Kanon Defence Force (PC)

A while ago, I reviewed Gensokyo Pro Wrestling Muscle Tag Match, a game which dared to ask the question "what if Touhou characters were in Kinnikuman Muscle tag Match?", and in that review, I mentioned that putting Touhou characters in things was the more modern version of putting characters from visual novels in things. So here we have Kanon Defence Force, a game that puts characters from the visual novel Kanon into an Earth Defence Force game. Or rather, an isometric 2D approximation of an Earth Defence Force game.

 

I don't know anything about Kanon, because I have no interest in visual novels generally. But from an oursiders perspective, I think it might be about sad little girls dying of tuberculosis or something? Anyway, this game has you playing as a selection of those little girls, and you go around shooting what appears to be a huge army of people in frog mascot costumes. Interestingly, these frogpeople do parallel the bug monsters from the EDF series. They start with regular frogs who shoot yellow stuff at you (like EDF's ants), then there's ninja frogs who jump around throwing webs (like EDF's spiders), and though I haven't been able to get more than about eight stages in, I really hope there are kaiju frogmen and centipede frogmen later in the game. I guess there's an incentive for me to keep playing, right there!

 

There's not much more to it! Rather than the item-based progression system in EDF, it's got a more traditional levelling up system, whereby you get a bunch of experience points at the end of each stage, gradually getting more HP and MP, and sometimes unlocking more weapons. Structurally it's just like EDF, though, with you picking a difficulty level and a stage, then returning to the menus after you complete the stage (or fail to). Best of all, just like in EDF, most of the scenery is destructible!

 

Regarding the scenery, as mentioned, I have no knowledge of Kanon's canon. So, for those of you who do have that familiarity, I have a question: is it explained in there why all of the stages in this game are covered in snow? And why some of the stages take place in Egypt, also covered in snow? Or is it just yet another case of an otaku game developer inserting into their work stuff they thought was cool that they'd seen in Mu magazine?

 

Kanon Defence Force is an incredibly okay game. For this review I've played a couple of sessions, each more than an hour in length, which is absolutely not the best way to play it. I'm sure it's a lot more enjoyable playing a stage or two now and then in isolation over a long period of time, but plaiyng it like I did, it's really worn on me. But if you were to play it, I'm sure you wouldn't be doing so after days of failing to find a suitable subject for review on your wekkly-updated blog. Even so, if you do intend to play it, I'd say get it from the Internet Archive, rather than hunting down a physical copy. (On the subject of physical copies of doujin games, I found out the other day that copies of Platine Dispositif's Comiket 87 STG sell for significantly more than what I paid eight years ago. But I'm too stubborn to sell.)

The Police 24 (PC)

 Despite the name, this game isn't to be confused with Konami's light gun arcade game Police 24/7, and despite the general look of the title screen, it's also not to be confused with an entry into the Simple 2000 Series. It is, however, from DesireFactory, the developer(s?) of the Fighting Oddball series of fighting games, and like those games, it makes heavy use of digitised photos for its sprites and backgrounds. (I actually have a physical copy of one of those games lying around somewhere, but iirc, I failed to get it running on a modern PC).

 

It's a single plane beat em up, made in an engine designed for fighting games. This awkward situation shows in some little things, like how regular enemies have little health bars above their heads while bosses have proper full size ones across the screen from your health bar, like your opponents would have in a fighting game. There's also something of an abundance of buttons, maybe the most I've ever seen used in the genre. You've got three different levels of regular attacks, a King of Fighters-esque dodge roll button, a taunt button, and a guard button. Plus, you have a burst-type ability that you execute by pressing roll and taunt together. PLUS there's a bunch of special moves with fighting game-style motions.

