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FAR: Changing Tides (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Remember a while back I completed a game called FAR: Lone Sails? If not you can just click that link. I refer to it because the ending of that game was a bit of a damp squib and didn’t make any sense. Turns out, this sequel is actually sort of the other half of the game and that’s why.

Whereas in Lone Sails you had a land-boat where you travel across what appears to be a dried up sea, in Changing Tides you pilot a sea-boat across what appears to be a flooded world. The game plays out in much the same way, with the same sorts of puzzles and areas you get out of your boat to do things which allow your craft to progress (like open big gates or operate cranes or something) but this time there’s more water. In parts of it, you actually become fully submersible.

The tie-in to the previous game is a bit of a spoiler, but when you get to the end of Changing Tides suddenly everything – assuming you recall the ending of Lone Sails at least – makes sense.

So the game isn’t really any better or worse than before, although they’ve fixed everything being too small a bit (it’s still a little too small, but it’s easier to make stuff out – this might be just because I played this on the PS5 not the Switch). It’s just more of the same only not quite the same as it’s a slightly different. Which is fine, I think?

Streets of Rage 4 (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Oh would you look – a PS+ monthly game that’s actually good and I don’t already own! How rare.

And yes, it is good! It’s a long awaited sequel to the original Mega Drive fighting games, if we ignore the Fighting Force game which was obviously supposed to be Streets of Rage 4 for the Saturn anyway. And even that was decades ago.

SoR4 doesn’t deviate from the previous games very much at all, really. You punch and kick through loads of baddies, most of whom are straight from the previous games, with playable characters that are, or are related to in some way, the original characters. Axel is a beefy boi now, with a beard, and Blaze has covered up a bit, but otherwise, it’s more of the same. Well, with modern graphics of course.

As she loves playing these sorts of games with me, I completed it with my daughter.

A Monster’s Expedition (Through Puzzling Expeditions) (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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I maintain that I am not really a fan of sokoban type puzzle games, and yet somehow, I seem to enjoy them. Perhaps it’s just when there are crate-pushing puzzles in otherwise crate-push-free games that I don’t like?

In any case, A Monster’s Expedition was one of the ones I did enjoy. You are a monster, who navigates islands which seem to make up a sort of Museum of Humans, as there are many artefacts (sometimes amusingly mislabelled as to their purpose) to be found. The game, however, isn’t about finding the artefacts – it’s about finding a way to leave the islands completely.

To do that you have to reach a ferry, and to reach the ferry you have to complete crate-pushing puzzles on each island in order to open paths, build log bridges, or make rafts to get around. Of course, they’re not crates you have to push: they’re trees.

You can chop down trees, then push the trunks as logs. If you push them sideways, they roll until they hit something or fall in the water, and if you push them lengthways they flip up on end and then over onto their side again. These, plus the double-height trees and some rocks, make up the majority of the puzzles and they’re all about trying to get logs into certain positions on each island to progress.

It’s simple, although many of the puzzles are not. Later on, you discover a few meta-puzzles, where there’s a collection of islands to solve, but not just to allow you to move between them – you have to make way for a log that needs to traverse the islands and bridges you’ve made too, which may mean the solution you had originally may not be enough for the log as well.

A Monster’s Expedition is a nice little (well, not little – it’s bloody huge) brain-scratcher, with a bit of humour and some fiendish puzzles. Oh, and if you’ve bought the itch.io Palestinian Relief bundle, you already own it!

Beglitched (Steam Deck): COMPLETED!

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Someone recommended this game over on Mastodon and it looked interesting. Then it turned out I already owned it and could play it on my Steam Deck. Result, eh?

It’s a match-3 puzzle game, but one that messes with the rules a bit. The idea isn’t just to match-3 (or more), as it matter which icons you match. For example, you only have so many moves, but matching certain symbols gives you more moves. Additionally, there’s a digital creature on the board, usually hidden, and you have to use symbols to track it down (such as arrows to point at it) and then blow it up. Triggering arrows and bombs use power, though, and you need to match other symbols in order to replenish it.

Furthermore, some of these digital creatures affect the board, or need blowing up more than once, or can’t be blown up. Or shouldn’t be blown up. It’s a lot more complex than your average matching game.

The surrounding motif of Beglitched is that it’s all set in a computer system. You’re a user of a sort of message board, and one of the prominent figures of the board has vanished and everyone else there now thinks you’re them – and most are out to stop you doing whatever it is that you need to do. It plays out as a series of small grids of levels, where the grid itself often contains puzzles and enemies. Progressing in the game opens up new folders on the computer, each acting as a sort of world with, generally, a specific change to the basic game rules.

It’s a good concept, and changing up the rules stops the core gameplay from getting stale. It certainly has a lot more depth than similar games, but it’s also somewhat shorter. Definitely worth playing if you like a good match game.

Sküljagger (Evercade): COMPLETED!

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Sküljagger (no, I’d never heard of it either) is a Bad Game. Originally a SNES game which seemed to have been completely ignored at the time, it’s yet another 16-bit platform with literally nothing going for it. It seems to have a pirate theme or maybe a viking theme or who actually knows, or cares? You have a sword and have platforms to navigate. Wow. Even at the time this can’t have been more than a 5/10 title.

It’s janky and the collision detection is rubbish, the levels are dull and repetitive, enemies appear out of nowhere to kill you, there are several power-ups all of which are useless, and the walls of text between levels are badly written. Or translated? Or both.

So why did I play it to the end? Because I don’t know. Don’t judge me.