[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Destruction iOS | Now BACK to Early Access!

**Had to take this from the site because this fucking shit game doesn’t even have a splash screen. I’m NOT kidding.**

The third and final mobile Godzilla game promised by Toho for this year, and the only one of the bunch that lets you actually control the Big G itself.

And because of some cosmic monkey paw’s doing, it’s also the worst of the bunch… actually, it’s shockingly bad, even without comparing to other two smarthphone titles in the same batch, it’s an impressive specimen of videogame dookie, so much i would rather play the shit Godzilla PS3/PS4 game Namco dared publishing some years back.

AGAIN.

Gameplay is pretty simple… scratch that, gameplay is just insanely primitive: you use a virtual stick to control Godzilla’s movement, and touch an enemy to either use your beam or a close range melee attack to defeat the enemy waves. Problem is, the virtual stick isn’t fixed, and it gets in the way when you attack, and you can’t do both at the same time, so you’ll inevitably get hit and will have to keep choosing the health recovery when given the option, as the levels are just insanely repetitive waves after waves of the same handful of enemies, able to do any kind of damage because of the shit controls and the lousy range of your beam attacks.

Eventually you’ll fight bosses that are also cheap as well, but i honestly got already bored sick in the first 10 minutes, it doesn’t help this one also sports no story or setting, it looks embarassingly cheap, on top of its abysmal presentation and glaring errors like english text clearly – and badly – overlaid over the japanese one, typos, obvious & bad machine translation, leading to odd word choices.

I almost expected the intro be an actual joke… but nope, it’s just THAT bad.

Waste of data, let alone time, even for free…..just don’t bother.

[EXPRESSO] Pac Man 99 NSWDDL | Last Pac Standing

It has got to this. We knew it would eventually come to this.

And to be honest it doesn’t necessarily have to be bad, or half-baked by design like Super Mario 35, which was clearly not that well thought out, but also had a very short expiration date decided on birth, so why put more effort in if we decided we’re gonna kill it 6 months later regardless?

Like Tetris 99 once was, this is currently available as a free download for NSO subscribers, but this time it’s clearly being built as a freemium thing, since it had locked modes (the single player offerings of Score Attack, CPU Battle, and Blind Time Attack) at launch and paid themes. YAY.

Even more “YAY” how even private matches are walled beyond a paid upgrade.

But the main, free attraction is obviously the eponymous “Pacman 99” mode. While everyone plays in their separate mazes, by eating ghosts you sent mini-Pacmans into other players’ games, which aren’t deadly but will slow you down, and this can be used alongside the… NOT explained at all ability to choose how the power pellets operate to create more strategies: stronger power pellets will do more damage, but the time the ghosts will stay vulnerable for less time, etc. Also, while the mini-Pacs can be simply eaten, it’s better to not ignore them completely either…

There’s a bit more to digest here in terms of extra layers over the time-tested Pac Man formula in comparison to (take a swig) Tetris 99, so it may not be as immediatly intuitive, but regardless if you use the more advanced strategies or not, it’s yet again a surprisingly simple, addictive & effective way to adapt an arcade classic, enhancing the formula for modernity without compromising or ruining it in the process.

The Disappeareance of Balan Wonderworld’s Demo [HANDS ON]

To be honest, while i knew of this title since it was announced… i also kinda forgot about it, knew was coming out, but i didn’t particularly care, even if did look like Nights Into Dreams platformer, fairly obvious since this was from Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima’s new company, formed specifically to make this new title, the aptly titled Balan Company. It looked a bit cheapish, but whatever, could be fun, though i wondered why we didn’t see reviews already out for it.

Then i saw people in the internet calling it a “dumpster fire”, the press giving it low scores (very low scores), the fact that the demo could accidentally cause seizures due to an unforeseen bug, that Square Enix (who published the title) didn’t actually give out review codes for it, and then this week Square Enix removed the demo with just a couple of days notice before doing it, so people that want to see for themselves if the game it’s as bad as they heard now will have to pay the full 60 bucks. Or pirate it.

Thankfully i downloaded the demo on PS4 (and Switch and PC just for kicks) long before, so i was able to play that… and even from that you can get a grip of many problems pointed out in reviews for the full game.

And i really feel like i should say SOMETHING, because this is kinda tragic.

