Destructoid Changelog - Strawberry Pie!

It’s finally Friday. Well, actually, I write these on Thursdays because I’m not getting up that early. Ever. We’re elbow-deep into Gamescom, which means it's been a busy time for Destructoid. Have you seen anything revealed that interests you?

Mafia: The Old Country is probably the highest-budget game shown that I have any interest in, and the teaser was a big nothing. It at least establishes that it takes place in Sicily, which I’m down for. Something about that tells me that they’re going to be a little less action-oriented than Mafia 3.

Really, I think Hela was what stood out for me the most overall (so far). A game where you play as mice with frog backpacks. But there’s so much going on at the show (and so many long streams) that it would be hard not to find something to like.

Before we get to the part of the newsletter that you maybe don’t skim/skip, consider spreading the word.

In the cartridge slot this week

Pu-Li-Ru-La

Arcade games have been my comfort food for the past few months. They don’t demand much of your time and are healthier than just falling into a micro-progression addiction via crafting or gacha games. Maybe. I’m not a psychologist.

Guiding me has (partially) been the Hi-Score Girl anime/manga, which partners a love of video games that I can relate to with a bittersweet romance that I can also, unfortunately, relate to. Pu-Li-Ru-La made an appearance for all of, like, two seconds, which was enough for me to seek it out. It’s a belt-scrolling beat-’em-up game with a cutesy art style and a tendency to turn darkly weird.

Most of the weirdness happens on the third level, where digitized photographs abruptly spring from the background or try to lick you. I can’t imagine what it would be like seeing that in 1991 around the game’s release. It’s less bizarre in other levels, but still rather strange. One of the bosses wears a horn-like conical codpiece, which is concerning. One of your special attacks (which are chosen semi-randomly based on your score) drops a giant microwave that a masked man in his underpants springs from. He then rushes around, bundling all the enemies in Saran wrap and chucking them into the microwave.

Unfortunately, Pu-Li-Ru-La isn’t a very interesting game. It’s a mundane brawler with little gameplay variety. It’s also less than a half-hour long, which is short, even for an arcade game. It’s half a Final Fight and also half as much fun to play. The best way to experience it is through screenshots.

Elsewhere on Destructoid

There’s a Mini-Moni: Shakatto Tambourine Da Pyon fan translation if you felt like you were missing out

I own way too many bad rhythm games that are actually kind of enjoyable to play. I have one on Game Boy Color involving Calico Critters (Sylvanian Families) that is about five minutes long, so there’s always room for more.

Mini-Moni: Shakatto Tambourine Da Pyon is a pretty strange choice for a side project for fan translators Hilltop and Co. It clearly took effort, but I’m not sure anyone was asking for it. I’m not even sure anyone ever asked for a tambourine-centric rhythm game based on the idol group Mini-Moni. But there it was. And now here it is in English.

I was terrible at it, but, to be fair, it seems like it’s intended to be played using a Shakatto Tambourine (spin-off of Samba De Amigo) controller, which I don’t have. It’s playable using a controller but not intuitive. As a result, the game rated my performance as “Drunken.” I don’t drink, but my performance would have you fooled.

Fans adore and despise Vampire Survivors’ Darkasso update like some sort of cursed monkey paw

I’ve said that the goal of Vampire Survivors is to become, essentially, overpowered. The new Darkasso update suggests there is a technical limit to that. Jamie Moorcroft-Sharp delves into some of the community reports of issues with the Darkana that was added. This not only shows a player who can’t lose and therefore can’t proceed but also one who has ramped up their movement skill so high that the game outright crashes. Sounds like a win to me.

Crashing the game is maybe not intended, but becoming so powerful that you feel like you’ve broken it feels very much like the Vampire Survivors I know. I had a similar issue when their Emergency Meeting DLC dropped. I had leveraged the new weapons so well that the Grim Reaper(s) couldn’t touch me when the level was supposed to end. I got up and left my computer, and I think it took around 5 minutes before one was finally able to finish me off. You can’t be upset about it because that’s essentially the goal of the game.

Yomawari: Night Alone is quietly one of the best openings in games

Just a warning: there’s nothing funny about the introduction to Yomawari: Night Alone, and I don’t really try to make light of it in this article. In order to set up the game’s central themes (coming-of-age stuff like shame and responsibility), it tries to draw you in using what is essentially micro-trauma. It’s as effective as it is distressing.

This comes off of talking about Earth Defense Force 6’s plot using deep spoilers in my review. It’s not something I do well, because being honed in when a game is trying to surprise you can ruin the effectiveness. Moments like the final boss of Earthbound and the fate of Aerith in Final Fantasy VII are much more memorable if you don’t see them coming, but they’ve been talked about so much that you essentially can’t help but have them spoiled.

However, discussing what makes them effective is important too. When trying to evoke interest in a game, you talk about what it does best, and sometimes that requires delving into these moments. Spoilers also aren’t the end of the world they’re sometimes made out to be. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back are still good, even after you know the big twist.

Not Yomawari: Night Alone, though. Despite the tremendous force of its narrative, the gameplay is hard to recommend.