Raging Blades PS2 [REVIEW] | Arcade Axe

Yet more fuel for the bargain bin PS2 bonfire with an arguably even more obscure niche hack n slash title from an even more forgotten ilk, as Bujingai was at least co-developed by Taito and Red Entertaiment, the latter being behind the PS2 Gungrave games as well as Sakura Wars So Long My Love, the Fossil Fighter games, or much of the Record Of Agarest series.

Instead Raging Blades (originally called Raging Bless in Japan) comes from a developer pretty much unknown, Pacific Century Cyber Works (PCCW), whose portfolio mostly consist of this, something called Dream Audition and some racing or idol games that never left Japan, and was distributed by Wanadoo, one of those European publisher that no one remembers but did have a presence back in the day, though i remember them mostly for their logo on PC graphic adventure like the Necronomicon titles, and later a lot of tie-in shovelware… but also the PS2 reboot of an old Tecmo series, Rygar The Legendary Adventure, which i will eventually feature here.

That aside, this is even more distant, because while Bujingai was surprisingly pretty nifty and complex for a 2003 release, Raging Blades also released the same year yet it’s at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, being pretty much a 3D styled take on Golden Axe, its roots in the arcade years of the genre pretty much unfazed by how the genre evolved in the third dimension and especially from Devil May Cry on forward.

It’s so arcade there’s no “Continue” option from the main menu, because you’re expected to beat the story mode in one setting.

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Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! 2 PS4 [REVIEW] | Fist Of The Roman Star: Ceasar’s Rage 2

As i said in the review of the first Slap Them All, they quickly made a follow up game 2 years later (as in 2022 Mr. Nutz Studio released that awful Joe & Mac port-remake), simply titled Asterix & Obelix: Slap Em All! 2, and while i was planning to review this next year… by coincidence i ended up playing it and finishing it far earlier than planned, so

Sure, that will leave Mission Babylon as the only new Asterix & Obelix game by Microids to review next year, but whatever,

This time around the plot is original, and concerns the theft of an important Roman insigna, the Aquila (literally “Eagle”, a golden eagle insigna), which is blamed on Lutetian friends of the Gaul duo, and so Asterix & Obelix venture to find out who actually stole the Aquila and why, before they execute the entire Lutetian village as retribution, so important is the Aquila in political leverage terms for the Roman Empire than losing it is seen as a great public shame for the reigning emperor.

It’s not a bad plot, it’s fine, and at least it’s not just Ceasar once again throwing a scheme to finally conquer those pesky Gaul villagers.

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Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! PS4 [REVIEW] | Rock Em & Sock Em Romans

Because i’m slowly turning April into the “Asterix & Obelix” month, and due to a new CGI animated film, Asterix & Obelix: The Kingdom Of Nubia, releasing this October, we’re doing more of the Microids published Asterix titles.

Since we did all the titles in the XXL subseries of Asterix & Obelix games, we’re now tackling a retro styled 2D beat em up, the fittingly titled Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All!

The story is based on 5 classic Asterix & Obelix stories, plus an original final act, so if you were hoping for an original story, you aren’t getting that here, but the picks are indeed some of the more recognizable and beloved stories from the comic book series, like Asterix and The Normans, Asterix In Spain and Asterix & Cleopatra.

The game is fuckin gorgeous, to the point i believe they blew their entire budget on the hand-drawn style graphics, as the cutscenes are just cheap character sprites/portraits talking at each other while the portraits just fade in an out, and while the art style it’s loyal to the comic strips, it means there also some sadly fitting “ethnic stereotypes” brought over as is from the decade olds comics, like the poor black guy that is the sightseeing dude on the pirate ship and is routinely knocked over when Asterix & Obelix casually terrorize them when traveling, or the random “asian pirate with nunchuks” mid-tier enemies that might as well have “Mickey Rooney doing yellowface” masks on.

Speaking of the cutscenes, at least they voiced these, can’t say the same for Asterix & Obelix XXXL: The Ram From Hibernia… but in similar fashion to that they cheaped out and didn’t bother to dub it in italian as well, despite the franchise being really popular here still.

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Platformation Time Again #8: Yoshi’s Story N64

HISTORY

While nowadays the Yoshi Island subseries has mixed reception, the original sequel to Super Mario World was indeed (and still is) a classic, peculiar spin-off of the Mario formula, and Yoshi Story was the first follow up/sequel of sort to reiterate on the formula, developed by pretty much all the original team for the original Yoshi’s Island, minus Shigeru Miyamoto, here just supervisor instead of producer or director, that here being Hideki Konno, whose portfolio already included the original Yoshi’s Island and Super Mario Kart.

This one doesn’t have much in terms of production history or weird tidbits about its inception.

It was originally just called Yoshi Island 64 and meant for the ill-fated Japan only N64DD peripheral, the game – like many others – was moved from the floppy drive format to cartridge, and when revealed it was meant to also “flex” the 3D capabilities of the N64 alongside its 2D craft, which was peculiar of a stance to take when 3D was the new fangled tech and the industry was more than happy to join on the bandwagon of immediatly shaming the previous tech as obsolete junk in favour of “the future”, regardless the fact that in this case 3D turned out to be the future.

Also yes, you might remember this one in how Nintendo made the soundtrack available on a CD shaped like Yoshi’s face, similar to the one for Diddy Kong Racing.

While i possess a copy of its Virtual Console rerelease back on the Wii, i have used the version included in the N64 Nintendo Classics catalogue for Switch and Switch 2 (which requires to also have the Expansion Pak tier subscription), and yes, it was also available on the chinese N64-based IQue Player.

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