We begin with metal.

Metal pipes leading to a mysterious orb in the distance, metal soundtrack overlaid. We are in a stone castle, sky of swirling purple aurora visible beyond and we are here to rock.

Welcome to Savant Ascent – Remix.

In the brief intro cutscene our player character, ‘The Alchemist’, steps up to a glowing orb, pulsing with energy, and gets a fleeting moment to ponder it before it explodes. He is sent flying from the tower, left to climb his slow way back up.

Without looking anything up, that’s all the context we have.

So let’s get climbing.

Coming at us from D-Pad Studio, creators of ‘Owlboy’, is a remaster of the original ‘Savant Ascent’.

The meat and potatoes is a classic 2D twin stick bullet hell shooter. Your ability to control The Alchemist’s movements are limited; he can move between a small number of set platforms or points on the stage and you only really control how he’s getting there, jumping or rolling.

Point with the mouse to shoot at the ten million enemies who are about to come at you while trying to stay clear of whatever they are flinging back. Pretty standard stuff.

Enemies move in a predictable way, so it quickly becomes a game of memorisation and timing… almost like music in a way…

You have three lives on the standard difficulty and you will be using them often.

Because, oh yeah, this game is hard.

Following the deceptively simple tutorial things ramp up like Evel Knievel at the retirement home and the moment they introduce those fucking flying chainsaws my attempts per stage climbed about eighty percent and I was prompted to email STG about the swearword policy in these reviews.

From there stems the single most unforgivable thing about this game… unskippable cutscenes.

Fairly inoffensive in the average game, when gameplay is this fast paced and clearing a stage depends significantly on knowing what’s coming before it arrives, seeing the rocket ship filled with Ginyu Force posing shark men becomes extremely frustrating after the fourth or fifth time.

Still, that is a minor complaint in what is otherwise an excellently put together experience.

Aesthetic is the breath of life in Savant Ascent.

Part gothic, part metal album cover, part evil genius robotics lab, colour and sharp art drips from every surface.

Though the common robot enemies you have aren’t much to look at, every boss has a distinct style and flair. The Alchemist himself is a vibrant masked figure who looks like the phantom of the opera discovered the artist formerly known as Prince and never looked back.

Draped in a purple cloak with a wide brimmed hat complete with long white feather, a phantom wind at all time blows back both feather and cloak. His mask has a stylised moustache.

I’m no fashionista, but something tells me a player who was would have a great deal to say about the co-ordinated stage getup of Prince of the Opera’s drip. Even his death pose is massively dramatic. I aught to know, I saw it a lot.

After getting to our orb at the top of the tower suspiciously quickly, from it emerges a mini-me mask wearing imp who looks and acts like a masked, palate swapped Mario. A quick google tells me his name is ‘Vario’. He’s the first of the colourful bosses we are going to encounter, but far from the last.

Each has its own introduction, from the negative version of yourself to the robotic astro samurai drifting through space. Each encounter uniquely presenting new challenges to push through, and for all the times I fell, something kept me coming back.

Savant Ascent puts many of its chips on music; we literally collect disks mid stage with each quadrant you pick up giving you health and filling your weapon’s charge. Collecting all four in a stage unlocks that level’s music.

You can pause mid game to play any of the tracks you have collected so far instead of the one fitted to the current level and each is excellent.

Pulsing beats mark your moments of victory when you finally crest that hill and clear a difficult stage, creepy tones haunt you through the catacombs… the music here is worth listening to.

To wrap up, Savant Ascent is a game about style. It wants you to feel like you have jumped into a metal album cover and are rocking your way to the top in a universe where you can’t use the bathroom without encountering a robo-dinosaur or a cyber-ninja crackling with blue electricity.

So put that album on, get a comfy chair, and please keep your arms inside the vehicle; it’s time to head for the top.

The post Savant Ascent – Remix (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

‘T’was the winter of 1927-28 when I rolled off the steamer and into the sleepy town of Orwell.

