Topic: 4th Annual NWR Four on Four

[M.K.Ultra]

Hey there forum denizens! It's April and you know what that means...time to reel in those Playdates, set those Quests to roomscale, attach those 32x's, and unfold those DS's. That's right, it's the fourth month of the year and a very special 4th annual Four on Four community event!

The basic idea is to complete four games from four different systems during the month of April. This will encourage us to play more games and as well as games on different systems. Feel free to modify the rules as you see fit. You could use the system the game was originally released on rather than the system you played it on. Or maybe you just play four games on four different system without beating them. Personally, I am going to pick some games that I have already started and plan to finish in April

Just post the games you are playing and what system you are playing them on and have fun! I also like to report back when I beat or complete a game and have this temporarily take over as the "What is the last game you beat?" topic of the month.

[M.K.Ultra]

As usual I am coming into April with quite a few games already started so finishing four should be quite reasonable, though which four is not clear at the moment. I will throw out the likely candidates:

• Wii Sports Club - I am playing this on Wii U of course. I have been tackling this one sport at a time and treating it like a compilation. I have previously completed Tennis and am now working on Baseball. "Beating" these games is a bit nebulous, but "completing" them is easily identified by getting all ten of the in-game stamps. I currently have 9/10 stamps and just need the last.
• Fire Emblem Engage - I am playing this on, you guessed it, Nintendo Switch. I am just going for all the main chapters and prologues and I am currently on Chapter 23 out of 26.
• Cult of the Lamb - While this is available on Switch, the NWR review mentioned significant performance issues so I picked this up for Playstation 5. I am eventually going for completion but this month just aiming for beating the main campaign, which is about 75% done.
• Cyberpunk 2077 - I was given the Xbox One discs for this and held out until I had a Series X to play the better version on. The game is really long as you might expect and 60 hours in I am only about halfway done. I might try to put some serious hours into the main campaign and beat this to get a fourth game on a fourth console but there are some others that might take this spot.

I will try and report back as I beat/complete games but you can always see what I am doing on Backloggery (link in the signature). Feel free to share your plans for the month or just post as you play.

[M.K.Ultra]

I completed the Baseball game within Wii Sports Club a few days ago by collecting the last of the ten stamps. This game is a Wii U exclusive and you might be wondering why it wasn't called "Wii U Sports". My memory is a little unclear but I seem to recall that in addition to buying this game as a whole package for the standard price, you could buy individual sports for a cheaper price and you could buy club passes, which allowed you to essentially rent the game, playing for 48 hours (or something like that). I think that approach to buying the game led to the "Club" branding in the name. I remember getting a couple free club passes and maybe using one of them. I was watching the game for a discount and don't remember it ever getting one. I eventually paid full price for the game many years later when the online community had already dissipated. Still, the retail version now goes for around more than that.
I did not have a Wii at launch and did not play Wii Sports regularly, but with this version really seems to replace the Wii version with HD visuals, Wii motion plus, and use of the Gamepad. The in-game achievement system of stamps is also back from the Wii version and I think this really gives you some nice goals for playing this single player. I plan to get all the stamps, but each sport is a bit of an undertaking so I am doing them one at a time. I got all ten stamps for tennis in February of 2022. That only tool my 11 hours. That game also did not use the Gamepad. This year I have been playing Baseball which took about 17 hours and uses the gamepad for the pitching/fielding half of the sport.
As I mentioned there are ten stamps to get and six of them should just happen from playing: hit a home run, strike-out one batter, catch ten fly balls, make all batters bat in one inning, shut out the other team, and hit a single, double, triple, and home run in one game. There is a leveling system and you start out facing really easy opponents. The trick is to get adept at the game before your opponents get too difficult. There are two other stamps that might be tough to get: retire the other side within three pitches and strike out three batters in a row. Again these are easy with the level 1 team, but when I was facing them I was just learning to play. You could always restart by clearing your save or using another profile but I managed to figure out the pitching just in time to get these two stamps. Then there are the two remaining stamps. One is to beat the baseball champion Enrique. I found this pretty difficult and there is no help online that I could find. If I was going to lose I would restart the game and after about a dozen false starts I managed to figure out how to beat Enrique. It felt really good, just the right level of challenge. Then there is the last stamp, hit 100 home runs (Centurion Hero stamp in the picture below). I thought this would happen on the natch as I collected the others but after beating Enrique I only had about 60 home runs. At my current level I usually just get one or two home runs per game so it was going to take far too long to get the other forty. So I did cheese this last stamp and farmed the remaining home runs in two player games played against myself. There is still some skill involved there to be able to pitch and hit at the same time so I managed to enjoy the metagame in it.
I did not pick up Switch sports because I still have this game to finish but it doesn't look like baseball made the cut with that one. So for folks looking for some motion control baseball I would highly recommend this game.

