Tag: Action

[EXPRESSO] Sly Spy/Secret Agent NSWDDL | Rolling Thunderball

Another Switch eShop sale on old arcade games from Data East (as part of the Johnny Turbo’s Arcade releases), another EXPRESSO review.

This time i picked up Sly Spy… never even heard of it before, but it look like it’s gonna be heavy on spy movie cliches and Bond references…for 2 bucks, sure,

And my intuition was spot on, alongside plenty of posters in the background, bearing titles or characters from other Data East games, like Karnov or Bad Dudes, there are plenty of Bond references in it. I was also right in guessing it being a fairly transparent Rolling Thunder rip-off, from the screenshots and description.

While it’s totally that, the game tries to disguise it a bit byt adding some variety, since it opens on a sky.-diving level, has a driving section on a bike with built-in machinegun and a couple of underwater levels where you harpoon sharks avoiding scuba enemies and mines.

The variety isn’t bad at all, but the main bulk is still on-foot levels and it’s basically Rolling Thunder, with a limited amount of ammo for the gun and the deliberate inability to just shoot upwards. Same sidescroller formula, plus the ability to shoot while jumping, use fists and kicks when you’re out of bullets, minus the ability to enter doors to replenish ammo. You can also fire a powerful golden gun-rifle when you get all pieces from fallen enemies.

And like Rolling Thunder, while there is some challenge involved, it’s way more about memorization of the often unfair level design through multiple quarters inserted into the machine and out of your pockets.

It’s alright, all things considered, but i don’t recommend spending more than 2 bucks on it, since it’s a very short experience from an era of design best left in the past.

[EXPRESSO] Bleed PSN | All The Shakespearoes

You’re not a hero. You’re a girl with magenta hair, Wryn, and you do have pen and paper, so it’s time to write and draw yourself into a story where heroes aren’t relevant anymore, and you twin-stick shoot your way through the random cabal of ex-heroes, from the alien defender, the “Astrogirlie” robot, the dragon, etc. so you can indict yourself to the Hall Of Heroes in the story you insert youself in. And maybe think what would Travis Touchdown would do.

The story is non-sensical meta-narration there just to “excuse” the kitchen sink approach to enemies and bosses, complete with passable 2D retro style graphics and characters that remind one of early 2000’s webcomics. Here it’s cute because it doesn’t hide itself under some “high pretense”, and because it focuses on what it wants, gameplay, and to be honest it delivers, combining side scrolling action in a twin stick shooter style,with emphasis on style, since you’ll have to master the triple jump dash and a bullet time bar to avoid the fairly challenging patterns of enemies and bosses.

Controls fairly well, shooting is satisfying, it’s quite challenging even on the standard setting without feeling impossible and so becoming just pure frustration. It’s good fun, but it’s fairly short lived fun, by design drawing in from the arcade era with just 6 stages. This isn’t necessary an issue, since it is a small indie title sold for relatively cheap, but i can’t say it has as much replayability as it parades, as aside from harder difficulties and trophies/achievements, the extra modes are kinda lousy, and there isn’t much that much to unlock or upgrade.

I’d still recommend pickin it up for fans of the twin stick shooters and sidescrollers, especially when it’s bundled on sale with the sequel, Bleed 2.

Dino December #6: The Jurassic Games (2018)

If there are laws in genre cinema, one might be that every kind of movie can be made worse, better, or both by including dinosaurs. Even if it can’t, somewill randomly mix dinosaurs with any other subject, so the “dinosaur singularity” will happen, regardless.

Basketball with dinosaurs. Coming of age stories with or about dinosaurs. The decadence of men and its social constructs, with goofy dinosaurs in office suits and vests. Dinosaurs with other dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with guns, or dinosaurs that are also guns. The sky and the abyss stretch open wide forever, and the dino universe expands.

Continua a leggere “Dino December #6: The Jurassic Games (2018)”

[EXPRESSO] They Came From The Sky NSWITCHDDL | Beam It Up

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After debutting last year on Steam, FobTi Interactive’s “flying saucer 2D abduction simulator is now also available on Nintendo Switch, where it honestly feels more at home, given it’s designed primarly for quick runs, and oddly it’s NOT a mobile port.

They Came From The Sky (not to be confused with “They Came From The Skies” on PS2) definitely delivers on its title, since it’s a 2D arcade style game, with pixel art to match the premise of playing as an alien saucer, attacking the 50s with a simple goal: to abduct humans (animals as well) and make delicious smoothies with them. So the premise goes anyway, you won’t see any retro, faux 8-bit pixel gore in any detail.

Gameplay is simple, as the ufo scrolls automatically in the sky, and when you use the beam to capture humans and collect power-ups, you also change in which direction the ufo is gonna move, so timing is essential to avoid rockets or bullets from the human opposition (unless you manage to collect enough energy for a warp drive), and at the same time to keep the combo going, because it’s either a high score race in a limited time, o a survival run. Either case, you’ll see and hear Godzilla in the background.

Admittely, there isn’t much in the way of stuff to unlock (with in-game coins ONLY obtained via playing) in any “long term”, outside of 5 extra ufos with different stats, there are 3 background/cities to play in, there’s local multiplayer for max 4 players, but it definitely nails the arcade formula of simple control scheme but far from immediate (and potentially quite addictive) mastery of the combo system.

Perfect for coffee breaks, honestly. And for 3 bucks (full price), this is a no brainer if the premise intrigues your high score brain.

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[EXPRESSO] Sol Levante (2020) | 4K Anime Fireworks

Sol Levante 2020 poster

Ok, apparently this arrived at the beginning of April on Netflix (Netflix Exclusive), and more than wonder how i missed hearing anything about it despite being quarantined at home, this just shows how much i use Netflix overall. I never even saw even a mention of this one on social media, so i’m gonna do what i can to help.

And yes, this is more of an announcement than a review, because Sol Levante (italian for “rising sun”, despite being a japanese production) isn’t or wasn’t meant to create an interesting story or world, but to test what exactly can you do with animation designed for 4K and HDR displays, with detailed hand-drawn animation produced by Netflix in collaboration with Production I.G, directed and conceived by Akira Saitou.

So the plot is vague at best, concerning a young female warrior (with fantasy ninja outfit) on a quest to reach a sacred place that is said to fulfill any wish, but she has to fight off the mystical and magical guardians of the Sanctuary, who vary from magma dragons, magic trees, sea monsters, etc. It’s good the summary tells you that, because there is no dialogue or text to explain anything, because the budget was already astronomical and the workload (2 years of work) insane, so you don’t get any context, even if the narrative is mostly self-explanatory, despite being bland and barely there.

But – again- Sol Levant was made to be a huge technical exercise, and it delivers with great animation, really detailed and incredibly colorful visuals, spectacle at its finest. It is truly impressive, while it lasts, but even so, this 4 minute short does sells you on the idea that this could be a new starting point for the future of animation overall.

Definitely interesting and worth a watch, regardless.

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[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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