QCF: Dragon's Dogma II

he ever-growing presence of video games in pop culture meant that it was only inevitable for it to be a hacky trope in television melodramas and sitcoms. And dammit all if the interpretation of gaming on the silver screen isn’t just some of the cringiest shit any time they’re presented, or in some bizarre instances, how people play them (Tony Soprano playing Mario Kart 64 with one-hand lives rent-free in my head.) Why the random contrast though you ask? Well, one of the more frequent genres used for the trope is the fantasy RPG, often for an MMO sort of deal that’s supposed to espouse some sort of moral about teamwork or the dangers of game addiction. It’s common to see the settings for these fictional games that’s used for the TV show plots have some of the most superficial presentations or gameplay mechanics ever seen in games, and I won’t make any bones about it—Dragon’s Dogma II from Capcom looks and plays like one of the most egregious parodies of this concept…

I mean, the notion isn’t entirely a negative thing—there are instances of moment-to-moment gameplay in which Dragon’s Dogma II delivers this sort of absurdity that you’d either hear from another kid spouting off tall tales on the playground from your youth or see in a TGIF sitcom with the most slapdash workshop of combat mechanics. The naked truth of Dragon’s Dogma II being an unabashed remake trying to disguise itself as a full-fledged sequel aside, the potential chaos that you can derive from the surprisingly deep combat and vocation system is where the game really shines, even if it is a glorified “do-over.”

It’s just too bad the game has no real-world or personality to compliment the kind of excitement the action offers. Aside from a few novel twists on the tired medieval setup, Dragon’s Dogma II delivers fewer peaks than valleys, made all the more worse by the world-building in between. Just because Skyrim isn’t crowding it’s release window, doesn’t mean there haven’t been several other titles in recent memory like Final Fantasy XVI or Elden Ring that have done the premise significantly better.

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QCF: Air Twister

magine if Space Harrier was revamped into an absurdly stylized Rock Opera that cranked the dial on the Surrealistic fantasy themes to psychedelic levels of absurdity over its Sci-Fi roots for current gaming platforms. Well, don't strain yourself too hard because YS Net, the studio started by legendary developer Yu Suzuki, has taken all the guesswork out of the matter with their latest release, Air Twister. Where Team Reptile's Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was a modernized Love Letter to an iconic SEGA property, Air Twister is being presented as the quintessential sequel to the Arcade Classic in nearly everything but name, and the next big release from Yu Suzuki following the studio's crowdfunded debut with Shenmue III. Originally released as an Apple Arcade exclusive in the summer of 2022, the mobile exclusive has now been greenlit as a multiplatform release for digital storefronts on both Console and PC.

The twists (shitty pun intended) don't stop there, as Air Twister offers various flourishes on the shooter's foundation that set it apart from its source material—honestly, to a degree where it more often resembles a Hidden Caravan Level Mode from Panzer Dragoon than anything related to Space Harrier. Despite the inconsistent traces of Harrier DNA though, Air Twister still manages to deliver that trademark Popcorn Shooting frenzy that Suzuki had earned his pedigree on, albeit in a somewhat stunted execution that just manages to breathe a scant new gasp of life into the Arcade classic.

Air Twister is…well, intriguing, to say the very least.

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QCF: Bomb Rush Cyberfunk

 find it pretty funny that I’m writing this review mere weeks after the Dreamcast’s 24th Anniversary; I mean, not just that in that granular humor from a well-timed coincidence sort of way, but in that I’m still seeing one of my favorite consoles live on through a legacy that dwarfs its flash-in-the-pan lifespan. Even though it was released two years into the 128-Bit Machine’s reign, Jet Grind Radio left quite the impact in 2000, as it quickly became a must-have exclusive for the platform and yet another reason to attract anyone over to SEGA hardware instead of Nintendo’s or Sony’s offering.

After an underwhelming sequel and years of Fan-service cameos, SEGA’s frenetic Graffiti-racer has mostly lived on as a garnish for the repeated servings of nostalgia surrounding the Japanese brands’ peak years. Given that the property has undoubtedly had more of an impact than SEGA had accounted for, it was only inevitable that one studio would set out to tag the spot Jet Grind Radio had left untouched for twenty years.

Netherlands studio, Team Reptile, answered the call, & endeavored to produce a spiritual successor to the Dreamcast Cult favorite with Bomb Rush Cyber Funk, an improved open-world take over the middling attempt we saw out of Jet Set Radio Future, with a freestyle approach to progression. The end result isn’t just a fresh approach to a familiar classic but a practical reinvention that improves upon its source material in nearly every single way.

