The Day Bison Graced Street Fighter 6 Was The Most Important Day Of Your Life. To Him, It Was Tuesday!  

Well more accurately it was a Wednesday. Paraphrased Raul Julia quotes aside, on the 26th June year two of Street Fighter 6 kicked off. What a way to start the year too with the revival of one the series most iconic villains. 

For those in need of a recap on the quite frankly ludicrously deep lore and story in the Street Fighter series. The last time we saw M.Bison in Street Fighter 5 was under a pile of rubble after a climactic fight with Ryu, presumed dead of course! This is not M.Bison’s first rodeo in falling off the mortal coil though, so we shouldn’t be surprised on his return.

The M.Bison we received has seen quite the redesign. He is an amnesiac fuelled by psycho energy with a thirst for power, in search of his lost name and personality. His introduction into this world is naked in an alleyway being assaulted by thugs. Surprisingly the thugs meet a quick demise and M.Bison repurposes their possessions to reclaim his dignity. A tattered rag fashioned into a suitable menacing hooded shoal covering an almost zombified face warped by psycho. His bottoms are a stark reference to his former position of power, with a look most will recognise. The new style may not be for everyone but the evil drifter look really does it for me. To those who disagree the classic iconic costume is available to unlock, or purchase.

His fighting style is what we are familiar with from previous series entries. Heavy and brutal close up attacks with brilliant mid to long range capabilities with his signature Psycho Crusher. The aforementioned move can be pulled off with one button now thanks to modern controls. Making one of the series most famous moves accessible to all players.

World Tour players will be happy to know that M.Bison will become your master albeit after a fair few prerequisites. Any would be pupils are sure to rejoice when causing psycho based havoc on the denizens of Metro City after his teachings.

This explosive start to year two is exactly what players like me wanted. The future of Street Fighter 6 is looking extremely healthy with the crossover characters Terry and Mai from Fatal Fury, as well as the capoeira master Elena. Certainly a lot to look forward to in one of the premier fighter game franchises.

Oh did I mention M.Bison has a horse. You know, like Raul Julia did portraying him!     

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THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS … BUT ITS FUN TRYING!

Balatro is a unique poker themed deck building roguelike created by solo anonymous developer Local Thunk. Released on all current home consoles and previous generation entries for both Sony and Microsoft users. A release is also in the works for smartphone users both on Android and iOS, however no date has currently been announced. For the sakes of this piece I found myself gravitating towards the PC Steam (specifically on the Steamdeck & Mac port) & Nintendo Switch releases.

Going back to the first line I’m aware I used a lot of word to describe the genre of the game. As gamers we are very used to hearing FPS or RPG and getting it. This beast is a little more difficult to put in a specific corner like a lot of other games. I guess if pushed I would call it a card game but that’s severely underselling what Local Thunk has offered us here. It feels almost Slay The Spire like without the action and gambling instead of dungeon crawling; even that feels like a slightly inaccurate description. Now we are all positively confused we will delve into the core game play loop as that’s what makes or breaks a roguelike. 

Upon starting a run you are faced with a screen giving you details of a small blind, big blind and boss blind. Each blind with all intent and purpose is a game of poker with the goal of how many chips you need to win to either progress or meet your inevitable end. Tasked with going from small blind to boss blind you are presented with the option, play or skip. You choose play and the casino classic begins your hand dealt and ready to place a scoring collection of cards from your hand. Skipping will give you a small bonus ranging from profoundly trivial to game saving. To those with no to passing knowledge of the light flashing, tinnitus inducing parlour game extraordinaire that is the house fear not, at all times you can hit run info to be told what a flush is and how good at making money it is or not. You will have a couple of hands to try and hit the blind chip goal, also some discards to try to curate your plays as best you can. Try that one in the Casino, I dare you. Then you go to play your first hand and its important to remember its you versus the dealer, so no need to practise your poker face with this one. Fingers crossed you drop down a royal flush typically the highest scoring hand and decimate the first, potentially last actual poker game of the run.

After a fleeting moment of Im James Bond in certain Royale film passes, a breakdown of how you played and cash earned will show with a invite to a shop. Offers of Jokers, Card Packs, Consumables & Vouchers will greet you will open arms. 

Jokers act as passive buffs to equip, the most basic of which is a simple addition of a 4 times multiplier. The rarer joker cards afford you increasingly crazier passive effects. An early favourite of mine the “Shortcut” joker, allows you to play non consecutive straights (For the uninitiated a straight is a consecutive hand 2/3/4/5/6 for example; this would allow 2/4/6/8/10 to count as a straight).

Vouchers are small passive bonuses the aren’t equipped like the jokers. So you don’t have to manage the number you are using at once unlike a joker. They will tend to set you back a bit more money than a joker as they offer upgrades to your run that are often unconditional. 

