ActRaiser

In the mid 90s, I was fiddling with ActRaiser at one of my uncle’s formerly-owned houses located next to a downward curvy neighborhood road of the now-merged Sainte-Foy sector of Québec City. Shortly after starting a new file, it stopped reading controller inputs when I accidentally overwrote the one and only save file and selected “No” when it prompted me to continue playing. I’ve never seen my cousin’s reaction at all, so I can’t tell if he minded about that fact.

After acknowledging ActRaiser’s unique gameplay style decades later, I snagged its Virtual Console version before the day Wii Shop Channel officially stopped selling games, and ended up playing it recently. What I’ve experienced after completing the first region of the game’s world didn’t disappoint me.

ActRaiser combines sidescrolling action-platforming stages and top-down perspective city building simulator areas together in a way that benefit each other. Act 1 and 2 has you clear the former phase, where the accumulated score from defeating enemies and collecting pickups influence how the region’s population will rise.
You’re then sent back at the city in simulation phase to fulfill the reconstruction duties to restore the population’s faith after defeating a boss. In their gratitude, they will return your favor by increasing your HP and SP upon reaching certain total population thresholds alongside with offerings they come across by completing specific tasks. The latter can increase your total HP or SP, give you spells for use in the Action or Simulation phase.

In addition to emphasizing the ever-growing faith, this genre mashup avoided its pitfalls by ensuring that each phase flows very nicely, at least in its original SNES version.
The well-paced short stages of the action phase has you deal with fairly challenging but uncomplicated enemy placements, level design and boss fights, not too dissimilar to an average classic 2D sidescroller hack-and-slash. The only blemish I can think of is that some precision jumping sections can get annoying to overcome through.
The simulation phase also won’t leave you severely underleveled for the upcoming acts to come, even with a basic understanding of the deceptively simple but effective city building mechanics. As an angel, you guide the citizens by telling them to construct structures and guide them with the large square grid cursor. Several of the magic spells are available right from the get-go in order to clear obstacles and monsters, alongside growing crops.
In order to advance to the second act, magic circles must be sealed by the population. They rapidly spawn airborne monsters that can mess with your town progression by capturing people, destroying structures, and even hurt the angel in the hope of incapacitating him to temporarily disable the use of arrow. They can be defeated with the latter not only to regain MP faster, but also serves nicely as a busywork to keep the player occupied while the citizens to finish their job.

All that sounds more complex than the action phase, but the brisk speed that the simulation phase goes by make the process a quick and smooth endeavor by comparison to its contemporaries. However, some believe that it could’ve been further fleshed out, to which the remake ActRaiser Renaissance apparently attempted to address. From what I’ve read, it added a tower defense elements on top of city building, which drags the pacing down while failing to expand upon the gameplay loop.

Thanks to the SNES version’s sleek approach to the blend of sidescrolling hack-and-slash platformer and town rebuilding simulator, I’m going to continue this one sooner than later. The fact that Yuzo Koshiro himself composed religious-evoking musics here to showcase the SPC700 audio processor’s potential that also stood the test of time sealed the deal even further.

The remake can be purchased through most modern game consoles, while the North American SNES original can only be found through secondhand market asking for a higher price tag.

Part Time UFO

After two very challenging games back-to-back and a middle-ground one, I’ll certainly welcome Part Time UFO as my first chill game of my November Backlog Burner journey.

The premise here is that Jobski, the tiny sentient spaceship is, as the title suggests, seeking out for part-time jobs right after his first dibs. The goal here is to form a stable structure using objects that don’t necessarily share the same shape and weight, all by using Jobski’s UFO Catcher-like crane ability. Which calls for my organization skills!

Although it can grapple onto any object and carries it anywhere as needed, the kicker is that this is a physics-based puzzle game. The angle which an object should be grabbed, velocity and weight should be taken into consideration, alongside the spaceship’s crane swinging inertia.
Therefore, one has to carefully weave the flying saucer in order to control the object’s momentum and orientation more effectively. A reckless move can possibly topple the entire structure into shambles.

