Goodbye Volcano High nominated to Destructoid’s Best Indie of 2023
The hidden gems of 2023.
From the article:
These are the nominees for this Destructoid’s Best Indie of 2023.
Lethal Company
Chained Echoes
Goodbye Volcano High
El Paso, Elsewhere
Slayers X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer
Void Stranger
World of Horror
Our final results will go live next week, starting on December 18 with the winner of Best Indie. Stay tuned throughout this week for the rest of our nominees, as we build up to the Overall Game of the Year award on December 22!
Here at TGC we can often gauge how successful a game will be by the volume of customers that ask when it’s going up for pre-order! Well, with this third-person (feline) adventure developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive being one of the most requested games this year, we feel like the cat’s already out of the bag...
Now that the game has launched digitally, we’re here to drop reviews from the most reputable in the business and confirm to you that pre-ordering with us physically means you’re the cat that gets the cream!
* Spoiler * There’s plenty of reasons to Stray...
GamesRadar - 4.5/5
“Regardless of whether you're a cat lover, or just fancy a brilliant little platformer to sink into, then Stray is an excellent romp. Yes, it does help if you're a cat lover because it is so beautifully animated and captures the cat's personality so perfectly, but there's so much to love here. Between the alluring semi-post-apocalyptic story, the dense, atmospheric world, and the cast of quirky characters that inhabit it, BlueTwelve Studio has created a fantastic experience here. Stray is the perfect game to make everybody want to be a cat this summer.”
Read the full review here.
Eurogamer - Recommended
“Stray creates a journey filled with such a sense of exploration, on top of the chance to indulge in as much cat-truction as you like. While doing so, though, it also crafts a touching story about the human desires of those who, at a glance, lack humanity - be it to reunite with a loved one, protect a community or reach the outside world. The result is a wonderful mix: a game about the longing for freedom, clever climbing mechanics, and every cat’s eternal desire to knock items off shelves.”
Read the full review here.
Destructoid - 9/10
“Stray isn’t just a good time for cat lovers, it’s a good video game, period. A great one, even.The unassuming protagonist — a normal cat in a not-so-normal sci-fi world in which humans are long gone — is the star of the show. But the game’s surprisingly endearing robot companions, and strange, decaying yet vibrant city they inhabit, are also high points. I didn’t expect the setting to draw me in and capture my imagination this much.If you like the sound of a puzzle-adventure game that rewards curiosity and stays fresh the whole way through with a wonderfully fleshed-out world, you’ve gotta play Stray.”
Read the full review here.
GAMINGbible - 9/10
“We can all rest easy, then: Stray is stunning, creative, funny, and filled with moments that genuinely made my jaw drop. Whether you adore cats, or have some fundamental piece of your soul missing and don’t really care about them either way, this game is the real deal. It might be a little on the short side, but I was never anything less than utterly captivated and thoroughly entertained during the entire adventure. And really, what more could you want from a video game in these trying times?”
Read the full review here.
IGN - 8/10
“Stray is a delightful adventure in a dark but endearingly hopeful cyberpunk world, and that’s thanks in no small part to the fact that you are playing as an adorable cat the whole time. Its mix of simple platforming and puzzles with item-hunting quests is balanced very well across the roughly five-hour story – and though I wished my movement was a little more nimble during that time, I still loved hopping across rooftops and scampering through back alleys to find its well-hidden secrets.”
Read the full review here.
Polygon - Recommends
“Every small detail in Stray was a reminder of my finite time with both my on-and off-screen companions; once the game was over, I reached out to Oni (reviewer’s cat), full of gooey feelings, and as expected, he yelled at me and ran off. BlueTwelve knew exactly what it was doing, spending so much time and care modeling real cat movements and behavior, but having a real cat at hand was a fitting jolt back to reality. Stray is truly (and perhaps fittingly) the work of sly cat people. And for this reason alone, it’s a triumph.”
Read the full review here.
When all is said and done, we think this paw-some adventure lands gracefully on its feet and stakes a sneaky claim for GOTY! After all, the Aristocats said it best...
“EVERYBODY! EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A CAT!”
Pre-order Stray’s physical release on PS5 with us right here at The Game Collection!
The article in question was from Destructoid titled “Ninja Theory: Old Dante Isn’t Cool Anymore” by Jim Sterling
link to it right here and you can read it, let me know what’s up with it
but basically it talks about how Tameem Antoniades believes that what was once cool about the (first) DMC 12 years ago can’t work anymore in their new iteration of the game. The author, Jim Sterling, disagrees about Dante’s character in general, specifically the preboot Dante, and personally thinks Dante wasn’t cool anyway (to Jim Sterling) but rather is just campy, silly and ridiculous in a positive way. To me, I think what he meant was that preboot Dante had a bombastic presence, particularly amped up in DMC 4.
Of course, we’re here, years later and reading this article (and for the 1st time actually because I was mostly looking at trailers), there seems to have been details that people, particularly critics, might’ve misunderstood.
