The Eternal Castle is a stunning platform/action indie game from Leonard Menchiari, Daniele Vicinanzo, and Giulio Perrone, and published by Playsaurus in 2019.
It is a tribute to games such as Another World, Flashback, Limbo, and INSIDE, and features a lone character, running from left to right, moving from puzzle to puzzle, trying to survive in a weird, dark world full of technology, destruction, mystery and death.
The 2009 hand-held follow-up to the classic PS2 game Dragon Quest VIII is another fine level-grinder, with cheerful, colourful graphics and mesmerising gameplay.
Continue reading Dragon Quest IX, Nintendo DSDeveloped by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts in 2009, Dragon Age: Origins is a hardcore, third-person Role-Playing Game in the style of Knights of the Old Republic (also developed by BioWare), Vampire: the Masquerade – Redemption, and Neverwinter Nights.
Wow… Now this is something special… An enhanced version of Cinemaware‘s classic Defender of the Crown, with cool new sequences and graphics not seen in the original!
Defender of the Crown II was created by James D. Sachs in 1993 and is seemingly a bit of an ‘auteur piece’, since Sachs programmed it, made the graphics, and did the music himself. And – it has to be said – he did a brilliant job. Defender of the Crown II is arguably the best iteration of the original game and was clearly a labour of love for him.
Portal is a legendary first-person puzzle/gravity game developed and published by Valve in 2007.
I say “gravity game” because Portal combines basic physics (acceleration, velocity, gravity, and inertia), with the ability to open up entry and exit portals, to create a game so beautifully simple-yet-complex that it is almost beyond belief…
Conker’s Bad Fur Day was a surprising 2001 release – on the Nintendo 64 – for British developer Rare, in collaboration with Nintendo.
What is surprising about it is that it is an “adult” game – meaning: it contains cartoon characters behaving in ways that you don’t normally see in a Nintendo game, like vomiting on people’s shoes, making sexual innuendo, and using mild swear words.
Papyrus Design Group‘s 1993 classic IndyCar Racing is a fast, MS-DOS-based racing game with lots to interest petrolheads, sim fans, and car geeks.
Karateka was Prince of Persia creator Jordan Mechner‘s first published game. He programmed it (originally for the Apple II) while attending Yale University in 1984.
It’s a simple martial arts fighting game that uses rotoscoped graphics to create realistic animation. Back in 1984 they were pretty revolutionary.
This pioneering Japanese RPG was first released in 2007 and paved the way for one of the greatest series in the history of level-grinders… The Etrian Odyssey series.
Number three is my favourite, but one and two are excellent too (see also the Nintendo 3DS fourth instalment), and all follow the same credo. Which is: to base a game around exploration, mapping, and turn-based combat. And to make the party system flexible, so that adventurers can take out different parties and experiment with character skills.
Considered something of a curveball to the hugely successful episode seven, Final Fantasy VIII (eight) is more great level-grinding goodness from Japanese dev Gods, Square. This one released in 1999.
