[EXPRESSO] Umamusume: Pretty Derby iOS | Equus Focus

Finally, the horsing can begin on global scale, with the worlwide release of Umamusume: Pretty Derby, the original smarthphone free-to-play game (though it launched here alongside the PC version on Steam) that launched this popular anime multimedia franchise.

The deal is “simple”: horse girls exists, inheriting funny names from famous racing horses of our real world, and they compete in specific footrace championships…. and since it’s a japanese anime multimedia niche franchise, they also do idol show performances, because why not?

It’s a “pretty derby”, after all.

The game itself it’s – fitting enough – basically an idol-athlete raising simulator, where you act as a Trainer and manage an Umamusume career, gameplay being a lot of micromanaging of the talent in order to have her prepared/fit to run and win races, with story and events (affected by the selection of support cards) playing out VN style, and specific set goals to achieve within the given amount of turns, otherwise you fail the career …though that will just happen, and it’s kinda necessary since you can pass down “legacy boosts” by selecting characters that already attempted (or completed) a career.

Suprisingly, the game doesn’t pester you into the gacha to have you favourite umasumume improve and eventually win, so it’s pretty generous, even though some of the characters…are just better, which will matter for the competitive scene long term, for now the PvP consists of a single asyncronous mode.

It looks pretty dang good, the soundtrack is great, the micromanaging is not too overcomplicated, the races themselves are actually pretty fun to watch, and it remains engaging even if the gameplay loop is repetitive and so are the way events/scenarios shuffle during the career/story, thanks to the fun characters and the well written mix of slice of life and sports drama.

Dynasty Warriors Origins [DEMO] [HANDS-ON] STEAM

I didn’t promise a hands-on first impressions on the demo of the newest Dynasty Warriors game, Dynasty Warriors Origins, because i don’t have a next gen console, and usually i play my musou games like that, but i figured out, there’s a Steam demo as well, maybe my relatively ancient rig can run it fine… and it did, actually surprised me that it’s good enough to run it decently.

So here it my opinions on the demo of Dynasty Warriors Origins, which lets you play one of the classic bouts of the series, The Battle Of Sishui Gate, where the Anti-Dong Zhuo Coalitation attacks united and you also get to meet the demon in red, the mightiest among men, the one you do not pursue: Lu Bu.

So, in case you didn’t follow or knew of this new Dynasty Warriors game, the gist is that you play as a lone Wanderer, a skilled yet aimless martial artist that gets involved into the turbolent battles and political machinations of the characters from Romance Of The Three Kingdoms, so you can basically decide around a bit, and interact and fight alongside the many characters fans of the novel and Koei series have learned to know, love and hate.

It’s not quite an OC or a CAW character similar to how you had a self-insert protagonist in the Samurai Warriors Chronicles games, as the Wanderer is a precisely designed character and so you can’t change much about his looks (nor you can choose for a female option, as far as i remember), not that it matters for the portion of game given by the demo.

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[EXPRESSO] Metal Slug Awakening iOS/PC | Heavy Gaching Gun

Finally someone decided to show its face globally, with a Metal Slug game that’s actually a run-n-gun shooter and not some tower defense or strategy-lite card thingie, Metal Slug Awakening (previously announced as Metal Slug Code J and available for years in SEA markets), aka the closest thing to a new, proper mainline Metal Slug title we’re gonna get with the new SNK.

In an unsurprising yet fitting fashion, it’s very similar to Contra Returns – also on mobile smartphones – not too surprising since it’s from the same developer, Timi (which also worked on Mega Man Dive X), it has an original storyline about a pharaoh and 4 gems, nothing worth committing to memory, as is the kinda rubbish and arguably random english voice acting.

I think they did a decent job at translating the art style to 3D models, though the new character designs really reek of “chinese gacha shit”, they do.

That aside, gameplay is traditional Metal Slug, with actually quite decent touch controls and some controller support (more for the Steam version), some concessions to modernity and a LOT of concessions to mobile gacha freemium design, from exps books and materials for upgrades, multiple tiers of rarity for everything, mini and normal bosses being more spongy so to incentivate using a weapon/character that inflicts more damage or status effects to certain types of enemies.

It’s not bad and the levels are new, but both level designs and foes dip heavily in nostalgia, so expected to see A LOT of old faces from the series’ long history.

Shame the F2P bullshit add various layers of faux complexity to deal with, and can make the difficulty fluctuate heavily.

It’s worth a try, but you actually wanted a proper Metal Slug 8, this ain’t, nor was ever gonna be.

[EXPRESSO] Metal Slug Attack Reloaded STEAM | Freemium Free

So, yeah, this was unexpected, not unprecedented, but definitely unexpected, especially due to how quickly modern SNK put out and closed these free-to-play Metal Slug spin-offs.

But yeah, now the second tower defense Metal Slug title (Metal Slug Defense was a bit too old and kinda left unsopported for years, so it made sense to bring this one out of the freezer) is back as a 10 bucks single purchase, no microtransactions, timers or limited energy to play, none of that.

