Knack II [PS4] [REVIEW] | Knack Me Twice

Developed By: Japan Studio

Players: 1-2

The very existence of this game is big “?”, not only because it came out 4 years after the first Knack, bamboozling the gaming community at large, given how widely hated and reviled the first game and its titular protagonist were. Again, it’s worth remembering that the fist Knack was both a critical and a financial failure, and didn’t do worse in revenue because it was a launch title, so there wasn’t much else to play at the time on the newborne console.

In a way, i can understand why someone at Sony did ultimately greenlit this, as an underdog story for this pitiable franchise (and main characters) would have been nice, and proof you can turn thing around with a sequel; it has been done before, after all, so why can’t Knack be redeemed of his sins?

There are many reasons for that, but let’s start from the beginning, meaning the story.

(review based on a playthrough on Normal, for review purposes)

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Knack [PS4] [REVIEW] | War Bandicoot Of Ancient Garbage

Developed By: Japan Studio
Players: 1-2

With the next-gen at the doors, it’s time to revisit an interesting series. YES, Knack.

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[EXPRESSO] Goblin Sword NSWDDL | Good Mobile Sorcery

Mobile games get a bad wrap, and while the industry itself is guilty as hell for it…eventually you get a mobile game that actually wants to be just a game, made for enjoyment instead of retention (followed by the game testing your resolve against your wallet)… which you probably didn’t even knew exist until it gets a PC and/or console port.

Yeah, Goblin Sword is a mobile game that found its way to the Switch’s eShop earlier this year, and despite some asset flips (and similar crap from malingering homunculi) from Steam starting to surface here as well, you can still get proper esposure on it, especially since it’s a 2D retro styled Metroidvania-sidescroller hybrid……lacking the random ass rape in the beginning, now we have to warn people of that due to a certain series with “goblin” in the title.

Then again, there isn’t much of a plot, it’s basically you against an evil wizard that wants the titular “goblin sword”. And… that’s it. Gameplay itself it’s a basic sidescroller with a Metroidvania twist, as in you get power-up needed to reach previously unaccessible areas, but progressing in the levels it’s done in a traditional side-scroller gameplay, go right until you reach the end of the level, with double jump being the fancier ability available, and collect all treasure chests and crystals you can.

Gelato Games (oddly not an indie italian videogame studios, despite the name) did cook up a good sidescroller, with a pleasant but a bit generic art direction, and you can still kinda tell this was made for mobile first, but you’ll soon forget that, thank to good level design, the tight controls, the great difficulty curve, a good amount of content and replayability.

I’m glad this one was ported to Switch, because it deserves more attention.

Haunted Castle PSN [REVIEW] | That Dastardly Dracula

Played in the Konami Arcade Classic Anniversary Collection on PS4.

In this fairly good collection (thankfully Konami tasked the Arcade Archives team to do this one, and this one has a regular Arcade Archives release as well), there is something that will stick out from the many old shoot em ups that make up this collection, and that made Konami a premier videogame company, once upon a very long time ago.

Is the spooktacular arcade version… kinda of the original Castlevania title on NES, released in the west as “Haunted Castle”. And when i mean “arcade version”, i mean this isn’t a conversion, but a completely different game that uses different hardware and graphics, but still adapts the first Castlevania in gameplay and premise, the stages being original but also drawing comparisons to the NES game. To make things even odder, this isn’t even the first title in the series to do that.

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Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity (DEMO) NSWITCH [Hands-On]

So yeah, this demo dropped kinda out of nowhere (i say “kinda” because a listing on a Soutch Corean site basically gave it away) during yesterday’s Mini Nintendo Direct, and since i’m clamoring to play a new Hyrule Warriors, you bet i’m gonna sink me teeth into it, and write a quick hands-on.

The demo is basically the first chapter of the game, and it will let you use the saved data in the full game. So already it sounds a bit more meaty than the demo they put out for the 3DS port-expansion Hyrule Warriors Legends. And it is.

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[EXPRESSO] Creators – The Past (2019) | Star Odissey Barbarian Italian Gods Of Space Magick

You might be wondering what the hell is this.

I did too, until i remembered the name from 2019’s edition of the Lucca Comic & Games convention in Italy, but i never “investigated” and i….completely forgot about it.

Then again, they didn’t market it AT ALL, despite being an italian production with William Shatner and Gérard Depardieu, alongside a cast mostly made by americans, italian actors at their first role and italian musician Angelo Minoli.

The year is 2012, and an extraordinary planetary aligment is about to happen. The eight members of the Galactic Council (each governing their own planet as a “Creator”) meet to discuss of the coming events, but following an incident they lose an essential artifact, and task a human girl to retrieve it before the planets disalign.

This is the basic gist… the movie itself it’s INSANE, it really lives up to the “colossal” monicker, as they basically threw together 3-4 movies. And – as you would expect – it gets confusing, as the sub-plots splinter into smaller sub-plots, each of the Creators has their hidden agenda, and the movie just keep throwing things at the viewer, like Jesus Christ, aliens abductions, conspiracies, sword and sorcery bits with scorpion-men, the very specifically italian “battle of the oranges”, etc.

