9th
Arkanoid RPG
Yes you read that right, an Arkanoid/breakout style RPG. I am a *huge* Arkanoid fan to begin with. I used to play this one game called Rebound for hours. I judge a breakout clone primarily on how fun it is to play and what about it makes it more worthwhile to play than the original. For example the Arkanoid port on the DS was not fun to play and the only difference was they put it on the split screens. And the ball travelled during the time it was offscreen between the two screens and you had to visualize where it was gonna come out at on the other side. Not hard to do for a single slow moving ball but when you have more than one and they are all whipping along you just sort of say man do I wish this was for any system other than the DS. Oh and the levels are all the original ones. Yeah that one sucked. Rebound was pretty sweet. You had rings you could collect for a better score. There were bombs and other interesting objects. And my favorite of the new “blocks” was that there was a starfish block and a large block that you could only open with the starfish. So upon breaking the starfish block the starfish would get stuck to your ball and then when you hit the large block it would unlock it. Anyways, that game was pretty sweet but let me talk a bit more about Alpha Bounce.
You move around and each “fight” is a level of Arkanoid. You have quests to upgrade your “envelope” (which is not the worst name for the little oblong silver thing sliding all over the bottom of your screen I have ever seen). Some quests reward minerals that are the currency for buying various upgrades. So far in the two days I have been playing I upgraded my ball (heh heh) so that it could break ferrous blocks and I upgraded my engine so that I can move two spaces at a time. I mean the game really has traditional RPG elements. I’m doing quests, I’m collecting loot and I’m upgrading my character. Oh and the “fights” require skill but having better gear can make them easier. You know, all those elements new Zork (everyone needs to start calling it new Zork, like new Coke so maybe one day they’ll cave in and give us a real Zork again) doesn’t have. My only complaint so far is the *very* limited turn count. You start off with some extra turns so you can get a bit into it first but then you only get three turns a day. And the turns don’t carry over to the next day either so thats even more limiting. Of course you can buy turns (which if I had the spare money I probably would) but the ratio of bought to free turns is absurd. 5 Euros will buy you 100 turns or you know about a month worth of the free turns. Apparently you can get more turns as quest rewards and stuff but I haven’t had any yet at only two days in. Anyways, you should check it out. That link up top is of course a referral to me (N3RD was not taken yet on this site so you better believe I snatched that up). As near as I can tell the only way I benefit is if you all donate real money to the game so I’m not expecting much but let me know what you think of it if you do check it out. The low turncount is annoying but unlike new Zork I *really* wish I had more turns because I want to keep playing and thats a very good sign.
edit: Chibi Brute update
I may have gotten pwned but I speared the shit out of that dog.
