“Whatcha Playin’, Pixels?” – April 2023
11 min read
A monthly roundup of games enjoyed by the writers of The Pixels
It’s the end of April and the world is consumed by Mario Bros. Mania! I’m talking, of course, about the fantastic Super Mario Bros. Movie released at the beginning of the month. I’m sure some of our illustrious writers will mention it here or there in today’s column. Let’s see what else they were up to this time, shall we?
A slow month is never a bad thing. I’ve been playing through Cave Story+ on Steam (finally), and it’s been a joy to me. I’ve always really enjoyed simple platformers, but it’s even more enjoyable when the story is as engaging and fun as this game is. If I recall correctly, the characters got banished to the labyrinth the last time I’ve played. I haven’t had any trouble trying to figure out where to go or how to beat a boss yet. Hopefully, this will be a fun ride towards the end.
I’ve actually been doing a lot of gaming recently. I finished God of War: Ragnarok earlier this month and I’ve been playing Metroid Prime Remastered, Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, and the Resident Evil 4 Remake interchangeably. But I’m instead going to talk about… Nintendo 3DS games?? That’s right! I did some research before the e-shop closed its doors for good and decided on buying 10 games that are 3DS exclusive (and a single Wii U title) so I have been casually playing through them.
The first 3DS game I finished is Liberation Maiden, a 3rd person action shooter where you play as a Japanese schoolgirl who just became president of New Japan and you have to save the country by piloting a flying mech suit. Ridiculous premise aside, the game is actually pretty fun and unique. It reminded me of StarFox, except you can freely fly anywhere within the level while locking on to and shooting hordes of enemies. I could only play a single level at a time because using the control stick with the left hand and using the stylus on the touch screen with the right hand gives me cramps after a bit. It’s also a very short game, I finished it in less than 2 hours of play time. It was fun, but I wouldn’t say you’re missing much if it’s a game you have not played.
The other 3DS game I’m currently working my way through is Rhythm Heaven Megamix. I love rhythm games and Rhythm Heaven Fever for Wii is one of my favorites! I don’t know why I took so long to find my way to this particular title, but I’m very happy I’m playing through it now. It’s a game that mostly consists of songs that have appeared in previous titles but I think also includes a few new ones. I love the quirky style and catchy tunes, and the fact that each song has you doing something ridiculous, such as playing badminton while on an airplane. The precise timing needed to play this makes me think is the reason why we haven’t received a new Rhythm Heaven title in this age of HD TV lag. This is unfortunate because I would absolutely love a new entry in this series!
A weight has been lifted from my shoulders, as if a great evil that once hung about my neck in a silver noose has been cast into the fires of doom. I refer of course to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Volume 1, which makes one helluvan argument for being the worst Super Nintendo RPG. However, the sun shines on the just and the unjust. I have to play the good and the bad on my journey through every SNES RPG. I’m just glad it’s over and I don’t have to put up with missing an amulet, entering a tediously long password, or watching AI-controlled Pippin destroy himself again.
Oh, and I also beat Metroid Prime: Remasrtered and Dragon View. Neat games.
Onto Brain Lord.
Let’s see…last month I clocked in at six completed games. April, I’m topping off at a whopping total of nine, with some wiggle room to get one or two more in these last few days. My plan for the backlog didn’t really pan out the way I wanted, again. Turns out, I just like new stuff more. Ah well, I’ll keep poking at it. Maybe one or two a month instead of five. Still, I managed to knock some things off that have been sitting around for a while. Primarily, Rock of Ages. I played about two hours of it back in 2018, got stuck somewhere and never went back. This time, I pushed through. It’s so satisfying to finish something after having it staring at you for so long, waiting to be completed.