[Evan_B]

I'm obviously already chronicling my backlog odyssey in another thread, but my Four on Four for this April is as follows:

Oom on Playdate. After a hearty recommendation on the NWR Discord and picking both it and Mars After Midnight up, I can say that this one grips me far more as a first impression- no hate on MAM, but as a game concept its a bit more laid back and abstract, and I can appreciate that, but it feels like more of a slow burn.

On Switch, I think I'm going to split the difference between Signalis and Frogun, the latter of which I already started and assume won't take me very long. Sginalis is a game I've been itching to play for a while, although the first game complete screen is apparently not the end of the full experience.

On SNES/Analogue, I'm going to set my sights on Dark Half, an obscure JRPG that received a translation patch for those unable to get their hands on its Japan-only release. It's known for having gameplay that covers both sides of a demonic conflict, with the unabashedly evil demon lord comprising half of the playable experience. It's fun consuming souls, trust me.

I'm going to end my selections with the 3DS, namely Bye Bye BoxBoy!. A simple puzzle platformer that can likely be easily completed within the month, and BoxBoy is generally fun, if not a bit one-note. Trying to stay realistic with what I can complete in the span of a month.

[M.K.Ultra]

Hey there forum denizens! It's April and you know what that means...time to reel in those Playdates,...

I'm obviously already chronicling my backlog odyssey in another thread, but my Four on Four for this April is as follows:

Oom on Playdate....

Please tell me Oom uses the crank so that you are actually "reeling in your Pladate" 

[Evan_B]

Hey there forum denizens! It's April and you know what that means...time to reel in those Playdates,...

I'm obviously already chronicling my backlog odyssey in another thread, but my Four on Four for this April is as follows:

Oom on Playdate....

Please tell me Oom uses the crank so that you are actually "reeling in your Pladate" 

It does! You angle your movement and attack trajectory by rotating the crank. It’s pretty intuitive. I’ve played a number of Playdate games that over-emphasize/hyper fixate on the crank and some that don’t use it at all. Oom is the perfect balance of every single input on the Playdate- even docking the crank does something!

[lolmonade]

I like this idea!

Working to clean up my backlog, here's what's in my queue.  Will report back once I notch them off the beat list.

Astral Chain (Switch)

Returnal (PS5)

The Lion King (Sega Genesis)

Anomaly Agent (PC)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Xbox series X)

Mario Golf - Game Boy

[lolmonade]

• Cult of the Lamb - While this is available on Switch, the NWR review mentioned significant performance issues so I picked this up for Playstation 5. I am eventually going for completion but this month just aiming for beating the main campaign, which is about 75% done.

I was pretty disappointed in the Switch version at launch, the performance issues really sunk my grade.  I hope for the Switch players Devolver cleaned it up a bit, but would definitely recommend other platforms.

[M.K.Ultra]

I like this idea!

Working to clean up my backlog, here's what's in my queue.  Will report back once I notch them off the beat list.

Astral Chain (Switch)

Returnal (PS5)

The Lion King (Sega Genesis)

Anomaly Agent (PC)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Xbox series X)

Mario Golf - Game Boy

6 on 6!  Very impressive.
Astral Chain is one of my favorite Switch exclusives (probably top five). I also have Hellblade for XBox on my backlog so looking forward to your thoughts on each of these.

[lolmonade]

Don't expect 6/6 for me, I'm just trying to give myself a wide berth for success 

[Luigi Dude]

Well I've got one done so far.

