Category Ratalaika Games

Inspired by horror classics like, The Shining or The Exorcist, Skeler Boy is a tale of the lengths a teen will go to rescue his love in the latest title from Ratalaika Games!

Originally released on pc/steam by Maniac Studio and as of today, the team at Ratalaika Games have brought it over to consoles for our enjoyment. Skeler Boy is a tale of young love and the lengths our hero Skeler will go in order to save his girlfriend Megan. Currently the developers are working on editions that will be playable on both Gameboy and NES, but also currently working on the sequel. Oddly according to the Kickstarter that ended in 2021, both the Gameboy and NES versions have already been made. Perhaps they mean official release versions that are for others that didn’t participate in the Kickstarter? Time will tell on that one. What is surprising is that from this original release I couldn’t find any reviews. Literally the only mentions from that time simply refer to the status of the crowdfunding. This means I’ll be doing this one old school without knowledge of the things to watch out for and diving right in. The game starts you in a forest looking for Megan with your first real clue being a mysterious audio message.

Visually the game looks like it would fit as a classic SNES title, similar to many of the ports we’ve seen from Ratalaika. The game makes superb use of lighting which is essential for a great horror game. The game is filled with puzzles, many of which require a bit of thought before figuring them out and I expect to find many more along the way. There’s even a lockpicking section that seems like it is a bit on the realistic side and makes me wonder if it can really be this easy with the right tools? Maybe the designer has some real life experience there? The controls are easy to pickup, at least they are on Xbox, I haven’t tried on other systems so I can’t speak to them. Overall gameplay transitions between different views and how you interact with the puzzles making for a more engaging experience. Over the course of the hour I played it felt like I got quite far in the game and I expect that most player will wrap this one up within 5 hours or less. Overall it was a solid experience that uses a great deal of variety and ambiance to it’s advantage. Definitely has me curious about the pending sequel, hopefully this one will release simultaneously on the consoles at the same time.

Cyber Citizen Shockman is back for the final installment in the trilogy from Ratalaika Games with The Princess from Another World!

Cyber Citizen Shockman 3 was originally released in 1992 and has been resurrected by Ratalaika Games for current gen consoles. After winning the lottery and taking a much needed vacation, our two heroes, Arnold and Sonya, are forced to turn back into Shockman and defeat an alien threat that has ruined their vacation. This starts players on a side-scrolling adventure that looks and feels like they are still in the 90’s.

The game looks and feels like you are playing some of the run and gun classics from 90’s and looks like the continuation of the Cyber Citizen Shockman franchise that it is. For those that are new to the franchise it feels like a classic Mega-Man side scroller but without the thematic bosses who share a name with their power. The bosses in this game border on the extreme in difficulty compared to the stages themselves. This time around the gameplay is less sticky, meaning much smoother controls and animations. Which is great because in the first two installments I felt like I died more to incomplete jumps than anything else.

The game does lean towards feeling tedious as you press on between the difficult bosses and the repetitive gameplay. Visuals hit that nostalgic itch as does the gameplay itself and the story is humorous at times but not enough to keep me engaged long term.

Orion Haste from Ratalaika Games is their latest sidescroller shooter that has definite Contra vibes but with a Doom Guy cosplay.

The folks at Ratalaika Games shared another nostalgic filled title with us, this time with Orion Haste. OH is a run and gun side-scroller that pits you against an alien invasion with an array of weapons with unlimited ammo. That’s right! UNLIMITED AMMO! You play as a soldier, who remarkably looks like Doom Guy, who is tasked with ending the alien menace. Along the way you will find extra lives or health and the four weapons. Each stage starts you with having to find the weapons once again and I must say the electric beam is the best option for nearly EVERY fight. It is a never ending beam of destruction. It is great to wield. The only problem with the weapons is aiming. You are limited to up, down, left, right and the left and right upper diagonals. With using a controller with sticks for aiming I hoped for better control. This in turn limits your options when dodging the enemies.

Gameplay looks and feels like the classic Contra games in nearly every way. Even the level of difficulty felt the same. Besides the limited options for shooting the controls are quite fluid. I loved Contra and this hit me in the feels in all the right ways. I had a blast with this one. Thanks to the team at Ratalaika and PR Hound for sharing another nostalgia gem with us!

Outer Terror from Ratalaika Games is an isometric horror title that looks and feels like a twin stick shooter without a trigger.

Ratalaika Games has provided us with a code for their latest horror title, Outer Terror. The game looks and behaves like a twin-stick shooter. Only real difference is you don’t control your shots, they never stop shooting. Your focus, as far as controls are concerned, is on moving and triggering different abilities. As you level up you pick among three cards that will either heal you or power you up further. As each stage begins you get an introductory story clip with artwork that is very reminiscent of Charlie Adlard from The Walking Dead. Adlard is one of my favorite comic artists so I am absolutely here for these intros.