Card packs are similar to a pack of ‘Magic The Gathering’, could be gold could be trash. Different packs exist that could populate the shop. Celestial packs grant a planet card which increase the level of a poker hand making it a more valuable hand.  This can snowball to the point where a pair hand is a more fruitful play than a royal flush hand. The Arcana pack will grant you tarot cards which have altering effects that mostly modify the cards in your deck. The World card as a quick example changes up to three selected cards to the suit of spades, now your deck is more likely to get a spade flush. Spectral packs are very similar to Arcana packs but the cards modify to a much higher extent and often come with gambles or disadvantages. The Buffoon pack is a collection of joker cards which we touched on earlier. Standard packs give you the option to add a playing card to your deck. Want an extra king you got it, some more aces your in luck. See I told you Balatro was a deck builder and now you have decks that can play impossible hands such as five of a kind.

Adding to the deck building mechanic is variables that can effect any card. A foil card which will give you extra chips if played. A purple seal that can help generate you extra tarot cards if said card is discarded. With much more effects available. A personal favourite of mine is the polychromatic which gives you a multiplier of your multiplier in game, which if on a suitable joker can help send your chips into the stratosphere.  

There is a good chance you have come across a hard synergy and blinds are being blown away by you. Dropping a pair with a joker that multiplies your spade cards and would you look at that, the pair has a spade in it. Chips are piling in and it feels good, a little too good. The next hand you drop has literally set the score counter on fire it was so good, the grey matter in your head washed with dopamine.  That fun needs to come to an end with the boss blind.

Boss blinds play the same way as any other blind with an extra mechanic that can act as real roadblock. The extra mechanics range from debuffing certain suits to expecting a seriously high amount of chips from you, or giving you your cards face down to let luck fully decide the fate of this run. If the boss blind is overcome you will up your ante where we continue play with higher amounts of chips required and potentially more brutal boss mechanics.

Managing to get through eight antes will be a victory for the run. You will be feeling like a champion amongst the cards. Then Balatro offers something that normally turns me totally off in roguelikes, an endless mode. In my experience what tends be a monument to tedium, as your indestructible build melts anything that attempts to pose a threat. In the case of Balatro you have nothing to fight its just the draw of the cards and increasingly higher numbers of chips to chase to really test how good your deck actually was. Now at this point its important to say, you will lose. The house always wins in endless mode, its just how much of a fight your deck can put up. The inevitability of your upcoming failure is what to me makes this post game victory lap truly thrilling. It is a testament to Balatro and its quality that it made a fun yet maybe inaccurately named endless mode.

The more hands and runs that are played the more cards are unlocked to play with offering further chaos with potential synergies. Extra decks can also be unlocked that play different right from the start of the run.  Those who need a bit more spice will look forward to unlocking the challenge runs. These start with a set of cards or jokers with a designed mechanic either to battle for or against you during the run. Pre-designed mechanics not your cup of tea but want further challenge? After having a successful run you can increase the stake of your deck making the next run harder in some way. 

If you don’t want to fully commit to unlocking everything the game has to offer, an unlock everything option is available. I don’t know how much I would recommend this for new players as it could be a little too much at once. Alas for console hoppers like myself, its a great option for veterans of Balatro to jump into a fresh save on another platform with everything ready to go. If you also like playing online slots, you can download joker123 apk.

Balatro has a truly unique game feel that I have personally never experienced. With a fitting art style of a seedy video poker machine on a CRT it evokes that gambling feel. It’s endless amount of build possibilities will keep you coming back for more. With it’s easy to pick up hard to master gameplay, Balatro really captures that one more run feeling that any rougelike worth its salt needs. A game like Balatro doesn’t come round often so if you take anything from me go play it yourself. Your experience will be worth more than anything I can put into words, trust me.

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A Puzzling Port…

Seed of Life is a adventure/puzzle game developed by Madlight and originally released on PC. Working on the console ports was NXY Digital LTD, which is the release I’m currently having a look at on Nintendo Switch. Set in a dystopian world, in which our protagonist Cora must save the planet. Will ‘Seed Of Life’ germinate into something beautiful or should it be left as bird feed? Let’s find out!We launch into the world of Lumia, which is a dying planet. To make things worse a looming dying star dominates the atmosphere, think more giant blue-fiery spacehopper, less famous Zelda scenario. We meet our protagonist of the piece: Cora as she is monologuing about the poor condition of her home planet. Cora also refers to her rather unhelpful Grandpa who “doesn’t tell me things” (her words, not mine). Despite the lack of ‘things’ Cora has been told, she has seen ‘The Seed’ which she believes can bring back life and cure the quarrelsome inconvenience of her dying planet and sun.

With the ‘save the world’ plot laid out and the speech over, we take control of Cora and walk her outside her quaint looking medieval cottage into the wasting away Lumia. Thrust out into adventure we begin to explore our surroundings; exploration is very much the name of the game here. In the introductory area you a met by a number of interact-able objects marked with a helpful red ring; upon interacting, Cora will dive into soliloquy to add extra flavour to what seem rather bland surroundings. A nearby lantern that Cora began tapping on after a contextual button press, produced a pop up that felt suspiciously like a budget game achievement (Very much confirmed viewing Steam Achievements). Wandering shortly past the area directly outside Cora’s house you’re greeted by a bandstand like gazebo known as a pedestal. Pedestals act as the in game checkpoint system and will also refill Cora’s health and resources. The boundaries of the pedestal’s locale are blocked by a purple barrier. Disabling the barrier requires Cora to find what I can only describe as a terminal that gives Cora a ‘Petal’ and disables the barrier.

