Game #1256: Dusk

 Ok, boomer. 

 Ion Fury was the calm before the storm, for you see, the boomer shooter is back, baby! Dusk is a Quake/Blood hybrid, it's a first person shooter featuring the same kind of jaggy, rudimentary graphics as Quake, but with the comedic horror elements of Blood that make for a very interesting retro-style FPS.

 Much like old PC FPSs, the game is divided into different episodes, three in this case, with 10 stages, as well as a secret stage on each. You can tell that each episode was released at different dates because each one shows the developers getting better and better, with stages becoming larger, more complex and more interesting. The first Episode is made up of small stages that you can finish in 3-5 minutes, but later episodes become longer and harder. Each episode also introduces new monsters, and sometimes removes a few, into the mix, although the armament remains the same. Kinda, as Episode 3 reworks the sword, a very secret weapon in previous episodes, but given to you from the start on the third one.

 Gameplay is exactly what you'd expect out of a boomer shooter, emphasis on speed and strafing around enemies to bring them down. The game is incredibly fast, there's no reloading, and you can even bunny-hop to make yourself even deadlier and nimbler. There are about 8 different weapons too, and not enough ammo for each, forcing you to use your entire arsenal if you wish to survive. What's more, ammo seems to become more and more scarce as you go through Episode. Besides slaying monsters, you'll also need to find different colored keys, Yellow, Blue and Red, in order to get to the end of every stage.

 It's not entirely retro, it also takes a page from Half-Life, so you can pick up boxes and other items, either use them as projectiles or as platforms to help yourself to get to areas you shouldn't or even find secrets. There are a few neat details to this, for instance, you can pick up gibs and place them on top of fire to cook them, there are 'madness crystals' that if thrown against an enemy will make them fight their own kin, and there's even Soap, the deadliest item in the game, as it will cleanse, AKA destroy, anything it touches. Oh! And there's a designated button to flip you gun, just for kicks and giggles.

 The Switch port runs beautifully, and why wouldn't it, it barely looks better than a PS1 game. While the retro look is pulled off really well, there's even a filter you can toy around with to make it jaggier up to ridiculous amounts, these blocky 3-D graphics do nothing for me. But hey, it runs buttery smooth! On the other hand, the Switch's analog's sticks have never been the most precise when it comes to games like this, but the hitbox on your shots seem to be rather generous to compensate.

 Included in the Limited Run Games' release is Dusk '82, and atari-esque take on the game. It's not bad, but it didn't hold my interest for more than a few minutes.

 Dusk is an absolute treat of a game. I loved the fast-paced gameplay, and even though I don't dig the PS1-like graphics, the creepy locales you visit were fun to traverse. It does nothing new, but everything it does it does extremely well, and it feels like a very polished game that stands above the games it's paying tribute to.

 9.0

Game #1255: Tormented Souls

 Not another Souls-like 

 Tormented Souls is a throwback to classic survival horror games. Fixed camera angles? Check. Tank controls? Check(Although you can use analog controls). Ammo scarcity? Check. Nonsensical Puzzles? Check. It's all here, baby, and it wound up being a pretty decent tribute to the classics.

 The game starts off creepy off the bat, since as soon as our heroine visits the mansion she gets knocked out and wakes up naked, in a a tub full of water and missing an eye. You'll also notice that the character models look kinda wonky, as the budget was definitely not very high, however, it makes expert use of lighting and darkness to show you just enough to put you on edge. What's more, very early on you have to pick between carrying a lighter or a weapon, and if you stay in the shadows for too long... you die.

 The entire game takes place in the mansion, but it's pretty large. The game took me about 6 hours to finish in all. I'm not too sold on the level design, as save rooms are pretty sparse. At least one time I spent over an hour advancing through the game without saving since going into a save room meant going out of my way as I solved puzzles.

 The puzzles are actually rather challenging, so eventually I started playing with a guide close by. What's more, some puzzles aren't well thought out. This one time you come across a trapdoor that is held locked by a rope. A rope the character could untangle, or even... BURN with her darn lighter. But nope, you are supposed to use a scalpel, of all things, to cut it down.

