[EXPRESSO] Vampire Survivors iOS | Italian Belmonts On The Go

I am a little quite late on this, since i didn’t know Vampire Survivors was ever gonna see a port on mobile platforms, but it did at the end of last December, and i DID want to see for myself if this iOS (and Android) port was any good.

I don’t really think i need to introduce the game itself, since it has been one of the ever-so-rare Steam success stories, especially since it launched at a really budget price, but the deal is that Vampire Survivors struck a new combination by basically having a roguelite RPG- “reverse” bullet hell using a “legally distinct Castlevania” vibe, with your character attacking automatically in the direction it’s facing, but still needing to be manually manouvered through the increasingly thick hordes of enemies homing onto you, while collecting exp drops, levelling up, getting new weapons or upgrades to the arsenal of auto-attacks, learning what to keep and use in order to survive longer.

It’s incredibly simple but also very addictive, and honestly this is a nearly perfect port, as the controls just require moving your character via a virtual joypad, so it’s easy to get into on a whim but also to keep going at for prolonged sessions/runs.

Here on smarthphones it has been released as a free-to-play title, but thankfully the developers at Poncle decided to actually care, so it’s a benign case of watching ads for extra gold or a revive when dead, at the time of writing it’s seriously devoid of any microtransactions or way to spend real money on anything.

Obviously this version is currently not up to date with the Steam release, and most likely will remain “behind” for a while, but even so free Vampire Survivors on smarthphones it’s a match made in italian vampire hunters’ heaven.

[EXPRESSO] Burning Fight (Arcade Classic Archives Neo Geo) NSWITCH DDL | Streets Of Mid

I’m a simple man, i see some Arcade Classics Archives games on sale on the Switch eShop, i usually buy them, especially if it’s early Neo Geo beat em up i’ve never even seen mentioned before.

With 3 bucks less to my wallet, i realized why exactly.

I mean, it was the age of the beat em up, and while it’s not often fair to just call them knock-offs…. Burning Fight really can’t be called anything else than a “knock-off” of Final Fight, Streets Of Rage, heck even Double Dragon, and one that embodies the definition of “one of those”, since it’s so predictable and derivative to have even the special health-draining moves feel like “legally distinct” imitations of Capcom’s other big series about punching people.

The only distinctive feature is that you can enter some of the shops/facilities and smash some furniture to find health and point pickups, but even these diversions last 4 seconds tops, though there’s some attempts at doing something new with some stages where you move on a conveyer belt while thugs throw explosive at you from the background, but it’s very small stuff.

This is as straightforward, simple and generic as a beat ‘em up could be in that era.

Originality aside, the problem with Burning Fight is that it’s indeed a cheap, brazen and almost sub-par knock off, not unplayable or anything, but the kind it inevitably just makes you wish you were playing the older titles on SNES and Genesis it’s clearly aping, since they’re better in every regard.

So ironically the only way i can justify bothering with this one it’s if you’re a beat em up buff that has already played all the popular ones and are searching for a fix, something that “will do”, and not really anything else.

[EXPRESSO] Nikke: Goddess Of Victory iOS | Anime Asses Frontline

Time to try my hand at another anime gacha with anime girls using rifles or being rifles or the usual military themed shit, because it scratches many itches, especially if your game lives by the profitable (and Houshou Marine-approved) “i don’t want to be happy, i want to be horny” motto.

Especially anime asses wrapped in spandex, because that was how i found about this game pre-release, by v-tubers laughing their butts off… due to incredible jiggle physics.

And yes, this is one of these that doesn’t even try to hide it, or to be also cute, no no, Nikke Goddess Of Victory is incredibly horny from the get-go (it’s from the Destiny Child developers, after all), so i guess points for brazen honesty.

Yeah, the premise is that you’re the ever-so-common amnesiac rookie commander ordering around anime girls with guns in a war against machines. So basically a worse Girls Frontline that wants to have it serious but also alternates between shock value scenes and abudant anime asses. It’s trash, but the dialogues can be somewhat engaging at times, the game looks pretty good, has nice UI, a good soundtrack, even a good english VA and some nicely animated cutscenes.

Gameplay its where things are a little different than the usual, as it’s… a on-rail shooter , basically a touch version of Time Crisis without the “rails” part, with 5 characters team, rpg elements like skills to activate and chain, alongside the usual modern on-rail shooter stuff.

