Metal Slug 5 (Switch)

Back again!

Fist time playing and from the get go I felt more excited playing through it than 4. It starts off on a jungle river with new enemies all around. Apparently a disc have been stolen by an organisation called the Ptolemaic Army and its your job to hunt it down. After the first boss is destroyed you are even given a cutscene of a mask falling into the jungle and one of the natives pick it up, gets struck by lightning and takes over as the main threat. Apparently the Ptolemaic Army is specialised in archeological digs and espionage so apparently they brought it up. Marco and the gang fights them through old temples, water, air, industrial zones and in the final mission you drive a car on a destroyed highway, jumping over destroyed bridges until you reach a tower and climbing it to the top the enemies have summoned an ancient demon... and the freaking ending theme from the first games starts playing making it an epic showdown.

Really, it ups the stakes, Mordens army isn't shown anywhere and the new music is decent. The new metal slugs are fun and some old ones makes a comeback like the submarine and plane. It was a blast playing through it. Or it could just be that I played it for the first time.

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (Switch)

Finally, it's been over a year!

Finally, the latest Monster Boy game after the remake of Wonder Boy III, which I played back in 2017 as one of the early games I got for the Switch. And it was a fun ride. An action-adventure plattformer with Metroidvania elements. Works fine for me. Story is that one morning Jin's Uncle Nabu, the court jester goes on a rampage and turns everyone in Monster World into antropomorfic animals, including Jin who was turned into a pig. You got to collect 5 orbs to uncurse everyone, but each orb gives you a new animalform which lets you explore more of the world. Turns out that the kings advister, Mysticat have been planing to resurect his evil master and needs the orbs and dominates your uncles mind to instigate a hero to getting the orbs for him. It's rather satisfying looking around and such for chest and power-ups. 

The game looks like the remade version of Wonder Boy III and that looks fantastic. Still does. Music is pumping, They clearly tried to emulate that game, but knew what to do in order to make it better for the player. For example the lions sprint attack makes traversing the thundercloud areas acceptable (I remember in Wonder Boy an open field with thunderclouds was horrible since you just died all the time), you get a teleporting staff halfway through which means you can travel and buy supplies and return to the same place. All improvements. Then we have the call backs to the other games. Now, I only played the fourth game and the remake of Wonder Boy III, but it was pretty much enough for the important parts. In two parts you get the grapichs of the original games, you get to gather important items from the first three games and the heroes are displayed at the local sanctuary. Also the blue flying creature from Monster World IV is here looking for the green-haired heroine of that game. He never finds her, but the ending shows her standing in a fire... is that a hint of Monster World IV remake or so? I also belive they had some reference I didn't quite get. There is some runner and mercenary who I don't know if I've seen before and the one he protects in the beginning look like Sparkster from Rocket Knight, but older and without armor. It could be that they are the same animal. 

20 hours gameplay... but then I used some guides to figure out some of the placements of chests and puzzles. Well worth the play, wonder if there will be others, or maybe ports or remakes for the swift so I can play through the whole story. Of course, I think I got some of the games on the Wii Virtual console.

Forgotten Anne

It looks like they misspelled Forgotten

I'm a sucker for this highly stylished animated games and when I watched the trailer I just had to get it. And it was a beautiful 6-7 hours playing through it. Basically the main character Anne is the Enforcer, pretty much a police for Master Bonku who builds an Ether Bridge to get everyone back to the Ether. The Ether is our world and Anne and Bonku are trapped in the Forgotten world where forgotten items ends up and get sentient life as forgottlings. The game starts with a rebel group performing some attacks on crucial infrastructure and Anne as the Enforcer has to find the rebels and bring them into justice so they won't stop the Ether bridge.

Now, pretty much from the get-go I guessed that Master Bonku is in the wrong. Mostly since everything Bonku built to ensure the project screams 1984 to me. He installs mirrors that keep tracks on the populace for their own security. Only 100 forgottlings are promised to follow Bonku back to the Ether and only those that do their duty have a chance and as soon as an item gets to become a forgottling they are assigned a job to further the project. Pretty much a facist dictatorship. 