 

Each of the three stages has you fighting through a few screens of yakuza guys, in either dark or light-coloured suits, then there'll be a cutscene and a boss fight. It'll feel a little awkward at first, but once you get used to the controls, and to how enemies react to being attacked, it quickly becomes a lot of fun. You'll be figuring out easy and amusing little juggle combos and so on, and the comedic aspect is obviously enhanced by the digitised graphics. There's just something about these actual little photo people being kicked in the face and bouncing off the sides off of the screen. The bosses are Mario, Luigi, and a bigger yakuza guy. Judging by the cutscene in the first stage, it looks like the Mario Brothers are importing some kind of illegal mushrooms, which provides a sobering reminder that lazy, tedious gamer humour is not something that's restricted to the anglosphere. (Also, it obviously wasn't the dev's intention, since this game is well over a decade old, but: you're a cop beating up Luigi! Has a slightly different feel to it in the year 2025, doesn't it?)

 

The biggest problem this game has is that it's got a lot of promise in the way it plays, but it doesn't have enough actual game to really explore those mechanics. There's a massive movelist, and as mentioned, it's a lot of fun bouncing and chucking those yakuza guys around the screen. But the problem is that the game in its totality comprises nine screens of regular enemies (of which there are only two varieties), three boss fights, and that's it. There isn't even a score! A longer game, with more enemy types would provide more scope for playing with the mechanics and exploring the movelist. I know I'm asking a lot from what is probably a solo developer, but I'm reminded of Treasure's Tiny Toon Adventures game on GBA that felt a lot like it was a proof of concept demo for their later Astro Boy game on the same system. So, if this game ever got a sequel (and there's a chance it already did years ago, and I just haven't found it yet), I assume that game would probably live up to the potential.

 

I don't know if it's possible to actually buy this game anymore without scouring Japanese sites that sell pre-owned games, but it's definitely floating around online in various places, and if you like beat em ups and their potential as a genre, I definitely recommend giving it a look.

Magicus (PC)

 I bought this game a few years ago, because the PC version also comes with a download of the Android version, and at the time, my phone was still just about capable of playing games, and I was interrested to see what stuff of interest might exist in the world of pre-paid phone games (a subject I'll get back to later). It's an RPG in which the battles take the form of match-three puzzles, but there's surprisingly a lot more to it than that.

 

When you enter a battle, the enemies will be at the top half of the screen, and the bottom half wil be filled with gems. Clicking any gem makes it disappear and also deals a little damage to the enemies. Getting three or more in a row makes all of the lined up gems disappear and deals more damage. After playing a while, you'll also get spells, which have various effects like damaging the enemy, healing you, or changing what's happening in your little gempit. Each spell has an associated colour, and to charge a use of the spell, you have to click or line up a certain number of gems in that colour. Around the same time as you get spells, you'll also get special gems. These are different-looking gems, each only appearing as a certain colour, and they all have special spell-like effects when cleared as part of a line.

 

Aside from battling, the main gimmick of the game is its one-dimensional dungeon design. You traverse the overworldby just clicking the name of a location you want to go to, but in dungeings, you can go backwards and forwards. Every step you take has a chance of causing a random encounter. This could be a battle, a trap, a travelling merchant, a fishing hole, or one of a bunch of other things. So, the main point of difficulty is resource and stat management. And there are a lot of both of these things. You've got items, experience points, coins, leaves, fish, lottery tickets and more. This might sound overwhelming, but they're all introduced very gradually so you aren't overwhelmed.

 

Some of you might also be thinking that this sounds a lot like a free-to-play game with dark patterns and so on, and I do agree: while playing it, I was heavily reminded of the time I've spent in the past playing Immortal Taoists. There is, however, one important difference that I've already mentioned: this is a game that you buy, and which contains no microtransactions. The problem with free-to-play games that are structured like that isn't just the cost of the microtransactions themselves, but the fact that the developers are financially incentivised to design the games in such a way as to make the microtransactions more attractive: make it possible, but tedious to make progress, give players daily login bonuses so they're hooked on comig back to the game, and so on. It's known as "Dark Patterns" in game design.

 

Using Immortal Taoists as the example, because it's the game of this type with which I'm the most familiar, the setting draws new players in, and the carrot of endless character progression is what keeps them coming back and either watching ads or paying money. It is endless, too. The "Live Service" nature of the games means they can always raise the grapes every time player get close to grabbing them (the player is Tantalus in this analogy, and the game developer is Tartarus). Magicus offers all the positive stuff those free-to-play games, but without the negatives: dying in a dungeon is a very minor setback, you're only shown new equipment when you're at least a significant part of the way to being able to obtain it, and above all: you're given a singular long-term goal at the start of the game (obtain seven magic orbs to save the land from monsters), that has a clear and definite endpoint. I kind of wish there were more games like this! There are interesting elements in free-to-play games, but they're poisoned by the psychologically harmful structure of those games.