Yooka-Laylee

I first started this game about 2.5 years ago but only played for an hour because I was falling asleep.  Well last fall I played A Hat in Time and loved that game, and then I beat New Super Lucky Tale last month and liked that as well, so I thought, maybe I should give Yooka-Laylee another chance since I've been liking these other 3D platformers recently.

Well it started out OK.  Once I unlocked all 3 moves in the first world and expanded it, I actually started having fun.  I still don't get why they thought it was a good idea to make you have to expand each world, since it just makes your first time in each world feel like a waste since exploring some parts will just lead to a dead end until the world is expanded, which kind of defeats the whole point of exploring.

Overall I enjoyed the game because of the huge variety of gameplay in it, but this was also the biggest problem.  For every section of the game I enjoyed, there was another section that was janky bullshit.  The developers really should have scaled down the size of the game, and focused more on polishing up what was in it, instead of trying to throw in as much stuff as possible, whether it was a good idea or not.

So now I'll move to the next Yooka-Laylee game, Impossible Lair which I also played 2.5 years ago but stopped because the first hour was so boring I was falling asleep.  Hopefully it picks up like this one did, but without all the unpolished garbage that this one ended up having.

[M.K.Ultra]

Well I've got one done so far.

Yooka-Laylee

Overall I enjoyed the game because of the huge variety of gameplay in it, but this was also the biggest problem.  For every section of the game I enjoyed, there was another section that was janky bullshit.  The developers really should have scaled down the size of the game, and focused more on polishing up what was in it, instead of trying to throw in as much stuff as possible, whether it was a good idea or not.

So now I'll move to the next Yooka-Laylee game, Impossible Lair which I also played 2.5 years ago but stopped because the first hour was so boring I was falling asleep.  Hopefully it picks up like this one did, but without all the unpolished garbage that this one ended up having.

I was so hyped for Yooka Laylee and even backed the game on kickstarter. I was left feeling it was just OK. I did give Impossible Lair a chance and thought that was much more my style as the DKC games are some of my favorite. I am curious to hear your thoughts after you finish the final level.

[M.K.Ultra]

I managed to beat Fire Emblem Engage on Switch this week. Total play time was about 58 hours and I managed to get 294 achievements. If anyone knows the total number of achievements available in the game let me know. I played all the paralogues and main chapters. I did not try out the skirmishes or online battles in the Somniel yet.

This was my third Fire Emblem game. Three Houses was my first and I really enjoyed it so I picked up and played  Birthright. Three Houses' professor simulator components were fun and the in-between battle activities here certainly don't compare, but the battles themselves seemed more true to form with the various weakness triangle systems.

I thought the characters here were just as strong as Three Houses and think the Four Hounds were especially interesting. You can see from the bottom picture that Ivy was my favorite so I ended up pairing up with her.

I played on normal difficulty, but in classic mode (permadeath on). The way new characters are added to the team really supports this and I ended up not using quite a few from the initial roster later on so I was probably over careful with not letting them die. Even when they do die, they still appear in cut scenes, but the end credits acknowledges their deaths.

There is certainly not as much replay value as Three Houses, but I will likely replay on the harder difficulty and maybe try out the online battles in the future. Looking forward to the next Fire Emblem game.

[Evan_B]

…Well, I’m going to have to revise my list a little bit.

Both Signalis and Frogun have been absolutely miserable experiences, and no surprise, because both rely heavily on absolutely terrible auto-aim systems as a core part of their gameplay. I tried Frogun first, beg cause I thought somewhere in my heart that I had nostalgia for old 3D platformers. If I did, they weren’t platformers like Frogun, which crams an insane amount of collectibles in every level and expects you to pick them all up in a single go in order to earn one of its meta-emblems. Stop this. I hate it. Also, the controls are bad! Yes, the Frogun has a bad aiming mechanic and in a very time-sensitive platformer, using a static “aim yourself system” to reposition and avoid the awful auto aim is not a suitable solution. The music is incredibly grating and it makes me not want to play the game.