 There are four weapons in the game, a crowbar for melee, and three guns, albeit one works in short range. Ammo is rather sparse, but there's enough to kill everything in the game... and you should. There's a lot of backtracking, and enemy placement is super cheap. Trying to conserve ammo by dodging enemies bit me in the rear more times than I could count. Pretty early on, there's a room that has 4 doors. If you enter through two of those doors and then exit the room... the enemies you dodged will be right next to you, and they'll get a free hit in, since they can move before you regain control after the loading screen. It's very cheap, so just kill everything in your way, using the crowbar to finish them off if you knock them down. Plus, a ton of enemies are just standing on corridors you need to get through, so dodging them becomes a tall order.

 Something that irked me a bit is that how much damage you take from attacks feels inconsistent. Sometimes you'll die after three hits, other times it feels as if you can tank more hits than you thought. The beginning of the game is certainly the roughest part in the game, as tapes, items you use to save the game, are even rarer than save rooms, and you are still getting used to how to defeat enemies while conserving ammo as well as how much damage you can take before going down. But trust me, as soon as you realize that murdering everything in your way and not worrying about ammo, despite how scarce it may seem, the game becomes much easier.

 About two thirds into the game, a new monster, a naked fat lady ghost, is introduced. She'll randomly appear in whichever room you just entered and she can't be killed. That said, if you hear her music you can just turn back, and exit/re-enter the room to have her despawn!

 The best parts about the game are just how faithful the game is to classic Survival Horror games as well as its fantastic atmosphere. As wonky as the character models are, the lighting, camera angles and the creepy sound design constantly keep you on your toes. Plus, the environments, as opposed to the characters, look really nice, in a creepy way.

 It might be a bit too challenging and cumbersome for people that don't enjoy the genre, but anyone who played the classics will probably have a fun time with this one. 

 7.0

Review #1254: The Quarry

  Gotta find your quarry in the quarry.

 Gotta give it to Supermassive Games, they found their niche and their passion and they rolled with it. The Quarry is their latest game, and it's yet another playable horror movie, like pretty much everything they've done lately, albeit one with a larger budget, more akin to Until Dawn. There's even a wooden lodge, much like Until Dawn's cabin!

 It's pretty much their Until Dawn round two, using everything they've learned from their newer games. You get all the accessibility options, to tailor QTEs to your liking, multiplayer modes to divide characters among players, and even a new Movie Mode, in which the game plays itself. You pick "Everyone Dies", "Everyone Lives" or mess with every character's personality to affect the choices that the AI will make for you. 

 The story, this time around, involves six camp counselors on their last day on camp, the kids are gone, and it's time to go, except that one of the teens wants one last night to try to win over his summer fling, so he sabotages the car. Just one more night quickly turns sour, as they don't heed the owner's advice to stay inside the lodge, and then it all goes downhill for the teenagers, as both monsters and what looks like redneck hunters are out to get them. All six teenagers are selfish and dumb, so it's hard to really root for anyone... but it works out pretty well for this kind of game! Unlike some of their game, the monsters in this game are completely real. Heck, a cabin in the mountains, now a lodge in the woods, the monsters in this game are similar to the Wendigos from Until Dawn, and you'll probably find many similarities between these cast of characters and the ones from UD, but there's one key difference... the pacing in this one is much better. The previous game had too many scare fake-outs, things that looked as if they were lethal or dangerous... but they weren't. In this one, the danger comes quickly and it doesn't let go.

 The game's formula is identical to the previous games, as the game is made up of segments in which you walk around, searching for evidence and clues if you want, and interact with objects, as well as less interactive segments in which you must make different choices, some that change nothing, while other choices could get somebody killed. And just like with every other game they've ever made, in-between chapters you get a mysterious character that talks directly to you, the player, and you can find useless 'visions of the future' that shows you potential deaths. 

