Destructoid Changelog - Puppy Birthdays

Important news! As you read this, it is my dog’s birthday. Zero. A Golden Retriever/Bernese Mountain Dog mix. He’s turning five today. Still acts like a puppy, though. Seriously. He’s both excitable and cowardly. A good dog to snuggle and play video games with.

I lost another weekend to plowing through a review game. This time it was Mario & Luigi: Brothership. The difference is that I had this well before the review embargo, but I was preparing for a 25-30 hour game. I clocked in at around 42. Granted, I went pretty heavy on side quests, but I still wasn’t planning for quite the marathon. You can read more about it in my review, but to sum it up, it feels needlessly bloated. So those 42 hours don’t even feel worthwhile.

Hey, so there’s a new thing. We’ve got a list. It’s a list of games that have been recommended (from sorta to hotly) in this newsletter. There are over 90 of them. We’ve also linked to where you can get them, some of which get us an affiliate kickback if you buy through the link. It’s an eclectic list, full of some weirdities and off-beat titles. We’re using it as a way of convincing more people to sign up, but because you’re so cool that you’ve already signed up, here’s a link to it. Give it a peruse sometime.

Speaking of support, there’s also going to be an ad in this newsletter. Our newsletter boss tells me it’s “like a sponsorship but worse.” Not totally sure what they mean by that—Newsletter Boss Note: “Worse” just means it’s more of a humble contribution than a bigger sponsor, but we’ll take what we can get! However, it’s for another newsletter that defines itself as “storytelling tips from horror + musical theater.” I was told I don’t have to say anything about it, but I looked at it and it seems neat. I don’t have much of a personal interest, but I like the idea of boosting other newsletter writers. Gotta stick together.

Also, if you want to boost this newsletter, consider referring it to a friend. If you do so by sending them the link below, you’ll get added to our VIP list where you’ll receive a special monthly edition of the newsletter. These are special because I do exclusive interviews with interesting developers. It’s pretty rad, and we’d appreciate it.

In the cartridge slot this week

Rod Land

I honestly haven’t had much time to play anything beyond Mario & Luigi: Brothership and a couple of other games for review. I have been getting into Drilldozer on the GBA, but I’m not far enough into it that I’m ready to talk about it at any length. Instead of that, Retro-bit sent me one of their reproductions of Rod Land. They gave me the Game Boy and NES versions, but I’ve only cracked into the NES one, so far.

Rod Land was a 1990 arcade game by Jaleco. Jaleco themselves have been getting a bit of appreciation from City Connection, who is credited alongside Retro-Bit on these repros, but are also releasing enhanced ROMs of their games on Switch under the Jalecolle banner.

Rod Land got some interesting ports in the day, but the NES version is perhaps the most impressive. In fact, in terms of ports, it’s more than you’d expect, and that’s largely thanks to an options menu. I wouldn’t normally consider a menu of the game’s settings to be all that worth mentioning, but it contains a lot of features. For example, you can change the color palette used by the player characters and change their names. You can also enable jumping and change how players interact. Pretty cool.

The game itself plays similarly to the arcade. It’s a single-screen game (think Bubble Bobble), where you need to eliminate all the enemies on each level. You can build ladders to get around, but to defeat enemies, you grab them and then slam them into the ground by flipping them over your head repeatedly. It’s strangely brutal.

It’s not the most spectacular arcade game out there in a world with Bubble Bobble and The Fairyland Story. You just have a lot of options beyond Rod Land. It is a lot of fun, though. But the other impressive part of the NES port is that it also acts as a sequel. Once you complete the initial run of levels found in the arcade version, you’re then given a brand new set of levels.

Allegedly. I haven’t made it quite that far yet, but I’m getting there.

Elsewhere on Destructoid

Showa American Story proves it’s still on its way with an absolutely bizarre new trailer

Do you remember the first Showa American Story from back in 2022? I don’t think Destructoid covered it at the time, but I definitely saw it and was intrigued by its alternate reality mix of Japanese and American culture. News about it went quite outside sporadic interviews, but now it’s resurfaced with a newer, longer, and even more ridiculous trailer.

There’s a lot of good stuff here, such as killing zombies with a drill on your head or driving an RV across the desert. There’s a fur-chested man who claims to be both an American Cowboy and Japanese Samurai. Dudes wear spandex, and there’s a mostly-naked out-of-shape Super Sentai team. Great stuff. The only thing I don’t understand is how it’s supposed to fit together.

The legacy Nintendo Network is officially dead, after its final user has disconnected

I can’t say I’m a fan of Nintendo shuttering their old services and ending online support for devices. I’m mainly upset about storefronts being closed, but certain games had a reliance on their online features, and without them, it devalues the game entirely. There has to be a better way.

But until we find that way, one fan decided he wasn’t going to let Nintendo just throw the Switch. He parked his 3DS in Mario Kart 7 and kept it running for months. Eventually, the 3DS crashed, disconnecting the last denizen from Nintendo’s network. It was a pointless effort to begin with, but at least the epilogue now has a period at the end of it.

Having performance issues on Stardew Valley? Remove hats from pets, dev says

Apparently, some console players of Stardew Valley are seeing performance issues. Unintended performance issues, apparently. The official response? Remove hats from all pets. Supposedly, this is for real and actually works. Pets will one day again wear hats once a patch has been created.

Bugs can be strange. One of my favorites I spotted in the patch notes to the PC version of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but it was something like “Stopped game from crashing when sniper would notice vehicle.” Programming really is like building a house of cards sometimes.

Reviews for review this week

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

I have very limited experience with the Call of Duty series. I played the first one back when it was new. Then I tried Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare after everyone said it was transcendentally good. I didn’t really like it. I never really understood the acclaim. Nothing since then has really interested me. But, I don’t know if you know this, it’s super popular, so someone has to review Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. In this case, it was Kristina Ebanez who took it on a put a number on it.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership

I don’t think any of Nintendo’s RPG-lites have really lived up to the original Super Mario RPG, but I do appreciate its splinters. Mario & Luigi is great in particular because of Luigi. Luigi is in the series, usually in a central role, if you can believe it.

Brothership has Luigi and his brother travelling the seas in an effort to link a series of islands into a super-continent. It has lavish animations, does a great job at depicting the fraternal relationship of Luigi and his brother, and is generally fun to play. It’s unfortunate that it’s bloated out to 42 hours because it really dampens the fun. Like, a lot. It’s not bad, it just hurts.

Chicken Police: Into the Hive

Eesh. I named Chicken Police: Into the Hive as my most anticipated game of 2024, and it managed to make the date. For much of it, it feels like an improvement of 2020’s Paint It Red. However, the wheels fall off of it in the second half. Suddenly, a lot gets glossed over while all the characters just band together in one terrible plan to end everything.

I can think of a few reasons for why things went south, which I list in the review. The end result, however, is something that just feels unfinished. The developer has worked hard to build things up, but somehow, the delivery just wasn’t right. I am beyond disappointed.