Knowing how to manipulate physics well is essential to earn a good amount of medals needed to progress the game, although not all are required to reach to the credits screen. Oddly enough, both difficulty levels share the same medals, although clearing the latter counts toward 100% completion.

So why do I consider Part Time UFO as a chill game? Well, the gameplay and objectives are easy to get hang of, most jobs don’t have a time limit outside the mandatory medal requirement, has family-friendly environment and character design, and a one-melody soundtrack evoking Sunday Driving vibe to me.

Since I’ve got a soft spot for physics-based and that it executes it quite well, I shall continue playing that down the road until I at least collected all the medals. The slick and snappy UI makes it even harder to put it down!

At the time of writing this Backlog Burner entry, the mobile version has been delisted last month, whereas the Switch one remains available on eShop. The latter has added extra content, such as the tower construction minigame that has you build the highest possible tower without a single collapse.

Pikmin 4

The Pikmin franchise is no stranger to the concept of resource and time management, and Pikmin 4 arguably pushes it even further. Like the previous instalments, you command a bunch of plant-like alien creatures called Pikmin to perform a variety of tasks, some of which requires specialties from a specific species.

Quantity plays a big role in the game as to get any battle done reasonably quick and be able to pick loots off the ground. There’s nothing quite like pelting dozens after dozens of Pikmins at a giant Bulborb to decimate it within seconds and recycling it at the base zone to produce tonnes of Pikmins.
In fact, this very idea of managing a horde came all the way back to the GameCube’s capability of rendering more than a hundred of polygon models at once as showcased by the Nintendo Space World 2000’s Super Mario 128 tech demo.

New to this franchise is the Oatchi, a dog-like creature the brings some pretty useful features. Not only he functions as an all-around souped-up Pikmin with a charge attack, but also doubles as a secondary captain that’s at least on with player, if not better. These add more diverse strategies and multitasking potential worth considering, particularly when speedrunning the game.

In Dandoori, the focus is at carrying as many creatures and valuables to the base onion as possible to earn a lot of points using only one type of Pikmin within a time limit. There’s also a VS variant occasionally found during the single-player campaign during where whoever score the highest amount wins. Although this mode doesn’t even compare to the chaotic and unpredictable nature of Pikmin 3’s Bingo Battle, it does a good job at further honing efficient resource gathering skills.

I can’t comment on the night expeditions, given that I still don’t have access to it even after over 5 hours of gameplay in later, because I try collecting everything in a level. I’ve only played a couple of them, with less than 20% of progress done on the second level today with just an hour spent.

Affordable Space Adventures

Affordable Space Adventures is a notable indie Wii U exclusive that makes the most effective uses of the ill-marketed Wii U GamePad’s unique features according to the fans of the platform. So I went ahead and bought it way before eShop no longer allowed purchases.

Here, you explore some distant planet and solve its puzzles along the way, as you slowly uncover it through the beauty of the cheap space traveling service.
What makes this one expedition stand out is how it conveys the feeling you’re actually driving the spaceship straight out of infomercials, instead of just contenting with sticks, buttons and motion control.

The touch screen on the Wii U GamePad serves as a control panel that lets you toggle the vehicle’s functions on/off, adjusting their strength level, review how much sound, electricity and heat they emit to avoid being detected and more. The level design even account on the fact that you will have to switch between the controller and TV monitor frequently, are there are plenty of safe areas for the vehicle to park in as long as the gravity strength is stable enough.

Even the included electronic instruction manual explains in details like a real car manual, with a hint of condescension about every single feature it has. Too bad some of these weren’t actually implemented in the game to make it more hilarious, but understandably so given how it would further confuse players and disrupt the flow.

I played 9 levels through the Tourist difficulty, which simplifies the puzzles a bit while still enjoying the unique and immersive control scheme, which is roughly ¼ of the main campaign. There’s also some free DLCs that add several more that are very difficult to solve. I need to experience the game more before I confidently put it into the standout tier, but what I saw so far was promising.

This week's writeup(s) below

Welcome to week 2! I hadn't posted my card yet because I wanted to have something to share first, but I'm ready now.