Beyond that one, though, everything else has been a new game. Since April’s my birthday month, I ended up with a handful of enticing new titles that I had a hard time saying “no” to diving right into. It’s only polite, right? To play gifted games pretty shortly after getting them? So, most of these were small games under five hours, with some like Super Kiwi 64 being under an hour. Just enough time to scratch the N64-style collectathon itch. The most time this month got put into a wave survival game called Boneraiser Minions, which is very aware of the joke in the name and runs with it while being just a genuinely good action roguelike. I ended up dumping over 40 hours into it with no regrets and lots of laughs.
My top game of the month, though, ended up being one I picked up on Game Pass after activating a free month subscription: Ghost Song. Y’all, I know there’s Super Metroid fans in here. Get this game. The controls feel fantastic, the atmosphere is pleasantly spooky, the characters are fascinating, and there’s just a ton to do while exploring. There’s not too many fast-travel points, could have done with one or two more, and the enemies are a bit spongy, but overall, it’s probably one of the best Metroidvanias I think I’ve ever played. Don’t sleep on this one, it’s fantastic.
It was daunting, but I was finally able to finish the remaster of my favorite game of all time, Metroid Prime, and it was quite the trip down memory lane! I still had great muscle memory with this game, so I was able to skulk through the caverns of Tallon IV without getting too lost. In the end, I completed the game with about 94% of it complete, which is more than I have ever gotten before, so I mark that as a win.
I finally re-upped my Nintendo Online subscription, seeing as content for the GameBoy and GameBoy Advance was recently added to the service. From the years 2002 to 2006, I was in college and played very few video games because I just couldn’t afford to. With that said, there are some iconic games that I completely missed on the GBA handheld, and one, in particular, is The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
Having spent a great deal of time playing through The Minish Cap, I am surprised that I wasn’t turned into it sooner. The game is excellent! It does a wonderful job of paying homage to A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening while embracing the aesthetic of Wind Waker. The implementation of the Minish to the LoZ lore is wonderful as well, and it adds a new angle to the classic top-down gameplay. I also like the hat, Ezlo, who is quite a fun guide, and not nearly as annoying as Navi.
Continuing with my retro gaming jaunt through time, I began hammering through a title that holds one of my earliest gaming memories, Xevios for the NES. The legendary shmup is really not much to look at or even listen to, and most people consider it to be the granddaddy Porto-type of all shoot em’ ups. Regardless, I love it, and that is because my father had it on our Commodore 64 back in the day. It is on my bucket list to finish the game…assuming it has an end.
This month, it’s been all Nintendo for me. Since the Mario movie rekindled my childhood, I’ve jumped back into my favorite franchises from the Big N. I immediately wanted a Mario game after the movie. So, I satiated Bowser’s Fury and toddled my way through puzzle cubes with a friend in Captain Toad. This was a relaxing reprieve in a very busy work season.
And yet, I needed excitement! With Tears of the Kingdom falling quickly into my life in mere weeks, I knew it was time to return to Hyrule. I decided to finally tackle Breath of the Wild’s Master Mode and DLC, or as I’ve come to call it: Death Simulator. Master Mode is gruelling, relentless, unfair, tedious… and I love it? The difficulty spike (and enemy health regeneration) demanded I play the game totally differently than I had six years ago, focusing far more on recipes and stealth than hack-and-slash mechanics. Turns out, this was the perfect blend of puzzle-solving, skill, and innovation I wanted for this month. While this is by no means a completionist run (I did that on my first play… this is about survival!), I finished the fourth divine beast and started the DLC last night so— unless something calamitous happens— I should finish just in time for Tears.
April was a month of replays for me, it would seem. Mario Week at The Pixels coupled with the release of the Mario movie (which I still haven’t seen yet – in due time!) put me in the mood to spend some time running around with the good ol’ plumber. I wanted something familiar, but not too familiar, a game I wouldn’t have to “learn” but not one I knew like the back of my hand. So it was that toward the end of March I fired up a second playthrough of Paper Mario: The Origami King, one that lasted into the early stages of April.
