Quick Review: Shantae: Half-Genie Hero

She’s back, and ready to defend Scuttle Town again!

If we're starting with the downtown on fire... We're in for
something good.

WayForward’s Shantae series has quite a few games; I covered another one, Risky's Revenge, long ago. The entry covered today, Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, was released on December 20th, 2016 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. However, in place of a Metroidvania-style, interconnected world, we have a game split into stages. Most of them contain secrets inaccessible until Shantae collects the right abilities and forms to turn into (through her belly dancing, of course). You can return later to find those and expand your arsenal.

Factories? Mermaids? Crocodiles? Better investigate this.
I'm supposed to be looking for maidens, not mermaids!

After another attack from Risky Boots and her pirate crew on Scuttle Town, Shantae’s elderly inventor uncle begins making a machine, using old blueprints, that will protect the town in her place. However, she'll need to find the items he needs. And solve problems across the land, while she’s at it. Maidens are disappearing in the next town over? Everyone in Scuttle Town loses their memories and another half-genie looks like the culprit? Stopping a heist at the grand flying carpet race? Other than her uncle’s machine, what could tie these things together? Maybe the occasional dream Shantae has been having of the genie world, which speaks to her…

We're gonna need a bigger boat. ...Okay, that joke
is probably in poor taste to talk about a giant mermaid.

Wham! Need power to push large blocks? Become elephant.
Stay cute either way.

With the jewels you collect, you can buy additional upgrades for Shantae, such as magic spells to use (with the C key), or improvements to the attack power and speed of her hair whip. Over the course of this adventure, she regains her classic forms – the wall-climbing monkey, the ramming elephant, the swimming mermaid, and so on. Some forms have a secondary ability must be unlocked by finding it. As an example, the mermaid form starts out defenseless against underwater threats, but Shantae later learns to shoot bubbles to attack.

Uh oh, gotta escape the giant worm (which is dead when we
return, so yep, can't "finish" this area in one go).

Splitting the game into stages, each with lots of secrets, does help in some capacity. However, it means you’ll be revisiting eqch stage many, many times to find new abilities that were previously impossible to get. You do gain access to teleportation tools to quickly leave a stage once you got what you wanted, or to warp directly to the next area if you know exactly what you're looking for and where it's located.

Past the main mode, you can play the game again with various twists: A Hero Mode with all transformations unlocked from the start, a Hardcore Mode, and a Jammies Mode with Shantae in her pajamas and fighting with her pillow (yup). The store page includes DLCs for two additional quests, one playing Risky Boots’ side of the story, another playing as Shantae’s friends, and three “costumes” that come with their own arcade-like gameplay!

In Jammies Mode (implied to be one big dream), her pillow
atrtacxk is somehow stronger than her regular hair whip.
Also, this mode turns the game into a genuine platformer.

Some of these quests feel like a point'n'click. You obtain the
candy from the dotor, which you see after getting sick, which
happens after finding five relics for an archaeologist in the
desert tower, and finding said relics requires the ability to
ground-pound with the elephant form. ...Phew!

WayForward knows how to craft a good Metroidvania – as proven repeatedly by this very franchise. But if you bought Shantae: Half-Genie Hero hoping for one, you might be disappointed that it's split into stages rather than being a continuous world, even if the spirit remains and the game is still very good. As pointed above, this change does lead to some degree of repetitiveness, though there's a few workarounds. As usual, this is paired by a great soundtrack, a beautiful hand-drawn art style (seriously, the game looks awesome), and inventive stages and bosses with always something new to discover. It’s worth checking out for fans of the genre or of the series. Good time all around.

Shantae: Half-Genie Hero is available on Steam for 19.99$ USD. Or, alternately, you can get the Ultimate edition released two years later, in May 2018, which includes all the bonus material.

Quick Review: Riff Racer

One more entry in the Game Eulogies, this is turning into a yearly thing here. Okay, this one isn’t dead, but it might as well be.

Oh yeah - my copy defaults to French. Oh well!

Created by FOAM Entertainment and released on May 12th, 2016, Riff Racer is no longer available for purchase on Steam. Its concept, and the reason people loved it so much, was that it was like a more advanced version of Audiosurf. In both games, there are songs available from the get-go, and you could race on those for a high score, toggling difficulty to your liking. However, the big draw was that both games allowed you to upload your own music tracks, after which the game would procedurally create a stage based on your settings, with the song as basis and background.

I will give the game that; it looked really damn cool.

