After playing the Castlevania inspired “Curse of the Moon”, I got the hankering for a metroidvania game as I’m still waiting for the main game; Ritual of the Night. On one of my strolls through Youtube I found a list of upcoming indie metroidvanias, and ever since I had been waiting for the game that looked by far the best of the bunch; Timespinner by Bodie of Lunar Ray Games.
Looking a lot like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Dawn of Sorrow I was intrigued by how authentically retro the game looked. “Timespinner really looks like a genuine older game” I thought in a sea of retro inspired indie games who clearly have something in their graphics and sound that exposes them as new games. Whether that is a good thing or not is up to you but anyway….
After playing through the game once I have found Timespinner to be a new cornerstone in the genre, right next to Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night.
The gameplay is fantastic, the graphics are extremely cool and autentically retro, the music is great and Timespinner has a deep interesting story to boot!
Continue reading Timespinner (Switch/PS4/PSVita/PC 2018)
Tag Archives: Retroesque
In depth Review – Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Switch 2018)
Holy crap it’s a new classic Castlevania! Well, actually it’s not really a Castlevania game but a spiritual successor. This is Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, a prequel game of the kickstarted Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night developed by Inti Creates and overseen by IGA the director of legendary game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and of course the director of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
I have been waiting for a game like this for over a decade, settling for Castlevania romhacks and perhaps some indie games in the meantime. Inti Creates is responsible for some great games like the Mega Man Zero series and the Gunvolt games, but they also worked on Mighty nr.9….. eeks….
I played the game in normal mode and nightmare mode partly at first but now I have done 100% of the game and can give you a complete score review.
Continue reading In depth Review – Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Switch 2018)
Review: Wulverblade (2017 Nintendo Switch)
Finally, we get a worthy co-op beat’ em up on a modern system! I knew I was going to play Wulverblade the moment I saw the first screenshots. As you might know by now us at Cousin Gaming are total suckers for beat ’em ups, in fact, this is probably our favorite video game genre.
The game is set in 150AD during the Roman invasion of Britain. You play as Celtic warriors who hail from north “Briton” or modern-day Scotland, who have a deep connection to the wood and wilderness, wolves especially if that wasn’t obvious enough already.
What’s more important though is that Wulverblade is a love letter to the old beat ’em ups such as Final Fight or perhaps Knights of the Round, and you can tell that a lot of love went into making this game. It looks and sounds fresh and the really did their history homework too. Check it out!
Continue reading Review: Wulverblade (2017 Nintendo Switch)
Review – Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (2017 PS4 JPN)
After I got my PC Engine(Japanese Turbografx 16) just about 2 years ago I became a huge fan of the Ys series. Ys Book 1 & 2(1989) and Ys IV: Dawn of Ys(1993) for the PC Engine/Turbografx 16 are action-rpg games that rival some of the best games of their era such as the Final Fantasy and Zelda games. I reviewed those also on this site for those interested.
After all this time I was pretty hyped to see that a new main series Ys game was being made. Ys VIII is obviously the eight game in the series but I missed Ys 5, 6 and 7 and will go play those soon.
I played the Ys IV remake “Memories of Celceta” on the Vita and I liked it a lot except that I feel like they butchered the great original story of the PC Engine original.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana was also released on the Vita in Japan in 2016 but more recently the game was released on the PS4 but also just in Japan.
I speak fluent Japanese (N2/N1 level) so i thought I would give Ys VIII a go and review it for English speakers before it releases internationally 12th of September 2017.
Continue reading Review – Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (2017 PS4 JPN)
Guardian Heroes (Sega Saturn 1996)
I just came back from Japan and i picked up a Sega Saturn and a BUNCH of games! One of those games was Guardian Heroes, a co-op side-scrolling beat em’ up by Treasure that was received very favorably when it was first released and is still to this day a loved title in the retro game community.
This is the first time we cover a Sega Saturn game thus marking the start of Cousin Gaming going 32-bit! Look forward for some more Saturn and Play Station content in the future!
Continue reading Guardian Heroes (Sega Saturn 1996)
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U 2017) Review/Discussion
Finally we get a new Zelda! The anticipation since we heard that the new Zelda would be an open world Zelda was through the roof, but at the same time i was cautiously optimistic since i was not really a big fan of Skyward Sword.
Breath of the Wild returns to the “you are here, go do your thing” style of gameplay of the original Zelda for the NES. In other words, you are dropped down in a huge world with limited instructions and no one to hold your hand like Naavi or Fi.
The game is huge in scope and Hyrule is so vast that after around 50 hours of playing i have not nearly covered all the map and i am not even close to be running out of things to do. I’ve been having a fantastic time all play-through and i think that this game is one of the better games i have played in years.
I played the Wii U version so this review/discussion is solely based on my experience with the Wii U version. Also this is maybe not a traditional review but rather a discussion on what i felt could have made the game a perfect 10 (spoilers i am giving the game a 9,5 score). That being said there might be minor spoilers in the article which is mostly aimed at others who have already cleared the game.
Continue reading The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U 2017) Review/Discussion
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