Tag: retro

[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] Coffee Crisis NSWDDL | Bronco Blend

Coffee Crisis NSWDDL

I’m doing an Expresso review of this one because it doesn’t deserve a full review.

Coffee Crisis is retro brawler/beat em up inspired by 16-bit classics, as so proudly says in the marketing and description, and sports all the mandatory “indie quirks”, from mediodre-decent pixel graphics, a throwaway story so we can weaponize it as “joke” despite being a lazy and unfunny mish mash of overdone references and cringey exchanges regardless, so bad the writers should tar themselves, but clearly no one is vaguely ashamed.

I mean, we have to shoehorne appearences from Youtubers AlphaOmegaSin and MetalJesusRock (and somehow the legendary band Nile), need something to bait Twitch viewers in, clearly the plot about baristas fighting aliens that want to steal our heavy metal isn’t enough random “for the lulz” by itself.
Thankfully you can skip dialogues by pressing B.

Gameplay wise, it’s so faithful to its ispirations it’s downright obtuse, a prime example of not understanding the very genre you’re trying to serenade, not evolving or improving the combat system, and even badly aping them, with finnicky hit detection making most of the extra weapon useless, blows that don’t stop enemies so they power through your attacks, when they don’t snipe you with projectiles from outside the screen. Most of the difficulty is obtained via cheap bullshit, and it’s unbalanced as well, with boss fights that are usually piss easy and just annoying.

Its main selling point, the random modifiers, are such a liability the game improves when you deactivate them. Sadly you can’t turn off or ignore the password system as the sole mean to continue, and the game also quickly outstay its welcome, continuing on and on instead of ending.

At least the music is decent-good… but 30 years later, Bad Dudes it’s a way better game.

Still.

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