May Media Post
Featuring: Abyss Vaulter, Scrap Rush, Lovers Of Aether, Disney Speedstorm, New Super Mario Bros, and Kitty Kart 64.
Abyss Vaulter
I played this because it visually reminded of Downwell. The controls felt great, and I liked the core gameplay. There's not much to the game (it only took me like half an hour to beat), but it's free so I'm chill with that.
Scrap Rush
I've been looking every now and then for games similar, yet different to Bomberman, because I feel like some of Bomberman's core elements have the potential for an entire genre, yet most games inspired by Bomberman tend to very closely copy it. Maybe "similar yet different" sounds like an unreasonable thing to desire, but Scrap Rush is totally that. Instead of placing bombs that explode in a cross shaped pattern, you place and shove blocks around to defeat opponents. It reminds me a bit of Sokoban.
Although it's vaguely the type of game I've been looking for, I only enjoyed it somewhat. Bomberman combat can oftentimes be more defensive than I like, and this game's even more defensive from what I can tell since there's very little room to attack in a non telegraphed way, and a lot of short corridors throughout the level design turn 1v1's into stalemates. Somewhat mitigating this however is most of the gamemodes actually revolve around collecting points through breaking blocks, rather than killing opponents.
Because most of the gamemodes give you infinite respawns (and because the one that doesn't gives you multiple lives), dying doesn't feel as brutal as in Bomberman (additionally because it's harder to self destruct), but it can still feel really brutal sometimes due to how long it can potentially take.
This leads into maybe the biggest issue I have, a lot of the game feels slower than I'd like. Stun, death, and respawning can feel slow, but so is movement, and especially the menus.
One aspect I particularly like in this game (and something I wish Bomberman games would do) is show you what's inside of soft tiles before you destroy them.
For the gamemodes, the Battle Mode seems okay, it's greatest highlight (aside from the PvP aspect) is the large number of stages. Scrush is probably the gamemode I'd most look forward to going back to, since it seems most balanced around single player out of any of the modes, and it's a high score based survival mode which I imagine would give it some replayability. Challenge is my least favorite part of the game, in part because you're made to play both difficulties 3 times each in order to unlock everything, and because the Hard difficulty doesn't really seem balanced with 1 player in mind. Strangely, Hard actually seemed to have completely different levels between the 2 times I beat it (I didn't care to get the final unlock from beating it a third time), while Normal seemed to stay the same (I might be wrong, but I'm too lazy to check).
Lovers Of Aether
I've been on a bit of a Rivals Of Aether fixation recently. I'll talk about Rivals 1 and 2 in my still in development Platform Fighter Post though. As for this game, I didn't really enjoy it. It's a visual novel, and I simply didn't enjoy most of the characters. Claren was alright though, I got the good ending with her, and no one else. Aside from that, there were like 2 times the game got a chuckle out of me. It's also free though 👍
Disney Speedstorm
This game is also also free. There are some unique mechanics in this game, such as the boost gauge which must all be spent at once, but my heart hasn't particularly latched onto them. This is a live service game, so it's bogged down by a handful of progression systems, but there's a gamemode that does seem to turn off the level based stat system, and even in the standard gamemode you'll end up against a ton of bots, so the pay to win aspects haven't felt especially brutal on me so far. It also helps that I don't really care for the game's roster, so I don't really mind just playing as Mickey Mouse (I do have a couple other characters unlocked, but I don't tend to use them).
The biggest highlights of this game to me are the stages and music. The stages are very whimsical theming wise, and interesting layout wise, and I don't have the words to describe why I like the music.
New Super Mario Bros.
I'm not at all the first one to point this out but, this game's been kinda overshadowed by it's "New" subseries successors, which I thought was a shame since I remember it being the most interesting of the "New" games. I don't care enough to replay all the games right now, but I decided to replay this one since I didn't actually remember a lot about it, I mostly just remember liking it more.
After replaying it, now it's one of my favorite Mario platformers. The levels ooze with fun ideas all throughout.
Some of the design feels dated though. The save system most immediately stood out because while it's deliberately restricted, there so many save points anyways that I never felt the need to strategize around them. Because you can't just save from the pause screen though (until after beating the game), their implementation came off as a very mildly inconvenient.
The way the secrets/collectables and new power-ups are designed is strange. For some reason the Mega Mushroom is able to break blocks and pipes required for secrets, so if you're trying to find stuff then using the Mega Mushroom is heavily disincentivized. The Mini Mushroom is probably the most incentivized when collecting stuff, which in turn validites using the Mini Mushroom since it's pretty risky to use, but it's oftentimes not available in levels that expect you to use it. On top of that, it prioritizes replacing your current item rather than going into your inventory, so it takes more effort to store one than other power-ups. The Blue Shell for some reason is never specifically given in a level, it's rarely used for any secrets, and it doesn't let you jump as high.
As for the Mario Vs Luigi mode and mini games, I didn't replay them, but I more distinctly remember them being great. There's also a cool recreation of Mario Vs Luigi which I've seen in videos before, yet have not tried myself.
Kitty Kart 64
I had no idea how deep this game would go. Turns out, there's not much to it, I finished it in like 20 minutes, and I didn't miss much. I was surprised at how quickly the game drops the illusion of being a racing game, although it makes sense considering its short length. I particularly enjoyed the ending, it actually made a little tense. I was disappointed that the multiplayer option doesn't seem to lead to a real gamemode.
| 2025 Media Page |
Comments
Post a Comment