February:
March:
April:
24) Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment (PC) (8.5) (4/7) (~5.5 hours)
25) Hyper Light Drifter (PS4) (8.0) (4/9) (~8 hours)
26) Gekido Advance: Kintaro's Revenge (GBA) (7.5) (4/16) (~3 hours)
Holy hand grenades, Batman, Gekido Advance is unforgiving! So I estimate about three hours, but that's if you've had a little practice and get the dice to roll your way correctly.
So, for those that haven't played it, it's an old-school beat-em-up with some really nice spritework and music, although a ton of those assets get re-used throughout the game. First, the good is that the combat is fast and fluid, with various combos you can unleash by varying your punch and kick buttons. I recommend keeping it to a five hit combo, starting with the punch, going to the kick, and then back to the punch. This will keep you from being too vulnerable, while still letting you hit with the very powerful flaming uppercut.
Keeping enemies off your back is important. This isn't a game where they'll just sit back and let you pound an enemy, oh no. They're more than happy to sneak in, and sneak in fast. Also of consequence is that you have a lot of vertical range compared to a lot of other belt-scrollers, but this goes for enemies as well. You're going to get popped, a lot. You do have a special clear-out move that is very effective, and it works on a charge basis much like Streets of Rage 3. You also get some standard jumping attacks.
Speaking of jumping, there's a bit more platforming in this than you'd expect. In fact, the game cribs some of the worst parts of Double Dragon, with the spike traps that fall from the ceiling being the most egregious. They are the definition of cheapness, with almost no warning given. Some aren't even on a timer, it's proximity, and they're triggered very, very close. Close enough that you're probably going to take the hit if you don't already know about it.
Also, there are a lot of little annoying enemies, mostly bats. It's not so bad when they're alone, but it will get annoying when other enemies are around. And the dogs that you can't actually kill that run across the screen at times... blah.
To go with the platforming and such, there are some mild adventure elements, in the form of branching paths, mainly to find keys to backtrack to another area and go through there. It never gets too complex, but it can be easy to get lost.
Anyway, this is one that I've always wanted to play through. I enjoyed the PlayStation game back in the day, and this is a bit smoother than that. It's got a pretty rad art style, and if things weren't quite so cheap, it wouldn't be so bad. As it is, it's a solid but very challenging beat-em-up.
(Oh, and thankfully, there are passwords, but those also save the number of continues you have left.)