Let’s just put aside opinions and, basing it from this article for now, it discusses how Ninja Theory wanted to present their Devil May Cry game without having to reuse tropes that had already been present from the very first installment of the preboot DMC. Because remember, they’re making a new game and it’s Part One of the DmC’s universe, hence why Tameem compared the 1st DMC to what they’re developing. They still wanted to make a similar impact, however, and I think we ought to know by now because Capcom wanted a new universe and not touching the preboot installments (although it’s marketing suggests how it’s replacing the preboot), Ninja Theory needed to completely make it new and to draw from other things/inspirations that’s not been done before.
Now, make of that what you will, especially since this is one article. They didn’t detail the process/inspirations yet in this article. I know it’s on another article (which you’re probably gonna look for, and I know it’s also another Destructoid article I’m not sure....), which I will make an opinion in the future.
For now, it’s opinion time.
I think there’s a lot of “he said, she said” that had happened at the height of the trailers and articles being released. Of course, now that we’re in the future, we know better and there’s been plenty of channels that had covered the actual timeline/opinions on it. But my opinion on this article alone is that it’s ill-titled. It’s not that I disagree or even agree with Sterling; rather, it was about updating and drawing on from other inspirations to create a new “cool” game. Ninja Theory themselves state that what made the original “cool” to begin with was it, too, drew inspirations from a selection of media and fashion, whether from the era/s the developers themselves saw as “cool” or from the current trends that’s circulating the zeitgeist at that time.
Plus, Tameem states specifically “ But, you know, what was cool 12 years ago — I think that was when the first game came out — isn’t cool anymore...”
He wasn’t particularly referring to preboot Dante, but the tropes/elements that make up the franchise, particularly the first installment. He wasn’t saying that Dante isn’t cool anymore; rather they want to update and find new inspiration/ways to make Dante cool in their game. And by that time this article was made, the 1st DMC was released back in the summer of August 23, 2001 (so he misremembered, the 1st one came out 9 years ago by the year 2010, the time this article came out). So if we’re being honest, the 1st DMC is truly of its time already and I can’t fathom how I’m going to fare if I replay the game in 2021 (I only finished it once and I have vague memories of how I even pulled through...). I’ve seen retrospective replays of it and....yeah, we can feel its charm and cheese, but mechanically and fiction-building-wise, it needs a revamp IF hypothetically Capcom got around that idea.
(looking at the REmakes, it would be interesting as how they’ll RE:DMC)
So, anyway, titling it “old Dante isn’t cool anymore” is rather lazy and more so to Sterling’s views than Ninja Theory’s. Of course, we can read other articles and other people’s views in video game journalism during this era (and I feel we’re going to get a lot of misunderstandings as well as damage control from Capcom, so....).
For now, I think it’s safe to say that Ninja Theory really was just pointing out that they have their entire homework cut out for them. They want to emulate something similar but not copy-pasting from a franchise that....basically it still has to have influence on the new one. So yeah, if we were in their shoes, it’s difficult. Like you were literally told to reboot a franchise and it’s not so much as backlash that’s the biggest issue, at least I think from a creators’ standpoint when it comes to creativity.
Furthermore, now with the power of retrospect and more knowledge about pop culture, regarding “coolness”, trends/fashion/beauty, etc. are all cyclical anyway. We’re now at an era where there are more people noticing and criticizing trends, and un/fortunately, retro-like mechanics and aesthetics have been getting a lot of buzz (as they should!) especially for indie developers. But on the flip side, developing games, while in a different wavelength of problems, has also become a fast “fashion” issue, crippling both creativity and polish.
But okay, I almost got off topic. If I’m going to be asked which Dante is cooler, and despite my bias for the reboot, the truth is Vergil is cool B)
Personally, I can never know what being cool is or what cool is to other people. I did say “coolness” is among the cyclical aspects with regards to fashion/pop culture/beauty/trends, etc. It’s “this” one minute, but suddenly there’s “that” for various reasons. What’s worse are those who have a voracious, cult-like devotion that there is supposedly “only one way” to be “cool”.
There are those who experiment and become trendsetters, and others follow suit; then there are those who experiment in a totally different direction and become the icons of their subculture/s, and others follows suit. To me, despite the cyclical nature, “coolness” is both objective and subjective, and because of that, it’s even more a volatile and unpredictable trope, more so now than when people were arguing if reboot Dante is even “cool” to begin with.
So I say, what if you walked into a bar outside of Tokyo, any bar looking like whichever Dante you choose, to me, the people’s reactions would depend whether they’re from 2010 or 2021. But I think it’s always cool if you can speak a bit of Japanese and followed etiquette, no matter what you look like.
Cuphead and Mugman are showing up in Fall Guys this week
Cuphead and Mugman are showing up in Fall Guys this week
The crossover costumes will appear in the Fall Guys store on February 24 and Feb. 27, respectively
I’ll take more Cuphead whenever and wherever I can – even if it’s just a Fall Guys tie-in.
Costumes for Cuphead and Mugman are showing up this week in the mean bean machine, and you’ll need ten crowns for each of them, as well as another five crowns for a Cuphead-inspired emote.
In collab with…
Vivimos en el espacio viendo flores , vivimos en la tierra muerta del planeta , vivimos en las mareas altas , del mar descontrolados , vivimos en capsulas de cristal que contienen aire falso , con hologramas de un mundo, que nosotros mismos matamos , vivimos en arrepentimientos que aun no aceptamos , vivimos , ¿ donde vivimos ?.
