Lapses

It's very pleasing to me that the Evercade seems to be doing well enough for them to branch out. I'm always on the border of getting one but I have about eight handhelds already.

They did a great job, it plays really well. It is blurry but you get used to that pretty quickly. And it's colourful! So colourful. I think it looks wonderful.

I think it's fair to give the benefit of the doubt in these cases. When you have a fairly simple chord progression and melody there are a limited number of directions you can go with it, so things will sound very similar every now and then.

I'd be perfectly happy to allow for coincidence, but there's also the possibility that the composer had the previous song deep in their subconscious as they were writing. It can then just fall in to place without the composer being aware that they have copied it. That's happened to me and it's infuriating when someone points it out because you felt proud of the composition and then it's entirely taken away. I think it's extremely unlikely that Yamasaki sat down and thought "I'm just going to copy a Ghostbusters song and change it a bit because I'm too lazy to come up with something original". It wouldn't even be that much easier than just writing something new but basic. You might not come up with a great song, but it would be better to have a forgettable tune or two than get accused of ripping off someone else's work. I don't imagine any composer out there would prefer the latter.

I think I just preordered a copy with two keychains and a steel book for £39.99 on Amazon UK...

Seems like a mistake, so who knows what will happen. I went on the deluxe edition which was currently unavailable and just changed it to the steel book version which let me preorder it. For £39.99? I hope so! I'll comment again when they cancel it 😂

@okeribok true, but also no drift and much better sticks. I also like the little flappy buttons on the back that you can map to any button you like, handy for shoulder button alternatives. Still quite pricey for this version, though, I'm sure previous models were cheaper.

I think it's fair for them to say not every studio has amazing 2d artists to hand and 3d is easier and more flexible. We can't expect Lizard Cube to do every remake.

It would have been interesting to talk to a studio back when they were struggling in the early days of 3d and tell them that soon it would be more difficult to go back to 2d production. There are a lot more development tools for 3d work now, I suppose. Maybe there ought to be some work on more tools for 2d development again? Like in this example, if the director wants to change the lighting of a scene surely there could be a shader that could update the sprites without having to completely re-draw them? Perhaps something similar to the lighting effects in Octopath Traveller could work.

Good for them, I hope it goes well. I've loved Sumo Digital's work so far.

Sega could still publish the occasional game for them, though..... hint, hint

I think Battle Brothers is out in March as well. Too much stuff! Almost hoping Amalur is a bad port so I can skip it...

Interesting to see another run of Brigandine after Limited Run Games did one. I'm not sure I remember any games getting multiple separate physical releases before. Good news if it's in response to high demand, perhaps we'll see it happen more often.

If they are saying a physical release (packaged? Not sure if that's physical but what else could it mean) then I don't see how it would be a cloud version. Code in a box would be stupid, but not overly surprising I suppose.

Anyway, great news. I love a bit of jank and never got around to this on pc.

Oh dear, I seem to have accidentally cheated! I am both Lapses and Jasper, must not have used the same account last time. Anyway, don't take it out on Sublevel Zero, that's still great. I'll just disqualify myself from any further opinions until next year in penance!

Siralim and Banner of the Maid have caught my eye mostly, but these are almost all titles I have overlooked so thanks all for contributing. Once 😁

@RustedHero yeah, it's a let down. Like Silly_G says, though, even if it was all on the cartridge there's trouble with the updates. There's also a fairly heavy online requirement for this title so there'd be no chance of preventing updates to get around it. Sadly it's best to consider this a download only title. On the plus side, there have been some heavy discounts on various bundles with dlc in the past, so I would expect that to happen again in half a year or so with this latest dlc.

The "physical" European version is a code in a box.

Ok, it is kind of funny to rag on this genre but I can confirm that Euro Truck Simulator 2 was a genuine pleasure to play. If this title is anywhere near as good then it'll be worth taking seriously. Relaxing and trucking around listening to podcasts is great fun.

It feels a bit like Sega are actively ridiculing themselves for this 60th anniversary. They have a history of amazing quality games they could be celebrating and instead they are putting out this? Very odd.

@Needeep I picked up Air Missions: Hind on switch and it has some pretty serious frame rate and bug issues. Enough to keep it off a Best Of list, in my opinion. That being said it is still very enjoyable and as there's nothing else like it on the platform I'd give it a recommendation to anyone who wants a tricky helicopter sim that rewards a bit of tactical thinking (and can put up with some jank).

Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers is worthy of inclusion on this list, in my opinion. It leans (very) slightly towards the sim side of arcade and does a good job with the campaigns being centered in specific carriers and their role in the war. It's a little rough here and there but there's not much else on switch that is as serious an attempt at a ww2 flight sim. Great cockpit views for those that like it that way (right stick to look around as well, very nice).

I just started replaying it myself. It's very colourful! I hadn't used the 3d effect in a long while and it was surprisingly impressive to see again. Having fun riding around on a velociprey, want to get a kut-ku!

If it's all on the cart I'm in. Too many cases of "part 3 requires a download" though and it's EA so generosity is not expected...

@RupeeClock oh dear, now that you mention it i think I remember that one. I appreciate what they are doing but sometimes it's just too exclusive. I'm sure they could offer some really good value packages if they chose to but instead they are aiming for the big spenders. That's fine, but it feels off when they then talk about being pillars of game preservation. Maybe I don't understand the business side, all the other companies do the same.

