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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Babylon’s Fall PS4 [DEMO] [HANDS-ON] | Ungolden Grease

I was almost gonna ignore this all the way since it’s another “live service” thingie…. by a Platinum Games that pretty much announced they were done making good games you can play and finish, and ready to invest into the “games as service” garbage, so in a way i’m ready to see Bayonetta 3 come out and then basically ignore what the company does with itself, unless they come to their senses and stuff.

Also, the full game came and was reviewed in the time i took to play the demo and write about it, and i barely even managed to knew there was a demo out for the game at all. But I’m still posting it because i feel it’s “deserved”, come on Platinum Games, you can’t put out shit like this and expect people to NOT point out the telltale smell of a sneaky release bereft of fanfare, for what turned out to be fairly obvious reasons.

Of course it’s a joint effort with Square Enix, because the shitshow of their Marvel Avengers game didn’t teach anyone anything, not that the industry ever wants to learn.

But then again, Square Enix is the company of the “below expectations” that will never consider the expectations might have been not realistic, but will cry about its western division output failing to meet sale expectations and being criticized, you know, the same company who released stuff like Left Alive, The Quiet Man, and Balan Wonderworld. Just to say the more recent ones.

So, in a way, Babylon’s Fall fits perfectly. But sure as hell wasn’t marketed at all, i wanna stress didnt’ see a single ad anywhere and was remember by an email telling me a demo was out… that the game actually wasn’t quietly canned, but releasing soon at full price.

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Nintendo Direct 9/02/2022 | Rites Of N

That time again, time to put on your robe and attend the ceremony with expectations so far out to make worshippers of the Old Gods looks like wannabe zealots!

Especially since all fair criticism of the company is dropped by most people (and publications) when a Direct happens. But again, this is sadly “business as usual”, let’s move on.

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Forced Break

Due to unforeseen circumstances, today there’s no review, i really didn’t have time to even conjure a quick rewrite, so sorry, we’ll have a full lenght review tomorrow to close off January, and – as previously announced – we’ll shift to a bi-daily posting schedule, as in, every two days instead of daily posting, for reasons touched upon in the other announcement-ramble post.

Sorry.

Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires PS4 [DEMO] [HANDS-ON]

With the game officially launching in the west in less than a month, Koei finally released the demo for Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires…. properly, i saw plenty of people that managed to get it via the Microsoft Store by fenagling with the regional accounts, but even those versions made available for non-english speaking territories had english in it.

Whatever, the demo is out now pretty much everywhere on consoles, and it includes the tutorial for the basic combat and the battle of Changsha, but NOT the Diplomacy phases and political managerie.

Make sense since they want to showcase the revamped Castle Sieges, by letting you play the battle of Changsha on the invading or defensive’s side, and also the revised Edit Mode, it’s an Empires game after, and you will be able to carry over the created officers’ data to the full game.

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Slower-posting and maybe rubric resurrections

Thought over this for almost a month, but in order to improve the quality of reviews and my physical-emotional status (i also have a full-time job and didn’t stop working aside from during the first wave of the pandemic, for some prospective), from February on there will be a post and/or review every 2 days instead of daily.

This will hurt my stats and views, obviously, but i’m pretty much burnt out, and some extra time would also be spent in reviving the old platformers rubric i had on my italian blog time ago, Platformation. Really would like to, but i need to write out some rules, quirks and whatnot, consider what to feature on there, etc.

Ganbare Arino-san!

Today there’s no review, no promise of something coming to the blog later this year, not even a ramble on a recent subject. This one it’s for the analytics, to have something posted on to keep my streak going, but i can say i’m working on the reviews of two anime fighters, both really close to completition.

And i can recommend you watch good ol’ Arino, any way you can, good stuff!

I’m not gonna pull a “seriously though” because i do feel like Game Center CX would be up many people alleys when talking about retro videogames shows, but seems kinda niche in the “anglophone” sphere on the web.

That is better than just posting a screenshot from an anime and be done with it.

I will say i’m sorry i can’t offer much in terms of cinema releases, as even the events are lackluster, with a new documentary-style film about Van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings and Demon Slayer: Mugen Train getting released as event projections.

Shame Mugen Train was already released here officially dubbed on Amazon Prime Video last year, i would love to see it theathers again, still, but that argument train left the station time ago, and i’m leasurelly watching the Entertaiment District arc of Demon Slayer for my own pleasure, btw.

Yeah, it’s january alright in terms of releases, even in “The Boot”, and i’ve rambled anyway, bye!

Now i got an X-Box One, ho ho ho

Yes, for a change there are now some reviews you can expect from me since i got hold of an X-Box One X on the fairly cheap, though i do emphasize the “SOME” as there’s not really much to collect for this console, even if you’re a collector and mostly play-collect physical copies on consoles.

Sure as hell it’s more doable than getting a PS5 before 2023 for me, so look forward to some of the…very few notable X-Box One “esclusives-identifiable” games over the year!

On a unrelated tangent (which i forgot to mention two days ago), i won’t be reviewing Scream V as i honestly never watched the series, for various reasons not worth explaining here, i’m not even sure i will watch this one, at all.

Tomorrow we’ll start again with the full length reviews, too, so look forward to it!

Don’t expect a Pokemon Legend Arceus review in a timely manner

Yeah, one more from the beloved series of “Don’t Expect Anything”, i wouldn’t wanna spoil you too much least you forget the cold, disappointing and cruel embrace of reality.

Gloom aside, the reason for today “episode-ramble” is that i simply haven’t preordered Pokemon Legends Arceus, and so far i’m kinda glad i didn’t, since there are rumors and various leaks about the game’s performance being crap enough to noticeably affect the exploration of the full-on open world this Pokemon game goes for.

To be honest, it looks not worse than Sword and Shield from the official gameplay trailer released some days ago, but also not as good as you would expect since Game Freak didn’t do double duty on this and the Pearl/Diamond remake, i guess they really haven’t got the memo that they can/should make technically polished titles, since they’re not developing for handheld consoles anymore.

And they really can’t pull off “first proper new Pokemon gen game on the system” excuse.

Still, since the game comes out at the end of this month, a day one patch (and most likely more following that) could fix the issue… to some degree. I mean, the game launches in 2 week and 1/2, so it’s simply absurd to expect the situation to be easily dealt with via patches, regardless of how many they will be, for obvious reasons.

Do i still look forward to eventually playing the game itself? Sure, but i’m not going down the mine this time, i’m still bummed by pre-ording Ultrasun/moon, so i will wait to see how the situation evolves over the months, i’m not offering myself as proverbial canary this time. Really tired of that.

That sure was a Pokemon ramble, see ya!

This Summer: One Piece Films Retrospective

In love with this design, holy shit!

As you might now, the new One Piece film, titled One Piece Film: Red, was announced in November 2012 set for a summer 2022 release. Which isn’t really “new” as from One Piece Film Gold in 2016 Toei makes a new movie every 3 years, but i’m finally ready to review all One Piece films… again.

As in – like i previosly told – i previously reviewed them to accompany the release of One Piece Stampede back in 2019 on the original italian version of the blog, so in the previous years i’ve reviewed the One Piece OVAs and the TV Specials, as i wanted to make some time pass, as i’m rewatching them all and writing the reviews from scratch, instead of translating, reworking, polishing the old ones.

Who knows, in time i might have changed my opinions on some…. and i mean “some”, there’s one in particular than i might have even harsher words for, but we’ll see.