For this event I'm aiming at playing fewer, but larger titles. Chiefly those that I've been interested in for a long time but felt overwhelmed by starting. I still had a slower start than I intended, but I'll try to tackle more larger games as the event proceeds.

I decided to run a Flux card this time. I'm thrilled to see everyone enjoying the new categories, and it seems that Flux vs Flow is split right down the middle. Awesome to see, folks!

I've customized my game rules to play similar to golf mode (allowing duplicates), but I've narrowed the win condition to just rows and columns (no diagonals). This is to allow for a completion with fewer entries, without making it too easy. I also disabled the star tile so I have the full 25 categories available. Depending on how easy this proves to be, I may change to a full blackout later, but I'll give this a try first.

But now, onto the games!

Super Mario Eclipse

We're starting off with a comprehensive romhack for Super Mario Sunshine. Eclipse doesn't so much change the game as it adds to it. All of the original stages and shines are still there, but Eclipse adds 120 new shines, 5 new stages, new playable characters, new boss fights, an original soundtrack, and even a few new moves for Mario. There's a lot!

On top of the new stages, a number of connections have also been added to the original stages. There's tunnels, boats, and trains connecting them to make the island feel more connected. I keep accidentally finding new connections and getting side tracked from my current goal.

It's a small detail, but the skyboxes have been updated to add other stages off in the distance too. In many cases, you can head right towards them and find some clever new way of traveling there.

One thing I've found is that the new content feels quite a bit more challenging. That makes sense, since Nintendo was aiming for all ages while modders are generally already very good at the game. However, I'm apparently not much better at the game now than I was in 2002, so it's been hard going at times. I sometimes go back and complete the original shines when I need a bit of a rest. I've unlocked Yoshi now, but can't seem to remember how to unlock the other nozzles.

My favourite stages were always the FLUDD-less ones. Where it's just Mario doing his platforming thing to some acapella music. That remains true today, and I'm glad to see a number of these stages were added as well.

Eclipse is clearly a labour of love, and it's one that's been in development for over four years now. If you've been looking to relive some of that GameCube-era nostalgia, I think it's worth checking out.

Remnant II

I played through the original Remnant: From the Ashes back in 2020, and liked it well enough. I thought it to be a bit of a flawed gem. The story was interesting, the combat solid, but it had some major design flaws that made the game often frustrating to play.

As a sequel, Remnant II embraces both the good and the ugly by doubling down on all of these aspects.

Starting with the positives, Remnant II just feels better to play. The gunplay is more engaging, melee weapons feel more impactful, and the story is more clearly communicated. There's tons of new weapons, different kinds of upgrades, and they've added fun archetypes that greatly affect your character. There's plenty of content to unlock and level up, and is perfect for those with a completionist streak.

The problem is... leveling up actually works against you. The game world is split into separate zones, and each one - when first discovered - will scale to your current level. So whenever you upgrade a gun or earn enough XP to level up, it's also making the enemies in the next area stronger.

Technically the game also slowly increases the difficulty of newer zones, but you can easily accelerate it by getting stronger too fast. This creates a perverse incentive where you want to avoid leveling your character until you reach a difficulty wall, then gain a level or upgrade your weapon to proceed. Of course you can only upgrade your weapons so far, so you need to carefully manage your difficulty. This also requires negotiation with any players in your party to ensure nobody accidentally blows the difficulty up.

I do not consider this a fun system. In fact, it was my biggest turn off from the first game. It requires far too much thinking about game systems to be fun, especially when you can permanently set yourself back with it. It's the classic TES: Oblivion problem where random bandits suddenly get glass daggers that can take you down in one shot.

While that was the largest problem, a few smaller ones were brought forward as well. The shop inventory is shared in multiplayer, which means there's often not enough materials to go around. Ammo pickups are also strangely not shared, so everyone needs to be mindful of other players' ammo levels too.

Ammo in general is a bit of a concern. My partner and I had major issues in the first area because we simply didn't have enough ammo to take down the baddies. At one point we simply had to run through hordes of enemies until we made it to a shortcut door.

Like the first game, bosses all seem to include a phase of sending out minions. This is partly a necessity of design, because minions drop ammo and ammo is very scarce. While it doesn't feel quite as bad in this game, I do think they could have found some different solutions to this problem altogether.