This choice of gameplay also makes it easier to flash the player with pantyshots and latex wrapped anime dumparoos jiggling due to recoil, but it’s fun enough to be played in short bursts, the bosses thankfully provide some challenge not found in the normal stages, and the free-to-play trappings aren’t that awful.

The Ninja Warriors (Arcade Archives) NSWDDL [REVIEW] | Arcade Ninja Terminators

Well, guess who bought this on sale on the Nintendo eShop on a whim and kinda regretted it.

I was surprised to see this on the “ACA” label, as The Ninja Warriors received a remaster on Switch, even on a non-limited physically produced cartridge, didn’t knew it had an arcade version…

and i was right because it didn’t, Taito just happened to make an arcade game called “The Ninja Warriors” (the one being reviewed here) in 1987 and then reused the same name for the sequel on the SNES… which is kinda confusing anyway(and also oddly appropriate) as it’s more of an enhanced remake.

And boy, the arcade precedessor/original, aside being outclassed in everything by the SNES game….didn’t age as well, as the arcade trappings are so obvious and dated, thought it’s not a complete disaster or a completely mediocre forgettable relic that leaves nothing to say about it.

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Earth Defense Force: World Brothers PS4 [REVIEW] | BROTHERS EVERYWHERE-

While we wait for EDF 6 to come out this august in Japan, the previous spin-off finally went on proper sale on the PSN some time ago, so i finally got to play (bought the Deluxe Edition on sale, so complete of all Season Pass content, FIY) and review Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, another spin-off of D3 Publisher’s beloved cult series about space ants and giant robots, handled by Yuke’s, which did previously develop another EDF spin-off the year before, the quite solid EDF: Iron Rain.

The story it’s actually a more comedical take, with the aliens invaders from all previous EDF game scoming back (with a mothership each) under the guise of the new villain, just called Dark Tyrant, destroying “voxel earth” into many pieces in a single shot, so what’s left of the EDF has to find a way to put it back the pieces together and repel the invaders, one mothership at the time.

Instead of going for the serious faced ridiculousness played totally straight seen in the mainline titles and even the previous EDF Iron Rain, World Brothers just revels in the sea of clichès, deliberately having a voice acting that’s so ridiculous or “old fashioned cringe” for the also ridiculous as hell dialogues, here more on the zany side, which is further reinforced by the stylistical choice of going “voxel” in terms of graphics.

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[EXPRESSO] Rival Turf SNES | Dashing Beat

So, Nintendo opened its maw again to spit out another meager assortment of old titles for the NES and SNES Online services, but this time it did add Rival Turf, as in the localized version of the first Rushing Beat, so i guess it’s time to complete my trifecta of reviews for the Rushing Beat trilogy, with the others being localized as Brawl Brothers and The Peacekeepers respectively.

Like The Peacekeepers the throwing and suplex moves are so overpowered that you’ll rely too much on those, especially since the enemies knows this as well, and can deal way too much damage even without using throws, made worse by the fact this is the only beat ‘em up i know that has “recovery damage”, as in you lose life even by getting up from getting knocked down.

At least it works for both you and the enemies, but still, weird.

Everything else is crappy bootleg Final Fight, from the bootleg enemies with smaller sprites, the iffy collision detection, the punches and moves lacking much “oomph”. The only difference being the “run” button which allows to also execute dash moves, despite the hilarity of the character not so much running (there’s no running animation per se) but “walking-gliding” at a faster pace.

It’s also such a blatant rip-off of Final Fight you really have to compare it to that game, and its own only reason of being was the 2 player co-op mode that the SNES release of Final Fight lacked, but nowadays means squat.

It’s aged crap from Jaleco, and while the sequels – mostly – improved gameplay…. there’s very little reason to bother with the original Rival Turf/Rushing Beat, unless you’re a beat em up buff on a mission to play them all for fun, education and/or profit. There’s worse.

[EXPRESSO] Warped Kart Racers iOS | Dang it Dale, You’re A Genius!

Yep, i eventually decided to play and review this once i saw it advertised as “coming soon” on Apple Arcade’s homepage because i’m pretty sure this is the first time Hank Hill was featured in a kart racer, i do love me some King Of The Hill.

That and it’s been a while since i played a kart racer on mobile that wasn’t Mario Kart Tour… or good, for that matter. And i do understand it’s kinda hard to sell people (or investors) on idea of a lawnmower racing game with only KOTH characters.

