Finally, we're in June and it's time to put the May Mastery feature to rest for another year. The nature of an endurance event - though I'd hesitate to put something as comparatively painless as a month straight of daily blogging in the same gasp as a marathon or a twenty-four hour livestream - is that they're bookended by a feeling of accomplishment, but those feelings - especially towards its conclusion - are drowned out by the relief that the conclusion is in sight. Still, I'm not about to start a novel about it called "My Heroic Struggle" (for many reasons), just stating for the record that the May features tend to get a little hairy towards the end with the ever-present worry that my being close to burning out is in some way diminishing the quality of the writing. If I were to go back and check some of the ones I wrote late at night on their respective days, hurriedly ensuring that I wasn't late with an entry, I'm sure they'd be Typo City.

But now we face a different sort of challenge: E3. Well, E3 and the sudden uptick in temperature and humidity around these parts. With E3, I intend to once again resume my "Alternative to E3" series, and have decided upon some worthy subject matter: 1996's Rudra no Hihou, or Treasure of the Rudras, as both a reference to my ongoing work with Super Famicom wiki pages and as a game I've been seeking an excuse to finally play. With the Aeon Genesis translation patch, I hope to make some big strides in what strikes me as one of the more unusual and sophisticated RPGs for the Super Famicom. For one, it was Squaresoft's last effort for the system before they moved onto their now legendary PlayStation output, such as Final Fantasy VII which ZombiePie continues to message me about despite my forgetting almost everything about it beyond the broad strokes of its plot. I've no idea what to expect from Rudra no Hihou, excepting the soundtrack: it was the subsequent project of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest's composer Ryuji Sasai and presumably exhibits a similar kickass synth rock sensibility. I can't wait to start screencapping that bad boy as E3 rages on around us all.

Naturally, I am both curious about and obligated to follow E3 as well, moderating the live staff commentary of the conferences in the daytime and the ribald interviews in the evening. While I doubt anything can top the madness of the Dave Lang's Phone Incident from last year, I was impressed overall by the Squarespace-endorsed chat show atmosphere and Jeff's laid-back hosting and I hope to see more of it again this E3. June also brings with it the E3 Banner Contest, which is firing on all cylinders as we speak over in the official submission thread, and that's always a highlight too. I might suggest to those courting my vote to create entries that involve visual puns in some way, but that'll probably turn off more mods than it'll win over (just me), so maybe just do something fun and dumb with an animated gif instead. Those always go down well. Considering how high we're forced to push the chat throttle during E3, that VIP status is worth busting out the ol' Photoshop for.

This intro's already going on a little long, but I also wanted to highlight yesterday's blog on games criticism and how we shouldn't shy away from the challenge of trying to discuss what makes a game fun, nor should we initially reject any game that tries to elicit an emotional response from players beyond base entertainment. Games criticism is growing in complexity and scope as the games themselves are, but we should never lose sight of the interactive element that makes the medium unique among all others.

New Games!

Big highlight for this week is Mirror's Edge Catalyst, a sequel (prequel? Preboot?) eight years in the making. If nothing else, it gets me hopeful that Beyond Good & Evil 2 will see the light of day at some point too, and not just because Catalyst might bring athletic and socially conscious young women raging against the establishment back into vogue again. I've been hearing dissatisfied murmurings about the game's new open-world structure and how it's filled with pointless incidental missions and random collectibles, and may have lost some of the laser focus of the original game's parkour chases in the process. I couldn't possibly comment one way or another on how the game feels or how effective its new format is until I've played it, which I intend to do eventually though a few other 2016 games (Dark Souls III, Uncharted 4, Doom) take priority at the moment. Certainly didn't look too indefensible from what I saw of GBEast's live Quick Look though.

There's no lack of other good shit this week either, if leaping off skyscrapers isn't your (courier) bag:

The new Kirby mecha game Kirby: Planet Robobot is due to be released this Friday. Feels like we only first heard about that game a month ago, but then Kirby games tend to show up with alarming frequency these days. I'm still figuring out how to play this scratched copy of Kirby's Epic Yarn for the Wii, let alone the four or five that have been released since then. The early reviews paint as a decent enough Kirby game, so I guess I'll be throwing it on the pile.

