Nintendo Virtual Boy (Remake Console) Preview

 

In 1995 Nintendo released as the first of the big publishers a VR-Headset as a Videogame Console. This was many years before anybody else considered doing so and that has many reasons. The most important is, that the technology simply wasn’t ready yet.

VR Games in 3D only started to actually take off in 2013 with the first Oculus Rift Headset. The Virtual Boy in 1995 was mostly producing 2D Games, just with a red taint over them. Don’t get me wrong, this was still impressive and a unique experience back than. But it’s fair to point out that, neither was the general public ready nor was the technology of the time.

The Virtual Boy couldn’t just be worn as a regular headset and instead required a stand, which wasn’t only a bit awkward to place and use, but was also quite prone to failure.

The Controller looked like a Gameboy, that somehow got severely deformed. A Gamepad with two different D-Pads… I don’t think we have ever seen something like that before or afterward, a true Dr. Frankenstein creation.

The Virtual Boy sold less than a million units, which for a smaller company might have been acceptable, but for Nintendo was a huge commercial failure. Only 22 Games were ever officially released. A really small library, but the quality was actually not too bad. Admittedly, there wasn’t a single “system-seller” game out there, but games like ‘Virtual Boy Wario Land’ or ‘Mario Tennis Virtual Boy’ look quite good and except for perhaps a handful of them, there weren’t any real stinkers.

Nintendo in the last decade has been joining the trend of re-releasing both many of their most successful games on multiple consoles, as well as many of their consoles themselves in smaller formats. I am personally not the biggest fan of products like the ‘NES’ or ‘SNES Classic Mini’. I already own real versions of the NES and SNES and the Mini-Consoles don’t come close to replacing the original products for me. The consoles are much smaller, which I am not a fan of. The library of pre-installed games is very small and the emulation upscales them too much in some cases. 240P older games often look best via a RGB-, a Component Cable or perhaps a 720P upscale at most.

Long story short: I prefer the original hardware over the new Mini versions, especially since popular consoles like the NES, SNES, N64, Mega Drive, PS1 are all quite affordable to this day, due to a huge quantity of consoles out there in the wild.

The Virtual Boy on the other hand is “failed console” when it comes to most metrics, which has lead to them becoming extremely expensive. Getting a Virtual Boy in 2025 would probably set you back at least 400-500 Euro/Dollar and they are even quite prone to technical failure…

In such a case I wouldn’t mind a Mini- or Re-Release Console at all, because it would at least  allow us to get one for an affordable price. But that’s not how Videogame companies operate. If the Console or Game flopped, they see Remaking and possibly improving them as an unacceptable risk. They instead just remake Videogames and Consoles that do not require a Remake, because they were already Masterpieces in the first place. Just another vicious circle…

I would love Mini or + Consoles for the Atari Jaguar, the 5200, the Sega 32X or perhaps other older consoles like the Colecovision or the the first Magnavox Odyssey, but I doubt we are ever going to get them.

But that’s why I was extremely excited when the Virtual Boy Remake was announced by Nintendo. I couldn’t wait to click on that Trailer and than the disappointment kicked in. The new Virtual Boy isn’t even a real console and requires a Switch to be operated. Ouch, that’s certainly not optimal. Especially since Switch 1+2 are the only mainstream Nintendo consoles I don’t own, but fair enough. I am probably eventually going to get them.

But than came a real slap in the face. You can’t even purchase the new Virtual Boy, unless you are an active Nintendo Online Subscriber… What kind of nonsense is this? Don’t they want my money? Are you that rich already, Nintendo? But wait, it gets worse, much worse… You can’t even purchase Virtual Boy Games, neither physical (they should be physical) nor digital. The only way to play those games is to also be an active Nintendo Online Subscriber… I consider that a hate crime!

