The SteamWorld series of games has been an exploration of disparate genres, with the team always careful about returning to ideas. But it does happen! Like Dig 2 before it, SteamWorld Heist II seeks to iterate upon the original’s mechanics with years of hindsight and extra development expertise.

Heist II moves from the first game’s space setting to an ocean one, with players navigating the world in a submarine. Functionally, these are very similar! So it feels a lot like the original. Instead of the menu-based approach of its predecessor, this entry takes a Mario + Rabbids approach, using an adventure overworld with light exploration and naval skirmishes.

This scheme is designed to break up the tactical combat with world-building, and the team at Thunderful tried hard to make it fun to explore the map even if the rewards aren’t always particularly consequential. You’ll find secret passages. You’ll encounter little narrative moments. The water effects as the sub zips around are satisfying. There’s even a diving mechanic that doesn’t really get explored until the late game but serves to give the world dimension.

But the primary attraction of SteamWorld Heist II is definitely the combat missions. In a lot of ways, they’re reminiscent of the first: areas composed of rooms and doors that are regularly re-used and configured, with a variety of obstacles and enemies to aim weapons through. We can forgive a lot of the iterative nature, though, given its role as a sequel and the way this system is distinct from all major tactical alternatives. It’s accurate enough to call it “2D XCOM,” but the 2D part of that does fundamentally set it apart in both presentation and tactics.

The combat is, more than anything, about action economy and finding tricks to take out more enemies at once and keep your head above water against enemy waves. Sidearms and grenades, along with class-specific abilities, allow you to attack more than once in a turn. Weapons with a large blast radius can hit more foes if placed right. Unlockable abilities can cause attacks to not end your turn or give you extra movement to reach objectives faster. This focus, again, feels a lot like Mario + Rabbids! Which is definitely a good thing. We found ourselves emptying our cupboard of extras each turn before finally using the characters’ primary weapons on whatever was left alive.

There are multiple difficulty options in the game and you can change on the fly if needed, but if you’re having trouble with a particular stage, you can also grind for job levels and equipment. This isn’t a huge change to your power or capability, often just giving you slightly more survivability or one more skill. But that can be the difference between staying on top of enemy waves and finding yourself underwater.

The world is broken up into regions, which largely function as the game’s chapters and each feature a bar for resting, shops and narrative moments. Each party member can fight once before resting, which means you’ll eventually be able to fight a few times before returning, but that does build up over the game. Missions earn “renown,” a currency you cash in when you rest for rewards. If you’re able to use the whole team and do a lot in the same day, you’ll be able to redeem for the higher-value rewards. These aren’t necessary, but they’re usually quite nice to have. You also unlock a special passive reward for completing everything in a region. Again, not necessary, but you’ll want them and they’re not too tough to do.

You recruit new party members at these bars, each with the ability to learn any class, but carrying personal skills that could lean them toward particular strategies. You have some player freedom to recruit in different orders, eventually unlocking all ten, but with some choice of who you need first and who you can wait for until later when you have space in the crew. They’ll have little quips during missions to make them feel like a part of the story, but they’re mostly there to support protagonist Captain Leeway through his journey while he largely doesn’t participate in fights himself.

Heist II is, in a technical sense, a very smooth experience, which makes sense for a sequel to a game formulated to work within 3DS specs that’s releasing on all active platforms regardless of capability. We did review the game on PC, for what that’s worth, but it’s the sort of game that doesn’t feel like it’s trying anything that would trip up low-spec devices.

SteamWorld Heist II takes the things that worked in the original Heist and, well, gives players more of them. It’s well-considered in so many ways, making sure you’ll have a good time exploring its ideas for as long as it holds you. It ain’t exciting or revolutionary, really, but it sure is fun.

SteamWorld Heist II launches August 8, 2024 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.

The post Review: SteamWorld Heist II Aims to Please appeared first on Siliconera.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game Shrouded Fable set is 2024’s special summer release, which means it’s largely only available as part of special boxed collections. Like 151 and Pokemon Go before it, it’s meant to be primarily for collectors. It builds around the story of Scarlet and Violet’s expansion adventures, and chooses as its centerpiece the new Pecharunt and its darkness-possessed legendary minions.

Given that this premise isn’t “mobile game phenomenon” or “Kanto nostalgia” levels of broad appeal, Shrouded Fable has its work cut out for it. It feels like The Pokemon Company knows that, as it’s introducing a Poke Ball foil pattern in the set to make it feel a bit more special. We're not sure that will be enough for a lot of players to invest, but for now, we’ll just break down what’s here and leave it for you to decide for yourself.

So first? Yeah, Pecharunt and the Loyal Three are here. Base versions of the Three showed up in Twilight Masquerade, so the ones here are all about being poisoned and mind-controlled by Pecharunt. Okidogi poisons itself to power up. Munkidori delivers ex-level strength but only offers one Prize when it falls. Fezandipiti watches on and offers card draw when the opponent downs its teammates. Meanwhile, Pecharunt manipulates from the shadows, switching out its team for free with poisonous side effects.

You can extend its power beyond its three usual subjects with Binding Mochi, a new Tool card that powers up poisoned attackers by 40. With all this poison going around, it’s a good reminder that special conditions go away on the bench and Pecharunt’s switching means you should be able to keep things in control. Still, that damage is going to add up no matter how careful you are. A non-ex version of Pecharunt also shows up as a promo in Shrouded Fable products, instead chaining and punishing poisoned opponents. So, weirdly, Pecharunt might be a Pecharunt counter.

In addition to the Scarlet & Violet DLC characters, Shrouded Fable also sees appearances from other “dark” characters from the franchise’s history. Team Plasma leader Colress shows up on a Trainer card, as does Team Flare scientist Xerosic. And she isn’t exactly evil, but she’s certainly all about the poison, so Janine, a gym leader and Koga’s daughter, gets a Supporter card that accelerates energy while poisoning your own party.

Rounding out the set are a selection of creatures, most of whom fit the theme of darkness and poison. You’ve got Houndoom, Sneasel, Dusknoir, Toxicroak, Crobat, Malamar and more in here to make sure you get this set’s vibe. There’s even an Electric Tera-type version of everyone’s favorite pollution machine, Revavroom!

And hey: that new foil pattern ain’t nothing. It features a hexagon grid with Poke Balls in each hex, and it’s a nice enough look without getting in the way of legibility.

Shrouded Fable, as a set, is on the smaller side, clocking in at 64 cards before the secret rares kick in and 99 all told. This isn’t unprecedented — special sets have been small in the past — but after 151’s full Kanto Pokedex and Paldean Fates’ ludicrous lineup of shinies, it’s definitely an adjustment. But hey, that does make it easier to collect! So perhaps it’s a fun full set project.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game: Scarlet & Violet — Shrouded Fable special set launches in various boxed products starting August 2, 2024. Elite Trainer Boxes will be available on August 23. For more on the Pokemon TCG, check out our archive.

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Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition wears its inspiration in its title. It seeks to capture the nostalgia for the competitions from over 30 years ago! And perhaps mostly the legacy built after the fact by collectors and communities wishing they weren’t just one-offs and actively building around that old branding.

The aesthetics of the game work really well! The soundtrack and backgrounds really remind us of The Wizard, which is absolutely correct for this package. The gameplay of Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition appears to build on the framework of NES Remix, the Wii U and 3DS collection of similar challenges. There are bite-sized and… slightly larger but still bite-sized gameplay segments from 13 games: Super Mario Bros 1, 2, Lost Levels and 3; Zelda 1 and 2; Metroid; Donkey Kong; Kid Icarus; Excitebike; Ice Climber; Balloon Fight; and Kirby’s Adventure.