Pretty much a puzzle plattformer where you jumps around to get around the world and solve puzzles. What makes the game interesting is that you during the game gets the choice to roleplay Anne's character. You can play as a hard-boiled cop that only does the master's bidding and "distilling" any adversary or be a reluctant enforcer who wishes to give people second chances, doubting the very project itself. It works pretty good. I started full on mission duty (with a few hiccups like I missed distilling the first rebel you meet since I wanted to see if you just could scare them by almost draining their life force), playing fair even though I could roughen rebels up a bit, but due to the hiccup I played no kill scenario. As the story unfolds you learn Anne and Bonku's history, the reason the rebels fight their fight and learn the big twist of the game, which pretty much was the only way the story could go.

The twist is that to get energy for all machines and the Ether Bridge, Master Bonku distill all (as he sees it) worthless forgottlings and take their energy to power it all. He does this with the Arcas he and Anne possess. The Arca is two-parts from a crystal that is a cornerstone of the world. The guardian of the cornerstone, the Caretaker, tells Anne her background, an infant left by her mother in a box on the river as she couldn't care for the child and the supposed father wanted nothing with them. Also that going through the Ether Bridge would lead to the current forgotten world to be destroyed.

Phantom 2040

The Ghost Who Walks!

Been on a bit of memory trip and remembered I watched this show as a kid. I don't think I realised it was based on the Phantom comics I've read (even though the names the same). And the whole show was on youtube so I relived the memories. Or more correctly filled the gap for the two memories of the show I had. It takes place in the year 2040 in Metropolis, a futuristic New York where the world are on the brink of destruction due to natural collapse and climate change. Mankind have built satellites around the earth where humans live and are born that terrorise people for independence. Mega Corporations rule the planet and the rich and influential tries to save themselves. Worst is the Maximum Industries headed by Rebecca Madison, her son Maxwell Jr. and chief of security Graft. As they try to start the Maximum Era where the rich have taken shelter in Cyberville, a city complex cut of from the world for 10 years while the rest of the world dies and are reborn and the people of Cyberville can return as leaders of the world. 16 years earlier Maxwell Madison Sr. died in a train crash that contaminated half of Metropolis, caused by the Phantom according to stories that haven't been seen since then. And that is the setup.

The character models looks a bit weird

Kit Walker is drawn into this when Guran, a friend of his father tries to tell him about his heritage, but are attacked by Maximum who have waited for him to return. Kits great-aunt Heloise gets hurt in the fight and Kit discovers that he is the last in line of the Phantom-family, the 24 to be exact. From here he picks up the skull ring and fights injustice in search for answers like what happened that day 16 years ago that killed his father. The first season was amazing with interesting stories and characters. For example the backstory of Graft that was a soldier in the resource wars of 2015 (ha) where he become a hero for saving children, gets promoted by Maxwell Sr. and then defects to save an amazonian village, but the battle leaves him just an upper-torso for Rebecca Madison to use as an enforcer. Also it gets really dark. Maxwell Sr. mind was saved by Rebecca by being downloaded into a computer so she tries to resurect him by putting him in a robot body. One episode it succeeds, but he is confused and sees that he has lost his sons childhood and kidnapps him and take him to the central station to try to remember what happened. The Phantom interupts him, and during the fight he realises he is dead, and as his son pleads with him to stay since he misses his father, the robot rips open his torso and jumps into a water pool, electrocuting him. Real dark stuff.

Maxwell Jr., Baudelaire the cat and Graft

Second season first half was good. The last part was not as good, It was rather noticeable as well. The ending of the first half where they had build up the story for was the Phantom traveling to Africa to visit his ancestral home in Bengala while Rebecca brought Maxwell Sr to life again and prepared to start the Maximum Era, they get trapped after the Phantom tries to blow up their HQ and they escape to Cyberville. Meanwhile it is revealed that the 23rd Phantom survived the accident and was able to put himself into cryonetic sleep, but was awakened for some reason, and the episode ends with him sitting at a monitor realising he have been awakend to early as the poison drips around him. After this studio meddling forced them to speed up to get an ending that was decent, and I think forced certain characters to act out of character to just tell their story since they couldn't build them more. Also, certain characters just disappeared or was pushed to the side, Graft for example. The ending is really noticeable since they wrap up the death of the 23rd Phantom, the truth behind the accident and the termination of Maxwell Sr. and then last 30 seconds tell that the other bad guys went to prison. A bit rushed. Another reason it felt worse is that it strained a bit of reality. One episode had the bad guys injecting the kid side-kick with nano-machines and could spy on the Phantom, but they saw it in 3rd-person where the more correct way would be 1st-person. Easier to animate. And then there was a virtual reality episode where all phantom chronicles are digitised and to find out about who was given a good mark medallion Kit 24 enters a digital adventure of the 21 Phantom (the one everyone knows) and he walks around in Morocco interacting with people until the Phantom arrives and captures the bad guys, gives the mark to a kid that helped them and is on his way.. while Kit 24 watches a pickpocket steal the mark and say it will be an heirloom for his family. HOW does he know that? How is it supposed to work? Talk about a very well written chronicle for each adventure if they are able to put that in.

