“Whatcha Playin’, Pixels?” – October 2024
11 min read
A monthly roundup of games enjoyed by the writers of The Pixels
Happy Spooky Season! October may be over, but the month provided enough thrills and chills to send a shiver down a skeleton’s spine! Our devilishly awesome writers have had a gourd time churning out so much fa-boo-lous content this month, you’ll feel like a kid after Halloween, goblin up all this written goodness! OK, I’ll stop with the candy corny puns and creep it real with what’s been happening this month. (Seriously, that was the last one! Put down the torches and pitchforks, boils and ghouls!)
Starting off is Derek Wright taking a deep look at Night Slashers Remake – a remake of the 1993 zombie beat-em-up. It’s flashy with updated graphics and a banger of a soundtrack, but its short run time makes it both a blessing and a curse. Following this is Red with a look at the remastered Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Part of the Castlevania Dominus Collection (and a very personal favourite of mine), Order of Ecclesia scored high in most categories in Red’s critique. This should definitely be on your radar if you’re a Castlevania fan.
Oh? What’s this? What’s this? Is it magic in the air? Nah fam, it’s your one and only deputy editor with a critique of Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade! I’m especially proud of this writeup. It’s a long one, but worth it if you’ve invested a good chunk of your headspace in Remake. Red returns with a look at Stray, the award-winning indie darling where you play as a cat stuck in an underground city. It’s a thematically beautiful game.
Not one, but two writeups from yours truly? What a month! I reviewed 8-Bit Adventures 2 and let me tell you, it’s brought me so much optimism and joy. It’s my favourite game of this year so far. JRPG enthusiasts should go and check this out! At this point, we should rename October to Red & Coffee Month as Red dishes out a third helping of critiques in Mr. Driller for the PS1. Essentially, it’s like if you took Dig Dug and Tetris and put them in a blender. An interesting premise, though its visuals do look dated. And coming in at the eve of Halloween is Matt Lotti with a horror retrospective of Toxic Crusaders for the NES. It’s a great read that explores the intersection of horror IP with the family-friendliness of the NES.
Rounding out this month are some brand-new Gamelogica releases! The first is centered around the connection between Final Fantasy VI and the Divine Comedy. Fans of the affable thie-I mean-treasure hunter Locke should definitely tune in! The second delves deep into the history of inverted castles! Symphony of the Night fans, you best step up for this one!
Phew, well that’s what’s new this month. Let’s mosey on behind the curtains and see what our writers were up to this time:
I’M BACK! It’s been almost a year and I’m about to finish my classes so I’m ready to share with you all once again. Even though I’ve been keeping busy I did manage to play through quite a lot of games this year. Some highlights include Lil Gator Game, Humanity, 1000xRESIST, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Astro Bot, and SteamWorld Heist 2. There’s so much I could say about all of these, but I’m just going to focus on a particular title this month.
Horizon: Zero Dawn is another game I finished recently, and what a journey it has been! I originally played it when I first acquired a PS4 (back in 2019, I believe) and played through the opening hours. When I got past the first area and into the vast open world I was just not feeling it. I had spent the past 2 years playing Breath of the Wild, so Horizon just did not feel good for me. Fast forward to this year when I decided to give it another chance, I got to the same point of reaching the open world and my feelings remained the same, I wanted to quit yet again because I wasn’t into it.
Luckily I pushed through these feelings and continued to give it another chance. To my surprise, things started to click. I started having fun in the open world! I tried to mainline quest it since I knew it was a lengthy adventure but I was very much underpowered so I decided to do side quests. I enjoyed doing all the side quests, exploration, upgrades, etc. and had a really good time. Unfortunately, by the last fifth of the game, I started to feel underwhelmed again. I had most things upgraded and was strong enough to take on any quest so doing the side quests no longer felt rewarding, so I went back to doing just the main quest since the story was the only thing I was enjoying at that point. Overall it’s a great game, but the beginning and ending felt like it dragged unnecessarily.
TRPGs were the name of the game(s) for me in October with a heavy dose of Unicorn Overlord as well as an advance on Metal Slug Tactics. I can’t say any more about MST but look out for my review for Dotemu’s take on SNK’s classic arcade run and gun series. Embargo lifts tomorrow, November 5. Something to look forward to on what should otherwise be an uneventful day in the United States, I’m sure.
I can tell you about Unicorn Overlord, though. Delightful experience. As wordy as any TRPG about geopolitics and knights color-coded by their hair, but it has that Vanillaware visual style I’m so fond of as well as a sense of grandeur and elegance which I appreciate. Less shonen. More Tolkien.
You can read about my take on Stray through that link. Loved that game. Made me even more of a cat person.
I also started chipping away at a few other games, namely The Plucky Squire and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. The latter is a Metroidvania that really has yet to earn my attention. It certainly doesn’t have my addiction. However, the former, for all its simplicity and slow pace, has been fairly delightful. Maybe a bit too much winking for my taste, which isn’t atypical of your typical indie, sure, but it feels fresh, which is what you generally look for in this kind of game. The spelling puzzles in particular were a nice surprise.
Happy Halloween everyone! I hope everyone is absolutely stuffed full of the candy of your choice. I’ve actually had a fairly productive month when it comes to cleaning off the old backlog. First off, I finally gave into the urge and both bought and beat Cat Quest 3. There’s only so long I can resist a new entry in that series. With some encouragement from friends and Infinite Backlog, I also beat Paradise Killer, an excellent murder mystery on an island of immortals and strange gods. The atmosphere is phenomenal, and you’re encouraged to poke your nose everywhere. Very satisfying for gamers who like to explore. Then, as soon as I finished that, I realized that Mineko’s Night Market, a game I really wanted to play but had been putting off, was leaving Game Pass in four days. It was supposed to take 15 hours to beat. I did it in two days. Do not underestimate a gamer’s ability to panic-play.
