RetroOutcast

@Zeldafan79 As did I. I don't understand why people throw a temper tantrum when a remake or reboot of any media isn't 1:1 with their childhood and then go on to say that anyone who likes said remake/reboot is "too young to understand" or isn't a "real fan". It's one of the dumbest things about the gaming community these days aside from the git gud crap.

@Zeldafan79 agree. I think it's just the "old school" fans getting their panties in a bunch over any kind of shift in art direction...kind of like Battletoads.

What I'd really like to see is a remake of Monster Lair (the one with the shm'up elements). That was a great idea marred by some poor level decision choices and jump physics. Give it to Lizardcube and I'm sure they'd do something great with it.

As for this...it looks alright. I'm almost getting some early PS2 vibes off it...like Klonoa 2 or something. Still would have preferred hand drawn art. Also...I wonder if they're going to make the Ice Pyramid more manageable than it was on the Genesis version. Have a mini-map or something for that monstrosity.

Another day, another delay. 2020 really is the year of video game delays, isn’t it?

Looks great but I’ll have to pass or wait for a deep sale as I’m really tired of rogue likes

@Anthracks because the eponymous level in question isn’t well designed. At all. It would be one thing if it was a well designed final challenge (like Land of the Livid Dead from Rayman Origins) but as it stands it’s as if someone just made a BS hack of the game and someone at Playtonic liked it enough to include in the final product.

@Stuffgamer1 I pretty much played the game “naked” so to speak. I didn’t really screw with the tonics and, even after beating the game twice, really don’t think the game prepares you for the Impossible Lair. It’s like playing Super Mario World and then jumping right into one of the stupidly hard kaizo rom hacks people have been crapping out for a decade or so.

I’m glad they put this in. I beat the game prior to this update but I’ll echo that the Impossible Lair wasn’t really fun. I know some people (the platforming elitists especially) are going to defend the final level endlessly but as someone else was saying...there are parts where you pretty much need to sacrifice bees to move forward. One other thing I noticed on my second play through I just wrapped up is that the hit boxes are incredibly wonky with some of the hazards. Case in point-the shifting buzzsaws in the penultimate part of the lair as you ride the escalator. If even the slightest pixel of Yooka’s foot grazes one even after it appears you passed the buzz saw...there’s one of your (probably few at that point) bees gone. It’s hard for the sake of being hard. I know some will say “iT wAs PaRt oF tHe TiTle” but that’s still no excuse for having it be poorly designed nor is it an excuse for an abrupt difficulty spike that the game in no way properly prepares you for.

That said, the rest of the game is excellent and I can more easily recommend it thanks to those AMAZING chip tunes and the broken final level being tweaked.

@Heavyarms55 I mean, it’s definitely your right to decide what you play/spend money on but not all mobile games are terrible F2P junk. I used to think like you and I missed out on some good games over it. Frankly, I’d have had no idea this started as a mobile game if I hadn’t read this review and from what I’ve played the production value is definitely there. Heck, Oddmar looks and plays a lot better than some other indies that were developed specifically for Switch in my opinion.

Downloaded and played a bit last night. While it’s true that the Switch Eshop is drenched in platformers, I don’t think there’s nearly enough traditional/linear experiences. Sure, it’s not nearly as beefy as Rayman/Shantae/DKC TF but Oddmar is still a lot of fun as someone who’s sick of metroidvanias and just wants more of the classic A to B experience. In truth, I probably wouldn’t have known this was originally a mobile game if I didn’t read the reviews first. Just goes to show that they’re not all as bad as “gamers” want to think. (IIRC PolyRoll also started on mobile and that’s also a great game on Switch)

@Mgene15 $20 according to the site. A bit more than I remember Retro City Rampage being, but I'm sure it'll be worth it considering the talent behind it. To this day, RCR is still better than a good chunk of indie efforts in my opinion and I expect this game to be of similar quality.

@gungho_trucker Love how people gave you thumbs-down for that comment. Heaven forbid you play any multi-platform game on something other than Switch, eh?

That's probably how I'll be getting the game myself seeing as there's always the perks of trophies and better game-capture capabilities on top of the cross-buy deal. Retro City Rampage was one of my favorite Wii Shop Channel games and among the last I purchased on that platform so I'm excited to get my hands on this next week.

@NEStalgia At least, if that does happen (and I'm almost positive it will), you will have had months of preparation for it.

I really hope this is just a timed exclusive. I love Earthworm Jim but I can't stomach spending a lot of money on the Ouya's sequel just for a chance to play a new game in the series.

Yet again, more garbage.

I'd rather just use my gold points to get a buck or two off a purchase on the EShop.

Also, I would almost put money on there being an obligatory fart joke in this film that makes use of the phrase "blast processing".

@HumanDog Visuals shouldn't matter much, but funny enough, most of those hype-train "perfect 10" indie games are doing exactly what this movie is doing- copying what's made money for everybody else without much regard for how things actually were.

They should take their time.

That said, rage games like Super Meat Boy hold virtually zero appeal to me and so I doubt I'll be getting this.I might give it a go sometime whenever I feel like playing the video game equivalent of smashing my head against a brick wall again as I suspect that's what this one is going to be like as well.