Since I'm Swedish, I prefer this colour scheme

A pity it ended as it did, but it at least didn't overstay its welcome. The two memories I had was the backstory for Graft and the survival of the 23rd Phantom. I gotta say the voice acting phenomenal with Mark Hamill, Margot Kidder, Ron Pearlman and the guy doing the Puingin from Batman the animated series, Grace from Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and the others do a decent job as well. The music was good and as mentioned the animation was ok, but it could look a bit freaky at times. Apparently the same guy who did Aeon Flux and worked on Fire and Ice and Transformers G1. Sad thing is, that there isn't a full release of the series. There's supposedly a season 1 box set in Australia, but for season 2 you gotta watch taped version from their original release. Apparently before Captain Planet, and besides environmental message, I have a hard time seeing why I would like that show if I like the Phantom as the presenter says.

Luigi's Mansion (3DS)

I ain't afraid of no ghosts! (joke made by everyone playing this game)

The launch-title for the Gamecube, I played it and never finished this game, until now that is when it was remade for the 3DS. It's about Luigi winning a mansion in a lottery he hadn't entered and, when arriving after his brother Mario, finding out that the mansion is overrun by ghosts. He is saved by professor E. Gadd that equips him with the Poltergust 3000 and it's of ghost hunting to find Mario. Basically a puzzle-adventure game where you go to each room of the mansion, trying to figure out how to capture the special portrait ghosts, capture the 50 boos and find Mario. It was fun, but I wish the c-stick on the N3DS was more responsive, meaning I miss the gamecube C-stick. Especially when fighting boos, or bosses that forces you to be more precise with your vacuuming sight. And the bosses are the most irritating ones, well, mostly the boo bosses. The several boos you fight at the balcony was a pure hate to play through. You are supposed to vacuum it into a unicorn statue so it splinters into several boos, and then freeze the boos and then vacuum them up. The final one was a real pain since he continued to hurt me, bit by bit, getting me down to 12 hearts before I by some random luck was able to freeze him and suck him up. I was at 90 when he was the last one standing. Yeah, he sucks.

The C-stick problem gets really noticeable as soon as you get to fight ghosts on the ceiling or so. Also, Luigi goes so slow that running up and down the mansion can be a hassle at times... at least until you get the key for the shortcut of the stairs so you don't have to run all around the backyard. Basically the boos have created the mansion to capture the brothers and released the ghosts from E. Gadds paintings. And in the final when you cleaned out the house you fight King Boo in the basement in the form of Bowser. I never finished it at the gamecube, mostly because I got frustrated by not being able to maneuver correctly. Maybe they made the auto-targeting better, but I at least did it this time. You get all the ghosts back into the paintings, rescue Mario and depending on the amount of money you have collected, Luigi gets a new mansion. I got a D. It's pretty much the same thing from Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land where he got a castle depending on the treasures he got. Winning unlocks the Hidden Mansion mode where you get into hard mode, but you can earn more money and go for the better mansion. All in all a fun game for a couple of hours. You can play 2-player co-op on the 3DS as well, but since I'm alone I can't test it.

A DnD Tale: Curse of Stradh - The Witching Hour

Can I interest you in a pie?

So we started this up again. After a short recap on what have transpired, a reminder of the fortune reading they had they were back at Yester Hill. The night was coming and they slept on the hill. Immeral the high elf monk took the first watch. In the middle of the night he heard a voice in the night calling him. He stumbled down to the side of the hill and found a magic spear under a rock. Now, it's supposed to go to some one more attuned to nature like a barbarian or druid, but the barbarian already got an axe and I gathered it was just fair to reward their character and the monk can at least use a spear so he got it. On the way back of course the player rolled a 1 and fell back in the camp getting scolded by the rouge tiefling, Hope. Hope take over the watch. The next morning they head over to the vineyard and give back the second emerald pine cone, restoring it to even greater days,

