, is based entirely on Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

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Quick! Change the channel!

Essentially just being pasted over an already good game is a pretty safe bet, and sure enough, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game is not bad. It’s maybe only worth playing as a curiosity, but it’s nice that it’s also mostly enjoyable.

The big difference here is that all the characters have been replaced by digitized versions of their actors. Well, not all. Raul Julian and Jean-Claude are substituted with their stuntmen, unfortunately. Also, you can’t really tell if they’re the original actor because the graphics are so grainy. So, like, sure, I can believe that’s Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li. I’ll take your word for it, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game.

It also doesn’t have all the characters because someone at Capcom or Acclaim was a coward. T. Hawk and Dhalsim were both in the movie as characters with spoken dialogue, but no one was brave enough to give Dhalsim yoga-stretch powers or make any human stand in T. Hawk’s idle pose.

In their place, we get Sawada, who had maybe three lines in the entire movie. Sawada is kind of like Fei Long, but is dissimilar enough to count as a new, exclusive character. Lucky you, Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game.

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It was Tuesday

The big addition is a story mode where you play as Guile (the all-American hero with a Belgian accent) as he tries to take down Shadaloo. There’s a branching route to the finish line, but you’re essentially just choosing who you’ll be fighting against next.

Let me make it clear, though: you can only play as Guile in this mode. This suited me fine in College when Guile was my main, but I’ve lost my touch when it comes to his flash kicks and sonic booms. It’s a bit of a bummer that they didn’t write out narratives for each character, but I guess anyone who uses Guile as their main will be satisfied.

But seeing human actors trying their best to replicate the poses of the Street Fighter II characters is the real charm here. This isn’t like Mortal Kombat, where the characters' moves are based more on okay poses for humans to take on. This creates a ridiculous effect where two characters will interact in a way that looks like deep kissing or nipple tweaking.

It doesn’t help that the Saturn version of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game has a lot more slowdown than the arcade. You get a lot of time to really appreciate Zangief sticking his tongue down Deejay’s throat.

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Why do they still call me a warlord?

Every time I pick up Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, I’m surprised by how much I don’t hate it. I think that’s a testament to Street Fighter 2’s gameplay. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous the characters and backgrounds are or if the music is so unspectacular that it’s barely there. It all gets held up by one of the greatest fighting game systems created.

My roommates and I played a lot of Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game, right up until I found Street Fighter Anniversary Collection for PS2 and migrated our fisticuffs to that. It’s a decent substitute, and the digitized actors lend an entertaining whiff of kusoge (crappy game) to the whole affair. I’m not saying it should be picked up by EVO, but… No, actually, that should happen. I would totally watch that.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game for Sega Saturn is worth every Bison dollar appeared first on Destructoid.

By the time Capcom’s The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse debuted in 1992, we had already seen several games about Mickey Mouse on home consoles. Meanwhile, between games like DuckTales and Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, Capcom had a good run of great Disney licensed titles under its belt. Yet I can’t help but feel the acclaimed developer must have felt a certain weight in developing this title.

I mean, we’re not just talking any character. This is the Mickey Mouse, arguably the most famous animated character ever created. Outside of publishing Hudson’s Mickey Mousecapade, this would be Capcom’s first time giving Mickey a starring role. They can’t just make a fun platformer with some classic tunes to do this character justice. Nay, a game about Mickey needs to feel grand, exciting, and majestic. And the developers at Capcom would need the power of the Super Nintendo to do it.

Of course, I can’t say for certain that this philosophy is what drove the creation of this game. But what I can tell you is, while flawed, The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse lays a nearly ideal blueprint for what a licensed game should be. Because this isn’t just a game about Mickey Mouse; this is Mickey Mouse as seen by some of the greatest talent of the 16-bit era of gaming.

[caption id="attachment_396340" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The fastest anyone’s ever lost a dog

After you hear the lovely title screen jingle and start the game, Magical Quest lays out its plot. Mickey is playing catch with Donald and Goofy when he wiffs catching the ball, making it bounce off his head. Pluto rushes after the ball and apparently gets lost after about 5 seconds, which causes both Goofy and Mickey to go searching for him.

After Mickey falls off a cliff in his second failure of the day, he meets a wizard who informs him that Pluto has actually been captured by Emperor Pete. If Mickey wants his dog back, he’s going to have to go on a quest. A magical quest, if you will.

Obviously this is a textbook definition of an excuse plot, though I would also go to war with someone who apparently stole my dog. However, what really sets the game’s tone is the first level. Treetops immediately hits you with a distinct, beautiful set piece placing Mickey high above the clouds, featuring tall vines inspired by Mickey and the Beanstalk. You get a small area to practice the controls, so you can try jumping on enemies and flinging them around. If you're feeling brave, you can grab onto tomatoes that spin like a helicopter and send you high into the air, letting you uncover some hidden secrets.

It immediately imbues a sense of wonder and whimsy fit for a Disney game. But more importantly, it introduces players to fresh concepts that go beyond what you'd expect from the usual licensed title.

This all combines with the music, which honestly sounds quite good throughout the entire game. The Treetops theme goes for an orchestral angle, featuring triumphant trumpets and fluttering flutes that sound fit for an RPG. Not that this should surprise you, as composers Mari Yamaguchi and Tatsuya Nishimura would go on to score Capcom’s classic Breath of Fire. All these elements come together to inform you that this is a real adventure, even if it's made for kids.

[caption id="attachment_396341" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Mousey-Man X

At the outset, Mickey has trouble directly attacking enemies. He can jump on foes, and as mentioned above he can toss items and certain stunned enemies to inflict damage. It’s a clever system, especially since it leaves you feeling deliberately weak throughout level one.

This changes dramatically once you get into the game’s costume system. As Mickey makes progress, he’ll discover three outfits that expand his moveset. The first is the Sorcerer outfit, which gives him an actual attack that he can charge up Mega Man style. Next is the Firefighter, which equips Mickey with a long-range hose that can extinguish fire-based foes and move blocks around. Finally there’s the Climber gear. This features no direct attack but gives Mickey a grappling hook, letting him vault around like you’re playing Bionic Commando.

As those examples show, it’s fun to see Capcom give Mickey moves that take inspiration from their titles. But what makes this setup work so well is how the level design takes advantage of each outfit. Sorcerer is far and away your best damage dealer, so you’ll want that equipped to deal with bosses. Meanwhile, Firefighter helps solve puzzles, like using the hose to push around Thwomp-looking enemies to use as platforms. Even if the number of costumes pales in comparison to the number of powers you get in Mega Man, they have greater impact on how you navigate each level.

Though the costume unlocks come at set points throughout the game, they add a great sense of progression. In fact, I’d go as far as to argue that Magical Quest was a testing ground for Capcom to hone ideas that would pop up in some of their best SNES games.

[caption id="attachment_396342" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

A little bit of RPG is all I need

In addition to the costumes, Mickey can augment his stats by exploring levels and uncovering secrets. At the start of a Normal-mode playthrough, Mickey will have three hearts (or three HP). However, by collecting hidden heart containers along the way, his life can grow all the way to ten hearts. These are well-hidden, but even as a kid I certainly didn’t need max health to beat the game. In my recent replay, I only found three containers by the end.

Weirdly enough, Magical Quest introduces some old-school RPG grinding if you’re into that sort of thing. Aside from hidden hearts, Mickey can explore and find coins. If you’re lucky, you’ll stumble into secret shops that can potentially contain recovery items, heart containers, and even upgrades to the Sorcerer and Firefighter outfits. At first, I found it weird that I wasn’t even close to affording certain upgrades when I first uncovered them. After all, the game doesn’t let you backtrack and locks certain items to specific shops.

However, I eventually realized that levels repopulate with coins and items when you die, including extra lives. In other words, if you want a maxed-out Mickey, you’ll want to explore a screen with a 1-Up hidden in it, collect as many coins as you can, and then throw yourself off a cliff so you can farm it all over again. To be clear, none of the upgrades are substantial enough to warrant grinding for them. But I was fascinated to realize you could do that, in a retro Disney game no less.

As far as I can tell, Magical Quest is Capcom’s first SNES title that plays with these kinds of concepts. In the following years, the company would release games like Mega Man X and Demon’s Crest that combine top-shelf platforming action with exploratory adventure elements. I can’t say for sure if Mickey Mouse walked so Mega Man could run. Either way, it makes Magical Quest fascinating to me on a historical level.

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Over before you know it

Don’t get me wrong, Magical Quest definitely doesn’t reach the same highs as Capcom’s best SNES titles. Some parts feel like beginner’s traps at times, with one boss that straight-up one-shots you if you don’t know preemptively know how to dodge its opening attack. Also, this one is incredibly short, even by SNES standards. By the time you get Mickey’s full roster of costumes, you’re basically a stone’s throw away from the end of the game. The fact that later levels lack the scope of the first stages make me think that Capcom intended this to be a grander adventure. But at some point, they ran out of time, money, or possibly both.

Still, what is here is impressive for a licensed game. Stages are filled to the brim with unique gimmicks, the visuals are impressive and varied, and the controls are polished to shine. Magical Quest would later see two direct sequels, which notably include two-player cooperative play. The game’s immediate follow-up, The Great Circus Mystery Starring Mickey & Minnie, didn’t leave nearly as strong of an impression on me growing up. Additionally, I never wound up playing the final game in the trilogy, as it wouldn’t come West until we finally got its GameBoy Advance port in 2005. Needless to say, I was a bit checked out on Disney games by then.

Still, to this day, I always compare any Disney game to Magical Quest. Games like the recent Disney Illusion Island play off the concept of Mickey becoming a hero, which I can enjoy. But for me, the first Magical Quest didn’t convince me Mickey could be a hero because it said he was. It communicated this concept on a deeper, potentially more important level.

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The human hands that drew the mouse’s ears

As I watched the credits for The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse upon my most recent replay, I was taken by all the pseudonyms that Capcom's employees were known to use at the time. A Planner was listed as “MX-5 (Crushed By Cat) Kamecha,” which could be one or three people, I can't tell. There was also “Tall Nob,” who apparently worked on Capcom’s version of Aladdin as well. And those are just the first names that pop up.

It really reinforced to me just how much this game feels like Capcom rather than Disney. The people of this company really knew how to speak the language of video games, even in 1992. So in an inadvertent way, tying Mickey Mouse to their own identity is what really sold me on this character. Mickey didn’t need to be a universal mascot that adhered to pages of strict style guides. He could instead be a reflection of the people using him at the time. And for someone who happened to like the work of these developers, that really resonated with me.

I know that The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse is ultimately a glorified commercial for Disney products. But Capcom’s approach felt like they wanted Mickey to sit at the same table as any other character they owned, with all the personality and polish that entails. I wasn’t really a Disney kid, so this version of Mickey with seemingly boundless potential spoke to me. Mickey looked, played, and felt like a proper video game hero. And since I didn't really relate to the interests of a lot of kids in my rural hometown, this gave me at least something I could talk about with my Disney-loving classmates at lunch.

I don't think much about Mickey Mouse nowadays, nor do I have any real attachment to the character. But for one point in time, Capcom got me invested in this mouse and provided great memories in the process. So perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the real hero wasn’t Mickey himself, but the developers who knew how to make him relatable to a new audience. I don’t know where “MX-5 (Crushed By Cat) Kamecha” or “Tall Nob” is today. But I hope they’re enjoying a rest fit for legends.

The post The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse made Disney’s mascot a hero appeared first on Destructoid.

Konami was once such a fun company. Beyond just being successful at innovating and even defining various genres, they had a strong interplay between their games that put even modern Nintendo to shame. Their development teams weren’t just skillful and talented, but they seemed to have real pride in their company. It felt like they were fans. And through that passion, it was hard not to become a fan yourself.

It makes the trajectory of modern Konami feel like that much more of a betrayal. They’re sitting on the games they made us fans of. Or worse. Some are just getting sent to the graveyard that they send all the properties they’re not interested in making new games for: Pachislot parlors.

Parodius Da for Super Famicom is a good example of this. The opening cutscene shows a crowd of penguins watching a screen showing all the milestones of the Gradius series. Amusingly, this spanned 1985 to 1992. Video games moved quickly back then. Eventually, an octopus bursts through the screen, and that’s just a hint of the weirdness to come.