When you start the game there are four chapters and based on the achievement list there are others that will unlock later. As you complete chapters you collect money and can use these funds to pay for upgrades. The more you play, the more you’ll earn. The game is full of dodging and as a tip, the more money you pick up, the faster you’ll level up and that means the more upgrades you’ll unlock. By the time I finished episode 1 I had all upgrades finished within the level.

The gameplay art was a bit of a disappointment. As with most RG titles, the graphics look like it was developed for the Super Nintendo and I love them for that. However, with the fantastic intro art I was disappointed that the sprites weren’t rendered in the same style, by the same hands. Gameplay itself is smooth though and once you learn to read the map you can make quick work of some of the episodes. Overall I had a great time and look forward to seeing more of this great art as I play more episodes.

Code supplied on behalf of Ratalaika Games by PR Hound.

Xatrom Command is a twin stick shooter from the team at Ratalaika Games where you must stop the alien threat.

Aliens have invaded and it is up to you to stop them in Xatrom Command from Ratalaika Games. XC is a twin-stick shooter with blocky graphics where your objective is to kill everything alien you see. Many of these aliens a similar to animals and bugs from Earth, except some of the bosses. As with any twin-stick shooter, it is quite easy to get overwhelmed. Movement is key and NEVER stop shooting. The primary targets are tiny spider-looking things and some sort of four-legged green and purple creature. I thought it was also a bug at first but couldn’t figure out which kind. Later on you fight scorpions, snakes and tarantulas. Not to mention a boss every ten rooms or map squares.

The game is actually quite simple, not just in appearance but in controls. You have one stick to move, one to aim your gun and the right trigger to fire. Again, movement is key. Don’t let the bugs overwhelm you because you will lose health quickly. The good news is the green things that look like bushes regularly drop ammo and health.

At first glance I assumed the game would be just TOO simplistic. Between the graphics and controls there wasn’t much to it. I was wrong. Despite the simplicity I had a great time, so much so that in a single sitting I completed thirty five of the levels and every achievement in the game. Doing so took almost an hour to do total so this is a great one for achievement hunters too!

The team at Ratalaika Games have returned along with Stately Snail to release the sequel One More Dungeon 2.

Our friends of Ratalaika Games shared one of their latest titles, One More Dungeon 2, with us and we recently had the chance to sit down and give it a play. We had never heard of the franchise prior to the announcement of this sequel but based on images alone we were excited to dive right in. In both titles you play an unnamed adventurer. I don’t know much of the original storyline but in OMD2 you are held captive by a kingdom of snails, or are they snails and slugs? Either way, they are green and slimy looking, but in a cute way. To earn your freedom, you must run through the dungeons and remove the evil denizens there to keep them from raiding the snail-king’s domain. More than enough justification for me to explore these dangerous spaces.

As I mentioned, the slugs are pretty damn cute and the enemies themselves are rendered in a chunky art style that reminds me of the Super-Hero Squad line that Hasbro released over a decade ago. The stages are randomly generated with each expedition but are hampered by the controls. Most games with a poor controller setup have a chance to make up for this by having easier gameplay, an engaging story or stellar graphics. The controls for this game are obscenely sticky, making aiming with ranged weapons quite difficult. They were so bad that they turned what would have been a great game into one that is only okay. The difficulty (when set higher) was much higher than I expected and provided a great challenge that was made more frustrating by these same controller issues. Overall we enjoyed the game but, without the necessary controls making it nearly impossible at times, it fell short of its potential.

Nukes have fallen and the world all but destroyed in Unlife from Ratalaika Games.

Unlife begins with what looks like vintage, archival footage of the days leading to the end of the world. Bombs falling on city centers and mushroom clouds. It’s a rather grim sight. You play as Michael, the last surviving member of a rescue team and who’s blood may mean the cure to the infection spread by the monsters from the Black Sea. Combining his blood and that of the creatures stops or slows his own infection and may be the key needed for that cure.

The game controls, level formatting and general vibe remind me so much of Shadow Complex from the 360. I absolutely loved that game. With Unlife, the graphics are not nearly as clean but they do the job well enough. In terms of graphics think of Terraria but with a darker pallet. The game suffers from some poor writing but I have a feeling it was originally written in another language and then translated by Google Translate. This is even more apparent when you die. At death you get a message similar to the iconic “You Died” message in Resident Evil and instead see “You Dead”.

Released by Ratalaika Games on Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5 and Xbox One, the game seems to be one of the few truly original titles from them and not a port or remaster. While much of the game, as I mentioned, reminded me of Shadow Complex it wasn’t enough like it to fully scratch that nostalgic itch. However I found the game to be less smooth with inferior graphics but with the darker tones it actually worked well within the world of the game and game the combat and overall surviving more difficult. The game was fun with enough similarities to keep me playing for a couple hours and the added difficulty, whether intentional or not, kept me playing a bit longer.

The first Adventures of Panzer title was released in 2021 and was rereleased along with it’s sequel in the Legacy Collection from Ratalaika Games.

