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I encountered a few crashes while I played, but thanks to the auto-saves, the ability to manually save at any point during gameplay, and the fast-forward function, this never resulted in too much progress being lost. There also were occasional performance issues, but they weren’t bad enough to detract from...
Finally, there’s Red Earth and Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness, which are the two coolest games in this collection. Red Earth is more of a boss battle-centered fighter where you pick one of a few fantasy characters and battle folklore-inspired and just plain badass foes. It plays super smooth and looks incredible,...
Battle League looks great and has a snazzy art style that is used for special shots. It’s not as dark and grungy as previous Mario Strikers games, but it still has a bit of edge to it compared to the more happy-go-lucky atmosphere of other Mario games. The energetic tracks...
When you’re not parkouring through heaven to kill demons, you’re likely at the game’s hub space where you can chat with your friends or get new missions from. Finding hidden gifts in levels will allow you to exchange those for new dialog options, memories that help piece together what your...
I will note, fans of the original arcade game might be keen to play this one on hard mode. I knocked the game out in a single three hour sitting without any trouble while on normal difficulty. Hell, I don’t even think I got close to reaching my last life...
However, I ran into a much worse problem than that. Kao the Kangaroo exclusively uses auto-saves, yet the auto-save system has a bug where it stops working. When I was halfway through the game, I took a break, only to find that when I reloaded, my progress had reverted back...
There’s no multiplayer except for leaderboards which is actually kind of a shame since the only thing more fun than co-op mode would be making your buddy explode with a well-timed prank. Think Deep Rock Galactic with “I pranked him to death with a tire iron!” then yelling “KOBE!” as...
The game is a mixed (BLOOD!) bag. As someone who tends to be a fan of the line, if not the writers introducing edgelord Nazi references and starting international incidents, Swansong was an interesting expedition into the world and a faithful port of the mind-boggling systems. On the other hand,...
The sound design is brilliant too. Every creepy track, vicarious sound effect, and quip from Ash and his fellow survivors are top-notch. Chainsaws have never sounded so nasty, and I mean that in the best way possible. Bruce Campbell in particular is always a highlight to listen to, and I...
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story is a fascinating, tightly-plotted mystery. Each chapter has its own interesting case to unravel, and the way everything ties into the overarching story makes it even better. Tiny clues are hidden in clever ways to only become apparent once you begin connecting the pieces...
In the end, I’m disappointed, but I kind of want to recommend it anyway because it’s so stylish and really shows what an artistic vision and style can be. Sure, it’s cribbed from Kurosawa, but one of the biggest and most popular franchises in film history is, too. This is...
Again, there’s no bonus content or quality-of-life features. I would have loved to be able to speed up enemy turns, or see behind-the-scenes design docs or art. Sure, it’s not strictly necessary, but when so many other remasters are doing stuff like this, it really makes me wish NIS did...