Beset by a labyrinth of worm eaten buildings and the blanket of apathy cast by a motley crew of benighted residents it was a mere stop from my true destination; alas… the train was held yet again and I was stuck.

Thus I quested to clear my shrouded path onwards… but beneath that town in rat infested sewers where creatures unmentionable lurk in hidden depths of turgid water something was stirring.

Mysterious men in masks wielding powers unnatural stood in my path, and I can feel in my bones the movement of something down here with me.

Something huge, something that crawls and writhes and stares with inhuman eyes.

Good thing I have this gun that is also an umbrella’.

If there’s one thing Devolver Digital has down to a fine science at this point, it’s setting a tone.

The very home menu landing hits you with the only word you can expect to hear spoken to you in plain English. A growled ‘Gunbrella’ spoken like a Saturday morning cartoon villain putting on his best beastly voice.

The title is set to the backdrop of a steady descent to underground mines far below with a background music that is either a violin mimicking the buzzing of a fly, or an unusually musical insect.

Pixel blood splatter patterns cover the menu options and that theme is consistent because every selection sounds WET.

If you didn’t know what you were in for before, you would be now.

The game opens with a brief sequence explaining your onset motivation. A murdered wife and your only clue to that murder, the eponymous Gunbrella. The entire segment is filmed in the grainy black and white filter of those ye olde’ timey photos of unsmiling miners and small town folk looking at the photographer as if wondering how many shillings they could get for that fancy camera.

Then you are released into the game-world with a mission, a gun and a direction. Let the eldritch horror begin.

Gunbrella’s gameplay is fairly straightforward.

You wield the gunbrella, simultaneously a miraculous weapon capable of loading several different ammo types and an umbrella capable of acting as a parachute, jump boost and deflector shield.

Gotta get me one of those.

Items play the other half of your arsenal, with healing and temporary HP boosts as well as a pill that makes you find more money for a short period of time…

REALLY gotta get me one of those.

You can deflect ranged attacks by blocking with your umbrella and a timed block will reflect the projectile back at the attacker. Now you have all your tools, how well you can juggle them all will determine whether you come out the other end of Gunbrella looking like John Wick, or Super Meat Boy.

The introduction to the first enemies is somewhat jarring.

You encounter your first murderous robed cultist with very little fanfare; it will be some time yet before the first townspeople mention problems with the local cult.

For a man specifically out for answers it seems a bit slack of our protagonist not to have asked the first face he ran into about that.

Imagine if the narrator of ‘Shadow over Innsmouth’ got into a heated shotgun duel with a wandering band of slimy hobos in the city sewers and then immediately went back to being weirded out by fish people without mentioning the incident at all. A light smattering of ludo-narrative dissonance that wouldn’t be mentionable in a game that hadn’t done so much work building up its atmosphere.

Dialogue is delivered in that Charlie brown mumble of old, when voice actors were something that real studios had and video games were the domain of small time office nerds not knowing what cultural goldmine they were about to strike.

Small details matter here… speech bubbles float slightly as if breathing along with the character delivering them. Each hit of the next button is the keystroke of a typewriter. The checkpoints are glowing benches used by seating your trench-coated protagonist on to spend a moment in quiet brooding. Sound is masterfully presented on all angles.

Eerie background noises blend into the music until you aren’t really sure which is which, the ambiance fades when in menus, but never goes away entirely. The result is the constant tickling feeling at the back of your neck that something is out there you cannot see.

Something that may be watching you.

Then you interrupt a ritual in the heart of a cultist’s hideout where bodies are being sacrificed to an eldritch monstrosity called ‘the baby’ and before you know it, you are fighting a giant eyeball forming the nucleus of a writhing golem of flesh.

The more you shoot it, the more the room becomes drenched in blood. So much blood you can almost feel it seeping from your screen.

This is the part where I knew the game was going take a step away from the basis in reality it had established for itself.

