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Dungeon Drafters is a Zelda-like dungeon crawl where you have unlimited lives and a classic SNES look and feel.

Dangen Entertainment provided us a code for their latest title, Dungeon Drafters and it is an experience that quite surprisingly felt both new and nostalgic. How can it be both? I know. it feels weird. Visually the game looks like some of the classic JRPG titles you would play on the Super Nintendo or even the Genesis, with an isometric dungeon crawl. This is most like some of the original Final Fantasy titles. That covers the nostalgia part of it, now on to the NEW. The combat mechanics are a blend of turn based combat, like a tactics game, and merges it with card abilities from a randomized deck. This cards perform actions like rappelling from one end of the map to the other or a flaming sword strike.

As you dungeon crawl through the various stages you will confront monsters and people to save. Sometimes the monsters will attack each other as well. The way to tell the difference is the color of the health bar. If it’s red, then you kill it with extreme prejudiced. If it’s gold however, you need to save them as quick as possible. If this part was explained somewhere I completely missed it. Each chamber of the map seems to get more difficult as time progresses so playing cautiously is important as you rarely get chances to heal. Most enemies can move or act two times per turn where the character I chose had three. Knowing this makes planning your moves even more important because you can force some enemies to lineup to make fighting them easier.

I plan on a minimum of one hour of gameplay prior to writing our reviews.  This game sucked me in and somehow I lost almost three hours and had no idea, I was just having fun while slashing my way through the Glacial Library. Some dungeons are harder than others and I think choosing the library was a mistake this early in my gameplay because I didn’t even complete a single floor before getting killed. Interacting with NPCs leads me to believe we will unlock additional characters in our party through the story which will make stages like this one easier to traverse. Not only did I have a great time with this one but my son who was watching me play enjoyed it as well and even helped me understand some of the ability cards I was using better.

In a cyberpunk world where corporations control everything you play as Jenet in Cybertrash STATYX from Sometimes You.

You begin Cybertrash Statyx as Jenet, waking up in a facility that is testing your body against numerous stressors. Things like being forced to run an obstacle course during the middle of the night when you should be sleeping. It’s obvious this corporation is EVIL because they are intentionally ruining your sleep. That is sacred. For that, they must pay! You are tested in challenge after challenge while the scientists and corporate bosses watch on.

The game is a two dimensional side scroller from Sometimes You and Uncle Frost Team where your goal is to survive this corporate run world by using their own tools and enhancements against them. Maybe you’ll even uncover a greater conspiracy while you’re at it?

The game looks like a classic title from the days of the Super Nintendo with solid combat mechanics. However where the game really fails is the movement controls. They can be quite sticky at times, especially when trying to jump and move forward at the same time. This has caused me to die more times than any failed reaction by falling short and running into an enemy. Being able to see cinematics and dialogue featuring the heads of the evil corporation make the story more engaging. This in turn makes the events around Jenet make more sense as well as she is fed only the most basic information. The poor movement mechanics do detract from the gameplay but the combat mechanics were surprisingly solid. Being able to switch weapons from item points allows you to better control the combat and made the game enjoyable.

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.

Aquaman returns for what appears to be the final move of the current DC Cinematic Universe.

Recently the folks at Warner Brothers sent us a copy of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, featuring Jason Mamoa. Unlike most sequels this film directly follows its predecessor in every way. That means it is a direct continuation of the previous film. The story had ended off with Arthur and Mera in love, Orm imprisoned, Black Manta off somewhere licking his wounds and Arthur remains the ruler of Atlantis.

The film starts with Arthur sharing the joys and frustrations of balancing, life, family, jobs and how much he misses the more simple days where he could simply punch his problems. To make matters worse, his son likes to target his face whenever he changes the diaper. Life does not sound too enjoyable for our hero. Black Manta is using this time to hunt the oceans for any sign of Atlantean technology to repair his broken suit so he can kill Aquaman once and for all.

Visually the film is absolutely stunning. The effect and detail of the underwater cities and creatures alone make the film worth watching. The dialogue can be a bit campy at times but not more so than the original film. The fight scenes were a lot of fun and well choreographed. Overall I had fun watching the film but I only had one main complaint, that Amber Heard wasn’t recast. It makes no sense that she would be allowed to continue in her role after being found as the guilty party but when she accused Depp of the same behavior he was immediately removed. It’s an odd double standard that frankly doesn’t make sese.

Cat and Ghostly Road is a point and click adventure from Sometimes You and BOV featuring BOV’s actual cat as protagonist.

For most of Cat and Ghostly Road you play as a white cat that is adopted by a local painter. The painter “falls ill” and it’s up to you to save him. Specifically after you drift off to sleep, a demon appears and steals the soul of the painter. It’s up to you to follow the demon and get it back. The premise of the game, at least to me, sounds pretty awesome already, however point and click adventures rarely keep me engaged enough that I don’t drift off to sleep at some point due to their tediousness and slow sections. Is this as awesome as I hoped are did I fall asleep part way through? Keep reading!

