“Whatcha Playin’, Pixels?” – #033
10 min read
A weekly roundup of games enjoyed by the writers of The Pixels
Ah, Friday, that magical time of the week when the writers of this fine website share all the games they are playing with you, our wonderful readers. Let’s see what they were up to:
Been a busy week, but I’ve spent a few hours this week coming back to Touhou ~ The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil. Touhou is known for being ridiculous in difficulty in terms of bullet hell, and to me, it’s very stressful, but it’s also known for its music (probably moreso). My main goal (not sure if it’s reachable) is to finish all 6 of the main levels without a continue for that’s how the player attains the true ending. This has been a really easy game for me to pick up and play for a few minutes a day.
Illusion of Gaia is chugging along. This is the furthest I’ve ever been in that game and I’m simultaneously surprised by its innocence and simplicity as well as its occasional surprising emotional depth and poignancy. It’s like this bizarre, episodic coming-of-age story mingled with a classic globetrotting, treasure hunting adventure that’s fun to play on top of all that. I look forward to wrapping it up sooner rather than later (playing weekdaily through every SNES RPG on Twitch at 1pm Central). After that, who knows? Lagoon, Drakkhen, Mystic Quest, 7th Saga…?
As part of this journey, which will eventually spawn the revelation of what this seeeeeecret project is all about, I spent some time playing through Knights of the Round with my kid. Is it a beat em up? Is it an RPG? Is it fun? You’ll see…
Most of my week’s been dedicated to Ikonei Island, working my way through what’s available so I can give a fair review in the coming weeks. I won’t say much here because, well, review content. Once I put the finishing touch on that, I gave a free indie game from Steam a try, a puzzle exploration game called LAY. It’s somewhat similar to AER: Memories of Old, a game I enjoyed until the abrupt end. LAY is equally enjoyable yet abrupt. It’s only about three hours long, so fairly breezy, extended a bit by the time it takes to travel and slightly fussy flying (and landing) physics. Like many of the free games on Steam, it was a student project, so for a learning experience for the devs, it’s a decent end result.
Back to work for me this week, so I, unfortunately, haven’t had much chance for gaming. I did, however, take a glance at Immortality on the Xbox: the new FMV game from Sam Barlow of Her Story and Telling Lies fame. Much like the previous two games, it has you sifting through lots and lots (and lots) of video footage trying to piece together a story and work out exactly what’s going on.
I was a big fan of Her Story but I felt that Telling Lies could’ve used a little more direction.. and so far my opinion of Immortality is the same. I’m quite overwhelmed by the sheer amount of footage it wants me to view and I feel as though I am missing so much as I go through it all.
Even worse is that I fell asleep with my controller in hand last night (no bearing on the game, just exhausted from work!) and when I woke up and managed to drag my Series X back out of its rest mode, I appeared to have lost all of my progress. Sooo, looks like I’ll be viewing a lot of content for a second time! I’ve got to stick with it though because I’ve seen a lot of reviews calling it a bit of a masterpiece. I’ll be sure to let you know next week!
I dusted off my Nintendo Switch this week and decided to dive into the large library of retro titles provided through the Online subscription. I find most of the games provided through the service to be standard throwbacks that I have either played to death as a child or really have no desire to play as an adult. Surprisingly, it’s the games that are on the Sega emulator that I enjoy the most, probably because I did not own a Sega console growing up. Many of the titles, including Shinobi III, Gunstar Heroes, and even Altered Beast, were entirely new to me. However, it wasn’t those games I found myself stuck in for the last week.
There is a title on the platform called Alien Soldier, and man, that game hooked me hard! It’s basically a side-scrolling run-and-gun where you fight as a souped-up alien bird-guy (lady, maybe? Chozo?) with incredible speed and agility. For a console game, It plays a lot like an arcade port, and the fast action with timed battles really brings home that feeling. I would call it a “boss rush” experience because the levels are very short and the boss fights are pretty long. Each boss is unique in how it is approached and defeated, and there are, to my knowledge, at least 25 of them! I have yet to get all the way to the end, but this game has officially become my newest retro obsession!
Aside from killing alien bosses in the retro equivalent to Elden Ring, I am still blasting through the cryptic storyline of No Man’s Sky. Unlike other games that feed you the story through cut scenes and bottleneck narrative choices, you actually have to discover the story yourself here. Following clues and markers hidden around the cosmos, I have gotten to the point where I think I have a good heading to the Center of the Universe, but to try and leap for it now will result in me getting even more lost in space. I guess that is part of the fun of No Man’s Sky, finding that which may very well be hidden in plain sight.
