Displaying articles written by

Mister Raroo

who has written 17 posts for Gamesugar.

Review – PixelJunk: SideScroller

Review PixelJunk SideScroller
Way back in 1990, when I was but a freshman in high school, I received R-Type for the TurboGrafx-16 as a Christmas present. As anyone who has played the game knows, it is an absolutely punishing horizontal shooter. I lost count of how many times I blasted off to destroy the evil Bydo Empire only to be met with failure, and I’m not too ashamed to admit that I never cleared the final stage. Nevertheless, I refused to give up, and in fact, the game’s extreme difficulty level may have made me love it more.

R-Type requires players to methodically conquer each stage one small step at a time. Getting just a tiny bit further in a level is cause for celebration. The more I played, the further I eventually progressed, learning exactly where on the screen I needed to position my humble spacecraft at any given moment. I can’t think of any other shooter in which so much trial-and-error, memorization, and perseverance is required to succeed.

“But Mister Raroo,” you might wonder, “Why are you spending so much time talking about R-Type in a PixelJunk: SideScroller review?”

Because, dear readers, playing SideScroller is very much like playing Irem’s masterpiece. SideScroller is clearly a love letter to the classic horizontal shooter genre of yore, and it contains elements that bring to mind games like Gradius and Darius, though more than anything, I couldn’t help but think it would fit most comfortably in the R-Type family.

More…

Posted: November 4, 2011 at 1:00 pm By | 1 comment

Review – Okabu

Review Okabu
Poor Mother Earth! We humans have been treating her badly for far too long. But at least one good thing has come out of our mistreatment of the planet: it inspired the creation of the lovely Okabu.

With a strong ecological message, the game puts players in charge of halting the industrialized takeover of a blissful wilderness by a thoughtless empire, the Doza. But who possesses the power necessary to stand up to the might of such a mechanized menace? Cloud whales, of course!

Okabu does not take place in our world, even if its message reflects the perils we are currently facing. The game’s fantasy realm immediately brings to mind The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, particularly Link’s home village. Okabu’s gorgeous, flat-shaded visuals leap off the screen with an abundance of color and detail. Zones within the game range from grassy lakesides to illuminated forests, and a good chunk of Okabu’s enjoyment comes from simply exploring every inch of these beautiful stages. The accompanying soundtrack, which mixes traditional African music with jazz, adds even more vibrancy to the already rich world.

More…

Posted: October 18, 2011 at 9:29 am By | 1 comment

Review – Sideway: New York

Review Sideway New York
To my amazement and despite some initial concern, Sideway: New York didn’t make my head hurt. The main hook of the game is that you play as a character sucked into the 2D world of graffiti art, making your way from one point to another by moving along, up, and over 3D buildings. It’s an atypical game design concept, and quite difficult to explain in words. Imagine sliding a Shrinky Dink through a maze that runs over all sides of a box and that should give you a start.

Thankfully, what I figured would be a confusing, infuriating nightmare turned out to be clear-cut and easy to navigate. Color me impressed.

More…

Posted: October 14, 2011 at 1:03 pm By | No comments

Review – Kirby Mass Attack

Review Kirby Mass Attack
HAL Laboratory was the first developer to truly show just how cool games could be on the Nintendo DS. Those of us who survived the dark, dreary days that were the DS’s first few months of existence know how slim the pickings were. But, like the sun breaking after a long night, along came Kirby Canvas Curse, and gone was any buyer’s remorse we had been feeling.

Canvas Curse skillfully demonstrated that the DS’s touch screen could be used for more than gimmicky mini-games, while also taking the Kirby series in an interesting new direction. I still play it on a regular basis all these years later – it is fabulous, and if you haven’t played it, do yourself a favor and track it down immediately.

Now we find ourselves in the twilight of the Nintendo DS’s reign, and HAL returns once again with an absolute knockout release. Kirby Mass Attack, like its cousin Canvas Curse, does away with a traditional control scheme and opts instead for stylus-driven control. Thankfully, the wizards at HAL superbly integrated this type of control scheme into engaging and intelligent level design and aesthetics, and the end result is one of the most interesting, innovative, and fun games to hit the Nintendo DS in quite some time.