Lost on what to do, they begin looking for information on cats and witches since the third and final emerald was lost and no one knows where it is (and the book leaves it up to the DM to do whatever you wants with it). They travel to Krezk and are pointed to the Vistanis, but they don't live in Krezk so they have to go to Valaki where they enter the vistani encampment outside the town. They are pointed to the dusk elf leader Kasimir since most of the vistani is out looking for one of the chieftains daughter that have gone missing. Kasmir tells them about places like the stone circle in Berzk near Baba Lyssaga, the Old Bonegrinder and the witches there, the Amber Temple in the mountains and about Wachter family that have connections to Strahd. They also ask him about the mother of evil and he tells of the two possibilities, either the actual mother of Strahd and that would be seeking their answer in the catacombs of the castle, or Baba Lyssaga. He also tells them about his haunted dreams where his sister torments him and he would want the powers said to exist within the temple that would grant one person the ability to raise the ancient dead from their slumber. They decide to head for the Amber Temple since they want to bring Ireena back and could use the powers of the Amber Temple and the scarf that was left of her after falling into the pool. And they walk all the way to Tolinka Pass, but they can't pass through the green-fire curtain since they don't have the ability to suppress or dispel magic. So they turn away and believes that maybe Madam Eva could help them. On the way they decide to take back their windmill since they own the deed after finishing the Death house at the very beginning of the game.

Reminded of the Disney short that won an oscar

Arriving before lunch they look through the surrounding area and finds another set of pillars and children's bones at the centre and agitated ravens all around. Sensing that there's something wrong they sneak in and finds even more compromising evidence of evil. Cygnus Swanfeather, the eladrin paladin senses fiends inside the windmill and they decide to act. Sneaking up to the second floor they see an old lady sweeping the floor and they attack. Hope puts a dagger in her back and she shrieks in pain as the form of the old lady turns into that of a night hag. Immeral strikes next. The hag counter by casting eyebite and frighten Immeral (I wanted to put him to sleep, but fey creatures like elves can't be put to sleep). Katrina Bargov, the human sorcerer throws fire bolts at the witch. Another hag comes down the stairs and throws the spell hold person on Toby, the half-orc barbarian and paralyses him. Another hag arrives and shoots a green bolt against Hope. Its a ray of sickness that would cause her to take poison damage and impose disadvantage, making it impossible for her to use her sneak attacks against the hags. Sadly, the spell misses. Cygnus attacks and divine smites the first hags with his silver sword. After enough attacks her concentration breaks and the spell over Immeral dissolves, freeing him from the frightened status. As revenge Immeral attacks, and attacks until the hag dies. This breaks the hag coven and takes away the hags abilities to cast the spells they have been using. Our heroes Now focuses on the hag keeping Toby paralysed (since he isn't that good with wisdom saving throws it seems). After enough bashing that concentration is also broken and Toby finally can rage and bring the hurt upon the witches. The second witch is killed and all are focusing on the final one. In the end Cygnus is the one that cuts the witches head from her body and it rolls down the stairs she was standing on.

After their victory they search the windmill and finds two children looked up in cages and rescues them. The kids was sold to the hags by their parents for dream pastries (which the hags makes from the children). They decide to take the children back to Barovia and leave them in the care of Ismark before heading toward the Vistani encampment at the pool with madam Eve to search for help in passing Tolenka Pass. So I had to skim through the Dungeon Master Guide while eating cake to find a magic item to use, so they got a ring of spell storing that had a dispel magic spell for one use. Of course, they only know it like a ring with one use and nots its true nature, Will see if they keep it afterwards. Back at Valakia and then we stoped pretty much to resume some other time.

Metal Slug 4

Time to blow things up!

So after the Mysterious Cities of Gold intermission, we go back to the regular scheduled video game reviews... or talk-about. And it's time for Metal Slug 4 finally arriving on the Switch... or it has been there for a couple of months. Apparently a cyber virus threatens to destroy all nations military computers so they send in the best they have, which is two from the other games and two new ones since the others are doing some other things in between, like helping you move from stage to stage. Apparently it's some Amadeus Syndicate that have teamed up with General Mordens rebel army. As you fight through the stages you confront Morden, that turns out to be manufactured robot. The final boss is some scientist that uses the Dr. Wily tactics of using machines in the end battle. Beat him and you gotta escape before the whole factory blows up.

I don't know, but it feels limited compared to the bombastic evolution of the other games. Apparently SNK was going through bankruptcy so maybe that explains the reason. Not only that, but it was licensed out to another company and maybe they reused more assets and that makes it feel a bit same same as the others. Not bad, but I would rather play the first 3 games.