After purchasing the album as quickly as physics would allow, my mind drifted back over Harvester Games’ output and it freshly dawned on me that they are good. REALLY good.
It’s always awesome to find out that the people behind adored creations are good folk and this was very much the case here, Rem is a cool guy that makes extremely memorable, high-quality games that everyone should play, quite frankly.
A service robot named J5T-1N has arrived in your dimension to warn of impending doom from an overwhelming force known as the Imperium.
Fight for survival across a procedurally generated and emergent mission-based campaign through a reactive, tactical turn-based battle system that emphasizes interrupts and counters. Standing in your way is an Intelligent Adversary system with enemy officers that evolve and move up in the ranks.
As your band of heroes fall in the fight against invading Imperium and hope is all but lost, J5T-1N must be sent to the next dimension with everything you’ve learned to give the next group of heroes a chance to prevail. Each dimension and each playthrough is unique, challenging, and never the same.
Unfortunately, Hitchhiker unravels slightly around the halfway mark, meaning that the last ninety minutes or so don’t stand up to the initial intrigue that propels the game forwards.
With gameplay totalling more than 20 minutes, players get a glimpse at what Claire de Lune has to offer on its very own proprietary engine.
Well, I was hoping for an action-packed, highly stylistic thrill ride… That is not what I got. This remastered version just feels soulless. It has a real emptiness and everything about it feels hollow.
Scarlet Hood and the Wicked Wood opens with electro-swing. Its heroine is the lead singer in a band called *sigh* Foxtrot Bop (they all have terrible names like this) and we meet them on their way to their make or break gig. This is, to say the least, not a promising beginning. My tolerance levels for this garbage are measured in seconds rather than hours and I strongly considered tapping out right then and there.
Then a tornado whisks Scarlet Hood off to an Oz-like fantasy land and, save for a few unpleasant tootly moments on the repetitive soundtrack, the awful electro-swing band plot is abandoned.
The retail editions for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 will be available for €39.99 / $39.99 / £34.99 and include the original Monster World IV exclusively.
I reviewed the original Darkside Detective back in 2017 (https://www.gamesfreezer.co.uk/2017/10/review-darkside-detective-welcome-to.html) and found it a really fun and funny experience.
This sequel continues in very much the same vein, if you were a fan of the original, this is a smooth and high-quality continuation but the way in which the story begins and progresses, you’d need to be aware of the events of the first game to really understand what’s going on and get full enjoyment out of the experience.