Next I'd like to talk about puzzles. I like puzzles! The puzzles in Remnant II are downright inscrutable. I almost never go "Aha! That must be it!". It's more like, "Could that really be it...?". Last time I played, I spent over an hour solving one puzzle involving symbols and shadows. It offered great presentation, but almost no direction whatsoever. At least I got a cool bow out of it.

Generally I don't like to look up guides for games, but I would not blame anyone at all for doing so. It almost feels like some of these puzzles are meant to be crowdsourced and shared. But okay, therein ends my complaints.

Although it's easy to miss this fact while playing, Remnant is largely procedural. Sure it has set pieces, but they're put together in a convincing way that still create interesting worlds. It's actually pretty impressive that they can integrate a story into a system like that at all. It's not just finding "journals" as some roguelikes do, but there's full characters and encounters that are added to the world, and quite seamlessly, too.

There's actually an entire system after the campaign for generating new sets of worlds. This is where most players would do the farming to max out their character. Personally, I'm more interested in just completing the first playthrough, but it's neat that it's an option.

Remnant II is a true and proper successor to Remnant: From the Ashes. If you liked the first game, you'll surely like this one. It builds on each of the existing systems, and knows exactly what it wants to be. I can respect that. Some aspects are not for me, but there's still a solid game in there. I consider it a larger, more lustrous flawed gem.

Demos

I've decided to be cheeky on this next one and include three demos as one entry. From my perspective, they are a trilogy! Two were downloaded via Steam Next Fest and left unplayed (and thankfully are still available to play afterwards). One was part of a timed beta test. I figured I'd knock out all three as part of one entry, though it's still three separate write-ups. Best of luck to our record keeper in counting this one.

Mandragora Demo

Mandragora, a self-described RPG with metroidvania and soulslike elements. I find myself agreeing with their description. It definitely hits most of the Souls mechanical tropes, like bonfire checkpoints, estus flasks for healing, and "door does not open from this side" shortcuts. It plays more like a metroidvania though.

The visuals are very nice, with great background art and visual effects. There's something about the character art that feels a little off to me, but nothing I can point to exactly. I found I wasn't able to customize my character at all, possibly due to a control bug in the editor, so that might be a factor.

I don't think I've seen enough of the demo yet to comment on the overall world design and how everything fits together, but it reminded me of Blasphemous and other metroidvanias I've played recently. The individual rooms feel very "horizontal" in how they're laid out, with with ladders and drop downs occasionally adding layers. I guess that's another way of saying "it's a side-scrolling game".

I'm not entirely sold on the combat yet. It feels floaty in places, and occasionally unresponsive. I think it feels generally okay on the ground where rolling grants iframes, but striking in the air feels like a disconnected animation. It's a bit like Bugs Bunny characters running in place until they notice the ground isn't beneath them anymore, and then they fall. Of course a demo only offers a small slice, and it's possibly that future upgrades will make the combat feel more dynamic and responsive.

The stat system seems rather interesting. Instead of leveling up traits like health or stamina directly, you explore a large skill tree with branching paths and detours. Each node offers a small boost to one trait, with occasional rarer nodes that grant more powerful abilities.

The first skill tree was already rather complex looking, and the demo hinted at even more becoming available. It's not quite Path of Exile levels of complexity, but that seems to be the inspiration. It leaves me feeling a little overwhelmed, but I think if the game clicked with me, I could get really into theorycrafting and designing an optimal build.

I felt Mandragora was rough in a couple areas, and the pacing left something to be desired, but both traits are expected of an early demo. I'd say this is well on its way to being a very competent metroidvania.

Otherskin Demo

Another Metroidvania, but this time in 3D!

So far, I like Otherskin. It feels a little lighter in tone than Mandragora, with more of a focus on exploration and movement. This is no soulslike. As much as I like a dark, broody story, sometimes it's nice to throw realism to the wind and enjoy the fantastical instead. This game delivers on that.