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All the challenge, twice the fun

First released in arcades in 1990, Parodius Da is sometimes thought of as the first game in the sub-series. Its title just translates to a blunt and factual “It’s Parodius!” However, it truly began its life on the MSX in 1988 with just Parodius. Parodius Da was the first one to hit arcades, however, and then in 1992 it was ported to the Super Famicom. Konami’s pretty stingy with the arcade ports these days, so the Super Famicom version is all I have currently. That’s okay since it’s the one with the bathhouse level.

As the name implies, Parodius Da is a parody of the Gradius series. Despite that, it has the same depth of gameplay. You have four selectable ships, but the biggest difference is that it’s just consistently outrageous. The sub-boss of the first stage is a flying pirate ship with a cat’s head, and it just gets stranger from there.

However, if you’re not familiar with Gradius, then I’ll explain. It’s a horizontal shooting game with heavy emphasis on not touching obstacles. You bank power-ups to choose how you upgrade your weapons on the fly, which is the biggest bump in the learning curve. Generally, the key to performing well at a Gradius game is to power up your ship quickly and then don’t die. If you die, you lose all your power-ups, and it can be an ordeal to rebuild your power. Death also can happen from the slightest misstep.

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No laughing matter

I’m not a Gradius expert, but I’m also not new to the series. However, I found Parodius Da to be brutally difficult. The SNES version makes things as accessible as possible. You can choose your stock of lives, but even if you don’t, there are infinite continues and using one just places you at the last checkpoint. It’s entirely possible to just bash yourself against a segment of Parodius Da until you get through with some combination of luck, skill, and memorization.

The first stage is perfectly manageable, and the second isn’t too rough, either. The sub-boss on the second stage gave me a bit of problem until I memorized its movements. However, the third stage was a wall for me. There’s a segment in the middle where you need to blast your way through walls of Skittles, dodge bullets, and also know when to hurry to the next obstacle so you don’t get trapped.

It didn’t get much easier after that. Parodius Da really has a habit of screwing with you. And when it isn’t doing that, the screen is getting filled with projectiles and enemies. Again, the trick to getting through this is to stock up your ship and then just blast everything in your way.

Then don’t die. That’s really key here.

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Don't die

And if you do manage not to die, you get to see some choice weirdness. If there’s one benefit to the silliness of Parodius Da, it’s that it’s extremely difficult to predict. There are sumo wrestlers, for example, who come spinning into view. At first, they seem to just be a larger version of a typical wall-hugging enemy, but then they turn their back to the camera and whip at you with their mawashi. Naked ass staring you directly in the face. It’s absurd.

And then there are the bosses, who are fascinatingly varied. At one point, you just fight a huge woman. The Super Famicom exclusive level caps off with a fight against an octopus that is just trying to wash its hair. Even the sub-bosses have their own style, like the strangely evocative lips that fire entire rows of teeth at you. If there’s one reason to keep playing Parodius Da, it’s to see what else it throws at you.

Unfortunately, this also means that the difficulty curve is a bit all over the place, which I alluded to earlier. The last level, for example, was one of the easiest, following a string of tricky challenges. I’m not sure if the final boss is even a boss at all. I took it down before it could even attack, so maybe it was just the finish line. I’m not really sure, it was a strange end to a strange game.

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The absolute bare minimum

The Parodius series would have a pretty extensive lifespan. Between 1988 and 1996, there were five unique titles and a turn-based offshoot. Then you could also roll in the two Otomedius games, as they too were parody titles of Gradius. And then, of course, the series went to the Pachislot graveyard. Thanks, Konami.

As I said in the beginning, Parodius Da really makes you mourn for the glory days of Konami. Right now, the company has been licensing out their properties to other companies, which is probably as close as we’re ever going to get to their internal culture of the ‘80s and ‘90s. At least most of these games are going to be designed by fans or people with some reverence for the titles. Whether or not they’ll live up to the source material is another question.

But if not, I at least hope that we can get some sort of Parodius collection. Some of the titles were released in Europe, but none of them made it to North America. But for that matter, Konami hasn’t been all that great about porting the Gradius or Twinbee series. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is a nice step in the right direction, but Konami really needs to do better for the sake of its legendary back catalog.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Parodius Da for Super Famicom shows the height of Konami’s fall appeared first on Destructoid.

Taito and Inin have announced that a port of 2005 arcade title, Spica Adventure, is coming to Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox One sometime in Spring 2024.

Never heard of Spica Adventure? That’s not surprising, considering it was only released in Japanese arcades in 2005. It’s a twee sidescroller that is sometimes considered a spiritual successor to Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble III (also with an upcoming port). You play as Nico, who beats the crap out of robots with a magical umbrella. It’s an interesting platformer in the classic arcade style that came out when that particular niche had gone all but extinct.

https://youtu.be/HP7rF_d8j64

This is really good news for another reason. It might mean Taito is eyeing some other Taito X board games that were never released outside of the arcade. Chase H.Q. 2, maybe? Or, heck, we could use a Chase H.Q. collection. It’s exciting to have Taito mining through its back catalog of arcade games with things like the Taito Milestones collections.

The arcade platform benefits heavily from preservation efforts. Even if there were home ports of a given game, they were often inaccurate. Because the hardware was often extremely different from game to game, emulation can be difficult, so some companies just don’t even bother. It’s nice when someone makes the effort.

Spica Adventure will be coming to Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox in Spring 2024. Physical editions for Switch, PS4, and PS5 will also be up for pre-order on November 14, 2023.

The post Obscure Japan-exclusive Spica Adventure coming west with modern port in 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

8BitDo has announced that they’ve finally gotten around to creating a wireless Bluetooth receiver for PS1 and PS2. The timing couldn’t be better since I just bought a PSone the other week.

Previously, 8BitDo released wireless adapters for SNES, NES, and Genesis consoles. These allow you to connect any 8BitDo controller, as well as many different modern ones, to a classic console. I personally have ones for my SNES and Genesis, which I use for my SF30 Pro and M30 controllers. My dog hates cords, for some reason, and won’t cross the living room if one is on the floor, so this sort of thing is just convenient for him.

8BitDo doesn’t currently have a controller that strictly emulates the look and feel of an original DualShock, but the Pro 2 controller comes pretty close. If that’s still too far off, you can connect a DualShock 4 or Dualsense. DualShock 4 sounds like the obvious choice for me, but they also list the Wii U Pro controller as compatible, which I’m a fan of. However, this also means I can use my arcade stick for some Bloody Roar.

Some people are wondering about how it will work with games that use the PS2’s pressure-sensitive buttons, but the press information I’ve read doesn’t really address this. My guess is that it won’t. This might cause some issues for some games like 2000’s The Bouncer. However, I usually forget this feature even exists until I run up against it.

Hopefully, now that the PS1 is out of the way, 8BitDo will be quick to bring about adapters for the N64, Sega Saturn, and Turbografx-16.

It appears that the 8BitDo retro receiver for PS1 and PS2 is available right now from their website for $24.99 USD.

The post 8BitDo drops retro receiver for PS1 and PS2 appeared first on Destructoid.

I remember where I was when Blue Dragon was announced. Although I already had an Xbox 360 and was ready for it, some folks I knew bought one just for it given who was involved (Nobuo Uematsu, Hironobu Sakaguchi, Akira Toriyama): as Mistwalker and Microsoft Game Studios made a mad dash to put out more games from Japanese studios on the Xbox ecosystem.

So how did it actually go? Well, it depends on who you ask. For some, it was a dazzling RPG that stayed with them long after the credits rolled (no doubt in part due to famed artist Akira Toriyama's character designs), and helped pave the way for better games just like it. For others, it was a run-of-the-mill project that relied heavily on its presentation, without bringing a whole lot to the table compared to similar games before it. It's also roughly 50 hours long (originally across three discs), so if you aren't into it early on, odds are you'll fall off way before the end.

You can find out for yourself how it all went down with our new Lost in Time series, which will be airing every other week on the Destructoid YouTube channel. It's also still on sale digitally for $19.99 on the Xbox storefront and is playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

If you're interested in hearing more about this often-forgotten RPG, check out the video on it below. The video team is currently looking for feedback on this series and what you might want to see in the future: so let them know in the YouTube comments!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlE0Sbt-jqU

The post Did you play Blue Dragon? Whatever the case might be, it deserves to be remembered appeared first on Destructoid.

I have to wonder if the fighting game boom of the ‘90s would have lasted longer if companies didn’t pump out sequels at such a dizzying pace. When you have Street Fighter Alpha 2 and X-Men vs. Street Fighter alongside Street Fighter III: New Generation and Street Fighter EX, what do you choose? These all came out in a roughly two-year span. The arcade mentality generally meant you dedicated yourself to a particular cabinet so you could dominate all competitors. A lot of people still weren’t willing to move away from Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

Of course, I wasn’t part of that scene at the time, so I’m kind of just talking out of my ass here.

But with that mindset, Bloody Roar 2 arrived just over a year after the first game. This was not at all uncommon. In fact, if Hudson didn’t have a new version of Bloody Roar available so soon after the last game, they’d be left behind by the Tekkens and the Virtua Fighters they were in direct competition with.

I don’t have to worry about that now. I just discovered the Bloody Roar series for myself. So I got to move on to Bloody Roar 2 when I was ready for it.

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Fighting in flip-flops

Bloody Roar 2 is largely a refinement of the first game. However, a lot of big changes were made. Only four of the eight playable characters from the original roster return (technically five if you count Bakuryu). Seven are added, but two have to be unlocked, which roughly brings the roster up to 11 fighters.

Once again, these fighters have their regular human flesh mode, but during the battle, they can build up a gauge that allows them to transform into a furry. While some of the more interesting transformations from the first game, like Mitsuko the Boar and Hans the genderfluid Fox were removed, we do get Busuzima the Chameleon and Stun the “Insect.” You win some, you lose some.

The ones that do remain have had their movesets rejiggered. My main girl Alice lost easy access to her deadly spinning roundhouse, but she still has her Frankensteiner grab. Her roundhouse is now part of a combo (down-back+kick, back+kick) and isn’t quite as vicious. So, I instead made friends with her dropkick as a way of launching foes across the arena.

Also, Alice is like, a nurse now. But she doesn’t dress in scrubs. She has on what is essentially a sexy nurse outfit with thigh-high stockings and a skirt that is way too short to be throwing kicks in. I dunno, I’m not big on it. You can unlock a black alternate version that puts pants on the girl, but I still prefer her sportier look from the other games.

Return of the roundhouse

The general gameplay is the same. It’s an era-typical 3D fighting game, but the ring is boxed in with fencing. This is sort of like Sega’s Fighting Vipers. You can break the walls, but unlike the first Bloody Roar, which gave the option to have walls breakable just by knocking an opponent into them enough, they’re only breakable in Bloody Roar 2 when you finish off your opponent. Kind of a drag, actually.

However, they added the all-important block button. You can still do a “light guard” the same way as the first game by just not moving. However, heavy guard is now mapped to the R1 button. After playing so much of the original, it was heard to make my brain learn to use this in Bloody Roar 2.

Finally, Rave Mode has been replaced by a “Beast Drive” special attack. Each character has this super powerful move in beast mode. This expends beast mode immediately, which really sucks if you don’t manage to land the attack. However, it can also be a really flashy way to empty the rest of your bar if you’re about to get kicked back into human form.

[caption id="attachment_395083" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Furry rights

The biggest addition to the PS1 port is a story mode, but the narrative is, at least, very poorly told. The Tylon Corporation that made the zoanthropes was taken out in the first game. Now, there’s a Zoanthrope Liberation Front who claim to fight for furry rights, but are actually just following in the footsteps of Tylon.

However, each character’s story just has a lot of dialogue between fighters and serves as a really weak basis for them to fight. Alice’s story, for example, has her trying to help Yugo find Bakuryu, and then, for some reason, Gado decides she’d make a good leader and fights her. It’s the kind of story that is just kind of unremarkable and dumb, which is typical for a fighting game of the era. However, trying to describe it in shorter terms makes me want to vomit.