Originally created by PixelCraft Games in 2021, The Adventures of Panzer is a side scrolling adventure designed to be played on the original NES. A sequel was later developed and added alongside the first for the Legacy Collection release on current generation consoles. This was with the help of Ratalaika Games. You play as General Panzer, a raid leader, who first must find his friend from his raiding party and embark on the most harrowing adventure of his raiding career.

When playing the game I didn’t realize how recent the original was released and immediately began to question it once the first NPCs began talking. Playing a game that looks like it is straight out of the 80’s but dialogue that came from players preparing for a session of World of Warcraft had me really confused. It was also funny as hell. The two experiences shouldn’t have worked as well as they did but they did work. Gameplay felt exactly like I would expect from what I thought was an NES classic. The controls are a little stiff but feels absolutely right for a game that looks the way it does. Further enforcing the NES classic vibe of the game is how unforgiving it is. If you rush forward you will inevitably get injured, frequently. You’ll also fall to your death, quite a bit.

With everything in the experience telling my mind that this was a classic I had never experienced when it came out in the 80’s it left me thinking I was deprived of an experience I should have had. Having actually been released in 2021 I’m actually surprised I had never heard of it until this year. Clearly PixelCraft had done a poor job on marketing it because former NES players will love this one and with the current generation release of the Legacy Collection they now have no excuse to jump in. Same goes for the second game in the series that is also included. They are not only worth playing but are easily some of the best to be released from Ratalaika to date.

In Fearmonium from Ratalaika Games you play a Phobia of a young boy, collecting and defeating his fears.

The folks at Ratalaika Games have deviated from their normal platform of simply restoring vintage titles and have added Fearmonium to their ever growing library. Max is a teen plagued by fears and phobias. You play as one of these phobias and are on a quest to help Max not only overcome his fears but to embrace some of them. Let’s face it, a little fear can be healthy at times.

The game is a Metroidvania, meaning a platformer in the style of Metroid or Castlevania, where you move through various parts of Max’s mind, eliminating the things that plague him while also collecting balloons as currency. The art style looks like it was hand-drawn like Cuphead with a similar macabre style where the more hideous things in Max’s head are actually there to assist you. Reviewing the details about the game I can confirm that it is hand-drawn. Unlike Cuphead though is that the story is primarily told through comic book-styled panels.

Lady Depression runs most of the nightmare-scape that is Max’s head and assists you from time to time by providing advice. More often than not though, the advice is simply to remind you save the game often. The phobia you play as looks very much like a female version of Pennywise in the art but in game looks less like the terrible clown and more like clown that is meant to look more sad and painted in predominantly blacks and whites. I found the stages to be rather simple in their layout with sections clearly meant to return to with no obvious way of reaching them but otherwise quite easy to navigate. The art is clean and draws you in to the darkness as you eliminate every foe in your path. The game as a whole was enjoyable but not entirely engaging in terms of story. That being said, it may just be that I haven’t spent enough time in the game but it felt like it was lacking in overall substance even though most Metroidvanias are focused more on the mechanics than they are on story.

Murder is Game Over is murder mystery title from Ratalaika Games the features a detective and his dog but they aren’t part of Mystery Inc.

Ratalaika Games brings another graphics-nostalgia title with Murder is Game Over. You play as Detective Guy and his dog Cleo. You’ve both been summoned to a castle in rural Vermont to investigate the murder of a famous game designer. This is the first of three games in the franchise and the first to come to consoles. The copy provided to us for our review was for the Xbox One Series X.

As you play the game you can swap between Guy and Cleo on the fly. This is essential to the gameplay because when questioning suspects you need to be in control of Guy and when looking for clues you need Cleo. Hidden throughout the map are not just clues but also doggy bags. To get the best ending you need to find all thirty doggy bags and as long as you do most of your walking as Cleo you won’t have trouble finding them all. There is also a hidden treasure you might find that helps towards finding the true ending as well. The officer on scene tells you at the start to return to her when you are ready to make an arrest but you are blocked from doing so until you find all the clues.

Once you have all the clues you go through a list of the suspects and their motives, like watching Hercules Poirot or Sherlock, as you explain why each suspect couldn’t have done it and then in detail explain who the real culprit was. There are a few missable achievements so I suggest reviewing the descriptions FIRST. The two easiest are petting the cat and finding the bear in the woods.

Visually the game looks and feels like the classic Zelda: A Link to the Past. The controls are simple and work well with the game. The overall experience interesting. The story begins with an excessive amount of dialogue that must be read and is quite dry. I admit that I was tired when I started and fell asleep during the intro twice (at least). Once I got control of the character tough and started interacting with the story it started to pick up and kept me awake until completing the game in a single sitting. The complete story and the whodunit at the end made it worth the experience and overall I enjoyed the game, I just suggest not being sleepy when you start it because you might have some difficulty at the start.