We had begun the descent into a realm of elder gods twisting reality to their own incomprehensible ends. Where does this journey end?

Well now that would be telling.

The post Gunbrella (PC) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

It’s been many years since a new Metroid game has been released, especially for a classic 2D adventure. “Metroidvania” games, as they’re known, have become a vibrant genre with entries, such as Hollow Knight and Ori and the Blind Forest taking up the mantle left behind by Nintendo. In many cases they’re improved upon the formula, adding in modern-day niceties and sensibilities. Having abandoned the 2D side-scroller metroidvania for so long then, how will publisher Nintendo and developer MercurySteam fare when they attempt the same with 3DS exclusive Metroid: Samus Returns?

In a way it should be easy. Metroid: Samus Returns is a remake of Metroid II for the original Game Boy. Take the old game, slap on a new coat of paint and release it, right? We already know the core of the game is what we all want, a Metroid game. But to say that Samus Returns is simply a port of the Game Boy game doesn’t cover the extensive redesign and thought that has gone into every aspect of the experience. It’s an incredible feat of re-imagination, while maintaining what makes Metroid such an iconic Nintendo franchise, even years after the last release.

The best that can be said about Samus Returns is that it feels like a Metroid game, it’s familiar tones, systems and world all feeling as familiar as other entries in the franchise. You’ll be doing all the usual Metroid things, exploring labyrinthine worlds and discovering new and returning abilities, which allows you to explore further and find even more abilities. In that sense nothing has changed, but everything else has.

MercurySteam and Nintendo have re-examined every part of the original Metroid II and brought it into modern era. From the polygonal graphics, the addition of a melee counter, free-aiming and perhaps one of the best uses of the Nintendo 3DS’ 3D functionality, this is as modern a metroidvania as anything else in the franchise. It also allows the franchise to move forward and out of the shadow of Super Metroid without leaving behind what made that game the progenitor of the genre.

This is the first 2D side-scroller Metroid to use polygonal graphics, which could have been a controversial choice. Fortunately, the developers have been able to translate the world and eerie mystery captured so perfectly in pixel art into a polygonal representation. Backgrounds give a fantastic sense of scale, and enemies zoom in and out between the different layers. This sense of depth helps to give you an idea of how alone Samus is and how great of a threat she faces. 3D only adds to this, and I would recommend playing with the 3D up as far as you can handle. Using 3D, backgrounds stretch into the distance and Samus herself seems like a more realistic character. The extra resolution of the 3D layer also helps to sand off some of the shortcomings of the 3DS’ low resolution screen.

Controls have also been overhauled. Instead of eight directional points, Samus can now free aim by holding down a button. This alone makes combat feel much more fluid, freed from the tyranny of the D-Pad’s limitations. It makes the game feel easier, but only in the sense that older games now feel unnecessarily limited. Another significant change to combat is the melee counter. By pressing the button at just the right time, Samus performs a counter attack, pushing back your enemy and temporarily stunning them. Boss fights in particular are centred around countering at just the right time, then pressing the advantage when your enemy is down. You’ll be using the counter often, particularly as enemies attack as soon as you’re on screen. This can seem unfair at times. If an enemy is right above what’s visible on screen, even a small jump, bringing them into view, will make them attack. Being attacked by something you can’t see, or can only see for microseconds is frustrating, especially in an exploration-focused game. That said, energy to restore health is relatively easy to come by, so being attacked by offscreen enemies won’t generally get in the way, but I wish I had just a couple of seconds more time to counter enemies.

One area where Samus Returns hasn’t messed with is the soundtrack. Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano, composers on Super Metroid, have returned to score Metroid Returns, and their impact is obvious. Ominous synths abound, weapons have that just-right sound, and enemy cries are all distinct. It also makes fantastic use of stereo, something 2DS owners will unfortunately miss out on unless they use headphones. The soundscape helps both to establish and ground the atmosphere, keeping the game from space-opera chintz and as vital telegraphs for combat. I found playing the game on mute (such as when I forgot my headphones for the bus) made the game substantially harder.

