Back again for my regular Sunday roundup of quick-fire reviews and impressions of everything under the spotlight at Retro Arcadia this week, old and new and a bit of both. Unless you want to hear about painting windows or a new shed being delivered damaged, absolutely nothing going on outside of gaming this week, although I am now counting down the last few days at work before I’m on holiday! Need to decide what handheld I’m taking too… That’s a nice problem to have though, and I’m sure I’ll report back in due course, so in the meantime, let’s get into what I’ve been playing this week!

I’m going to dive straight into Ball x Pit, an outrageously fun, hopelessly addictive and totally chaotic mash-up of Vampire Survivors and Breakout with a bit of bullet-hell shoot ‘em up, a touch of Stardew Valley and a lot of roguelite to boot! There might not be an original bone in its genre-spanning body (although it spans so many it’s hard to tell!) but everything it does is at the top of its game, with every system and mechanic as polished as it’s ever more mesmeric visuals. In fact, if I have one gripe, it’s that there are too many systems on the go, with one in particular I could do without – like most of them, it serves a perfectly fine purpose, but do I really need to be growing wheat when I could be gracefully firing endlessly upgradeable magic balls (and a hell of a lot more besides) at relentless and inevitably insurmountable waves of imaginatively undead nightmares inhabiting the treasure-filled pit where the fallen city of Ballbylon used to be? Everything is totally intuitive though, and usually very welcome too, with a constant stream of weapons and powers to unlock, level-up, fuse and evolve in the midst of battle, and the same for characters, buildings, resources and gear in-between. An ominously simple synth-heavy soundtrack then caps off a wonderfully unoriginal modern arcade experience that’s more than equal to the sum of its parts. Oh yeah, I’m playing on Xbox Game Pass (at least for another week until it expires) but I think it’s available everywhere. 

Gorf on the Commodore VIC-20 is probably the earliest game I ever owned that I’d consider an all-time favourite today… As reflected in my Top Ten Favourite Fixed / Single-Screen Shoot ‘Em Ups countdown here! That said, apart from a comparatively weedy last stage mothership and a few simplifications, the Atari 2600 conversion isn’t far behind in terms of gameplay at least, and now I own that too! I should also say there’s a reason why I’m talking about ports rather than Midway’s multi-stage, genre-hopping 1981 arcade original, and that’s my colourblindness, and in particular the problems it causes with the weird blue background in the opening level – it’s not a total showstopper but all the pioneering synthesised speech in the world can’t change that! Apart from the robotic taunting (or any sound beyond white noises!) though, and the missing Galaxian level that’s missing from all ports (for Namco reasons), this one is very good! The not-blue first level here is Astro Battle, and it’s a take on Space Invaders, and actually this version is also missing the bonus aliens and destructible parabolic shield spanning the entire screen but no big deal. Next is Laser Attack, where you’ve got a formation of enemies, one with the laser attack while the rest swoop, and the challenge seems to have been ramped up here to compensate for the absent second formation. Space Warp next, which plays a bit like Gyruss down a not very 3D-tunnel, albeit two years before that. Finally, we have the aforementioned Flagship level, where you need to penetrate its structure and blow it up, with the resulting “explosion” also very underwhelming compared to the VIC port. Beat that and it loops, and the further you go, the more you get out of it, with every stage performing well in its own right, and ending up a very addictive more than the sum of its parts this time. Fun as it is though, if we’re talking Gorf ports, then it’s still VIC-20 all the way, while if we’re talking 2600 ports of alarmingly similar games, then it’s still Phoenix all the way! 

I’ve been thinking about Hideo Kojima’s iconic cyber-sleuth ‘em up Snatcher ever since I finished it for the first time on Sega Mega-CD a few weeks back (more here). That was its only Western release, and as such the only way to play in English, but for many reasons it didn’t do well, so it’s no surprise it’s 1994 spiritual successor, Policenauts, never made it out of Japan at all. What’s considered a definitive 1996 Saturn version did eventually get a fan translation in 2016 though, and that’s the one I decided it would be a very good time to have a go at this week! And while it had nothing like the impact that Snatcher had on me, it certainly had its moments! It’s also a point-and-click-style graphical adventure, and is effectively Lethal Weapon in space (Mel Gibson and all), as you play a former astronaut found floating around after decades in cryosleep, who’s now a detective in 21st Century Los Angeles, at least until he gets involved in the murder of his ex-wife, interplanetary organ-trafficking, corporate drug dealing and all sorts of barely coherent, off-planet sci-fi nonsense, all in a very Kojima fashion! Speaking of which, all his usual very questionable sleaze too, as you move from scene to scene, exhausting each location of expansive dialog trees, a few puzzles, and some dreadful lightgun-shooter-type action sequences. It’s all extremely linear to the point of playing out like a barely-interactive visual novel a lot of the time, but that’s not to say it won’t sometimes drive you mad trying to work out what it wants you to do so you can actually do what you already know what you want to do! But it’s got a great cast of characters to keep you on your toes, a vibrant and cinematic anime art style, a reasonable jazzy soundtrack, some Japanese voice-acting and an increasingly engaging and enjoyable storyline. And overall I did enjoy it, despite its best efforts at times, and I loved the nods to Snatcher and Metal Gear (and eighties action movies), and just its ambition. Glad I was able to play it at last, and special thanks to those passionate translators who allowed me to! 

Before my subscription runs its course at the end of the month, I have also been firing up a bunch more Xbox Games Pass stuff I’d previously downloaded but never got to, like Visions of Mana, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled and Octopath Traveller II, which I do regret not getting to sooner but there’s always a sale… And all that money I’ll be saving! I have just started Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga too, and plan to see where that goes, at least until Ninja Gaiden 4 arrives on the service next week, so hopefully more on both of those next time! That will do us for now though, but in case you missed it last Wednesday, do check out my Top Ten Favourite Single-Screen Platforming Games countdown, which turned out to be far more involved than I originally anticipated! Otherwise, I’ll just wish you a good week ahead and see you next Sunday!

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