This means Nintendo could simply remove all of the Virtual Boy Games from their Online Service at any time and you as a consumer could do nothing about it. The Virtual Boy Remake device would immediately become useless plastic trash on your shelf. You couldn’t even turn it on or do anything with it and let’s not kid ourselves. Nintendo has done this before. Remember Super Mario Bros 35? A Game, which was only available for Nintendo Online Subscribers and they shut it down permanently! Remember Pacman 99? Yeah, the same story.

 

Result:

I would love a real Virtual Boy Remake Console. Sure, it wouldn’t set the world on fire, but I could see a decent enough size of Nintendo fans and Videogame Collectors being curious and interested enough to justify the production cost.

The terrible Remake Console (it even feels insulting to call it a Console, since it’s actually just the Switch displaying all the games) costs 80 Euro/100 Dollar, but I would easily be happy to pay 150-200 Euro/Dollar, if if was a real self-operating Console with either all Virtual Boy Games built-in, or they could even sell them as re-release cartridges for 20 ‘Bucks’ a piece on Amazon, like Atari has been doing with their 2600+ and 7800+ Consoles. I am sure Mario Tennis or Virtual Boy Wario Land would generate more than enough interest.

This terrible Virtual Boy Remake Console on the other hand, that treats its customers like servants, is a disgrace! I can’t even recall the last time a company sold you a Console without any electronics or games in it. I don’t want to be impolite, but this device can go to hell...

Feverdream Rainbow Chaser (PS5) Review

 

Feverdream Rainbow Chaser is a F2P Battle Royale Game on PS5 and the Epic Game Store. In the Playstation Store it even features a couple of PS Plus Bundles, which only a select few games receive. Either the developer of this game has been paying a lot for this privilege or somebody at Sony lost their mind, because Feverdream is a scuffed Battle Royale Game with Rainbows by a one-person developer. A game like this shouldn’t even be in the Playstation Store in the first place. Steam or Itch.io have huge F2P sections, where thousands of smaller games from Indie devs can be found. Many are real hidden gems, but there is also plenty of trash to be found (some of those I reviewed on this blog). The Playstation Store has a much smaller, more selective F2P section and Sony usually has a quality control, which prevents low effort games from entering the store unless they got a price tag (in that case obviously everything is allowed, because it makes them money). In the case of Feverdream the system must have clearly failed.

It reminds me a bit of Fun with the Fitzgeralds, which I reviewed recently, but Feverdream is actually even worse. You play as characters in some kind of dream world and with the power of rainbows you can travel between different floating islands in the sky and fight the other players.

The rainbow surfing is probably the best part of the game and even that feels pointless and boring. It’s slow and unexciting. When you think about the idea of surfing on clouds in the sky, than it actually sounds thrilling and fast. The game has nothing of that to offer.

The combat is even worse. Attacks feel super clunky and you and the other players will just move around each other, while desperately trying to get an attack in, so the matches go over more quickly. Feverdream doesn’t only look very cheap, the entire gameplay also feels very scuffed.

You might however not even get to experience this atrocity, since the playerbase is super dead. I was queuing in around a dozen occasions for around 10 mins and I could only ever find 2 matches. In order to start a match you only need to find a single other player. I think that says enough. In one match the other guy quit after a few minutes after we couldn’t find each other and he realized what kind of game he was playing. I really can’t blame him for that.

Feverdream features 12 Playstation Trophies and Epic Game Store achievements with no Platinum Trophy and 4 of them being Gold Trophies. If you boost it with a friend (good luck finding someone for this game) or a second console, it should be relatively easy. Otherwise, it will be very grindy due to the low playercount. I didn’t bother with it and I can’t recommend completing the list.

  

Result:

The developer of this game must have really had a Feverdream when he developed this abomination. I don’t like to hate on games, but this is just terrible. After Fun with the Fitzgeralds and Dead Grandmother Online Battle Royale this is the third abysmal F2P Battle Royale Game I reviewed in the last months. Perhaps the PS5 F2P section is actually getting worse… The combat is atrocious, movement feels boring and scuffed, the visuals don’t look good and there are absolutely no players. Save yourself the time and don’t download this game!