More…

Posted: September 29, 2011 at 4:05 pm By | 1 comment

How I Learned to Love Hitogata Happa

Hitogata Happa
Hitogata Happa seems downright impossible. Oh sure, everything starts off straightforward enough, and you might assume it’s a typical top-down 2D shooter. You blast enemies, you collect the goodies they drop, you reach the first boss… and then you die, again and again.

And if you’re like me, you probably give up and go play something else.

Yet, something about Hitogata Happa calls you back. You try again. You die again. You get angry. You get defensive. “This is the first stage! Why the heck is it so difficult?! This game sucks!”

I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. I skillfully avoided every single bullet the first stage’s boss fired at me, while slowly whittling away at its power. When you start fighting the boss, a timer begins to count down, and when the clock hits zero, the boss suddenly goes bananas and unleashes a ruthless barrage that always resulted in me seeing the Game Over message. And the timer hit zero every single time. Argh!

My world became dark. I had really wanted to love Hitogata Happa so, so much. I was especially upset because I found the game’s world enthralling. Though I’ll admit I skipped the story sequences because I don’t care for such things, the plot’s gist is that the protagonist is extremely pissed off about some wrongdoing (her family was killed or something) and, in order to get her revenge, sends little “dolls” out to decimate her enemies. And, boy, are there a lot of enemies to kill!

More…

Posted: September 25, 2011 at 1:21 pm By | 3 comments

Review – Half-Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax

Review Half-Minute Hero Super Mega Neo Climax
“Are other RPGs going to seem too slow after playing this?”

My wife posed this question as she watched me play (deep breath) Half-Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax (okay, just typing that takes half a minute, so we’ll shorten it to HMH). Also, her question was definitely valid.

At first glance HMH seems like a typical Japanese RPG. It successfully incorporates all the genre’s staples – namely it takes place in a colorful fantasy world, there’s an impending apocalypse, you play as a humble hero entrusted with saving the world, you level up via random battles, you visit towns and villages to purchase items and upgrades, you can embark on optional side-quests, and more –only it speeds them up to the point that sometimes you’ll feel like you’re watching a time-lapse video of someone playing Dragon Quest.

In other words, it’s like playing an RPG on speed. Well, okay, I don’t use drugs, but I imagine the pace of HMH is akin to seeing the world through the eyes of some junkie on a street corner who pictures himself to be a Native American hunting buffalo as he throws Styrofoam cups at passing cars. It’s no wonder the lovely Missus Raroo worried that other RPGs would be tough to play after HMH.

Just for kicks, I powered up my Nintendo DS to see if Dragon Quest VI would feel sluggish. Thankfully, it didn’t take too long to transition from the lightning speed pace of HMH to the more humble tempo of Dragon Quest, though I will admit that I kept thinking “Hurry up! Don’t waste time! Just run forward into those monsters and move on to the next battle!”

You’d think that this would suggest RPGs have indeed been ruined for me, but by the power of foreshadowing I’ll just say that HMH may not be what it initially appears to be…

More…

Posted: July 5, 2011 at 10:20 pm By | 2 comments

E3 2011 – Hands-on Picture Lives!

Picture Lives
I’m getting more than a little tired of seeing games where you run around and shoot things. Unfortunately, E3 is packed to the gills with ‘em. But thank the maker, because there are at least a handful of games for the few attendees like myself who would rather explore colorful worlds than fill enemies with bullets.

One such title, Picture Lives!, is tucked away in Nintendo’s booth on a lone 3DS unit. The game is being overlooked by everyone… well, everyone except your pal Mister Raroo!

When I walked up to have a peek, the lady at the demo station seemed shocked that I wanted to play it. And I’m glad I did, because it is quite a quirky, charming little game!

More…

Posted: June 9, 2011 at 3:44 pm By | No comments
← Older Articles