Sakura Wars: It’s About Time, Sega

Posted on February 18, 2020 by geelw

Boom time for Sega continues!

I think it was about 1998 when a friend visiting from Japan gave me his used copy of Sakura Wars as a gift after he found out I really liked strategy games and had made my way through a few Japanese games with a bit of effort and persistence. Well, I ended up picking up Sakura Wars 2 a few years later, but never played either game thanks to thinking Saturn games would all be successfully emulated and/or localized at some point and I wouldn’t need to learn any more Japanese other that what little I picked up from a few dictionaries and games over the years. Well, that and yes, I was a bit lazy to my great disadvantage (Or not that lazy, as I finished four Front Mission games, two FEDA games and a few other imports with not too much hassle). Anyway. with 2000+ games in the library here, I never got around to to playing either title.

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Persona 5 Royal/Persona 5 Scramble: Catching Up With a Beast Is Tough

Posted on February 14, 2020 by geelw

The gang’s all here, and then some…

I need more time!

At my ancient age, a new Persona game is something I look forward to with both a sense of awe and dread. Awe because the very expansive Megami Tensei and Shin Megami Tensei titles and their assorted spin-offs on a few platforms are one of the best and has been for decades, and dread because well, there’s so much to do in each game that it’s easy to lose track of time when playing them. The series is well known for some intensively lengthy games even back on the Famicom and Super Famicom systems up to today on the PS4, especially if you’re playing more than one game for just journalistic purposes. Heck, it took me almost three months to play Persona 4 way back on the PS2 and I’m here to report that I’ve been taking my time with the brilliant Persona 5 because of so many other games in my backlog to cover.

Well, that and the game is pretty and spectacularly dense in terms of depth and story and well, I bought it somewhat late (I think it was early last year when I made the plunge for a retail PS4 version). Even if I were to concentrate solely on the game, that’s about 60 or so hours without any shortcuts and that’s probably the basic story elements and a bit of leveling up for good measure.

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Preview: Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards

Posted on February 10, 2020 by geelw

Well, I just discovered two things buried in my ever-packed email inbox: Ember (reviewed here in its PC incarnation) is on Switch and I need to get this at some point because it’s a good game worth a few replays. That and developer N-Fusion has teamed up with another indie developer, NY and LA-based Digiart Interactive to bring the comic-based game Aluna Sentinel of the Shards to PC and console players. It’s set for release this year on PC and consoles, but I’m just getting to seeing the news and yes, I’m sharing.

Soon to be everywhere you get your games (and thankfully in a physical release as well as digital)

Here’s the trailer in case you haven’t seen it yet:

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Pathfinder Finds Its Path With 30 Days Remaining

Posted on February 9, 2020 by geelw

Kind of like bowling, isn’t it?

Geez, You take a few days away from things to get a clearer head and all manner of interesting stuff happens. Owlcat Games’ Kickstarter for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous not only made its target on $300,000 in a single day, the game is still raking in a load of money, with as of this writing, over $860,000 being raised and a few nifty stretch goals added with 30 days to go. Wow. Here’s some rather nice title music from the developer to celebrate and yes, they’re still taking pledges and adding some mice stretch goals.

There was a developer live stream a few days back that I missed, but here it is if you want to check it out:

So far, the game is looking pretty well-packed with things to do and see, so kudos to the team at Owlcat for all their hard work so far.

-GW

Random Film of the Week: The Navy vs. The Night Monsters (1966)

Posted on February 9, 2020 by geelw

“You’re gonna stay in this picture and LIKE it, Mister!”

From looking at this list in comparison with these much longer ones, it seems to me that in the 1960’s, science fiction flicks exclusively made in the US were in a bit of a rut. You can also see from those longer lists that horror films have fared far better and you can probably name quite a few memorable fright films from the era off the top of your head from Carnival of Souls, Night of the Living Dead, A few Herschel Gordon Lewis flicks, Rosemary’s Baby and many (many) more. Let’s just say that truncated list in the last sentence was about 20 or so films before common sense made me edit it down.

The reason I’m focusing on US-made films is simple. As other countries were just more prolific and innovative in their sci-fi films and during this time, the US seemed not to know what to do well despite kicking off and ending the decade with some pretty solid films (1960’s The Time Machine and 1968’s 2001: A Space Odyssey). Which brings us to one of the less stellar efforts of the decade, 1966’s The Navy vs The Night Monsters. The film looks and feels as if it was made a decade earlier and interestingly enough, the best thing about it is the actress playing the requisite eye candy, Mamie Van Doren. “Best” meaning she plays her role as straight as can be does it without chewing the scenery or mugging it up for zero laughs like some of the guys here do. Stripped of its silly jokes, it might have been a decent “B” flick, but hey – some things just won’t die a natural death.

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A (Very Good) Thought (2)

Posted on February 6, 2020 by geelw

It’s just one of those days, is it not?

If at some point today you woke up in a cornfield without having been turned into a jack-in-the box, consider that a very good thing, sort of. There’s a way out, but it’s a bit of a hike, though. You do have a compass in your pocket and some good walking shoes, I hope?

