Hey, you remember arcade games? Neo Geo, Capcom collections, stuff like that from the old era. Guess what, none of those games hold a candle to how brutally punishing these are. In fact, bring your friend if you want to make them miserable as well. A good few of them have 2-player co-op.
It is strange that some of them are based around indies that came out not long ago. Has their own twist to it, but 50 games, some even with PvP split-screen multiplayer, this is GOTY packaging. Maybe there could be a solo experience I could finish, I know I can do it. But, most of the ones I played so far have punishing difficulty, as well as tough learning curve.
No, this isn't one of those games with intriguing concepts and fun experience, this is the go-to arcade experience for hardcore players. Superbly challenging, uniquely built mechanics even if at its primitive, and raw form. 50 games to lose your mind over.
Let's start with this simple one, it's turn-based with limited moves, gathering energy letting you switch to better moves by spending, and the goal is to eliminate many bugs as possible. Limited moves to use each turn, afterward the enemy grows stronger, and more respawn.
Imperative that I make the best use out of, it took several good tries to get the hang of placements, right attack types, patterns itself, this started to remind me a little of Into The Breach. Before I accidentally figure out that yellow energy boxes also explode. Which makes this trickier and crazy since with a total of 7 moves, I am having to make every move count.
Yeah, this looks basic, but I had 2-3 more respawning, 2 leftovers evolving like Pokémon, and placing myself in the rougher terrain, only possible to hop on tiles higher, this was like 4D chess man. I'd probably beat it faster with a friend, but ah, no one I know plays these kinds of games. That sucks.
Which was starting to warm me up and set expectations as to what's coming next when I played the next game, Barbuta. A dungeon scroller title. Which literally plays like an Atari 2600 title. Yeah, you laugh at me now, but this was like a twisted version of Zelda. I had 6 lives, that's plenty, despite that, I had all kinds of horrors coming at me. Including bats, who the hell programmed the bats?
Pixel precision placement to avoid enemies killing me, very delicate movement controls, making me blame my Series X controller and the Bluetooth connectivity. Taunting my skills, imploring my instincts to try again, again, and again. And I had no freaking clue what other items do when I buy them from a seller. I just bought an umbrella, and yet there are two freaking button imputs. I told you! Like Atari 2600. And then some skull ghost stalks me, one hit, all my egg lives are gone.
I wanted to curse at this game, the sense of defeat was immeasurable, but it was fair in its construct, trying to introduce a very different approach to playing. The skill ceiling being somehow that high, I was even more curious. And no, I didn't beat this game, it was overwhelming as it is.
Then again, there are 48 other games to try out. What can go wrong? Sated my curiosity and moving on to the next. But part of me still felt that sting, it really hurt my self-esteem, and then again, like my faulty expectations before me, it was going to strike at the heart again. And I was slowly turning into a masochist. A glutton for punishment, and maybe that's alright to go through.
After those two games, I played several more, even tried to not follow the chronological order they were set to. This one is called Paint Racing. Involves me driving a car on specific pixel terrain, killing other vehicles. Avoiding even their gunfire moves, driving through speed boosters, no handholding as I was figuring all this out, and with limited tries to keep passing each level.
It was a mix of Pacman, Snake from Nokia, and this crazy plethora of other ideas put in. And this was a bit easier, I really kept my role going, I became more familiar with it. Then soon as I grasped its concept, I was like, "eh, I'll try something else this time".
Guess what, this is a Ninja scroller, with only two button inputs, pixel precise controls, and I had to shoot enemies to rack up points, not only that, but I have to collect their ghosts to get the points, and avoid projectiles coming from left, right, downwards, upwards. What is this, 2D Cuphead?!
Next one is a western cowboy tactics called Rail Heist, the goal is to get the gold. While avoiding enemy sights before being shot at, starting with two rounds, each one I shoot at, raises an alarm with 10 seconds to react. I can shoot another enemy, but right after, it's their turn, and they go out looking for me. This was more like a trial and error puzzle, but I got far enough.
This was less rudimentary, it had way more going on, and dying wasn't embarrassing either, it was fun to see. I like how charming it is, especially when I had to run back each level to escape via horse. It got wackier, zanny, like they were pushing for the ceiling for gameplay and storytelling.
But oh man, I played party games before, I never thought this next one was going to take away a lot of my time. It's simple, I press the door, each time a person spawns, there are two things I had to earn, party and currency points. Currency increases room, party points let me buy out persons to increase my roster for spawns. The goal, is to buy alien friends, each of them having a star.
And all that in 27 rounds, continuously progressing. There are six modes with the same goal, but not the same guests. It's addictive, very, and maintaining resources while spending properly is important. Also, too many troublemakers, and the cops will cop. The round will not tally the points, big loss. Of course, I have the option to end the party sooner before answering the door again.
Oh, and lastly there's another, called Onion Delivery. Alien GTA car delivery, where I avoid vehicles, drive through the levels using my radar to reach delivery points. In rough terrain, I can accidentally drive through fire hoses, and the trickiest thing, is turning the damn car.
I played 8 games so far, and that's not even 20% of it. I never fully completed either of these, still more to go around, progress, and figure out. Honestly speaking, get this, way better than collecting arcade Nintendo games. It's 25 USD. Do it for your kids too, these selections will really teach them how to play, and hell might refresh your playing skills too. In the most rough way possible, even.
