Gekifu Bakegyamon Ayakashi Fighting (DS)

 This is a game I've been meaning to write about for a long time, and finally, I'm getting around to it (the roadblock being that I misplaced my original DS and have now finally got ahold of a gizmo that can satisfactorily emulate the DS and take screenshots while doing so. Unfortunately, the 3DS can only do one of those things at the same time.) It's a licensed fighting game (based, unusually, on a manga that didn't get an anime adaptation), though while the fashion of the time was to make such things in the style of Smash Bros., this at least appears to be more of a traditional 3D fighting game, though it quickly becomes clear that it's quite a bit more experimental than that.

 

If you start playing with story mode, then the controls will probably be the first weird thing you encounter. There's only one attack button, that can be repeatedly pressed for a short beat em up-like combo. There's also a jump button, a special move button, and a button to crouch and pick up cards off the ground. And you block with the right shoulder button. Those cards, then: you start a match with four of them, and can hold up to eight. They're kept on the touchscreen, and you touch them to activate them, each one representing a different spell. Some are big powerful elemental attacks, others temporarily increase your stats, or decrease those of your opponent.

 

That's not all, as as soon as you win or lose a round, you'll encounter the next weird thing: every fight is a King of Fighters-style elimination battle between teams of three. Furthermore, the manga upon which the game is based is apparently a kind of horror-themed pokemon-type deal, so all the characters are monsters, mainly youkai-type guys. (Maybe they're all youkai? It's a little outside my realm of expertise. But there's tengu and kappa, at least). And of course, each team is acting as the proxy for some kid. Oddly, in free battle mode, you pick a kid, and then you can form a team out of all the monsters you've so far unlocked, while in story mode, each kid has a predetermined trio of monsters. Which makes me wonder what the point of picking a kid in free battle is. Just flavour, or does each kid have specialities of their own?

 

So, it's different, but is it actually good? Kind of. It won't be your new favourite handheld fighting game or anything, and I actually did get a little bored of it after a few attempts at getting through story mode on a single credit, as well as a bunch of trying out different monsters in free battle. (Since story mode only lets you play as the protagonist, and his set team, until you unlock more characters). But it's definitely unique, and the novelty of playing as monsters and casting spells during the fights does have its appeal. Apparently the manga did get an official English translation, so fans of that might want to pick up a copy, and if you've never read it (like me), you might still want to give it a look, just for how weird and interesting it is. It is definitely more weird and interesting than it is actually good, though.

Old Coin Pusher Friends 3 (Switch)

 In real life, coin pushers are a hated scourge, the disease that has overrun and essentially killed off everything fun and interesting in the UK's seaside arcades. But when I noticed there was a series of videogame adaptations of the concept, my curiosity was piqued: how would you turn such a simple concept, that's so reliant on physicality and prizes into a videogame that is inherently unable to offer either? The price was a mere pittance, so I gave the newest one a look.

 

Old Coin Pusher Friends 3 does it by having a simple board game happening at the top of the screen, with the coin pushing happening at the bottom. In the board game part, there's a guy journeying to visit the 52 stations of the Tokaido, and he moves according to dice that you win from the coin pusher game below. There's special spaces along the way, like a palanquin that'll carry the guy an extra distance, baskets of coins that rain into the pusher, enemy spaces, and more.

 

Enemies stop the journey while you fight them. You see, you don't drop coins into a slot to get them into the coin pusher, you shoot them from a gun! So when there's an enemy, you point the game upwards and try to kill the enemy before time runs out and they leave on their own. Beat them, and a bunch of treasures will drop into the pusher. There's two different upgrade shops in the game: one where you buy upgrades with your coin supply, and another where you buy upgrades with magatama. When you reach one of the stations, all the treasures you collected since the last one get turn into magatama at a rate of one for every four treasures.

 

As well as coins, dice, and treasures, there's also koban (you know, those oval-shaped gold coins, like what Meowth has on its head). Because while you're playing, there's a jackpot counter that increases for every coin you shoot. Get seven koban, and jackpot mode activates, during which coins and treasures will constantly rain down from the 'bove, until the number of coins that's fallen has reduced the jackpot counter to zero. If you're smart (and lucky), you'll eventually be playing in an almost constant state of jackpot mode, which is nice.

 

Old Coin Pusher Friends 3 is an odd little game. It's cheap, and I think it'll take about thirty to forty hours to complete. Furthermore, despite being an adaptation of a (low level) gambling machine conceptually, there's not much in the way of dark patterns in its design: it actually has an end, there's no real money shop or any extra stuff to buy after you have the game at all, in fact, and there's no imperative to check in every day. There's unlockables, both the aforementioned upgrades as well as a few optional cosmetics, but you'll have unlocked them all after a few stages. If the game sounds interesting to you, pick it up. It's not anything spectacular, but it's a decent enough way to semi-mindlessly occupy your hans while watching TV or whatever.