Speedrun Mode, the one mode you can play offline, is extremely like NES Remix, with escalating challenges to unlock and coins to collect to do that. They start at the shortest and simplest “Normal” ones, and go all the way through Hard, Master and Legend. Master and Legend challenges aren't necessarily the hardest to complete, but they are the longer and more interesting ones, and perhaps there are many more things you'd need to get exactly right to get a top time. There are even Nintendo Power-like strategy tips for these final ones, and these add to the atmosphere and are a nice touch.

Of course, the selling point of NES Remix was the, well, remix part, and this release has none of that. The game segments here are fully ones you could experience before. Instead, it’s built around online competition. The two online modes are World Championships, which gives you a weekly playlist of five challenges, and Survival Mode, which collects ghost data to create a 99-like battle royale spin.

The World Championships mode of the game is understandably intended as the centerpiece. Each week, you play five challenges and compete for the best times on leaderboards. Unfortunately for the experience, it deviates from the original Nintendo World Championships formula in one big way: you can replay it as many times as you want, and each part is tackled separately. You don’t chain together challenges, and there are no interesting score strategies. It boils down to “do these five again, just like you’ve done before.” Just you have to log on every week.

Survival Mode also recycles those challenges, this time formatting it as a battle royale-like competition. That said, like we mentioned, it uses ghost data! So it’s just an artificial way to make the normal speedrunning look different. You’ll take on three of the challenges — at least in the pre-release review period, these were identical to the World Championships ones for the week — and winning is a combination of doing well and happening upon the ghost data and event order that makes the finals most winnable. Half the “players” are eliminated each round, so early ones are more forgiving. So maybe keep entering and quitting until your weakest one is first, to save time? To the game’s credit, your performances in these two online modes do update your best times for Speedrun Mode, which is something.

You don’t want to chase slightly better times through repetition? Truly the game’s not for you. It’s geared exclusively toward this sort of play, and it’s unapologetic about it. As an example, Kirby's Adventure is a game about enjoying power-ups and creative solutions. Many of its included challenges? They’re no-power-up boss time challenges. We’re well-documented Kirby fans, and we’re not having fun playing the Kirby parts here! It works better for a game like Balloon Fight, but the true genres for this sort of thing don’t feel represented. There’s no Tetris, even as a nod to the original competition, nor do we see something like Dr. Mario here as a substitute. Scrolling shooters would also be good to see, or white-knuckle games like Punch-Out!! and such.

The game really wants you to play on TV, and with an audience. The interface is more for a spectator than a player, for better and worse. If you play by yourself, especially on a handheld screen, your actual view of a given game is only about a quarter of your display. The local multiplayer option, Party Mode, lets you play with up to eight players locally at the same time. And hey, this could be fun with a group?

Nintendo has been exceedingly clear that full NES games are not part of the Nintendo World Championships package. But, frankly, why not? We know that all of these titles are part of the Nintendo Switch Online offering, so they’re available to play, but what if there were built-in speedrunning milestones with split times, verified leaderboards and ghost data? This would be extra value, and still fit within the premise. If this project started life as one of the annual Nintendo Switch Online freebies, we’d believe it. With its focus on online play and general depth of content, it fits better beside Tetris 99 than Tears of the Kingdom.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is a release held together by sentiment and atmosphere, partly because that aspect of the game is so good and partly because the remainder of the game is so devoid of merit. Like NES Remix before it, it lives in a liminal space between viable gameplay ideas. If it were supposed to be a punishing speedrunning challenge, it would give players one try in the weekly championship and offer more long events. If it were a WarioWare-like fun time, it’d have a faster pace and a lot more variety. If it were a weekly Nintendo Switch Online diversion, it’d be a lower-commitment free download built around a real-time experience. And, well, it’s none of those.

Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition launches July 18, 2024 for Nintendo Switch.

The post Review: Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Is Stylish, Sparse appeared first on Siliconera.

The Nitro Deck+, from Embracer-owned outfit CRKD, follows up on the original Deck, a popular controller option for the Switch. That one-piece Joy-Con replacement sported Hall Effect sticks, a more Steam Deck-like form factor, and a whole line of aesthetics for style or nostalgia. We took a look at that first model, but now CRKD is looking to address a few shortcomings with this new revision.

Let’s start by talking about the new controls! The Nitro Deck+ swaps the position of the thumbsticks, using a symmetrical layout. It was apparently a big request, but ultimately it’s a matter of choice. It’s true that many games prioritize analog control and all the extra programmable buttons are there to let you keep thumbs on sticks at all times, but also this change deviates from the Switch’s default scheme and could result in some weirdness. The Switch’s base configuration gives players some latitude to hold it in different ways, letting you position your hands to be comfortable with buttons regardless of scheme or hand size. The Nitro Deck+ wants you to hold it one specific way, and that's higher up than you'd like when you need to use the D-pad and face buttons.

There are two new inputs, which CRKD dubs “sidekick buttons,” to the side of the analog sticks. There may be a use for them, in addition to the four paddles on the back, and that mobile app does let you remap them as you wish. Honestly, we thought we'd have trouble finding a use case for the new side buttons! They're in a weird position, and they don't make much sense during action. But combined with the stick swap on the right and the Nitro Deck’s general heft, we found it comfortable to use them to button through menus and prompts between bouts of action.

While testing this, we've also been working on our Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble review, and it's been a great test of control precision. For context, we've otherwise been using a Switch Lite and a Pro Controller, both with a few years of use, so it may not be entirely fair to the others to compare. That said, the Nitro Deck+’s buttons also feel stiff in a way that could perhaps use some breaking in, so maybe things balance out in the end. Still, even without fiddling with the app settings, the Deck+ offered more precise and granular control and made navigating boards marginally, but noticeably, easier.

About half the inputs – A, B, X, Y, ZL, ZR and the menu buttons – are glossy, while the D-pad, bumpers and extra keys are matte. This is a preference thing, for sure, but we're a fan of matte for long-term use. It's certainly a bit peculiar to see the device split the difference like this. It was also like this in the first model, so it's something CRKD has committed to doing.

The Bluetooth function added in this new version may not be what you expect. It’s not going to allow you to use it as a proper Pro Controller, sitting separate from the console, likely in the event you needed another pad for multiplayer. There’s no internal battery, so you can use it, but you’ll need to plug in with a cable. What it does, though, is allow you connect it to the company’s app. This is for firmware updates and customizing the control mapping, and with so many extra buttons, that easier remapping might be nice. (There are also instructions for remapping the buttons without the app in the online manual, which reminded us of the good old universal TV remote days.)

Our experience with the app was a bit shaky — it would lose connection with the device fairly quickly — but it functioned for remapping the inputs. Of course, to get there, you have to push through the company’s near-insufferable “collection” strategy, registering your device to an account and either capturing your “reaction” to your device’s serial number or saying no to about 12 system prompts trying to access your microphone and camera. Oofa doofa, this is a choice.

The Nitro Deck+ also adds a “docked mode,” which again might come with some caveats. You’ll need a USB-C-to-HDMI adapter, which the company sells separately. And you theoretically can continue to use the controls while you do it? But that’s really going to depend on your cable length. The HDMI and power cables need to be plugged in at all times, so that doesn’t seem ideal. And in our testing, even when we nestled right up to the screen, minor hand movements would jostle the cables and briefly lose connection.

In practicality, we’d really call it more of “dock mode.” Doubling as a dock replacement, either so you can keep the Nitro Deck+ assembled or so you can plug up to a secondary display without buying another first-party one, could be useful! But in those cases, we’d probably still recommend using a different controller. The more robust kickstand on the back of the unit is a significant help for such a use case, too.

