[EXPRESSO] Ninjala NSWITCHDDL | Not Squids, Ninja Kids, Now

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GungHo Online Entertaiment’s ninja themed free-to-play answer to Splatoon, announced years ago, then delayed but now available.

Gameplay-wise….. it’s basically Splatoon, but built as a melee based score deathmatch affair (with respawns), with the ink gimmick replaced by the Ninja Gum, essential as you can throw it, use it to dash mid-air, to transform into an object, or to fashion a stronger version of your weapon. If you can get enough “gum energy” from the drones, that is, which can also be used to activate a super move, alongside regular abilities with cooldowns.

Given this is melee combat only, weapon clashes are frequent – if not constant – so it’s not good that despite tutorials with Youtube videos baked in, trying to gain the upper hand always feels messy. No wonder, since it basically boils down to a QTE guessing game. There is more to Ninjala, there are abilities and complexities to learn (like wall running), but after a confusing first impression (made worse by a completely unbalanced matchmaking), where you either keep winning or losing without knowing WHY, you realize there the cool ideas and mechanics are flawed regardless.

On top of that, there are only 2 maps available right now, two modes (battle royale or team deathmatch), but the game is already bursting with freemium bullshit: various currencies, gacha, battle passes, cosmetic stuff like hats. And a story mode..10 bucks/5 eurobucks for chapter. ALSO, there are consumable weapon skins.

Art direction obviously apes Splatoon and it’s pretty good (ditto for the audio department), but technically speaking is just alright, though fairly stable in my experience.Mind you, it’s fun, despite the messy gameplay (some really messy design choices) and lack of content at the moment.

I’d just buy Splatoon 2 instead, to be blunt, but it’s worth try as it’s “nominally free”.

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[EXPRESSO] Pokemon Café Mix iOS | Got Milc?

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Another Pokemon puzzle game, another free-to-play (or more correctly, “free-to-start”, as Nintendo themselves likes to call these games) for mobile and Switch, this time with a cutesy pastel cafè aesthetic, as you manage a Pokemon cafè, operated by and for Pokemon, alongside a human girl, who acts as a general assistant-tutorial figure.

This is done via puzzle challenges, thankfully not of the “match 3” kind (we already had plenty of those with a Pokemon license), nor or the Panel The Pon/Puzzle League variety, but in turn based grid-less form, with the objective of linking together chains of pokemons, in order to activate an ability, destroy special blocks, or because of a stage requiring a certain quota of Pokemon pieces/icons to be matched.

Each pokemon has a specific ability, a specialization for a certain kind of dish (drinks, sandwiches, desserts, etc.), and as you progress you unlock more critters but also more recipes and new expansions for the cafè, which in turn introduce new elements and stage objectives, with some random chances of increasing the friendship level with a certain pokemon, who will join the staff.

The gameplay is decent, but the more free-form, grid-less style of level design makes it too reliant on abilities and consumable objects, a bit too helpful in this case, especially because you can also activate them during the stage, not just before. All to push you into buying the premium currency, which happens a bit too fast, it won’t take long to realize so with the limited energy system, timers and the extra turns costing a lot of “gems”.

While i’ve seen worse monetization schemes and freemium economies, there’s also the fact i’ve seen and played way better puzzles game. This is a very cute distraction (with a tad manipulative freemium economy), but not much else.

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The PS5 Reveal Obligary “Hot” Take

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So, after an earlier conference focused on specs and details that for many people don’t mean much of substance (one that was actually labeled as such, but people had to be outraged regardless, despite being their fault for not reading what it was about), and a week of delay made to be respectful of recent events in America (and the obscene crimes against humanity perpetrated by the police, because this is basically United States Of Nord Korea), this 11th of June Sony did their “Nintendo Direct” equivalent to unveil the new upcoming main console in the Playstation line, the PS5, share some more juicy details, and most important, show some games for it. Continua a leggere “The PS5 Reveal Obligary “Hot” Take”

[EXPRESSO] One Piece: Bon Bon Journey iOS | Match-3 Pirates

One Piece Bon Bon Journey iOS

There are many One Pieces videogames, even on smarthphones. This is another one, one that i actually pre-registrered for, but i didn’t noticed it released worlwide a couple of months ago.

