Gamer Obscurea; Games in Hiding

[Quto]

Not sure how obscure of a game this is, but I still haven't seen many people talk about it, and I've had this game for 10+ years. It's a platformer called The Legendary Starfy. (Yes, I know he's an Assist Trophy in Smash, but that might be most people's exposure to Starfy. It's my understanding that it's more popular in Japan I think.) It was one of my favorite games in my childhood, and I still play it every now and then. It's a fairly easy game with a cutesy storyline, so it's good that I played it when I was younger. Basically Starfy is a prince in Pufftop Kingdom, a kingdom in the clouds, when a mysterious bunny falls from the sky with no memory. He decides to help this bunny with his friend Moe, and the three fall into the ocean below and start their adventure. But there are some mysterious bad guys following them around, trying to steal the bunny's powers.

Good and Obscure Enough for me. :D Like the DS game 'Monster Tale.' Which is sad as THAT title was suppose to be incredibly awesome. Sadly, it was the last game to come out on the DS before the 3DS consumed everything else.

Until then I want to talk about a game that has been swept under the rug.

House
of the
Dying Sun​

It's hard to figure out where to start with this; so I suppose I'll start with the story. There is a system in space somewhere running on a Monarchy, they have ships, weapons, an army and rule over multiple life-supporting-planets with somewhat of an iron fist; think like England from the early ages where they wanted a British Empire and started picking fights with everyone, but in space... Then the Emperor dies and the lords ruling start scrambling for chunks of his Empire that remain to claim as their own; thinking that with him dead, there's no way that the actions set in motion for this death would have the repercussions to cause them to lose their lives... Then you, the last herald, guard or loyal servant to the Emperor learn of his last edict before his Death: Slay the traitor lords to the Empire and bring those in their charge to Ruin.... The rest in how you accomplish this, you figure out on your own.

Do a barrel roll!​

Moving onto mechanic's, as you haven't figure out from the screenshot above, this is a space flight sim with guns, lasers, space missiles and ammunition. Where you have to engage in Dogfight's with other's in your Squad, AI Driven of course where you can control any one of them at any time, against the remaining leaders, slaying their massive battle ships and slaughtering their fleets while defending the remaining family members of nobility or holding off waves of the traitors while you are trying to gain a foot hold as your nation try's to hyper-light-jump a battlestation onto the field all int he name to carry out the last edict.

Beyond the fact that it's a standard space-flight-gunner; they do a lot to try and get some realism into this space-flight-sim. Muffled to zero sounds of explosions of things you kill or destroy, the ability to cut your engines and thruster's that drive you forward so you can Drift through the Ether which is handy if you need to dodge and aim at a target while moving in the direction you trusted too. Reasons it was swept under the rug, I think mostly stem from the impressions of Early Access that was done on steam. The game is roughly short for it's price tag, there haven't been many changes from Early Access to now as most of the game was finished as they we're trying to flush out the harder difficulties and throw in the VR option... Which if you have a VR hookup for something like this, I recommend it HIGHLY, TOO highly, especially if you need a small shot of adrenaline as the game get's harder, you need to react and fly faster and master your drift in how you use it to overcome the obstacle's as they get more tedious and complicated.

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[Quto]

Legend Of Kyrandia​

This is a short post of a small series swept under the rug and it's somewhat old. The company themselves, Westwood studio's we're responsible for a good number of different games growing up such as Command and Conquer, Nox, the original Dune games where they mix RTS with Story in having to deliver 'The Spice' and so on.

Before Command and Conquer, they we're pretty heavy into RPG's and adventure games and we're competing with Sierra; because, come on guy's: Sierra back in the 80's an 90's we're one of the game companies you wanted to work for and we're one of the companies a lot of teens to adult's who knew how to program would literally kill to get a spot in. Offering Healthcare, Dental, Vision, 401k: They could basically take care of you before the advent and popularity of 3D video game's before the couple who owned it sold off their assets.

Sierra's flagship title was King's Quest, a game series surrounding a single king and his family and the adventure's and bizarre advent's that affect those in his charge and within his kingdom. The difference between other's in the aristocrat's and the king himself is he is a literal adventurer, he doesn't even like wearing his crown as he wear's his cap instead and is surrounded by advisor's who typically join his kingdom and country with each adventure that passes.