I’ve actually played quite a bit of the game when it was free-to-play on iOS, so it’s both kinda cool and weird to see it back as an actual game, you know, the ones you pay once and are actually meant to be played without the serpent of Eden asking for your credit card info.

I find it’s actually playable now, as the original release was notable worse in fighting anyone that didn’t wanna pay up, incredibly aggressive, a lot worse than Metal Slug Defense was, too.

Still, it’s a fairly mindless tower defense title, somewhat enjoyable despite very little strategy and little depth to it (which was also true of Metal Slug Defense, btw).

That said, it’s not a remake and it serves as a testament that nothing is actually free in free-to-play, because the design is untouched, meaning that the game is still unbalanced, heavy on difficulty spikes and grinding, holdovers that make littles sense without the F2P monetization, like the gacha to recruit units for which you’re given a fuckton of what was the “premium currency”.

Kinda odd as they also kept in the PvP online battles, but i guess why not, it’s not like they were gonna even try to balance this thing, it would have required pretty much making a new game from scratch.

P.S.: This review was made after playing the game a little after launch, pointing this out because this review has been (coincidentally) posted just before SNK announced in late November a vague free update coming in the future.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath Of The Mutants PS4 [REVIEW] | Arcades In Times

Since it’s un-officially “ninja month”, let’s talk ninja. Mutant teenage turtles ninjas.

And while their popularity and games based on the series still doesn’t waver, so much that we recently got a tie-in game to the 2023 animated film TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, TMNT: Splintered Fate, and one about the Last Ronin spin-off series by the TMNT original creators coming next year.

But we’re not talking about those, or the well received Shredder’s Revenge.

Nope, we’re going back to 2017, indirectly, thank to the recent release of the 2017 TMNT arcade game by Raw Thrills, in this expanded port (gaining the “Arcade” moniker and a new subtitle since there are literally dozens of TMNT game just called “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”) handled by Cradle Games and distributed (even physically) by… shovelware maestro Gamemill Entertaiment.

Though this is not shovelware, i had the pleasure to play this machine/arcade cabinet more than once in my local arcades, and it’s quite fun 3D side scrolling beat em up, obviously trying to arken back to Turtles In Time, as these arcade TMNT titles often do, for nostalgia but also because it was indeed a quality title worth trying imitation and the flattery that – ideally – that would imply.

It’s a pleasant surprise regardless, since i doubt anyone was expecting this, expecially given how some digital only TMNT titles have gone delisted entirely, especially made for smarthphones offering and arcade releases. The TMNT Cowabunga Collection is great but some titles will always be bound to being emulated, at best, like the Tiger handheld games and such.

This not the case, as we get the game seen and played in the arcades as well as some new extra levels, which is a good things since Gamemill still asks more than it should for a physical copy, but we’ll discuss that later.

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Platformation Time Again #1: Ty The Tasmanian Tiger HD [PS4/STEAM]

HISTORY

After Pangaea was no more, Sony released the Playstation 2.

I did receive one for Christmas 2002, and if you also did, you will remember the original “fat” model was kind of a piece of shit, but besides that, that generation of machines would eventually become the “Twilight Of The Gods” age for the mascot platformer, which was also often the “collectathon” kind of platformer and had already peaked, especially on the Nintendo 64, where Rareware did crystalize decades of 2D platformer and collectible obsession with Banjo Kazooie, before completely quintupling down on this style with the infamous Donkey Kong 64.

While they were starting to feel like a dying trend, it must be made clear that even if they were not as rampant as on the PS1 and Nintendo 64, there were still a LOT of 3D platformers that console generation, either sequels of legacy series or new IP s, because they were still quite profitable, and – while shrunk – the market for these kind of games did exist, Nintendo aside that kept doing their thing as they have been for decades, regardless of trends or logic or many other things.

What i mean by this is that while Naughty Dog continued their platform games legacy with the Jak Daxter series, other studios threw their hat in the ring with new mascot platformer, hoping one day to see them playing golf, tennis or racing each other, and the Australian Krome Studios were certaintly one of those studios that did such a thing, with Ty The Tasmanian Tiger, published by EA Games and released in 2002 on PS2, X-Box and Gamecube.

Makes more sense than having Polish people making games about kangaroos, i guess.

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Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon PS3 [REVIEW] | #summerofedf

The EDF wasn’t quite new to spin-offs, as EDF 2 got a tactical turn based spin-off, developed by thinkarts and released westward as a PAL only release under the Global Defence Force: Tactics title, but it’s fair to say this is the more well known one, as it released globally after EDF 2017 as a sort of “fail safe” title, just in case the mainline titles were too niche and “japanesy”, here’s another more tailored to western gamers of the time, developed by now defunct Vicious Cycle Software (Robotech: Battlecry, Puzzle Quest: Challenge Of The Warlords, Dead Head Fred – which i really should review, it’s an interesting little game – The Matt Hazard games, the Pac Man and The Ghostly Adventure duology, alongside a dozen or so of licensed and-or tie-in games about kid oriented IPs like Ben 10, Flushed Away and actually ended their run on a Kung Fu Panda licensed title).