As with all modern Nintendo games, amiibo support is included in Samus Returns. This has proven somewhat controversial, as the Metroid amiibo does unlock an extra-hard fusion mode played in Samus’ fusion suit. Once you beat the game a harder mode is unlocked, but locking away a whole mode behind an amiibo can be frustrating, mostly given the scarcity of certain amiibo – try finding a Guardian amiibo, months after Breath of the Wild’s release. I think Nintendo should include a way to unlock it that doesn’t require the amiibo, even if it were (reasonably-priced) paid DLC.

And as with all this winter’s 3DS releases, the question remains why isn’t this on the Switch? I understand that development began years ago, before the Switch was announced, but with such a slate of high-quality games on both of Nintendo’s portable consoles, having to decide which one to bring (or making room for both) is not an optimal solution. That’s without mentioning the potential benefits of a much higher resolution, giving the beautiful visual design of the game a chance to shine on modern hardware.

But Samus Returns makes an extremely strong case for lugging your 3DS with you, alongside or even instead of your Switch. It’s fantastic to see such a high-quality game released this late into the 3DS’ life, one that has had so much care poured into it on every level. For those who have been urging Nintendo to make a new 2DS Metroid, you will not be let down. Metroid: Samus Returns is perfectly titled: Samus has returned, better than ever.

The post Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

This year Mario reaches an impressive milestone in video gaming: 30 years as a leading man in Nintendo’s timeless Super Mario Bros. series.

At E3 2015, Nintendo celebrates Mario’s longevity with a new instalment in the series called Super Mario Maker, one of many games at the show that transforms familiar characters and their games with unique new looks, styles and gameplay features.

Players will see new instalments of beloved series like Star Fox, Yoshi, Animal Crossing, Mario & Luigi, Xenoblade and Metroid, and enjoy the reimagining of Bowser and Donkey Kong as Skylanders figures that also have amiibo functionality with compatible Nintendo games.

During the Nintendo Digital Event video on the opening day of E3 2015 in Los Angeles, Nintendo announced games launching in the near future, with a focus on what fans can enjoy in the second half of 2015 and early 2016.

Here’s a round-up of some of the news and games Nintendo showed at E3 2015:

Wii U

Super Mario Maker: The next evolution of the Super Mario Bros. series lets people’s imaginations run wild. For the first time ever, friends can have fun playing through levels they create for one another. The Wii U GamePad controller makes it so easy for anyone to create Levels; it may feel like simply sketching out ideas on paper.

Players can enjoy a seemingly endless supply of inventive Mario Levels from players around the world. The game includes a Hardcover Artbook totaling about 100 pages that illustrates the boundless possibilities in Super Mario Maker. Nintendo will also release two special Mario amiibo figures, one of which will be part of a limited edition software bundle, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros. game.

Tapping these amiibo in Super Mario Maker adds a Big Mushroom power-up to your course, allowing Mario to grow big, bust blocks from any direction, as well as adding a retro visual filter to the game, reminiscent of older cathode ray tube televisions.

In addition, many other amiibo will also be compatible with Super Mario Maker through the use of a new item called the Mystery Mushroom. This item allows Mario to take the appearance of many other characters, such as Link, Kirby, or Wii Fit Trainer, complete with character-specific animations and sound effects. These character costumes can be unlocked by completing the 100 Mario Challenge mode and many can also be unlocked if the player taps the amiibo of the character to the Wii U GamePad.

To coincide with the Super Mario Bros. anniversary, the Super Mario Maker game, which includes the Hardcover Artbook, will launch on 12th of September, 2015. On the same day Nintendo will also release a limited edition Super Mario Maker bundle that includes the game, Hardcover Artbook, as well as a Mario (Classic Colours) amiibo from the Mario 30th Anniversary Collection.