No no no!! I'm tailspinning! I'm going sideways!
Ironically, none of this, not even falling off the track,
is much of a step back.

Both games allowed; past tense. Audiosurf still does it, because it generates the game track client-side. Riff Racer used to do it server-side. As in, the server in FOAM Entertainment’s studios. Which means that, now that the game has been delisted and the servers shut down, well… you’re left with the inability to pick a track from your collection and turn it into a custom level. Unfortunately, that specific feature was the entire selling point FOAM Entertainment was counting on. Makes complete sense that they’d no longer sell the game, then – with that feature gone, what's the point. (A few games I’ve done Eulogies for should take notes and delist too. Damn things can still be bought even when they literally don’t work anymore.)

Excuse me while I stare at my collection of 3,000 songs that
will never be used here...

And, if you've been reading this blog for a while, then you know that I’m a big fan of music in general, I listen to a lot of stuff. And for years I would amass music, because I wanted it of course, but there was frequently that tiny voice at the back of my mind, “hey, when the time rolls around to review Riff Racer, I’ll have all those songs to try out, it’s gonna make for fun gameplay recording sessions, right?” Well, I got around to it too late then, didn’t I.

Which isn’t to say that fans of the game haven’t found some way to make it work, creating their own servers and giving detailed instructions to let anyone connect their copy of Riff Racer to those custom servers. Which, for some reason, makes track generation possible again. Although I commend the effort and ingenuity, I don’t think I’d feel enough interest going through that just to play on some tracks. I just don’t have the attachment to this one that others may have had. And I was too late to cultivate such an attachment, too.

You have a couple of carsd to choose from, and you could
earn in-game money to spend on... uh, stuff, I guess.
Doesn't really matter much anymore, does it.

Yeah, there’s no way I’m gonna play 20 hours of that one. I doubt there’s much point in telling you to buy it, but yeah – if you own it and haven’t touched it, and have no plans of touching it, you’re not missing out. Go back to Audiosurf (1 or 2) instead.

Quick Review: Revolution Ace

Wait, are you saying that giving AI to drones and war machines is a bad idea? Someone should tell Spotify’s CEO about that.

A creation of Laser Guided Games, LLC released on March 19th, 2014, Revolution Ace is set in a future where humans decided to fight all their wars with automated machines, greatly reducing loss of life in conflicts. However, at the start of this story, the machines began acting on their own and gearing up to fight humanity. It’s up to you to stop the mechanical threat using the last man-piloted war jet!

Let's see how far I can get... And at which level does this
turn into a Bullet Hell.

The shmup genre is hard to reinvent; it always boils down to a small character/ship moving in one direction, fighting waves of enemies, avoiding thousands of bullets, and getting either permanent upgrades or temporary power-ups. Revolution Ace does a few things I’ve seldom seen with the genre; the first is a level-up system. Finishing a stage gives EXP, and at each level you either unlock new pieces to purchase and add to your ship, or choose a new perk granting an advantage on the field. You move with WASD, use your primary weapon with the left-click button, your second weapon with the right-click, and the Superweapon (the bomb-type attack that needs to reload after a number of seconds) with the mouse wheel.

Looks like my carpet bombs just aren't doing enough damage
to beat this damn base.

The second fresh idea is that stages have an added element of depth. Since you fight in the skies, some of your weapons can only hit flying enemies; but some threats come from the ground below, and thus you eventually need to equip your ship with both air and ground weapons to deal with everything coming your way. The early stages don’t call attention to this much, and you may be left wondering why you should even bother… until you reach the game’s fifth boss, which is a base on the ground, which can thus only be hurt with weapons that can reach it.

You cannot select previous levels during Campaign Mode; however, if you’re struggling with the latest level, need extra experience to get better weapons, or are short on scraps (in-game money) to upgrade your fighter jet, there’s Skirmish Mode, which lets you play previous levels and even a couple of bonus challenges (such as boss gauntlets).

That mechanic either looks like he belongs in the greasy '80s
or is seconds away from saying "Think Big, s'tie".
Only Québécois will understand the latter joke.

OK, that's getting tougher... not too tough yet, though!

However, one major facet of this game is multiplayer, as you can compete against another player in Versus Mode, or challenge other players’ best scores in specific stages in Battle Chains. In that second mode, you’ll play side-by-side against another user (whose performance was, I think, pre-recorded), on a specific stage and difficulty (often boosted), and must attempt to score higher than them. It’s not so much about beating the stage first; it’s all about the score. A lot of Superweapons have bonus effects in Versus Mode as well, generally causing negative effects to the opponent (like stealing some fo their shield).