Then, there’s Signalis. Visually, this game is stunning, and I can’t fault it for its atmosphere… until it becomes a rip off of Silent Hill in the later hours of the first playthrough. Actually, I really don’t have a lot of sympathy for the game’s mixture of cosmic horror and sci-fi elements in general, which become a bit ham-fisted and trope-y. I am not scared by Signalis. It doesn’t fill me with dread from a narrative standpoint, only a gameplay one, because holy ****, this game’s inventory management system is a hot mess. The amount of times I’ve had to backtrack for no reason other than “I don’t have enough space for the amount of resources and puzzle keys this game has thrown at me” is obscene. I mean. There’s a puzzle that requires six keys. SIX. I would have honestly respected the game a bit more if it had the balls to make me put all of them in at the same time, but no, it’s just a slow back and forth to get them all into the right slots. Also, Signalis has a number of really decent puzzles, but it also has a tendency to do the “here’s one key that leads to another room with another key” thing. And lastly, the enemy design, which makes sense to make uniform because you’re dealing with mass-produced robots, is also very inscrutable because of the low-res graphics, which makes the very unappealing decision to have certain enemies require getting burned to really bite it (which requires another resource that takes up another slot in your inventory) very annoying and disrespectful. Oh, and apparently I’m playing the improved version? With better inventory management?!

I can’t fault Signalis for its visuals, but I sure as hell think its world-building is bland, getting away with its obscurity because… well, we as a society tend to conflate ambiguity with depth or nuance. Anyway, I also really appreciate its scope and ambition, but Anno:Mutationem is a game with just as much visual style and inscrutable narrative, and it’s ultimately more fun to play.

…So now I’m trying Bleak Sword DX. We’ll see how that goes.

[M.K.Ultra]

…Well, I’m going to have to revise my list a little bit.

Both Signalis and Frogun have been absolutely miserable experiences, and no surprise, because both rely heavily on absolutely terrible auto-aim systems as a core part of their gameplay. I tried Frogun first, beg cause I thought somewhere in my heart that I had nostalgia for old 3D platformers. If I did, they weren’t platformers like Frogun, which crams an insane amount of collectibles in every level and expects you to pick them all up in a single go in order to earn one of its meta-emblems. Stop this. I hate it. Also, the controls are bad! Yes, the Frogun has a bad aiming mechanic and in a very time-sensitive platformer, using a static “aim yourself system” to reposition and avoid the awful auto aim is not a suitable solution. The music is incredibly grating and it makes me not want to play the game.

I remember Frogun because of the Limited Run cartridge that they sold. It did remind me of Yooka Laylee and did not look very polished, but it had a cute aesthetic. I think with platformers, both 2D and 3D, the controls are so important so it sounds like that is a deal breaker for this one in particular.

Well the month is half over, but there is still time to play some more games. I should have a post about another one very soon.

[M.K.Ultra]

Three on three as I rolled credits on Cult of the Lamb on the Playstation 5. I knew as soon as I saw a preview of this game on a Devolver Digital direct that this was for me. For the uninitiated this is a self-described cult simulator. It actually combines a village sim (e.g., Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley) with a dungeon crawler (e.g., Binding of Isaac). The juxtaposition is done well within the context of the game and both halves form a refreshingly addictive game loop. Speaking of juxtaposition, the style here mixes cute with demonic in such a cool way that I really felt a connection with the game. I can make super cute animal friends and dress them up and then go ahead and brainwash them mushrooms (see image above) or lock them in a pillory or much much worse.

I did play this couch co-op with my partner who handled the village sim half while I wreaked havoc on the missionary side. This is available on switch but the review on this site mentioned performance issues and honestly, the PS5 struggles to keep up at some points. They really layered a lot of systems and when you have 20 followers the game has a tough time keeping up.

I was going for completion but the two DLC updates added on to the collectibles enough to really double the playtime of the game. I played a little bit of the post game and it adds mostly to the dungeon crawling half so I found myself mostly setting the village on autopilot while I went out on more missions. I think I am done for now but intend to go back for the platinum trophy at some point. For now, it is full steam ahead on my fourth game which I can definitely finish, but want to 100% complete before the month is out.