Even if you call it Pro-Pain.

So begrudginly i have to say the game also represents Family Guy, American Dad and Solar Opposites (which i haven’t seen, btw), but i’m choosing to believe this is a KOTH only game.

Joking aside, the gameplay it’s basically Mario Kart 7, there’s even the paragliders, the virtual controls are quite good and intuitive, the right amount of complex needed for a mobile title (it also supports gamepads), there are both normal races and MK style arena battles, the IA is surprisingly competent even in the beginner tier of races.

So yeah, color me surprised because it’s actually a good kart racer, looks and runs pretty well, and already at launch it’s a complete package, with online multiplayer, a decent amount of single player content, and the various unlocks of characters, kart parts and skins are made fun since it’s not a free to play release, so you just play the darn thing. For fun. Remember that?

Yeah, there’s nothing new here in any shape or form, but it’s kinda baffling that this licensed quadriple biscuit tie-in mobile kart racer with Peter Griffin and Hank Hill it’s honestly way better than the actual, official Mario Kart game available for smarthphones.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants In Manhattan PS4 [REVIEW] | Not Very Neat

Since i did mention the game in my impressions on the Babylon’s Fall demo, and there’s a huge compilation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games (most of the ones done by Konami) being released soon, i’d figured why not, let’s talk about this disappointing as heck turtle excretion, which pretty much killed any potential for more videogames based on beloved nostalgic cartoon series by Platinum Games, after their shortish but really good take on Transformers (the older ones, known as “Generation 1”, or “G-1”) with Transformers Devastation.

I mean, at least this one can still be found around in physical form, unlike other Turtles game, for example the TMNT: Out Of The Shadows one (don’t expect a review of that).

Or the similarly crappy Legend Of Korra game Platinum Games also developed, also deslisted after Activision didn’t wanna renew the license for, BUT i happen to have bought the PS3 version and i still have it, so that i might review, in order to proper understand how Platinum as a studio it’s capable of both incredible height and shitty lows that spoil the studio’s reputation, still.

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Where the on-rail shooter compilations at?

(A review of Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle is coming VERY soon, btw)

As the remake of the first House Of The Dead game is set to release soon on Switch (as a retail packaged release too), i’ve just realized how incredibly really no company before Sega with this remake has tried to bring on-rail shooters to the only current-gen (kinda) popular console that still retains Wii style pointers controls via the Joycons.

Given how the nostalgia market will only grow even larger in time, i’m surprised Namco didn’t dig from its huge backcatalog and pushed out a Point Blank or Time Crisis collection, or made compilations of some of the many others games of this kind that only existed as arcade cabinets.

I named Namco, but heck, even Konami and Sega were quite prolific back in the day, though Konami nowadays it’s better when they just licensed compilations-ports of their older titles to people who care (like Digital Eclipse, also handling the recently announced TMNT Cowabunga Collection), and Sega quite likely simply doesn’t care.

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[EXPRESSO] Temple Run: Puzzle Adventure iOS | Thine Freemium Designs

To be brutally honest, this game in itself leaves very little to talk/comment about, as in it’s EXACTLY what you’d think it would be: a generic match-3 puzzle game using the license-name of a popular but old IP that benefits of the deal because people that ever so much do remember Temple Run, with generic character and art style.

Heck, i probably wouldn’t have known it existed if i wasn’t subscribed to Apple Arcade, and this – alongside some of the shittier releases like Galaga + – makes it more obvious how the service’s main selling point of featuring games without ads & microtransactions..is GOOD, but inadvertly exposes how many of these were mostly designed as freemium

We previously reviewed the quite similar match 3 revival of Zoo Keeper on Apple Arcade, but that just happens to be better and way more feature complete overall.

Which makes even more strange how it still feels pretty obvious something it’s “off”, because the game it’s honestly alright, but doesn’t have much to the standard match 3 formula seen a squillion on times, nor does it have an adventure twist despite being called Temple Run… or anything else besides the puzzles themselves.

Still, i played through 50 + of the puzzles and i had to eventually check online what the hell i was getting gems for, as in, you can buy power-ups, but due to the game not telling me at all, often outright handing out some, and the puzzles not being that hard, i wondered if i had to progress to unlock something where to spend the gems.

But nope.

It’s obvious this was designed as a freemium thing first, that easy to imagine it as such.

It’s inoffensive, but also disposable, even on Apple Arcade there are better puzzle games.