I want to let you all in on a secret. I’ve never played Shadow of the Colossus before! This past week I’ve rectified that and finished it on stream. I did play the remastered version from 2018 but it seemed to be true to the original form. Overall, I enjoyed my time with it once I gained more stamina. The first few bosses were a bit annoying due to your character not having enough stamina to hold onto the side of a colossus for more than a few seconds. Shadow of the Colossus is a third-person action game where you fight against giant creatures. The main tactic in the game is solving a puzzle to get on the colossus and stabbing a weak point repeatedly until their health depletes. It doesn’t sound entertaining but the combat is not where the game shines. It’s the music and atmosphere that brings it together, making the boss encounters much grander. The visuals of the remaster are stunning and the open world you explore is vast. I wasn’t a big fan of how the horse controls and found the climbing mechanics to be dated. I wish they had updated some of the core mechanics in the game personally, it made it more difficult at times than it needed to be. All in all, I enjoyed the game and am glad that I finished it.
I’ll have much more to talk about next week with the release of Splatoon 3 and Steelrising but I did have time to play a bit of an odd game today. BROK The InvestiGator is a combination of arcade fighting and point-and-click adventure. You can change between the styles with the press of a button. This concept is pretty cool but doesn’t work as well as I was hoping. Currently, the game freezes for a second between dialogue and suffers from ‘over-explaining’ syndrome. The overabundance of information thrown at you can be a bit too much to handle and conversations seem never-ending. The combat in the game is very basic, you have a punch, jump, and block. It’s not very entertaining and so far the story hasn’t been interesting. The art style of the game is reminiscent of 80s cartoons and I love the anthropomorphic character designs. I just wish that there was more polish and the dialogue was cleaned up.
I’m playing Hollow Knight again. Partly because I’m a clown (shout-outs to r/HollowKnightMemes). Also because I’m wholly incapable of beating Failed Champion. I can beat everyone else fine, but not this a-hole. The 3-hour speedrun requires knocking off the Failed Champion but this appears to be a bridge too far. I’ve watched hours of speed runs and cheese guides to beat this guy, but damnit, I simply cannot do this. So instead I fight the Soul Master again, even though that’s harder for what powers you have at that stage in the game.
Honestly, my goal is to beat Steel Soul in sub 2 hours, but maybe this week I can beat Failed Champion.
Also, DOTA 2 has its annual compendium, and I’m an achievement whore.
Twice a week my brother and I invite my dad to an Xbox party and we jump on a game together for an evening. For the last couple of weeks we’ve been playing Hunter: Call of the Wild, which is a pretty realistic hunting sim with beautiful visuals and lots of deep, not always intuitive mechanics. While I’ve bagged a few deer and a coyote, one too many prize-less nights broke me, and so we have swiftly moved my old man onto a very different title.
We have been playing Fall Guys, my friends, and wow is it hilarious, insane and often frustrating! This is the closest a video game has ever been to Takeshi’s Castle as you steer your little bean dude through obstacles with the sole intent of beating the rest of the field. It’s hilarious to play with friends, even if my dad is rubbish.
I’ve also restarted Alien Isolation, aka Nope: The Game, It’s still amazing, evocative of the original and bloody terrifying! Play it!
School’s in session for the Coffee family this week! Kid Espresso started his first days in kindergarten and Mrs. Coffee and I are beside ourselves with emotion. With the little guy in school though, it gave me an opportunity to finally return to streaming after a long time away! I spent my Tuesday and Thursday playing a couple of sessions of Wind Waker. After the fiasco on Dragon Roost, our intrepid, caffeinated hero and his talking magic boat made their way to the Forest Haven to tackle and complete the second dungeon.
Off stream, I’ve been playing more Live A Live and I have to say that this game has been something I dearly needed in my life! Even though the stories for each character are short and sometimes unevenly paced, they all come together in the end in a way that was better executed than Octopath Traveller. To quickly recap: I finished the pacifist run for the Twilight of Edo Chapter and nabbed a wicked sword as a reward. I then moved to the Wild West chapter, which was a lot of fun! I like Westerns and this one was as Western as it could get. The Present Day chapter was a bit light on story but had a fun, Street Fighter II-Esque, boss rush feel to it. The Near Future chapter was my next favourite after Imperial China. Akira’s comedically punk attitude contrasts nicely with the mid-to-late 90s sci-fi anime storyline. Also: GIANT ROBOT FIGHTS! The Distant Future chapter was more story-based than the others. That didn’t stop it from being a tense and harrowing episode of a robot solving a murder mystery while being pursued by an alien beast. And then there was the Middle Ages chapter, which told the tragic tale of how the Lord of Dark came to be and its connection to these seemingly unrelated stories.
I’m now on the Final Chapter, where the seven protagonists have been dragged into a cursed land to face off against the new Lord of Dark. I’ve done most of the preparations to face the final battles (gathering the strongest equipment for each character, facing optional bosses etc.) and I should be finished with this title fairly soon. Overall, I really enjoyed Live A Live. It’s been a great palate cleanser after playing The World Ends With You and its sequel.
So, what were you playing this week?
Ryan Cheddi – our friendly, neighbourhood caffeine addict – is a man of many talents: an engineer, a gaming historian, a fiction writer and a streamer. He is also a self-avowed Sonic the Hedgehog fan. You can check out his cool beans at his site – Games with Coffee – or find him on Twitter as @GameswCoffee, and Instagram as @games_with_coffee. He streams on Twitch, also as GamesWithCoffee.