At least they actually made the game look good this time. I think the hand drawn visuals are incredibly well done...at least what I can see from the trailer.

Bot Vice looks really cool and I haven't played a shooter like that in quite some time. Really like the art style as well...looks like a legitimate 16 bit game as opposed to something that was just crapped out to pander to hipsters.

@RootsGenoa Didn't really bother me after how easy the first Zero was but at the same time...that ladder section felt like a giant middle finger and made me think the rest of the life-up tokens would be on the same level of difficulty. Nope...they go back to being pretty simple or moderately challenging to get. It was weird.

I don't mind the challenge being in finding everything. The Spyro games were designed like that and I love those. I've been breezing through stages in Crafted World, but I definitely haven't been finding everything my first time through even when I have been poking around for secrets. At the very least, it hasn't been Star Allies levels of easy and that's the only thing I was really worried about.

I think people are forgetting that not every game needs to be a brutally difficult slog to be good. For people wanting a hard-as-nails platformer, there are thousands of other choices on the Switch as well as anywhere else. The popularity of games like Celeste and FromSoftware's titles will assure that hard games will be pumped out faster than we can ever conceivably get to all of them. As long as a game like this isn't completely mindless like Star Allies or honestly Epic Yarn, I don't see the problem.

@sketchturner I don't think HLTB is super inaccurate assuming the player is using external resources here and there when they're having issues progressing in retro games.

Back then, I'm sure it took longer for people to figure games out because all that was around were magazines and those didn't cover every game under the sun like the internet is capable of doing now. When I was in the 3rd grade, I sure as ****didn't beat Super Mario World 100% in 5 hours nor did I know about most of the secret routes until i screwed around enough to find them on my own.

(You used some not so lovely language - Matthew010)

@sfb Cuphead, to me, kind of takes the Super Meat Boy approach to dificulty. No lives or continues but the tradeoff is that you'll be dying a LOT more frequently/sooner than some of the classic games it takes inspiration from. I still really enjoyed the game but found myself getting annoyed with it far more than I did with Dynamite Headdy...even when I was a kid and experiencing the game for the first time and no doubt getting creamed by anything after the first boss a bunch.

@sfb North American version. I did take the Japanese version for a spin recently via the recent Genesis collection and the difference is night and day as far as how punishing it is. Still, I'm more used to the NTSC version and that's what I had as a kid growing up so I enjoy it a little more. When I was like 7 or 8 I'd be able to get up to the Nasty Gatekeeper on a good day and sometimes Twin Freaks. It just feels odd to play what feels like a super-easy version of it after all these years.

I've always liked the idea of a ranking system. It was done well enough in Cuphead although I think having to do some of those RNG fests without taking a single hit is kind of stupid to get the S ranks. I think that's probably why I prefer Headdy over Cuphead if I'm honest. There are two bosses in the former with a considerable amount of RNG (Trouble Bruin as you're scaling the puppet tower and the final boss) and that's about it. With Cuphead, it plays a much larger role. Rumor Honeybottoms, that dragon and the shm'up stages were the worst offenders from what I experienced. That's not to say Cuphead is bad, but I genuinely believe that Headdy managed to do the concept a tad better 25 years ago.

@RootsGenoa They've actually updated the game and in the notes it did say that "the difficulty of C-2 (obnoxious ladder challenge) has been adjusted". That'll be pleasant after finishing the game to 100% completion twice before that update when I go back to replay it.

Some people actually disagree with that particular decision for whatever reason. Sorry, but that's the kind of thing developers would put in a legitimate NES game just to keep kids from beating it on a rental period. Memory is no longer an issue so it just felt jarring and out of place in a game released in 2019. Had they decided to keep it the way it was...it should've been much later in the game as opposed to being like the second life upgrade.

Would expect nothing less from the guy who brought us Gunman Clive. After playing the snot out of Dynamite Headdy recently (another really good boss-rush style game on the Genesis) until being able to do it on one life recently, I'm in the mood for a new game of this type.

On a side note, I'm glad Horberg Productions decided to incorporate challenge through a ranking system as opposed to just making the main game brutally difficult as a lot of indie devs seem to be going for after the success of stuff like Celeste and of course Cuphead. Always refreshing to see a game like this come out that tries to strike a balance instead.

@BulkSlash Good to know. I was just spamming up on the d-pad to get that one life up token on the planetoid with all those ladders.

@Seacliff That the one where you're jumping from ladder to ladder? If so, i totally agree. I feel like they knew how bad the ladder mechanics were and that was thrown in as a giant middle finger to the player. I had better luck just spamming up on the pad and crossing my fingers Jason would actually grab the damn things than trying to do it in the frame-perfect way they somehow expect you to do it otherwise. At least you can take out that turret towards the end for the return trip since getting the life-up token of course doesn't count as a checkpoint/you have to slog through it all over if you so much as fall more than .5 inches.

@FX102A Yeah I'm pretty happy that this isn't a rogue lite. Quite tired of those as well as the "rage platformer" trend.