At this point approximately 4 minutes into the game I ran into a giant roadblock. I had no clue where to go and found myself aimlessly wandering for significantly longer than necessary. The game at the start at least does not hold your hand in the slightest, the only suggestion given to you is an objective to cross the river; no map, objective marker or magic breadcrumb trail. Usually I am a fan of games with no maps forcing you have to learn yourself picking up clues from the detailed environment or riddles by estranged NPC’s. The environments sadly do not provide the detail needed for any self driven adventure. Moving onto the graphics, If you are old like me, you think back to the good old days playing deathmatch on Gridlock in Gears Of War. The first couple of seconds may come to mind. To the uninitiated or frightfully young, the first moments of a match the textures are loading in. Thus making an otherwise great looking game momentarily look like play dough. I bring this up as the entirety of this port of ‘Seed Of Life’ looks like textureless plasticine. The mountains and hills are brown and orange lumps of nothingness. Foliage is reduced to extra low pixel count sprites, which could be passable if it wasn’t populating a 3D world. Cora herself has a model that would have been heavily criticised anytime post PS2 era, with no real detail to enunciate who she is as a character. The E-Shop blurb of this game claims “Triple-A Quality Graphics”. That quote must be a copy and paste job from the PC synopsis, as I failed to find the blockbuster visuals.

The poor graphics make traversal of this land a lot harder than it should be. Passages within the mountainous terrain just seem to blend into the bland scenery. During my playtime I missed many routes, unable to make out they even existed until I started wall hugging as a last resort. After tedious and poor first impressions of this game I crossed the river which I was initially tasked. Cora suddenly dives for cover as alien ships are seen flying over the skies above. Drones drop from the craft making Cora want to investigate.  The path further travelled reveals the drones, insta-kill guardians to the first power up the world has to offer. Surrounding the drones is a huge red circle of vision, goodnight Cora if she steps within. I don’t want to use the term stealth mechanic, as it was a ‘don’t go in the red circle’ and nothing more. Navigating past the circles of doom Cora picks up the Talisman. This shows in numerical form Cora’s health, Lumium (energy) and objective marker compass on her back. It screams of an earlier time in game development when UI elements were desperately trying to be hidden. Somewhat confusing considering the games interface already has two icons displaying health and Lumium in a stylised manner that looks infinitely better. The Talisman also gives Cora the ability to push away the killer drones, if she has the Lumium to do so.

Luckily more power ups are available to Cora to help traverse Lumia. They are acquired from larger pedestals that Cora can interact with; upon doing so, a small alignment puzzle presents itself. These puzzles felt quite basic considering the genre of game; after a quick circle spin, you can use your petals previously collected. When the power-up pedestal is satisfied with the amount of petals offered, the power up is yours for the taking. The first of which allows Cora to see invisible platforms in the world at a hefty cost of Lumium. A larger maximum pool of this resource can be extracted from Lumium plants dotted through out the land; more Lumium allows Cora to use her power ups for longer, unlock various doors and landmarks. However rather unexpectedly it introduces a souls-like mechanic, where if Cora fails to make it back to a pedestal alive she will lose her newly extracted maximum capacity of Lumium, forcing you to go hunt the plants once again; luckily they are stationary and visible with Cora’s vision ability. 

I suffered the most from my least favourite mechanic in the game, the corruption. Areas with corruption will slowly chip away at Cora’s health until she succumbs to the sweet release of death. The major issue with this is not all corrupted areas have a visual style suggesting they are dangerous, resulting in health decreasing seemingly at random. The corruption can be staved away using a regeneration power or standing by a Lumium plant. This should regenerate Cora’s health if it hasn’t recently been extracted. In my case the Lumium plants didn’t always offer the restorative qualities promised to me and Cora would pass away in what should have been a safe zone. The corruption just adds a ticking time bomb to you which in more open areas just adds stress rather than enjoyable exploration. It felt like a padding mechanic as I never had time to plan my route of traversal, making me use the tactic of running Cora in a random direction trying desperately to memorise anything of value. Open areas of ‘Seed Of Life’ are where the cracks of this port really start to show. Lets get this straight, none of what I played had a particularly great frame rate, but it was at least playable, however in the larger environments the frame rate can dip quite harshly. If an enemy, object or invisible platform is in one of these areas, the frame rate can plummet into single digits. If you have the displeasure of being in a platforming section when this happens, the game feels totally unresponsive and you will end up sending Cora to her gravity based demise. The combination of the time bomb styled corruption, formless graphics and technological shortcomings was enough for me; I had to stop playing this game.

‘Seed Of Life’ was released previously on PC so I opted to look at video footage to vicariously experience more. A lava biome with more involved platforming and puzzles looked like a promising slice of gameplay. Performance on PC was significantly better with more detailed visuals, at least from what I was seeing; which lead me to the question was the port poorly optimised, or is the Nintendo Switch showing it’s age?

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