BOV and Sometimes You teamed up to publish the title, with the main character modeled after BOV’s real cat that they recued from under a bridge. This was about fifteen years ago. Observing this cat they were inspired to create this game, specifically from the fact that the real feline reminded them of a moon cat and they went from there. The game suffers from the typically slow paced monotony that most point and click adventures are plagued with. The quirky nature of the cat does help with some of this but isn’t enough to make it enough to keep me awake or hold my attention for two long, one of the downsides to my ADHD. If you enjoy point and click adventures or an excuse to play as a cat then this will be right up your alley. The thing this game gets right is the puzzles, some require you to essentially play minigames to resolve their objective but unfortunately these were few and far between. I found the game to be cute and easy to play and master but with just a little too much tedium.

The Feeding, by Drew Zucker and David Booher, is a horror story centered around a painting of the same name in a tale of hunger!

Written by David Booher and line art by Drew Zucker, The Feeding is a tale of a man surrounded by death and misery, some of which is tied to a painting. This painting, with the same name as the book itself, is hungry and needs to feed. It follows the life of Nolan Ward, a Day Trader and total douche, prick, asshole, take your pick, they all fit. No matter how much he tries to distance himself from it, the painting seems to always find it’s way back to Nolan so instead of trying to escape it he instead purchases it from an art gallery it seemed to appear in by anonymous donation and tries to feed it one last time.

The book is currently a one-shot that you can purchase through Zoop but I’m hoping that we see it become an anthology of some sort. Maybe a series about the painting interacting with various people and the ruin it causes, something along the lines of the Silver Coin. Overall the book is well written with even better art and as I said, I very much would like to see the painting return for either the occasional one-shot or even a full series. In the meantime, if you haven’t already I highly recommend Drew’s series Canto- one of the best fantasy series out to date and currently at Dark Horse comics.

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.

Emma Stone leads in Poor Things from Searchlight Pictures alongside Willem Dafoe in a twisted tale of self discovery and learning.

Poor Things from Searchlight Pictures features Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe, The film begins with Emma Stone jumping from a bridge to kill herself without any explanation. Just as suddenly we see her through a black and white lens and she walks like a toddler, her mind clearly underdeveloped. Again, no explanation, at least not at first. We soon learn that the woman is mostly the same as the one that jumped but that she had died on the operating table and the deceased brain was swapped with that of the brain of the unborn baby she carried. Through the entire film she gradually grows and develops her skills and abilities at a rapid rate. This is similar to an infant growing to adulthood, just in a much more accelerated rate.

Emma’s portrayal of Bella is absolutely brilliant, overshadowing the other cast members who take the spotlight less often. I would be shocked if she isn’t nominated for an Oscar for this role, along with the film itself and the makeup department. I don’t know if the makeup departments get nominated but for Willem’s many scars. The story itself is dark and twisted but done in a way that makes light of the mad science with a focus more on Bella’s personal development and growth. The film as a whole was brilliantly directed, acted and filmed but left me respecting the work and efforts of the whole cast but failed to provide a story I personally enjoyed. The film is now available through digital retailers.

Willy Wonka returns to tell his origin story from Warner Brothers and staring Timothee Chalamet!

Timothee Chalamet stars in Wonka as the main man himself, Willy, in the film from Warner Brothers. The film follows the early days of Willy after he completes seven years at sea collecting ingredients so he can start his own chocolate business and bring joy to the world through his creations. I had no idea this was going to be a musical. Willy immediately is noticed by the dastardly Chocolate Cartel who’s aim is to control the world through chocolate and believe that it should be simple.

The world is no place for the complexities and imagination in his treats. In a world designed to strip new comers of every sovereign they own, Willy runs afoul of a dastardly pair and must use his ingenuity to free himself from their employ. There he befriends a few others that were in similar circumstances and he was forced to work alongside them.

Visually the movie is a feast for the eyes and the cast are fantastic. The music I did not enjoy despite how well the cast performed the songs. The story was well written and felt like a perfect origin story to the master chocolate maker. My only complaint with the story was that we didn’t see his father in the story and I learned that this version of his father was only ever in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, my wife had to look it up and prove that I was wrong on that note. Overall, the film was a great experience to watch with the whole family.

Contagion has been re-released by Warner Brothers but this time in 4k!

Contagion was originally released by Warner Brothers in 2011 and focuses on the spread of an unknown disease as it rapidly spreads, originating in China. Nearly a decade before the world experienced it’s own real life version with Covid-19. In some ways the real story was worse but the other surrounding events and actions went better. In the film the fear of this virus caused an extreme reaction from the population. The film does a great job of painting our worst fears of what could have happened and what many of us thought would have happened. 

What many people don’t know about me is that I had contracted Covid-19 before it was named at the end of 2019 and was in a coma by New Years Eve of that year. I was one of the lucky ones and made it through. I still have PTSD from the experience and watching the film was a bit triggering. The first half hour of the film especially. It was physically difficult for me to watch.

The film was brilliantly filmed and an amazing cast. Watching it now it feels almost prophetic but the response of the population was a much more extreme version than what we had seen. Perhaps the film inspired better planning? If you have PTSD related to the pandemic this film will likely be difficult for you as well. The did a great job on the film but I expect I likely won’t be watching it again, even though it was released into 4k.