[Luigi Dude]

Yooka Laylee and The Impossible Lair

So I must have been really tired when I first played this years ago because this game was pretty awesome.  It's basically a new Donkey Kong Country game, except you play as a Chameleon instead of an Ape.  Even the first few levels that I said bored me to sleep, were actually pretty fun when replayed and levels kept getting better as I went on.

I am curious to hear your thoughts after you finish the final level.

For the final level, the Impossible Lair which seems to be what is controversial about this game, I liked it for the most part.  I was getting frustrated because I'd keep getting to the end of the 2nd section, with only a few bee's left, and when I saw I was only about 50% done with it, thought the remainder would be just has hard if not harder, so I get replaying the 2nd section until I could finish it with at least over half of my bee's still on me.  Eventually I was able to beat the 2nd section with 26 Bee's still left, and then I finally did the rest of it and it turns out I didn't even need anywhere close to that many because the 2nd half of the Impossible Lair was much easier then the first half.  So I found that like 90% of the Impossible Lairs challenge is in the 2nd section because it had quite a few BS area's that are almost impossible to avoid damage, while the 1st, 3rd and 4th were pretty fair.

I was disappointed that the reward for collecting all the medals in each level just unlocks a pointless 4th Tonic slot.  Collecting things like that are what would unlock the hidden levels in DKC 2 and 3.  Feels like such a downgrade to not offer some final hidden level for collecting all of them.

[M.K.Ultra]

Yooka Laylee and The Impossible Lair

It's basically a new Donkey Kong Country game, except you play as a Chameleon instead of an Ape.

I know right. I really enjoyed it much more than the 3D Yooka Laylee game. Of course I have nostalgia for the DKC games but did not play Rare's 3D stuff.

For the final level, the Impossible Lair which seems to be what is controversial about this game, I liked it for the most part.  I was getting frustrated because I'd keep getting to the end of the 2nd section, with only a few bee's left, and when I saw I was only about 50% done with it, thought the remainder would be just has hard if not harder, so I get replaying the 2nd section until I could finish it with at least over half of my bee's still on me.  Eventually I was able to beat the 2nd section with 26 Bee's still left, and then I finally did the rest of it and it turns out I didn't even need anywhere close to that many because the 2nd half of the Impossible Lair was much easier then the first half.  So I found that like 90% of the Impossible Lairs challenge is in the 2nd section because it had quite a few BS area's that are almost impossible to avoid damage, while the 1st, 3rd and 4th were pretty fair.

I think I remember something similar happening where I got stuck with the middle part but when finally beat the eponymous impossible lair I had plenty of bees. I was then able to beat it again after that and do even better. It suddenly seemed so easy. I thought that was clever design on the part of Playtonic.

Say, what are they up to now...

[Luigi Dude]

Say, what are they up to now...

They've been publishing several games from other studio's, but haven't made a game themselves in about 5 years now.  They say there's working on a new title, but haven't announced what it is yet.  They've said the biggest problem with the first Yooka Laylee was they needed more people and more time, so the fact they been able to work on a new game for 5 years without having to resort to kickstarter again is a pretty good sign.

So yeah I can't wait to see what the next game they've been working on will be.

[M.K.Ultra]

Well the month is almost over so it is about time to wrap this event up. I was able to beat two more games ending up with five on five for the month.

First up is Paper Beast which I played on PSVR/PS4. This is a short VR experience and I found to be really enjoyable. It was a little rough going back to PSVR after playing PSVR2. In fact, after playing I realized there is a PSVR2 version of this game. I am not sure if one is able to just upgrade for free or not. The game is very weird and the less I try to explain it the better. I liked how little direction you were given so that the overall question of what to do ended up being the puzzle to solve. There are also some cool things to explore that don't seem to have anything to do with progression. Beating the game only took about 4 hours and I ended up with about 8/22 trophies. There is a sandbox mode but that did not seem like my thing. I am interested in going back to get the rest of the trophies eventually. Definitely looking forward to whatever Pixel Reef does next.

