“Whatcha Playin’, Pixels?” – #025
11 min read
A weekly roundup of games enjoyed by the writers of The Pixels
Our deputy editor Ryan C (aka Games with Coffee) is out of the office for the day so you’re stuck with me, the Supreme Overlord of Crimson Rogue mwahaha! We might’ve missed last week, thanks in no small part to an entire country running out of internet and myself getting involved in a car accident, but we’re back in action this week, crutches and all (editor’s note: there are no crutches). These are the games we at The Pixels have been playing this week? But how about you? Have you had much opportunity to battle back the Summer heat with something cool?
This week I have been continuing my campaign against that creep Sal Marcano in Mafia 3, helping Lincoln Clay murder his way through, quite frankly, hundreds of goons in the Louisiana bayou of New Bordeuax. The gameplay may be a bit samey sometimes, but man the story is one of gaming’s most powerful!
I also ventured back into Elden Ring today. I’m still rubbish at it, but I don’t know, I kind of want to… git gud! It’s a real drama but every session I feel a bit stronger… those knights get a real kicking off me these days!
Last week was great, streaming-wise. I got my butt handed to me by Lashiec in Phantasy Star IV. A massive raid from one of my good streaming/blogging friends made up for that crushing loss though! I went back to Oracle of Seasons on Tuesday and Thursday, finished up Unicorn’s Horn and started hunting down the jewels needed to access the Ancient Ruins dungeon. I also picked up the Master Sword upgrade that I brought over from Ages, so that was awesome.
Off-stream, I dug my Raspberry Pi out of storage. Kid Espresso and I tinkered with the firmware on it and we now have working games on the mini-computer once more! I ran a session of TMNT II: The Arcade Game for the NES and my boy wanted me to play as Donnie! I’m slowly, but surely converting him into a TMNT fan, here’s hoping I’m successful like I did with Sonic and Mario!
Sadly, work has begun encroaching on my free time more and more and so I haven’t been playing or streaming too much this week. Over the weekend though, I was granted an early release access key to Ex-ZODIAC – an awesome on-rails shooter that embodies the best of Space Harrier II for the Genesis and Star Fox for the SNES. I’ll be talking about this game in detail next week, when the early release version drops on Steam. Might even do a quick stream of it as well?
I finished up my playthrough of TMNT II: The Arcade Game. I honestly forgot how tough that title was from when I was a kid! I don’t even remember how I was able to get through it before… I may have had help from my little brother? Anyway, Kid Espresso wanted more Turtles action, so I started up the best of the series: TMNT IV: Turtles in Time! Again, I played as Donnie, who has become my son’s favourite Turtle.
Wednesday was my birthday, but I didn’t get to do much gaming due to work stuff. I did add to my gaming collection when I got the Collection of Mana title for the Switch as a present. I’m pretty excited to try out Trials of Mana, as I’ve never played it before. I also got a new Sonic mug! That brings my collection to four now!
It has been a fantastic summer for video games! In the last week, I surmounted Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. The original Rise was a fun addition to the series, but it was so laughably easy and fast-paced that it almost felt like part of a different franchise. While Sunbreak ups the spectacle and acrobatics of the base game, the addition of Master Rank and its upped difficulty makes for a progression that is a lot more satisfying to play. Returning monsters get breathed new life into them with new moves, and the new monsters are great. While Rise left me with some doubt about the direction of the series, Sunbreak alleviates those fears with aplomb.
Next, my most recent development is in completing my very first playthrough of Resident Evil! The first one! I quickly grew to love it, with its tank controls, awkward camera angles, and ridiculous door opening animations. It is altogether such a charming game. It’s made me jump straight into a second playthrough as Jill—replaying is something I never do—and it’s fascinating seeing the way the story and gameplay are recontextualized when played with a different character. Now I might have to marathon the rest of the series…
My gaming has been a bit vacant but I’ve been playing some things casually here and there. I downloaded and started playing Cuphead (finally). I’ve only completed the first isle. It’s funny how I think the second run and gun level on the first isle, the tree one, is more difficult than any of the boss fights. I’ll probably keep chopping away at this this coming week but so far I feel I’ve barely scratched the surface especially in terms of difficulty. I love the soundtrack.
I’m really proud of myself. Summer sales have come and gone and I only purchased a single game! My backlog is already big enough as it is. I’ve played a couple random games here and there the past few weeks but I’ve put in the most time into Elden Ring. I’m now at around 130 hours and feel like I still have quite a bit to go. I’ve gone with a Samurai build and the Uchigatana has served me well, though I also have a Crystal sword that works wonders against certain rocky enemies. I’m the type of gamer that likes to explore every single nook and cranny so it’s part of the reason that I’ve taken so long. I also have struggled in many boss battles, currently being stuck on one the past two days.
I’ve spent the second most time on the Delicious Last Course, Cuphead’s fresh DLC! After trying out Chalice, the new character, I struggled with getting used to the new mechanics, especially since up until very recently I was still playing the game with the classic characters in an attempt to S rank all bosses. After switching back to Mugman, I had a great time with the new bosses and was able to make my way through the new content relatively quickly. Now I look forward to S-ranking the new bosses and then I plan to play the main game from the beginning with Chalice!
After putting on the performance of a lifetime (humble brag) on our MAGE CAST podcast episode for Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, the farm sim bug bit me HARD. I wound up revisiting the GBA classic for a bit and then taking the bait for Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, the modern remake of the handheld remake of the original PlayStation Harvest Moon, Back to Nature. Oof, what a series. Anyway, I finished the game (got married, rolled credits) in a year’s time thanks to the “easy mode” that lets you gain money and affection quicker. Perfect when revisiting a game I already spent many hours on decades ago, though I’m certain now that taking a handheld game and putting it on PS4 isn’t perhaps the best experience these days.