Talking of cute robots, SteamWorld Heist makes its way to PC and Sony platforms, having at last broken free of the 3DS just as Mecha Kirby stomps its way over. The Wii U, XB1 and Linux versions are on their way, but if I was going to buy it on anything it'd be Steam or the PS4. I enjoyed SteamWorld Dig quite a lot - my appreciation for that game did having grown since playing the thematically similar but more problematic (that word again) Super Motherload for May Mastery last week - and Dan's Quick Look for the game was enough incentive to add it to my wishlist. If I can grab a cheap version from a Steam or PSN flash sale, all the better.

It's also anime heaven this week as we see the English localization of the Odin Sphere reboot Odin Sphere Leifthrasir come to all three Sony consoles. In other startling news, there are still PS3 games coming out. No news about Vanillaware's next original game, 13 Sentinels, though. I guess all you mecha anime fans out there might have to wait for TGS in September for more on that one. The Guilty Gear tweak Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator also makes it debut on the same day, which I'm to understand is to the original Guilty Gear Xrd that something like Ultra Street Fighter IV was to its vanilla version. Lots of important additions for fighter game fans - tweaks, new content, new characters - that to the rest of us feels like a slightly expanded version of the original with a full retail price tag. Gust's Atelier series also sees a new localized entry with Atelier Sophie: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Book. How many Ateliers could there be?

Just a handful more (it's a surprisingly busy week!): Paragon is a MOBA from Epic Games, though I imagine it has it'll have its work cut out trying to drag an audience of competitive online gaming fans away from Overwatch and DOTA 2. Join Justin McElroy on his ongoing adventures in turn of the century London with Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter, the eighth in the investigative adventure game series based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's sleuth. Does Sherlock die in this one? Does John Watson build a new Holmes out of steamwork machinery? Does he stick Sherlock's old deerstalker on a bloodhound and call it Sherlock Bones? (I'm sorta hyping myself into playing it...)

Wiki!

Even with twenty-three pages checked and double-checked this week, I've barely made it halfway through the monster that is September 1995. I imagine it'll take one more week at least to finish up the final ten games of that month before I can move onto the surprisingly packed October and its own mix of big names and obscurities. September, however, is so busy that a single day - September 29th - saw eighteen discrete releases in Japan alone, including five JRPGs. Can you imagine being part of the small hobbyist Super Famicom review zine of 1995 that has to deal with all that?

September proved to be a fairly elusive month for the wiki as well, because of those twenty-three pages seven of them are brand new: I think that's a record for a single week of wiki activity. Be sure to check out the new Super Famicom Super Also-Ran Super Sequel's Super Sequel list for more on those. In the meantime, here are the most notable games of the fifteen that remain:

• Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon: Another Story is the first Sailor Moon game on the system to be an RPG, rather than a brawler or fighter game. The Sailor Scouts all fight with different abilities, and the player can even create combination attacks with two or more of them, similar to those seen in Chrono Trigger. Given Chrono Trigger was released six months prior, I wonder how much of that is a coincidence?
• Cho Aniki: Bakuretsu Ranto Hen: It may surprise folks to know that the Cho Aniki series, the shoot 'em ups best known for their surreal visuals and emphasis on hunky bodybuilders, also dabbled with a fighter game spin-off, joining the likes of Super Chinese Fighter and Makeruna! Makendou 2. If ever there was a Ranking of Fighters submission that might challenge Warren in the buffness stakes...
• Gourmet Sentai Bara Yarou: Speaking of Cho Aniki, this brawler does for it genre what Cho Aniki did previously for shoot 'em ups. While the game itself is fairly standard fare from a mechanical standpoint, the bizarre visuals and premise elevates it from a forgettable dud to something, if not significant, then at least memorable. Three heroes named after French expressions are given exosuits powered by protein (or something?) and sent out to destroy a secret society looking to take control of a futuristic city through crime and fear. It's a game with only two action buttons: attack and pose. If you're a fan of weird brawlers, the Super Famicom has them in spades.
• Asterix & Obelix: A European platformer that features the Gallic heroes of Uderzo and Goscinny's comic series. Recognizing that everyone loves the big lug, the game is one of the few Asterix adaptations that lets players control Obelix, who is traditionally made an NPC due to his canon invincibility. Indeed, Obelix is actually the default choice for player one (the game supports co-op) unless the player changes it in the options.
• Foreman For Real: While an also-ran boxing game in many respects, unlike the titular grill oven pitchman and recurring heavyweight champ himself, Foreman For Real is better known for its bizarre uncanny valley feel. Digitized photos of real boxers with a number of expressions are plastered over buff pre-rendered polygonal bodies to create what at the time probably felt like an incredible verisimilitude but now is... well, mildly creepy.
• A-Ressha de Ikou 3 Super Version: It might not sound recognizable, but this is actually the "downgraded for consoles" Super Famicom port of A-Train, the railroad empire sim of mid-90s Maxis fame. A-Train was actually the third game in the A-Ressha de Ikou ("Let's Take the A-Train") series, and introduced what was at the time a very distinctive isometric perspective of a burgeoning cityscape with railroads stretching out in every direction. Though A-Train didn't bring Maxis, who published the game for North American PCs, a whole lot of success compared to the gangbusters the game did back in Japan for its original developers Artdink, it would go on to inspire Maxis's SimCity 2000 and its own take on the isometric overhead viewpoint. A little side-note here: I actually had to yank the original page apart, because it managed to merge both the first game ("A-Ressha de Ikou") and the third game ("A-Ressha de Ikou 3", or A-Train) after what I assume was some confusion over the names. I'll find cases like these every so often and have to drop everything to ensure the mix-up is corrected. Well, "have to".
• Hameln no Violin Hiki and Holy Umbrella: Dondera no Mubo!!: We'll conclude the wiki section of this week's Sunday Summaries with these two colorful and fairly decent platformers, the first of which is based on an anime which in turn is based on the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Abuse your anime cohort by throwing her onto spikes and forcing her to dress up in humiliating costumes with various handy uses in order to proceed. Maybe a little cruel, but it's all in good fun. Holy Umbrella, meanwhile, has the hero teleported from contemporary Japan to fight a series of mechanical goofballs with a powerful umbrella. The game balances its side-scrolling action stages with more RPG-reminiscent top-down areas where you talk to NPCs and buy items. It seems a shame we missed out on both of them, because they're some of the few SNES platformers that manage to break the mold in their gameplay and have some amazing cute visuals.

May Mastery '16 and Epilogue!

May Mastery ended on Wednesday of the previous week, and since then I've been finishing up every game that I wanted to beat during that month but ran out of time to do so. What follows here are some impressions of the final three games of this year's May Mastery run and then a few more post-scripts of the games I went back to finish off. I usually create a separate "May Aftermathness" blog entry for these, but I couldn't get the pun to work for the new name. At any rate, I probably don't have enough to say about them to create a whole separate blog.

Super Motherload had me initially. There's something about that loop of digging for valuable ores, coming up for air, selling it all off and potentially being one step closer to the next upgrade that lets me dig faster or deeper, and having that cycle be how you spend a whole relaxing afternoon, albeit the sort of relaxing afternoon filled with the sounds of drills and bubbling lava pockets deep beneath the Earth. The game's story was curious too: as miners on Mars, you repeatedly overhear the terrors of the various subterranean bases shortly before you arrive, finding them all but deserted every time. It sets up an intriguing enough mystery to buoy the repetitive gameplay, but that exhausting and underwhelming final stretch just doesn't do the game any favors whatsoever. While it's highly unusual for my completionist tendencies to allow me to reach the very end of a game and not complete it, I make exceptions when the ending is as wretched as this one, or to pick an early case study the concluding mission of UnEpic. It's a bummer, that's for sure.

