Author: Jahanzeb Khan

Celebrating 30 years, the Cotton franchise has experienced quite an anniversary with most of their back catalog now ported to modern platforms, which even include remasters of classics. These games once had collector appeal and value, but now that these titles are so easily available, some of them weren’t quite the shooter classics they were made up to be. Sure, some of the classic games were good fun and all, but with so many better shooters out there, they felt like a curiosity for diehard genre fans for the most part. To cap off 30 years of cute shmup shenanigans,…

The original Ganryu was a pretty late release for the NEOGEO platform and not a classic by any stretch. Sure, it had some cool play mechanics, but the level design was vague and the various moving parts of the game felt loosely connected. Almost two decades later, we get a brand new sequel in Ganryu 2: Hakuma Kojiro, and in an age where there is no shortage of ninja action platformers, this is one game that shows everyone how it’s done. https://youtu.be/TkIVpuCgr9o While the original Ganryu felt like a proof of concept, the new game feels fully realized in its…

The original 1996 The House of the Dead was one of most recognizable arcade hits at the time. Since its release, it saw several sequels, including a spin-off called The Typing of the Dead which quite literally made use of a keyboard. While nothing beats the arcade cabinet, gamers have always wanted to bring the experience to their living room. Home conversions have been plenty, and there is no denying that the Nintendo Wii and its Motion Plus controller provided the ideal tools for light gun shenanigans, but now it’s time to see if the Nintendo Switch and its Joy-Cons…

Originally released as a NEOGEO arcade game back in 1992, the original Andro Dunos was a pretty unremarkable shmup release. This was a time when there were numerous titles in the genre, and it’s likely most gamers would have ignored the existence of a shooter that hardly did anything to stand out. 30 years later in 2022, there are still way too many shmups available on any gaming platform, and yet there is something strangely remarkable about seeing a sequel to such an obscure release. While the original game may gotten lost in the shuffle, Andro Dunos II manages to…

Kirby is one of Nintendo’s top IPs that has been around for over three decades. Now, the pink blob has finally ventured into full 3D for the first time in Kirby and the Forgotten Land. If you’ve been dreaming of the next big Nintendo platformer after Super Mario Odyssey, the latest from Nintendo and HAL Laboratory is exactly the fix you need. https://youtu.be/0wiRQt5L_F0 It’s a wonder why it took so long to get here, but the series’ transition into 3D is nothing short of smooth. The classic gameplay is intact, as Kirby inhales anything that moves and can copy some…

Believe it or not, potatoes actually are capable of blooming flowers, but that still doesn’t explain the strange title of this dungeon RPG. Potato Flowers in Full Bloom is a pretty minimalist style of dungeon crawler that resembles some of the indie JRPG efforts we saw on the Nintendo 3DS back in the day. It’s out for PC too, but it feels right at home on the Nintendo Switch eShop.  Fine, so there is some meaning behind the game’s title, as the basic premise involves a trio of heroes venturing into a dungeon labyrinth as they try to find…

Pro wrestling video games have been around for a long time, with the first known game being released the very same year when Hulk Hogan body slammed André the Giant in front of 90,000 fans at Wrestlemania III (1987). So are they fighting games? Are they sports games? Honestly, they are probably neither. A wrestling video game is like having a whole bunch of action figures of all your favorite wrestlers in digital form, and you can do whatever you want without breaking them. Well, I mean, you can still glitch and occasionally break the game.  Alright, so speaking…

Strategy RPGs are looking to come back in a big way in 2022, with the launch of Triangle Strategy just around the corner. Knights and magic spells are pretty cool, but sometimes we want some giant mechs to fill out those tiles on the battlefield. Relayer presents something different for genre fans and an early free demo allowed us to get an idea of what that is. Relayer is a visual novel punctuated with strategy RPG battles, not the other way round. Admittedly, this demo certainly feels like much of the playtime is focused on lengthy visual novel segments before you get…

River City Girls has undoubtedly stolen our hearts after developer Wayforward rebooted for the legendary Kunio-kun franchise. However, much of the game was based on the original source material, including its characters, which can be traced back to the 1994 Super Famicom release of Shin Nekketsu Kōha: Kunio-Tachi no Banka. As the developer prepares the launch of River City Girls 2, fans can experience this long-lost Japanese release in its newly localized and repackaged guise of River City Girls Zero. https://youtu.be/_WowGWNkN9Q As the name suggests, this is a prequel that serves as an origin story of sorts for River City…

Wrestling fans love more than watching wrestling is fantasy booking their own wrestling promotion. However, being an actual wrestler is hard work, so writing wrestling stories is a far more viable option for soft nerds. The last time we saw a fantasy booking mode in a WWE video game was way back when Smackdown vs. Raw 2006 launched for PlayStation 2. Since then, the games have featured a highly customizable universe mode, but it wasn’t quite the same. Fortunately for fans, fantasy warfare returns in full force in the upcoming WWE 2K22 with the all-new MyGM Mode, and the latest…

