Hi, I'm Dranzerstorm
Welcome to the Video Game & Music Lounge
This world is dedicated to Video Games and Music as I'll be showcasing the following.
Video Game Reviews set to the same tones as Retro Retrospective's Anime Reviews
Music reviews of Anime Openings & Closings
Western Cartoon music
Vocaloid Classics.
We may even have some Top Tens
I hope this World entertains you.
Today we look at two Nintendo modern classics, an xbox game with a cheap title and the card game that walked so Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh could run. Oh and some soccer game.
Mario Kart World
How do you move on from arguably the most complete Mario Kart title? Adding an open world element, a battle royale elimination and have 24 racers, throw in some off the wall characters and some costumes and you got a recipe for chaos, you will not get through a single race without being screwed over by either items or copious amounts of NPC cars, good luck ever coming first, with how expensive Switch 2 is, Mario Kart World is a little too chaotic to warrant the near £70 price tag for the game.
A-Tier Game
Mario Party Jamboree
Mario Party does feel a little more controlled in it's chaos as you can freely target your opponents with some very cruel decisions with the only level of skill being determined by mini games, however with so many elements making an average four player turn last twenty minutes, be prepared for an all nighter. There is a pro mode that takes away the RNG elements but those are for pussies who can't take being screwed over.
A-Tier Game
Ultimate Chicken Horse
Taking a debug mode style level builder and add the ability to make traps and you're in for a good time, build the stage to reach the goal, but if no one finishes or everyone finishes, you receive no points, the game forces you to mess with your opponents and achieving the balance of being just difficult enough for one to finish is the most challenging part, the level variety keeps things fresh and the random item drawing can mean no two rounds are the same, the name and art style is reminiscent of Jackbox Games but I can also see why people would skip this as it presents itself as looking cheap but it is surprisingly good.
A-Tier Game
Magic the Gathering
Rare for me to bring up a card game but having finally started it, it's a game that's surprisingly easy to pick up and play providing you're around people who will let you get used to it as there is a big divide between having fun and dealing with pretentious Gatekeepers, there's alot to remember and even long time players still find new things to deal with, definitely keep it casual and there are plenty of decks that will get you playing quickly, even someone like me who at my age felt didn't have much left in me to learn a new hobby, thank you my Magic group.
S-Tier Game
Rematch
A game that claims to be the actual soccer answer to Rocket League is nothing more than an arcade soccer title with very little to offer compared to leading brands like EA and even outliers like Mario Strikers, not helped by everyone being complete glory hogs or just flat out giving up, it just feels very last generation.
D-Tier Game
So we look at some games that are taking up my time and one that took no time at all.
Retro Classics by Antstream
Sixty games from the boomer era of gaming as a mixture of all things Atari, Commodore, Amiga and early days of Nintendo, Sega and PlayStation, how well this gets supported depends on xbox but at 66 games at time of writing, it sounds promising, the appeal is less the games (although classics like Pitfall, Mechwarrior and Enduro Racing are welcome) and more the challenges, it's the only thing keeping the game relevant, no one is excited to play Venetian Blinds.
C-Tier Game
Asphalt Legends Unite
The pay to win genre is scummy, they hold the best content behind a system designed to force you into paying out of frustration for grinding, Asphalt goes the extra mile by having about five different currency and if you want the best the game has to offer, you have no choice but to pay, but if you are willing to grind to keep it free, you are treated to a high octane sprint race format taking cues from ten different racing games including Need for Speed and Burnout to name a couple, no race lasts longer than three minutes.
B-Tier Game
Magical Girls vs Cat Aliens
Part of the games that cost less than a coffee series comes an infinite runner that sees a magical girl take out an invasion of cat aliens, it's pretty terrible with it's only appeal being the references to magical girl anime of the last 30 years, which tells me that the creators are my age and have been watching anime since the 90s.
D-Tier Game
Nothing but good stuff today, mostly.
