If you thought that mastering some of the games from last weeks article made you feel dirty. Well, get ready to be completely covered in thick mud. This second helping of Cheap Cheevos highlights some very novel games that will make you feel like that you should check yourself into Cheevo Rehab. Okay, I've thrown in one good game into the mix to help keep your sanity at bay. What horrors will you find in this article? Click on "Read More" and find out the hard way.
Zippy the Circle (All Five Volumes) (Playstation 4)
Last week, we played some games about a religious ball. There's no way that can be topped, right? Well, grab a seat. Breakthrough Gaming have done it again, this time with a circle named Zippy. Along side his sister whom looks like the results of a Pac-Man Ghosts drunken night with an umbrella. They are off to stop the bad guy. Yeah, nothing really of note to describe here with the story. It's as generic as they come and has some good ol' forced biblical lessons tacked on.
Unlike ZJ the Ball, each game has more than one stage. Sadly, this game is still one complete game split across five small parts. They feel more like demos with platinum trophies attached. This is a good thing for us platinum hunters. The levels have Zippy doing a bunch of things such as running around mazes, skiing, flying, and carting around. It's basic, unoriginal, but it is oddly fun for a shovelware title. By that, I mean that it entertains you for five minutes. At least that's more fun than trying to hang yourself.
I do quite like the graphics. It's super low res, has bland backgrounds, and 2D sprites that give this game a Paper Mario rip-off look. It gives me nostalgia to early 2000's PC gaming. You could pass this series off as neo-retro. When you turn off the ironic nostalgia setting in your mind, you'll find yourself looking at just a plain ugly game.
The requirements for platinuming these "games" is an ultra simple task. Just beat each stage within a certain time and/or score. You know you've got the best of those trophies when you have earned a medal on a stage. Exciting!
Just like ZJ, these games are about a buck a piece and you'll get five platinum trophies to add to your hit count. Unless you are out to make a video about bad Playstation 4 games* or just want the platinums, stay away from this filth. It's just another broken up bad game split into five small bad games. This series is also on Xbox One, but it doesn't have achievements.
*Hey! I did an episode of Kaisercade about bad Playstation 4 games. WATCH IT!
Visual Novel Sisters (Steam)
Now, here is something interesting. This is a visual novel done with a game engine that's normally used to make first person shooters. That's the only interesting part about Visual Novel Sisters. A story about two sisters just yapping away. I got bored pretty quickly and just skipped past all of the text. Thank God that this isn't a full-on review.
The reason why I played this snoozer is for the same reason why you are reading this article. Yup! For the achievements... Well, one achievement in this case. It's a super simple one to get. Just click through the story. It's super short, only about five minutes. Sadly, this achievement is also bugged! Don't worry, there's a way around it. While you are clicking through the story at a slow pace, use the WASD keys to move around. Yeah, that's how I found out that this game is also a weird first person adventure experience.
So, what do you see by moving around? Just more of the scenery. It's nothing exciting, nor is it very interesting. Visual Novel Sisters is a very easy game to earn a Perfect Point for your Steam profile. To put that in another way, it's the equivalent of earning a Platinum trophy, but on Steam.
Garfield (Atari 2600) (Retro Achievements)
Retro Achievements Set: https://retroachievements.org/game/17914
Achievements for a game that wasn't released? Yup, welcome to the magic that is Retro Achievements. This set is for Garfield for the Atari 2600. A system built for prime titles, shovelware, and bad licensed games. Kinda like the Nintendo Wii of the 1970's/80's. However, I wouldn't call this a bad game. In this you are playing as our fat orange and black furred friend, Garfield. His mission is to hop around screens from left to right, avoiding flying bricks and Odie, eating flying lasagna, and get to his house to rescue Nermal from falling off of his roof.
Wait a second? Garfield trying to SAVE Nermal? That's something that Garfield wouldn't do! No wonder why this game never came out. Joking aside, gameplay is really simple, but decent. I had fun hopping around. The game itself isn't difficult, but man, you can really see that it's an unfinished title. Lots of weird graphical placeholders during the second level in this prototype. You've also got a room of infinite spawning lasagna that seems to be there for test purposes. Other than that, it's an incredibly playable game with only two stages. I do get a chuckle out of the title screen. It looks like Garfield isn't too impressed to be in this game. (Must've been originally slated for a Monday release).
Achievements are also pretty simple and easy (otherwise they wouldn't be on this list). Mainly progression and point based. First two are simple. Play the game and beat both stages. You'll also have to beat the game without getting hit or earning any points. This means that you have to duck under every brick and lasagna that you see. The flying items have easy flight patterns to identify, so it's just a matter of taking it a little slow. Oh, don't forget to avoid Odie in the chimney. He licks.
After the deathless and pointless run, do another run but this time stay in the lasagna room and eat as much of it as possible. This will earn you points and you'll need one-thousand of them to unlock the second last achievement. After all that is done, go to Odie. Odie will lick you like there's no tomorrow and you'll be rewarded with the last achievement.
I don't know why this game got canned, nor do I care to learn. However, if this game did get finished then it could've been one of the best games for the system. Even if you don't want to play this prototype for the achievements, it's still worth looking at as it's a very neat little game.
Racing (Playstation 4)
Remember the old LCD handheld devices featuring games such as Snake, Tetris, and Race Car? You wouldn't. You weren't even born yet. Old farts like us remember them though. They were crap. But hey, Game Boys, games, and batteries were expensive, so we had to make do with these devices. BreakThrough Gaming has managed to replicate some of these games, but made worse.