Both amiibo from the Mario 30th Anniversary Collection will also launch as standalone amiibo during summer 2015 in Australia and New Zealand.

LetsSuperMario.com website: To continue the celebration of Super Mario’s 30th anniversary, fans around the world are encouraged to create personal “Let’s Super Mario” video tributes that showcase their love for the legendary series.

The videos can be submitted to a dedicated website which can be found HERE.

Whether it’s through song, dance or reliving favourite moments, Nintendo will honour Super Mario by showcasing the creativity of our fans. In the spirit of Nintendo’s mission of putting smiles on the faces of everyone that experiences our products, Nintendo’s share of any ad revenue generated from the Let’s Super Mario 30th Anniversary videos will go towards a donation Nintendo is making to Operation Smile, a global surgical charity dedicated to healing the smiles of children around the world suffering from cleft lip and cleft palate.

Star Fox Zero: Fox, Falco, Peppy and Slippy are back in a new adventure. Players pilot an Arwing in the traditional style of TV gameplay and, in a new twist, players can use the cockpit view on the GamePad to aim and shoot enemies using the gyro controls.

Having two unique viewpoints offers distinct gaming advantages and frees up the TV for more cinematic moments in the title’s brand-new all range mode. Scheduled to launch in Q4 2015, Star Fox Zero includes a new Walker transformation for the Arwing, a new Gyrowing vehicle and the return of the Landmaster Tank.

Skylanders SuperChargers from Activision: Both Donkey Kong and Bowser guest star in the next Skylanders game, complete with their own vehicles and move sets that celebrate the lore and legacy of their 30+ years in the video game universe.

As an added bonus, the Turbo Charge Donkey Kong and Hammer Slam Bowser Skylanders SuperCharger characters also work as amiibo in compatible Nintendo games, so players can store their save data in both modes with a simple twist of the figure’s base. The game is anticipated to launch on the 24th of September, 2015.

Just Dance 2016 from Ubisoft: Just Dance 2016 is the latest instalment in the best-selling music game franchise of all time. Launching on both Wii and Wii U, the game features tracks from artists like Jason Derulo, Meghan Trainor and Lady Gaga. This year, the free Just Dance Controller app enables Wii U players to use their smartphones to play.

Xenoblade Chronicles X: Amidst an intergalactic war between aliens and human survivors, players fight for survival while exploring the massive expanses of an unknown planet.

Weaponised mechs called “Skells” let players access every location they see. Players also can customise a lethal skill set of combat and defensive skills, called Arts, to strengthen their strategies and defeat enemies efficiently.

The game launches in December 2015.

Animal Crossing – amiibo Festival: Animal Crossing amiibo figures and cards get their own party game. Players are challenged to collect the most Happy Points by the end of a dynamic board game.

The board layout can remain the same, but the spaces and even the environment change, depending on which month players choose for their game. As in otherAnimal Crossing games, players can buy turnips and use strategy to decide when to sell them for big money. Scheduled to launch in Q4 2015, Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival will release as a bundle that includes the game, two amiibo figures and three amiibo cards.

Genei Ibun Roku #FE (name not final): Set in modern Tokyo, young people come together to weave an epic tale alongside heroes from an alternate world. This brand-new RPG, developed by ATLUS, is infused with elements of the popular Fire Emblem series. In the struggle between the worlds of glamour and darkness, these young heroes rise to face the challenge.

The game is scheduled to launch in 2016.

Mario Tennis – Ultra Smash: Up to four players can compete in tennis matches that could only take place in the Mushroom Kingdom. With the addition of Jump Shots to hit high balls overhead, or Giant Mushrooms that when picked up make characters bigger, this Mario Tennis is reborn with features enabling players to aggressively go after higher balls.

The game is scheduled to launch in Q4 2015.

Yoshi’s Woolly World: Collect, cooperate and get crafty with Yoshi in a world made completely from yarn, felt and other fabrics and textiles. Pulling on strings in the game usually leads to discoveries, while new transformations include Moto Yoshi, Mole Yoshi and Sky Pop Yoshi.

