Giving offbeat, obscure, and forgotten games another look
64 de Hakken! Tamagotchi: Minna de Tamagotchi World is the kind of game that shows off the Nintendo 64 in its best light. It’s not necessarily the greatest party game or board game by any means, but it has such a unique flavor that brings out the most understated aspects of the console in a complementary way. People are quick to judge the N64 as a whole because some games are muddy-looking and run…
Knife Edge: Nose Gunner is exactly the kind of game I love to cover on this blog. You can tell because it’s one of the longest posts I’ve made in quite some time! It's been sitting here all this time for anyone to appreciate, but despite how well-known the N64 is, it still doesn’t get its time in the limelight. I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect going in, but I had quite a good time and it’s…
In places outside of its ideal environment- European homes where two people could play competitively- the box art ensures that Ballistix will always find a moment to pop into the conversation whenever Judas Priest or Melvyn Grant come up. Even though I’ve found myself wrinkling when games are used as an opportunity to dispense facts instead of an experience for someone to take something personal…
It’s so rare that I have to think about how to play a game “correctly” (execution is usually the barrier over understanding with most games of this vintage) that I found Nyorols to be a fascinating experience. I can’t truly say I got comfortable with it- I could consistently get to the third level on most runs but rarely did any better- but I feel I at least had a grasp on what makes the game…
In a lot of ways, I really appreciate what On the Tiles is doing. It’s a “platformer”, but it also has higher and unusual aspirations when it comes to routing and survival. This isn’t just a typical “Hop and Bop”, On the Tiles commits very strongly to its particular vision of a cat surviving in a harsh city. I appreciated having to think about every move I made and as I messed around with the…
So many of Blue Fencer’s aspects wouldn’t hold up if you compared it to any “normal” video game, but that’s exactly what makes it so special. It’s weird, nonsensical, and unpolished, but there’s nothing quite like it out there. Once you get past that initial layer of absurdity, there’s a game that’s legitimately well-made and offers mechanical cohesion in unexpected places. I had a lot of fun…
This was a weird one to play and write about, a little weirder than I expected, even! Black Hole Assault is, by all accounts, a “better” game than Heavy Nova. It’s faster, more polished, has more storytelling, and offers more playable characters. However, it just doesn’t spark that same bit of freaky, perverse excitement that Heavy Nova did for me. Getting anywhere in Heavy Nova, even on the…
There’s something to be said about a game that I can boot up for the first time on a tight deadline in the middle of the night and instantly find myself entranced with. As much as I enjoy doing this, it can be a bit stressful to tackle weekly posts during weeks where I’m busier than usual, which I’m sure can infect my writing in ways that I fail to realize. Night Raid should have been a victim of…
Samurai Sword is one of those tragic cases of a game I should have loved, but found myself increasingly displeased with. Capcom so rarely misses for me and I would have thought that an early adventure game from them would be super interesting, but the playthrough is really tedious. Everything is needlessly obtuse and cumbersome, the story and characters are far too thin for a game of this genre,…
Running Battle is on a whole ‘nother level; this game is truly baffling, nothing about it makes any sense whatsoever! This game was released long before the dark days of vibe coding, but feels like it operates exclusively on vibes anyway. Things just happen arbitrarily and while the game is certainly beatable (it's really not too bad once you know where the 1ups are), you won't feel any closer to…