There’s also an eject button now? It doesn’t push the system out of the Deck in the way you’d want, but it’s possible that wasn’t something they could engineer. Instead, it’s a latch you pull to make it hold onto the Switch less firmly, so it can keep its snug fit and help you get the system out when needed too. Since the device just plugs in to the USB-C port and functions like a wired Pro Controller instead of clicking into the Joy-Con rails, it’s likely that CRKD had to come up with some scheme like this to be more secure.

The aesthetic choices of the Nitro Deck+ are a bit “where do we go from here,” after all the choice options of the first model. There are two colors available for the new device at launch, with our review unit sporting a clear white front, solid white back and black buttons. The bases of the analog sticks are also metallic purple, for some reason? These choices could absolutely work for you, but they're not the home run of the nostalgia-bait ones or the safe one-color offerings.

There are benefits to CRKD’s approach, but it does come at a cost: weight. It's comfortable for a while, but having spent so much time in recent years with the Switch Lite, it's become a great platform for longer sessions. Whether it's the Steam Deck or the Ayaneo Slide, a heavier portable has remained in our rotation! And this feels a lot like those, with good grip and larger controls. But our wrists often give out before the battery does. If you're playing a game that puts more focus on the face buttons, you'll need to use a grip that makes the device more top-heavy, compounding the effect a bit.

The CRKD Nitro Deck+ is available through the company’s site for $69.99, or a bundle including the HDMI adapter for $10 more. For more on the Nitro Deck line of accessories, check out our look at the original model.

The post CRKD Nitro Deck+ Brings New Features. Is It Worth It? appeared first on Siliconera.

It’s been so long since an original Super Monkey Ball game! It’s true, Banana Blitz HD and Banana Mania did feel like they were leading to a truly new release, but still: we’re happy to see it. This time, it’s clear that the development team saw Fall Guys and said, “hey, we can make one of those.” Still, there’s a lot Monkey Ball can bring to the idea, and Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble combines it with a fresh new Adventure mode for AiAi traditionalists.

First: the single-player! Or, rather, Adventure mode generally, since the game adds the ability to play through these levels with friends. It’s more of a social thing that doesn’t affect the gameplay very much, but nevertheless, it’s a nice bonus! And hey, maybe split-screen with friends and family will lessen the frustration of the harder levels just a bit. The Adventure mode comprises the traditional Super Monkey Ball experience: tilting a board to move your ball to the goal in 200 stages broken up into themed worlds. You can do this with tilt controls, if you want! Which is great. But the game defaults to analog stick control, and you’ll need to dig into the settings to use motion. 

The new mechanic — you knew they had to add one, whether you wanted one or not — is the Spin Dash, allowing a burst of speed and momentum that doesn’t necessarily align with your active roll. It’s a bit tricky to pull off a change of direction (with the default control mapping), but we’re sure the trick shots with this new mechanic are going to be ludicrous. 

The boards are designed to be generally clearable by most, with special collectibles and time-chasing serving to provide higher difficulty. That’s a good game balance to target, and though perpetual franchise scrubs like us will still hit a snag occasionally just clearing a level, it mostly does its job on that front. To help newcomers, there are a suite of welcome helper functions. You can rewind stages! There are mid-level checkpoints sometimes! There are tutorial-like ghosts you can enable, too. If your goal is simply to get through the level, these should help.

There’s also a story to this mode? We aren’t going to talk about it. It’s bad, which is fine, because it also doesn’t matter. Skip the cinematics and get back to tilting.

It’s multiplayer that brings the most new ideas to the ever-tilting table. Up to 16 players match up in varied modes: Race, Banana Hunt, Ba-Boom!, Goal Rush, and Robot Smash. In Race, you unsurprisingly roll through a checkpoint-laden course and try to reach the end as close to first as you can manage. This mode’s courses are designed to get easier as time goes on, keeping players in the hunt. It does mean that you don’t necessarily want to be first for most of the race, and also even the “easy” form of the tracks can be profoundly annoying when hit with multiple items or when the segment that troubles you the most just happens to not be a segment that gets easier with time.

Somewhat ironically, given both the inspiration and the franchise’s history, but a lot of the multiplayer segments would benefit from less falling. There are a ton of checkpoints in the races, and these mitigate the effects, but Monkey Ball’s more momentum-based approach makes falling that much more punishing and discouraging.

Banana Hunt and Ba-Boom! Are Mario Kart-like battle modes, with the former focused on banana collection and the latter on either bumping into or avoiding other players to make sure you aren’t holding a bomb when time expires. All the games are relatively fast, though we wish it were more playlist-based instead of kicking you out to the lobby between events. Perhaps this pacing will change with a full player server?

Goal Rush is trying something, for sure, as it’s a slalom-like event that has you claiming gates for your team and trying to target ones worth more points. Each time you enter a goal, you’re placed back at the top, and size, movement and distance all result in goals of varied value. Robot Smash feels like the “let’s make sure slow characters have an advantage in at least one challenge” mode. You slam into robots to deal damage and destroy them, and doing so earns team points.

There’s a robust customization suite here! And that is nice for a multiplayer game, especially with its lack of microtransactions and adherence to earned in-game currency. However, we here believe that GonGon should have his G shirt and it’s not an option, so that’s a real strike against the aesthetic offerings. In all seriousness, it’s nice to be able to have different looks for online play. That said, if you’re opting out of the free-to-play microtransaction hellscape in which the industry largely now finds itself, maybe you don’t have to still use the same unlock schemes and menus? Maybe this game doesn’t need gacha mechanics and login bonuses? Something to consider, perhaps?

We were hoping that the Switch exclusivity of the game’s initial release would mean that the Switch version is, technically speaking, nice and smooth. Instead, the hitching and other hiccups suggest to us that an eventual port might be the ideal experience. It’s already a given that the Switch’s online play heavily benefits from a wired connection, but in terms of surviving the inevitable wi-fi players in the group, Banana Rumble honestly does okay.

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble is a welcome return to new ideas for the franchise, and does manage to avoid inferior minigame replication disappointment by… not replicating the old minigames at all! The choice to ape (pun intended, pun always intended, you know us) Fall Guys’ multiplayer formula isn’t the best, but there’s some fun here. And the main mode is enjoyable too!

Developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio and published by Sega, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble launches on Nintendo Switch on June 25, 2024. It is, at least for the moment, exclusive to the console.

The post Review: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble Means Monkey Business appeared first on Siliconera.

The new Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion set, Twilight Masquerade, brings the world and characters of Kitakami to the TCG. But which cards are the set’s best? We’ll try to break it down.

The coolest Pokemon TCG Twilight Masquerade cards

We’ve been, perhaps, a bit harsh on Tera Pokemon around here, but it’s undeniable that the new Greninja ex is quite cool. And useful! For one energy, it can deal 170 damage and search for any card in your deck, and its second ability is a good contingency choice for when you need to hit two bench targets for 120 instead. Now… is the new type relevant? Not particularly. But it doesn’t hurt anything either.

In terms of coolest pulls, though? Those are always the Hyper Rares. This set’s selections to get the gold treatment are Teal Mask Ogerpon ex, Bloodmoon Ursaluna ex, Buddy-Buddy Poffin, Enhanced Hammer, Rescue Board and Luminous Energy. The gold looks special with anything, but it’s particularly funny for us to see it applied to street food.

The most meta-relevant Pokemon TCG Twilight Masquerade cards

The pool of ACE SPEC cards is expanding by six with this new set, adding options for players. Legacy Energy is a nice addition for decks that could use a rainbow energy, with the bonus of decreasing the opponent’s prize card reward for knocking a Pokemon out. Hyper Aroma lets you search for three Stage 1s, which would likely need a specific build, but that many searches as an Item has potential.

Speaking of lots of searches! Fellow ACE SPEC Secret Box costs itself and three discards, but gets you an Item, Tool, Supporter and Stadium of your choice. Rounding out the selection is Survival Brace, which lets you survive a one-hit KO; Unfair Stamp, which responds to a knockout with an asymmetrical hand re-draw; and Scoop Up Cyclone, a card that could see use if nothing else as a way to re-play enters-the-field utilities but might get you out of other jams from time to time.