Yeah, I doubt I'll do good here, the CPU is already on
boss #3 and I'm still on #2!

Eh… this is fine. It’s a fine game. I don’t really have strong feelings for it, but I still can see how it could get people to play the campaign to the end and then compete in the multiplayer modes. The mechanics added to classic shmup give it more depth than the average: The experience system, customization of the jet’s equipment with new slots unlocking as you gain levels, the occasional perks. It’s a change from shmup ships that merely improve during stages, through power-ups. I guess I also like the depth of strategy that involves fighting on two planes at once, both air and ground, and some of the design choices made in that regard. I think the multiplayer concepts are alright, not that I do well there, but hey, Laser Guided Games likes the idea enough to encourage buying this for both yourself and some friends with a 4-pack option on the game’s page.

Revolution Ace is available on Steam for 4.99$ USD.

Quick Review: Recesses

You ever hear kids giving each other philosophy classes in the schoolyard? Nah, I usually just see them play children’s card games.

The start of an epic card game journey.

A creation of Sanjuny released on August 23rd, 2024, Recesses is a roguelite card game. Your character is a fifth grader, and your best friend Clair teaches you about this new awesome card game called Battaliens. Later, she goes missing, and everything points to this disappearance being linked to the game. You set out to investigate, challenging kids at recess in growing order of grade. One student per day, all week. Maybe, by Friday, you’ll have enough information to find Clair?

I should explain Battaliens, then; there's a lot.

Hey, you can even save up to 8 different decks! Good to
set up strategies against specific opponents.

-Battaliens are split into four types: Cute, Weird, Gross and Scary. Each type has one other type it's generally strong against, and a third it's generally weak against.

-Each Battalien has a value on the top right that counts as both its HP and attack power. When a round is played, both monsters attack at the same time, each deducting their attack from the other’s HP. A monster whose HP hits 0 as a result of battle gets sucked into a black hole, while a survivor returns to the shapeship (the deck) with its new, post-fight HP/attack.

All my remaining monsters have strengths and weaknesses.
Just hope you're lucky

-Most monsters have strengths and weaknesses, where their base attack/HP will be modified depending on the type of the creature they’re fighting. As an example, “Cute +1” means your card gains 1 HP/attack if it fights a cute creature. A monster doesn’t die if its HP reaches 0 from strengths/weaknesses/effects alone. (The cap for HP/attack is 9.) Most monsters also have a special ability that triggers at specific moments (at the start of a turn, when first played, when it wins a battle, or when it loses).

-Both players' “spaceships” can hold 8 cards. The player that sends all cards from the opponent’s spaceship to the black hole wins. (In Story Mode, a tie is considered a loss.)

-If both cards have effects that activate at the same time, a coin is tossed to figure out who goes first. Luck can screw you over here. You do not know which cards your opponent uses until they use them – which can make picking random targets a double-edged sword.

That’s the basics. You’ll figure it out as you play.

Beat that other kid up? Nah. When the core of the game is
about a competition (cards, monsters, etc.), I only desire to
punch those who deserve it. I call it the "Lysandre Rule".

The further in you go, the harder the enemies become. They
even have their own Egyptian God-level cards...

The story's format is a roguelite. Each day, you’ll battle another student. No matter the outcome of the duel, you get a booster pack with 8 extra cards, so you can build your “deck” from there. Opponents get tougher every day, so you’ll probably lose at some point – in which case, you start over on the next Monday. But! You later get access to tools that make the week more tolerable. The first is a friggin’ time machine (…don’t question it) that lets you skip to the day of the last opponent you’ve beaten. Which means that you’ll have to beat them again before accessing the next opponent, sure, but it helps. More stuff comes up over time. Perhaps more intriguing are this game’s bosses and their “Elder God” Battaliens…

I swear these fifth graders talk like university
philosophy students.

No, wait, even MORE intriguing is how all the opponents you beat have some spooky, borderline philosophical talk about life, the universe, and everything. Stuff no kids should be talking about, but apparently, there’s just something about Battaliens that opens their minds. Ehhhh, don’t question it.

The game started out with a lot of goodwill on my end; the concept was interesting, and the game's simple look hid its depth, which I discovered the longer I played. The story is engaging and the art style deliberately imitates the look of stuff drawn by elementary school kids. Even the difficulty feels fair for the first few opponents, but then the game takes a big swerve into Ultra Hard territory.