The main gimmick of Otherskin is the ability to absorb new powers from creatures. Not exactly like Kirby, because the unlocks are semi-permanent. It's more like unlocking new upgrades that you occasionally lose when exploring a new region. The game does seem to be split into different zones, with a main warp hub connecting them. It's not a traditional open world.

For those who have played it, I'm reminded a lot of Prototype. It offers the same kind of power fantasy, also shown through a theme of corruption, that encourages you to progress to unlock more.

The movement tech is a lot of fun, with abilities granting things like super jumps and grappling hooks. You also unlock new weapons and tools as you progress, which can be upgraded with the currency orbs you find. I hope the final game will offer some customization here to allow multiple paths to complete a level, as that could add a lot of replayability.

One of the things that sets metroidvanias apart from classic games is the use of keys. In Doom for example, you often found keycards that opened one door and did nothing else. In metroidvanias though, the "keys" also enhance your character in some way. You might gain a double jump to access a new ledge, gain extra strength to lift a boulder, or maybe find a hookshot to cross long gaps. You're not just getting further in the level, but you feel more powerful, too. I find that kind of progression really enjoyable, and Otherskin's abilities each feel like they grant a large power spike.

I suppose the consequence of becoming too powerful, too quickly, is that eventually it would be too difficult to balance around. That may be why Otherskin has you lose your abilities when moving to a new zone. That can also feel bad though, so we'll have to see how it's balanced in the full game.

The gunplay feels a little lacking to me right now. Partly I think that's due to the controls being rather awkward, and maybe designed for controllers. There's seemingly no way to disable auto-aim, which really messes with my PC reflexes. The aim sensitivity also slows dramatically when scoped in. There's a few questionable key combos, like holding "E" and "R" together to absorb powers. To me these feel like the consequence of testing only on a controller, but they're also likely to be fixed after some QA passes.

The other thing I wish I could control was the camera zoom. Every time I sprinted, the camera zoomed out. Every time I aimed, it zoomed in. It felt like I was being constantly lurched back and forth in high motion. I do hope to see that turned down, or settings added to reduce it.

Being an Unreal Engine 5 game, this one made my GPU sweat a little bit. I only just met the minimum specs though, so your experience may be smoother. It definitely feels like a UE5 game, with complex geometries and open spaces on display. The environments use heavy foliage, and actually remind me quite a bit of Crysis (as does the average framerate).

I liked the cutscenes and game introduction. It was a bit expository but that suits me fine. When trying a game for only an hour or two, I'm not looking to explore the deep secrets of that universe. I crash landed on an alien planet, I can hoover up their powers -- say no more!

The Big Bad™ this time around is a "corruption"-based enemy that infects creatures and seemingly wants very badly to eat you, too. This ties into your absorption ability, allowing you to fight back. As far as stories go, it's definitely one designed for a video game. And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Overall, Otherskin seems like a good time. I won't be able to play it properly until I upgrade my hardware but I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it as it nears release.

Monster Hunter: Wilds Beta

Okay, this one is 100% a cheat. I can't even argue it was on my backlog because it only just released last week. But how could I not give it a try? I loved Monster Hunter: World, and Wilds seemed like a worthy successor to that title.

Alas, the game is a complete slideshow for me. I don't quite get the origami art others have reported, but saw my own flavour of PS1 graphics. It made it difficult to follow the intro cutscene, and the game itself was practically unplayable. Despite tinkering, I never got my game above 15 FPS. I'm faced with the reality that I'll need to upgrade my computer, and I don't like it!

I was able to explore some of the game's systems, despite the choppiness. The new Seikret seems very cool, and I love that you can equip two different weapons at once. The environment felt once again like a real ecosystem, something that felt strangely absent in Rise. I'm not 100% sold on the very fast transitions between biome states, but I'm willing to give them a chance.

I was absolutely blown away by the character creator. It's one of the best I've ever used. The sliders felt intuitive yet powerful, and I've seen a lot of great looking results. The palico (kitty cat companion) slider was a little lacking in comparison to the hunter, but I still managed to add some unique features to my furry friend.

I'm excited for the game, but saddened I likely won't be able to participate at launch. I do have some hope that they'll continue to optimize, but I think it's unrealistic to expect miracles with just three months to go.