 That said, just like with all their other releases... it's plagued with a ton of little issues. Very early on, the game soft-locked itself on an endless loading screen. Another time, after a character interaction, the camera bugged out uncontrollably for a few seconds, which I didn't know if it meant to scare me or not. It didn't, but it was funny! Whenever the game transitions into a new scene, the game freezes for a second or so, and some audio lines stutter or may play twice. This one happens ALL the time. There were some graphical issues, such as shiny blue lights flashing like crazy in some scenes, or blue, green and red reflections on the water out of nowhere. There's one scene in which Jacob and Emma meet up by the moats, when you go down, a fully clothed Emma is standing next to her clothes, on the floor, and then, suddenly, cutscene and she is fully undressed. A few seconds later, Jacob checks his BOXERS for an item, as if it had a pocket? There were a few other unconvincing transitions too. Oh, and during the last 2-3 chapters, the subtitles went completely out of whack, they were more distracting than anything else, as either they weren't synched or the character's didn't even say the lines. Did anyone test the final chapters? Oh, and the game crashed again during the final chapter, this time it was a hard crash.

 The Quarry is easily the best game SuperMassive Games have made so far. It has the best and most interesting story of them all, and it executed it the best too. Gameplay-wise, they brought everything they've learned, so it plays the best it could. It's also got a larger budget, and it shows, it has the best character models so far, and it's pretty lengthy too... which might be a bit of an annoyance in multiplayer, since 10 hours could be a big ask of your friends. That said, they are so close to something truly great, but they keep shipping their games with all of these tiny issues, and this, unlike the Dark Pictures Anthology, was a big release, they really should've waited a month before releasing it.

 7.5

Game #1253: Castlevania Requiem

  Third time's the charm!

 No, Castlevania Requiem is not a new Castlevania game, but rather a port of Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles, albeit missing the main game, the Rondo of Blood Remake. In other words, these are the PSP versions of Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night. It's kinda disappointing, since I really enjoyed the remake, and if they ported these two, why not port the main game? But alas, I digress.

 This is the third time I'm covering Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and guess what? It's still really friggin' good. The game that made 'Metroidvania' a genre is still a fantastic game and a great entry-point into the genre. I love this game, honestly, and this port gets everything right. That said, it is the PSP version, so it has the new translation and the re-dubbed voices, so purists will be annoyed. It also has the PSP additions, such as playable Maria and a new familiar. The Saturn additions are still lost to time, bummer.

 This also marks the second time I played through Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, and having played through a ton of Classicvanias not so long ago, I can now affirm that Rondo of Blood is one of the finest Classicvanias, if not the best. It has a ton of stages, alternate routes, alternate stages as well as two playable characters. Richter is stronger and can tank more hits, but has a larger hitbox, is slower and has the classic stiff jump arc, Maria, meanwhile, can take fewer hits and deals less damage, but is much faster and can double jump. In general, Maria has an easier time with stages, thanks to her mobility, but a tougher time with bosses, since you can't make as many mistakes as with Richter. That said... Maria can decimate large bosses thanks to her attack speed, so Dracula falls faster to her than to Richter. In other words, Maria is the game's easy mode.

 The ports are relatively fine, although I did notice a few things. In SOTN, sometimes it won't mark explored rooms on the map right off the bat, but after a few seconds, and one time one minute or so, they appeared marked on the map. Plus, since it's a straight up PSP port, Mist Form doesn't have a dedicated button, unlike the PS1 original, so you have to hold down L1 and R1 to use it. Pretty minor, if you ask me. In ROB, however, when you take damage Richter turns a shade of red for a second or so, which I'm not sure it should, but I could be wrong. During Dracula's Boss fight, when he transforms, I think the graphical effects aren't quite right, but once again, I could be wrong. All in all, relatively minor stuff too.

 It's not the perfect rerelease, as it's missing features such as some sort of rewind, in-game cheats or save states to make replaying this older games more comfy, but I felt both ports are pretty good, and I had a grand ol' time going through two of the best entries in the series.

 9.5

Game #1252: Zombie Ate My Neighbors and Ghoul Patrol

 I never liked my neighbors anyways.

 Well, seems Konami found their groove with their retro-rereleases, as it's time for Zombie Ate My Neighbors and Ghoul Patrol to make their comeback now. Both games are pretty similar, in fact, Ghoul Patrol became a sequel mid development, so they are duology.

