Atari ST A to Z: Chase

Deep in the seventh galaxy of the Nebulus system, a lone warrior has been selected from thousands to perform an unenviable task: to save the beautiful Princess Chardonnay from the clutches of the evil Disgusmatrons.

Thus begins the rather overblown story to Mastertronic’s Chase, an Atari ST title shamelessly attempting to ride the coat-tails of the popular Star Wars arcade game with its transparent vector graphics and arcade-style thrills.

As with most titles from the era, the story was completely and utterly irrelevant… but that didn’t mean that the game experience itself was lacking. On the contrary, despite the game’s simplicity and its rather bare-bones presentation, Chase is an oddly addictive little affair I still enjoy booting up for the occasional blast-and-dodge session even today!

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Warriors Wednesday: Cavalry’s ‘Ere, Luv – Warriors Orochi #9

Yes, it’s that time again, and today it’s Lu Xun’s time to shine, having been left somewhat on the sidelines for the last couple of missions.

Today the Samurai Warriors and friends take on the Battle of Nagashino and attempt to obtain some cavalry support while assaulting an Orochi stronghold.

Unfortunately said cavalry doesn’t appear to understand the concept of “strength in numbers”…

Continue reading Warriors Wednesday: Cavalry’s ‘Ere, Luv – Warriors Orochi #9

Waifu Wednesday: Riche Eden

In honour of the end of our Evenicle slightly-longer-than-a-month — and of today’s surprise announcement that Evenicle is now available on Steam — I thought it was high time we highlighted another of the game’s wonderful wives.

Riche is one of the first characters you meet in the game, and she sticks by your side pretty much for the entire duration, giving you plenty of time to get to know her: who she is, why she is the way she is, why she’s doing what she’s doing and… uh… what she’s “into”, if you catch my meaning.

Let’s take a closer look at one of the most memorable princesses I’ve had the pleasure of fighting alongside for quite some time…

Continue reading Waifu Wednesday: Riche Eden

Atari A to Z: Henri

Today’s Atari 8-Bit game shows us that even back in the 1980s, programmers weren’t above churning out something just to make a quick buck.

Enter Henri by one Adam Billyard, a developer who would later go on to produce great things for The English Software Company — specifically the technically stunning (but exceedingly irritating) racer Elektra Glide, and the well-animated one-on-one fighting game Chop Suey.

At the time he put out Henri, however, he was just trying to scrape together enough money for his air fare to get home. The result was a competent, if relatively unremarkable Mr. Do! clone. I hope you like the sound of Bach…

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Dragalia Lost: Loyalty’s Requiem

One interesting difference between “conventional” MMOs such as Final Fantasy XIV and mobile games with MMO elements such as Dragalia Lost is how they handle side stories and multiplayer “raid” content.

In your average MMO, raid content — typically defined as a series of significant challenges that are dependent on a much larger group of players than the game’s usual multiplayer aspect — remains present in the game after its introduction, but gradually declines in “relevance” as time goes on. In cases like Final Fantasy XIV, where there’s a significant narrative component, it remains worth engaging with to enjoy the story, but the more time that elapses since its original launch, the less helpful it becomes to players in mechanical terms.

In mobile MMOs, however, raid content is typically a limited-time affair, confined to an event that offers special rewards to everyone who participates for a short period of time. And that’s exactly what’s going on in Dragalia Lost right now.

Continue reading Dragalia Lost: Loyalty’s Requiem

Evenicle: Fighting to Keep the World the Same

cropped-evenicle-header-2828638This article is one chapter of a multi-part Cover Game feature!
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Eroge tend to find themselves in a difficult position, with their reputation of being “porn” being a largely contributing factor as to why they rarely get any mainstream recognition.

This is unfortunate, because as we’ve already seen with visual novels like Frontwing’s Grisaia series and the RPGs in AliceSoft’s Rance series, having 18+ content most certainly does not mean that a work has nothing to say.

On the contrary, the freedom to be as “adult” as you like brings with it the opportunity to explore interesting, mature and thought-provoking themes as well as just sexual content. And such is the case with Evenicle, one of AliceSoft’s strongest games to date, both from mechanical and story perspectives. Let’s take a closer look at its overall narrative.

Continue reading Evenicle: Fighting to Keep the World the Same

Sunday Driving: Finale? – Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed #7

We’ve been making good headway through Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed… but today we clear the game!

Or do we…? This is a Sega game in the classic console mould, after all, so it only stands to reason that seeing the end credits isn’t necessarily the end of the experience…

Regardless, today we see the “ending” of the game… and from there we’ll have to decide what to do next!

Continue reading Sunday Driving: Finale? – Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed #7

Around the Network

Hello again everyone! Hope you’ve all had a pleasant weekend and are enjoying the cosiness that the onset of autumn brings.

I’ve been busting my ass trying to beat Evenicle and it’s taken a little longer than I anticipated, but as I write this, I’m on the final chapter and closing in on the actual ending, so we’ll wrap things up once and for all with one more article either later today or (more likely) tomorrow.

After that we’ll be moving on to spooky funtimes for October with the Project Zero series, also known as Fatal Frame. But what else went on this week? Well, hit the jump and let’s review.

Continue reading Around the Network

Dragalia Lost: What’s That Sound? It’s Daoko

If you’ve been playing Nintendo and Cygames’ new mobile release Dragalia Lost, you’ve probably noticed it has a rather distinctive soundtrack.

The reason for this is not what you might expect: rather than being composed specifically for the game, with the composer making use of a deliberately stylised approach to the overall audio aesthetic, the game instead uses an almost entirely licensed soundtrack, courtesy of Japanese singer and rapper Daoko.

If you haven’t come across Daoko before, well, what better time than the present to have a look over her previous work, including that which appears in Dragalia Lost?

Continue reading Dragalia Lost: What’s That Sound? It’s Daoko

Atari ST A to Z: Beyond the Ice Palace

I never played this game back in the day, but it was one of those titles you saw all over the place in the early days of the ST.

Throughout the ST’s lifespan, it played host to a variety of different bundle packages, many of which were extremely generous in terms of the number of games and applications they included. Beyond the Ice Palace was a regular inclusion in such bundles, and as such became reasonably well-known.

Loosely inspired by action platformers such as Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins, Beyond the Ice Palace sees your green-booted, gender-ambiguous hero(ine?) battling their way through hordes of enemies and admiring how the ST’s lack of sound channels meant that a single sound effect could mess up an entire musical composition.

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The best of overlooked and underappreciated computer and video games, from yesterday and today.