Sin and Punishment First thing I wanna say is this game looks beautiful on a CRT. It's got to be one of the best looking N64 games too, and it actually manages to maintain a pretty solid framerate The controls are weird though. I only managed to get the grips with control type 3, which uses the cla...

The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls (Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru) I finally got around to beating DK94 earlier in the year and so have continued my quest of playing through classic Game Boy games I've not yet played by jumping into Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru, or to use it's translated name "...

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night I had a good time with this, though it feels like a Kickstarter game, if that makes sense. It's a really solid "Greatest Hits" of the Castlevania series. I don't think i's quite at the level of the best Castlevania games (SoTN, AoS) but it's a really soli...

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine This was my first ever Warhammer game. I picked up a cheap copy on PS3, and beat it over the space of a week. I thought this was going to be a standard 7th gen cover based shooter, but it doesn't use cover at all. If anything, it almost plays like a proto-Doom 2016, i...

Yakuza 5 This was a replay, as I'd originally played it for the first time in 2017. I think it's still up there with 0 as my favourite game in the series. The fact a game about gangsters punching people in the face can add in a 10 hour long (!) section in the middle where you play as a teenage girl...

Assassin's Creed Valhalla I did enjoy Assassin's Creed Valhalla but feel like it's a step back from the two previous games in the series. I'm from the UK so personally while it was cool seeing so many familiar places, I found Greece and Egypt far more interesting and also visually varied. In terms ...

Dead Island 2 This one surprised me. I had no interest in the first game and only gave this a go as it was on Game Pass. I ended up playing the whole thing co-op with a few friends and had a great time. Did you play the first Dying Light game? Wondered how this compares to that. I enjoyed Dying Lig...

Two for me this weekend: Super Hang-On (Arcade) I didn't technically beat it (only the beginner stage) but I made it about 50-70% of the way through the other courses. I played the Wii VC version, with my Wii hooked up to a CRT, though sadly I don't have a replica of the bike from the arcade units. ...

I'd say DK94 is a platformer with puzzle elements where MVDK is a puzzler with platform elements. We reviewed it within our first Donkey Kong podcast: https://caneandrinse.com/donkey-kong/ Yeah I'd mostly agree with this. Every non boss level is a puzzle, but working out how to solve that puzzle of...

Donkey Kong (1994, Game Boy) I had always known this was considered one of the best original Game Boy games, but I had always wondered how it could stand shoulder to shoulder with games like Link's Awakening and Pokémon Red/Blue, even as an expanded version of the 1981 arcade game. I started the ga...

Go Mecha Ball This was a fun little roguelike, an odd mix of Marble Madness and Enter the Gungeon. It's a twin stick shooter where you can turn into a ball and roll around at speed, using your dash move to delay/prevent enemy attacks. It's got amazing game feel and a great little combat loop. The g...

Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line I played the first DQ last year, and so decided to try the follow up after that. I played both from the fan translated SFC version on a retro handheld (RG35XX) over the space of a few months I wanted to play the first DQ as it's an important game hi...

Quake II 64 I played the remaster of the base game last year and loved it, so went back for the N64 version this year It's much shorter than the original PC game. I beat it in about 2.5 hours. It's quite an odd experience as it does somewhat follow the plot beats of the main game, but often a lot s...

Skyward Sword I remember taking about 2 hours before you get to the first dungeon My view is that the opening hours of most games are among the worst hours of most games. The start of most single player games are full of cutscenes, exposition, tutorials and gameplay that has fewer options/mechanics ...

I beat Sea of Stars last night Overall I really enjoyed it, much like Chained Echoes (which I beat last year) it's a love letter to the classic RPGs of the 16 and 32 bit generations. It melds and borrows a lot of ideas from other games. Chrono Trigger influences much of the game, from the map screen...

Vampire Survivors is one of the best "podcast games" ever made. The simple controls and relatively slow gameplay speed make it the perfect game to play while listening to your favourite podcast The unlocks come thick and fast, so you always have something new to play with, and getting a bu...

I'm also playing this now, about 16 hours in

It's been a while since I've played The Messenger but there are def music themes and a few locations from that game that show up in Sea of Stars, which is pretty cool

Overall I'm really enjoying the game so far

first game beaten in 2024, though it was started in 2023: The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails Really good PS4 remaster of a 2012 PSP game from Falcom, that plays like a mix of their Trails and Ys games The story was somewhat middling, but it does the job, however the real star of the show is the ...

I didn't really expect this game to be 'The Past of Us' but that's essentially what it is. However, that's not to say it's derivative. The story, tone and setting set this game apart from Sony's classic, and for a game with a much smaller budget it does still look spectacular in parts, with a story ...

I'm current playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Sea of Stars on Xbox Series X The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails on PS4 Super Hang-on on a modded Wii hooked up to a Trinitron CRT And finally Dragon Quest II , playing on an RG35XX handheld (though I'm playing the fan translated SFC version) I'm...