 

2/10

Terpenie (PC) Review

 

‘Terpenie’ is a Horror Game, which was seemingly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s movie classic ‘Rear Window’. That being said, I am pretty sure Hitchcock would be angry about my comparison of his masterpiece to Terpenie.

You play as a guy living in a small flat of a residential apartment complex in apparently a Post-Soviet setting. The developer at least put that in the game’s description, but I couldn’t spot any specific Post-Soviet elements. This could easily also take place in a Western or Asian country in any random time period.

A big part of the game consists of everyday activities, like cleaning your apartment or cooking a meal. Towards the end of the game you will however spot a nearby murder you shouldn’t have and you now have to try not to become the latest victim yourself. This is the reference to ‘Rear Window’, but I feel nearly bad for bringing it up, since Terpenie is a pretty flawed game.

The biggest part of the game are only the everyday life activities, which are simply not much fun. In a good game those are activities, that help with the pacing and neither overstay their welcome nor brush over before you can blink. In Terpenie those tasks however suck for two main reasons: The bad translation/programming and the clunky physics features.

A lot of the objectives in this game are only displayed for a second and many of them are either misleading or straight up incorrect. This makes figuring out the activities more convoluted than necessary. At some point an incorrect dialogue display even spoilers the game’s story.

The other problem is the physics engine. You can grab objects and drag them through the world, which might sound interesting, but is more frustrating than useful in this game. You will often just get stuck on objects or walls in the tiny apartment of the protagonist. This makes the everyday activities more cumbersome than they would be in real life, which is not what you would want to achieve in a game. Physics features can enrich the game experience, like they do in great games like Half Life 2 or Portal, but they don’t in Terpenie.

The pacing of the game is also totally off. The game might initially seem much longer than it actually is, since it can easily take 10-15 mins to figure out what the game actually wants you to do. A second playthrough on the other hand should take less than 5 mins, which is simply way too short. Regardless of that, the Horror appears far too late and is over too soon. The stealth and chase part of the game is certainly its biggest strength, but it is also over way too soon.

Before we talk about some of the other faults of the game, I want to give a little shoutout to the Killer in this game. He makes Usain Bolt look like a slow walker. It’s like you would be facing off with the Reverse-Flash. I don’t know if this was done on purpose, but it is pretty funny.

I have heard from some people that Terpenie is not greatly optimized and I have certainly heard my fans get louder than they should on this game, but on strong hardware the game performance itself is at least totally fine.

What really annoyed me was the ‘Continue Button Scam’ in the game. There is a Continue Button on the main menu, but it does absolutely nothing, since the game has no checkpoints. If you die at any point, than you have to replay from the start each time. This can be quite frustrating, since you have to suffer through the same lame activities each time and there is even a Glitch in the final chase, which will sometimes get you caught due to no fault of your own. It’s completely random. Most of the time it doesn’t, but sometimes the glitch will trigger and there is nothing you can do about it. There is also a visual effect that makes it look like there would be snow in the air inside the apartment. That’s just weird.

Terpenie has only 1 linear Ending and features no Steam Achievements.

 

Result:

The concept of Terpenie initially reminded me of ‘Rear Window’, but the game doesn’t really deserve the comparison. Most of the gameplay is more cumbersome than fun. The bad translations/objectives, the convoluted physics engine, the multiple Glitches, the frustrating lack of respawns and the bad pacing plus short length tear this game down. The only real positive is the concept of the setting and the actually quite scary chase, which is however over way too soon.

 

4/10

Separated by Nightmares: Where Duty dies (PC) Review

 

‘Separated by Nightmares: Where Duty dies’ has an intriguing concept. You play as a police officer with memory loss, who has to solve one last case to find out what let to his downfall. You are alone at night in a police precinct, which is definitely an interesting setup. Unfortunately it only goes downhill from here. 