Still, a story mode is a great addition to add alongside the arcade, survival, and time attack. Fighting games are at their best when you have someone to compete with, but having ways for unlikeable people such as myself to get enjoyment is always appreciated.

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Come back when you're ready

Aside from some give-and-take and a lame narrative, I don’t have any significant complaints about Bloody Roar 2. I wish it didn’t take me so long to finally try this series out because it has really clicked with me.

While I liked the simplicity of the first game, Bloody Roar 2 feels much more solid. Landing a deadly combo feels a lot more earned, and the strategy doesn’t lie solely on how well you manage your beast mode. I mean, choosing the right time to slip into your fursuit is still a big, big part of it, but it’s not quite as pronounced.

People have already been warning me that Bloody Roar 2 is where the series peaked. However, my local purveyor of retro games says it was Bloody Roar 3, while others have said Bloody Roar: Primal Fury. I haven’t heard anyone say Bloody Roar 4, so that’s worrisome. Unfortunately, I don’t have such easy access to any of the remaining titles in the series, so I’m going to have to take them as they come. Hopefully, Bloody Roar 2 is able to keep me satiated until then.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Bloody Roar 2 for arcade and PS1 expands the fluffy fighting appeared first on Destructoid.

One of the publishers that I find most irksome in this industry is Warner Brothers. They currently own most of the properties of defunct published Midway Games, and by extension, Atari Games. Despite owning the rights to a lot of great game franchises, they only seem interested in Mortal Kombat. They’ve done dick all with everything else. This includes some of my all-time favorites, like Tapper and Smash T.V.

It’s enough that I’ve considered these games to be unavailable, or as a recent study termed them, “critically endangered.” However, that’s not technically true because they are available. You can find them on Antstream Arcade.

While Antstream Arcade has been around for a while, I have an innate dislike for streaming games. I’d rather own them in some form. I don’t like the idea that they may be ephemeral. Relying on a corporation to allow me to do what I want is not something I can trust. However, I feel that the game preservation goals of Antstream Arcade are earnest ones. As I heard someone mention, publishers may be more willing to allow games to be re-released on streaming services, so this is a way to get at licenses that would otherwise be out of reach.

With its recent Xbox release, I was given the opportunity to try out the PC version of Antstream Arcade myself. Since it’s been I was able to get a round in with Tapper, I decided it was worth a shot. As it turns out, there are more reasons to try out Anstream Arcade than just easy access to critically endangered games.

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Pixels besmirched

I first want to get the technical side out of the way, as that’s my first concern when playing streamed games. I tried the Xbox Cloud Gaming service a while back, and while I thought it was fine, I hated seeing compression artifacts everywhere. The question on the top of my mind was if Antstream Arcade would be any different. It Isn’t.

Note that my internet connection is probably more ideal than most people have access to. My apartment has a full fibre connection. The only time the internet touches copper is the Cat8 ethernet cable between my modem and NIC. It’s a 1.5Gbps connection, but my NIC only supports 1Gbps, which is still a lot faster than most people have.

My main test game was 1996’s Metal Slug. It’s known for its transcendental pixel art graphics, which provide a much busier pixel than, say, Chack’n Pop. It’s also a game that I’ve been playing through repeatedly recently, trying to drive down how many continues it takes me to finish it. So, I figured it was the best candidate since I know it inside out and can see if any added input lag has a huge effect on me.

Firstly, the visuals suck in a lot of places. While the image is sharp at the best of times, even on a 4K monitor, a lot of motion causes it to lose fidelity. A lot of noise gets added to the image, which is less than ideal. How much noise depended on the scene and the time of day. It was always legible and didn’t affect gameplay much, but was certainly less than ideal compared to the Arcade Archives or Metal Slug Anthology releases.

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Marco!

It took me 7 continues to finish Metal Slug on Antstream Arcade, which is in comparison to my best effort of 5 continues. However, to be fair to Antstream, this was mostly because I was waiting for the polish on my nails to harden, so I was avoiding the ends of my fingers while playing on an arcade stick. I didn’t really notice any input lag. There probably is some, just based on the technology, but it was imperceptible to me. There was slowdown, however, but it never struck me as more than the slowdown that Metal Slug normally has. It slowed down in all the regular spots. Spots where I was used to seeing it. It isn't added slowdown, is what I mean.

You can’t, however, touch the settings on any of the magnitudes of games I tested. Like in an actual arcade, the DIP switches are locked away. This gives an advantage to home versions, like the Arcade Archives or various compilations, where you can usually tweak the difficulty and scoring modifiers. This is probably not a problem for most people. The biggest issue I had with it was with Metal Slug, the blood is off, and there’s no way to turn it on. This was set this way for North American releases, but Arcade Archives lets you turn the blood back on.

What’s even more vexing is that you can’t remap inputs. You’re stuck with what they give you, and that means the inputs for an Arcade Stick will be exactly the same as those on an Xbox Controller, and that’s rarely ideal.

Pound for pound, I’d rather play a downloaded, local copy of the games available. However, it’s worth noting that something like that can really put the hurt on your bank account. Just buying the Arcade Archives versions of the three Metal Slug games (1, 2, and X) that are featured on Antstream Arcade puts you just 10$ short of an annual subscription. So, you’d have to weigh that based on your personal situation and preferences.

[caption id="attachment_394503" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Outside the cabinet

What I didn’t expect to grab me was the online challenges and tournaments. Each game has a set of challenges associated with them that can provide you with new ways to interact with some of these games. Going back to Metal Slug, as an example, one challenge starts you off on the second level with only a pistol, and the ability to pick up new weapons is disabled. So, it challenges you to get the highest score possible with only a pistol and grenades. You then get ranked on that.

Various tournaments also run at all times. They pick a game, then give you a challenge, such as scoring as high as possible on a single life, then you’re ranked against the other competitors. The prize is just gems, a currency used for participating in challenges. That’s not too exciting, and the gems are so easy to come by that they’re practically inconsequential, but at least you have some skin in the game.

The challenges are what keep me coming back to Antstream Arcade. It’s not even necessarily that I want to compete or win. It’s more that it gives me a reason to dive into games that I don’t know very well and try to build my skill and confidence in them. It’s a helpful metric to see how close I am to mastering a game, and it’s something I appreciate that I don’t necessarily see in other releases of arcade titles.

On the other hand, some of the challenges aren’t well thought through. Going back to Metal Slug, there are a couple of “survive as long as you can” objectives that were clearly not tested by anyone intimately familiar with the game. One was surviving the submarine section on the last level, which can be gamed by leaving a plane alive and just dodging its bomb repeatedly. Doing so makes the section never end, so you’re never in peril and can continue until the timer runs out. That is not how I think they expected it to be done.

[caption id="attachment_394504" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The future of retro

That’s also really the only online multiplayer available. You can duel over challenges, but that’s once again competing for score. There is local multiplayer when it’s supported, but right now, that’s all you get in terms of direct competition.

There’s also some badly needed housekeeping on the service. It uses a recommendation and category system that you’d find on Netflix, which isn’t all that helpful. I had an easier time keeping an external list open on a website to figure out what was available and what wasn’t. Then I could just search for it and find it that way.

Antstream Arcade also has titles from other platforms, such as microcomputers and consoles. For whatever reason, though, you can’t browse by console.

They are planning on overhauling everything in what they’ve termed “Project Vision.” However, I can’t find any hard information on what this will include. They’ve teased multiplayer and UI upgrades, so we’ll see what this involves. I’m interested since any number of my complaints may be addressed.

[caption id="attachment_394506" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The quarter hole

Antstream Arcade is also noticeably lacking content from certain publishers, which isn’t all that surprising. While Namco, Taito, SNK, and Atari (both Atari Games/Midway and Atari Interactive) are on board, we’re lacking other big players like Capcom, Sega, and Konami. I have no doubt that Antstream Arcade would want content from these publishers, so I can only imagine they’re continually pushing for a deal.

However, there are still an advertised 1300 games on Antstream Arcade, so I haven’t hit the bottom of what I want to play and discover. It’s always going to be growing, so a lack of content is just something you’re going to expect. It being a streaming service, there’s also a potential for content to be removed when a contract expired, so that’s something else to keep in mind.

But for all my complaints, I still like Antstream Arcade. It’s not a perfect service, but it’s cheap enough that it’s worth having for access to games unavailable elsewhere and challenges for some of my favorites. Having more than one method for preservation is always ideal. I always have the option to buy Metal Slug on other platforms. On the other hand, I don’t have the option to buy Tapper elsewhere, but that’s not Antstream Arcade’s fault. They’re just doing what they can. So where you at, Warner Brothers?

The post Antstream Arcade might be worth your quarters appeared first on Destructoid.

I want to preface this Weekly Kusoge by saying that I absolutely love Tecmo’s Deception, but it is complete shit. I was inspired to try out the Deception series by community member Kerrik52. My only previous experience was watching a roommate try out 2005’s Trapt. However, upon looking at screenshots of Tecmo’s Deception, I fell in love.

Released in 1996, Tecmo’s Deception is just so PS1. While it established the foundation of the long-running series, it mostly failed spectacularly at everything it attempted. However, its King’s Field style first-person perspective and boxy, pixellated graphics just feel so cozy. A lot of what it failed to do was dropped by subsequent games in the series, which almost makes me feel like I won’t like them as much.

I will continue to send mixed signals throughout this article, I assure you.

[caption id="attachment_394483" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Invitation to kusoge

Tecmo’s Deception starts with you, a prince, getting your idyllic life fucked over by your hilariously evil brother. You were set to marry the love of your life and take the throne of the kingdom, but that dick got jealous and framed you for murder. Typical little sibling.

However, you’re saved from the gallows and whisked away to the Castle of the Damned, where, in return for your assistance in resurrecting Satan, you’re given the power to exact your revenge. As a player, you’re not really given much choice in the matter, so thankfully, it just feels so good to be evil. It helps that the people visiting your castle are hapless at best and giant walking cola-douches at worst. And they’re usually at their worst.

The story is probably one of the legitimately best-executed facets of Tecmo’s Deception. Like many games of its era, there isn’t a whole lot of depth to it, but the fact that you play as a fallen hero doing evil stuff is pretty tantalizing. Your character isn’t really given any lines of their own, so their actions and reactions are largely up to your own imagination. For me, it was a lot like being an evil homeowner and trying to keep everyone off my damned lawn. Homeownership is a great fantasy for my generation.

[caption id="attachment_394484" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Get off my lawn

You’re able to customize the Castle of the Damned at a great degree of depth. You can change the corridors and room placement as much as you want to make it feel more like home. You can, but there really isn’t much point in doing so.

Home customization is among the many, many undercooked features of Tecmo’s Deception. It sounds like a good idea on paper, and it still seems like a good idea when it’s presented to you. But then the gameplay gets applied to it, and you realize there’s no point.

You’re only ever invaded by a maximum of four intruders at a time. You deal with them by drawing them into traps that you set around the castle and activating them at the right time. However, I feel like the word “trap” implies a certain amount of automation, but there is none. Really, they’re spells that you set on the ground. You wait until someone steps on them, then manually activate them while the person is about five feet away. Satan should have just given you a powerful kick.

So, with the limited number of invaders and the fact that you have to be close enough to count an intruder’s nose hairs, you don’t really need a big castle. For most missions, I only used the room that intruders spawn in and the directly adjacent corridors. It actually would have been most efficient for me if I just shrank the overall footprint of the castle down as small as possible. The intruders aren’t after anything. You aren’t protecting something. They’ll just wander the castle until you choose to deal with them, so giving them less land to graze on would just expedite the process.

[caption id="attachment_394485" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Our house, our rules

Yet, you don’t really need to reach for any sort of exploit in Tecmo’s Deception. Everything is already extremely skewed in your favor from the beginning. It's unlikely you'll run out of gold or MP since it’s given to you so readily. You're eventually given the ability to upgrade your traps, and there’s no reason not to.

On the other hand, there’s very little reason to use most of the traps. At the start of the game, I experimented with confusion traps as a way of making it easier to kill or capture intruders, but I quickly realized that it didn’t really increase the chances of success much. Later in the game, I only used capture traps because they seemed most effective, and I could use the captured person as a building block for a monster.