The Marvellous Miss Take is a case where I didn't even get past the first few missions before I saw the writing on the wall about how annoying it was to become in its later stages. Built around this pseudo-isometric presentation that was both visually appealing and visually forthcoming with regards to vision and sound cones and the like, it started off on the right foot with a selection of short but sweet levels that had you quickly dart around art galleries picking up valuable exhibits and escaping before anyone could detect you. As it continued, the galleries became larger and more elaborate, and the margin for error grew shorter and shorter until the game became a slog of extremely exacting stealth scenarios, of the like that puts me off stealth games faster than you can say "We're pulling you out of there, Fisher!". If you're a proponent of onerously precise stealth action, then you might get a kick out of this glamorously devious game.

Ys: The Oath in Felghana is a game I fully admit to choosing as the final May Mastery game because I wanted something breezy and fun that I knew I would like to conclude the month. While I'm in two minds about recommending a game series too highly for sticking to formula, there's something about Ys's familiar beats and routinely excellent action-RPG gameplay that makes it a treat every time, even if it's only been a few months since I last played a game in the series - 2006's Ys Origin, which was the game created soon after this one. I had some experience with Oath in Felghana previously, sorta, with the game it is based on: Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. The third game would create the recurring idea in the series that Adol drifts from region to region, often washing up on a shore absent all his priceless equipment from the last game, being the knight in shining armor (and glorious red hair) that solves all the region's problems, wooing an enigmatic waif or two in the process before moving on to wherever he's needed next. Then there's the music. That wonderful, guitar-riff-heavy music. Falcom Sound Team JDK never disappoint.

I also revisited Cargo Commander, that sci-fi, roguelite, procedurally-generated, gravity-flipping platformer I looked at on the 21st and 22nd of May. In the second of those entries I spoke about how its late game threatened to eliminate the goodwill earned from the opening hours, but I managed to turn around on it once again as it got closer to its end. Turns out there's some method to its late-game madness: rather than forcing you to complete longer and longer waits before the sector pass shows up, which allows you to move onto a new area, it's simply a matter of finding enough cargo. It's why some sectors seemed to go on forever without the pass appearing: it's because you really need to pick up every last piece of cargo you can to earn enough points to summon the sector pass, and learn how best to upgrade yourself for maximum survivability. As you keep going and complete item "sets", such as finding one of every mineral type, you earn more "scanners" which can then be placed on the cargo types you're missing, and those then show up when browsing sectors to make it far easier to find them. As you get close to the end you eventually have more scanners than you know what to do with, so my fears that the game would grind to a halt as you futilely searched for the last few cargo types you needed proved to be unfounded. A wonderful game from beginning to end, it turns out, and perhaps the biggest surprise to come from this year's May series.

I also knocked out Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, which I checked out all the way back on the 10th of last month. While the protracted ending goes to some odd narrative places as you delve deeper into the guts of Mandus's immense subterranean abattoir machine, with the requisite Amnesia twists regarding the status of the protagonist's twin boys and the mysterious voice giving him direction, it didn't really manage to win me over the same way Cargo Commander did. In A Machine for Pigs's case, all my reservations about the game remained pertinent up until the very end, with only a few chases from mutant pigmen to break apart the dull wandering around and basic item puzzles. Like I said back when I first wrote about the game, I can't fault developers The Chinese Room for their storytelling or ability to establish a tense atmosphere, but by removing every mechanical quirk that made Amnesia: The Dark Descent such a singular trendsetter for the burgeoning Indie survival horror genre, what you're left with is yet another also-ran in a growing pantheon of horror games that are more invested in becoming ghost house rides for histrionic YouTubers, presenting a linear path that occasionally slams a door or throws the equivalent of a rubber bat at you for the occasional jump scare. The spirit of the franchise is here, but the core of it was roughly scooped out like so many pumpkin innards come Halloween.

Next week, I'm back to a regular gaming schedule of playing whatever happens to be the most pressing item on my backlog. I've got a lot of games that I've let pile up, as well as the fourth Book of Dreamfall Chapters to recap at some point, so I hope to see you again next week.