It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I really like my metroidvania games, and I'm a fairly big fan of cats, so when I saw this game putting the two together in what seemed like an adorable and lethal combination, I knew I had to try it. Sadly you don't like everything you try.. and this is one of those times where the game just didn't reach the standards I can even begin to recommend when there are so many better games in the genre.
When I was a little kid in the late 80s, my little brother and I, like many other kids, loved playing Nintendo. Enough so that our parents would not only get us a few games once in a while, but even a subscription to the now immortal Nintendo Power magazine. And it is in here we would learn many of the tips and tricks I did actually use to beat several of those games, but for me, it would do something more. Within the first few articles was a guide to find your way through the first part of a little title known as Shadowgate. I read through this guide top to bottom untold amount of times, excited to see the arcane tricks of the castle it wanted to show everyone how to survive. Enough so the game was a birthday gift that year...
I fell in love with this game as both a puzzle game that could be tough as nails and my first taste of horror gaming, and I even learned to speed run it before speedrunning was a thing before putting the cart away forever. But I never forgot the living castle and made a point to play every new entry in the franchise I could get my hands on, and even the 2014 remake. Now, nearly 40 years later, the perfect storm has happened and the original team who wrote the first game got together to make the sequel they were never allowed to way back then. It was worth waiting for. Welcome back to Kal Torlin!
Hello and once again welcome to our regular updates for Extra Life! If you do not know what Extra Life is, welcome to the site. (Seriously I make a point to keep a post about it on the main page so you've gotta be new.... nothing wrong with that, in fact the welcome is VERY heart-felt... welcome indeed.)
But to answer the obvious question about it, Extra Life is a charity event that takes place every year. Run by the Children's Miracle Network, they handle all the details so we can focus on what we do best! If you want to join, the process is VERY simple:
Those are words I never though I would say, but here we are. I also never thought I would consider Nintendo not just a terminally old-style company, but something I now straight up despise. But I'm getting ahead of myself. For those of you who do not want to read, Nintendo has finally done it. I already planned to skip the Switch 2, but I'm basically packing up my original Switch till the day I can hack it and play the games I already have for it on my PC where they will play better anyway. Nintendo can officially fuck off.
I will have to admit now, I didn't plan on picking this for myself. Rather, I have a brother who is a huge fan of the series. Not that I objected to it, but I just got a vibe that, much like the main game, Blizzard's asking price was going to be way too much for me to be interested. So when it up on the Winter sale, I decided was time to pull the trigger and get started. And while I did enjoy myself, I really am glad I got it then and not at full price.
It's usually a bit exciting to reach the end of not just a game, but an entire series and say "yeah, I finished it" but I knew that wasn't gonna happen here. The Christmas episode for Jazz Jackrabbit 1 set about what I expected from this game: with a very short session that does little new but draped in snow... yeah, that's exactly what I got.
Having absolutely loved the first game and it's DLC, I was honestly very excited to get back to Red Barrels' horror series. And while I can't say it's the best they have offered us, that doesn't make it bad. In fact this is yet another masterpiece in it's own right. Just not in comparison to what came before.