Wonder Boy has a bit of an odd history. It sits alongside Alex Kidd as one of Sega’s more iconic second-string platformers (behind Sonic the Hedgehog, of course), yet inconsistencies with naming conventions, numbering, localisations gave the series a bit of a disjointed canon. Spotty appearances in other Sega compilations …
A decent soundtrack and precise input recognition are all you really need to make a good rhythm game. The musical style, presentation, narrative framing, and method of interaction are all important details, too, but it’s those first two that will make or break any music game. It’s easy to get …
Escape room puzzle game and arcade-style shoot ‘em up don’t exactly seem like they’d fit together. But that’s exactly what makes such genre mashups so fascinating: when you find (or create) common ground between such disparate influences, the results can be an unorthodox delight, even if there’s a bit of …
If you enjoyed watching Pepe play for Real Madrid, you’re going to love Mario Strikers: Battle League Football. The matches are brutal, tackles are rough and the on-pitch breakdowns are ever present. Fortunately, beneath the chaos and theatrics, there lies a surprisingly entertaining football game that can be enjoyed by …
Red Earth. Released in arcades in 1996 as the showcase for Capcom’s new CPS3 arcade platform, this somewhat eccentric fighting game soon slipped into relative obscurity. A quirky little fighting RPG with just four unfamiliar characters was always going to struggle to step out of Street Fighter II‘s shadow, and …
Remote Life is nothing if not ambitious. The work of solo developer NAME, it’s a side-scrolling shoot-’em-up with clear R-Type inspiration, an expansive campaign by arcade shmup standards, lots of variety, and impressive visual design that carries its alien horror vibes well. But for all its ambition, it’s a game …
Metal Max Xeno isn’t something I’d expect to see getting a major overhaul. The original is just a few years old, met with middling reviews, and never really made much of a splash despite an intriguing premise and some unique ideas. A rebirth might be just what it needed, though: …
After OlliOlli World introduced the world its wonderfully outlandish skate-themed fantasy world, it seems only fitting that the first DLC, Void Riders, should revolve around an alien invasion. So when a UFO crashes into Burntrock and a bunch of odd-looking creatures come out in search of the raddest skaters to …
At first glance, Wylde Flowers doesn’t stray too far from the farming life sim conventions that Harvest Moon laid out some 25 years ago. I don’t say that as a complaint: this is a genre where, more so than most, there’s comfort in familiarity. A new setting, a new group …
Ah, the good old time paradox, bane of every temporal traveller and source of many a narrative twist. But what if time travel was so ordinary and so commodified that paradoxes were just a risk to be mitigated while making bank off people wanting to go back in time to …