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QCF: WrestleQuest

sn't it weird how, like Video Games, Pro-Wrestling has had its ups and downs within the Pop Culture Zeitgeist? It's just one of those deals where varying degrees of social stigmas through different generations had just held it back from reaching actual relevance within the mainstream consciousness like it's arguably achieved in today's entertainment climate, and that's because it's so much more than just a "sport" to enjoy. Imagine, for example, a Quarterback running a standard play in a Football game, and the moment they shouted "Hike," they suddenly ran backward toward their own endzone, spiked the ball down to the turf, and then viciously ripped their jersey off only to reveal the other team's jersey underneath it—this is the kind of energy you can expect out of Professional Wrestling. There's no other athletic competition out there like it.

It's a spectacle that's translated very well into the Video Game format, so much so that Wrestling Games are their own little subgenre to play from. Still, it's nearly always a case where developers adapt the rules and conventions of Pro Wrestling into a video game instead of it being the other way around.

Developer Mega Cat Studios pondered that challenge with a JRPG-inspired Turn-based Adventure named WrestleQuest, a colorful fantasy take on the world of Toys and their dreams to make it big in the squared circle. At the core of the concept, any premise can be made into a 16 Bit styled RPG if you have the right systems in place, but WrestleQuest doesn't settle for that and instead delivers one of the finest examples of Ludonarrative Consistency that I have ever experienced. I'm not kidding when I say it's easily one of the best Pro Wrestling games ever released in generations. 

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QCF: Wanted:Dead (Playstation 5)

 

 have fond memories of not only playing but also selling what was referred to as a “B” game from my time as a game store employee during the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 era. This type of game, normally an action game would be from a smaller developer and publisher, with a limited budget but always offered entertainment and combat for a lower cost. It was an easy sell for someone looking to play something but didn’t want the larger scope and price of a triple A title. Just some fun games like Stranglehold, Shadows of the Damned and Wet, just to reference a few from the past. For better or worse, Wanted:Dead from Soleil and 110 Industries harkens back to this time in gaming, offering sword-clashing and gun-blazing combat with some corny voice acting and glaring issues in level design and difficulty that might need more than nostalgia to win over most players.

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QCF: Trophy

o matter how many times I’ve seen it, I still think it’s BUCK wild to see a brand new game for the NES get commercially released over 30 years past the system’s prime. The Homebrew scene for these legacy platforms are further bolstered by the flexibility of the Digital Marketplace hosted by every notable name you can think of, like Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Valve, or hell, even Atari.

One of the latest releases for the most popular 8-Bit machine is an homage to Mega Man by developer Gradual Games named Trophy, and it’s not only been made available on Cartridge for its original hardware, it’s also available on Switch eShop and Xbox Marketplace via a proprietary NEW Emulator to boot. The technical chops on display are nothing of impressive, as the game seemingly uses every MMC Mapper to push the most out of the system to run it, but the core design of the game hardly does anything to impress beyond the sheer novelty of it being a new Action Shooter you can grab for the NES.

Tophy is certainly no Mega Man, but it isn’t even a Darkwing Duck, or a Krion Conquest, or hell even a Whomp ‘Em—it’s just a another retro game with some bizarrely outdated design by comparison.

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QCF: Nescape

hen most think of the NES, they'll likely imagine platformers, side-scrollers and turn-based RPGs. Nintendo's premier console did, after all, introduce us to the very roots of these genres as we know them today while also restoring our faith in video games as a whole after the 1980s game crash.

Some titles, however, were more experimental than others – more specifically, those of the point-and-click genre. Two that immediately come to mine are the console ports of King's Quest V and Shadowgate, in addition to Manic Mansion from Lucasfilm Games.

One could consider NEScape! a faithful ode to any of these titles now available in the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Live libraries, albeit with a much more docile feel. In short, it truly is an "escape room" for the NES.

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QCF: Phantom Breaker: Omnia

ack in the day I used to attend several conventions a year, where all forms of gaming, anime and related avenues of fandom would occupy a weekend inside the meeting rooms of an unsuspecting hotel. In those game rooms of my past, I recall seeing Phantom Breaker tournaments and casual play amongst the other 2D fighters. Now over a decade later, Rocket Panda Games has teamed up with MAGES to release an updated and streamlined version of the title for the first time in the West. Does Phantom Breaker: Omnia earn a place in today’s crowded field of fighting games? I think to certain groups of players it very well may have a spot.

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