Monsters are another great idea that was badly implemented. You collect the bodies of captured intruders and can turn them into various types of beasts who can collect experience and level up. You don’t get this ability until much later in the game, but it basically just removes the last threads of usefulness from the kill traps. With the traps, you have to lead someone into them and activate them at the right moment. Monsters you can just drop in whenever you want, as long as you have Block Orbs available.

[caption id="attachment_394486" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Monster problems

If you run out of Block Orbs, you can invite a merchant to your castle. Despite them being instantly aggressive once they see you, they’ll gladly open up shop if you walk up to them. You then have to kill them afterward, but somehow they’ve banked all your money. I guess if you could just buy whatever you want and then steal back your money, that would be going too far. As if Tecmo’s Deception is any stranger to pushing the margins of acceptable game design.

When you really get down to it, most of your time in Tecmo’s Deception will be spent grabbing the attention of an intruder and dodging their attacks as you lead them over a trap. Enemies don’t have any real willpower beyond walking directly toward you, so there’s very little strategy. Later games in the series would address this by having you create combinations of traps, but that is absolutely not the case here.

And then, just to cap everything off, I defeated the last boss within seconds by placing a trap directly next to them. The trap activated immediately when the mission started for some reason. There was no showdown. It was just over. A brilliant way to end the game.

[caption id="attachment_394487" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

If you have to fail, fail spectacularly

Yet, for whatever reason, I loved the time I spent with Tecmo’s Deception. There’s an earnest effort to innovate beneath all its failure and I find that really endearing. There was a lot of ambition driving it, and it feels like the team put their full effort into all these different features before eventually realizing that the pieces weren’t fitting together. But a product eventually has to ship, and everything was hastily crammed into a box and pushed out the door.

Or, at least, that’s how I interpret it. I haven’t been able to find any details on the development through interviews or elsewhere.

However, the thing with failed experiments is that very few are willing to try and replicate the experience. The Deception series would continue using the foundation of Tecmo’s Deception but would excise a lot of the parts that didn’t work and fine-tune the ones that did. In doing so, it lost a lot of what makes Tecmo’s Deception truly unique.

So, the moral of the story here is: if you want to truly stand out, fail like no one has ever failed before. Fail so spectacularly that your failure is indelibly burned into the memory of every human on the planet. Because, as anyone who calls themselves a pickup artist will tell you, pity is a type of love.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Tecmo’s Deception for PS1 is an unforgettable cluster of failures appeared first on Destructoid.

Purveyor of fine retro-pop interface devices, 8BitDo, has announced their latest creation, a retro-styled mechanical keyboard. It comes in two flavors, NES or Famicom.

The 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard has options for wired, Bluetooth, or 2.4GHz use, much like many of their controllers. The keys can be mapped if you have a DVORAK preference. They don’t say what kind of mechanical switches the keys use, but they do say that the PCB is hot-swappable, so you can buy it for the aesthetic and trade out switches to your preference. The battery will last 200 hours on a 4-hour charge, which should cover your travel needs.

[caption id="attachment_393903" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by 8BitDo[/caption]

Hilariously, the images depict these two big A and B buttons that the presser just kind of glosses over. They’re kind of mentioned as “Super Buttons,” but I’m not sure what you’d use them for. Maybe you could map Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to them. I’d kind of like to map them to left-click and then use them to play The Coin Game for that little immersive flair.

It’s nice to see that 8BitDo has started targeting me, specifically. I wasn’t exactly in the market for a new keyboard, but even my husband said, “Yeah, you’re totally getting one of those.” The only downside is that they don’t have numpads, which I actually use on occasion. Maybe I’ll just buy a separate numpad elsewhere to go alongside it. Now, would I prefer the NES or Famicom version? Tough choice.

I don’t have much time to suppress my impulses, as pre-orders for the 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard are starting on Amazon right now for $99.99. It’s expected to start shipping out on August 10, 2023.

The post 8BitDo has a retro-styled mechanical keyboard incoming appeared first on Destructoid.

There haven’t been many fighting games that I’ve really connected with. I’m not a competitive person by nature, and it’s a genre that is built around competition. The two times I really got into fighting games were a rivalry with my brother-in-law around Street Fighter II and another with a college friend over Soul Calibur 3. I still play them with some regularity, but I just have a hard time falling into them and continuing after beating the arcade mode a couple of times.

1997’s Bloody Roar was recommended to me a few times, but I only now got around to playing it. This is despite owning a copy of it, given to me by a friend who was cleaning out their basement. If I had known how firmly I would click with it, I would have definitely gotten around to it sooner.

[caption id="attachment_394235" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

A bloody good time

Bloody Roar was published by Hudson back in 1997 and developed by Raizing Co, a Japanese developer founded by former members of Toaplan. It was strangely released in North American arcades as Beastorizer, but on PS1 as its Japanese name of Bloody Roar.

It’s worth noting that in arcades, it was released using the hardware commonly (but not officially) known as the Sony ZN-1. Why is that important? Well, the Sony ZN-1 is essentially the arcade version of the PlayStation. I’m not quite familiar enough to be able to confirm that Hudson didn’t make any of their own custom tweaks to the arcade hardware, but the PS1 port is, under mild scrutiny, pretty much exactly the same as the arcade version. It just has some home console tweaks, like a new cinematic intro that looks dopey in that very specific early-3D way.

Speaking of early-3D, Bloody Roar landed during the 3D fighting craze that followed in the wake of 1993’s Virtua Fighter. It’s very similar to other games of its particular sub-genre. It uses three buttons (five if you have sidestepping turned on), and each level is a square stage. However, you can only ring out opponents if wall-breaking is turned on. The walls can either be broken by finishers only or just by bashing your opponent into them enough times. It’s your choice.

However, I think the official rules lean toward finisher breaks only. If your strategy in other games leaned toward ring-outs, then you’ll have to come up with a new technique.

[caption id="attachment_394237" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Select your fursona

Oh, I haven’t even gotten to Bloody Roar’s main hook. Everyone’s a furry! All the fighters can transform into anthropomorphic animals, and that’s where the main strategy comes from. You have a gauge that fills as you attack and get attacked, and you choose when to transform into beast mode. Once you’re in your fursuit, your character is more powerful, heals some of the damage caused to them, and gets a whole new set of moves. It gives you a major advantage.

The strategy comes from when to use this ability. Once you’re in beast mode, your gauge becomes a bit like a second health bar. It depletes as you take damage, and once it’s empty, you’re transformed back into a boring fleshy human. There’s a risk and reward to using it, and likewise, when your opponent unleashes their fur, then it’s time to get aggressive as you try to knock them out of it. There’s a cooldown period before they can transform again, so that might be a good chance to turn the tables.

It’s interesting because while the combat is simple and easy to learn, the strategy of transformation keeps things interesting. There are lots of combos to learn, and the fighting is very impactful and flows well. For a game that only uses two buttons, with another being unlocked via transformation, there’s a great deal of depth to be had.

[caption id="attachment_394241" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Go ask Alice

I wound up choosing Alice as my main. This is largely because she transforms into a bunny, an animal I have an affinity for. She clicked with me immediately, helped by the fact that she has a brutal spinning roundhouse kick and one of her grabs has her perform a Frankensteiner on her opponent.

Bloody Roar has a standard arcade mode, as well as versus and survival. It’s pretty standard for the time period. The story involves the Tyron Corporation, who created the “Zoanthropes” as weapons. They plan on brainwashing them, but a bunch of them break out, and that’s the cast of Bloody Roar. Like many fighting games of the era, the story doesn’t play into the game much. You get an end credit cutscene that you may or may not understand based on whether or not you read up on the background.

Strangely, at its default difficulty, I found Bloody Roar to be kind of easy. Most fighting games start you off against an opponent that barely competes before building you up to a big cheap boss that can read your mind. However, your first fight in Bloody Roar isn’t a complete pushover, and the last fights aren’t much harder. The boss isn’t entirely easy, but they aren’t cheap either.

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Follow the white rabbit

A lot of this kind of points to Bloody Roar being intended for competitive play. Unfortunately, it was before the time when online competition was really a thing, so I’d have to rope someone into a rivalry. Maybe someday.

It’s unfortunate because I clicked with Bloody Roar in a way that’s rare for me with fighting games. I want to build my skill with it and get better, but without direct competition, it’s hard to find the motivation. At the very least I have the rest of the series to play through. I’ve already managed to grab a copy of 1998’s Bloody Roar 2. There are five games in total for the series, with it ending completely in 2003.

The company that owns the license, Hudson, went bust in 2012, with all assets being bought up by Konami. They’re not the worst possible rights holders at the moment, but they certainly rank. I would be far beyond jazzed to see a compilation or new title in the series, especially one with online play. At the moment, you can at least grab the game using the PlayStation store on PS3 as part of the PSone classics lineup. That’s something.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Bloody Roar is far overdue for a return appeared first on Destructoid.

Rise of the Triad is a bit of a tough sell in today’s market. It was built on the same engine as Wolfenstein 3D, starting its life as a sequel to that. As such, it has many of the same strict drawbacks of that engine. Most notably, walls have to be at 90-degree angles, and the floors can’t change height.

I’m personally more of a Blake Stone girl, myself.

However, despite the way its development started and the shortcomings of its engine, the powerful collection of developers who crafted it has ensured that Rise of the Triad still carried with it a unique personality. It was never ported to console, but with Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition, Nightdive Studios and New Blood are looking to fix that with one big celebration.

Later. The console ports were delayed, but I’ve been playing the PC version.

[caption id="attachment_393728" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition (PC [Reviewed], PS4, Xbox One, Switch)
Developer: Nightdive Studios, Apogee Software
Publisher: Apogee Software, New Blood Interactive
Released: July 31, 2023 (PC), TBA (Console)
MSRP: $19.99

Rise of the Triad tells the stories of an elite group of special operatives as they infiltrate an island monastery currently resided by a group of cultists who are definitely not Nazis. Okay, they’re definitely Nazis, but since this is not Wolfenstein 3D 2, they’re a cult now.

That’s basically all you need to know. Actually, you’d probably be fine not knowing that, but there’s a cutscene that lays it all out anyway. The important thing is the Monastery is a sprawling maze full of traps and Nazis. You have a hand with fingers that can wrap around a gun, and that’s what you point at the Nazis.

I mentioned that Rise of the Triad has all the trappings of Wolfenstein 3D with its level floor and 90-degree corners, but the developers went pretty far out of their way to get around it. There is a degree of verticality through the use of walls and floating discs. There’s also a bizarre number of power-ups, including a couple that allow you to fly. Meanwhile, there are traps everywhere, like spikes and fire-spewing cannons. It’s a lot. It gives Rise of the Triad this really abstract quality to it. It’s rather bizarre.

Unfortunately, there’s a limited number of weapons. There are pistols and an MP40, and then you can also carry a limited-use rocket launcher. The rocket launchers come in a few different flavors, from plain ol’ bazooka to a big wall of fire that engulfs wide areas. They have finite ammo, but a good Rise of the Triad level will have you tripping over them every few steps. It’s a game that really wants you to blow up Nazis.

https://youtu.be/vRdZEY6EL5I

Henceforth known as 'ROTTLE'

A lot of work went into making Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition the definitive version of the game. While its transition to Nightdive’s proprietary KEX Engine doesn’t really come with much in the way of new visual changes aside from lighting and a few other flourishes that you can turn off, they made sure to pack in as much content as possible. Then they just continued to pack more things in.

Beyond just the 33 levels of Rise of the Triad: Dark War, you also have access to The Hunt Begins, the 8-level shareware episode. There are also another 33 levels in Extreme ROTT, which is a more difficult expansion. They’ve packed in Return of the Triad, an excellent fan-made Doom mod. That’s added separately, still running in the GZDoom engine. Finally, there’s The HUNT Continues, which is an all-new set of 21 missions created by various developers. To give you an example of what you’re in for, the first mission in that campaign is by David Szymanski, the creator of Dusk.

This is made possible by a really simple level editor that is available for use. So, beyond just the dizzying amount of included content, you can make your own campaigns or share with others via Steam workshop. I think the only thing missing is the 2013 Rise of the Triad remake, but I feel that it doesn’t quite fit into this package.

Finally, a lot of cut content was re-added to the game. This includes the different visuals for Nazi types, so the female guards have been re-implemented.

