#333: Hornets! Hornets!

The day has finally come. Happy Silksong day to those of you who celebrate it. (Not sure why I’m bothering to say that, I know you’re all too busy playing it.)

As I wrote the other day in my latest column for Mr Skillup’s fine new website, I never managed to get into Hollow Knight. Nothing personal, like; I realise it’s a very good game, and understand why people are so pumped for the sequel. But it never clicked with me. As such, while I sympathise with the legions of indie developers who’ve seen Hurricane Silksong coming over the horizon and decided to delay their games by anything from a few weeks to a couple of months — and in one direct genre competitor’s case, all the way into next year — I can’t help but be a bit disappointed that they’ve done so. I like new games too! What am I, the main character of the universe, supposed to buy and play this week? I do not believe I am alone in this predicament. There may even be dozens of us.

Apparently the Silksong panic has been so dramatic that September will be the quietest month for new releases on Steam since the early days of the pandemic. But a few brave souls have stood their ground, perhaps recognising that there’s an opportunity to be had here — that there’s a silent, but significant audience of Silksong sceptics, or merely agnostics, that might be more willing to take a punt on a new release this week than they might typically be. I respect this line of thinking enormously, and have decided to back it to the tune of a hundred quid or so. I’ve played a bunch of new games that aren’t Silksong! Let’s talk about them for a bit.

Hirogami (PC, PS5)

This breezy 3D platformer has a slightly weird origin story — while it’s developed by a Bandai Namco studio, it’s published by boutique Japanese outfit Kakehashi Games — and to be fair, the game itself is a bit weird too. As the title suggests, there’s an origami theme beneath it all: the world and everything in it is made of paper, and the protagonist learns new transformations from the animals he saves from a devastating corruption that’s blighted the land, expanding his moveset as he goes. It’s a little cludgy in the hands at times, and the level design feels a bit My First 3D Platformer. But it looks and sounds lovely, it’s something I can play with the kids watching, and the pun in the press release confirming the release date wasn’t changing — “Bandai Namco Singapore’s origami platformer is refusing to fold” — guaranteed it a spot on this list. Fine work.

Rogue Labyrinth (PC)

The debut release from Tea Witch Games casts you as a staunchly anticapitalist contestant in a capitalist-dystopian TV show — think Smash TV with a conscience — and deploys its themes with sledgehammer subtlety, the protagonist telling everyone who’ll listen of her intention to bring the show to its knees from practically the first minute. It’s all a bit sixth-form, to be honest, and it rather washed over me. Mercifully you can mute the voice acting.

Mechanically, however, there are some really nice ideas on show in this Hades-ish Rogue-thing. Enemy projectiles are coloured red; hitting them turns them blue, makes them friendly instead of hostile, and returns them to sender. Scenery can also be knocked from its moorings and sent cannoning around the stage for a similar effect. The combat controls are a little stiff, but this matters less when you’ve got a few dozen boulders, tree trunks and converted bullets pinging about the place to do the work for you. In another nice touch, minibosses are rival contestants, and you can steal one of their moves, Mega Man-style, when you beat them. I’m not entirely sold on the power progression yet — the blessings you receive after clearing a room are rather modest, all ‘five damage’ here and ‘a chance of triggering’ there — but I’ve only played a couple of hours, so perhaps that will change later on. Assuming I go back to it, anyway. To be perfectly honest with you, I need another Roguelike in my life like a hole in the head.

Metal Eden (PC, PS5, Xbox)

As Hit Points has observed in the past, the indie scene loves a Venn diagram. For Metal Eden the component parts are Titanfall 2 and 2016-vintage Doom. It’s a zippy, sci-fi-themed, singleplayer FPS with wall runs, double jumps, ziplines and dodges, with an expanding set of playstyle-focused systems that riff on Doom’s glory kills. Melee hits have a chance of dropping health items; a cooldown-governed special move lets you instakill an enemy by ripping out its ‘core’, which you can either use as a grenade or consume to give you a super punch to take down enemy shields. It’s thrilling stuff, only soured by the presence of a remote antagonist who just won't shut up, constantly dumping exposition and trolling you over radio comms. The story seems ok — humanity, having ruined Earth, finds a way to implant consciousness into those rippable cores, giving everyone an infinite number of new lives in a new colony on the outer reaches of the galaxy — but unless that bloke shuts up I can’t see me sticking with this for long.

Jetrunner (PC)

I almost didn’t include this. It only came out today, so I couldn’t buy it in time for yesterday’s fun research session, and the PR I emailed to ask for an advance code never got back to me, which seems some way south of PR best-practice to me. (I realise Hit Points might not do IGN numbers, but I don’t exactly see the trad corporate games media falling over itself to write about Jetrunner, y’know?) Anyway! It pitches itself as ‘Titanfall meets Trackmania’, but for me the readiest comparison is Neon White: fast-paced, speedrunny firstperson platforming with a cheerily colourful art style. I’ve only had time to play a few levels, and once I’d dipped into the pause menu to turn off the honestly pretty shocking dialogue — a bit of a recurring theme in today’s edition, now I think of it — I had a good time chaining together wall runs, bar swings and boost jumps while shooting the occasional target on the move. Not sure I’ve got the minerals for it, judging by the state of the global leaderboards, but you never know.

Shinobi: Art Of Vengeance (PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox)

Oh man. Did I just write a thousand-odd words about some pretty unremarkable games purely to give me a reason to write about the new Shinobi? I think I probably did, in a way. Developer Lizardcube was already held in high regard at Hit Points Towers for its contribution to the stellar Streets Of Rage 4; suffice it to say its hot streak continues with another exceptional reboot of a Mega Drive-era classic. The pixel art is sumptuous, the platforming pleasantly exacting in a manner that fondly recalls Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown — by which I mean it's in conversation with Celeste, but is not quite as hard, and therefore not quite so satisfying — and I’m tremendously appreciative of the level design, which initially comes across like a Metroidvania but is actually a series of discrete stages you’re meant to return to later on with new powers to strip-mine for secrets. I like a good Metroid riff, don’t get me wrong, but this is not the week for that sort of thing, if you ask me. So far, so very good.

The combat system, however, is absolutely exquisite, successfully condensing the showy complexity of the best 3D brawlers down to a 2D plane. Much as I love it, Streets Of Rage 4’s combat was a touch too in hock to its ancestors. There were limits to its combo system, to how many times you could juggle or wall-bounce an enemy before they died, your attacks pushed them out of follow-up range, or one of their pals hit you in the back of the head. Here, however, the sky’s the limit.

The star is a dodge cancel you can activate at the end of any attack, that pings your avatar towards a knocked-back enemy and enables you to maintain a juggle combo pretty much indefinitely. But even when you’re not hovering over an abyss, whaling away on an enemy who died 40 hits ago, the combat is sumptuous, and clearly the work of a group of people who know what makes virtual brawling tick. The core moveset is fluid and spectacular, and evolves in some excellent ways as you progress. When the devs gave me a dive kick right out of the gate, I swooned. When I unlocked the follow-up attack, a whirling somersault you can maintain by holding down the attack button, I made a noise I can only describe as a purr. Just lovely, lovely stuff, and probably my game of the year at the moment. Might go and play some now in fact. Let's put this thing to bed.

Was any of that useful? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s given similarly Silksong-averse readers some inspiration. Paid subscribers, I’ll see you again tomorrow for a look back at the week’s news. If the rest of you would like to join us for a modest monthly fee, you’ll find everything you need in the button below. Cheerio!