 

There's other positive things I can mention about the game, too: its cute low polygon count graphics, your lovable companions and the slowburn bond that grows between them, the fact that though it's a first person game where your character is never shown, it's still canonical that your character is a woman, reflected in the equipment you can obtain and more interestingly (though only occasionally), in the attitudes various characters have in addressing you. Anyway, I definitely recommend Magicus, it's a unique, interesting, charming, and fun little game, and you can get it from DLSite for an absolute pittance.

Dojo Masters (PC)

 Okay, so this isn't an obscure game, but it is a recently-release indie game that I think deserves highlighting. It's been over a decade since I reviewed Champion Kendou on SG-1000, and I still regularly play that game! It really gave me a taste for that kind of very old-fashioned martial-arts-as-a-sport style of play, and though other games like it do exist, none of them have really scratched the itch for me in the same way. As such, I've been fantasising for years now about a game that did, and also which offered some more modern amenities, like properly responsive controls and maybe multiple different styles to pick from.

 

When I first saw Dojo Masters last year, it was a pretty disturbing day, as it looks almost exactly like the game I've been imagining all this time! Obviously, I wishlisted it immediately, and a couple of weeks ago, it finally got released and I bought it immediately, too. I'm glad to say: it doesn't disappoint! It uses only the d-pad and two buttons, which are ostensibly designated punch and kick, but it's a little more complex than that. There's also six styles to play as: Karate, Taekwondo, Kendo, Boxing, Muay Thai, and Krav Maga. There's no actual named characters in the game, either: instead there's generic, androgynous fighters, and when you pick a style, you get to change the colour of their skin and clothes, and pick one of two hairstyles for them. Any other traits they have like personality or gender only exist in your own mental projections. Which is a pretty cool and unique way of doing things.

 

Regarding the punch and kick buttons, obviously some styles don't have both (or either!) of those things in them, in which cases, they obviously do different things instead. For example, Taekwondo has an elaborate system of stances taken by pressing the punch button with directions, and there are different attacks depending on which stand you're currently in when you press kick. Kendo can perform a quick three-hit combo with the punch button, while pressing kick raises their shinai above their head for more powerful attacks. Furthermore, press back and punch puts a kendo fighter into a defensive stance for a split second, resulting in a cool samurai movie cutdown, should the opponent attack.

 

Though I've dipped my toe into online play a little (which went surprisingly well! I think I had a win ration of around 50%), I've mainly been playing single player. There's an arcade mode, where you try and fight through ten randomly-generated opponents of increasing difficulty, and a survival mode, which takes its cues from the survival mode in home versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3, pitting you against multiple opponents at once. Most interestingly, though you'll probably only play it once per style, is the tutorial mode. In only a few short lessons, it teaches you every little detail of how each style controls, and also how each style's tools are meant to work against the opponents. Because they all play so dramatically differently, you will want to utilise the tutorials, especially for the styles whose strengths aren't immediately obvious, like Taekwondo and Krav Maga.

 

It's hard to be objective about Dojo Masters, since as I mentioned above, it's eerily close to being a game that somehow manifested from my thoughts. On the other hand, I guess there's also a lot of potential for disappointment when such a game appears. But of course, I love it. It's a great game, it feels good to play, it was made with a specific goal in mind, and it reached that goal. I definitely recommend etting ahold of it, and I hope that someday it gets ported to consoles. I really wish there were still mainstream handhelds for it to be ported to, too. I'd love to play it on 3DS or PS Vita, though if that were possible, it might end up being the only thing I ever did from that point on.