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God Mode

If you’re already a fan of Rise of the Triad, then you basically just need to know that this is a faithful port that features a decent amount of bells and whistles. If you haven’t played it before, then there’s more to consider.

Rise of the Traid isn’t Doom. It hasn’t aged as well. This is largely down to the limited level design. Each map has a different feel and demonstrates its creator’s design eccentricities, but they all look the same. This limited aesthetic has an impact on the gameplay, as even while the power-ups and weapons can be over-the-top, the drab backdrop sucks out some of the excitement. It’s a lot of people painting with a very limited palette.

That said, the limitations I just outlined do help highlight how much fun the developers had with this game. There are things like getting baked out of your mind on mushrooms or turning into a massively overpowered little pooch that makes the experience extremely memorable. For that matter, there’s a variety of cheats that can make things more ridiculous.

[caption id="attachment_393732" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Dog Mode

I’m definitely not saying that Rise of the Triad is a bad game. It’s very enjoyable, it’s just harder to recommend to modern eyes. It’s fast and carries a lot of small details that make it unforgettable, but at the same time, its levels are rather suffocating. It has definitely aged a lot better than Wolfenstein 3D, but not nearly as well as Doom.

It bears repeating that if you are already a fan, Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition is a fantastic way to play it again. It’s not too much different than the old DOS version but includes cut features and all the content you could want. The new episode is a quality continuation that feels right at home with the rest of the game while still providing something new. It’s a great package all around.

Now, can I have a Blake Stone remaster?

The post Review: Rise of the Triad: Ludicrous Edition appeared first on Destructoid.

Home ports of arcade games can be a bit of a gamble. Often, they’re running on much less powerful hardware, and that can reflect in many different ways on the game. It might have less action, more slowdown, or it could just be a lot uglier. Other times, the home port of a notorious quarter-muncher might be rebalanced for the living room, as is the case with Super Smash T.V. or the NES Contra.

Old ports are also interesting from a design standpoint. Many were done by people who weren’t associated with the original production and didn’t have any access to the original code. They were, in a way, just sketching the closest facsimile they could to the original version. The faithfulness of the port was, therefore, all down to the analytical skills of the developer, as well as their access to the original source material and how many fucks they were willing to part with. Were they actually interested in the work, or were they just trying to get a project done before a deadline?

Pit-Fighter is an interesting example of this, as back when it was released in arcade in 1990, it wasn’t unpopular, but it also wasn’t 1991’s Street Fighter II. So, it was a bit of a crapshoot as to whether or not it was going to get a single decent port. There were a lot of them, and we’re going to take a look.

For simplicity, I’m going to look at the console and handheld ports. There were a number on the various home computer platforms at the time, but after struggling with the Commodore 64 port and having it crash on me midway through a loading screen, I cut my losses. Shame, the ZX Spectrum version is a thing of beauty.

[caption id="attachment_393303" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Sega Genesis (1991, Tengen)

The Genesis/Mega Drive version of Pit-Fighter is probably the best of the bunch, and I’m not sure that’s really a compliment. I think my fascination with it is more that it makes the game look magnitudes goofier. The digitized actors have lost a lot of fidelity, so it loses much of the oily BDSM club imagery. However, in its place, the quality and quantity of animation frames haven’t been increased, so everything has this delectable veneer of jank.

You only get three continues in this version, but the combination of easily exploitable moves and the relative passiveness of the opponents make it possible to get to the end. If you had to play a home console port of Pit-Fighter, this one at least meets the “so bad it’s good” threshold. It kind of proves that a bad port of kusoge isn’t necessarily just a bad game; it might just be a new flavor of kusoge.

[caption id="attachment_393302" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Super Nintendo (1991, THQ)

Pit-Fighter on SNES had to have been rushed. It released the same year the SNES did, which kind of demonstrates an effort to get it on the market during the fevered euphoria of a new console release. It doesn’t even try to replicate the UI, instead opting for something that looks like it’s from a development build.

The most egregious part about it is the AI, which seems to just be mashing various inputs. They’re extremely aggressive, and then when they get near you, their movements make no sense. They’ll jump randomly and start throwing attacks with no rhyme or reason. Then, once they knock you to the ground, they’ll continue to do little hops between stomping on you. It’s bizarre.

There are also no continues. I had absolutely no hope of making it to the Chainman. I’m not the only one, either, as complaints about the port’s difficulty seem rather pervasive. I searched to see if there was a buried continue input and instead found the advice to just keep mashing R while using Ty to win. Weirdly, I think this is the absolute worst of the versions listed here.

[caption id="attachment_393298" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Atari Lynx (1992, Atari Games)

I have a soft spot for the Atari Lynx. It was a battery-sucking handheld you could land a harrier jet on. However, a huge portion of its library was coin-op ports, and that’s kind of what the system was worst at. Nowhere is this more apparent than, perhaps, Pit-Fighter.

The screen is far too low resolution to really depict the game’s digitized actors, but they tried it anyway. As a result, the sprites are pretty dopey looking, and it uses a palette that is largely just greys and beiges. It does try to get the sprite scaling in there, though. As you move further back from the front of the arena, the fighters appear smaller. It’s better to fight closer to the screen since then you can at least make out what things are supposed to be.

Thankfully, that’s an option, since the AI is dumb as rocks. Each fighter’s special move is mapped to the Option 1 button, which means you can just spam it, but I found this to be unreliable. The best way I found to fight is to just stand still and hold down the kick button. It uses a turbo function so once one kick is complete, your fighter immediately launches another one. There are only 6 continues to get you through to the end of the game, which didn’t even come close for me. However, try as I might, I couldn’t find a better strategy than just letting them run into my foot.

[caption id="attachment_393299" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Game Boy (1992, THQ)

The port for Nintendo’s monochromatic wonder, the Game Boy, is not as bad as you might think. It plays better than the Atari Lynx version. The AI is more dynamic and closer to the arcade version, and the moves feel more responsive with better hit detection.

The problem is with the graphics. They still try to use the digitized actors, but when you cram too much information on the classic Game Boy’s limited palette, you just get a fuzzy mess. What’s worse is that most of it blends into the background, so the best way to track the combatants is by their much darker pants. It’s like playing a fight between a pair of disembodied pants.

Pit-Fighter is practically incomprehensible on an original model Game Boy. Using a Super Game Boy or Game Boy Advance makes things better, but still not all that great.

I initially thought this version was really difficult. It doesn’t allow you to continue without a code (Hold down and hit A on the game over screen), and when the AI gets the advantage on you, it can really lead to a pounding. But then I once again discovered the technique of letting opponents walk into your outstretched foot. I also iterated on this by pulling off a super kick while an enemy started their animation to get up from being knocked down. They’d stand up right into the kick. It carried me right to the end. That’s how effective it was.

[caption id="attachment_393301" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Sega Master System (1991, Domark)

For whatever reason, the Master System version of Pit-Fighter was the one that finally decided to get creative with the graphics in order to better serve the gameplay. It shrinks down all the characters, and the tweaked color palette makes things more legible. The handheld versions probably should have done this, but here we are. It’s a shame that this foundation wasn’t tweaked for a Sega Game Gear version.

On the other hand, it’s not really that much fun to play. I think this is largely because my exploitative strategies don’t work here. The legs of your tiny fighter are much too short to keep their opponent at bay for too long. The Master System controllers only have two buttons (no start or select), so your repertoire is more limited than other platforms. I was at least able to make it up to the Chainman’s stage. I needed to find out how his underwear looks in this art style.

Only released in the UK, the Master System version also has this weirdly enjoyable soundtrack that is credited to “The Doomsday Machine.” It sounds inappropriately chirpy compared to the subject matter, but considering most of the other ports sound horrible, I’ll take it.

A sketch of kusoge

Arcade ports like we saw in the ‘80s and ‘90s are rather rare today. I mean, for one thing, in this part of the world, arcades are practically extinct. But then, they also tend to have more universal hardware powering them and are built on common engines, so it’s less of an issue to transplant them accurately to other hardware. Older games are a different story, as they require some form of emulation. Still, a developer is more likely to release something accurate than to take liberties with a game.

I’m not exactly nostalgic for those days. I hate having to worry about whether or not I’m playing the definitive version of a game. However, there’s a weird creativity that arose from the challenges of transplanting games. Ganbare Goemon on Famicom, for example, was initially an attempt to port Mr. Goemon from arcades and instead mutated into a sprawling series.

More often than not, you just took the version for whatever was your favorite platform at the time. Then, you had to hope that the publisher cared enough about the game to provide you with a reasonable facsimile. Will a version of Space Harrier provide you with a fun experience, or will it be a janky cash grab? That little gamble is often more fun than the version you eventually wind up with, especially in the case of Pit-Fighter.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post It’s time to oil up with the ports of Pit-Fighter appeared first on Destructoid.

Hiiiigh definition Riiiidge Racer

The video game documentarians at NoClip have been steadily preserving and archiving a wealth of old industry footage, ranging from tech demos and presentations to classic commercials. Importantly, the team is also getting higher definition captures of certain events than we've ever seen before, like a 1080p HD recording of the infamous Sony E3 2006 presentation.

For those who weren't around or closely watching the industry at the time, 2006 was an important year for Sony. Notably, the console maker was soaring on the success of the PlayStation 2. Kaz Hirai, president and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America at the time, took the stage to lay out the future ahead for both the PlayStation Portable and the impending launch of the PlayStation 3.

Sony's ensuing showcase would result in many long-running memes stemming out from the showcase, including historically based crab battles and Riiiiiidge Racer. And of course, the price tag. The reveal of the $600 ($599, to be exact) price point for the 60 GB PS3 was the stunning conclusion to the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaWptXzfETo

Massive damage

This was streamed at the time, but due to restrictions of the time, was only ever available in lower resolution. With NoClip's restoration work, we can see the whole show at glorious 1080p.

Besides marking the start of a very rough generation for Sony, there's a lot of historical value in this recording. There are trailers for some eventual big PS3 games, like Metal Gear Solid 4. But there's also the canceled Eight Days, the AR game Eye of Judgment getting a live demo, and early looks at games like Final Fantasy XIII, in a now obvious mock-up of its eventual battle system.

This was an era where conferences had big showcase presentations while maintaining the slide presentation and industry side forward facing. Nowadays, E3—or whatever we're calling the summer of games news now—is a very consumer-focused show. You don't really see CEOs standing in front of fiscal projections these days. Not on a big stage, at least.

So enjoy this trip down memory lane with the Sony E3 2006 press conference, and a huge thanks to the folks at NoClip doing all this preservation work. Because of this, the giant enemy crabs can reach their true resolution potential.

The post Sony’s infamous E3 2006 press conference is now in glorious 1080p appeared first on Destructoid.

Obligatory shake shake

When I was a kid, trying out different games for my new-fangled N64, I didn’t know what to make of Mischief Makers. Games like Pilotwings 64 were blowing my mind with their explorable 3D worlds, and here was a completely 2D game that didn’t even use the analog stick. Beyond that, though, its aesthetic was like something I had never seen, and nothing about it made any sense to my young mind. I don’t think I made it far during that rental period.

Then, in college, I had a friend who adored Mischief Makers and gave me an entirely new perspective on the game. It still made no sense to me. It makes no sense to me now. I love the developer, the legendary Treasure, to the Moon and back, but Mischief Makers is one tough piece of meat to chew on.

So, I’ve taken a few bites of this particular slice of ham, and now it’s time to really grind it up. To dig in and get right down to masticating. Someone fetch me my dentures.

[caption id="attachment_393002" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

To punish evil forces, I have been charged

Mischief Makers was released promptly, around one year after the N64’s release. The console got very few sidescrollers throughout its lifespan. Polygons were the new thing developers were toying around with, and 3D was generally what big publishers were pushing their staff towards. So, right from the start, it’s a pretty odd game.

However, what makes Mischief Makers an absolutely unique experience is its aggressive and total lack of cohesion. It’s not a game that picks a direction and charges toward it. Instead, it prefers to just spin in place, faster and faster, until it eventually falls over and calls it a day.

