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Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I had no idea there were bad Kirby games. Certainly, Kirby Air Ride and Kirby Not Smash Bros Because It’s Only Kirby in Different Colours Clash aren’t amazing, but they’re inoffensive and not really proper Kirby games. But Kirby 64 is bad. And not in a 1980s way.

Considering that it came out after Mario 64, and is a much simpler game being only 2D (well, 2.5D really), how is it that this looks terrible? It’s worse than the NES game. Hell, it’s worse than almost every game. But it was free on the Nintendo 64 thingie on the Nintendo Online doofer, so can I really complain?

Unusually for a game, it actually looks better as a static image than when moving.

It tries to make up for it by being cute and stuff and having the usual Kirby twee choons and jingles, but it’s so slow, so ugly and so impressively dull that it’s a wonder anyone can play it for more than ten minutes.

So after about three hours, I completed it. Obviously. And we shall Never Speak of This Again.

Worst boss ever.

Minit (PS5): COMPLETED!

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Another PS+ free rental, but a game I’ve nearly bought more than once elsewhere and actually own on PC (but I don’t have my Steam Deck yet to play it on!). Minit’s “thing” is that it’s a Zelda-ish game only you die every sixty seconds. Or sooner. And then you start again.

However, some things are persistent and you do reach respawn points and open shortcuts so dying isn’t really an inconvenience.

There’s a plot about having to go into some factory to destroy it, but most of what happens is irrelevant to that in any sort of meaningful way bar Metroidvania style map unlocking and progression. It’s a short game (as in, maybe a couple of hours rather than an actual minute), and isn’t very difficult, although I did get stuck trying to find a particular character because I hadn’t tried doing everything imaginable up until that point.

Cheap, short, fun.

I Am Dead (PS5): COMPLETED!

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With PS+ Premium comes a huge number of games you can “borrow”. A few of those are titles I was eyeing up to buy on the Switch, so I suppose I’ve saved a bit of money now I’ve got them on my PlayStation “for free”.

I Am Dead is one of those. It’s a hidden object game with a story and some quirks. Firstly, you’re dead (but then you surely guessed that from the title), and with the help of your talking dead dog, you explore the quaint little island you both used to live on probing the thoughts of those still alive, and then trying to find objects relating to other dead people in order to summon their souls. In a nice way.

The objects are usually hidden inside of things, but instead of opening doors, lifting flaps or pushing things out of the way in something like Hidden Folks, you sort of “slice” into them like those ham machines you get in the delicatessen. Find all five items and you can put the soul back together and have a chat with the deceased.

The ultimate aim is to find a replacement for the old island spirit, who has been preventing the local volcano from erupting for centuries but is now tired (or something) and the story follows both her past as a human and the past and present of the other islanders. Despite all the death and the pending apocalypse, it’s all very light hearted and the characters (and their voices) are excellent. It’s not a hard game and the only real puzzles are optional (where you find a “slice” of some scenery that matches a shape you’ve been given), but it’s nice. In the best way of calling something “nice”.

Pac’n Roll Remix (Switch): COMPLETED!

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No, I have no idea why I played this either. It’s one of the games on the somewhat hit-and-miss Pac-Man Museum+ collection and although it’s not really bad, there’s nothing special about it. Not least because the USP of “stroking” Pac-Man with your Nintendo DS stylus in order to twang him around the levels is totally lost.

The boss levels are… sub par.

That’s said, I did enjoy most of it, aside from a couple of later levels where there are some nasty jumps-in-3D with no character shadow to assist with landing accurately and instant deaths if you don’t. That, and your dash move is incredibly fast and difficult to judge so more falling off the world and instantly dying. How I managed on the DS version back in 2005 I don’t know. In fact, aside from a hazy memory of the very first level, I had no recollection of any of the game at all.

Shinsekai: Into the Depths (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Just in case I’d not had enough Metroidvania games, I bought another one. Only this one is underwater!

Which means you constantly have to look for oxygen, and being attacked drains your oxygen, and jetting around drains your oxygen, and you move slowly and you have a harpoon. And at one point you gain use of a hovercraft cowfish shaped submarine which means you don’t need oxygen when in it, and – more importantly – you can survive deeper water. One of the main mechanics is that your suit can only deal with a certain amount of water pressure. Go deeper and you quickly die, but you can keep upgrading it to allow deeper exploration with the right resources.

Which is another “difference” with this Metroidvania. You get items mostly from mining rocks and collecting plants, rather than defeating baddies. Combined with the suit and floaty physics it certainly doesn’t feel like just another Metroidvania (not that I’d complain if it did, see previous entries on this blog!) but it is. There’s also two separate endings depending on how you deal with the end boss – I got both.