Gensokyo Pro Wrestling Muscle Tag Match (PC)

 In the early 00s, there was a craze among doujin game developers to remake aracde and Famicom games from the eighties, but reskin them with the settings and characters of the various visual novels and slice of life manga that were popular at the time: To Heart, Azumanga Daioh, Clannad, and so on. A few years later, that trend was replaced with a slightly different one that still doesn't seem to have gone away even now: remaking arcade and Famicom games from the eighties, but reskinning them with the setting and characters from the Touhou series of shooting games. This is one such example, remaking Kinnikuman Muscle Tag Match (also known as Tag Team Match: M.U.S.C.L.E, because Americans in the eighties and nineties were just addicted to pointlessly rebranding Japanese properties).

 

I assume the developers of this game must have had some strong nostalgia for their source material, as it's a terrible game. Awkward, fiddly, and buggy to the point of being close to non-functioning. This remake is at least better than it in the respect that it does actually work properly, and it's also a lot more colourful and has much bigger sprites than its inspiration. It still suffers from its biggest problem, though, which is unavoidable as its a fundamental one: this is a wrestling game with barely any wrestling in it.

 

You pick two characters to form your tag team, and you'll fight other teams in the ring. Fighting mainly consists of just walking up to your opponent and punching them, or bouncing off the ropes for a flying punch. If you manage to get behind your opponent and press the attack button, you'll do a German suplex, and there seems to be some way for performing a running neckbreaker, though there's a chance that it just happens randomly. Occasionally, a glowing orb will enter the ring, and collecting it temporarily increases your attack power, and your movement and recovery speeds. Also, when you're powered up, you'll sometimes do a huge dramatic finishing move that summons portraits of other characters looking on in awe and instantly wins the round. But like the neckbreaker, this seems to be a random occurance.

 

There's not much more to say about this game. It's a slightly improved remake of a terrible game, and neither are really worth your time. I don't think there's anyone out there who's attempting to play every Touhou fangame in existence, but such a person is really the only one who should bother with this. Or someone seeking out obscure games to review, I guess. It's not painful to play or anything, and I did once play it for almost half an hour before getting bored of it. But still: don't even waste the time it would take to track a copy down, let alone the time you'd spend playing it.

Sigmatica (PC)

 So, I've recently been worried that the level of obscurity of the games I cover hasn't been as deep as it could have been. In an attempt to assuage that feeling, I got ahold of a compilation disc of games made by the Chiba University Computer ResearchingSociety in 2013. Most of the games were very simple, very short minigames that I'd struggle to write a full post about (so I'll do a big patreon exclusive compilation post about all of them in the near future). But this one, Sigmatica (or Σtica The uncorporeal domain, as the title screen calls it), stood out head and shoulders above all of the others.

 

Like you can tell from the screenshots, it's a shooting game! And though it uses an abstract visual style, with the player ship and all of the enemies being represented by simple wireframe polygonal shapes, the Touhou series was definitely a big influence on it. The most obvious manifestation of this is the way the screen is laid out, with the big info column on the righthand side of the screen showing your score, lives, bombs, and the number of bullets you've grazed. There's also the fact that the bosses take a long time to kill, with multiple healthbars, and distinct bullet/attack patterns to go with each healthbar.

 

It's a very simple game, as far as modern shooting games go. You can shoot and bomb, and you also have a focus shot that slows your movement. I'm not 100% on how the scoring system works, but I think you score more points the more grazes you do, and when you bomb, all the onscreen bullets turn into points items, too. So it's in your interest to graze and to use bombs at the most dangerous moments. Which is all pretty logical for survival play, too, with a little bit of risk thrown in by the graze counter. Even moreso is the end-of-game bonus you get: big bonuses for each stage you finish and how many grazes you got in total, plus if you finish the game, more bonuses for how many lives you had left over.

 

Which kind of brings up the only real problem I have with the game: it's really short! Only two stages! I know it's only a student project and all, but I was really getting into it, and then it suddenly ended! I guess that's a pretty good problem for a game to have, though. There isn't really much more I can say about Sigmatica. It's pretty good, and I hope its developer went on to make more shooting games in the decade since its release.

Occultist Girl Magatsuhi (PC)

 To describe this game is to invoke that one image macro format with images of Vince McMahon getting progressively more excited with every new piece of information. It's a sprite scaling shooting game, in which you play as a flying onmyouji, and it's developed by Platine Dispositif. You see what I mean? As a list of bullet points, it's incredible! But what about as an actual game?