Though I don’t think it’s as strong an entry in the series as several others, I still found it enjoyable – while I’m still not sure what I think of the Ring Battle system on the whole, those boss battles are a delight. I saw it through to the end, as much to refresh myself on how the back half went down as anything else, and came out of it quite satisfied, the origami aesthetic having me grinning the whole way through (in no small part because it’s a craft I’ve long held a love for!)
My Mario fix satiated, I took a quick pit-stop for my approximately zillion-and-third replay of the first Ultima, something of a palate cleanser while I decided what to go for next. I’m familiar enough with it that I can zip through it in the course of an afternoon at this point, and this month’s go-around was no exception, yet somehow I can still find little variants in my approach to the game to keep it fresh. This time around I decided to try playing it “backwards” to my norm – I took my typical last priority, the space segment, and made it my first. Made for an entertaining mix-up!
To close out the month, the hype for Tears of the Kingdom started to put me in a Zelda mood, but not for Breath of the Wild. Instead, I fired up Minish Cap, my favorite of the hand-held Zeldas and one I hadn’t revisited in several years. As I write this I’m in the home stretch, just taking my first steps into the final dungeon, and I’ve been very much surprised just how much of it I remember! Maybe it’s a side effect of it being one of the few Zeldas I’ve played to 100% completion before, some of those secrets still stick in my brain despite the fact it’s been ages. I fully expect Tears to take up a fair chunk of my May gaming time, but until then… I’m comin’ for you, Vaati!
-Linguistic Dragon
While I’ve not been up to much new gaming-wise, I have picked up the old Switch once again and dusted it off to play some XCOM2 (£5 for it, nice!) Man, that game is tough, and I’m obsessive enough to keep loading my save each time a poor squad member dies to some spammy alien menace!
I’m still also playing Resident Evil 4 Remake, in which I just harpooned a giant lake monster to death from a rowing boat! Considering I hated the original I’m actually quite enjoying this re-do! The villagers still scare me though.
April started off with every Sonic hater’s (and Dr. Eggman’s) fervent wish: his murder! The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog was shadow-dropped on April Fool’s Day by the Sonic Social Media Team. What better way to celebrate my return to streaming than by participating in the spectacle of Sonic’s apparent demise? If you know me and my writing, you’ll know that I’m not afraid to kill my darlings for the sake of a good story. *wink!*
The game is a visual novel akin to the Phoenix Wright series with a neat special stage minigame sequence. Story-wise, it’s Amy Rose’s birthday and Sonic and company celebrate it by playing a murder mystery game on a luxury train. You play as a quokka (the happiest mammal on the planet!) in charge of keeping the guests happy. The game begins and all is fine until Sonic is found by the player character. And he’s pretty dead too. Together with Tails, you set off to solve the mystery while lampooning the hilarious quirks of Sonic’s many, many friends.
Off-stream, I finally delved deep into the epic that is Hollow Knight. Boy, oh boy, I was not expecting to get this hooked on it! I was initially hesitant, but the mysteries behind the Hollow Knight, the lore of Hallownest and the quirky cast of characters The Knight meets on his journey really drew me into the game. It also helps that it feels eerily similar to Mega Man Zero, one of my all-time favourite Mega Man games. I’ve spent a whole month playing through it and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.
I picked up a physical copy of Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection for my Switch, which lays untouched for the time being. See above for details. I probably won’t be able to play it anytime soon, since a free trial version of Cadence of Hyrule drops on May 1, followed by Tears of the Kingdom. Sorry, Final Fantasy, it probably won’t be until September that I get around to you. 🙁
What have you been playing recently? Finish any games in April? We’ll see you all again next month!
Ryan Cheddi – our friendly, neighbourhood caffeine addict – is a man of many talents: an engineer, a gaming historian, a fiction writer and a streamer. He is also a self-avowed Sonic the Hedgehog fan. You can check out his cool beans at his site – Games with Coffee – or find him on Twitter as @GameswCoffee, and Instagram as @games_with_coffee. He streams on Twitch, also as GamesWithCoffee.