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[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Defense Force iOS | ♫ To protect Mother Earth… ♫

The second of the three mobile Godzilla games promised by Toho for 2021, advertised a month ago as Godzilla Battle Line, published by Nexon and co-developed by Neople and Studio 42.

After the odd but cute stats raising-pet simulator of Run Godzilla, now we have a more traditional offering for a mobile licensed spin-off game. It’s not exactly a proper tower defense, but more of a tapper with RTS elements: units despatch and attack automatically the enemy waves from building you can upgrade, but you can also tap on them for extra damage (especially when their weak points show up), or use the various Kaiju Cards left by fallen monsters and/or obtained via card packs, of course available to purchase for real money.

It’s a decent little timewaster, a little more engaging than the usual tapper, but it’s aggressively monetized, even if it’s oddly pushy in making you watch ads to boost stats like production speed or to get resources, instead of just saying “cough up the cash to save time”, and i feel it’s the lesser evil of the options they could have gone with. BUT it still feeds into the same objective: to get you spending real money on the card packs and batches of premium currency, especially since the game remembers you revenge can be had easier by wiewing ads, etc.

Presentation is good, the story is what you’d expect, as an EDF commander you organize a defense line to repel kaijus attacking Earth, often sent and/or resurrected by the evil aliens called Xilliens. By progressing you get new locations to build bases, the ability to summon new allies with passive abilities, new monsters (some obscure references to Toho’s non-Godzilla material), making for a decent and entertaining loop, even if you’d wish for a bit more depth to it.

[EXPRESSO] Run Godzilla iOS | Tamakaiju

Toho plans to release not one, not two, but THREE Godzilla mobile games this year worlwide, and the first one is the already available Run Godzilla, which isn’t an endless runner (despite the title kinda implying it), but more a simulator-raising game where you take care of your very own kaiju in order to… make it run like a horse.

I’ve seen people describe it as basically Uma Musume but with kaijus instead of horse girls… and it’s not that far off. And by that i mean it’s basically a stat building game where you increase the stats of the monster before taking on races, where you can just tap a button to encourage the monster to go faster, but that’s about it, you don’t control the kaiju directly.

Strenghtening the monster is done via a typical idle game setup, as you juggle resources to have enough people praying for the monster to grow, extend the time they will stay in the group, pick up apples and gems to recruit more people, and change weather to influence the growth of a some stats over others. The kaiju itself has an “expiration date” which can’t be extended, but the following generation/monster will inherit some experience points, and the loop repeats.

It’s more complex to look at than to actually play, just a thing you’re supposed to tinker with on a somewhat regular base, as timers keep running regardless, so you might come back to find the your digital “pet kaiju” (one you don’t have to feed or “poopscoop”) already dead/expired.

It’s a thing to thinker with more than play, and while it’s very honest about it, outside of the initial novelty it’s hard to care for long if you have at least another free-to-play game/app you keep coming back to regularly.

Azur Lane: Slow Ahead (2021) [REVIEW] | Slice O’ Boat

Might as well, since that second season or second adaptation of the Kancolle anime is still nowhere to be seen, so once again Azur Lane will outright “eat its lunch”.

And i did already review the previous Azur Lane anime adaptation, so i feel kinda obliged to cover this one as well. Not that it shares a direct connection, as it adapts an on-going Azur Lane 4-koma slice of life manga, Slow Ahead, which omits the whole “kriegsmarine” (and annexed wave ruling) aspect of the franchise and just focuses on the daily lives of the shipgirls living in the Azur Lane base, taking as main characters the girls’ quartet of Laffey, Z23, Ayanami and Javelin.

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[EXPRESSO] Crash Bandicoot: On The Run iOS | N.Sane Freeconomy

After a soft-launch in some Asian countries last year, now the Crash Bandicoot runner (developed by trademark abuser & bully King, yes, i have the power of “memory”) launched worldwide, and since i still can’t find Crash Bandicoot 4 at a decent price, might as well review this.

Cortex is up to his usual stuff, which means he sent his minions to conquer various dimensions, but Coco found a way to kick their asses and save the multiverse, which involves Crash and Aku running their way through familiar levels.

After you’ve crafted the weapons required for the boss or to even enter the level, with the usual gaggle of resources needed to craft items and timers, all avoidable with the premium currency. And of course the usual gaggle of base building stuff and social integration. You might say it’s at least upfront about it being a free-to-play game, i will say that Activision and associates evidently don’t feel it necessary to even mask the issue, so they just start pummelling your resolve very early, even if you do know the shitty deal, doesn’t matter.