This opponent has TWO Elder Gods. And she's goddamn
unbeatable unless you literally cheese the battle by using
cards that specifically counter her big two. I HATED this fight.

You can hardly plan ahead due to the randomness aspect and the fact that even coin tosses can screw you over if you’re not lucky. Later opponents have downright unfair cards, and are so hard to beat they turn the game into an utter slog. Your only option is to tailor your spaceship to fight specifically what you know you’ll encounter (final opponents have randomized decks, aside from specific cards they always carry), and hope you'll be lucky with card interactions. For a game with so much strategy, that so much of it still boiled down to luck, and not enough to skill to my liking.

I think it says a lot that, after beating the game's final story
boss (not the girl here), I found out there were higher
difficulty levels and I instantly went, "Nope!"

You might still enjoy this one if you like card games and feel like trying to beat its roguelite format – all I can say is, good luck. There's even extra difficulty settings if you can beat the story a fist time.

Recesses is available on Steam for 4.99$ USD.

Quick Review: My Friendly Neighborhood

Something’s not quite right with the neighborhood.

Looks like I've got a welcome committee.

Developed by Joe and Evan Szymanski, published by DreadXP and released on July 18th, 2023, My Friendly Neighborhood is a fresh take on the “mascot horror” genre popularized by Five Nights at Freddy’s and its followers. You are Gordon O’Brian, a grumpy veteran who now works as a repairman. Local broadcasts are being interrupted by odd airings of an old children’s show, My Friendly Neighborhood (MFN), at increasing frequency. This began after the studio where the show was filmed lit up, and Gordon is tasked with heading in there and turning off its antenna. Gordon can't mess up, he needs that job. Though perhaps he should be worried with all the felt-people running around and spouting… uh… unfriendly lessons.

And for some reason, they're also in the sewers.

Our protagonist isn’t in top shape, a common thing for horror game protagonists; but he’s plenty good to do the job. The “monsters” are the puppets of MFN. Come close, and they’ll attack with a dangerous hug. That’s not euphemism; they hug so hard they hurt. Three hugs, and you’re dead. However, you can defend yourself with weapons found on the premises, like a pipe wrench or firearms.

This one isn't getting back up. Duct tape solves everything!

The first “gun” shoots steel sheets with letters on them. It was invented so it wouldn’t damage the puppets too much, while calming them down. Just gotta find magazines of letters to reload. Later weapons build upon the letter/text motif. Alongside new ammo, you can find Health-Lax bottles to regain HP, or rolls of tape – if a puppet annoys you, shoot them, and then mummify ‘em with tape, they won't move again. But use it wisely; tape rolls are rare.

I'm running out of room here!

Every once in a while, you'll see an inanimate puppet in an
area. The best horror trick this game pulls is to animate them
at the absolute worst moment for you. Oh, and did I mention
that they all take two to SEVEN hits to go down?

You should inspect every corner to ensure you don’t miss out on some item or document necessary for progress, or on some ammo or helpful thing. (I did get stuck once ‘cause I didn’t see something I needed.) However, space in your briefcase is very limited, so pack wisely – if you can’t put it in the briefcase, you can’t take it. Plot-relevant items take up room in there, too; classic horror inventory management. You’ll also find keys with colored shapes on them, which will be necessary to open doors bearing the corresponding symbols.

Finally some respite. Yeah, better not get hurt by the puppets
as soon as I leave this darn room.

Safe rooms contain machines allowing you to save the game or fully heal – each at the cost of a token, which can also be found while exploring. Tokens are VERY rare, so don't save too often! (Using them for health also feels like a waste. Though, you will find tokens for a free save in each new safe room.) Those rooms also contain toolboxes, allowing you to store items away. You can then take those items back from any other toolbox.

Nothing quite like running out of tokens and trying to survive as long as possible while desperately searching for new ones. Or worse even, having a few, but since the safe rooms are spread out, making a lot of progress through the game’s enigmas and puzzles, and then dying to a puppet before you get there. Or running out of letters and having to rely on the short-range wrench to fight.

Beware of the dogs - they're hungry. And they won't
friggin' stay down. Vicious things.

Maybe the solution to all this... is to teach lessons to the
puppets once again. Maybe, then, will they come back
to the way they used to be.

This was all about gameplay – as you can see, it’s strong, and even has a few surprises up its sleeve. Jump scares? Of course! And yet, the story is oddly… charming and sweet. Through found documents, you can piece together why the show went off the air andwhy the puppets went crazy. The "stars" can be unsettling, but there’s still that spark of a classic children’s program in them, if you can find it – and, in fact, perhaps you can reignite that flame yourself… So yeah, the story’s great too. (Not to mention, one of the major puppets, Ricky the sock, is voiced by YouTuber Arlo, who represents himself as a puppet on his channel.)