This is Racing. The goal is to collect flags and dodge other cars. The game is supposed to look like an old LCD racing game, with a bird's eye view and incredibly simple graphics. However as much as BreakThrough Gaming tries to emulate this simple style, they fall short. This game looks like that it was drawn in MS Paint. Controls are very simple and work well.
Would you believe that this is also a bible game? Yeah, it isn't. It does however have bible elements shoehorned in. When you get a game over, a bible chapter and verse will pop up. That's it. It's an odd and weird thing to see in a racing game that doesn't have anything to do with the bible. But seeing as BreakThrough Gaming is a Christian game making company. I'm not surprised.
The way to earn yourself a free platinum trophy (yes, this game has a platinum) is to earn yourself sixty points. It's really easy, but expect to take a couple of tries before obtaining it. This game will spawn cars that are UNAVOIDABLE. Not even joking about that. The spawning in this has to be some of the worst spawning mechanics that I have ever seen. Wasn't anyone checking this game to make sure that stuff like this didn't happen? Probably not. It's a bible game company.
While this trap can happen, you shouldn't have any problems obtaining these trophies. Just grab as many flags as you can on the first stage and you should have enough points by half-way into the second level. Just don't expect a smooth ride.
This game is also out on the Xbox One. This version hasn't got any achievements. Even so, not a game worth getting anyway unless you want a platinum trophy from the Playstation 4 version.
Pokemon - Orange Version (Pokemon Mini) (Retro Achievements)
Retro Achievements Set: https://retroachievements.org/game/17393
Ahh. The Nintendo Pokemon Mini. One of Nintendo's forgotten failures of a handheld device. A little Pokemon themed LCD device that's designed to play little Pokemon themed cartridges. This system has some surprisingly good games on it. From a collection of mini-games, a Togepi solo adventure that plays like Marble Madness, and it even has an official version of Tetris.
Sadly, we never got a version of one of the mainline RPG games... Or did we? No. No we didn't... Well not officially at least. Some crazy fan back in 2007 made a little concept demo of what one of the Pokemon RPGs would look like on this system. Now, it sounds like a good idea on paper, but this little demo is anything but.
This little demo takes place in Pallet Town. Already from the get go you'll see a problem. The game screen resolution is so small that they had to really zoom in on the gameplay. This meant that I could barely see where I was going. The other problem with this is that the collision detection is missing from a lot of things. You'll be walking right through walls and stuff. There isn't a lot of stuff that you can interact with. Most of this is just simply because that this is a very unfinished product. Although it is a very cool thing to see regardless.
The graphics are awesome though. They capture the look/graphics of those games very well. Downside, the game is very blurry while you are moving around.
With a simple little concept demo comes a very simple little complete achievement set. Most of them unlock from interacting with things. Read all the signs, try to enter Oak's lab, try to leave town, and interacting with the only rubbish bin. There's one for leaving the map by walking through the fence. The fences don't have collision detection. Heck! Five out of the six achievements will be earned by just playing this game naturally. However, there is one achievement that'll require you to do a tiny incey bit of thinking.
The achievement for going home and rest can make you go a little crazy. You walk into your home and nothing happens. There is a very clever second step to this puzzle. Once you are at your home, set the Pokemon Mini into Sleep Mode. BLOOP! Achievement unlocked. I laughed when I unlocked this one as it was a very clever use of the game and system. Bravo.
Is Pokemon - Orange Version worth playing for yourself? As a game it is not. Heck! You can't even really call this a game. It's a little concept demo of what could've been. As a little concept demo, I recommend checking it out.
Q&A
Introducing a very original idea indeed. The Q&A section, where you ask the questions and I answer them. Yup. Hasn't been done before. If you've got a question then don't forget to leave a comment or post them off to my secret traveling PO Box. This week it is located in Antarctica.
Richard Benedict asks: Wow! The edge in these articles is so shap that it'd even make Kotaku bleed from their wrists. Why is your writing so edgy? Do you have it out for your audience?
I, Kaiser Sensei answer: It's the entertainment industry. If you don't sound edgy and "shap" then you aren't appealing to the audience. It's a weird system where you have to whip them for their enjoyment. All of us homosapians (myself included) are sadist. We like them hard. We like them rough. Most importantly is that we simply like this style of article. It gives us something to complain about. We humans love complaining. Finding something to be offended about fills in all of the spare time that we have. If we aren't complaining, we are either wasting away or busy at work. So in other words, YOU'RE WELCOME!
Kamen Heat asks: When's the next Kamen Rider Black article coming out? I miss those.
I, Kaiser Sensei humbly reply: As soon as I can find a DVD or Blu-Ray set with English titles. I was watching them via streaming and my source got taken down. However, finding a good quality set in English is as rare as hens teeth. The really good quality stuff is in Japanese only and with no English subtitles. The only English subtitled DVD sets are bad quality bootlegs with poor translations.
We are finally getting a complete Kamen Rider set on blu-ray in English. Sadly, it's of Zero-One. EWWWWWWW! I'm going to have to re-visit it though in a series review. Not to support Zero-One, but in support that we get more Kamen Rider sets officially in English. Here's hoping that we get Kamen Rider Black. That would be awesome.
Disco Martian asks: Were you born in a barn? Asking for a friend.
I, Kaiser Sensei respond honestly: I'm not Jesus. Although I did play one of the three wise men back in primary school in 1996.
See y'all next week.
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