Destructoid Originals

Exoprimal launched at an interesting time, to say the least. Hitting in a surprisingly packed summer window, just after the release of a Capcom giant in Street Fighter 6, it’s been quite the curiosity to follow. To be up-front, I dig Exoprimal. Blasting apart hordes of dinosaurs with giant mech suits is already a good pitch on paper, and I spent a fair share of time carving through waves of prehistoric predators with my pals. While it takes some time to show its hand, there are some phenomenal moments and fights,…

The Famicom can be perceived as the birthplace of kusoge. While bad games have existed since the creation of the medium, the origin of the term itself is murky but generally is believed to have been coined in reference to a Famicom game. Hoshi wo Miru Hito, translating roughly as Stargazer, was one such game that rose to the rank of kusoge no densetsu (crap game of legend). It’s easy to see why. RPGs blew up in Japan following the release of Dragon Quest in 1986, and here is a game that was quick to capitalize on that…

I really hadn’t heard of El Viento before Retro-Bit announced their re-issue of it. It’s really hard to know what to make of it. It seems displaced from time, occupying an era that doesn’t exist. That may be a weird way to describe it, but I think what I’m trying to say is that it looks reminiscent of Valis. It’s a sort of grainy-looking side-scroller that feels like it was developed for an early Japanese home computer before being ported to the PC-Engine and finally landing on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. A drifting…

You could say that Alan Wake 2 was decades in the making. Last year’s blockbuster from Remedy saw the studio return to its roots and the horrors therein, dredging up the past to loop into something new, now. But it wasn’t just the main character or gameplay style we saw return, but the sounds and inspirations of the original Alan Wake too, bubbling up from Cauldron Lake through the music of Poe. When I was playing Alan Wake 2, I was pleasantly surprised—maybe even a bit shocked—to hear a song that sounded like Poe…

When navigating the squalid wastelands of video games, I often must turn to reputation to figure out where to stick my fingers. In the West, few games have a reputation for being awful quite like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is entirely because of the Angry Video Game Nerd, who I respect but isn’t always the best source since he’s primarily aimed at providing entertainment through a schtick. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been singled out by him as one of the darkest spots in the NES library. I have to disagree. Oh,…

The Hammerin’ Harry/Daiku no Gen-San series continued from 1990 to the last game, Hammerin’ Hero, in 2009. However, only the first game was released in arcades. After the original Hammerin’ Harry, the series shifted entirely to home platforms. Whether or not a game in the series would be released in the West, however, was another matter. In fact, only the arcade original and the aforementioned Hammerin’ Hero would reach North America, though two other titles would at least find their way to Europe. The second Famicom/NES…

I talked about Pachio-Kun some time ago for my Famicom Friday column because I thought the idea of an anthropomorphic pachinko mascot was amusing. Back then, I noted the staggering number of games in the series: at least 12. I own more of the Famicom titles, but I wasn’t planning on making a thing of Pachio-Kun. It was fun to spit facts about the Japanese gambling industry, but I couldn’t possibly do that for multiple articles. But then I got the Analogue Duo. When reviewing it, I wanted to get disc-based games to test,…

I have really been looking forward to Retro-Bit’s NES reissue of 1991’s Hammerin’ Harry. However, in retrospect, this is partially due to me getting it confused with Don Doko Don, a 1989 arcade game in Taito’s single-screen format. If I knew what I was thinking about, I’d be even more excited. Hammerin’ Harry is a port of Irem’s 1990 arcade game, which was called Daiku no Gen-san: Beranme-chō Sōdōki in Japan. While Irem is perhaps best remembered for their R-Type series, their back catalog is built from an extremely…

When talking about SNEG’s efforts to re-release Strategy Simulation Inc.’s old PC catalog, I mentioned that one of their most significant endeavors was putting SSI’s D&D games back on storefronts. I bought them some time ago. I haven’t played them. They intimidate me. Classic CRPGs are terrifying. I often say that game design doesn’t expire; it merely changes, but one common feature of ‘80s and ‘90s CRPGs is a wall of overcomplicated UI. The game itself might be relatively simple, but the sheer number of buttons,…

We’re friends, right? I can be honest with you. I know it. I was going to follow up my earlier list, 10 bad games you should play, with a similar list around the same time of year. However, I don’t have a kusoge chambered for today, so I’m bumping it to a year-end list. Do you know how difficult it is to play a bad game every week? Not just finding, playing through, and then writing up while also covering other responsibilities, but the mental toll it takes on a person. So, even though the column is informally called…