Hi, I'm Dranzerstorm
Welcome to the Video Game & Music Lounge
This world is dedicated to Video Games and Music as I'll be showcasing the following.
Video Game Reviews set to the same tones as Retro Retrospective's Anime Reviews
Music reviews of Anime Openings & Closings
Western Cartoon music
Vocaloid Classics.
We may even have some Top Tens
I hope this World entertains you.
Were coming into some regularly occurring genres in the WTF series from narrative puzzle adventures to spiritual successors.
Call of the Sea
Set in the 1930s, you take control of Norah in a fictional version of Tahiti as she looks for answers to her illness and her missing husband Harry only to gradually discover that she's slowly becoming a sea creature the more she explores. A great mix of story and puzzles, Call of the Sea will draw you in with it's unique tropical setting and grandiose ruins.
A-Tier Game.
Bloodstained Ritual of the Night
Because Konami doesn't care much for it's own properties, leave it to the indie crews to develop a spiritual successor to Castlevania. You play Miriam, a Shardbinder who is a result of alchemists trying to summon demons through demonic crystals being fused with humans only to set the whole of England into chaos and it's up to Miriam whose outfit looks like an unfinished cosplay dress to end the chaos and to find the other Shardbinder.
The lore is so vast that it requires a much bigger post to explain, plays a little too much like Castlevania at times but still manages to stand on it's own.
A-Tier Game.
Gato Roboto
Published by Devolver Digital, a name that will occur frequently in the next few episodes, you play a cat named Kiki, using a mecha suit to try and find a way of freeing her owner Gary from his crashed spaceship all the while uncovering the mystery behind the planet they've crashed on. With no colour present in the game, it only serves to make navigating the map an absolute chore, I might feel alot more inclined to finish the game if I didn't feel like I'm always lost.
C-Tier Game.
Now to look at some games with a history of being difficult, at least the games they're trying to rip off.
Metagal
It's genderswap Megaman, in fact it looks like it could've been made from an engine designed to make a Megaman like game, unlike Megaman, this game is infinitely easier and the achievements reflect this.
D-Tier Game.
Cyber Shadow
Quickly followed up by classic Ninja Gaiden but with robot ninjas, at least this one feels alot closer to the game it's trying to ripoff pay homage to, but it commits the unforgivable sin of not having achievements that end with 0 or 5, blasphemy in achievement hunting.
C-Tier Game.
Wizard of Legend
Roguelike games will start to feature quite alot in this series and the first of these is the ball bustingly difficult Wizard of Legend, you control a Wizard of any colour you want and take out some of gamings most difficult bosses, fast paced and frantic, it's up there with some of the best of the genre and the only game where I can actually play a "Cerulean Wizard".
S-Tier Game
Six episodes in and you probably get a sense of what to expect as I go more and more into weird territory.
Autumn's Journey
No this isn't the sequel to Winter's Daydream, this time you follow Auralee, an aspiring lady knight as she encounters a bad tempered dragon stuck in humanform named Kerr, along with another dragon named Ilmari, they travel the lands hoping to restore Kerr's dragon form, written like a trashy shojo anime with a protagonist to match, you'll be endlessly bored by this low budget deviantart anime style visual novel.
F-Tier Game.
Xeno Crisis
A research facility gets overrun by aliens so it's up to space marines John Marsh and Sarah Ridley to eradicate the aliens Smash TV style from the facility, a good example of a retro inspired game done right, however the developer Bitmap Bureau are more interested in releasing on every console in existence even if said console is no longer commercially available, it comes across as really pretentious. It's still good but I wouldn't dig out my old consoles just to play this on them.
B-Tier Game.
Donut County
Mira and her raccoon friend BK work in a donut shop, while attempting to save up points for a Quadcopter Drone, BK sends donut orders to the town's people only for said donuts to actually be holes that swallow up the people and their property. The game is charming with a very Katamari like aesthetic, BK is the perfect ass hole protagonist with a plot twist that reflects the absurd premise.
A-Tier Game.
Being an achievement hunter is easy.
Playing games out of your comfort zone is much harder.
Hyperdot
Puzzle games are piss easy to make, all you have to do is raid your toddler's toy box of colour and shape matching blocks and you have an idea, that's the mentality that went into making Hyperdot, all you have to do is move a dot around a limited space while avoiding murderous geometric shapes, Geometry Wars at least came with epilepsy.
D-Tier Game.
Fractured Minds
Fractured Minds goes through an interactive first person perspective of various real life scenarios and how they are warped through mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, isolation and paranoia. Of all the games I've played, it never felt right that this game had achievements, the idea was always to raise awareness of an issue that sadly isn't getting any better today.
A-Tier Game
A Winter's Daydream
At least were ending on something weird.
19 year old Yuu visits his grandmother for Christmas, while she reminisces about how she met her recently dearly departed husband, she awakes next morning as a younger woman the same age as her grandson, things get weird as they spend the day together and the reactions which include an awkward exchange with Yuu's sister are what you can expect from a company with a loose understanding of how visual novels work, at the very least they nail the ending with the grandmother giving her final goodbyes to her lost husband.
D-Tier Game
Now we start to get into the really weird stuff.
Pikuniku
Looking like disembodied Mr Men, this charming puzzle platformer is what the Europeans think a Japanese bizarre game looks like, you play Pikuniku, a red blob who can roll and kick things who after being exiled for breaking a bridge is called into action to stop the evil entrepreneur Mr Sunshine, they certainly got the humour right but is notoriously short.
B-Tier Game.
Music Racer
A third rate version of the more superior Audio Surf, the object is to drive to the beat while avoiding the obstacles, every theme is synthwave and every background feels like it's taken straight off an 80s album cover, lack of song variety, fake longevity and a sequel that requires connection to an inferior music streaming service just makes Music Racer a chore to finish.
D-Tier Game.
My Friend Pedro
The first of many titles with only one person who did most of the work, My Friend Pedro takes an unnamed silent protagonist into the criminal underworld to take out the Kingpins under the influence of a talking banana named Pedro, probably the most fun I've had running and gunning as each scenario lets you pull off bullet time along with numerous set pieces that really keep the plot interesting, I won't spoil the ending but be prepared for a hilarious twist.
A-Tier Game.
