Games I've been playing recently: Y2K Edition
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BROUGHT TO YOU BY SEGA
: Dreamcast / Arcade
Developer/Publisher: Sega
Genre: Squash / Breakout Clone
Completion Notes: Full playthrough on easiest time settings (which is what most of the Youtube uploads do lol)
The beauty of retro gaming is that there's always
some hidden gem you've never heard of before, and I hadn't heard of Cosmic Smash until this past February, thanks to it both being shouted out by Youtuber Rebeltaxi and the out-of-nowhere reveal in Sony's State of Play of
C-Smash VRS, a reimagining of the game that came out about a week and a half ago on Playstation VR2.
Cosmic Smash is a very straightfoward game; it's Breakout/Arkanoid, but instead of controlling a paddle, you break the blocks by playing Squash/Racquetball. The blocks exist in 3D space, which
sometimes makes it difficult to tell how many blocks deep you have to clear, and gray blocks serve as obstacles that you'll need to ricochet the ball past. Unlike Breakout, instead of having lives, the whole game is run on a timer with extensions being given every time you finish a level. By default, you start with 80 seconds and gain 20 seconds per level clear, though I'm still trying to finish the game on that setting and would recommend starting with the highest (but still not easy!) setting of 150 seconds with 50 second bonuses. 20 seconds might sound unreasonable, but most levels can be cleared within 20 seconds with good (and not necessarily optimized) play, though there are some tougher levels later on that you'll really need the extra time for, namely the level before the first route split. On that note, the levels are arranged like a subway map and you clear the game upon making it to the "end of a line", so even if the game is very short, there's plenty of replay value
Despite how simple the game is, it has a deceptive amount of intuitive nuance: Angling your control stick as you hit the ball let's you adjust the ball's trajectory. You can jump, slide, and even wall-jump for added mobility. Finally, you have a powerful Trick Shot, which costs time to use, but can pierce through blocks; it's not a move you can afford to spam, and you'll want to balance using it to potentially end stages quickly versus using normal shots that cost less time. I will have to confess that even with all this, the game can be a bit of a crapshoot at times; sometimes the ball just
will not hit the target no matter how much you try and sometimes you will get clean stage clears in what feels like an accident, but I suppose that's par for the course for a Breakout-style game. Still, the game feels quite natural to control, so maybe the satisfying act of getting your angles
just right to end a stage in just a few seconds is working on a subconscious level.
If this game was just its gameplay, it would be a simple for forgettable diversion, but Cosmic Smash's minimalist Y2K artstyle carries it so far. I don't think I need to comment on its look, the screenshots tell it all. Combine it with a filtered, almost robotic narrator, stylized level transitions, and a
CLEAN OST inspired by IDM and Atmospheric Jungle (my favorite track being
White Stellar Room), Cosmic Smash makes for an incredibly engrossing experience. Rebeltaxi wished there were items, power-ups, or other gameplay elements added, but I disagree; I think having simple and stripped-back gameplay that relies more on natural feel rather than meticulous play blends perfectly with the style this game is going for.
Unfortunately, the staff who worked on Cosmic Smash don't really have many other game credits, not even the game's narrator. The exception is one of the programmers being relative newcomer Katsuyasu Ando, who was soon scooped up by Nintendo to join Koizumi's crew for Donkey Kong Jungle Beat and every 3D Mario since Galaxy 1. If that's not a sign of the talent that went into this project, I don't know what is.
There's not really much to say about Cosmic Smash. There might not be a game whose screenshots make its appeal more obvious.
8/10 (Truly Great)
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GREETINGS. THIS IS CUBELLO. LET'S PLAY THE GAME.
Art Style: CUBELLO (2008)
System: WiiWare
Developer/Publisher: Skip / Nintendo
Genre: Puzzle
Completion Notes: Currently on Stage 5 of 6
Cubello, meanwhile, came out well after Y2K and is part of the Art Style series, one of many "I've heard of it but never played it" franchises in Nintendo's catalogue.
In Cubello, you're given a multi-colored prism composed of blocks called a cubello (I'll use lowercase to indicate the term and uppercase for the game name), with your goal being to eliminate blocks until only the center cube remains. Blocks are cleared whenever four or more of the same color connect with each other. You can place blocks next to the face of any other block in the cubello, but your ability to place blocks is limited and only increases as you clear more blocks; the game ends if you run out of blocks. You can't manually control the position of the cubello, instead the cubello slowly moves towards you and rotates (if it hits you it's a game over), so you need to place your blocks with careful timing. Also there's this roulette and I don't understand the mechanics of how it works, but basically sometimes the game randomly gives you the place any number of blocks for a short period of time.
Yeah...Cubello's gameplay is very difficult to explain, it's one of those games that will make sense as you play it. The biggest problem is getting a feel for the aiming. Since the cubello is constantly rotating and you have no control over its movement, you need extreme precision when placing blocks. Remember, you have limited time and your cursor needs to highlight a FACE, not just a block. It is very easy to mess up your block placements in the short term. Thankfully, between bonus time and just how easy it is to get four blocks of a matching color, digging yourself out of a hole is pretty easy in Cubello. Most of the strategy kicks in at the end of a stage when you're trying to remove the last few blocks, including the new blocks you're adding. Admittedly a puzzle game where educated guessing can get you far sounds like a bad idea, but it's kinda like Cosmic Smash and higher levels of Tetris in that Cubello is a game that works more off of feel than deep thinking.
Cubello's minimalist aesthetics are pretty good, but I dunno, it's not
quite as good Cosmic Smash (I think the simple but generic HUD and the vacant background, while fitting, could've been improved even more). The narrator this time is done by a DECTalk-esque speech generator instead of an actual voice actor. I read IGN's review saying that they found the voice annoying, but I personally didn't mind it, I think it adds to the game's flavor. As far as the soundtrack goes the
title and
menu themes are some great ambient pieces, to the point where they sound like the music a Youtube essayist would use at the 40 minute mark of their video as they're about to deliver the "emotional climax". The remaining tracks are more playful ambient techno tracks; they're good and they fit the tone of the game, but they don't help the game stand out in the same way that Cosmic Smash's OST does.
But yeah, not much to say about Cubello either.The game is pretty short at only 6 main stages, but it contains two special alterations, B and C, for each of the stages
(GAME THEORY: Celeste RIPPED OFF Cubello?????), so there is a fair amount of content, no clue if I'll do it all though. It's not a perfect game by any means, but it's a good time. I think above all else, Cubello really makes me miss this era of Nintendo where they were open to developing and publishing a looot of smaller-scale projects with unique ideas/execution rather than focusing on higher-budget titles
7/10 ("This is a Good Video Game")