Adding to the ranks of bench utilities is Drakloak, bringing back the old Pidgeotto ability to filter through and draw cards every turn. We also see some potential in Boomerang Energy, which is a colorless energy that reattaches itself when you discard it as an attack cost. Right now, we’re not sure there’s a viable enough user of it, but maybe there’s one on the horizon.

The most interesting Pokemon TCG Twilight Masquerade cards

We’re most interested to see what shenanigans players can formulate with the Ogerpon variants. The Ogre’s Mask card lets you essentially hot-swap the different ex cards from a Teal Mask variant that really needs grass energy to the others that only need one of their type to operate. With type switching not being a huge part of the competitive metagame and these moves not immediately showing their synergy to us, we’re not sure this’ll be great? But it’s certainly a creative attempt.

Also, though we’re not sure it rises to the level of competitive quite yet, the Festival Grounds suite of cards is purpose-built to provide a budget combo deck of its own. Creatures with the Festival Lead ability can attack twice when that stadium is in play. That sounds pretty great, yeah? Well unfortunately, most of the attacks available to them are really weak. But combining Dipplin’s longtime-favorite Do the Wave attack with the color-sharing Thwackey and its Boom Boom Groove ability to search for any card every turn? That might work.

The cutest Pokemon TCG Twilight Masquerade cards

Grookey just hanging out and having a good time is a definite mood-booster, as is a sedentary but still highly relatable Bellibolt. Eevee and Shinx are always safe bets, but their portrayals here do look quite nice.

We also like when the card art experiments with medium and style. The Ducklett works well for the character, and a knitted Sandygast brings whimsy to a species that can honestly be pretty disturbing when you think too long about it.

As always, the Illustration Rare cards have a much better opportunity to show personality. Hisuian Growlithe hams it up for the camera. Eevee pile up in a living room. Applin play a strange variant of Where’s Waldo in which Waldo is everywhere.

The latest Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion, Scarlet & Violet: Twilight Masquerade, launches May 24, 2024. For more information on the TCG, check out our overview of the set or our Pokemon TCG archive.

The post Pokemon TCG: The Best Twilight Masquerade Cards appeared first on Siliconera.

As we head into the warmer months of the year, many places around the world are preparing for lots of festivals, celebrating community and culture with food, games and entertainment. It’s perhaps fitting, then, that the new Pokemon Trading Card Game set uses this setting as its focus. Scarlet & Violet: Twilight Masquerade is about masks, feasts and teamwork. Like bright colors? Or maybe just a fan of downloadable content as a concept? This set might have something for you.

The heart of this set — which you may have predicted — is Ogerpon, the masked Pokemon that serves as the center of the story in The Teal Mask. All four mask variants are here, as are basic and ex forms. The big version can even swap masks into its other forms, though we’ll have to see if that ends up being worth it as a cornerstone of a deck build.

Its foes, on the other hand? Yeah, we can see them making an impact. Okidogi, Munkidori and Fezandipiti are all high-HP, one-prize basics with abilities that power them up if you attach darkness energy. If the energy types line up with a strong strategy, they’ll make an appearance as utility or sidekick fighters, for sure. In particular, a lineup of Munkidori on the bench, each moving three damage counters to the other side of the board every turn? Yikes. You better be ready to one-hit KO.

The Future and Ancient subtypes, introduced in Paradox Rift, get a few reinforcements too. Iron Leaves can help Future decks retrieve fallen fighters from the discard pile. Iron Bundle lets you hit-and-run, swapping the opponent’s active when you do. But the real catch here is Iron Thorns ex, with an ability that shuts down the abilities of non-Future heavy hitters.

On the Ancient side, Walking Wake’s double-edged attack won’t make many waves in competitive play, and Scream Tail ex’s opponent-delaying niche is extremely narrow. Brute Bonnet may be the most viable, with guaranteed poison and an attack that adds more injury to injury.

In terms of gameplay, Twilight Masquerade is more of a supplemental release than one that introduces new ideas. There are more ACE SPEC options now! New and reprinted Trainers fill in the gaps in recent sets’ possibility spaces! We’re seeing a much higher quantity of sidekicks to add to an existing deck than we are centerpieces worth building around. We’re sure one of these cards will break out in a way we’re not anticipating, of course. But nothing about this expansion is meant to stand alone, and that makes sense, because it doesn’t.

While this is nothing new, this set in particular had us thinking about the timing of The Pokemon Company’s TCG pipeline. It’s honestly impressive how quickly the turnaround is from cards’ release in Japan to their international one — it varies, but this one’s about a month — and that’s nice for some consistency between regions’ metagames.

But what about aligning with the video games? This set’s built around The Teal Mask, an add-on that launched last September, and we do have to wonder whether this regional focus would have landed a bit more effectively while eager players were still working through this mini-adventure. This may have resonated particularly strongly with us this time, given the setting itself is built around a festival.

Still, there’s a lot to like about the set’s aesthetics, regardless of timing. The look of all the packaging is built around Ogerpon’s signature teal, which is striking. New Pokemon like Sinistcha and Dipplin reinforce the food and fun theme. And hey, Thwackey’s here to keep the beat! It’s a fundamentally fun and pleasant set, a good fit for these warmer months of the year.

The latest Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion, Scarlet & Violet: Twilight Masquerade, launches May 24, 2024. For more information on the TCG, check out our Pokemon TCG archive.

The post In Pokemon TCG’s Twilight Masquerade, Ogerpon Is an Essential Worker appeared first on Siliconera.

Blaze Entertainment’s Evercade platform keeps on going, holding true (so far) to its promise to support its hardware releases with a library of cross-compatible cartridges. We’re taking a look at the most recent suite of carts, giving you the lowdown on what they offer and who should consider them.

Indie Heroes Collection 3

Always a highlight of the library, the Indie Heroes Collection installments batch together recently-developed retro games that cameo as a downloaded Game of the Month on the systems in the preceding year. A weird inclusion this time: Bubble Seahorse Adventures, which runs natively and sets off all sorts of uncanny valley signals in our brains when we see it running on a platform for retro games. Native ports can work well on the platform, when done right (like Cathedral), but this one feels off.

One of our favorites is Bone Marrow, which takes a very mobile-like slide puzzle and puts a fantasy dungeon-crawling skin atop it. Also a joy is Big2Small. In that game, you use the D-pad to slide animals until they hit an obstacle, using them as aids for each other to guide them each to particular squares. Generally, this cartridge works to mitigate the Evercade’s biggest weakness, which is slower-paced, thoughtful games. And we approve wholeheartedly.

Fans of the single-player puzzles of ChuChu Rocket! should check out the similarly-named Chew Chew Mimic, and VS owners can have some fun with friends in Chibi Monster Br4wl. For a full list of inclusions, you can check out the official Evercade page.

The C64 Collection 3

We’ll admit to having less of a nostalgia for the Commodore 64, as American console-heads, but the love and attention that Blaze is giving to the platform is enviable. This third collection adds 13 more games, including ones as well-known as Boulder Dash and as obscure as… Break Dance? The latter’s a strange inclusion on the surface, but it’s one of the first attempts at rhythm gaming and has a Space Channel 5-like repeat-after-me structure.

The Commodore 64 doesn’t make for the most natural fit here — you’ll have to use a virtual keyboard sometimes — but it definitely could be worse. If you’re new to a game, though, we strongly recommend a thorough reading of its section of the manual to explain what’s going on and how to control it. More than consoles, these computer games assume you’ll do that and don’t bother explaining things on-screen.

