The past couple months have had quite a few big releases, unfortunately overshadowing some great smaller games. In this video, I am going to be highlighting five such games that you may have missed in the months of July and August. In the future, I will be keeping this to a monthly series, but to kick us off I’m starting off with two months. Before we begin I would like to thank all of the publishers who provided these games to me to make this video possible. The games are in no particular order so let’s stop wasting time and get right into things.
Minoria
From the creators behind Momodora: Reverie Under The Moonlight comes a spiritual successor in that same style. You play as Sister Semilla, a missionary tasked with hunting down witches and protecting the commoners in the midst of the fourth Witch War. Along the way you’ll pick up allies, fight a variety of powerful witches, and explore a large map designed in metroidvania style.
The combat is mostly done with swords. You’ll be spending a lot of time up close to enemies and strategically attacking and dodging in time with their attacks. Given that enemies can kill you in just two hits, you’ll definitely want to get the hang of that play style. It’s a lot like a 2D Dark Souls in that sense, constantly rolling around, poking with your weapon, and occasionally throwing in a spell or two. It can be difficult at times, but it never felt like I hit a wall. Definitely helps that the controls are really responsive, it makes for some pretty fluid gameplay.
The game is also really well-done on the graphical side of things. It plays in 2D, but the models are cel-shaded and in 3D. Compared to Momodora’s flat 2D style, Minoria is quite the step up in that regard and it looks great as a result. Of course, the music on top of that is just an added bonus.
TINY METAL: FULL METAL RUMBLE
A couple years back we got a game by the name TINY METAL. It’s a Japanese turn-based tactical war game in the same vein as the Advance Wars games of old. It was a pretty fun game and I even reviewed it for the channel. Two years later we now have TINY METAL: FULL METAL RUMBLE, a full-fledged sequel to that very game.
It plays pretty much the same as the first, but with a bunch of cool new additions. You’re slapped down onto a map and told to eliminate all hostiles, taking them down through a series of battles played out on a turn-based map. There are plenty of units to choose from to accomplish this task, including soldiers, gunships, tanks, and unique units depending on which commander you’re playing. There are a bunch of new units that weren’t in the first as well, including some cool mech units.
The game offers a variety of modes to take advantage of too. You have your fully voice-acted campaign, which actually has a cool looking map that you can move around on now, a skirmish mode for those that just want to hop right into battle, and, unlike the first game at launch, an online multiplayer mode, so you can battle it out with a friend. And of course, all of this is played while listening to a great soundtrack by Tomoki Miyoshi, the same guy that composed the soundtracks for I am Setsuna, Lost Sphear, and a lot of Soulcalibur V. If you’re a fan of classic turn-based tactics games like Advance Wars, then definitely give this one a look.
Death Crown
There’s a lot of indie games out there that go 16-bit and some even 8-bit, but Death Crown? Well, Death Crown goes 1-bit. Everything is either black or white and you can even flip the two in the game’s settings if you want to. The game itself is a simple top-down RTS that plays a lot like a tower defense game. You have three different buildings to choose from: a mine that increases the passive money you get, towers that protect your buildings from enemy units, and barracks that spawn troops to send towards the enemy.
You can send these troops to enemy buildings to destroy them, but your goal is to destroy the enemy’s main base and their goal is to destroy yours. It quickly becomes a race to see who can outpace the other first and matches barely last five minutes as a result. It seems simple at first, but it’s actually quite surprising how much strategy you can employ here with just three buildings. I found a lot of success in rushing multiple barracks early on before moving on to actual money production, so as to force my enemy to waste his time building up a bunch of defenses instead of mines to increase production.
It doesn’t take too long to beat the game’s campaign (took me just over an hour), but it was pretty fun for that hour. There’s also a co-op mode and a regular skirmish mode if campaign isn’t your thing.
Here Be Dragons
Here Be Dragons is a game that attempts to fill a void in history. We all know how Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas in 1492, but who cleared the path for him? Who defeated all of the tritons, the ghost ships, the kraken, and the leviathan? Our history books don’t talk about it, so surely something’s up. Well, it turns out, those records were completely erased by officials, so that’s where Here Be Dragons comes in. It tells the story of all of the “maniacs, psychos and common crackpots” that worked to clear this path for Columbus.
And that’s where you come in. You take the role of these interesting individuals and play through a series of levels on a living map. Battles are conducted in a turn-based manner, but with a slight twist. That twist being something the devs call a “dice activation system”, which basically has a bunch of dice rolled each turn to determine who gets to go first and which moves they’re allowed to use. Some moves can only be activated with dice showing a one or two and some can only be between 4-6. If you’re unable to fill a slot on your ship with a die in a given turn, then you take one point of damage. The same applies to the enemy, so you can strategically work with the dice rolls and try to force your enemy to use certain moves or take damage if they can’t use any. They can do so as well though, so you’ll definitely want to be sure to watch out for that.
The game is currently in Early Access with 6 campaigns and 20 total scenarios available. The devs plan to be out of Early Access in 3-6 months, with 6-8 new campaigns planned for future release. It’s definitely in a playable state now though, so check it out if you’re interested.
Mighty Switch Force! Collection
Mighty Switch Force! Collection has pretty much gone completely under the radar, with only eight user reviews up on Steam a month after release. This is a bit surprising since it’s coming from WayForward, the same studio that brought us greats like A Boy and His Blob, The Mummy Demastered, and all of the Shantae games. It’s a shame really, as this collection bundles together a bunch of fun games, a couple of which were not even available on PC prior to this collection.
For those not familiar with the Mighty Switch Force! series, it’s a puzzle-platformer where you take up the role of Patricia Wagon, a cybernetic peacekeeper officer tasked with catching criminals. Along the way you’ll be blasting enemies, hosing down fires, and solving a bunch of puzzles using the Siren Helmet, a helmet that lets you alter certain objects in each level. Each level is cleared once you catch all of these criminals, with the game rating your performance based on how quickly you’re able to do so. You’re still able to progress if you get a time above par, but if you get one below par you get a shiny star for your efforts.
This is pretty much how each game in the collection plays. The collection itself comes with the first game in the series, Mighty Switch Force!, it’s HD remake, Hyper Drive Edition, it’s sequel, Mighty Switch Force! 2, and the third game in the series, Mighty Switch Force! Academy. Each game individually doesn’t take too long to clear (usually just a few hours), but combined adds up to over 70 levels, so there’s definitely a good bit of content to play through. There’s even co-op and versus modes in Mighty Switch Force! Academy if you don’t want to go solo.
And that’s all the games I have for this video. Again, I will be keeping this a monthly series, so you’ll be seeing a video covering September’s hidden gems in about a month’s time if you’re subscribed. If you’re not already subscribed, be sure to do so, it really helps out. And if you guys got any games that maybe I missed over the past couple months, please do let me know in the comments below, I’m interested to see what you all have been playing. Thanks for watching and see you guys in the next one.
cublikefoot 