Basically EDF 2017: USA Edition, as willed by D3, which i can’t blame them for, not in retrospective, as it the late 2000s-early 2010s saw basically a giant racist crusade against anything gaming related coming from Japan sweeping the industry, i lived through it and remember too well, so yeah, not surprised D3 went for this option just to be sure it got some footing for EDF.

That aside, the premise is basically EDF: USA in terms of plot as well, very B-movie stuff as expected and desired: aliens, bringing in tow robots and giant insects (and giant robots, which also include giant robot insects) invade the city of New Detroit, and is up to the Strike Force Lightning, a team of elite soldier from the Earth Defense Force, to blast them aliens bastards to bits and save the day.

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My (Almost) 2 Hours With The Metal Slug Tactics DEMO on Steam

I promised i would make a hands on first impressions about the demo for the Metal Slug strategy RPG spin-off, Metal Slug Tactics, and i knew the demo was gonna be available to grab for a limited time… though i misread the news article posted by the developer, Leikir Studios, because i assumed it was gonna be a limited time release to get… but it was actually always meant to become unavailable after June 17th.

It was eventually extended until June 27th, but i didn’t know that, i just assumed i could keep using the demo, but again, i’ll take some of the blame, as the announcement article said “will be live until June 17th”, the dev team could have made it more clear this was a demo meant to self

As i didn’t know that i put off finishing the demo until i had some free time for that, only a week too late, and to find the “play” button for the Metal Slug Tactics demo in my Steam library turned into a “Purchase” link redirecting to the store page… even when you can’t actually buy the game yet, in any form.

This means i didn’t play and finish the final maps of the demo region, but i did write 2 pages of impressions, notes and clocked 96 minutes into the demo, which is more than enough to get the feel for the game, so, instead of a proper hands-on article, you’re getting this “salvage write-about” thingie, because i do have something to say about the game, even in this early demo stage, which show the game is far from being in the “larval” stage, despite some features not available, like controller support, as the devs clearly stated both in the Steam store page news and in the demo itself.

Compromise is a bitch but i do wanna keep my word, so here it goes, fellas.

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Samurai Maiden PS4 [REVIEW] #meleemay

I’ve been waiting to cover this one for a while, but i had to wait for it to go on a decent discount, since D3 Publisher went extra crazy and asked 50 bucks (70 for the Deluxe Edition that includes all DLCs, mostly costumes and music from other D3 franchise like Bullet Girls) for what was obviously another budget game of theirs.

Having played all Oneechanbara games and waiting for the Namco Bandai owned company to finally announce the western release for EDF 6 (which was supposed to be out this spring but was eventually delayed to late July 2024), i did want to play Samurai Maiden earlier, but the absurd price really held me off, i’m not fucking paying 70 bucks for a complete edition of a digital only release of a D3 Publisher budget hack n slash anime game.

Curiously, despite the publisher involved and the premise of hack n slash action using a japanese anime high school girl, this is NOT the fanservicey fest you’d expected, i guess after the “prude crusade” Sony went (for whatever reason, since they were the main platform for most Senran Kagura games before), niche titles like this had to tippy toe on their tits to see what’s ok now.

the plot sees regular high school girl Tsumugi transported back to the Sengoku period, isekai’d directly during the Honno-ji incident so she can chat up Oda Nobunaga and have three female anime ninjas explain she was summoned there because she’s a discendant of a so called “Miko Of Prosperity”, and a prophecy involving her and a Demon Lord was foretold, etc.

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Devil’s Third WII U [REVIEW] | Big Mouse Strikes Again

It’s the spooky-ooky season, so it means nothing but it’s a good enough excuse to review some shitty videogame of fecal magnitude, or ones that were so bad they made many “worst of year” lists, and come with some depressing and-or absurd history to them. For indeed, “the horror!”.

And Devil’s Third definitely fits the bill, being one of the many titles that confirmed once again that sometimes you should just quit when you’re ahead, or before tarnishing your own legacy due to boneheaded behaviour in mismanaging projects that languish for years due to an accolade of deals falling through, changing engines and platform targets, only to eventually release and make one realize that maybe you can actually lose talent over time.

And as they do, stories like this just highlight how even successfully rebooting the Ninja Gaiden franchise for the original X-Box… won’t stop your career from having a “Tommy Wiseau of The Room” moment, highlighting that sometimes these legendary creators might have actually needed the company they supposedly left to do whatever they wanted, not the other way around.

Especially when the finished game had to basically receive a “pity publishing” deal from Nintendo, as no one else wanted to publish this one for years (including Nintendo Of America), so it became a Wii U exclusive because we were already in the death years of the system, and i guess Nintendo could use an action game that look like it could be on PS3 or 360. Or a game, stat.

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