The presentation and gameplay are really underwhelming. There are a couple of sequences, where the protagonist is telling the story through monologues, but those are just written in front of a blank black background. Not every game needs to have fancy cutscenes, but even an Indie developer could have at least included a couple of picture slides in the background, while the story unfolds. The lightswitches in the precinct also don’t seem to work, so that you just have to stumble around in the dark with a flashlight. In other games this might have been intriguing or atmospheric, but here it was just cumbersome. It only made finding items more difficult without actually enhancing the atmosphere.

The gameplay isn’t really much better. Separated by Nightmares is a Walking Simulator, but there is barely anything to do. Every room you enter has pretty much only the next “clue” to discover and nothing else. You just pick up a few objects and that’s it.

The game also lacks Horror elements. The setup in the precinct is decent, but the game doesn’t really have anything that could scare you. The only really “frightening” moment was a jumpscare by a Ghost Woman, but even that was underutilized. It was unclear whether she was supposed to be the protagonists wife or a random Ghost. The character model itself wasn’t actually intimidating or interesting.

The Ending of the game is pretty terrible as well. I don’t want to give anything away, but nothing really happens and the great reveal was unbelievably banal. It was like you were trying to hype up a great mystery, only to end up with a very generic and normal explanation for everything.

The game only has 1 Ending and no Steam Achievements, which means there is also not much replay value here.

 

Result:

A good idea is often not enough. The setting of Separated by Nightmares: Where Duty Dies with an abandoned police precinct is actually quite interesting, but you can tell that this is one of the first games of an amateur developer. The gameplay and presentation are way too bland and there simply isn’t much happening during the game. The blank backgrounds also don’t give the players any chance to be immersed. A few pictures supporting the story, more objects to interact with or actual things going on in the precinct and this could have probably become at least a mediocre game. The way it turned out, I can’t recommend the game, however.

 

3.5/10

Dark Memories – Prologue (PC) Review

 

In the Prologue of ‘Dark Memories’ you get into a snowstorm while you travel towards a holiday location called ‘Brenton Lake’ and have to now search for shelter.

The driving experience is a large part of the Prologue and it is admittedly done quite well. The snowfall is very heavy, the visibility low and there aren’t too many distractions. It is quite a realistic depiction of the scenario and therefore quite immersive. You really want to find that shelter to get out of the snow chaos and survive the night. I also like how you slow done significantly when driving upwards and have to actively break when going downwards, which you don’t see in every game with driving sections.

But let’s talk about the big problem of this Prologue. It is a Horror Game that so far lacks nearly all Horror elements. I don’t mind a game, that takes its time and slowly raises the tension, but in Dark Memories you wait for this increase till the Prologue abruptly ends. I acknowledge that the pure expectation, that something scary is going to happen soon, is a part of the Horror experience, but the Prologue needed to show us more.

Interactions here are decent, but very brief. There is just not enough going on so far or rather there isn’t enough to do as a player. I understand that the Prologue isn’t supposed to be too long or spoiler too much, but it should feel like something that could stand on it’s own. Even a little scare or a meaningful ending would have gone a long way. So far it feels like you just started playing the game and after 10 minutes somebody randomly pulled the plug, regardless of where you were. It is undeniably more work to create a short Prologue, which is completely independent of the full game experience, but it might have helped to actually showcase the game experience better.

What I can however praise are the visuals of the game. For an Indie Horror Game, Dark Memories actually looks quite well. A lot of other small Horror Games go for a Pixel or PSX inspired visual style, but the visuals do fit well here.

I also saw some users complaining about the performance, but I can’t really confirm that experience. The settings offer a good amount of customizability and the performance for me was rather smooth. The game received a couple of updates in regard to performance improvements, so maybe those did the trick.

 

Result:

Evaluating the Prologue of Dark Memories is pretty difficult. I like the immersive start of the game, where you drive through a snowstorm in the middle of the night, while trying to stay on the road a little while longer, till you can find some shelter. But there simply isn’t enough going on to properly judge the game potential so far. The Prologue unfortunately doesn’t feel like a complete experience. Just when you expect something to happen, it ends out of nowhere. I can’t deny that I am a little intrigued, but there are too many unnecessary questions still open and make the Prologue feel like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

 

5/10