Duke Nukem Collections 1 & 2

If you paid any attention at all to the Evercade platform before this article, you probably know about these two Duke Nukem compilations. Launched alongside a commemorative version of the VS, they pull together titles from the franchise’s long history. Collection 1 is built around Duke Nukem 1+2 Remastered, a native port for Evercade of the original side-scrollers, and also adds Duke Nukem 3D: Total Meltdown, the FPS’ PS1 port, for variety.

The second collection has some deeper cuts. Time to Kill and Land of the Babes are PlayStation games with a third-person perspective and a lot of nods to Tomb Raider. Duke Nukem Advance is more of a technological marvel than anything else, getting the full 3D FPS experience up and running on the Game Boy Advance. It remixes a lot of Duke 3D assets to do its own thing, and… just don’t play this one on the VS. Your fun with this in 2024 is inversely proportional to the screen size you play it on.

Demons of Asteborg / Astebros

We think the Evercade is at its best when it’s showcasing labors of love that wouldn’t usually otherwise carve out a spot on your shelf, and these indie two-packs do that well. Demons of Asteborg is a modern Sega Genesis action-adventure game, with exploration and platforming elements along the way. The animation is smooth and impressive, making for a game that makes you double-check whether it can actually run on original hardware. (Yep, it can!) Along with the gorgeous visuals comes a level of difficulty that is no joke. Perhaps understandably, it’s built for an audience that’s loved action games for decades and played the old ones so much that they needed something new.

Astebros, the included semi-sequel, ratchets down the barrier of entry a few notches, thankfully. It also brings in co-op and roguelike elements, and polishes some of the controls to feel more like its new-retro brethren. You can choose from three characters with different styles, and it’s an especially good time with an Evercade VS, a friend and some snacks. More than anything else in this lineup, this could lure in a pal who usually isn’t down to play older releases.

Goodboy Galaxy / Witch ‘n Wiz

Witch ‘n Wiz is an NES block-pushing puzzle game in the vein of Lolo or Sokoban. Your goal is to defeat all the monsters by moving to the same square. There's lots of failure states, so there are two previous buttons dedicated to undoing and resetting the board. It's very much a game about gravity; pushing blocks off platforms and destroying temporary supports is part of every solution, but you have to collect things in the right order.

Goodboy Galaxy, a newly-developed GBA platformer, stars a space-pup wandering about and retrieving gadgets and apps to unlock new abilities. The animation in the game nails a very GBA-specific brand of adorable. The environments are bright and colorful, if a bit utilitarian at the expense of world-building; you’ll find gameplay challenge, if not a believable biome. Also the dog is very good!

One cool thing about this release: it includes physical goodies! There are Goodboy Galaxy stickers and a hand-drawn guide map for Witch ‘n Wiz. We imagine this is the sort of thing that comes and goes based on Blaze’s profit margins for a given release, but we like seeing ‘em.

Evercade cartridges work on the Evercade EXP handheld, Evercade VS home system and even the budget-line Hyper Mega Tech! Super Pocket models. For more coverage of the platform, check out our archive.

The post Latest Evercade Cartridges Span Decades of Nostalgia appeared first on Siliconera.

We’ve covered Blaze Entertainment’s efforts to build a licensed retrogame platform with physical cartridges in the Evercade, but for some players, even that cost of entry was a bit too steep. It’s possible, then, that the company’s latest device could be of interest. Released under the “Hyper Mega Tech!” branding instead of Evercade, the Super Pocket brings the price tag down below $60, and it packs its own built-in lineups of Capcom or Taito games to serve as a standalone release. But that Evercade cartridge slot? That makes it a lot more intriguing than most low-end games machines.

We were expecting perhaps for the Super Pocket to take a few design cues from the original Evercade, itself a cheaper device than the EXP with similar components. Instead, it goes for the more durable and modern look of the EXP, a choice that makes a lot of sense and is better. Returning briefly to the original Evercade to compare for this piece showed us just how far manufacturer Blaze has come in the design of its devices, learning a lot about materials and ergonomics along the way.

The color schemes, chosen to go with the built-in game collections, are a lot of fun. The Capcom edition uses the signature royal blue and yellow. The Taito model runs with a teal and black scheme. And already, we’re seeing it’s not a rote template; Blaze used teal buttons on the black faceplate for Taito and kept the whole front blue for Capcom. If they keep iterating for potential future models, that could be pleasant to see.

What we also expected? Tech spec downgrades. And it doesn’t seem like they’re here in a significant enough way to notice! We tested the full gamut of Evercade cartridges on the device, including some that the other hardware doesn’t run the best. The Super Pocket didn’t flinch. Some of the original PlayStation titles in the library frankly don’t run well through their own technical failings, but our experience was indistinguishable between hardware. We’ll have to return to this when we’re able to try out the upcoming Nintendo 64 emulation, but for now? We’re impressed.

Each Super Pocket has a built-in library of arcade games. Capcom titles return after their appearance on the Evercade EXP, making clear that this sort of licensing is apparently a lot easier for Blaze than a cartridge. The standouts in this collection are Street Fighter II’: Hyper Fighting, Ghouls ‘n Ghosts and the 1942 trilogy. Capcom dominated arcades in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, and for good reason: these games stand the test of time.

There’s also Final Fight, which we like a lot but more for its co-op play which isn’t possible on the Super Pocket. Strider and Bionic Commando are here, too, along with Wolf of the Battlefield: MERCS and Forgotten Worlds. Our favorite of the bunch is Captain Commando, a criminally overlooked beat-’em-up that lets you play as a baby in a mech.

The Taito model has all the usual suspects from the company’s arcade heyday. The front of the box shouts about Space Invaders and Bubble Bobble, which makes sense, as no other Taito properties have nearly as much global popularity. Puzzle Bobble (also known as Bust A Move) is here too. The Taito collection skews a bit older, with more ‘80s games joining 1978’s Space Invaders in the bunch. This means a different sort of sensibility than the Capcom set.

The remaining arcade inclusions have less consistent player awareness, but we know some people who love them. They are: Operation Wolf, Rastan, The NewZealand Story, Cadash, Chack’n Pop, Don Doko Don, Elevator Action, The Fairyland Story, Football Champ, Growl, Volfied, Kiki Kaikai, The Legend of Kage and Liquid Kids. As you can see, the Taito collection makes up for its less-known lineup with a larger selection of releases.

Both collections feature almost all arcade games, with one console cameo tacked on. Capcom adds NES Mega Man, while Taito includes Genesis release Space Invaders ‘91. We imagine Mega Man is the most affordable way Blaze could put the Mega Man logo on the box, which makes sense at retail, but Space Invaders ‘91 is a harder inclusion to explain.

So where are the cost reductions in the Super Pocket, then? The answer appears to be build quality. It’s durable, in a Nintendo 2DS sort of way, made so that kids can’t break it. But adults will notice a few things! The tinny speaker emits noises accurately, but not really with a robust sound you’d want to experience it if you have other choices. The shoulder buttons are… there, if you need them for cartridge compatibility, but they’re in the one awkward position available to put them and need a peculiar amount of leverage to press.

The main concern is likely the buttons. They’re functional, but a bit stiff and unresponsive at times. It’s the sort of setup that would be totally fine with games that are more about decisions than reflexes! Unfortunately, that remains the weakness of the Evercade game library, with its focus on arcade action. And the built-in Super Pocket games exclusively fall into this category. When testing a game we know well, Taito classic Puzzle Bobble, the cursor would blow past our target with a simple light touch.

The Super Pocket supports an “Easy Mode” option, which is a streamlined setting to turn all the arcade games’ dip switches down to their most forgiving settings. This is, we presume, to make the device more approachable to young children, so it can be something of an entry point to retro games. We can confirm that it does what it says, letting us feel for once in our lives like we’re good at Street Fighter II. Combined with a form factor that’s definitely made for smaller hands, it could make for an intriguing kid gift.

