QCF: Cyber Shadow

f there’s only one video game platform from the past that has to lead an everlasting brain trust spread throughout all walks of life, it’s the Nintendo Entertainment System. There are a bevy of other 8-bit machines that have their fans sure, but the NES has defined what people consider the 8-bit generation to be, establishing a style that still permeates a majority of the throwback indie titles that’s seen in the market today.

Drawing inspiration from the system’s aesthetics is one thing, but capturing the gameplay of that era is an entirely different beast, especially when it comes to channeling the essence of the challenge it’s famous for in an age of Save States and unlimited continues. Enter Mechanical Head Studio’s Cyber Shadow, a new title published by Yacht Club that chases the old ghosts of NES classics like Ninja Gaiden, Power Blade, Shatterhand, Shadow of the Ninja, and so much more—complete with a modern touch that aims to balance the scale of difficulty and fairness on the tightest of ropes.

There’s a lot to enjoy here for those who cut their teeth on the action genre during the days of the rectangular controller, but on that same token, arguably much of the beauty behind that generation is the “less is more” philosophy behind those games—something that Cyber Shadow is remiss to forget in its occasionally clumsy ambition.

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QCF: Dragonborne

t isn’t too often that you see a brand new Gameboy game released, let alone in the same year that we see next-generation hardware launch but that just goes to show just how powerful the how well Nintendo’s trademark handheld still holds up.

Despite the strength of the Game Boy’s legacy though, some novel ideas, as unique as they may be, can still find a way to disappoint even the most open-minded of players—that’s Spacebot Interactive’s Dragonborne.

While this new top-down RPG adventure does an admirable job of paying tribute to the Game  Boy classics that came before it, Dragonborne’s individual spin on these familiar tropes ends up being nothing short of tedious at best, and just plain boring at worst.

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QCF: Takeshi & Hiroshi

 know it may sound a bit silly, especially when you think about the importance of roles like Fire Fighters and Surgeons but, it can be argued that Video Game Developers are among some of the biggest heroes of modern society (this can honestly be said about all creatives, but stick with me, I’m going somewhere with this.)

The worlds they can weave, with designs that are teeming with a sense of wonder that bewilders and empower anyone looking for an experience to escape to; Game Developers offer an invaluable service, and for one aspiring designer-in-the-making, it’s the one gift he can give to an ailing little brother.

In a story where your passion can be someone’s entire world, enter Takeshi & Hiroshi; an interactive novel from Oink Games that’s packed with a lot of heart, a surprising amount of gameplay depth, and the regrettable snag of ending way too soon.

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QCF: Yoku's Island Express

ith so many open-world adventures on the indie game market today, a majority of newer titles are now throwing all of their weight behind the craziest gimmick they can offer with their experience in hopes of finding a large enough of an audience that will praise it. While the experimentation hasn’t paid off every title, there is one new idea that has crossed expansive level-design into a territory that it has never been in before—pinball dynamics.

Villa Gorilla’s premier title explores the juxtaposition between side-scrolling platforming and a pinball table turned on its side in Yoku’s Island Express, a tale about a dung beetle who employs his spherical excrement as a means to bounce around and about through the obscure tropical arrangement of flippers and bumpers just so he could deliver some mail. In all honesty, the game is a lot weirder than that made it sound, but fortunately, it’s a whole lot more enjoyable too.

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QCF: Fox 'N Forests

hen people think about video game nostalgia, their minds immediately fix upon images of pixelated sprites, alongside beats of synthesized chiptune sounds, and other trademarks from the early years of the medium. With so many throwbacks, and love letters out on the market these days, developers are now more pressed to celebrate the past in a way that’s more innovative than a majority of the retro-inspired titles that are currently flooding storefronts; callbacks are now starting to pull from some of the more nuanced moments of gaming history.

Which brings us to Bonus Level Entertainment’s Fox ‘N Forests, a 2D action-platforming side-scroller that was Kickstarted back in 2016 in an effort to deliver a very specific kind of nostalgia—the kind that’s reserved for a majority of the early SNES titles that defined the system before fighting games swept the scene. While there’s plenty of fan service to indulge upon and enjoy in this self-aware romp, a majority of Fox ‘n Forest’s charm is fleeting at best, and largely obnoxious the rest of the time, or worse—all too forgettable.

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QCF: A Robot Named Fight

hat was once a niche sub-genre that was only romanticized by its rabid cult-following, has now gradually begun to spill into the mainstream of the independent video game scene—Metroidvania games are available on just about every system at this point, to the point where the style is bordering on stagnation.

In an intriguing twist, however, similar to the Nuzlocke challenges that have swept numerous play-throughs of the Pokémon series, the iconic games that pioneered the formula, like Super Metroid, and Castlevania Aria of Sorrow, are now getting modded with the “randomizer” treatment. This modification works to alter the order and location of key upgrades and items in their core game, forcing an entirely new Meta into the gameplay for players to tackle.

One developer by the name of Matt Bittner took notice of the trend, and took it upon himself to push the concept to an entirely different level; developing a Metroidvania adventure that would not only randomize items, upgrades, but the map layout itself, in a manner that’s similar to roguelike dungeon crawler titles. His efforts led to producing an ambitious pixelated tribute to the genre called A Robot Named Fight, releasing for Steam and Nintendo Switch, and while the release does make good on its premise, its execution leaves a lot to be desired.

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QCF: A Hat in Time

012 gave us the year of the bow, then 2015 became the year of the sequel, and while it 2017 has been a significantly memorable year for video games as a whole, there’s no denying that it will also go down as the year that hosted the return of the 3D Platformer.

Granted, while there’s been a lot of praise for the throwback titles that have dropped so far, the craze has also seen its fair share of criticism, generating a lot of commentary on whether or not the genre even deserved such a renaissance in the first place.

Of all the games in the conversation though, one KickStarted-project stuck out as the dark horse of the topic; Gears for Breakfast’s A Hat in Time. While most games like Polykid Games’ Poi or Playtonic’s Yooka-Laylee were heavily promoted as spiritual successors to the iconic gems that best defined the collection-driven gameplay, the folks behind A Hat in Time were more concerned with creating an adventure where the journey itself is as, if not more rewarding than the destination. The Humble-Bundle published title establishes early that it’s 3D Platforming gameplay relegates the collectibles or objectives into being more of an accessory than a direct extension.

As novel as these ambitions were on paper however, A Hat in Time fails to step with its best foot forward at the early going, and barely manages to stick its landing, taking far too long to pick up any sort of real momentum in what’s ultimately, a clumsy outing.

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Bullet Heaven, Episode 194 - The Next Penelope

hmuppy Switchmas may have come and gone, but the Shmuppy Holidays STILL continue! In episode 74 of Bullet Heaven. we took a look at a shmup with racing elements called Shippu Mahou Daisakusen Kingdom Grandprix (疾風魔法大作戦 キングドムグランプリー), and we liked it quite a bit. But what about a racing game with shmup elements? Well, we might just have what you need with The Next Penelope. How does it stack up?

Get The Next Penelope - https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/the-next-penelope-switch

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