When it comes to streaming, I always stop what I’m doing in October and play seasonal games, either horror games or Halloween adjacent games. I managed to finish one of each, starting the month off with Pony Island, a creepy programming puzzle game, and finishing it with Pumpkin Jack, an indie 3rd person platformer that calls back to 360 era gaming with solid controls and silly characters.
Of course, these are tempered with a few little free games here and there, but all told, as of the beginning of October, I have now passed over 100 games beaten in 2024. Yes, a bit over half of them were free and less than an hour long (some only minutes), but they’re still games. Beating over 100 games in a year has been a long-time goal since I started tracking a few years ago, so it feels amazing to have finally achieved it. Maybe now I can settle down and play some longer games.
And then I remember just how big my backlog is and think, nah. Not yet.
Recently, I acquired a TurboGrax 16 adapter for my Analogue Pocket, which opened up a whole new system of games to explore. Growing up, I didn’t know anyone who owned a TurboGrafx 16, so this would be my very first time trying out any of the console’s library. What I learned the hard way is that TurboGrafx 16 games are very difficult to find, at least in my area. Most retro game stores, of which I have a good 4 or 5 in driving distance, only had 1 or 2 games in stock. I thought collecting for the classic GameBoy was tough, but acquiring gems for the TurboGrafx16 seems to be even more of a challenge. Fortunately, I did manage to find one title that provided a nostalgic bit of adventuring…
Neutopia plays so incredibly much like the original NES Legend of Zelda that it’s a miracle Nintendo didn’t call up their team of lawyers. Much like Link’s original adventure, your medieval overworld is broken up into a series of individual screens that comprise a large environment. See a wall with a crack running up it? Grab a bomb. You know the drill. Items collected over the course of the adventure expand your abilities and can be swapped in and out for easy access. The swing of your sword is a bit different, but you get used to it quickly. The first few slimy enemies move slowly enough to allow practice. Despite that, I had to be cautious, as it felt very easy to take damage. I’m not sure if the hit detection is super-sensitive or if I’m simply being too brash in combat, but I’d recommend keeping a solid distance between yourself and your foes as you swing your sword.
Thus far, I’ve been enjoying Neutopia’s harkening back to the original Zelda, as playing the game really feels like you’re on a new adventure in Hyrule. Just with a different set of paint. If the idea of an old-school Zelda-like adventure appeals to you, I’d certainly recommend checking Neutopia out.
It’s been a bit of a scattered month for me, both on the real life front and the gaming front, but if there’s one thing I can say I properly stuck with this month, it’s a return to my Ultima series playthrough with Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle. Mouthful of a title that may be, it’s still one I’ve been eager to get to – the last time I played it was nearly twenty years ago, but I remember enjoying it a good deal. There’s some themes in there that I’m interested in seeing again with older (purportedly wiser?) eyes, and though my sessions with it have been shorter and less frequent than I might have wanted, well. The fact I want more time with it probably says something in and of itself, right?
At this stage it’s looking like my self-imposed goal of getting through the whole series by the year’s end may not quite come to fruition, but that’s okay. Just means I have some good things to look forward to on my gaming plate!
I spent the first week or two of October finishing up 8-Bit Adventures 2. To sum it up, we need more RPGs like this: wholesome, optimistic and flat-out fun! Playing this game didn’t feel like the busywork that is so typical of RPGs in this age; it was tight, compact, filled to the brim with charm and was an amazing experience. I had these same feelings when I played CrossCode a couple of years back. I’m definitely coming back to this one.
Moving on, the Pokemon craze continues in the Coffee household. I’m nearing the Elite Four battles of Pokemon Fire Red – though, not necessarily the end of the game. I still have the new islands to go and explore afterwards. A few good friends of mine gifted The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom to me earlier this month and I will never forget their generosity. I started playing it around mid-October and despite the slow start, I found myself greatly enjoying this new Zelda title. This whole freakin’ game is adorable, the echo mechanics are fun, the puzzles are engaging and there’s so much to explore. And I can’t speak of this game without mentioning THE BED ECHO! The Bed Echo is Great. The Bed Echo is Amazing. All Glory to the Bed Echo!
And then there’s Sonic X Shadow Generations, which I’m playing on PS5. I have but one word to describe it: OUTSTANDING. Though it’s a remaster, Sonic Generations plays as good or even better than the original release on PS3/XBox 360. It’s still one of the best Modern Sonic games to come out in recent years. Shadow Generations, on the other hand, is an evolution to Sonic Frontiers. SEGA and Sonic Team took the best bits about Frontiers and polished them up, resulting in quite possibly the best Sonic game in recent memory. And it’s not even starring the Blue Blur himself! I’m just flat-out amazed at this and I’m hoping beyond hope that this will be the trend for Sonic games in the future. But this is SEGA we’re talking about, so…
Been an arduous month, but not for gaming. The key thing I’ve touched this month is Neon White. I get pretty competitive when it comes to speedrunning games and I’ve found it fun trying to get better scores on the levels I’ve played. Only beat the first world, but I’ve spent an hour or two trying to learn the game and master some of the mechanics. Seems like a pretty intuitive game and I plan on finishing it at some point. Good to touch a game that’s been sitting in my library for over a year or two.
And so ends October. What have you been playing recently? What did you finish? And what’s next on your backlog? Let us know in the comments below.
Thanks for reading, and we’ll see you all again next month! Same Pixel Time! Same Pixel Channel!
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 Bluesky as @gameswithcoffee, and Instagram as @games_with_coffee. He streams on Twitch, also as GamesWithCoffee.