(It should be noted, though: both devices carry a PEGI 12 rating for the included games. Nothing here is really egregious, but there’s fighting and guns and explosions in some titles, so keep that in mind if you’re handing one to a toddler or something.)

We don’t mind the 4-by-3 screen of the Super Pocket. In many ways, this makes more sense for most games! It’s nice to see Blaze find a supplier for them! And while the separate Hyper Mega Tech! branding is a bit strange, the idea that they’re reserving the Evercade name for higher-quality builds at least shows they’re sensitive to that stuff.

The Hyper Mega Tech! Super Pocket is available now for $59, in Capcom and Taito models. It’s compatible with the Evercade cartridge library. For more Evercade coverage, including recommendations for which carts to pick up first, check out our archive.

The post Hyper Mega Tech! Super Pocket Is an Evercade on a Budget appeared first on Siliconera.

The new Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion, Temporal Forces, has a lot of interesting cards to check out. But which are the best Temporal Forces cards? As always, it depends on what you’re seeking, so we’ll break it down category by category.

The coolest Temporal Forces cards

This answer is the easiest: Ancient and Future Pokemon. The Pokemon Company knew from the start of development that these would be the centerpiece cards of the set, and were unafraid to put some big, flashy moves on ‘em. There are two different printings of Iron Valiant, with one focusing on precise attacks and the other trying to build up a big combo by stacking your draw pile. Iron Boulder ex’s Repulsor Axe fires a warning shot of sorts, dealing 60 damage but adding another 80 if it takes a counterattack. Raging Bolt ex’s Bellowing Thunder deals 70 per discarded attached energy on your team, guaranteeing the final blow against whoever you need.

The best move isn’t flashy at all, though: Flutter Mane has an ability, Midnight Fluttering, that shuts down all other abilities when it’s out front. We’ve seen this sort of thing work very well in other forms, and as a basic with an all-colorless attack option, this is cool even outside of a theme team.

The most meta-relevant Temporal Forces cards

We’re probably headed to a competitive scene in which each deck has an ACE SPEC card, and this initial batch gives you a few options to decide which fits your deck of Pokemon cards best. Awakening Drum, which draws cards for each Ancient you have in play, and Reboot Pod, which attaches energy from the discard to each Future, have a clear purpose. And… with the history of these card types, that purpose likely isn’t in a high-level tournament deck. Same with Neo Upper Energy, which supports Stage 2 play.

That leaves four viable possibilities for every deck. Master Ball is the no-brainer option, searching for any Pokemon without Supporter restrictions. Prime Catcher lets you switch in whoever you like from both benches, and will likely be the winning play when you deploy it.

The two Tool options are more situational, but could save you from your opponent’s risk calculations in a pinch. Hero’s Cape adds 100 HP, and Maximum Belt lets you deal 50 extra damage to Pokemon ex. As soon as the game starts moving to whatever super-powerful dominant creature type replaces ex, it’ll lose a lot of appeal, but for now? Might be worth it.

The most interesting Temporal Forces cards

We have our eyes on the new Relicanth. It’s going to take a deep dive (ha!) into past sets’ card libraries to find good targets, but the Memory Dive ability lets Pokemon use any attack its previous evolutions know. There are some moves that scale with damage taken, or just generally need more investment than users’ low HP totals would buy time to manage. Memory Dive could make Relicanth a useful bench utility.

The Perilous Jungle Stadium card could also join a few decks. It increases poison damage by 20 each time, and we’ve seen similar effects work well in the past. This is meant to aid Darkness decks in the same way its counterpart, Full Metal Lab, does for Metal. The latter reduces damage to steel-types by 30, essentially reinstituting the ability they once had through energy effects.

The cutest Temporal Forces cards

You know, we’ve gotta say: if you’re here for cuteness, Temporal Forces may not be the set for you. After expansions like Paldean Fates, though, maybe your wallet could use a breather?

That said, hey, Yamper is here, looking just as Yamper as ever. This version of the Pokemon card doesn’t have the best actual utility other than being quickly replaced by Boltund for its energy acceleration attack, but looking at it in the art, it doesn’t seem to mind its role very much.

Other notable adorables: Marill and Azumarill enjoying their chill afternoons, Illustration Rare Litten sleeping on a bookshelf, and Deerling presented in a painterly style.

The newest Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion, Scarlet & Violet: Temporal Forces, launches March 22, 2024. For more Pokemon TCG coverage, including an overview of the set, check out our archive.

The post Pokemon TCG: The Best Temporal Forces Cards appeared first on Siliconera.

As the Pokemon Trading Card Game team releases its new Temporal Forces expansion, the TCG seems like it may be facing some temporal forces of its own! With The Pokemon Company International’s corporate parent prepping a streamlined mobile redesign of the game and the traditional format only supported by a rickety barebones app that never launched in Japan and doesn’t have a revenue stream? It’s not as clear as it once was that the Pokemon TCG as we know it will continue into the more distant future.

The name of the set clearly comes from the Ancient and Future Pokemon, introduced in the Paradox Rift set. As usual when the TCG introduces a card type, the pieces are a bit limited at first and fleshed out in subsequent releases. And there might be enough now to build something interesting with them? Helping them out is that every Pokemon of one of these types is a Basic. And there are some candidates to build decks around in Temporal Forces, like the energy-churning mega-attack of Raging Bolt ex or the damage-boosting bench ability of Iron Crown ex. We’ll keep an eye on tournament reports to see if they’re enough, though!

A large portion of these Ancient and Future creatures are the two post-launch legendary trios: Gouging Fire, Walking Wake, Raging Bolt, Iron Leaves, Iron Crown and Iron Boulder. We’re not… huge fans of these variant designs, honestly, but their TCG depictions work well and they have interesting enough move sets. We have to imagine that those with more of an affinity for them will be psyched about how they’re handled.

Yet another force displaced from time: ACE SPEC cards. While card game veterans might remember them, the only-one-per-deck Trainers have been absent for years, and their return is notable. The card game recently had Radiant Pokemon that were similarly limited, but trainer cards are more universally useful, and we figure we’ll see decks at least use a card slot on the find-any-Pokemon Item card, Master Ball.

Be warned, though: as essential as they are now to deck construction, they’re also quite rare. We like the experience of opening packs and making do with the contents, but if you’re pinching pennies, just buying the ACE SPEC you need outright on the secondary market might be your best bet.

There are a few gasps of the Tera ex format, a Pokemon with a different type than usual that still fuels its attacks with its original energy type. This was an interesting implementation of the video game’s idea, but in the TCG? The main appeal of surprising opponents with types is just gone. If there were more variety in variants of evolutions in the competitive game, this could work, but it’s smartly less of a focus of Temporal Forces.

For fans of the more aesthetic side of the Pokemon TCG, Temporal Forces once again offers a suite of Illustrator Rares, and once again, they’re a highlight. We’re big fans of the Deerling and Sawsbuck variants, with bright colors and connecting art. We get that they’re rare, but increasing their frequency — maybe one per pack? — would really make opening a booster feel more fun.

While the future of the TCG is a bit hazy, in the present? Yeah, we enjoyed checking out Temporal Forces. It sports an interesting mix of cards, and has just enough gameplay ideas to keep us from getting bored. Next time, keep an eye out for a set built around Scarlet and Violet’s expansion pass.

The newest Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion, Scarlet & Violet: Temporal Forces, launches March 22, 2024. For more Pokemon TCG coverage, check out our archive.

The post Pokemon TCG Temporal Forces Expansion Battles Threats Past and Future appeared first on Siliconera.