One of my favorite modern franchises (well, within the past 10-20 years anyways seeing as the GBC game is at least 15 years old by now). Between this, Yoshi, Team Sonic Racing, Super Mario Maker 2 and CTR Nitro Fueled this year is going to be incredible.

Mega Waifu X?

Doesn't look too bad though.

This reminds me of Pocky and Rocky. Interesting.

@Prof_Yoshtonics Agreed. I get that these re-releases are quality and quality takes time but I'm really not sure how or why some of these are getting delayed or taking a lot of time getting overseas after being released in Japan. Still waiting for Ristar and Dynamite Headdy. (On a side note, a boss-rush mode with a timer for speed running in the case of the latter would be amazing to see in a re-release)

Really enjoyed Miracle World as a kid and it looks like it would be the definitive version from what I've read on this port. I'll give it a go at some point...perhaps on sale maybe since I have a ton of other games I'm working on atm. (Blaster Master Zero's Destroyer/Hard mode, Zero 2 and most likely Yoshi right after)

Seems like a step in the right direction. It's good to see them easing up a tad on their IPs since, in some cases, these smaller developers really do have a better understanding of what people want. Mania is a testament to that.

@BoFiS Funny how somebody gave you a thumbs down. I don't think it would be a bad idea and given that Cuphead is already full of homages (the frogs being a nod to street fighter, the shopkeeper pig being a nod to Wonderboy etc) it would be a clever way to include that other chunk of the audience in a way that still works with the old-school motif. The big difference between games then VS games now is that there really aren't any cheating systems in place like the Game Shark/Genie. Games were hard back then, but you could always buy something like that if you just wanted to "enjoy the scenery" as you put it or (in my case) just screw around with the game/create your own codes. Nowadays, you can't really do that because of the always-online environment and achievements systems too I suppose. Still, if more games allowed for in-game codes OR if some device came out that (to be fair) would disable achievements or online while in use...it could squash a lot of these "(Game Title Here) is too hard!" complaints.

I got this the day it came out on Xbox One and had it beat that following weekend (it came out on either a thursday or friday if memory serves). While I enjoyed it and am glad that they're not going to make it easier by default, I still think the "git gud" mentality that this and From Software's work has generated is still incredibly stupid. Too many people play these kinds of games solely for the difficulty and because they think it makes them a badass when, in reality, skill at games really only matters if you're getting paid to talk about them or you're trying to get a world record.

At the end of the day, it should be about fun and while I had a blast with the normal setting and only ever tampered with simple when it came to practicing the shm'up portions (because I can't play those to save my life), I know there's still a good chunk of the audience that simply don't have the time anymore or didn't cut their teeth on something like the NES or Genesis.While I can understand and respect that the devs don't want to add an easy mode (or at least one that will allow progress through the story), putting down these people is pretty childish all the same.

If I'm honest, I hope they will (in time) either lift the restrictions that "Simple" mode includes or do something similar to what Nintendo does with Mario games by helping out the less experienced after dying X number of times on a board. They're only going to reach more people and not only that, more people will get to appreciate the massive amount of love and labor that went into the game's assets this way.

@pinta_vodki Nope. They never will be done with that LOL

"Something's amiss in the seemingly perfect world of Mobius."

Guess we all forgot about this new Sonic game

Am I the only one NOT flipping out over this?

I knew not to have super-high expectations for this movie as soon as the terms "live action" and "CGI" were brought up. If it turns out as bad as everyone's predicting, I could also just vote with my wallet and bypass it altogether.

As for the design itself, there's a lot I would've done differently but considering just how well other game to movie adaptations have fared...I can't wrap my mind around it being the worst thing ever. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm not a "real Sonic fan" despite logging 70 plus hours into Mania and who the hell knows how long with the classic trilogy, but I don't see the point in freaking out.

@teamdave2002 So wanting Nintendo to get with the times and provide some discounts on their newest hardware is ungrateful?

People like you are why services don't improve because you're always trying to drown out/patronize those who feel the need to speak up.

@rushiosan You're not. I loved the presentation and the story, but frustration platformers aren't really my thing. I never feel accomplished after dying a billion times on one screen, only to move on and do the same thing for several hours until the game is finished. It's just far too repetitive, just like Super Meat Boy. That said, I really liked Ninja Gaiden and this seems like it has a lot more going for it so I think I'll bite.

This is why I'm glad I own all the major platforms. I've saved a lot by buying cross-platform indies through PSN. Not only is it cheaper, but you also get trophy support and whatnot, which is more for less unless portability is a selling point for you on some of those games.

Kinda looked like a poor man's Crash Bandicoot from the trailers, and this review just confirms it. Oh well...maybe when it's on a deep sale (I'm talking sub five dollars).

@TheOpponent My thoughts exactly. I swear I'm one of few people who enjoys platformers but find Super Meat Boy styled games to be incredibly boring and repetitive. I'll always opt for experiences with just a little more substance than "die on this screen 100 times, figure out what you did wrong, and then do the same thing on the next screen until you beat the game".