So, with a famous IP on the market, Westwood tries to compete against it with their own game series/set, called Legend of Kyrandia and it gets weird. Funny, but very weird as the game comes in 3 part's and it gets stranger after the 1st entry.

In book 1, a Jester named Malcom who was punished for killing the old king was cast into stone like some Gargoyle. Through Magical means, Malcom escape's his prison and start's causing havoc all over Kyrandia, taking revenge on the old mage's who imprisoned him by draining their sources of magic and twisting, turning and hurting all of the denizens in Kyrandia. Brandon, a young teen and descendant to the throne of the old king is setup to reclaim his kingdom and take revenge for the death of his father by journeying to the remaining mage's to gather enough magic and relic's of his own to take down Malcom: The spoiler being he succeeded.

It's around book 2 where thing's start getting weirder: The first book had a bit more Regal and talks of Legend's and magic. It wasn't grand, but it set it's mood. Book 2: The Hand of Fate is where the take a left turn from that mood. The plot being that landmarks/homes/animal's/buildings and other things in Kyrandia are literally disappearing. The mage's in the last game gather together to try and figure out what the problem is and when they agree on a soloution, they send the youngest mage, Zanthia, to carry out the task. She had the means to teleport to the locations needed, though both her tools for alchemy and spell books are ripped from her possession while meeting opposition and issue with each step of her journey and a villain to this book that hasn't been as satisfying to BE a villain, though I give prop's as they make reveals and clues who the villain is to the problem throughout the game in short clips; such as who stole Zanthia's equipment, who is causing her so much strife on her journey to correct the problems the villain causes. The issue to me with this entry is they started adding more joke's and started being a touch more cartoony than from Book 1. The puzzle elements are still there as you now need to gather ingredients for alchemy potions and spells in place of the Magic Brandon used from book 1, but there is a more comedic side to it.

Book 3 took the cake and shot it out of the cannon; you take the role of Malcom from Book 1, as the mage's we're spending time removing any of his more magical abilities from his person while he was imprisoned. He once again break's free, though without a drop of magic and explores modern Kyrandia while trying to take revenge on Brandon himself without magic. With Kyrandia more organized, he has to to either clear his name as a murderer of the old king or find enough magic like Brandon to overtake Kyrandia again. He does the former and through a long set and string of event's from being temporarily dead, going to Limbo and returning, turning half the kingdom into Anthropoid Mice through other means which was not Malcom's doing and winning constant Tic-Tac-Toe game's with the ruler of Limbo as she has no literal patience or thought of strategy and considers tic-tac-toe the greatest game to test your ability to strategize. The team, I think they knew at this point, we're probably aware that this would be their last Kyrandia game and decided just to say f*ck it; we're going to have fun so this is what they did.

The Legend of Kyrandia has a difficult set of puzzles, some interesting, some straight forward and 1 or 2 moon logic puzzle's along with inventory management as you can't carry everything all at once and this actually adds some interesting difficulty. As with most point and click games, your inventory is always INFINITE, in this series, after book 1, you have to manage what you have on hand and at least whatever you drop stays dropped in that room or screen where you left it for you to come back and reclaim later if you need it. Beyond that, this was a fun series when I played it as a kid and you can still pick it up from Gog if you can spare a few buck's or need to play something that start's off properly before going completely comedic.

 

[Quto]

The Outbound Ghost​

Due to people taking an interest in PalWorld, I decided to post every Monster Keeping game for the next few days I've played and had experience with.

Starting with the one on the Fringe's, The Outbound Ghost where the whole game is you trying to regain your memory while trying to figure out who killed you and the citizens of the ghostly town you are in.

The battles have sort of a Pokemon meets Paper Mario, though the Pokemon are gained through the story and they are Figments that make up you. Such as Regret, Disgust, Loyalty, Callousness and Pain, so on and so forth. The Battles act like Paper Mario with the timed action hits and defenses to an extent and your figment's gain experience and learn new combat move's while progressing forward with a small joke here and there throughout the game.

It's a short post, but there's more to come in the coming week's. Stay tuned I guess.