 Both games are presented with minimal alterations. The intro for ZAMN was axed, which is a minor loss in my opinion, but it did ruffle some feathers. There's no rewind, no cheats and no enhancements, although there's a weird save slot you can use by using a new option, 'Save and Quit'. This is true for both games. A big point for contention, for me, is that you can't customize controls. This means that A shoots, Y uses an item, while B and X are used to cycle through weapons and items respectively. It feels awkward, but there's some logic to it, the buttons on the vertical line cycle through stuff, while the ones on the horizontal line use them.

 It's kind of a missed opportunity, 'cause cycling through items and weapons in both games can be a hassle, particularly when harassed by endless waves of enemies, so they could've put both sets of should buttons to task, but alas... and it's even worse, 'cause Ghoul Patrol adds two new functions, Jump and Slide... to the shoulder buttons. Being able to customize controls would've been a godsend.

 So, Zombies Ate My Neighbors... in broad strokes, it's an isometrical very arcade-like action game in which you must save your 10 neighbors before they are eaten by zombies.... or murdered by Jason/Leatherhead love childs, giant ants, giant worms, martians, vampires, werewolves, killer dolls, killer plants, mermen and fire sprites, and I'm probably forgetting about something. The game is made up of 48 levels, plus a few secret levels, and the end goal is always the same: Turn on your radar and find the neighbors before the enemies do.

 The game is relentless, enemies don't stop coming, and if they get all neighbors it's game over. For every neighbor you don't find, the amount of neighbors for the next level is reduced, and in a way, it could help you, as having only one neighbor to find is much faster... but then again, you're closer to losing.

 There are a TON of different weapons and items, and certain enemies are weak to specific weapons, which is rather neat.... if only you could cycle through them using more than one button. Searching for the right weapon while chased by a monster can be a pain in the butt.

 Another major item are keys, which are used to open up doors. But hey, if you're missing a key, bazookas can blow up doors and walls! They are also really strong against ants and most enemies, really. Since enemies are endless but resources are limited... it's always interesting decided when to fight and when to run, when to use keys and when to use the bazooka!

 Besides getting unfairly hard, the password system sucks, because it doesn't retain your inventory and you're back to a single health pack and 120 rounds of the weakest weapon. The new save system helps alleviate this, however. Collision detection is sometimes a bit wonky too, particularly when blowing up some walls or when trying to pick up some neighbors.

 Overall, Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a very fun, but very challenging game. The huge variety of stages, monsters and weapons keeps things interesting all the time, and I'm sure it's much better in multiplayer.

 Ghoul Patrol is a bit tamer. While the art-style is still on the cartoony side, it's much less colorful and the enemies look a bit more serious. There are less stages, less enemies and less weapons too. There are new bosses, but they are insanely hard since they take a ton of punishment... unless you save up your Grim Reaper potions to lay waste to them.

 Gameplay-wise, it's pretty much identical, except that now you can slide, useful to get away from monsters, and jump, which barely factors into the game at all... at least until the last set of stages, set in Medieval Castles and Caves, in which you have to jump through bottomless pits. And it feels super wonky, without the Quit & Save feature, this would've been downright cruel. The radar is gone, now you must chase after scream bubbles to find the neighbors, which is a bit weird. The environments too, now for the second set of stages you visit feudal Japan and then you go to Pirate moats because.... reasons?

 Ghoul Patrol usually gets a lot of flak, but it's not bad, it's just that Zombies Ate My Neighbors is bigger, better and more iconic... and it doesn't have janky platforming shoed-in.

 While it has a few shortcomings, I really enjoyed this little package. If you can't play these games in any other way, it gets the job done, and the save feature, while less than ideal, is a welcome addition.

 7.0

Game #1251: Zero Time Dilemma

 One final game. 

 Well, this is it, the final game in the Zero Escape series, Zero Time Dilemma. Once again, it's a visual novel that mixes a narrative that involves quantic timelines with a few interactive puzzle segments.

 There's not much to say really, once again, 9 people are selected by a guy named Zero to take part in a deadly game. Akane and Junpei return, alongside Sigma and Phi, as well as four new guys. The game takes place before Virtue's Last Reward, but if you played that game to the end you'll understand why it also takes place after that game. Honestly, this series has a heavy focus on its narrative, so it makes no sense to play this game without playing the previous ones, heck, a ton of stuff won't make sense if you skipped even one of them.