Two sibling series have seen very different paths since the SNES era, despite both being similarly acclaimed. Tactics Ogre may have only managed to live a bit longer itself, but it birthed a world of similar isometric turn-based tactics titles. Ogre Battle, on the other hand? It didn’t ever extend its squad-based real-time strategy influence very far outside its own borders. So Unicorn Overlord is a welcome, refreshing return to the beloved formula.

Vanillaware and Atlus? These are seasoned, trusted hands, thoroughly capable of recapturing that magic in the modern era. And with such a long break since we’ve seen anything like it — the nods toward some of the ideas in Symphony of War notwithstanding — there’s also a lot of room for the developers to shape systems without worrying about the minutiae of precedent.

In Unicorn Overlord, you control Alain, a rightful heir to a kingdom, and you wander around freeing the continent from an evil empire’s control. Like many Japanese games set in a world of Western fantasy, Unicorn Overlord is happy to revel in tropes and callbacks. It reminded us of Fire Emblem in a lot of those ways. The Ogre games were well-known for storytelling, and this game’s writing understands the structure and cadence of its inspiration. It doesn’t quite stick the landing on making choices and competing factions feel three-dimensional, but it tries.

If you never played Ogre Battle — and it’s been decades, so you’re forgiven if you haven't — a primer: Unicorn Overlord is a real-time strategy game with the ability to pause. Maps are smaller than a traditional RTS, but instead of huge armies, you deploy crafted squads of up to five units each and set them with equipment and move logic to act on their own when they meet on the battlefield.

The gameplay works best on the game’s larger, more elaborate maps, with many different paths to monitor and environmental elements to consider. The world map is the tactical map, which both creates a feeling of immersion and saves Vanillaware from having to make even more art assets. There are even a few opportunities to scout out missions beforehand, approaching them from different angles. These were neat! We wish there were more.

It takes a bit to work up to that, understandably, and you’ll also find tiny skirmishes peppered about to liberate each town. These are usually too compact and simple to offer many decisions to players, and the game would probably be better off without them. (It’s fine if the towns went away with them; there are so many.) Thankfully, the repeatable maps for gaining experience have different configurations for variety, as you’ll probably need to stop at them from time to time to catch up the back half of your team.

The way that Unicorn Overlord keeps throwing units at you means you’ll generally have full squads without going out of your way to hire mercenaries. That can be nice! But it does keep you from spending your funds on someone new and interacting with what might be the most common building type.

It also means that building a clockwork squad with orders and conditions may get pushed back a bit as you’re constantly adding and changing the cogs. There’s a lot of smart conditions you can apply to these moves! And we wish we’d been able to interact with this system more often. Most of the time, though, going through all these menus and things would take longer than just grinding a replayable skirmish map, and the pure stat increase of leveling is often more effective.

The robust character appearance customization taking money you need for equipment isn’t great, and hiring and promotion slowing your progress to full five-unit squads is a shame too. Usually games have too many currencies; this may have benefited from one or two more.

Speaking of character appearance, some of these designs are particularly egregious, especially in the generic recruits of the same class that you can just hold up next to each other and compare. Guys wear protective armor and feature a whole range of body types. The women? They’re all small, they’re all cute, and often they show up for war in fetish gear. So much of this game is fun and good, and the Vanillaware art style is genuinely beautiful, but this has got to stop. It makes it tough to recommend to anyone when there’s so much of this and it’s unavoidable, no matter how compelling the strategy gameplay manages to be.

The aesthetics, character design aside, are top-notch. Vanillaware has a lot of experience building worlds in just this sort of style, and the Unicorn Overlord version looks and runs great. We reviewed the game on the Nintendo Switch, and we never encountered any performance issues or technical downgrades typical in multiplatform titles. Often games with such elaborate art treatments don’t treat the user interface with as much care, but it’s clear that Vanillaware spent a lot of effort on making things as clear and usable as possible. Which is helpful! Especially considering how many found it tough to approach classic Ogre Battle releases.

Carrying the whole package is an excellent Basiscape soundtrack, doing its best to remind you of all the games it should. It’s a little Tactics Ogre and a little Valkyria Chronicles, with a track that sounds like “Adagio for Strings” added to the mix for some reason.

Beating Unicorn Overlord on Tactical difficulty will take roughly 50 hours, and if you prefer a play style with more micromanagement, you could extend your time with it for a few dozen longer. There’s an online arena functionality here, which could be fun as a post-game way to try to optimize your clockwork squad instructions to the maximum. It doesn’t seem like a big focus for the game, though.

Unicorn Overlord is, as a whole, a loving and well-crafted return to the Ogre Battle formula. If the character designs aren’t a dealbreaker for you — and we’d understand if they are — there’s a lot of interesting tactical decisions to make.

Unicorn Overlord, developed by Vanillaware and published by Atlus, launches March 8, 2024 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and Nintendo Switch.

The post Review: Unicorn Overlord Is a Feudal Endeavor appeared first on Siliconera.

As technology advances and we keep asking relatively less from computers for most tasks, the mini PC in general becomes a more and more viable option. AYANEO, a company that’s established itself with its handhelds, is expanding into the market with its Retro Mini PC AM01. Is it right for you? We’ll try to help you answer that.

Aesthetics

The packaging of the AYANEO AM01 makes tons of nods to Apple’s choices over the years, setting the stage for the product itself. It makes tons of nods to Apple’s choices, both in its early era and its modern-style box packing. Do these match with the era of the Macintosh Classic, the computer upon which the AM01’s design is based? Uh, not really, no. It’s a pastiche, much like other products in the Remake line. And maybe that makes sense for a product that looks like a Mac but runs Windows.

The materials and wallpaper use a pixelated version of the old Apple serif, which… is weird! It was used on print materials or large enough on the screen to not look like that. The interchangeable icon on the case where the Apple logo would be is a nice touch, if sort of unnecessary. It’s not like the AM02 model with its built-in screen, so we’re not sure how often you’ll be looking at the hardware itself.

Still, the AM01 sets the stage with its looks, fitting in well with a lifestyle that’s retro-friendly. We ended up doing most of our testing with our 8BitDo keyboard and controller, and in a weird way, pairing a new PC that looks like an old Mac with new peripherals that look like old NES or Game Boy models really worked for us.

Performance

While most coverage of the AM01 has focused on higher-end models, we were able to check out the 8GB 5700U model, which isn’t the lowest spec but could be a more affordable option for many people. AYANEO talks about these options as more friendly for office tasks, storage and multimedia, and that’s certainly true, but you don’t need us to tell you about those! We’re here to tell you about its use in games.

As a result, yeah, what it can do is a bit limited in terms of modern titles. Higher-spec models of the AM01 may be able to handle Baldur’s Gate III, but ours couldn’t manage a passable frame rate on lowest settings. Less demanding fare, though, runs fine! We tested Silent Hope and Star Ocean: The Second Story R, and each handled best when adjusting the settings to what we’d most accurately call “Nintendo Switch.”

The AM01 works best as a secondary, home-theater gaming option, though. It has zero trouble running Jackbox Party Pack titles or Monster Roadtrip, the sorts of titles you’d only want to play with a big group in front of the same TV. A mini PC like this one is nice for those, because you can slip it in a bag and take it elsewhere to play with friends and family. And if you’re doing that? Hey, maybe the AM01’s fun aesthetics could be a fun conversation starter. If this scheme is held back by anything, it’s probably that its low-power specs are most taxed by the increasingly-4K displays many use for home theater. It’s a thoroughly capable device at, say, 1080p.

That said, with the retro aesthetic, it’s certainly a good fit for running classics or as an emulation box too. A PC is still the best option for playing old games of all types, and though we’ll leave it to others to cover the ins and outs of setting that up, we had a lot of fun using the AM01 for older PC games like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Heroes of Might and Magic III.