@RupeeClock I remember they did that with Turok and it was a shame then too. I've gone for a good few games from limited run and they've been great but I'm definitely more in the mind to cram as much into a cartridge as possible. I just want physical copies of stuff, not so fussed about the extras. If it's all about game preservation, why waste the empty cartridge space?

Crazy not to do this as a compilation with doom 1 and 2, that would have been very worth having.

I was hoping for virtua fighter 2, but perhaps that was a bit unrealistic. Oh well, I love space harrier and I didn't think we'd get that so I think that's swell. Good bunch of stuff on here I've never played so looking forward to discovering some stuff in December.

It looks a bit too fast paced to me. I remember thinking these toys were big, slow, stompy robots, but they look like they have no weight at all here.

That said, if the slug zoid is in it then I'm on board. or was it a caterpillar? Either way, it was great.

I'm always interested in a strategy title. Will need to wait for reviews on this one because it's an unknown entity at the moment but it looks promising.

I hope it's weird. It's got an interesting theme, so I hope they run with it and go with some unique mechanics. I don't need this to just be a vampire reskin of xcom or fire emblem, I'd like something I have to learn to work with.

These do look very cool, hopefully the build and emulation quality is at least decent.

A western release would be lovely but seems a bit of a long shot. Anybody have any wise words on if you could get by without being able to read Japanese for most of these titles?

I have the DXM pads and they are excellent. Aside from having some really nice sticks which help with accuracy (I'm not really a fan of gyro) it's nice to know that when my joycon start drifting again I have a reliable backup.

@aros2k no, I've never come across anything that quite scratches the itch. There are a lot of strategy games that have similar mechanics but without the 40k atmosphere, and a few good 40k games with very different rulesets. Dawn of war is a series that gets a lot of love (I played the first one a bit) - it's sort of a squad based RTS but you don't get a lot of faction choice, at least at first. That's all assuming you have access to PC gaming in some form as well, console pickings are pretty slim.

I've had a bit more time with mechanicus and I'm getting into it pretty heavily. There is a good feel of point allocation on which troops and abilities you take into battle, although on a much smaller scale than the tabletop version.

My experience of the save game bug: I've been playing iron man, so no option to actually make a save, just continue where you left off. So far no bug, so maybe that's an option for people having trouble until a patch? Iron man does have the usual frustrations, though. I've restarted a few times already...

Edit- confusing typo

@aros2k I don't have a source for this, and I'm not sure there has ever been an official statement about it, but I think Games Workshop won't allow developers to make games using the tabletop rules. I suppose the idea is that if there was a video game version with all factions etc it might eat into sales of the tabletop stuff. I agree that it would be awesome, and I imagine most 40k fans do as well, but you can see the business logic behind it.

Hopefully we get a few more games from this developer with a few different faction match ups. I just started this one last night and it's great. Hope I can load my game again today!

We really need to Lego of this obsession with retro consoles.

I've been playing the original Tomb Raider recently on PSP and it is a great time. Definitely a lot of nostalgia involved for me, so I don't know how enjoyable it would be for people that never played it.

I think the tank controls actually add quite a lot to the experience. It really slows it down and creates a very deliberate and tense style of platforming. Lots of walking. I like walking.

The poor performance is definitely a shame, and something that will have to be tolerated to get to the good stuff here.

I think we should be a bit less hard on the poor quality assets, though. Getting very high quality models and environments in a 3D game is a big chunk of work that is not likely to be economically viable for a small team, especially if the concept is quite ambitious. Plenty of developers go the pixel art route and we don't give them a hard time for that decision, so I think it should be just as acceptable to go for an early 3D style similar to the PS2 or PS1 era. We used to enjoy those games just fine. Plenty of really interesting designs that AAA studios wouldn't risk could potentially come about if developers weren't worried about being slammed for janky graphics.

I do agree that it would be nice if we got a smooth 60 FPS in exchange for the drop on asset quality, though.

I listened to an interview with Jeff Kramer (York's voice actor) and he's just the loveliest guy. I think it was just conducted on a fans twitch stream but he was so polite and good natured in answering questions from the chat. You really get that feeling from York as well. I'd hang out with that man.

Fun fact - Jeff Kramer also voiced Seaman, the Dreamcast game about raising a fish man.

@Morph I think you could skip Trails in the Sky without feeling lost in Cold Steel, but if you want to go epic then I would go all the way back and start there. There are 3 chapters to Sky, and from what I hear you can get away with skipping the third.

I'm part way through the second chapter of Sky, and I also started the first chapter if Steel and it feels fine. In fact, finding out who people in Steel are after meeting them afterwards in Sky is strangely rewarding. Steel 3 is going into the backlog!

How is the difficulty, by the way? From what I heard the first one had AI that didn't really put up much of a fight once you knew how they worked, even on hard.

Very pleased to see a review for this one, I was hoping it wouldn't fly under the radar.

I think what appeals to me most is that losing battles is actually a part of the campaign. If you are under strength and you get attacked, you may have to retreat or stage a desperate defense to do as much damage as you can before losing. A lot of games like this would make you replay a battle after a loss, but here you can accept it and fight back another day. That leads to more investment in the planning, in my opinion, and some good iron man style challenge.

Cool stuff! I like it slow anyway.

I'm pretty excited for Brigandine, although I've gone for the physical edition so I'll have to wait a bit longer.

The demo showed some good potential and from what I've seen of the old PSX Brigandine it looks like it could satisfy a grand strategy itch, even if it is relatively simple.