The game’s simple platforming adventure challenges players to find hidden secrets. Tapping select amiibo characters to the GamePad creates new patterns for Yoshi, while new Yarn Yoshi amiibo let players control two Yoshis at the same time. This first-ever two-player co-op Yoshi game includes Mellow Mode, which gives Yoshi wings, and is perfect for players who just want to hunt for treasure, or newcomers who want to get the hang of the game.

The game launches on 25th of June, 2015 in Australia and New Zealand.

Nintendo 3DS

The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes: Three players take on the role of individual Link characters and team up to solve puzzles and battle bosses in dungeons.

The game features the same top-down view and visual style of The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Players must work together, as the group shares all hearts. All three Links can stack on top of one another to create a Totem to reach new locations and solve puzzles or fight enemies. Different outfits offer unique abilities.

The game is scheduled to launch in Q4 2015.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon: The player transforms into one of 20 Pokémon as he or she sets out on an adventure in a world inhabited solely by the 720 discovered Pokémon, including Legendary and Mythical Pokémon.

This game boasts hours of replay-ability by randomly generating each dungeon, so players will never explore the same dungeon twice as they unravel this tale of adventure and mystery.

The game is scheduled to launch in early 2016.

Animal Crossing – Happy Home Designer: One of the favourite activities in the Animal Crossing series now gets a full game. With more options than ever, players design interiors and exteriors of homes for hundreds of animal characters, and can even design a garden.

They can choose where to place the home, and then pick out a house style and colours for the roof, door and fence before getting to work on the interior. Tapping compatible amiibo character cards brings favourite Animal Crossing characters with their separate personalities and design requests into the game, which launches with a complimentary amiibo card on the 3rd of October 2015.

A bundle will launch the same day and include the game, one amiibo card and the Nintendo 3DS NFC Reader/Writer accessory.

YO-KAI WATCH: This game sold millions and became a cultural phenomenon in Japan. Now players in Australia and New Zealand get to experience the fun of hundreds of sometimes cute, sometimes spooky, and usually mischievous Yo-kai that inhabit our world. Players explore using their Yo-kai Watch to find Yo-kai, then befriend them and turn them into a team to battle other Yo-kai.

The game is scheduled to launch in 2016.

Fire Emblem Fates: Two versions of the franchise’s new instalment offer players an unprecedented choice: fight an opposing force or join the other side and try to make changes from within.

For the first time in the series, players take on the role of the main character and command an army, while struggling to decide which path to follow: helping blood relatives or the family that raised him or her.

The game is scheduled to launch in 2016.

Mario & Luigi – Paper Jam Bros.: Paper Mario jumps out of the book and into the bizarre adventures of Mario & Luigi, resulting in hilarious and dangerous hijinks. Become the superstar team of Mario, Luigi and Paper Mario to take on quests, take down enemies and untangle these two unique universes in this playful new entry in the Mario & Luigi series.

The game is scheduled to launch in autumn 2016 in Australia and New Zealand.

Hyrule Warriors – Legends: The Wii U version of Hyrule Warriors comes to the Nintendo 3DS family of systems. In the portable version, experience new story elements and playable characters inspired by The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

New features allow players to enhance their tactics and switch between different characters on the fly as they explore and battle in Hyrule’s most famous locales.

The game is scheduled to launch in Q1 2016.

Metroid Prime – Federation Force: Up to four players can connect online or locally to take on co-op missions in this first-person sci-fi adventure set in the Metroid Prime universe. Players don a mech suit and work together as a team to clear out enemy-infested bases and complete objective-based missions.

After completing the missions, up to six players can compete in Metroid Prime: Blast Ball, a three-on-three game that requires players to shoot a ball into their opponents’ goal.

The game is scheduled to launch in 2016.

The post Mario Turns 30 & E3 2015 Announcements from Nintendo! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.