We found the AYASpace app to have some use on other devices like the Slide, but our AM01 model really couldn’t handle it and it was clunky enough that we had to disable it to get things running smoothly. Which isn’t a huge deal, but important to know! It’s most useful as a power management app, so it makes more sense on the company’s handhelds anyway.

AYANEO AM01: The Verdict

Lots of mini PCs can do the things the AYANEO AM01 does, understandably, but it’s a solid entrant into the market. As a first model for the company, it doesn’t mess anything up (which is an accomplishment!), and it brings a fun form factor into a category that generally just gives you nondescript boxes to hide behind other things. It doesn’t set itself apart as much as AYANEO’s handhelds, but it’s a fun and useful one of these! And that’s totally reasonable.

The AYANEO Retro Mini PC AM01 is available now, with models ranging from roughly $200 to $420. For more about the Remake series, check out our review of the Slide and our interview with the company CEO.

The post AYANEO Retro Mini PC AM01 Review: More Than Case Deep? appeared first on Siliconera.

Looking for some fun games to play on the AYANEO Slide after checking out our review? It runs a whole host of things, of course, but we thought we’d dig in on the sorts of games that the Slide does better than other handhelds out there.

Steam Deck compatibility? Who needs it!

The biggest difference between a native Windows handheld and a Steam Deck is the compatibility layer the Deck uses to run games on Linux. It works remarkably well for most games, too! But most ain’t all, and Slide owners can take advantage of incompatible games like the ones below.

Atelier (franchise)

Whether it’s Atelier Ryza 3, Atelier Remake, or some (though not all) of the older titles, the Atelier franchise is full of games that aren’t Deck-compatible but would run great on an AYANEO Slide.

Grandia HD Remaster, Grandia II HD Remaster

These remasters of RPG classics work well on a handheld. Older titles in the genre tend to have segments with a bit of monotony relative to modern releases, so short bursts or playing while multitasking are good strategies for enjoying them.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water

There’s something about the heft and form factor of the AYANEO Slide that fits well with a game about holding a camera. While we’d love to see some of the more beloved earlier games (and, uh, there are ways to play those on this thing too), these two are still a fun time.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure

We’re not entirely sure what’s holding back this game’s compatibility, but hey, one more opportunity to recommend that people play Moon is great. It’s quirky and ahead of its time, fitting in way better with today’s Undertale crowd than its mid-’90s peers.

Use that keyboard

The Slide’s unique form factor makes it ideal for games that sometimes use the keyboard. And that’s tough to find! But here are our picks for making the most out of the hardware configuration.

Nanotale: Typing Chronicles

If you’re looking for experimental keyboard games, a great place to start is with developer Fishing Cactus. That team has a handful of typing-based experiences, but Nanotale feels to us like the best fit for the Slide. It’s an exploration RPG that can get frantic, but usually proceeds at a more reasonable pace to handle on the small keys.

The Typing of the Dead: Overkill

This may be something of a challenge — the keyboard is usable but not particularly fast or full-size — but if you really want to have an experience you can’t on other handhelds, The Typing of the Dead will do that.

Think outside the box?

Sure, it’s a keyboard, but it’s also dozens of mappable buttons. Does that help with an MMO? Or Baldur’s Gate? The most interesting implementations of this form factor are going to take a bit of customization, but we’d love to see it.

Raid Game Pass for a while

Windows-based handhelds like the AYANEO Slide can jump into Game Pass games out of the box, without trickery or cloud streaming. Here are our Siliconera-friendly recommendations for what’s on the platform right now.

Yakuza/Like a Dragon (franchise)

We have a few other recommendations, but if we only had this one, you’d still be set for months. From Yakuza 0 to Like a Dragon: Ishin! and Like a Dragon Gaiden, you can play through essentially the full franchise (until the just-released Infinite Wealth) on Game Pass. They run well on the Slide in our testing, and the environments benefit greatly from the vibrant display.

Persona 5 Tactica

It’s still interesting to see Persona on Xbox at all. But hey, an original tactics game in that world makes for a good fit both on a handheld and with the noted brightness of the Slide’s screen.

Cassette Beasts

Of all the “Pokemon but better” indie efforts in recent years, Cassette Beasts stands out. It’s got a cool look, and interesting point of view and combat that feels markedly fresh and different.

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

Both Ni no Kuni titles are on the service, but we have a soft spot for the ambitious sequel. It’s like a bunch of different games mashed together, but it manages to do it in an endearing way.

The AYANEO Slide is available for purchase through the company’s Indiegogo page for prices ranging from $700 to $1300. For more, check out our review of the device and our interview with the company’s CEO.

The post Best AYANEO Slide Games: A Starter Guide appeared first on Siliconera.

The Paldean Fates expansion of the Pokemon Trading Card Game is a bit of a confusing one to approach. It’s got shiny Pokemon! There’s a bunch of reprints! It’s a landing place for cards that didn’t have another international home! So figuring out the best Paldean Fates cards is a bit tricky. We’re going to try, though!

The coolest Pokemon TCG Paldean Fates cards

You’re probably expecting us to say the shiny cards. You probably are buying any of this set in the first place because of the shiny cards! But we just can’t get that excited about cards that are simple, sometimes-recycled character-only art in different colors. So even though there aren’t as many in the mix, it’s the illustration rares again. The Trainer selection is particularly nice, with a Nemona action pose and a fun isometric scene featuring Clive.

If you’re really lucky, though, you may pull the incredibly rare gold prints of the Paldea legendaries. Cards like Chien-Pao ex have seen common play in competitive decks, and if you’re using them often, having a cool variant to show off while you do is nice.

The most interesting Paldean Fates cards

It may be arriving a bit late to the party, but United Wings decks get one more option in Kilowattrel. It has a United Thunder attack that deals 10 damage per United Wings user in your discard to an opponent’s benched creature. Is the dropoff from 20 to 10, and not actually counting itself, worth it? I don’t know! But we’ll see, I suppose.

The basic card drawing supporters, like Nemona and so many before her, tend to get outclassed a bit by more powerful options. It’s possible that the new Nemona’s Backpack might help? The item gets you two Nemona cards back from the discard pile, making for a much more consistent card draw at the expense of a little efficiency. Whether that’s interesting enough to try is a matter of taste, but hey, the pickings are slim in this set in terms of actually new abilities.

The most meta-relevant Paldean Fates cards

This one might even be meta-meta-relevant, but the biggest impact Paldean Fates will leave on the competitive scene comes from its collection of popular reprints. The silver lining to so much of the set being recycled is that it’s an opportunity for The Pokemon Company to water down demand of high-cost cards a bit, and bring down the cost of building a competitive deck. It’s maybe weird to recommend a special set release because it has staple reprints, but… well, that’s where we are!

In terms of new cards, the one that’s most likely to see play is Moonlit Hill. The new Stadium lets you discard a Psychic energy to heal 30 damage from your party, which seems not so special until you remember that Gardevoir ex (which got a reprint in this set) can put that energy back on a creature at the cost of 20 damage. Synergy!

It’s also possible that Gengar, with its ability allowing a free retreat each turn, could be nice in a support role, but Stage 2 creatures are a pain to play, so the bar’s a bit higher than that in terms of utility.

The cutest Paldean Fates cards

The Paldean Student cards have a bunch of plucky little kids just having a good time at school. With versions for both the base game’s academies and Illustration Rare versions of both, we get a lot of cute youngsters showing some fun personality. We’d like to see their adventures in future card art!

There are also some adorable little pals among the shiny contingent. None are particularly clever art treatments, but it’s simply hard to depict creatures like Tinkatink, Pawmi and Jigglypuff without making them lovable.

The newest Pokemon Trading Card Game expansion, Paldean Fates, launched January 26, 2024 and is in stores now. For more Pokemon TCG coverage, including an overview of this set, check out our archive.

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