The narrative follows Marina, the Ultra-InterGalactic-Cybot G, and her perverted creator, Professor Theo. They’re on vacation or something on planet Clancer, and then the professor just keeps getting repeatedly kidnapped. There’s some sort of Empire that is oppressing the Clancer people or just driving them to evil. I’m fairly certain that Mischief Makers just makes up the plot as it goes along. One of the first levels introduces a guy who seems like he’s going to be sort of a mentor to Marina in her quest, then several levels later, a character just off-handedly says, “You know that guy? Yeah, he’s dead now.”

It never gets any more coherent. Characters are dropped in out of nowhere, and there’s no sense of flow or progress. It just goes. It just keeps spinning.

[caption id="attachment_393003" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

A hero with shining armor is called

The gameplay is centered around this central mechanic of grabbing things. People, missiles, balls; you grab them all. Sometimes you give it a good shake, causing Marina to emit her trademark “shake shake!” voice sample.

That’s largely it, but Mischief Makers gets a lot of mileage out of that one mechanic. Every boss is generally a game of figuring out what to grab and what to do with it. Sometimes it’s as simple as catching something and throwing it back, but other times it’s more specific. There are puzzles to solve, bombs to throw, and children to capture. The entire game is built up with the philosophy of, “We have this character that does this action. What are all the things we can do with it?”

It’s not really that far out of line with Treasure’s normal philosophy when creating games, but Mischief Makers seems to take it to the extreme. It opens up the game to Treasure’s signature variety. As a whole, the experience is unpredictable. One moment you’re exploring a ball-themed amusement park, and the next you’re defeating a small cat in dodgeball before riding them into battle.

[caption id="attachment_393004" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Though fire, justice is served!

There’s an almost nauseating glut of personality packed within. Beyond “shake shake!” I’ve had the line “Through fire, justice is served!” repeating through my head since first witnessing it in college. The fact that there’s no cohesiveness to the plot opens it to completely off-the-wall dialogue. Mischief Makers has a habit of expressing and introducing bizarre concepts and acting like they’re completely normal and should already be understood by the audience. It’s always hard to keep track of but also consistently funny.

One of the best running jokes that it actually manages to briefly focus on is with the murderous intent of the Beastector. The Emperor will send one out to capture the Professor, but they’ll loudly and dramatically scream their intent to bring Marina to justice. The Beastector, as a whole, are some of the most memorable bosses I’ve encountered in a while.

There’s also this strange sense where the N64’s hardware limitations actually played in Mischief Makers’ favor. The blurry, 2D digitized sprites, the muddy textures, and the muffled sound all create this aesthetic that just underlines the absurdity of everything.

[caption id="attachment_393005" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Help me, Marina!

On the other hand, Mischief Makers isn’t always fun to play. The levels range from considerably sized to over in seconds. The difficulty wavers throughout before skyrocketing directly at the end, like it suddenly realized that it should give the player some resistance.

I went through the entire game without seeing a game over screen until the last run of boss battles. The issue here is that it’s sometimes not clear what you’re supposed to be doing. There was one sub-boss where I could catch their attacks without issue, but once they were in Marina’s shakers, I couldn’t figure out what it wanted me to do. I tried throwing the boss in all directions before eventually finding out that it wanted me to shake it at a very specific moment.

Likewise, there was one boss that you have to steal a weapon from. I thought this was straightforward; you just throw the weapon back at them. However, Mischief Makers is so picky about exactly what moment you hit them. It bounced off with an audible “ting” most of the time, so I thought I was doing something wrong and began experimenting with other things in the environment. Sure enough, I just wasn’t hitting them in the half-second they’re vulnerable. It can get annoying.

[caption id="attachment_393006" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

A ball-grabbing good time

I find that it’s very appropriate to have played Mischief Makers so soon after completing Brave Fencer Musashi. Both games are similar in the fact that they’re not always fun to play, but they are entirely unforgettable.

Mischief Makers is just pure insanity. The way its designed makes it feel like it was just chaotically assembled with no thought for how the final product would appear. I’d like to see a design document for it because I don’t believe anyone, at any point, planned ahead on what this game was actually going to be about.

Yet, in the end, the fact that it’s completely unpredictable and entirely unlike anything you’ve ever seen before is what makes Mischief Makers great. Video game design has always been about trends and iteration, and here is a game that exists entirely outside of both those things. It presents a chaotic vortex of ideas contained within a wobbly framework, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It never got a sequel and probably never will, which is fine, since I don’t think anything else could capture its compelling dissonance.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Mischief Makers on N64 is a wonderfully chaotic cluster of incohesive concepts appeared first on Destructoid.

What's with umbrellas this year?

ININ has announced that they’re bringing Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble 3 to PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch consoles this year.

Parasol Stars was the follow-up to Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands: The Story of Bubble Bobble 2. While those two games were released in arcade and ported to consoles, Parasol Stars skipped the first step and went straight to consoles. In North America, we only got the Turbografx-16 version, but in other parts of the world, it also landed on the NES, Game Boy, Amiga, and Atari ST platforms. So, it’s a bit of an obscure title.

https://youtu.be/Fhc73Q7Dkb0

Parasol Stars once again stars brothers Bub and Bob in their rotund human forms. This time, they’re equipped with magical umbrellas and travel from planet to planet, saving them from evil. It’s a pretty odd plot, but it’s not like the series ongoing narrative was ever really that sane.

It’s a bit unclear about what is going to be included beyond a port of the Turbografx/PC-Engine version. That’s exciting in its own right, as it’s a game that has been out of print for decades now. There’s no word on if the NES and Game Boy ports will be included. However, both the press release and trailer coyly suggest another announcement with “More parasols coming.” A full remaster? I don’t know, maybe. You now have all the information I do.

Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble 3 is coming to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Switch near the end of 2023.

The post Parasol Stars: The Story of Bubble Bobble 3 is being ported to modern consoles appeared first on Destructoid.

Totally Studly

I have an affectionate fascination with video games that look fictitious. Whenever a TV show, movie, or even cartoon wants to depict a legally distinct video game for their characters to play, they always show something that looks familiar but is entirely wrong. It’s like the uncanny valley of video games.

It shows a charming unfamiliarity with the medium. However, when it happens in an actual game, you realize that couldn’t be possible. Someone who has to be familiar with other games made this. Looking like an accident was, in fact, an accident.

1990’s Pit-Fighter has an excuse. It was one of the first attempts at using digital images of actors in a video game, a technique that would be made popular by 1992’s Mortal Kombat. There is also an excuse for it being about as much fun as eating a bowl of glass. It was released before Street Fighter II came along and demonstrated how fighting games should be made. On the other hand, I’m not sure what its excuse is for looking like a tournament held at the local neighborhood sex dungeon. Someone in 1990 thought Pit-Fighter looked cool, and they were tragically wrong.

[caption id="attachment_392163" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Awesomely done

Pit-Fighter is about an underground fighting tournament. A tale as old as time. What makes it stand apart is its hairless, baby-oil-slathered protagonists. You’ve got three choices: a kickboxer, a karate guy, and a wrestleman who looks like he pooped himself. They’re macho in the way that bodybuilders are macho. That is to say, not at all, but I wouldn’t say that to their face.

Meanwhile, your enemies are a bunch of leather daddies and one woman who has decided to fight in thigh-high stilettos. The big bad boss is literally this big dude in a leather mask and bondage harness. I’m not one to kink-shame, but I feel that Pit-Fighter must have confused the development of a lot of young teenagers.

You fight your way through 10 rounds. This doesn’t last long, but Atari Games made sure to create it in a way that necessitated pumping in a few quarters throughout its playtime. You only have one health bar for the entire game, so unless you can somehow manage to never get hit, you’re likely going to need to slot a few more coins if you want to give Big Daddy Masochist a spanking at the end.

[caption id="attachment_392165" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Confusingly erotic

A lot of Pit-Fighter's actual mechanical issues are related to the timeframe it was released in. 1990 was pretty early for its digitized graphics. As such, there is absolutely no artistic flow to anything. There are few frames of animation, so there’s a jerky quality to everything. It uses a lot of sprite scaling to make things more dynamic, but it just makes things even more sickly and fake-looking. I never really liked the method of digitizing actors for games, even when it was done well in games like Mortal Kombat, but they had to start somewhere.

The whole product is just so viciously ugly. There are levels where cars are parked in the arena (for some reason), and you can jump on them and crinkle their hood. However, these are very plainly drawn and not digitized pictures, and boy, can you tell. They look like they were ripped from Top Gear and clash against the more realistic crowd and fighters.

Meanwhile, Pit-Fighter was a pre-Street Fighter II fighting game, so fun had yet to be incorporated into the genre. In many ways, it reminds me of 1989’s Street Smart, but somehow even tackier. It’s a three-button setup, and all this oily muscle bashing takes place on a 2.5D area. You can combine buttons to create fancier moves like grabs, but there’s so little reason to do so. It’s extremely difficult to hit an enemy without them immediately hitting you back, and likewise, they have no defense against you. You sort of just chase them around the arena and hope that you deal more damage than you take.

[caption id="attachment_392166" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Leather daddy

And then there’s Mad Miles, who looks like someone who won a bet and forced the developers to put them in. Unlike some of the other beef mountains you fight against, this guy looks like my dad could take him in a fight. I think maybe he’s supposed to make up for that by being kind of crazy, but that never comes across in the game. Instead, he just has a mustache that says, “My ex-wife won custody of the children.” The way he flops on the ground, I kind of feel sorry for him. He also only turns up in one fight, which makes him feel like an accident. Or a secret mode, like when you beat up the car in Final Fight. He’s not threatening, he’s just not welcome in this BDSM dungeon.

Then, once you finally climb a mountain of shaved cattle, you fight the biggest bottom to frequent this particular establishment. Pit-Fighter isn’t the only piece of media to think that wearing nothing but boxers and a leather harness is a sign of toughness, but that is absolutely not what it communicates to me. Especially not when partnered with a leather mask.

If you’re playing multi-player, you have to fight all your teammates to decide who gets to top the competition. I’m not sure why this is necessary, aside from the fact that maybe they didn’t want to palette-swap the leather daddy to make things fair. So the losers of this match pumped in all those quarters and don’t get to end the day as king of the S&M club. That’s a confusing sort of disappointment.

[caption id="attachment_392167" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Brutality bonus

Just to top this whole, writhing container of oiled flesh, Pit-Fighter also has an awful fascination with money. It’s as if Smash T.V. wasn’t exaggerating the depraved depths of human greed. Instead, your fighter gets to stand on a wooden skid as money is piled beneath them. Then at the end, you get the typical view of scantily clad women clinging to your leather beef sack.

Pit-Fighter is just a hilarious and unfortunate amalgam of all the worst parts of ‘80s style. All those embarrassing things that people once thought were cool are stuffed into this game. Because the internet came along and has told us all what those leather harnesses are actually for, Pit-Fighter just looks like a cluster of uncomfortable eroticism.

For previous Weekly Kusoge, check this link!

The post Pit-Fighter sure looks different in the light of an internet-connected word appeared first on Destructoid.

Gex is like Erntedankfest in Zoey Handley’s garage

When Limited Run Games announced that Gex would return to modern gaming platforms, I decided to revisit the lizard’s debut adventure. I had no idea what I was getting into.

For the uninitiated, Gex is a mascot platformer released by Crystal Dynamics in 1995. It was originally developed for the 3DO console, a wildly expensive piece of hardware that, adjusted for inflation, cost around half a month’s rent in New York City. Naturally, this is how I first played Gex. Being in elementary school at the time, the only 3DO games that really appealed to me were Gex and Soccer Kid. All I remember about Soccer Kid is that there’s an enemy that says “get awf my laaaaaand,” which I found funny.

Meanwhile, I always internalized Gex as an underrated platformer. I even revisisted it in my late teens, where I also remember liking Gex. For this reason, I thought I had a pretty good handle on this lizard’s first adventure.

Of course, the internet has since morphed Gex into a bizarre meme format. While people still revere their Spyros and Crash Bandicoots, Gex might as well be the representation of all your Bubsys and Awesome Possums. You know, mascot platformers that solely existed as products of their time. While I understood the jokes, I've always wanted to stick up for Gex. As one of eight people who ever played a 3DO, I needed to tell these whipper-snappers that this is, in fact, a good game. Because I know it’s a good game. It’s a good game, right?