 

Well, before we get into that, I should mention that I decided to abide by the rule of threes in the opening paragraph, as there's another bullet point I could have added: it takes inspiration from and makes references to Space Harrier, Night Striker, and Afterburner! All those games are undisputed classics of the genre, this just keeps getting better, right? And of course, it's got some ideas of its own, too. 

 

From Space Harrier, it takes the general feel of being a high-speed flying person weaving between the parts of the scenery that you can't destroy, the checkerboard pattern on a lot of the stage's floors, and there's even a tribute to that game's multi-sprite dragon boss. From Night Striker, there's the branching paths, the interstitial tunel segments, and a lot of the stage concepts seem to be taken directly from there, too. And from Afterburner, there's a heavy emphasis on locking onto multiple enemies at once with a homing shot, with escalating score rewards to match.

 

The game's own big idea is actually a little bit of an attempt at building upon the Afterburner lock-on system. Like in Afterburner, you lock onto enemies by aiming at them without firing, but from that point on, it gets a little more complicated. Each enemy type will be locked onto with either a red, green, or blue reticule, and each of those has its own fire button. You'll generally only have one type of enemy in each little squadron, and you only need to hold the correct button for a second to shoot all of them, but it's still a bit more concentration than you had to exert in Afterburner. (I've been playing with a Saturn controller, and mapped the three lock-on fire buttons to X, Y, and Z, which was a fine setup).

 

So yes, Occultist Girl Magatsuhi is a good game. I don't think it's quite as good as Space Harrier or Night Striker, and it's maybe a little better than Afterburner. The only real bad points I can come up with are presentational and definitely not deal breakers. Firstly, I don't think the enemies are particularly interesting. There's a lot of things like eyes, orbs, spinning tops, and so on that feels a bit bland and sterile. Secondly, there's the soundtrack. It's hard for me to be specific in criticising the game's music simply because I can't remember any of it. It just immediately leaves my brain as soon as I stop playing. I wouldn't normally bring this up, but all those games I listed as this game's influences all had incredible soundtracks, as did other big-name games in the genre, like Galaxy Force 2 and Super Thunderblade.

 

To reiterate: this is a great game, though it's not a super-original one, and I have some minor criticisms regarding its presentation. Still definitely worth your time, though, especially if you're starved for some new (to you, at least) sprite scaling action.

Demon Island Massacre (PC)

 Just by looking at the screenshots, you'll be able to figure out what drew me to this game: it looks amazing. Everyone loves it when sprite characters are put in a polygonal world, but it's a concept that's mostly absent from modern indie games, even now that games with a Playstation-inspired look are becoming ever more popular. The game itself is a nice little platformer, too, which is also a positive.

 

Though, "nice" isn't the best word to describe it for a few reasons. As the title suggests, it's about a massacre (perpetrated by you) on an island inhabited by demons. The demons themselves are all weird, mangled mockeries of humanity at best, plus they burst into big pixelly bloodsplatters on death, too. To add to the horror, there's at least one enemy that's a direct reference to Splatterhouse 2, one of the all-time most shamelessly gory games there's ever been. (The enemy in question is the partially-rotted zombie, who in both games crawls around as a legless torso after you hit him for the first time). 

 

As well as Splatterhouse, Castlevania is also a clear influence on the game, with some of the tracks sounding like (very good) cover versions with more of an asian horror flavour thn Castlevania's European gothic stylings. Plus, you get ammo for your special attacks by attacking lanterns that are floating in place in the stages. It does also have its own style, too, with a few different attack options. You have you standard attack combo, you can press up and attack for a shoryuken-style attack, press down and attack for a sliding kick, and press down and kick while in the air for a downwards attack that bounces you off of enemies really high.

 

So, the meat of the game is navigating the platform stages, figuring out the best way to get through each enemy encounter while taking as little damage as possible and also not falling to your death. Like you'd expect from a combat-focussed action platformer, I guess. You really do have to think about every encounter, and approach them cautiously, too, as the game is completely merciless. Death means getting sent back to the last checkpoint, which are few and far between, and you really can only take a few hits before that happens. On the plus side, there isn't really a time limit, and most enemy types don't become a threat until you get close to them, so you can stand still and appraise the situation at your leisure.

