A month after releasing its first extended gameplay footage, Keiji Inafune and developer Comcept have dropped another gameplay video for their upcoming Mighty No. 9, which is… you know… I mean, come on… … it’s a Mega Man game by a different name1.
The first video above shows off more of Beck (the little blue guy that is certainly not to be confused with anyone else!) tearing through the second and fifth stages of the game, which in some ways mirror the footage from the original video (shown directly below it).
Mighty No. 9 will be released on like, ‘every platform available’, in Spring 2015.
But for legal reasons, we can’t actually say that it’s a Mega Man game by another name. I think. Oh… wait. ↩
Easy joke with the title and referencing brick-breaker classic Breakout, I know, but be grateful I didn’t go with another title that was slightly NSFW. All the same, it’s accurate, as Siesta Fiesta is a brick-breaker with platforming tendencies. Well, sort of. You’re the ‘ball’ doing all this from your bed, traversing the highly-interactive levels and facing down piñata-style (…natch) bosses.
Though developer Mojo Bones missed its March release date (no reason given), the game is still tops on my ‘most wanted’ list for the colorful stylings and genre pairing. As Tribute Games showed off with Wizorb, mashing together brick-breaking with other genres can certainly liven things up.
Siesta Fiesta will be coming to the 3DS (hopefully) soon.
Stunning visuals are not usually the first thing you think of when someone brings up the 3DS, but, in the right developer’s hands, you can make some pretty stuff happen. Case in point, the original Gunman Clive was a fantastic-looking platformer, like a sketch that had come to life. It was one of the first eShop1 titles I picked up, and it didn’t hurt that the game was also a lot of fun to play.
It was a no-brainer we’d see a sequel, and part two is promising more of what the first delivered; namely the fancy sketchwork animation, some more coloring, and plenty of platforming. Also ducks.
Gunman Clive 2 will be released this Fall on the 3DS.
Yeah, I know it’s available on other platforms, but since the 3DS was the system I picked it up on, that’s the console I recognize. ↩
While I wasn’t expecting to be moved to tears by its quality, or crown it any kind of champion, Van Helsing Sniper Zx100 should have been a much better game than what I got. A first-person shooting gallery featuring an intriguing setup (the game uses the 3DS’ motion controls and the 3D effect) and a reliable pedigree (EnjoyUp Games is known for its quirky stuff on Nintendo’s eShop), I figured it was a can’t-miss bet at a super devil-worshiping price!1
I was sorely mistaken. Placing you in the shoes of the legendary crossbow-wielding vampire hunter himself (though you never actually move around), VHS2 chooses to play it simple, coming off like a handheld version of the lightgun games of a decade+ past. Using the 3DS console itself as that theoretical lightgun, you can aim and zoom in around an impressively-goth London skyline, picking off perched bloodsuckers with your trusty bolts and rescuing civilians that have been locked away in cages (don’t ask how or why the vampires decided to lug their catches up the side of a skyscraper).
… finding faraway targets on the 3DS’ tiny screen can be a pain.
As clever as the control scheme is, the whole thing will take some getting used to. Moving the console around with the 3D effect on can be a blurry proposition, ditto for your reticle and proper alignment. VHS wisely added a quick re-center for the camera, which helps tremendously. The pad itself controls your zoom, allowing you to move in close for the kill, though finding faraway targets on the 3DS’ tiny screen can be a pain. Luckily, you’re given an energy wave move that vaporizes all vampires in its path, as well as Van Helsing’s version of bullet time, slowing down your aim— and your enemies— to better see threats and zero in.
In typical ‘shooting gallery’ fashion, you’re given a quota to reach before each wave (there are six levels in the game, each divided into several sub-stages), involving killing a set number of vampires and / or people to rescue. The game starts off easy enough, with stationary targets, but enemies will actively attack you from all sides in later stages, pouring on the numbers / projectiles and ganging up on survivors. You can (and should) shoot down floating crystals to build up your health, or earn an extra special attack / replenish your bullet time, though the sharp-looking environments— like the vampires that occupy them— are otherwise devoid of life.
This blandness permeates the gameplay as well. Besides a few boss fights, each sub-level plays out largely the same as the last, with only your quotas changing. Completing the same objectives over and over naturally gets dull, and your limited health— as well as a constant timer ticking down— causes some frustration. Worse, if you die, VHS doesn’t let you continue at the point you left off. Fail to complete the whole level, and you’ll have to work your way through the same boring sub-stages over and over. Tedium quickly sets in.
