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The Revenge of Shinobi (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I know this was highly lauded on release, but I’ll be honest – I’ve never been a massive fan of the game. Or the Shinobi/Shadow Dancer series, actually. I don’t hate them or anything, but I certainly wouldn’t hold them up as fantastic examples of the best the 8 and 16 bit consoles had to offer like a lot of people seem to. See also Ninja Gaiden, actually. [Edit: Oh, it seems I like the 3D port of Shinobi III for the 3DS. Well, that’s me correcting myself then.]

Maybe it will have improved with time? Well, no. Not really. It’s still not bad at all, but it feels just so empty and generic. Ten billion similar platformers since are probably to blame. I played through it, completed it, and moved on. And yes, I used the “make the 00 become ∞” thing so get all the shuriken because I’m not an idiot and there’s no way in hell the game is possible without them. I also found it odd that you can’t decide when to use your sword and when to use your shuriken. It seems you can only throw shuriken, but if the enemy is close you automatically sword them instead? A very odd design choice when you have limited ammo.

Oh, and that final boss? With his whippy hair? Utterly ridiculous.

Advance Wars 1 Re-Boot Camp (Switch): COMPLETED!

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After much publicised delays thanks to An Actual War, Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp finally came out. Only it was not long before Tears of the Kingdom so although I got it, Zelda was The Thing as so it was put to one side until that was completed because who can be doing with swapping game cards? Not me.

It was with a little trepidation that I went into it. I’d heard horror stories about how terrible the performance of the game was, with slowdown and stuttering and shonky framerates. I couldn’t understand how a slow-paced, low impact, Game Boy Advance game update could possibly have such things but still, I hoped they wouldn’t affect the gameplay. And you know what? They didn’t! Because they don’t exist.

Let me be clearer: they don’t exist for me. I played completely docked, so perhaps this is a handheld issue. Or as I have an OLED Switch, maybe there’s a slight difference there. Certainly though, the game hasn’t been patched in any way since the original release, so nothing has been fixed – it just wasn’t broken.

With that concern out of the way, it was into the game as it gloriously ever was, only with nicer graphics, some speech, cutscenes and a skippable tutorial which seems to play out even if you skip it. The levels, units and gameplay are all just the same as they were 20-odd years ago, which is perfect. It feels the same as before, but new at the same time. A perfect update then, perhaps?

And with it completed (the last level was hard!), it’s on to Advance Wars 2!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge (PS5): COMPLETED!

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A PS5 game? How rare! But yes, this game was on my Switch wishlist for a while waiting for a decent sale, but then it recently appeared on PS++++++ as a free rental so I played it there instead. It felt wrong, somehow, even though it’s on the same TV the Switch version would have been played on.

Went through the game with my daughter. I was Mikey, she was Don, and it was great. It’s a proper sequel to the well-known arcade game from 1989, and although has loads more moves, much better graphics, animation and sound, and more characters, it really does feel like a sequel. The same humour and style, and even a remade cartoon intro sequence and, it would appear, the original voice cast.

There are a few additions which nod to more recent side-scrolling fighting games, like XP which eventually unlocks moves, more lives, more energy, and so on, and even some “missions” where you have to find hidden things in each level (you can return to levels too, and there’s an overworld map), so it’s a bit deeper than the original. Very enjoyable.

Kemono Friends Picross (Switch): COMPLETED!

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As you might expect, I’m a massive fan of Kemono Friends. Sorry, no, the other thing. Picross. Kemono Friends is something I’d never heard of, but the themed Picross game is by Jupiter who do all the Picross games. so of course I was going to buy it at some point.

Apparently, it’s a manga or anime or both, where there’s a zoo but all the animals are anthropomorphic and resemble human girls. Could the premise be any more anime? That doesn’t matter at all though, because I’m here for the puzzles (most of which are of the faces of these girl-animals) and it’s not relevant what they’re actually puzzles of.

30 hours later, and all done. No colour picross this time around, but Mega and Clip varieties of the puzzle are present. Now to wait for the next sale on Picross games!

Alien Breed Special Edition ’92 (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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I seem to remember this getting really good reviews upon original release, but I’m struggling to see how. I did look up some of them, and came across this incredible bit of art editor drunkenness from Amiga User International, which attempts to show the screen that comes up when you access a computer terminal, but fails, rather than any of the actual game itself. Incredible work. And also look out for some great whitespace issues:

Anyway, that review also tells you about the game so I don’t need to, but I will tell you why it is wrong. Firstly, calling it “based on Gauntlet” is really doing Gauntlet a disservice. Sure, you have a top-down maze and keys to open doors, but that’s it. Gauntlet has variety. Loads of baddies and baddie generators. Bonus levels, great speech, four players, potions… so much more than Alien Breed which has boring levels, mazes that do nothing but frustrate, way more doors than keys meaning it’s very, very easy to get stuck if you open the wrong door (and so have to restart the level), and several levels with countdown timers where you have to solve the maze super-quick. One of them gives you just two seconds to get out, with the distance to cover also taking two seconds. Not fun.

There are also only really three different baddies, ammo is in very short supply, you have to collect money for better weapons which aren’t really worth it, and it’s possible to accidently trigger fire doors so you can’t progress as once closed, they’re closed for good.

The aliens (which have been lifted directly from Aliens) aren’t really even a threat – it’s everything else that is. Bad game. To your room.