Brothers A Tale of Two Sons
A co-op adventure that can be played solo, taking the role of brothers you must travel across the lands in search of a cure for your sick father, it reminds me of Fable with how the land is built up, you control the Brothers with twin sticks and use the triggers to interact with the land, it got a remake recently, worth your time if you want a more respectable game on your achievement completion list.
A-Tier Game
Caffeine Victoria's Legacy
Imagine if the British won the Spanish Armada but then decided to rapidly industrialize with coffee as it's main source of power replacing steam and magic, throw in a convoluted time travel plot and you get this bizarre visual novel as you navigate the new world you've been thrown into you uncover romance, mystery and plot twists, this has way more budget attached with more voiced lines, animated interactions and 0% AI art which seems to be a big seller these days, there's even a theme song which is so stupid, it actively makes you stop playing because you'll be laughing too much to continue.
B-Tier Game
Neon Abyss
Roguelite is a dirty word among gamers but it depends on perspective, it's a vital tool for indie game design but it's relying on an algorithm for experience, a bad one can be painful as your run is decided by luck not skill, a good one is pure skill and Neon Abyss fits that category, playing one of eight colourful mercenaries, you navigate the dungeons of the Neon Abyss to confront the gods of modern living, including gods to mobile phones, fast food, tik tok and even gambling, you can effectively play this game indefinitely as there are enough weapons and buffs to keep the replay value high, every round is different and encourages mix and matching.
A-Tier Game
A unique blend of crap sci-fi, crap comedy and a poor understanding of 80s and 90s anime
Solar Ash
Travel through a neon world of gloopy monsters while skating through the expansive landscape as a faceless female voidrunner, the game expects you to travel perfectly through the lands while forgetting that you need to actually fight something along the way, a poor mismatch of gameplay styles where the combat seemed to be an after thought.
C-Tier Game
Lost Snowmen
A 5K achievement cheap game where you have to solve puzzles using three different snowmen in three different styles of gameplay, understanding that you can't keep adding achievements just to force people to finish your game the developers introduced new game modes instead based around each snowman's mechanic, actually making the game worth coming back to. The attempt at comical dialogue obviously came from someone who thought Ricky Gervais was still funny.
B-Tier Game
Mullet Madjack
For all the jokes surrounding this retro anime inspired Doom shooter, the story is remarkably current event as you play a mullet clad shooter called Jack Banhammer in a world where you live only as long as people give you likes, this means you have to keep killing every ten seconds to stay alive while dodging gun fire from rampaging robots as well making this game notoriously difficult for no reason, at least keeping it on no timer mode keeps it firmly in the Doom shooter category even though the developers complain that's not how the game is played. The retro anime aesthetic is welcomed but feels like it came from someone who only watched Akira yesterday.
C-Tier Game
Been a while since I've done a main series feature on this.
Cynthia Hidden in the Moonshadow
Link's Crossbow training with the aesthetic of a PlayStation 2 reject, an unremarkable game with a lead as equally forgettable as the gameplay, yet the creator insists on having six different bundles and won't stop making them; your game is bland and your waifu isn't even good enough for a porn site, either make something else or stop because this is depressing.
D-Tier Game
Trash Tier for it's abysmal marketing.
Arcade Spirits
Okay, I was lazy with the image selection, but not as lazy as the character creator in Arcade Spirits, your only choice is androgynous human and you get the choice of romancing one of your three work colleagues, one of your three regular customers or your roommate through the help of your app and the power of arcades. All I ask from a dating sim is some interesting characters and I at least got that, at least give me the chance to design an avatar that's worth dating, generic non-binary person isn't exactly going to cut it here.
C-Tier Game
Casual Sports Series Hockey
A very janky ice hockey game with bare basic modes and a reasonable difficulty level although whoever programmed the AI needs firing, I left the game running without touching the controller and never lost a game as the computer does a lot of heavy hand holding for you, making them more of a nuisance when playing, as the AI on your own team is more likely to make you lose than your opponents.
D-Tier Game
