The Videogame Corner: Fight Crab

Game: Fight Crab
Developer: Calappa Games
Genre: Beat-em-Up/Fighting Game
Releases: 2020 (Nintendo Switch, PC)

Ladies and gentlemen, I have more jank from Japan for you to enjoy. The developers of “Ace of Seafood”, the maritime military operation simulator, were not idle and developed the next sea creature-based videogame that might even top the previous title in terms of sillyness. Cue “Fight Crab”, a game in which you arm a crustaean to the teeth and fight against the crabby and lobstery opposition. I can only assume that this title sells itself via trailers alone, because the premise is so utterly bonkers that I fail to find words to describe it. Nevertheless, I found words to fill this article: I played “Fight Crab” for around three hours in order to write this article, so if you are interested in the ancient Japanese art of crab fighting feel free to read on.

The Videogame Corner: Fallout 4

Game: Fallout 4
Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Genre: Action Role-Playing Game
Releases: 2015 (PC, PS4, Xbox One), 2023 (PS5, Xbox X/S)

After I replayed “Fallout 3” to shape my vague opinions about the game into concrete text in form of an article, I pondered about the next game to play. Do not get me wrong, there are more options than I can possibly ever finish in my lifetime, but after sitting together with the people from my Discord group and discussing the next thing to play, I took a liking to the idea of simply continuing with the “Fallout” franchise. There were options both old and (somewhat) new, and when the hammer finally fell down it landed on “Fallout 4”. Back in the day, I learned of the existence of “Fallout 3” by seeing both my cousin and one of my friends playing it, while “Fallout: New Vegas” was something I stumbled upon by chance; but “Fallout 4” was a title I bought with the full intent of distracting me during a miserable time at a low-pay job with lots of time to kill in the morning because my shift began at 2 pm and I frankly could not be bothered to do something meaningful beforehand. Things have certainly changed but “Fallout 4” definitely killed some of my time – for better or worse – back in those days; and now I revisit it to see if my memories hold any truth.

Budget Deckbuilding: The Flames of Rath

All good things must come to an end, so our journey to the realms of the first set of Ravnica had to eventually end after learning about the ten guilds and their various mechanics. However, hope is at hand. Yes, Cubic Creativity might go back in time again to look at one of the earliest blocks in the game’s history, the Tempest block, but that does not mean that the decks from the era are all useless filler. In fact, the deck at hand named “The Flames of Rath” is more than just a decent deck and the designers definitely deserve my praise for making such an interesting and flavorful take of a Red deck with just a dash of White. You might not know anything about the decks from Tempest (unless you do, I guess), but I can tell you that we have some colorful cardboard ahead of us.

Soulstone Survivors Guide: The Pyromancer

Its been quite a while since I last looked at “Soulstone Survivors”, but I am still willing to write down my experiences with the game in form of loose guides to hopefully help people figure out how to play certain classes. So far, I looked at “The Barbarian” and “The Chaoswalker”, both strong classes in their own right. This time, I want to look at a class that was not so fortunate when it comes to the overall power level; at least in my opinion. “The Pyromancer” is probably the second class that people unlock when they play “Soulstone Survivors” and as the name suggests the class spreads fire wherever it goes, leaving Burn and Melting stacks as damaging souvenirs. Unfortunately, both Fire skills as well as the class are rather lackluster (despite lots of websites placing the class in S tier when ranking the classes since they all copy-paste from another) but I still want to collect the available information and suggest some builds that worked on Curse level 7. So, without further ado, let us get into the guide.

The Videogame Corner: No Straight Roads

Game: No Straight Roads
Developer: Metronomik
Genre: Action-Adventure, Musical game
Releases: 2020 (Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One)

How, dear reader, would you rate a game that manages to deliver 50% sheer excellence only to squander the other half for no good reason? That was the question I asked myself after playing “No Straight Roads”, a fresh and colorful idea of a videogame that I only became aware via the Youtube algorithm. One evening, the artificial intelligence sorting videos into my sidebar threw the cutscene from a bossfight of “No Straight Roads” in my general direction; and I was hooked. What was that weird title that happened to appear on my radar by pure chance; and where could I get it? I bought the PlayStation 4 shortly after, played the game with my roomie due to a convenient two-player mode allowing us to do so; and while I do not regret paying around 40€ to get it onto my shelf, both my roomie and me came out of the experience … well, grounded. Let me tell you what happened in “No Straight Roads” in more detail in the following article.

Yugioh Deck Review: Structure Deck: Spellcaster’s Command

Part two of the new-old themed Structure Deck series introduces some us to some magic; or should I say Spells? The deck is question, “Structure Deck: Spellcaster’s Command”, uses Spellcaster-Type monsters for its strategy. But that is not all, because of the members of the deck are also following another strategy besides being all the same Monster Type. This deck uses Spell Counters, a mechanic first introduced into the game during the set Magician’s Force (better known as the birthplace of “Dark Magician Girl” who was featured in that very set as a Secret Rare). I like counter mechanics in card games since they give me another resource to work with but I have to admit that Spell Counters felt a little lackluster when they were first introduced into the game. But does this Structure Deck have the cardboard power to make something with the mechanic? Only one way to find out.

The Videogame Corner: 100% Orange Juice

Game: 100% Orange Juice
Developer: Orange_Juice
Releases: 2013 (PC)
Genre: Strategy game, Digital board game

Here is a wildcard of a game from the depths of my Steam library. “100% Orange Juice” is basically what would have happened if SNK had decided to make “King of Fighters” a board game instead of a fighting game. The developer, Orange_Juice, which produces all sorts of a small japanese indie games came up with the idea of an all-stars game for their various franchises; and thus “100% Orange Juice”, a digital anime board game, was born. The game is going strong even ten years after its release which what at the time of writing amounts to thirty-six character DLC packs to further diversify the game’s roster. I picked it up some years ago and while I do not actively play “100% Orange Juice” anymore, I did put in about 100 hours overall. Hence it seemed only right to give this weird indie title its own review.