And now, an entire floor made of cardboard and
crayon drawings.

It’s not too scary, so I think it could be tolerable even for people who aren’t into horror gaming usually. The game includes a ton of cheat modes for fun, as well as a few difficulty settings and extra challenges that are unlocked after beating the game once, so if you loved exploring this twisted kids' show, you can do it again.

Hey! Hey! Get off me!

My Friendly Neighborhood is available on Steam for 29.99$ USD.

Quick Review: Iris and the Giant

Introspection is rarely this mythological.

I'd better deal with the archers, or they'll all attack. And then.
there's the minotaurs at the back...

Developed by Louis Rigaud, published by Goblinz Publishing, Maple Whispering Limited and Mugen Creations, and released on February 27th, 2020, Iris and the Giant tells the tale of Iris. She’s not doing well; bullied at school, emotionally shut down at home, barely finding joy in her pastimes of  creating card games or studying mythology. One day, at swim practice, she falls from the diving board into the water, and goes unconscious. This lands her into the world of her imagination, where her problems manifest as Greek mythology monsters, and she must fight with her own cards detailing various weapons and survival tools. The source of her inner turmoil is represented by a giant weeping at the top of a mountain, and it is only by confronting it and winning that she’ll return among the living.

Beware of boss enemies that can spur their troops to
attack twice each turn...

This is a roguelite deckbuilder. The game is split into floors, on which Iris plays her cards to fight enemies. Most cards are weapons that strike using different mechanics; swords (can use all the swords in your hand on the same turn), bows and arrows (attack backrows), whips, and so on. And then, magic such as bombs or fireballs. You'll find other special cards with effects, like Confidence, which restores Iris’ Will (her health), or a shield that protects from all attacks and negative effects for a few turns, and more to discover over time.

Soon enough, I'll reach the top. You just wait, Giant!

Fire everywhere, and Cerberus' three heads. Fun!
Now I just need an axe to kill all three at once.

Ther enemies appear in a grid pattern of 2 to 4 rows, and they attack after your turn has ended. Just like cards, enemies all have their own mechanics (as an example, archers and other spellcasters can attack from the back), and bosses having features that make them a lot harder to deal with. (I especially despised the boss based on Pandora’s Box…) The best you can do is attempt to adapt to whatever’s being put in front of you. The loadout also includes treasure chests, which allow you to grab extra card packs, all of which contain one or many cards of a specific type of weapon/spell/item. You can also pick up crystals on the floor.

If you no longer have the perfect cards to fight Pandora's
Box, you're pretty much done for. And it's a very late
boss in the first Path.

There are four "upgrade" systems to this game, two of which are used during a run, while the other two are accessed from the main menu, in-between runs. The two within a run involve crystals and stars. When you collect enough crystals, Iris gains a new ability for a specific weapon, allowing for different builds depending on what you find. Alternately, enemies grant stars when defeated, and after enough stars, other abilities can be unlocked to increase Iris’ base Will or regain some when doing specific actions, or perhaps influence her hand or other helpful things (like drawing extra cards each turn, or increasing shield durability, etc.).

During this adventure, Iris can find symbols pointing to events of her life, detailing all the issues that took her to this point. Reconnecting with herself grants Memory Points that can be used in their section on the main menu to unlock more perks. The other is Imaginary Friends, which must first be discovered, then unlocked by completing a side-quest. You can only have one at first, but with the right Memory perks, you can have up to 3.

The Memories tug at your heartstrings.

I need more good cards. Gimme gimme.

It’s a Roguelite, so the point is to keep trying as you learn all the mechanics, lose repeatedly until you know what you’re doing, then continue trying until you win. The game keeps track of everything you’ve discovered, so there’s something there to scratch that completionist itch. Even better, there are higher difficulties for those seeking a challenge, AND after beating the Path of the Giant, you unlock two more paths, for the Ferryman and Chronos, with new encounters in both.

The final challenge, time to confront the Giant.
Or rather, its apparent infinite sadness.

Great game, had me hooked for the couple days it took me to beat the first Path; I couldn’t try the rest due to time, but I certainly wouldn’t mind revisiting it later. I love its unique visual style, its tone, its story. A strong recommend for all roguelite/roguelike fans.

Iris and the Giant is available on Steam for 17.99$ USD.