 

Demon Island Massacre is definitely not a game for the casual player, or for the crybaby. But it is aesthetically beautiful, and it's fun and rewarding if you're able to engage with it on the level it demands. If you're attracted by the way the game looks, and you think you can at least attempt to play it without writing it off as "too hard", then you should definitely give it a try. There's a free play-in-browser version on the game's itch.io page, as well as a pay-what-you-want download version, and it's defintely worth your time, at the very least.

Peace Breaker (PC)

 I didn't realise until after I'd bought it, but Peace Breaker is from the same developer as another game I've reviewed here, Near Fantasy Space. But what drew me into it was the premise: it claims to be a "fair" shooting game, where, unlike most shooting games, where you're alone against a massive enemy army, you're now just one pilot among many in a massive battle against an enemy force. Worded like it is on the game's page on DLSite, it sounds like this is a game designed to be easier than most shooting games, but it seems the developers saw the "unfairness" of the typical shooting game arrangement as being skewed in favour of the player.

 

It's a mecha game, in the style of Assault Suits Valken or Metal Warriors, though all the stages (that I've seen, at least) take place in spce, with no platforms on which to land. Missions generally see a clash between a small fleet of your side's ships and a small fleet of the enemy side's ships, and each ship releases a bunch of mecha, including you. Though there's some small variance from mission to mission, they generally play out in the same way: a massive, messy battle between many mecha happening in the middle of the field, with bullets flying everywhere and lots of pilots on both sides dying. Then, as the two fleets of ships gradually get closer, it becomes a race to take out your enemy's ships before your own ships (or yourself) gets destroyed. Furthermore, if you're low on health or ammo, you can go back to your launch ship to reload and repair, though it takes time, and the battle carries on as it happens. If your launch ship gets destroyed, that's also an instant game over.

 

In terms of anime, you should be thinking more along the lines of Armoured Trooper VOTOMS than Mobile Suit Gundam: your mecha is fragile, lots of your comrades will die, and it's very likely you will too. It feels especially cruel when you're taken out by the shot of a distant ship's cannon, which can take over half your health in a single hit. But conversely, it also feels very satifying when an enemy ship goes down after several second of concentrated fire from you and your allies. The difficulty level really did have me close to giving up on the game at first, though It took me nearly an hour to get past the first stage! Once you've got past that first stage, and you're used to how the game is meant to be played, it becomes a little easier, and a lot more enjoyable.

 

You've really just got to constantly keep in mind that you are just a fragile, expendable grunt. Stick with the crowd as much as you can, don't try to be the big solo hero, and go back to the ship to get repaired when you need to. Conceptually, it's pretty interesting, but I still have some reservations when recommending it. The problem is that pretty much every stage is the same, and once you've played through a few of them, it's very easy to lose interest in seeing any more. I tihnk it would have been really interesting to have some stages on-planet where all your guys are traversing terrain, maybe avoiding landmines, and so on? It'd have a lot of potential in terms of both game design and narrative. Imagine something like Front Mission: Gunhazard with this kind of setup! Anyway, it's a decent game with an interesting concept, but a short shelf life and a lot of unfulfilled potential. If it sounds interesting to you, get it next time it's on sale?

Adventures in the Desert Country ~Al and the Underground Labyrinth~ (PC)

 It's nice to see a game that's a clear labour of love from its developer, and Adventures in the Desert Country ~Al and the Underground Labyrinth~ (which is the title according to Google Translate, but it reads decently enough to me) is definitely such a game. As far as I can tell, it's an original setting and characters, with all original graphics and sound, and made and designed completely from scratch. It is, in terms of production values, easily up to the standards of the average indie/doujin 2D platformer, and it's free! Amazing.