In 1994 developer and publisher SNK had many established IPs, such as Fatal Fury, Art of Fighting, and Ikari Warriors, among others across both fighting and non-fighting genres. Then, in a stroke of pure genius, SNK brought some of their most popular characters, along with some originals, together into one epic fighting game dream match, with The King of Fighters ’94. All-star cast aside, this pioneering fighting game allowed players to control a team of three characters, duking it out in an elimination-style battle royal. Several decades later, after numerous sequels and spin-offs, the series now enters its fifteenth mainline…

Atari’s Breakout is as primordial as gaming can get; the 1976 arcade game evolved from the basic concept introduced in Pong. If the latter was based on tennis, then the former was likely based on squash, except it involved breaking down a wall for progress and points. The game itself has been cloned numerous times, but whether it’s the original game or a clone, it is undoubtedly something you have played, even if by accident. And yet, after several decades, the Atari classic returns as a new and improved Recharged release. https://youtu.be/22BSAfQ0WOE What started with Missile Command now ends with…

The original Windjammers was a NEOGEO classic, and it enjoyed a resurgence thanks to an excellent port by developer Dotemu on modern platforms, which even featured online multiplayer. Still, as timeless and playable as the original classic still is, it was about time we saw a modern sequel with some new bells and whistles. So, after porting the NEOGEO original, Dotemu went back and created their very own interpretation of the signature gameplay in the all-new Windjammers 2. The first trait that will jump at players is the developer’s classic visual style, which can be found in some of their…

I probably played more video games in 2021 than I have for most of my adult life. Pandemic gave me more free time, which meant more reviews, and finding a PS5 helped too. Here are five games that stood out, be sure to check out the full reviews. 5. World End Economica Complete Noisy Pixel is all about visual novels, and World Economica Complete was the first one I ever reviewed for the site. As someone with an economics and finance background, this was easy for me to dive into. However, more than just the clever stock market jargon set…

If Mushihimesama is the best introduction to the bullet-hell shmup design of developer CAVE, then DoDonPachi Resurrection is the game that represents the developer’s signature style to the fullest. While one may debate which is the best, there’s no denying that Resurrection encompasses the fine-tune systems in the genre. Thankfully, this latest Switch release provides the base game and so much more. https://youtu.be/lg7Xi7r5Yrw Although not every Switch release from developer LiveWire is of note, they’ve gone back and done an excellent job with DoDonPachi, and this time there are no typos in the menus. Here we have version 1.5 of…

The King of Fighters XV has just entered open beta, and it didn’t take long to realize that this game is awesome. If Guilty Gear -Strive- was the premier fighting game for the next generation, then the upcoming release of SNK’s flagship fighting franchise is sure to offer a great alternative. https://youtu.be/G2bBvnJIjE4 The King of Fighters XV open beta offers a training mode and a few tutorials for those curious to get a head start with mastering the various systems. While several welcome changes and revisions have been made to the core fighting experience, it is more or less just…

How did we go from not having next to no Cotton games released in the west to suddenly having almost all of them at once? It’s practically similar to having a mouthful of cotton balls after a visit to the dentist. It wasn’t long ago when we saw the release of Cotton Reboot!, but now we’ve received a few more entries in this series; among them is Cotton 100%, which was initially released for the Japanese SNES back in 1994. https://youtu.be/atsKcwPhtk4 Cotton 100% is essentially the original Japanese game; nothing has been translated, and the menu presentation is as bare minimum…

Space Harrier by legendary designer Yu Suzuki and his team at SEGA AM2 was a true trailblazer, offering a 3D rail shooter experience long before 3D polygons were used in mainstream gaming. Even today, the experience holds up exceptionally well, and it’s still worth checking out the SEGA 3D Classics version of the game if you still happen to use your Nintendo 3DS. Better yet, travel back to 1986 and visit the local arcade in Yokosuka, Japan, where you can play the original arcade cabinet, all made possible thanks to Shenmue I&II HD remaster collection. But why am I talking…

We saw the compilation release of Savior of Sapphire Wings and Stranger of Sword City earlier this year. Suppose that collection was the perfect introduction to the Dungeon RPG style of developer Experience. In that case, their latest release, Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi, is easily the developer at their very best.  The game had been in development for a long time, initially unveiled as an Xbox One exclusive under the title of Yomi wo Saku Hana way back in 2016. However, after numerous delays and revisions, it finally launched for system 2020 before making its way to other platforms.…

Watch out Marvel’s Black Widow. Atari is here to knock you off your pedestal and show you who the real Black Widow is. Atari has been wise to hold onto this IP if only to market off the popular name and also introduce a retro series to new gamers almost 40 years after its release. It marks a new entry in their Recharged effort and a good one at that, giving a chance for this obscure series to find new fans.  Black Widow: Recharged borrows ideas and features from the developer’s previous release, Centipede: Recharged. The original Black Widow…