Well, I stand before you today as someone who fell down the Gex rabbit hole. I am no longer here to tell you that Gex is a good game. Because after getting the full Gex experience, I can never look at this gecko the same way again.

[caption id="attachment_391830" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

A tail as old as time

Gex begins with a brief cinematic showing the titular character watching some TV. After he indiscriminately eats a fly that flies in front of his face, Gex is sucked right into the screen. See, apparently that fly was a… something created by the villain Rez. So by eating it, Gex is sucked into the Media Dimension. In other words, Persona 4 is just a Gex ripoff.

There’s more to the story, but we’ll get to that later. Oh boy will we get to that later.

The ensuing 2D platforming adventure tasks Gex with collecting remotes across five TV inspired worlds as Gex spits out a stream of 90s pop-culture references loosely related to them. These are connected by a world map that a young Tim may have generously likened to Super Mario World, which could have influenced my childhood memories. I’m not here to psychoanalyze myself when I’ve still got the entirety of Gex in front of me, but it is worth noting that it did look impressive at the time.

I also must reiterate that I played this on a 3DO, and it’d be a few months until I saw a PlayStation. All I knew is that I liked Gex more than Soccer Kid.

[caption id="attachment_391831" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

More ambitious than organizing a wine and cheese party with Eric Van Allen

To be completely sincere for a second, Gex still impresses me on several fronts. For a mascot platformer, you can tell Crystal Dynamics had some legitimately great ideas they wanted to see realized.

First off, Gex himself features a creative moveset. You have your standard jump and tail-whip attack, as well as a dedicated tongue-whip button to grab and subsequently use items. Additionally, by pressing down on the D-Pad while midair, Gex can perform a DuckTales-style attack to bounce off enemies. Gex’s signature feature, however, is his ability to climb almost any wall or roof in the game. Just jump toward any applicable surface, and Gex will stick right on.

I like this, since it utilizies the fact that Gex is, you know, a gecko. It also lets the level design feature hidden areas to uncover and secrets that take advantage of Gex's abilities. For example, you’ll encounter a few narrow passageways that the lizard can't fit in. However, since Gex clings to a surface when climbing, you can follow specific wall-climbing paths to get through these spacess. I’m not saying it’s genius, but it is unique to Gex.

I also genuinely like the theming here. Basing levels around movie genres still feels relatively novel to this day. Additionally, there’s some nice graphical variety even within each world. You’ll see many different enemy types, occasionally strutting some impressive animation.

Plus, I’ll go on record and say that I like Dana Gould’s voice work as Gex. While the jokes themselves are… what they are… the delivery always feels on point. And considering the quality of video game voice work in 1995, Gex packs a surprising amount of personality. Remember, when Gex was released, people thought this lizard was genuinely funny. Electronics Gaming Monthly gave Gex Game of the Month, and that was the magazine I trusted most at the time!

I wonder if EGM’s writers ever bothered to revisit this game, and if they had the same spiral into madness that will detail below.

[caption id="attachment_391832" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Worse than playing a water level with a Roll n’ Rocker

Unfortunately, Gex suffered from development hell. That’s a story too long to cover here, but you can read the archived words of lead programmer Gregg Tavares here. Playing Gex today, the cracks in its development become extremely apparent.

The absolute killing blow to Gex is its controls. By default, Gex has a fairly slow walk speed, but he can run by holding the shoulder button. The problem here is that Gex feels floaty by default, and running gives Gex momentum that makes precision platforming way too difficult. And sure enough, Gex requires precision platforming more often than not. This requires a lot of awkward rocking of the D-Pad to pull off jumps, or just eating hits and hoping that you’ll find healing items later.

Considering the game showers you with restoratives and extra lives, I think the developers were actually aware of this issue. By the time I finished the first world, I had north of 30 lives. By the second world, I hit 99. Even with a lot of deaths, my reserves were comically inflated. It’s a bandage for sure, but not a solution. As a disclaimer, this recent playthrough was on the PlayStation version of the game. Even me, one of three people who ever had a 3DO in their house, was not about to use that version to grab footage.

Additionally, you can occasionally control Gex’s jump height by holding the Up button on the D-Pad. This might not sound like a big deal, but remember that Gex’s bounce attack requires holding the Down button. This makes some jumps exceedingly awkward to pull off, requiring me to weirdly rock my thumb at exact moments that legitimately kind of hurt to do. I have no idea why they didn’t take a page from Mario’s book and control jump height with, you know, the jump button.

Then you get into some wildly inconsistent level design. Sure, the first horror-themed world feels great. It’s even got a banger of a level theme that oscillates between sounding atmospheric and kind of rocking out. It is truly the YYZ of campy Halloween music. But the level design starts getting straight up hateful at certain points, with virtually the entire final world existing as an exercise in frustration. Considering the final boss theme is a seven-second loop, I strongly got the feeling that the team just ran out of time and energy with Gex.

You’ll find other major issues here, of course. The large sprites relative to the small resolution leads to a few too many leaps of faith, for example. But honestly, the quality of Gex’s gameplay is not what shocked me the most about this revisit.

Oh no, the thing that shook me to the core was Gex’s story.

[caption id="attachment_391833" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

You’re not ready for the Gex lore

Honestly, even if I could safely tell you Gex was a masterpiece platformer, I’m not sure anyone would care. The internet knows Gex because he endlessly spits out terribly unfunny pop-culture references with few actual punchlines. With this in mind, I started having certain suspicions about Gex as a character, which made me wonder if maybe the instruction manual housed any backstory that wasn’t conveyed by the approximately two-minutes of in-game cinematics.

Six pages. Six pages of Gex lore were in here. They changed everything.

Here’s the deal. Prior to the events in Gex, the titular lizard was apparently well-adjusted. He was the oldest of “three-and-a-half” kids and the son of a NASA researcher. However, his “carefree upper-middle-class life” abruptly came to a halt when his dad died in a freak NASA accident. So unable to confront both the tragedy and the infighting that enveloped his family, Gex decided to completely disassociate and lose himself watching TV.

Don’t worry, the story doesn’t stop there. Gex’s now-single mother apparently tried to get her son away from the TV to no success, so completely out of options, she moves the entire family from Hawaii to California. Yet even this does not shake Gex’s TV addiction. In fact, even when Gex’s mom helps introduce him to their next-door neighbor to help Gex make a fresh start, he refuses the opportunity outright. Because he explains, and I quote, “the last time he had gone outside, his dad blew up.”

This culminates in Gex’s mother removing the TV from the house outright, which triggers a complete breakdown. Gex loses his mind, tells his mother he’ll never see her again, and then leaves. As the instruction manual says, “the one thing in his life that had meaning was gone.”

[caption id="attachment_391834" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Gex keeps going

So after this point, Gex lives a miserable, meaningless existence of trying to make ends meet on his own. Even forced into the outside world, he misses his “TV friends”. This changes when Gex’s uncle also kicks the bucket, but this doesn’t trigger another mental breakdown. You see, Gex’s uncle was comically rich, so his death now means the family has money beyond their wildest dreams.

For the rest of Gex’s family, this inheritance is a new lease on life that lets them live lavishly and outright buy Australia. However, Gex himself decides to use his share of the cash to move back to Hawaii. His plan? He would buy a huge house and “spend the rest of his life watching all his old TV friends.”

Infinite wealth winds up just being an enabler for Gex’s escapism.

So that brings us to where Gex the game begins. Rez, the villain inside the TV, apparently captures Gex because he wants to make him the mascot of the Media Dimension. Rez doesn’t want to destroy the world. Gex doesn’t need to save the world. He just watches so much TV to avoid confronting the trauma of his father’s death that it literally consumes him.

[caption id="attachment_391835" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

This is weirder than playing Omori in an abandoned Toys "R" Us

So, okay, holy shit, where do I even start?

I started this journey wondering if Gex was ever intended to be funny or aspirational. I thought maybe I’d get a few lines to make jokes about, but now making fun of Gex feels wrong. Gex tells the story of a massively depressed person who quite literally cannot cope with reality without the escapism of media. He feels so lethargic that he can’t even bother to get up and make himself a meal. Rez traps him simply by waving a snack in his face.

Through this lens, the fact that Gex speaks almost exclusively through TV references becomes borderline terrifying. Even when Gex takes damage, half the time he reacts with a nonchalant quote like “I only cry at weddings”. He’s so detached from the human condition that he doesn't feel pain itself. After all, the refusal of pain is why Gex is here to begin with.

I get you probably think I’m reading too hard into this. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to connect the symbolism of TV being Gex’s crutch to cope with life and the thing literally trying to kill him. Even at the end of the game, when Gex escapes the Media Dimension, he doesn’t even leave his seat. Instead, he says “I wonder what’s on HBO” and continues to watch the screen. There is no self-awareness. No growth. Just resignation. Gex is a tragedy.

So congratulations Gex, you’ve made it on the list of the saddest mascots of the '90s. You can take your spot right under Klonoa’s throne at number one.

[caption id="attachment_391827" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Gextraordinary circumstances

I do want to reiterate that I only grew up with the first Gex game. Its sequels, which did not debut on a prohibitively expensive piece of hardware, never entered my home. While I obviously didn’t read the instruction manual until now, this is the story I had at launch. Gex didn’t have to have six pages of tragic backstory with awkward asides sprinkled throughout, but that’s what the developers decided to include. Let me know in the comments if Gex ever confronts the pain of losing his father in the sequels.

Also, just now writing this, I must point out the irony that the plot of Gex, a game intended to introduce a Sonic-style mascot, involves him literally trying to not become a mascot. But my god, if I spend anymore time thinking deeply about Gex I think my head will explode.

So overall, replaying Gex was a surreal experience. I’m left with a lot of admiration for the developers, who clearly wanted to make something special in Gex. I also feel like I destroyed this happy memory of Gex being an underrated classic by realizing just how janky the game feels today. There were a lot of parts I did enjoy. At its best, I could briefly see glimpses of a game that could, theoretically, compete with a Sonic or Mario. But the execution needed a much more deft hand, which clearly wasn’t going to happen with its troubled development.

In other words, when Limited Run Games releases Gex Trilogy, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend buying it for this game. Not without some crucial tweaks at any rate, and even then, I’d remind you that you could just as easily buy Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series. But on the other hand, confronting Gex was important in its own way. Sometimes we compartmentalize memories in ways that are harmful to us, and holding Gex on a theoretical 7/10 pedestal could have misled someone down the line. So while this replay was not necessarily a pleasant experience, it was an important one. Unlike Gex, I was able to confront my past.

So thank you, Gex, for being the cautionary tale that I never knew I needed. I’m not saying that Gex needs a gritty reboot where he accepts that he can’t run from his trauma forever. But if such a thing did exist, it could be even better than tap water at Jerry Garcia's.

The post I’ve wildly misunderstood Gex appeared first on Destructoid.

Aren't you a little short for a Samurai?

My household had an N64 for the late ‘90s, so all of my PS1 experience was had on a close friend’s console. However, they weren’t as focused on video games as I was in my youth, so I mostly just got to play the really big titles. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Twisted Metal, and whatever could be found on demo discs.

I’ve been making up for lost time, recently. My PS1 collection has been growing, and I’ve been paying close attention to the titles that slipped between the cracks. 1998’s Brave Fencer Musashi is one such title. It was made during what was probably Squaresoft’s most inventive period. Between all the Final Fantasy’s, we got Parasite Eve and Vagrant Story. Nowadays, it feels like between each Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest entry, we get a bunch of spin-offs and remakes from those series.

Brave Fencer Musashi interested me because I knew next to nothing about it.

[caption id="attachment_391785" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Not my problem, pal

The introduction to Brave Fencer Musashi does a hilariously great job of setting things up. The Alucaneet Kingdom is under attack by the Thirstquencher Empire, so the princess of the kingdom summons Musashi to fix things for them. He absolutely has no interest in doing this, everyone immediately makes fun of him for being a child, but he’s not allowed to go home until he solves their problems.

Screw setting up compelling motivation for the protagonist. Musashi is on a quest because he’s obligated to be. Many times when an NPC asks him for help, he responds with some variation of, “Isn’t this something you should be doing yourself?” But because the villagers absolutely refuse to help themselves, Musashi has to do it for them.

