PPR Presents Late to the Party: Kirby Star Allies

ver the years, Nintendo has been privileged with a large stable of iconic franchises, and enduring characters that have gone on to appeal to audiences across the world, both old and young alike. Among those properties is their adorable pink puff-ball hero, Kirby, a character who had a title on nearly every platform from the company since the days of the NES and GameBoy.

After a year on the market, the gluttonous do-gooder is finally making his debut on the Nintendo Switch with Kirby Star Allies, which, in a surprising twist, is an adventure that’s far more traditional with his earlier outings than some of his more recent affairs. Opting more for refinement than innovation, Star Allies may arguably play it a bit too safe to make a splash among the other stellar platformers currently offered on the new console, but the game is still amazing entry in its own right.

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QCF: 20XX (Switch)

ega Man is a pretty formulaic game. Fight six to eight combat-enabled re-purposed robots by using other robots' weapons against them rock-paper-scissor style, then take on a few extra nefarious machinations before defeating a balding, mad scientist with illusions of grandeur and seriously questionable choices in home decor. There have been 10 of these so far with an 11th on the horizon, so the setup seems to work. So much so, actually, that a parallel, edgier series with an X tacked on that incorporates caped villains, mysterious allies including one with long, flowing blonde hair and a cyberzoo's-worth of crazy mechanical fauna also, itself, saw a solid 8 entries. And an RPG.

20XX, while very obviously inspired by the Rockingest Man of X himself, is not such a game, despite the many mechanics it borrows. If you've ever wondered what Mega Man X would be like if it were a completely differently structured roguelite, well, we might have the answer for you.

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QCF: Code of Princess EX

utside of the XBLA re-release of the Treasure classic, Code of Princess is the kind of game that players pining for some of that Guardian Heroes gameplay have been able to find their fix in recent years. With its original release on 3DS, it offered players the ability to play a Guardian Heroes-style game anywhere they might be without having to resort to the vastly sub-par Advance Guardian Heroes on Game Boy Advance.

For those looking for some Code of Princess action on more powerful hardware and on a bigger screen, Degica's re-release on Steam was primed to be the answer. However, not only did it suffer from blurry textures on 3D elements, all of the characters and enemies were the same resolution as their 3DS counterparts, making for a jarringly ugly time. So where can players find the best of all worlds with proper, high-def visuals and extra features? The answer: the Nintendo Switch's Code of Princess EX, developed by Studio Saizensen and published by Nicalis!

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Mudprints Unboxes: Octopath Traveler Wayfarer's Edition

Ser gets his JRPG fix with the exquisite Octopath Traveler Wayfarer's Edition from Square-Enix! It's the game he bought a Switch for... so what's inside?

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Bullet Heaven, Episode 214 - 1917: The Alien Invasion DX (Switch)

1917: The Alien Invasion was a decent fictional account of WWI humanity versus an invading alien scourge. Now it's back with extra ships, levels and features as 1917: The Alien Invasion DX for the Nintendo Switch and PC... with what could be an inappropriate ESRB rating. What are we talking about? Let's take a closer look.

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Bullet Heaven, Episode 213 - Quad Fighter K

So you want a shmup for four players in the vein of star soldier and other caravan shmups? Quad Fighter K answers the call, complete with a faux kusoge in tow. So how does this indie Japanese caravan shmup stack up? Let's take a look!

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QCF: A Robot Named Fight

hat was once a niche sub-genre that was only romanticized by its rabid cult-following, has now gradually begun to spill into the mainstream of the independent video game scene—Metroidvania games are available on just about every system at this point, to the point where the style is bordering on stagnation.

In an intriguing twist, however, similar to the Nuzlocke challenges that have swept numerous play-throughs of the Pokémon series, the iconic games that pioneered the formula, like Super Metroid, and Castlevania Aria of Sorrow, are now getting modded with the “randomizer” treatment. This modification works to alter the order and location of key upgrades and items in their core game, forcing an entirely new Meta into the gameplay for players to tackle.

One developer by the name of Matt Bittner took notice of the trend, and took it upon himself to push the concept to an entirely different level; developing a Metroidvania adventure that would not only randomize items, upgrades, but the map layout itself, in a manner that’s similar to roguelike dungeon crawler titles. His efforts led to producing an ambitious pixelated tribute to the genre called A Robot Named Fight, releasing for Steam and Nintendo Switch, and while the release does make good on its premise, its execution leaves a lot to be desired.

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Bullet Heaven, Episode 212 - Ikaruga Full Compare & Switch Review

In episode 59 of Bullet Heaven, we took a look at the XBLA version of Ikaruga on the Xbox 360. We really love Ikaruga, and with the recvent Switch version, we though it'd be neat to compare every home version of "Project RS2" to the most recent iteration of this amazing classic. How does it stack up?

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