For smarthphones we already had a One Piece lite RPG, a beat em up, a fighting game (among others never released outside of Japan, China or are defunct), so i guess it was time for a puzzle game, a match-3 with objectives (in the vein of that puzzle game that rimes with “baba yaga”), done in a chibi-esque style, with the numerous, regognizable and highly marketable cast of One Piece characters rendered as mini-sized round shaped head-dolls, like a cross between the actual “bon bons” pastry items and nicely decapited collectable figures.

And to my surprise, it’s actually fairly good, not original in any shape or form, but it actually retells the story from the beginning in a fairly decent manner (especially given the aesthetic choice), and finds ways to work the various scenes (even minor ones like the girl giving an onigiri to a tied Zoro in Shells Town) into the gameplay, with various goals and gimmicks to keep things interesting. This also means having a “toy on toy” style cutscenes for the more serious or epic scenes, like the ending of the Dracule Mihawk VS Zoro fight at the Baratie… which is a thing, not sure if good or bad though.

As far as the freemium economy goes… it’s nothing worthy of particular scorn, the usual free-to-play crap that is to be expected nowadays (shit as it is), with timers and gacha, but nothing out of the ordinary you haven’t already seen, and often done worst. Despite the usual freemium crap, here you can actually do some progress in a reasonable manner even in the later stages.

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[EXPRESSO] Helltaker STEAM | Best Grills

Helltaker STEAM

So, there’s this new game on Steam, describing itself as “a short game about sharply dressed demon girls”, with promise of anime harem (but again it points out “Suggestive clothing and poses. Don’t put your hopes too high though – it’s all tame.”), and it’s free. You can already see why it’s become somewhat of a sensation in the community. Which leads us to this question: are the demon girls cute? (YES)

As far as gameplay goes, it’s not what you might think given this premise, a puzzle game where you (as a sharply dressed and shades wearing badass) kick blocks, skeletons, get keys, avoid traps and proceed through Hell in a turn based fashion, with a turn limit to reach the end of the each level, where you meet a different demon girl in a visual novel-esque segment where you choose from a couple of replies and hope you charmed and/or convinced the hell cutie to join the harem. Otherwise they’ll stab you to death or give you a bad end of some kind.

Fairly good puzzles overall, but the game lets you skip them if you just want to get to the demon girls, with great character designs and very good music.

My main gripe isn’t the short lenght (you can finish it in 1, max 2 hours), is that the multi-stage boss fight at the end requires really fast reflexes and to keep moving around really fast… in a game that’s 90% turn based puzzle game without timers or urgency. It comes out of nowhere and feels more frustrating than it should, since the game doesn’t prepare you for that in any way. It’s like if at the end of a Dynasty Warriors battle you were forced to play a long RTS style map.

Still, quite good and quite the treat!

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[EXPRESSO] Zed Blade/Operation Ragnarok NSWDDL | Norsemech

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More Neo Geo titles on Switch? YES.

Like most offering in the Arcade Archives-ACA series by Hamster, the game has both the american/international release and the original japanese one, named Operation Ragnarok. Not that it matters, they took names from norse mythology, but you are still in the usual spaceships flying around, shooting mechs, insectoid robots n stuff, as one of three anime styled characters you can choose.

As for why, you’re up against the supercomputer-turned-rebellious spaceship Yggdrasil, not that you’re ever gonna find out if you don’t read the description in the store page or search wikia, because the game itself doesn’t tell you.

MHK’s game delivers a typical but satisfying 2D spaceship shooter, with an interesting feature, as you can (and must) customize the type of main shot, rear shot and missiles (all shot at the same time) at the start of the game, alongside one of the three characters, who determines the ship’s speed. There are power ups that improve each type of shot, alongisde the classic smart bombs, but you mostly gotta work with the loadout chosen at the beginning.

Graphics are nice, nothing impressive for the time, the music on the other hand definitely stands out, with EDM style tracks that i personally dig. Sadly, i don’t think it’s enough to overlook the generic nature and some balance issues, since your ship has a bigger sprite than it should, making it for some cheap deaths, but then again the smart bomb is a bit too powerful, and even without those, it’s an easier (and shoter) affair than usual for the genre.

Good game, still, definitely worth playing for fans of genre hungry for lesser known Neo Geo games, even if flawed and lacking distinguishing features in a sea of more popular (and often better) shmups.

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Cinemas Of The Christmas Future

If you live in Italy, there’s a good chance you already know this (so skip ahead), but as of now, cinemas (and theathers) should re-open in december, so yeah, we didn’t see Onwards in theathers last month, as you can guess.