… leads Van Helsing Sniper Zx100 to play like a really poor man’s version of House of the Dead.
As such, only the most dedicated of vampire hunters would dare stick with it. Interesting controls aside, the cheesy bits of dialogue, ultra repetitive objectives, and painful lack of continues leads Van Helsing Sniper Zx100 to play like a really poor man’s version of House of the Dead. Too poor to waste your time.
It’s one thing to play a hard game, or a game that gradually morphs into one without prior knowledge. It is quite another to willingly travel into that dark night of insane difficulty with your eyes wide open. You can’t claim any legitimate ignorance or polite curiosity, or cry foul and then say the world turned against you suddenly. No one will come to your aid. So like a Super Meat Boy or the upcoming Fenix Rage, 8Bit Fanantics & Nicalis‘ 1001 Spikes is the embodiment of that terrible decision, with you fully admitting upfront that you are going to perish many, many times1.
As the sequel to Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes, a game I bought on XBLIG but never fully-explored (due to death-related issues), you should expect that a follow-up would contain more of what you sadistic bastards2 seem to love; puzzle-laden sequences lined wall-to-wall with hazards that require twitch-speed reflexes and muscle memory platforming, on a level of challenge that is dialed up to 1001— on a scale that is only designed to go up to 10!
There’s spikes and various other traps waiting to be sprung the minute you step foot… well, anywhere.
Aban returns (along with a host of unlockable pals), this time exploring the treacherous ruins of a place called Ukampa— and other locales— to fulfill a challenge put forth by his hard-to-please father. The two don’t get along, there’s all these family issues, etc. The bottom line: you’ll be cheating death in multiple ways, finding a key to a door that leads to the next room… where you’ll be cheating death once again. To that end, the game features dozens and dozens of expertly-designed rooms that make you stop and think of a way through the trouble, not that you should stop for too long. There’s spikes and various other traps waiting to be sprung the minute you step foot… well, anywhere. The title is a very honest interpretation.
The levels are linear, with only one solution, but that’s a good thing. As in any puzzle worth its… puzzles, the game uses the penalty of constant death in order to teach you very important lessons about a stage’s geometry. As you die, you learn. Traps that once killed you easily will no longer do so, as you begin to build up a tolerance to their tricks and establish your timing. Rooms that seem impossible at first glance soon become a walk in the spiky park, and it is these ‘ah-ha moments’, when you’ve finally seen the magic spoiled and start to run the show on your own, that 1001 Spikes is at its best.
… gives you the option to skip harder levels, but it’s a largely useless band-aid, and even a little condescending.
Sadly, these bits of jubilant celebration will be few and far between for most players, those of the moderate-to-decent skillset (like me) when it comes to punishformers3. The game seems to realize there will be gaps between some players’ talents. It gives you the option to skip harder levels, but it’s a largely useless band-aid, and even a little condescending. Skipping too far ahead only leads to a pseudo game over, with the game essentially telling you to ‘man up’ and go back to complete those same ridiculously-hard rooms you skipped. So… yeah…, thanks for nothing, game.
If you tire of all the dying like I did, though, there is some lighter humor and fun to be had in the game’s local multiplayer modes4, offering up stuff like a coin-hoarding minigame and co-op level races. Some of the unlockable characters (earned by collecting golden skulls strategically-placed in every level) will be familiar to fans of Nicalis’ games, and they even come with their own platforming strengths and weaknesses, making some stages or sequences of the campaign easier upon a second, or third, or fourth, run.
It’s hard to compare my feelings on 1001 Spikes to other games in its genre, or something like, say… TowerFall Ascension. Both games are brutally difficult, both made me curse something terrible, but whereas TowerFall made me appreciate the challenge, 1001 Spikes just feels like overkill (no pun intended) sometimes. The game has definite personality, and the multiplayer stuff is cool, but ultimately, 1001 Spikes will sink or swim on your willingness to surrender multiple hours and suffer immeasurable frustration, just for the small reward of saying you did. In the era of gaming we live in now, that might not be enough anymore.
The game even starts you off with 1001 lives, and constantly refreshes that total with 1ups and ‘care packages’ at the end of each set of levels. That should be your first clue that death is going to be your constant companion. ↩
You know who you are. If you’re offended, that proves it. ↩
Punishformer: the obvious child of ‘punisher’ and ‘platformer’; I’m so clever, aren’t I? ↩
Well, not on the Vita or 3DS versions. Sorry handhelds. ↩
Indiepitome 