And YES, all these things are connected together. The drawback is that with that many subplots and a runtime under 2 hours, some are abruptly resolved in seconds. Often because the movie just makes up new bullshit rules to do so. It’s anything but boring or stale, it’s visually intriguing, there is definitely dedication and ambition here, alongside a lot of money for an italian production of this type.

It tries to set-up sequels.

… I really wouldn’t mind, at all, but i “feel” they ain’t gonna happen.

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 – DLC Pack 2 PS4 [REVIEW]

Another season, another DLC Pack for Pirate Warriors 4, the game that keeps in making you wish there was more of it, not only for what concerns the roster of characters.

But i did that mini-essay for the review of the first Character Pack, and then a full-on editorial about the state of the musou sub-genre as a whole.

So i’m gonna keep this and the next one shorter.

This time the theme is “Worst Generation”, referring to 12 characters belonging to the so called “worst generation” of pirates (and Blackbeard), 11 of which come from nine top pirates crew, and firstly referred to as the Eleven Supernovas, the notable rising pirates from that generation that caught the attention of the World Nobles, and one of them is speculated will become the next Pirate King.

Compared to the first pack, this one was far easier to guess once the theme became clear, because most of the “Worst Generation” pirates were already playable in the base PW 4, some had been since Pirate Warriors 2, even.

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Gamera The Complete Collection UK BLURAY [REVIEW] | Absolute Pristine Turtle Meat, Really Neat

Arrow Video keeps being a shining beacon of light in a world where companies are planning to stop making physical media all together, so they can hold properties hostage on another streaming service with no guarantee film and series will always be there, or there in a matter of months, for that matter.

This time they bring us a collection that will make kaiju fans furiously ejaculate, and for good reason, as there wasn’t any complete collection of the beloved Gamera series, there were some boxsets for the North American market, but nothing complete, and here in Europe TM we got it far worse, Italy especially, as they brought only 5 five of the Showa Era, often calling Gamera “The Great King” and retitling the movies to imply it’s Godzilla or King Kong, with craptacular marquee artworks to boot.

But now it’s all good again, as this boxset (which i preordered as soon as i saw it) is shipping worlwide, and it’s all english… but it’s also a limited release, so i’m just gonna say this to interested fans: stop reading, and get it RIGHT NOW, this is pricey and there aren’t gonna be that many copies around, so just go. Definitely worth the price, it’s not cheap, at all, but it’s worth every single cent. Continua a leggere “Gamera The Complete Collection UK BLURAY [REVIEW] | Absolute Pristine Turtle Meat, Really Neat”

[EXPRESSO] Pokemon Masters EX iOS | The Rolling Girls (& Boys)

Pokemon Masters EX iOS.PNG

I usually don’t re-review smarthphone games (i did an Expresso review of the game in italian soon after launch one year ago), but since i didn’t really touch the game after spending time on it for the review, i actually enjoyed it enough, and Nintendo feels the update is so big to warrant a title “upgrade” (hence the “EX”), i will indulge this time.

As one would expect, in time they added more extra modes and stuff to do, even Pokemon eggs (alongside the stuff added as part of the anniversary update, which brought also a new interface)… but they also added freemium elements that weren’t in the game at launch, like the “energy meter”, and of course more stuff for the gacha, and this game is one of those that differentiates between premium currency gotten in-game and paid. Still, they didn’t add lootboxes or more monetization system, and admittely the game launched a little bare on content, not broken or unfinished, but DENA clearly underestimated how ravenous gamers can beat in days what was intended to be consumed in weeks or months.

And i feel bad that ultimately Pokemon Masters is so reliant in the gacha to really lure you back in, because the gameplay itself is (and was) fairly solid, as it’s basically the classic Pokemon combat formula but as a 3 vs 3 affair, with some semplification to accomodate it not being turn based, and a slightly revised system of types’ compatibility. Along with new passive abilities for defense, it’s the closest we have to a proper Pokemon game on smarthphones/mobile, and it’s the better one we got yet. Surely better than that Pokemon Rumble Rush (RIP?).

Still, a fairly good mobile game i don’t really care to play with any sort of frequency.
Or give money to, honestly.

expresso-icona

One Piece: The Great Tongari Island Treasure Hunting Adventure (2018) [REVIEW] 4D Pirate Propaganda

One Piece The Great Tongari Island Treasure Hunting Adventure 2018.png

Writer: unknown

If having to go at selected water parks and such places to see the 3D featurette Trap Coaster seemed asking a lot, don’t worry, this time you – only – had to go to One Piece Tokyo Tower, the only One Piece theme park in the world, situated inside Tokyo Tower (in case the name wasn’t clear enough), open since 2015… and closed – permantly, to boot – this 31^th of July 2020.

Gomu Gomu no Bummer indeed. Continua a leggere “One Piece: The Great Tongari Island Treasure Hunting Adventure (2018) [REVIEW] 4D Pirate Propaganda”