Which is a bummer, to say the least, especially since the last thing i saw in theathers before the shut-down was Cats, yeah, the 2019 movie.

I’m writing this also to say that’s basically the reason i didn’t do any new movie review for the EXPRESSO column. I could, but i have plenty to do for the following months, i resurrected Kaiju-A-Go-Go on Wise Cafe (the italian blog) for this month, and i miss the cinema experience. I really do.

Thankfully i invested in a projector and some stuff, but still.

(image is from Yuru Camp/Laid Back Camp, which i love)

[EXPRESSO] Ninja-Kid NSWDDL | Ninja In The Hood

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Yeah, why, not, with sales on Neo Geo and arcade titles on the Switch eShop, let’s talk about arcade platformer Ninja-Kid, developed by UPL and now emulated by Hamster, who also brought to Switch and PS4 many arcade classics, including In The Hunt.

And no, this isn’t the american version of that NES GeGeGe No Kitaro game, also called Ninja Kid (without hyphen) for the NA release.

This one isn’t exactly what i would call a “classic”, and i’m honestly glad i bought it on sale. Not because the game itself it’s bad, it’s just that the old god Chronos hasn’t been too kind on this action platformer from 1984, that feels a bit like Ice Climbers (while pre-dating the Nintendo game by 1 year), due to how you have to move to jump or double jump, otherwise you’ll drop to the platform below.

It’s a simple game where you can jump to stun enemies, throw shurikens to defeat them, move upwards the mountain/castle/stage and once you get rid of all the foes, you can proceed to the next level.

There are three backgrounds/stages (and a bonus stage if you collect “three strange balls” without dying), but while enemies become more varied and more dangerous each level, there isn’t any end, it just loops the levels/background and keeps going, but that’s basically it. There is some strategy with approaching the enemies, but still, there’s not much to it, nor there was supposed to be more to it, as this was meant to be played in an arcade in 10 minutes burst at max.

That said, it’s a fun arcade oldie, once you get around the responsive but odd jump controls, and there’s satisfaction if you wanna go for the high scores, with the usual extra modes found in Hamster arcade re-releases.

Decent!

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Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain PS4 [REVIEW] | Mechas and Motherships

Once in a blue moon, D3 Publisher decides to entrust a niche series like Earth Defense Force to a different developer, instead of Sandlot, who curates the main numbered series (which itself tells you that it’s niche, but not THAT niche) since the very beginning and still do nowadays.

Last time Vicious Cycle Software developed EDF Insect Armageddon (which isn’t as bad as most EDF fans make it to be), a spin-off made with the intent to try and appeal to a broader audience, by basically posing the question “what if Americans made EDF?”. The answer being a decent game that didn’t convince many estabilished fans, but did help on making the series more known. An actual ending (the plot just stops at the end) would have been welcomed, though. Continua a leggere “Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain PS4 [REVIEW] | Mechas and Motherships”

[EXPRESSO] Mass For The Dead iOS | Bossing Lich Mobile

Anime licensing is often weird as hell when applied to videogames (see the Attack On Titan or My Hero Academia releases for recent examples), but like that Overlord themed Picross game, previously release as “Lords Of Nazarick”… it was kinda necessary, since this popular light novel/anime/manga isekai series has one of the most generic titles ever, and there already was a a videogame series called Overlord (beloved if fairly forgotten nowadays).

Despite this, this new adaptation it’s well presented, with even an original animated opening by MADHOUSE and a track by MYTH & ROID to make it feel like the anime, with redrawn background, some good Live 2D sprites and decent 3D in-game models. The game start off with the general premise of the protagonist, that find itself stuck in the fantasy world of the VRMMORPG he was playing as his lich avatar, but offers an original story with some new characters.

Gameplay wise, it’s a RPG, fittingly so, but more like a proper turn based rpg, with some convenient options (and a mostly useless autobattle function) AND some actual tactical nuance for when enemies become more powerful than a fly…. which will take a while, and even so, you will be a bit too prepared for the boss battles, until they start using way specific “almost instakill” moves. Then you grind or just use premium currency.

To be honest, i arrived at the second part of the story just for the sake of review, it’s kinda boring, and doesn’t have any peculiar “hook” to make you come back to it (outside the usual ones, anyway), the gacha differentiates between paid and free/in-game earned premium currency, there’s VIP/battle pass equivalent, etc.

It’s.. alright, ok, honestly.

It’s something for Overlord fans to do until the 4th season of the anime, at least.

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