And this post catches me up.
ちえりのドキ★ドキ湯煙ぶらり旅 or, that hot spring game. It's a lot of fun, even though I struggled with the controls, pressing the opposite direction I wanted to shoot in. Still though, it didn't take long to adjust and it's funny and... er... fun.
Run Rectangle! Jump! Shoot! was a surprise. It looks terrible and the lead "character" is about as lazily made as I've ever seen. Like how people keep using smiley faces as characters in 2D platformers 'cause they can't animate a run cycle. Anyway, the platforming is good and there's a fair amount of levels within, including some bonus levels for earning in-game awards.
Solar Struggle looks incredible. Really, really nice to look at. It's a game set in space where you pilot your ship around and complete missions and shoot at stuff and stuff. Flying around is lovely, combat is less so as enemy ships move so fast it's hard to hit them, and boring after a while as you just auto-fire and swing around wildly and accidentally hit them now and then until they die. If you can get the hang of it though, a great game is within.
Spatial Rift looks incredible. Really, really nice to look at. It's a game set in space where you pilot your ship around and complete missions and shoot at stuff and stuff. Flying around is lovely, combat is less so as enemy ships move so fast it's hard to hit them, and boring after a while as you just auto-fire and swing around wildly and accidentally hit them now and then until they die. If you can get the hang of it though, a great game is within. Eagle-eyed readers may notice some similarities to the description of the game above, they honestly could be the same game.
Sword of Rapier -ソード オブ レイピア- is an action-RPG that reminds me of Net Yaroze games of old, for some reason. It looks a bit 32-bit, I suppose. Anyway, not much to say about it, combat is quite satisfying but I didn't get to see much of the game because the trial timed out too soon. It's all in Japanese though, and prior posts in this thread suggest that could cause problems with knowing what to do later!
Smiley Smashout is a novel idea. You blow up a smiley and every smiley it hits blows up and every smiley THAT hits blows up, etc. Far too random though, and you can't actually plan what your shot will do, all you can do is press A and cross your fingers, then keep doing it. That's not a game.
Poker Stacker 2 confused me. You just line up cards that fall from the top into Poker hands and then the line disappears. You can make a line disappear with just a pair and if you don't manage to get at least a pair there's something wrong with you. Needs a better scoring mechanic, or some kind of skill-based element before it even begins to be a game.
Return of the Noose is a poor-looking horizontal shooter which has nothing to do with Hangman but mentions it at every turn, for some reason. I didn't get it. The shooting is pretty poor. Enemies fly across the screen too fast for you to kill most of them which makes the whole experience fairly annoying.
Sidewalk Sally is a game you know is going to be bad as soon as you see the box-art. You're not quite prepared for how bad, though. You press A to skate and then X or Y to jump over cracks in the pavement, or small obstacles. That's it. The timing is all weird so you'll fall over most of the time anyway but even if you don't, the game doesn't track any kind of score at all so it's a complete waste of time.
Spherendipity. Move a ball around to knock balls into other balls. There's not really enough going on here.
Super Tricky is a football/soccer keepy-uppy kinda game. Decent enough controls once you get used to them, with the left stick moving and the right one controlling different parts of the body. There's not much to keep you interested beyond the first level though, there must be a better way to make this kind of game with more impressive tricks, etc. The thing that stuck with me though was the bizarre (surely) made up quotes when you look at the "other games" section. All the dev's games appear to have received 5/5 ratings, including a virtual fishtank. Weird.
The Endless Abyss is an RPG that's not pretty. Also, wasn't much to do before the trial expired. You just wander round until you happen across a yellow triangle that lets you leave that area for the next, then keep doing so. Maybe there's more game later.
Zombie Arena. Your avatar stands in one place and spins around to shoot at zombies which approach. Isn't remotely satisfying to play because there's no real feeling of weight to your shots.
沈黙の磁石 could have been great but it lets itself down a bit by being too tough to control. Alls ya do is bounce yourself between magnets by switching polarity but it's quite hard to ensure you're flung in the right direction so you spend most of the time replaying the same shots until you get lucky.