Last but not least is the monumentous Cyberpunk 2077 which I played on XBox Series X. I just got a series X and this is the only game I have played on it so far. As I mentioned before someone gave me the XBox One disc and that enabled the free upgrade. The game looks and sounds great, though it is still buggy. The game does not seem to like the Quick Resume feature as I had to fully reset the console multiple times to avoid bugs. The cyberpunk environment is cool but the stories, characters, and quests are where the game shined for me. This really makes me interested in picking up The Witcher 3. I ended up putting about 100 hours into the game and have all but one achievement which I plan to get tonight. That does not include the Phantom Liberty DLC which I am also interested in picking up sometime.

Feel free to post into May with any updates on your progress from April and join us again next year. Also look forward to the next event, which might be Backlaugust but I have an idea for something else to do in June.

[Luigi Dude]

Well I got two more done by the end of the month, so I got 4 all together for the month after all.

Raging Blasters

Well this is an indie vertical scroll shmup, that's clearly based off of older titles from the early 90's.  Not much to say, since it was a pretty short game that doesn't really do anything different from other vertical shmup's, but it was still a fun game.  If you like shmup's, then I'd recommend it.  It's actually on the easy side of shmup's , since I was actually able to beat the hardest difficulty, which is something I'm almost never able to do in these kind of games.

I find it kind of funny how when I beat the game on Normal mode my final score got me in the 600's on the online leaderboard.  When I beat it on Hard mode by top score was in the top 200's.  Then when I beat it on Expert mode I'm rank at 48.  Goes to show that most people really don't play games on the higher difficulty settings.  Beating the game on Normal mode made my score nothing too special, but just beating it on the highest difficulty makes me one of the top 50 players in the world in that difficulties rank.


Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider

Now this game is awesome.  It's like if you combined the Shinobi games with the Mega Man X/Zero games.  If you're a fan of either of those series, this game is filled with call backs to both.  The one negative is it's kind of on the easier side and I wish it had a Hard mode like Joymasher (the developer of this games) previous titles all had.  The game took me less than 5 hours to beat and that was with finding 100% of items, so it's a pretty short titles as well.  But like I said earlier, if you're a fan of the older Shinobi games, the Mega Man X/Zero games or both, the game has more then enough stuff going on to give you a good time during those few hours.

[Evan_B]

Well, I only ended up finishing Oom and Sayonara Wild Hearts. In my defense, I tried giving Signalis, Frogun, and Bloodstained on Switch a fair shake before throwing in the towel.

[M.K.Ultra]

Well, I only ended up finishing Oom and Sayonara Wild Hearts. In my defense, I tried giving Signalis, Frogun, and Bloodstained on Switch a fair shake before throwing in the towel.

What did you think of Sayonara Wild Hearts?

What made you give up on Bloodstained?

[Evan_B]

Sayonara Wild Hearts is a near-perfect experience. I think it doesn’t do a great job of explaining its mechanics, but it honestly doesn’t have to- every action is so straightforward and simple to execute, the game’s overwhelming amount of visual and auditory information is made interactive with ease.

I do question the structure of a first playthrough. Each Heartbreak does make sense as an isolated level and experience, but the way that battles are broken into multiple stages and the relative shortness of each sometimes makes me wish they were a bit longer. Because the game is relatively consequence-free, you can complete each stage with ease, and the way they are broken up does make sense for score chasing and mastery. But, I don’t think many people are aiming for either of those things on a first playthrough, and the full-play mode seems like a better fit for a first time around than the way it’s currently presented. This is an incredibly minor critique that is largely based on my own preferences.

The game is widely appreciated for good reason. It doesn’t take its rhythm roots too seriously (except when it does), nor is it highly punitive in the same way as other score chasers.


Bloodstained, on the other hand, suffers from being on the Switch, or at least, that console not having a great deal of priority/optimization. The instrumentation of a lot of the background music was also a bummer.

[M.K.Ultra]

Bloodstained, on the other hand, suffers from being on the Switch, or at least, that console not having a great deal of priority/optimization. The instrumentation of a lot of the background music was also a bummer.

I believe it was really bad at launch and a an update made it much better. I think I waited for that and it seemed to be functional. I actually just got an email from Igarashi and Company that the final update for the game is expected soon. I might go back and try some of these new modes this summer.