Gaming off the Beaten Path

  It's been a big year for indie RPGs. Not going to lie, I was thinking I might skip this one. But with all the hype around Sea of Stars, coupled with the fact that I really liked Chain of Echoes earlier in the year, I decided I had to give it a shot. Not to be confused with Star Ocean, the other game with a maritime metaphor for space in its title, Sea of Stars is the latest heavily hyped, 2D RPG designed as a callback to the classic golden age RPGs that many of us grew up with. It was developed by and published by Sabotage Studios, a Quebec-based indie developer best known for their 2018 action platformer The Messenger. For the record, the two games allegedly take place in the same universe but have nothing else really to do with each other. Sea of Stars began its life in 2020 as a kickstarter campaign, with the studio wanting to produce a title that had more depth than its previous offering. It was heavily influenced by games like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario RPG, Final Fantasy V

"You don't understand, you don't have kids." What a polarizing statement. Any time it comes out of anyone's mouth, the reaction is always the same: all the parents in the room express their approval while the non-parents roll their eyes. I swore I would never be one of those people that said that when I eventually had kids. But I do. And I do it a lot. Because believe me, it changes your perspective, even on things like your hobbies. I never thought being a parent would impact how I viewed and enjoyed gaming, but here we are. Much digital ink has been spilled over What Remains of Edith Finch, a game one might derisively call an "indie walking simulator" by developer Giant Sparrow, and the meaning behind it's story. Folks on the web have arrived at a number of different conclusions on its message, but it's generally agreed upon the game is rather...sad. And it is. If you have never had children, you are going to play WROEF, you will probably empat

 If I'm not going to be able to review old school games, I may as well stick to games that are designed to look and feel like them. It's not like they're hard to find. I feel like in the last few years, there's been a huge increase of throwback style games released on modern consoles. It makes sense, people who grew up gaming in the 90's are now old enough to program their own games. Couple that with the fact that it's easier than ever for small teams of developers to get together, create a game and release it to a wide audience and its only logical that this would happen. I  think it's great personally, a lot of these games do a really good job of providing old school experiences while adding some of the better aspects of modern game design. 99 Vidas certainly fits into that category. Released in 2016, it's done in the style of an old school, 2D, arcade style beat em' up. Up to four players can get together, either in person or online, to battle the