The gameplay itself it’s alright, i mean, a Crash Bandicoot endless runner makes a LOT of sense, it looks good and runs well, but it doesn’t really stand out in this crowded genre, even if this does have finite levels, alongside looping and proceduraly generated ones. It starts very run of the mill, but the level design does improve after the initial phase and there are some tough extra challenges.

Shame new areas and story runs aren’t that distinct or well designed to be worth the grinding and farming they’re locked behind, which only gets more taxing as the game progresses and keeps pestering you into buying the premium currency.

Vexation which isn’t optional, at all.

That Old Gray Mare: Pretty Derby

Remember Uma Musume? Yeah, ironically the anime version, which is usually used to prop up the main attraction of the media franchise… almost managed to have 2 entire seasons (and a chibiesque mini-anime) out before the game released just a few weeks ago (and today the PC version released via DMM, japan only of course), at least in Japan and i guess other asian countries.

I really should have covered the anime series (given i’ve already covered almost all Azur Lane anime iterations), but at the moment my schedule is full, so probably later this autumn. I would like to give the game itself a shot and make an EXPRESSO review eventually, but i can wait for an eventual western release of the app.

I wouldn’t expect an official western release anytime soon, considered the game was supposed to launch in 2018, but it’s Cygames and we did eventually get Princess Connect Re; Dive (which i didn’t like, but whatever), so it’s possible.

So that’s that, back to Giant Monster March!

[EXPRESSO] Alice In Borderland (Season 1) (2020) | Through The Killing Glass

A live-action Netflix series based on the manga of the same name by Haro Aso (Hyde & Closer; Zombie 100: Bucket List Of The Dead), Alice In Borderland is about a young guy called Arisu, as he and his best friends find themselves mysteriously lost in an alternative version of Tokyo, and forced to play dangerous games of various nature in order to survive and hopefully discover a way out. All with a fairly gratitous & superficial Alice In Wonderland theme: a character called Mad Hatter, Arisu being the japanese pronunciation of “Alice”, the importance of game cards, etc.

It’s entertaining and you can tell it’s made for modern audiences, as it mostly throws the viewer into the action and events without explaining much, but i really can’t fault it for that because direction by Shinsuke Sato (Princess Blade, Death Note: Light Up The New World), it’s fairly tight, and the public…. is most likely already QUITE familiar with this type of stories: death games, the alternative Tokyo, elaborate trap scenarios with time limits, etc. The series does a decent job with these elements, even if it may feel a touch too derivative and overly familiare at times.

It doesn’t help the lead character, Arisu is presented as this cautious genius with a gamer past, but he inconsistently goes from being smarter than Light Yagami… to not noticing downright obvious traps, depending on that episode’s script. And don’t expect too much from the other characters.

Even so, it’s still quite fun to see these grisly scenarios unfold, the production values are good, and while the middle part kinda drags itself along, it picks up a lot after that, so overall it makes for a fun watch, leading to a cliffhanger ending… and thankfully a confirmed renewal for a second season.

Samurai Warriors 5 [ANNOUNCEMENT TRAILER RAMBLE]

After being presented in the last Nintendo Direct (which i saw but didn’t write a post about because i couldn’t be arsed), yesterday we got a slightly longer announcement trailer from Tecmo Koei, some more info and footage, alongside pre-order bonuses, a confirmation on what platforms it would launch and a more precise release date.

Speaking of which, i’m kinda surprised the game (at the moment) doesn’t have a planned PS5 version, odd considering they announced Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires (which is a month away, more or less) would have a PS5 and Switch release back in 2020. Considering how they just releases in the west Persona 5 Strikers on PS4 with no plans of next-gen version, maybe it’s because they are waiting for when more people have made the “gen jump”, i mean, it’s gonna be slower than usual anyway given the circumstances. Hardly even feels like we just entered a new console gen.

The game itself.. looks good, at least i can say that for the art direction (the after-musou attack sumi-e screen are gorgeous), more otome-like, why not, and i’m liking the new designs, the decision to focus on the Nobunaga-Akechi relantionship is fine as well. One could say they are attempting a “soft reboot” with this one, but still, this is not an excuse to say that the game will have just 27 playable characters (most returning and someone new, of course), HALF of what Samurai Warriors 4 had.

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