Month: August 2015

Posted by: TepidSnake (Twitter: @SarahSSowertty)

    

This is less about Balloon Kid as a whole- a neat little platformer by Nintendo and Pax Softnica that serves as Balloon Fight’s sequel, turned into an auto-scroller- and more about one specific thing that’s always kinda fascinated me about it. For the most part, the game is pretty cute, with tiny enemies like birds and insects that can’t even hurt Alice, your player character (beyond popping one of her balloons). This is how about 80% of the game is, as you can see in the screenshots above (the first one with the pencil building in the background? That’s Alice’s home town, Pencilvania, arf arf!)

     

But what really interests me about the game are the tone and feel of its later stages, primarily Stage 4 (the belly of a whale), Stage 7 (a giant cave) and especially Stage 8 (some kind of factory. These stages use slower, more foreboding music, and aside from some cute enemies like the octopi who can’t hurt Alice, they’re full of far more threatening traps and enemies like giant fang-like spikes that drop from the ceiling, jumping flames (admittedly seen in earlier stages), faulty lightbulbs that can explode and launch deadly sparks, and flame-pillars that spit out some of the strangest sounds you’ll ever hear from a Game Boy.

It’s just a little unusual for a game that goes from being pretty cute and relaxed- listen to the first stage music, how laid-back is that?- to developing a mean streak like that, even if it’s only mild. It’s accentuated by the Japan-only Famicom retooling, Hello Kitty World, which alters the enemies and graphics in these areas to be far less intimidating, taking away this odd little mean streak and, with it, some of the charm of the game.

Anyway, you can get Balloon Kid on the 3DS eShop if you’ve ever been curious, it does take a little time to really get going, but it offers a decent challenge by the end, so give it a try!

Posted by: lunarsystem

I know Final Fantasy doesn’t exactly count as a “niche” series, but I’ve been playing it for the first time recently and just marveling at what a weird, weird game it is. It’s a pretty clear forerunner to the SaGa series, and IIRC it was even directed by the person who would go on to create the SaGa games.

First of all, the straight-up leveling system from the first game is gone, replaced with a “use certain attacks to power them up” system. This is cool if you want your characters to be equally good at everything, since you can just slap whatever weapons on them and fight a few battles to level up their axe/sword/dagger/etc skills, but unfortunately the same thing happens with magic. So as a result, ALL of your magic starts out really weak. I tried to use Esuna in battle to cure a status effect and it ended up missing because I rarely used it in the first place :’^)

It’s a real shame that the game is so mechanically lopsided and grindy, because I really like the story so far. It’s one of those “rebels fight against the evil empire” stories, except you actually do clash with the Empire at nearly every turn, infiltrating their warships and falling into their traps. It feels way more tight-knot and intimate in that way than, like, FF6 does, since 6 has a much bigger world and you’re constantly exploring little tangential stories in it.

Anyway, I very rarely hear anyone talk about FF2, so I was wondering if anyone else here has played it. (For the record, I’m playing the Dawn of Souls version on the GBA.)

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Source: rainbowgames DW

Posted by: TepidSnake (Twitter: @SarahSSowertty)

Magica x Magica is an odd little endless runner game released for iOS and Android by Magic Cube, a Korean developer  which combines running with some light shooter elements. As an unnamed witch, you must run an unending gauntlet of platforms and monsters to try and save your unnamed friend (the game’s description calls it ‘the saddest run shooting game’,, probably because you can never save your friend, as there is no end). It’s a very simple game, with a jump button and shot meter on each side. You can tap the Jump button twice for a double-jump, and you slide your finger across the shot meter to angle your shots up or down. Your standard shots are weak against the fish/sea creatures you fight (including boss monsters like the giant sunfish), but earning coins lets you buy upgrades that include new weapons like a spread-shot and rapid-fire attack. You can also pick these weapons up mid-stage, along with health top-ups and a limited-time item that doubles the size of your shots.

On the one hand, there’s a lot of little flaws- while you have a health meter it seems to decrease inconsistently with some attacks being one-hit kills, and actually aiming your shots can be difficult as the standard shot sprays quite wildly. There’s also the upgrade system, as earning new weapons and upgrades takes a lot of time (unless you go for the in-app purchases). Having said all that, I just love the aesthetic of it, and it really sticks out (especially amongst Magic Cube’s other games). The visuals have a strange storybook-like feel to them that strongly appeals to me, and the game does some odd stuff with its ‘endless’ theme (after each run you see an hourglass get turned over, resetting an otherwise-unseen timer, and the title screen tracks each time you play as a ‘loop’, suggesting the main character is being sent back to try again). One of those games that’s worth a look, and it’s pretty suited to a phone seeing how short each run is!

As a bonus, here’s the game’s gorgeous-looking title screen.