Tag: Natsume

S.C.A.T. review

This game is decent.

A shoot-em-up on the NES … I mean, that tracks, yeah? It’s probably gonna be decent … but no better than that.

S.C.A.T. is way too short a game. It makes up for that with typical (for a shooter) unforgiving gameplay to prolong the experience, and it also does some interesting things. And no, by “interesting” I don’t mean “shamelessly rip off 80s sci-fi movies, to the point they named their characters ‘Arnold’ and ‘Sigourney.’”

What the game does is give you the ability to fire either left or right, send enemies at you from both directions, and then leave you to try to figure it all out. What helps you in this effort is the ability to set rotating secondary weapons to fire in specific directions, which allows you to cover your rear end when appropriate.

Usually, this gimmick of firing in either direction falls super flat for me, but here it works. And like I said, it’s a short game, so the weirdness doesn’t drag on forever. There’s something to be said for that.

Dave’s Score: 7/10

Shadow of the Ninja review

We’re all entitled to change our minds.

As a goofy teenager, I was a “Ninja Gaiden” apologist, to the point that I found all other ninja-themed video games to be lacking.

Fast forward a few decades and “Ninja Gaiden II” popped up on Switch Online, so I eagerly consumed it and found it be … quite obnoxious.

For one thing, the game didn’t advance enough upon the original, but it was also irritatingly difficult., the kind of experience you’d walk away from without save states unless you were:

A.) A masochist.

B.) Transported back in time to 1990.

C.) Both?

“Shadow of the Ninja,” released that same year by developer Natsume is, dare I say it, a more enjoyable use of one’s time.

13-year-old me would be shaking his head right now.

Shadow tones down the difficulty of the Gaiden series, provides a similar flair for the theatrical (great music, graphics and level/enemy design), and offers several goodies that Gaiden doesn’t: some useful weaponry that makes the journey a smidge easier (such as a kusarigama for longer range attacks and bombs for heavier damage) and a two-player mode that included a female character (this was still a big deal in 1990).

This game kind of rocks, if I’m honest, which is a far cry from what I thought when I rented it back in the day.

Shadow better than Gaiden II?

I’m shook.

Dave’s Score: 8/10