 In this one, characters are divided into three groups of three people each, and while they do get to interact between teams every now and then, for the most part, each team will spend more time interacting with itself than with the other two. Unlike previous games, now you select between fragments, as participants get their memories wiped every hour and a half, so making sense of the timeline is up to you.

 The English voice acting is hit and miss. Some characters are really well done, while others, like Akane, leave a lot to be desired. The presentation took a bump up, as characters animate much more, even if a bit stiffly, during the narrative sections.

 Zero Time Dilemma was fine. It doesn't really feel like closure, but it's an ending. While I thought it was as good as any other game in the series, I feel like this one's plot sometimes... feels a bit more of a stretch than the others. For instance, at one time, two characters decide that there's only enough food for 9-10 months, and yet, they survive for way longer without any proper explanation as to how. Another time a character says that Koi fish die when taken from Brasil unless you put a Piranha with them, and that's just a flat-out lie. So, yeah, it doesn't feel as tight as the previous games, but hey, it wasn't a bad time at all.

 7.5

Game #1250: Deadly Premonition 2 - A Blessing in Disguise

 Every good game deserves a sequel, isn't that right, Zach? 

 It's been a few years since I first played Deadly Premonition, a game that is as bad as it is good, which managed to overcome how technically deficient it was thanks to how interesting it was as a whole. And then came Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise and... let's say that it was controversial, to say the least.

 The game is both a sequel and a prequel, and it assumes that you've played the original, so it assumes that you know big twist. As such, it's impossible not to avoid spoiling the original game when talking about this one, so you've been warned. The game follows two different storylines, one set before Deadly Premonition 1, in which you play as York as he came across the red seeds for the very first time, and the other storyline set after DP1, in which you play as an older Zach. York's chapters make up the brunt of the game, as they are pretty much identical to the original game, while Zach's are heavy on the a narrative, with you pretty much just selecting items to interrogate Zach about.

 I felt the plot did a good job of tying this new case with the one from the original game, and the final chapter, in which you finally play as Zach, offers a new resolution to Zach, as opposed to how things ended in the original game. I'm happy to report that the dialogue is just as ridiculous, in a good way, as it was in the original game, and we get a new set of quirky characters. I was quite fond of the new location, Le Carre, as well. Heck, I'd say I prefer Le Carre to Greenvale. Adding to this, the new cell-shaded graphics are beautiful, at least when the framerate isn't struggling. That said, York has been flanderized a bit, so all he does now is talk about movies, and things that remind him of movies. It's not a huge deal, but it is a noticeable narrative choice. While I enjoyed the story, as a whole, it wasn't as good as the one from the original game, but then again, it'd be hard to top that twist.

 And since I'm at it, they managed to reproduce the wonky charm from the original game. Character models move in very stiff, unnatural ways, that in any other game it'd be immersion breaking, but in this one? It's part of the charm. Even York's awkward smile is back.

 The gameplay remains pretty much identical. You are free to do anything from Monday to Sunday, though different places have different opening hours, and NPCs might be in different places depending on the time and day. And just like before, at night pretty much every store closes and enemies start popping out from the ground. Once again, some missions might only be able to be completed on certain days, at a certain time. You still need to eat, sleep, shave, clean your clothes and clean yourself, which isn't as annoying as it sounds, as long as you have a meal and a shower a day, you'll be OK. You also have main missions and side missions. There's one big difference, however, and that's in your means of transportation, instead of a car... you get a skateboard. You can even learn tricks to pull off, and yes, they look and feel as janky as you'd expect.

 Unlike the original game, now you are stuck with your gun the whole way through, however, now you can collect materials to craft charms to upgrade York's stats and customize his gun, you can even put elemental bullets on your pistol, and even 'Shotgun bullets". Combat was pretty much an afterthought in the original game, and it's pretty much exactly the same in this one, as enemies fall down very quickly. Melee weapons are gone too, since this time around York can perform a three hit combo, with two punches and a kick.