Thanks, The Twilight Zone!)

Who would have thought a lot of people just wanted some cheap peach brandy and a good Perry Como record… and that the late Rod Serling had a built-in barometer?

-GW

The Heavy Lifting, Courtesy TCM

Posted on February 6, 2020 by geelw

(TCM)

I was a bit under the weather yesterday, so I was offline resting my brain and had no idea Kirk Douglas had “left the building” as they say until very early this morning. Needless to say, that wasn’t a good thing to wake up to. Still, at age 103, you could safely say the man lived quite a long life and as an actor, producer and person of some talent and merit for a good deal of those years. Turner Classic Movies has posted two videos about Douglas so far today, but I bet there will be more on a few performances from his individual films at some point.

I don’t have a favorite role of his, but the first film that comes to mind is the monumental and powerful Paths of Glory, which kept an entire theater silent when I first saw in at a Stanley Kubrick retrospective a few decades ago. There are a good deal of other films and performances of his as well to consider, but I’m too weary to cover more here at the moment. I’ll bet on a blogathon of his work in the future that tosses in a few films will likely help some in discovering or recalling the man’s work, but let’s wait and see, shall we?

(TCM)

-GW

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Hands-On: You’ll Come Back, But Be Gone For A While

Posted on February 4, 2020 by geelw

Prediction: It’s going to make its target and likely much more.

A little Kickstarter action, anyone?

Developer Owlcat Games is hard at work on a follow up to the incredibly deep Pathfinder: Kingmaker, which combined gameplay inspired by classic PC role-playing games such as the Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, Fallout 2 and Arcanum with a huge kingdom building system in a massive game with a pretty loyal following worldwide. It’s not at all a simple game as it sticks closely to the tabletop experience down to complex rules that need to be learned and implemented lest failure be your primary option.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a more an even more ambitious follow up, but tailored a lot better and not a direct “sequel”, adding in a wealth of changes to the game engine, a load of new classes to play as and packing in a ton of content. Owlcat is clearly in it for the long haul. This is good, however, as the hands-on demo’s Siege at Drezen sequence was pretty thrilling and left me wanting more. Before the demo, game Director Alexander Mishulin spoke and I got a wealth of lore on new classes, Mythic Path characters such as Angel, Lich, Aeon, and Trickster, some of the overall goals in the story line and more brain-filling content. There’s a lot going on here and Mishulin noted the final version will allow for many options and choices for new as well as returning players (which means a ton of replay value, naturally).

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This is going to be as deep as it gets and then some, but it was also noted that the dev team has been listening to feedback from the first game and is tailoring this new experience to be a bit more flexible for new players as a option. that certainly doesn’t mean the game will be easy or “casual”, mind you. The depth outside of the combat will include a number of “pay attention” elements that will have players glued to their PC’s as they dive into what’s looking like an extremely comprehensive solo campaign.

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Rustler: Get Medieval in This Hilarious GTA-Inspired Game

Posted on February 1, 2020 by geelw

Yep. This needs to be played for this reference alone.

First of all, when I went to install the Rustler Alpha demo on Steam, I was greeted with Grand Theft Horse as a title on the game installer, which was magnificent. Indie developer Justus Games knows which side of the bread their butter in on. Second of all, for an alpha, the game is coming together pretty well. It’s just up on Kickstarter now and is there waiting for you to pledge or the drunken sot with the sword in the banner above may come for you. He’ll be right up your alley if you’re not right up his, as it were. That alley will be dark ad have a few rodents in it, most likely.

Gameplay is much the original Grand Theft Auto and GTA 2 isometric top down stuff but rendered in a nicer game engine with some lusher environments. As with the aforementioned games, there’s humor in all the mayhem you cause and yes, the old ultra-violence means it’s not a child’s game for sure. But there’s that nifty cathartic thing going on here that just works because you get immediate results from your attempts at criminal behavior (or, assorted guards and villagers don’t just stand by while you crime away), so expect to fight as you run run or ride a swiped horse away from trouble, or cause more pain for as long as you can. It’s your choice, but the lead’s character’s seemingly perpetually drunken state can cause him to fall off a horse or otherwise be dismounted.

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Here Be Dragons: Insanely Good (So Far)

Posted on January 31, 2020 by geelw

Too good to be true, so it must be false!

How does one properly describe a game where you play as a few somewhat (okay, VERY) off-kilter pirates in a turn-based strategy game that features a dice-spitting cherub, sea monsters of a few types, gameplay on a “living map” and a reworking of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of the New World? Yeah, you can’t, but you sort of just have to watch this trailer first to see why:

Red Zero Games? Congratulations are in order as you win the prize. What prize it is will be determined at a later date, but you win something for this pure madness in my book (Memo: give Red Zero Games a prize but not the stale popcorn from last week, that’s not a prize unless they’re dead parrots). I’m actually still playing Here Be Dragons (my laptop has been in haywire mode this week), but so far, this game has had me laughing with it constantly because it’s got easy to pick up, tricky to master gameplay, other than a few glaring typos is extremely well written, and its humor is right up my alley.

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