Now that I’ve finished SoS: Friends of Mineral Town, I went ahead and started Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town and man, I wish I hadn’t slept on this when it launched. It’s more in line with what I would expect from a new Harvest Mo– err Story of Seasons game, not a remake of like a Game Boy game. There’s a lot that’s familiar, maybe too familiar–characters are still flat or stereotypical, the friendship system is still uninspired, the graphics aren’t anything to write home about–but there’s also a lot that seems newish–it takes less time to upgrade weapons and build buildings, for instance. Makes the whole thing feel a little more modern and less stuck in a backwater village.
Finally, I have a new game room setup thanks to Joypad Lad! I’ve hooked up more systems than ever to this glorious CRT and I’m going to enjoy playing more games on it. Next up: Dragon Quarter (not pictured). It’s about time.
–Red
Like the Santana song says, man, it’s a hot one. We’re in the middle of a heat wave here, so running intensive computer games and systems is not a thing we feel like doing this week. Still, I’ve gotten a little done before it got melty. I finished Super Squidlit and had a great time with it. Very cute game with fine controls, and just the right length. I also grabbed another cat-based hidden object game, Ever Seen A Cat? 2, because I am a sucker for cats and hidden objects. This one is more like the kind you get in old Highlights magazines (do they even still make those??) where you just have to find the objects in the still images. And the objects are all cats or cat shapes. Some are easy, some more hidden, but all in all, for me, this small game was a little too small. I liked that each level had a random selection of cats so there were different ones each time, but you could still find them all very quickly. I ended up 100%ing it in a bit over half an hour. People who aren’t as quick at hidden object games or kids may get more out of it than me. I enjoyed it, it was just a bit too little for my own tastes.
I’ve also been dabbling in a free auto-runner game called Office Run. It’s a silly but simple game about running as far as you can through a cluttered office while swapping between three lanes to avoid obstacles. It seemed challenging at first, but once I got the hang of it, it was pretty easy to get a decent high score.
Let’s see…oh, yes, I also started Loop Hero. I’m not typically a fan of deckbuilders, though I tend to be decent at them (anyone else have a genre like this?). I get the feeling I’m underestimating myself often and abandoning good runs that I should keep going on, but I’d rather keep the materials I’ve earned for building up the base than push for a full run and risk dying to the boss. I feel like I have a lot to learn, but part of the game is uncovering the mysteries as you go, so I’ll keep trekking onward, or round and round as the case may be.
I’m not usually the kind of gamer who is attracted to visual novels; in fact, they seem to fall into two distinct camps for me. There are those that repeatedly send me to sleep, and then there are the ones I find so gripping that I don’t shut up about them for months. The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story fits neatly into the latter camp. Solving interconnected murder-mysteries by watching what is essentially a TV series with occasional button-prompts and dialogue decisions was right up my street.
I knew I was going to enjoy it when I discovered it was made by some of the team behind the hugely underrated 428: Shibuya Scramble. However, while that game actually took a little thinking and planning to navigate the timelines and find routes forward, most ‘puzzles’ in The Centennial Case were easily solved just by matching symbols in the background of certain text boxes. That said, in order to work out who the murderers are in these cases, you can’t just check your brain out and idly click. There are some fantastic reveals and some great performances in the overall narrative, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a good lengthy murder-mystery to solve.
I will say a couple of things if you’re intending to play it though. Firstly: there is a wonderful ‘escape the room’ section in Chapter 5 with some delightful puzzles, that I wish there had been more of throughout the game. Also: if you play it to completion and reach the end credits, DO NOT miss out on the epilogue found through the cheeky ‘You’ve got new mail’ on the title screen! It’s longer than you’d expect, has more mysteries to solve, and has some of the best plot twists the game has to offer – and I very nearly missed it!
Well, the Steam Summer Sale has come and gone, and I can honestly say that I made out like a bandit this year. I purchased three games, only two of which I have started playing. The first is one I imagine that many people are very familiar with, and that is the cozy farm sim, Stardew Valley. I had only played the game in passing a few years ago, so it wasn’t until Red and I started talking about farm sims on his podcast that I saw fit to purchase the game for myself and do a full playthrough. It is every bit as fun and cozy as I’ve been told, and I will plan on continuing to play it more as time goes by.
The second game is called Core Keeper, a type of farm sim that takes place underground and is much heavier on the combat than other games in the genre. Though I have yet to try it, after I complete the final game I purchased, I will certainly knock it out.
Speaking of which, the final game I bought is a real dark horse on the RPG scene, and a game that deserves so much more coverage than it is currently receiving. The game is called Rise of the Third Power, and it is a turn-based RPG created in the style of such greats as the old numerical Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games.
What makes it especially unique is the high fantasy/pirate theme loosely based on the European political climate in the 1930s. For a game that was developed by a rather small indie studio, it plays incredibly smoothly and allows for the player to have a wide range of customizable features and strategies. Items can have dual purposes, like rum can be consumed during battle for a quick buff or it can be thrown at an enemy, shot, and then turned into an incendiary. The music is absolutely off-the-chain-amazing too, as each fight hosts a pirate-rock OST that leaves you looking forward to the next encounter. I’m excited to see where this one goes, and you can bet that there will be a Pixels review of it in the future!
Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the “games themselves” in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage, on Twitch, or MAGE CAST. Please support my work on Patreon!