 

Is it actually any good, though? Yes! But with a caveat or two. Before I get into that, I should probably descibe how it plays, though. It's a very old-fashioned, nineties-style platformer, in which you play as the eponymous Al (Albert Lal Custard, to give him his full name) as he traverses the also eponymous underground labyrinth. In the labyrinth, there's lots of enemies who want him dead, and who can be fought off either with swordplay, or by shooting fireballs at them. An even bigger threat than the enemies, though, are the many, many bottomless pits littered throughout each stage. And of course, the two are capable of working together, too, with enemies often being strategically placed so that they've got a decent chance of knocking you to your doom.

 

One nice little touch is that that goes both ways, though: you can also knock enemies off of platforms to their doom, too. And not just in the bottomless pits, either: enemies are affected by all the traps in the stages. Spike pits, lava pits, falling blocks, and so on can all be used to your advantage if you're smart. And that's where the aforementioned caveat comes in: this game is really difficult. Not in the way of the masocore platformers that were popular about fifteen years ago, but in a normal, old-fashioned "make no mistakes" way. If the stage select in the options screen is to be believed, there are eight stages in the game, and I've gotten as far as the sixth. To get past the third you really need to start playing carefully, getting the lay of the land, and so on.

 

It's not a Rick Dangerous-type situation, where you need to memorise the entire stage layout, because the hazards are impossible to react to without foreknowledge, you just have to play smart, assess the situation, and form a plan. The enemies and the stage are both against you, so to progress, you'll usually have to figure out how you're going to kill the enemies with the tools you have, and how you're going to traverse the stage (which obviously becomes somewhat easier when the enemies aren't in it). So though the game's short, and the stages themselves aren't very long in terms of how much actual distance you cover in each of them, this is still a game that'll take a while to get through, because of the methodical way it needs to be played. I'm sure a skilled speedrun of it would be an exciting watch!

 

As I already said, this game is a clear labour of love, and if you're interested in playing a platform game that demands a lot of strategy and skill, you should definitely give it a try. It's the exact level of difficulty where every bit of progress is a satisfying accomplishment, and you'll keep playing past the point of frustration so as to not let the game beat you. I've had it a while now, so I have absolutely no memory of how I originally discovered it, but you can get it here.

World Rally Fever: Born on the Road (PC)

 It's very clear that the developers of World Rally Fever loved arcade racing games, especially those of the sprite scaling variety made by SEGA's AM2. They've really gone all the way into capturing the aesthetic of a Japanese arcade game of the late eighties or early nineties, even down to a nice Neogeo-esque intro before the title screen. The game was itself developed in Belgium, so it can go alongside the various works of Gaelco as being a European love letter to Japanese arcades. There's even a character who looks just like Joe from Tsukai GANGAN Koshinkyoku, and another who looks like Cheng Sinzan from the Fatal Fury series!

 

As well as their tributary nature, the graphics are just genuinely amazing. I'm not sure if they're actually using sprite scaling, or actual 3D polygons with pixel art textures designed to look like sprite scaling, but they look incredible either way. In a time when so many developers were making primitive attempts at photorealism using technology that couldn't hope to offer it, this game decided to push the aesthetic concepts of previous years to new heights. Such a shame that they did it in a game stuck on the PC, in a time when people playing PC games seemed to be even more "proud" of how their games were so much more sophisticated and boring than silly lowbrow arcade games. I wonder why it never got released on Playstation or Saturn, actually: Team17 were releasing games on those systems.

 

It's all slightly academic in the end, though, since as nice as the game looks, it's unfortunately not very enjoyable to play. Though the characters do handle differently, it feels like all of them take ages to accelerate to a decent speed. Which is something you'll definitely notice, as there are a lot of obstacles that will just bring you to a dead stop if you so much as scrape against them. Furthermore, something that's happened to me multiple times is crashing into the roadside barrier, clipping through it, getting stuck on the other side, then having to repeatedly crash into it to gradually clip back onto the road. There's a jump button (and on some stages, obstacles that go across the entire width of the road, necessitating its use), but you need to build up speed to actually put it to use, and in the off-road hinterlands, that's impossible.

 

These couple of flaws, along with the fact that the game never really feels like you're going particularly fast, even at full speed, are unfortunately gamekillers. It really is a shame, too, as this is a beautiful game, aestheticlly speaking. It just doesn't live up to that mechanically.