 And these materials? You can find them lying around the environment, or by hunting animals such as squirrels, dogs or alligators. And you can hunt them with your fists. It's really dumb, and I loved it. What I didn't love was how grindy it all was. I mean, non-hunting material just pops up randomly near trees or near marshes, so collecting these and finding the right item you need is completely down to luck, which is honesty a terrible design choice.

 And then there are the side missions... you get absolutely nothing to aid you in how to find them or complete them. I'll mention one of the worst offenders, the shower side mission. This one is very important, since if you don't fix the shower you'll have to buy items to cover your B.O. instead of just taking a shower and forgetting about it. It tells you to talk to the Chef, fine, you go to the Hotel's restaurant and ring his bell... and nothing. You actually have to talk to the Chef when he is standing around in the Hotel, but at what time he does that? Who knows. Try every hour and search for him inside, hopefully you'll find him. This side mission has you talking with three such NPCs. It's honestly baffling just how annoying doing side content is in this game.

  And some of the main mission are kinda dull too. Midway through chapter two you'll be tasked with doing something you can only do on Mondays. Trust me, at most, you'll be on Thursday when this mission comes up, so that's a lot of waiting, or slowly sleeping every day off until Monday. There's another mission that requires you to find Spinach, and they expect you to try every single vending machine in Le Carre until you find the right one. Hopefully you realize that vending machines are marked on the map, I didn't until I looked it up, and from what I found out, many people didn't either. And not long after, the next mission is a set of collectathons, squirrel tails and anaconda skins. These mission types would be OK if they were optional, but they aren't. And very late in the game, you have to chase a dog for what feels like 15 minutes. I think the original game had a similar mission, but it probably wasn't as bad. Plus, they made it extra annoying. York's base speed is too slow, if you sprint you are too fast. Same with the skateboard, either too slow or too fast, so you are constantly, awkwardly, making pauses to let it get ahead.

 And what about combat? It's as braindead simple as it was in DP 1, and I'm fine with that, DP is fantastic thanks to its story and charm, so I'm OK with it being just a means to an end. But every single dungeon is just a set of corridors that lead to more corridors, using the same exact tilesets every single time. It's dumbfounding, and then there's the fact that enemy variety is null. The first chapter has guys with scissors, the red ones chase you and the white ones jump you, but for all intents and purposes, they are identical. Chapter two introduced guys chained to a door, one of them drops crab-locks that explode, the other one crab-locks that don't explode. And the third, and final chapter, introduces another enemy type. That's three character models, for  5 different enemy types, two being slight variations of other two enemies. Was this game made on a shoestring budget? Honestly, what gives? Even the epic last chapter dungeon's recycle the same tileset.

 But the framerate is embarrassing, it gets particularly bad when you are on the skateboard. I wouldn't say it's unplayable, but the fact that they thought this was OK is honestly shocking. Dude, the Bowling minigame is such a pain, cause you have to time button presses, but it always feels delayed. And you have to play it at least once to advance the story. How is it that the Witcher 3 port rans better than this game? How?

 And I didn't even mention the control glitches, did I? Controls stopped working constantly. It happened at least twice while I was in the overworld, and the only thing I could do was run. Couldn't take out my skateboard, couldn't take out my guns, couldn't sprint, just run. Thankfully, I realized that interacting with something would make them work again. Another time, while inside the hotel, I lost the ability to sprint, but even worse, another time, after eating, I couldn't move at all, I was forced to restart that time, and lost a bunch of progress. Finally, during the last chapter, everything but moving stopped working, again. I thought I'd have to restart again, but crouching fixed the issue. Somehow.

 The fact that this game released in this condition is frankly astounding, and I'm aware that the original game had similar issues, but at least back then it was their first attempt at this. With this game they had a chance to make a charmingly wonky game that played better. But instead, it's even more broken than the original, and it learned nothing from its shortcomings. I'll tell you what, though, I think fans of Deadly Premonition, such as I, will probably like the game despite how terrible it is, but anyone else should steer clear, as its issues are bigger, but the charm isn't as enthralling this time around. And I hate how poor the game plays, because whenever I wasn't having issues, I was laughing out loud, I was loving the new characters, I wanted to see how the story would progress.... and then the controls would stop working again.

6.5