This is a subtext that a lot of games just ignore, but it’s literally the driving narrative force behind Brave Fencer Musashi. Musashi is someone who is just trapped in a video game. The villagers all play their parts, but that act is entirely coming up with some dangerous task for the hero.

The whole “you’re a hero, don’t ask questions” schtick has worked for video games since time immemorial, but every so often, it’s nice to have a hero whose catchphrase is, “Not my problem, pal.”

[caption id="attachment_391783" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Well, excuuuse me, Princess

While Squaresoft is largely known for its RPGs, Brave Fencer Musashi leans a little heavier into the nebulous action-adventure category. There are RPG stats and questing, but the focus isn’t on them. Instead, it plays closer to a Zelda game but with platforming elements. In some ways, its lighthearted and whimsical storytelling and tilted-angle platforming reminded me heavily of Super Mario RPG, but I was surprised to find almost no staff crossover between the two games.

You spend a lot of your time at the castle or the neighboring Grillin Village. All the action areas branch off from the village. Most chapters of the game begin with the village having a problem, and that points you in the direction of where you need to go next. It’s not foolproof, but usually, if you talk to the villagers, you’ll catch wind of a rumor.

Musashi’s goal is to collect five scrolls to power up his sword, Lumina. These scrolls (and the sword) are also what the Thirstquencher Empire is after, so they’ll be making a nuisance of themselves. It’s a pretty standard video game narrative, especially for the time.

[caption id="attachment_391784" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Delicious villagers

Anything generic about Brave Fencer Musashi’s plot is made up for by its whimsical quirkiness. There’s a day/night cycle that moves the townsfolk along their path, and as you quest, one of your goals is to save captured citizens from crystal-like “Bincho fields.”

The fact that you keep orbiting Grillin Village goes a long way towards making it feel like home. You learn people’s schedules over time and catch wind of how other townsfolk feel about them. There’s an unfortunate dearth of side activities to take on, but each character feels unique, and their interactions with Musashi are enjoyable.

There’s also an action figure collecting diversion that is completely there for its own sake. You can buy these figurines of many of the characters and enemies you encounter, then take them back to your room and view them. However, they all come mint-on-card. Will you break open that blister pack? You fool! You’ve destroyed their resale value! All well. At least now you can play around with them.

[caption id="attachment_391781" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Harass the wildlife

The biggest issue I had with Brave Fencer Musashi is that it isn’t much fun to play. The platforming is underwhelming at best and finicky at worst. The combat isn’t great, either. It’s sort of gluey and lacks any real impact.

You have the ability to absorb abilities from enemies, but aiming your fusion sword is just so crappy. Then, most of the abilities suck and are only useful in specific situations. Unless there was obviously something in the environment that I needed an ability to bypass, I’d often just forget that this ability even existed.

On the other hand, sometimes it has amusing effects. Like, one of them just makes you stink and puts flies on your screen. That’s a good one.

Brave Fencer Musashi also flows like a river of butts. The hardest part of the game for me happens early on when you have a limited amount of time to avoid a catastrophe. You do this with a mini-game that consists of hitting switches in the right order, pressing buttons at the correct time, and, worst of all, platforming with a fixed camera angle. The difficulty is all over the place. Certain segments drag or even repeat. It makes actually getting through the game rather unenjoyable.

[caption id="attachment_391786" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Should've hired a poet

Brave Fencer Musashi is one of those games that I kind of slogged through, finished, and then was left wondering why I enjoyed it so much. Then, as someone who will sometimes bashfully refer to themselves as a “critic,” it’s my job to figure out what I liked about it and then put it into words. That’s sort of difficult here. For one thing, I believe I like Brave Fencer Musashi so much just because of its general vibe, but that’s something else that isn’t quantifiable.

Truly, Brave Fencer Musashi’s weaker points actually play out in its favor. The fact that its pacing is practically broken and its story is so weirdly non-conformist makes the whole experience unpredictable. Power-ups are given sporadically, but you don’t know what you’ll be getting or when. There are droughts with no changes to your powerset and others where they’re coming in fast. It’s worth it to keep playing because you never know what’s over that hill.

Any beyond that, it’s like home. Grillin Village is a bit like Kattlelox Island from Mega Man Legends. Over time, it kind of grows on you, and it’s a comfortable feeling. The characters may not amount to much in the time you spend with them, but they become familiar faces.

Brave Fencer Musashi is just a special sort of game that pops up every now and then. It’s like the Dark Cloud series or Deadly Premonition; there’s an earnest warmth underlying everything. Maybe the game itself won’t rock your world, but you will remember it fondly. And I think beyond just being a fun diversion, that’s exactly what every game should strive for.

For other retro titles you may have missed, click right here!

The post Brave Fencer Musashi for PS1 is an unusual Squaresoft title that will stick with you appeared first on Destructoid.

Enough Retro games to play three or four every day for a year

Retro cloud streaming platform Antstream Arcade has announced their vast collection of officially licensed retro games is coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S later this month. As part of this, Antstream says games that had previously only been playable on Sony or Nintendo platforms will also become playable on Xbox through its service.

The extensive collection includes retro titles all the way back to the Commodore era. Through the service, games will be playable without any sort of installation or download required. Each week more officially licensed Retro titles will be added to the service.

[caption id="attachment_391655" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Antstream Arcade[/caption]

Xbox can finally join in on the Retro fun

Antstream Arcade is already available on PC, Mac, Linux, Android, Android TV, Firestick, Samsung TV, and via a web browser. This will be the first time the Retro collection will be available on consoles natively. Antstream CEO Steve Cottam created the service as an easy way to access games he loved growing up.

"Despite living in an age of incredible technology, I found it wasn’t easy enough to access the games I loved growing up and I wanted to be able to easily share scores and compete against friends,” said Cottam in a press release. “We believe in the preservation and accessibility of all games, the great, the impossible and the forgotten or lesser known too, I’m very proud to bring the Antstream Arcade platform to the Xbox community”.

Alongside the Retro catalog, Antstream Arcade also allows players to enter tournaments and challenge others to duels and community battles. You'll be able to acquire achievements and connect with others and show off your accolades via your profile.

Antstream Arcade releases later this month for $29.99 per year or via lifetime access at $79.99. The price includes all future games and features added to the service. Furthermore, Anstream Arcade is hosting a live stream on July 14 to highlight new games coming to the service and show off what more is to come. The service will be available in Europe, the UK, the USA, Canada, and the Vatican City.

The post Antstream Arcade is coming to Xbox with over 1300 retro games appeared first on Destructoid.

Nice do

As part of the Limited Run Games showcase, the boutique publisher announced a number of retro games that are getting modern ports. Among them is Tomba, the 1998 (1997 if you count the Japanese release) platformer by legendary developer Tokuro Fujiwara.

Tomba is a game about the eponymous and fabulous pink-haired caveman. It’s a rather ambitious gated exploration platformer for the PS1 platform that got a sequel, but not nearly enough love. I was actually introduced to it through the passionate rantings of Destructoid alumni James Stephanie Sterling. Original PS1 copies go for mad dough on the collector’s market, but I think seeing one in person might have me making my wallet cry.

However, it’s not necessary for you to make your wallet cry. Instead, Limited Run Games is bringing Tomba to modern platforms. That’s about all the information we have right now. The trailer shown during the stream was just a cutscene. A Tweet following the stream clarified that it will be coming to us with the help of the proprietary Carbon Engine, and will have physical and digital versions.

https://twitter.com/LimitedRunGames/status/1679227783149486082?s=20

Good enough! I’m just happy that Limited Run Games is whole hogging it with retro revivals. Game preservation has been a topic that I’ve been pounding on for a while now, and I’m happy to see another company take a leap with it. Limited Run Games has had a history with preservation, but it seems like they’re really doubling down on it!

Tomba will be coming to PS4, PS5, Switch, and PC eventually. No word yet if Tomba 2 will be getting the same treatment.

The post Tomba coming to modern platforms courtesy of Limited Run Games appeared first on Destructoid.

And now you're selling it, you want to sell it

Limited Run Games teased the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection back in April, but now they’ve confirmed the titles that will be included in that collection. Hold onto your butts, because it’s the NES, SNES, and Gameboy versions of Jurassic Park and the SNES and Gameboy versions of Jurassic Park Part 2: The Chaos Continues.

No, I’m sorry, it will not include Bluesky’s Mega Drive/Genesis Jurassic Park titles.

I have to be honest with you, none of these games are really great. Not horrible either, but not great. However, I’ve written multiple times about the 1993 SNES version of Jurassic Park. While it has its problems, it’s also a unique and interesting title for the platform. The first-person perspective for indoor environments, awesome soundtrack, and various programming flourishes give it value beyond its license.

As for the other games: meh. I personally believe all games are worthy of preservation, so I applaud Limited Run Games for taking on the endeavor.

[caption id="attachment_391393" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Limited Run Games[/caption]

The color of amber

As is common for Limited Run Games, we’re getting a variety of editions of Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection. There is, of course, the option to just get the game. However, there’s also the “Classic Edition” that comes with a Steelbook and a slipcover inspired by the VHS version of the movie. Finally, the Prehistoric Edition comes with all of the above, plus a replica Alan Grant I.D. tag, soundtrack CD, mini replica cartridges in a custom frame, and packaging the emulates the classic look of the Kenner toys.

You can also get “Retro Edition” reproduction cartridges of any of the versions included. These come in translucent amber-colored cartridges, which, ugh, I get the intended imagery, but amber is just piss-colored. You can upgrade to the “Collector’s Edition” which makes the cartridges also light up.

If you’re not up for VHS cases or piss cartridges, then it sounds like there will also be a digital version of the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection available. It will be coming to Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, and PS5. Preorders start September 1st and close on October 15th.

The post Limited Run Games confirms what’s coming on the Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection appeared first on Destructoid.

[Update: Taito has confirmed via Twitter that the Taito LD Game Collection will have an international release. That's what I like to hear. They haven't given any date or details beyond that but are saying, "Stay Tuned for news." Our original story follows.]

Everything is better on LaserDisc

Taito has announced that they’ve got another arcade collection on the way, but this one is extra special. The Taito LD Game Collection not only compiles but also remasters three of the publisher’s classic arcade LaserDisc games: Time Gal, Space Battleship Yamato, and Revenge of the Ninja.

If you’re unfamiliar, these games are essentially interactive movies. The most popular example is the Dragon’s Lair games. You could also look at the various FMV games that came around in the early ‘90s. Essentially, you’d watch a short clip, choose an action, then the arcade would eat your money because you chose the wrong action.

These were made popular by the LaserDisc. These were the predecessors to the CD and were the first commercially available form of optical media. Essentially, imagine a DVD, then make it grow to the size of an LP record. They were available for a time as a way of storing home video. You’d get a much better picture than you would with a VHS, but you’d have to flip the disc halfway through unless you had a particularly fancy LaserDisc player that could automatically read both sides.

Anyway, the technology was popular in arcades in the mid-80s, but it kind of lost its edge quickly once people realized they were all graphics and very little substance. We got Time Gal and Revenge of the Ninja over here in the West on the Sega CD, but I don’t think Space Battleship Yamato ever got a port.

[caption id="attachment_390664" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Taito[/caption]

Whatever happened to the LaserDisc?

Taito LD Game Collection currently has a release date in Japan of December 14, 2023, but nothing is mentioned about an international release. I feel like the chances are good that we’ll see it, but not guaranteed. Space Battleship Yamato has dialogue in it, for example, but it could conceivably recieve subtitles over here. We’ll just have to wait and see. And hope.

Taito has been doing a pretty excellent job preserving their back catalog. Beyond the Taito Milestone collections that compile some of Hamster’s excellent Arcade Archives ports, we just got the Ray’z Arcade Chronology by M2. Getting the Taito LD Game Collection here in the West would be a big win, so fingers crossed that we get to see it. If not, I’m 100% going to import a copy.

The Taito LD Game Collection will release on Switch in Japan on December 14, 2023. No word yet on other territories or platforms.

The post Taito LD Game Collection remasters classic Laserdisc games (Update) appeared first on Destructoid.