“Whatcha Playin’, Pixels?” – #023
7 min read
A weekly roundup of games enjoyed by the writers of The Pixels
This week marks the 31st anniversary of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise! Happy Birthday, Sonic! Whether you’re playing the classic Genesis/Mega Drive games on original hardware or playing the recently released Sonic Origins, we hope you have a grand time zooming through stages at supersonic speed! But, speedy blue hedgehogs aren’t the only thing occupying our writers’ time! (*Editor’s Note: Well, one mostly, haha) Here’s what they’ve been up to this week:
Fresh off the back of The Quarry, I’ve been checking out some budget-priced horror games on the PS5 this week. No idea why these are all suddenly releasing in the middle of June – about as far away from Halloween as you can get – but as a horror fan I’m not complaining!
First up, I took a look at Oxide: Room 104 which clearly takes quite a bit of inspiration from Silent Hill in the way it’s laid out. You wake up in the bathtub of the titular Room 104 and need to escape the motel by finding keys to other rooms, solving puzzles and avoiding creepy creatures. If you die, you go back to the bathtub for another go, with items moved around and creepy changes to the motel’s layout – an interesting little touch! It’s not a long game but I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a quick slice of escape-the-room / horror at the moment.
Next up was Yuoni which felt like it was going to have a few cool tricks up its sleeve but then… didn’t. The premise was interesting: you have to sneak around a school/hospital ward looking for an item, then take it back to the start without getting caught by a ghost child or a giant floating mass of eyeballs. Sadly, where Oxide kept things interesting the whole way through, Yuoni fell into repetition: once you escape, you’re put into another maze and tasked with doing the exact same thing. Maybe it varies later on, but I’d run out of patience near the end of the second level.
Finally, Ikai, which seemed to have the most intriguing plot out of the three, had me running away from a bunch of creatures from Japanese folklore. Some of these were admittedly very cleverly realised, but ones like the giant falling head in the middle of the forest actually made me laugh out loud. The puzzles in this one were really good too, but the areas in which the game takes place were just a little too open and occasionally left me wandering and going “What now?” for quite some time.
Of the three that I tried, Oxide: Room 104 is definitely my pick. If you’re after a neat little horror title at the moment, that’s the one getting the biggest thumbs-up from me.
Last Sunday was Father’s Day and I spent the day doing exactly what you thought I would be doing: Playing video games with Kid Espresso! Strangely enough, despite us being a Sonic the Hedgehog household, he’s been greatly enjoying watching and playing games from the Super Mario series. This includes Super Mario RPG, Super Mario World and even the original Super Mario Bros. for the NES. And that’s perfectly fine and awesome! Whether it’s Sonic, Mario, or some other random mascot character, so long as he enjoys both playing the games and watching what I play, I couldn’t be happier. We also both watched a playthrough of Luigi’s Mansion 3 while we were out and about making the rounds with mine and Mrs. Coffee’s dads. A good Dad’s Day overall, I think!
Despite skipping streaming on Sunday night, I picked up where I left off in Oracle of Seasons on Tuesday afternoon. On this go-around, I spent time within the Sunken City, which was flooded thanks to the rapidly changing seasons. With the fourth Essence of Nature sitting behind a waterfall, I set off firstly to find a pair of flippers to get around the city before heading to the mountains to find the dungeon entrance. After schlepping around Subrosia once more (and getting my feather stolen from a couple of treasure-addicted Subrosians), I picked up the season of Spring for my Rod of Seasons. Once back in the overworld, I helped a big, blue bear with tiny wings with his food problem. I then used his powers to retrieve the key needed to enter the Dancing Dragon Dungeon.
Thursday was a different story as it was Sonic’s Birthday! I streamed a playthrough of the newly released Sonic Origins and tested out the Story Mode feature of the game. Story Mode is a back-to-back playthrough of all four classic Sonic games, starting from Sonic the Hedgehog, to Sonic CD, followed by Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. I had only managed to get through Sonic 1 on stream, but it was still a fun time! Playing Sonic on a widescreen format was a jarring experience at first, but it soon felt natural to me after a while. On top of that, the fact that the coins obtained in the game could be used to replay Special Stages makes this a very accessible version of Classic Sonic. Seriously, it removed a lot of the tension I felt while trying to get that darned third Chaos Emerald in the first game!
Off-stream, I continued with Origins. Some things I noticed are that I’ve experienced some minor bugs and sound muffling in certain instances, but they didn’t detract from the overall experience. I also played some more of The World Ends With You and finished the story campaign in TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, which I absolutely LOVE. This game brought back all the great memories of both playing TMNT II: The Arcade Game with my best friend growing up and Turtles in Time in the arcades. I can’t wait for the Cowabunga Collection to come out next!
One discussion on Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town for the next episode of MAGE CAST and I’m hooked on farm sims all over again. I ran out and purchased Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town which is a 3D remake of the original 2D Game Boy Advance game. Everything seems to be in order; it’s essentially the same exact game, for better or worse. For now, it’s a healthy dose of nostalgia for me but I found myself yearning for something a bit more creative than the now over-familiar and over-done country hamlet setting (with red flag bachelorette stereotypes lol). That’s got my eyes instead on games like Graveyard Keeper or the new Rune Factory 5. I’d also like to check out the first Story of Seasons for 3DS. So much to farm, so little time.
Elden Ring has been out since February and there’s something I FINALLY got to do that I’ve wanted to do since February… play co-op with my kid brother! It’s legit like one of the biggest reasons why I bought the game in the first place. What took so long is his internet service installation (everything takes one long time in da kine Hawaii), but now that he’s got it, we’re rolling as Legolas (a holy archer, me) and Gimli (pure strength build, him). Seemed appropriate but the temptation to roll a Saruman and Gandalf (intelligence and faith) is strong!
~Red
Feeling back in the saddle now! I finished up the demos on my plate, and also got two games under my belt this week.
Of the demos, games of note
- Ghost Song, a Metroidvania with some Soulslike elements, looks and feels very much like a Metroid game in and of itself. Seems like it’ll be a bit challenging, but worth it.
- DotAge, a little bit Civilization and a little bit Sim City; build a village while facing disasters of multiple flavors, aiming to survive a coming doom. For fans of city builders.
- Nobody’s Quest, an adventure game that feels like Moon, where helping people is more important than fighting monsters. Vibrant and zany characters make up for overly simple combat.
As for the games, fans of The Witness may or may not have heard people talking about The Looker this week. If you can’t tell from the name, it’s a parody game playing with the systems that The Witness established with a great sense of humor. I won’t talk too much about it, but it’s completely free and less than two hours, so it’s absolutely worth trying it yourself.
I also won’t talk too much about LumbearJack, because there’s a review in the works! Keep your eyes on the site for my thoughts on that one, which is coming very soon.
So, what were you playing this week?
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.
