Grim Guardians: Demon Purge is an upcoming Castlevania-like with intriguing co-op

The school friends that slay together, stay together Inti Creates have earned
themselves a reputation in recent years, through titles like Blaster Master Zero
and the Azure Striker Gunvolt series, of creating visually-intricate and technical
2D platformers. Their games scratch the nostalgic itch while not reverting to the
technical problems and gameplay hurdles that we’ve long since moved beyond. Part of
what makes Gunvolt appealing is that it refines and expands upon a formula we see
in the Mega Man X series, and it’s a similar intent that defines the company’s
approach to their latest project, Grim Guardians: Demon Purge. It’s best to look on
this project as the team’s take on Castlevania, with their trademark twist on the
formula. We have characters from the Gal*Gun series lifted and transported to a
more Dracula-esque fantasy world, and the game certainly plays like a blend of
these two franchises. Announced just days before the recent Bitsummit event in
Kyoto, Japan, and with the developers admitting it was touch-and-go whether the
game would be ready to be showcased with a public-facing demo, Demon Purge turns
out to be undeniably familiar yet refined food for fans of metroidvanias.
Admittedly, at a glance the game struggles to differentiate itself much from its
Castlevania inspirations beyond the lead characters. With their school turned into
a demon’s castle, Shinobu and Maya go to investigate the cause of this bizarre
transformation. Enemies that they face on their journey look like ghouls and
skeletons and fantastical creatures of stone that are somewhat reminiscent of
monsters in Konami’s well-loved franchise, albeit with some unique attacks. It’s
perhaps not helped by Shinobu’s attack patterns, which mix long-ranged rapid-fire
and diagonal shooting that feels like Belmont’s dagger. Maya, on the other hand,
uses a short-to-mid range rapier that gives more differentiation. While this may
sound somewhat negative, there’s more to be said about Demon Purge than making a
(at times close) comparison to the games that inspired it. Movement is clean and
enemies are varied even in the early stages of the game I got to try in-person in
Kyoto, while the ability to switch between the characters in single-player, with
their different attacks being better for certain enemies over others, gives some
much-needed variety to proceedings. It’s the co-op potential these two characters
unlock that’s perhaps most exciting in this metroidvania template. Two players can
pick up a controller and be let loose in the level at the same time, opening up new
possibilities for traversal. You can ride on your friend's head, and jump off them
to progress past problematic moments. You can even turn into the masks each
character wears and float alongside your partner if an area is giving you trouble.
If one of you falls, it’s possible to revive the other using CPR, which makes it
possible to bring even those less-experienced with the genre into the fold. Hidden
areas, and the potential for new abilities and additional excitement offered by co-
op, makes Grim Guardians an intriguing proposition. How exploration and traversal
plays a factor in the game will be key to its success, something the vertical slice
at Bitsummit didn't really provide, yet the mix of difficulty and accessibility
make for a vibrant, challenging game that’s still open to newcomers and veterans
alike. With the game still early in development, and no release window currently
announced, we’ll need to wait and see how everything comes together, but Inti
Creates also have the track record to make this a rather exciting adventure.

15 Forgotten Games From Popular Franchises

Anyway, did you know that in the English dub of Street Fighter II: The Animated
Movie, Bryan Cranston did the voice of Fei Long? I learned that recently and I
don’t know how to process that information. That burden is now yours to share. 4.
BS Zelda no Densetsu Yeah, I probably could have talked about the CD-i Zelda games
here, but those have garnered The Room level of notoriety and are no longer as
forgotten as they should be. Instead, I’m going to cherry-pick from the outright
bizarre experiment that was the Satellaview. On the surface, BS Zelda No Densetsu
is a 16-bit remake of the original Legend of Zelda done in the style of a “third
quest.” That’s actually a great idea for a rerelease, but you’d expect something
like that to be a bit more well-known, even if it was a Japanese-only product. Then
again, the Satellaview was one of those ideas that was undeniably creative and
ambitious, but fundamentally did not work. The device essentially “broadcasted”
games like this to its users and only allowed those users to access them during
scheduled broadcast times. Subsequent broadcasts would open up more of the map, but
once BS Zelda no Densetsu was done, that was it. There was no cartridge or
downloaded game file left on the hard drive. It’s just a piece of lost media that
lives on as one of the stranger experiments in video game history. 3. Wily &
Right no Rockboard: That’s Paradise By the early ’90s, Capcom was cranking out Mega
Man games one after another. Mega Man 5 was just released, and the company was less
than a year away from dropping Mega Man 6 and Mega Man X. They even had Mega Man
Soccer on the horizon, with its face-meltingly awesome theme song for the Dr. Wily
Field. In Japan, Capcom decided to tap into the virtual board game market with Wily
& Right no Rockboard: That’s Paradise. This game is basically Monopoly with 8-
bit Mega Man graphics. For some reason or another, you can’t play as Mega Man
himself, though, and are instead forced to choose between Dr. Light/Right, Dr.
Wily, Roll, and Mega Man 4 characters, Dr. Cossack and Kalinka. There are even
various different boards that come with chill remixes of classic Mega Man boss
themes. While it isn’t the most exciting game in the franchise, this oddity of the
Mega Man series does have a fan-made English translation out there for anyone
interested in exploring the depths of that franchise.

This Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night demake gives us serious old-school

Castlevania vibes

The beautiful Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is seen as something of a spiritual

successor to the Castlevania series. Miriam's adventure provides the side-scrolling
Metroidvania action that some fans of Konami's dark fantasy series sorely missed
when it radically changed direction and switched to 3D environments for
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and its sequel Lords of Shadow 2.  As spotted by
Nintendo Life (opens in new tab), Bloodstained is the latest title to be given the
demake treatment, making it look all the more like the classic Castlevania games
that inspired it. Game Boy Demakes (opens in new tab) shared their impressive
creation on Twitter. One of the images shows what Bloodstained's menu would look
like if it were made for Nintendo's classic handheld, and another shows a little
Miriam sprite kicking some demon butt. Elsewhere we see the game's save rooms as
well as the map of the Dian Cecht Cathedral. The simple black and white aesthetics
give it a particular resemblance to Castlevania The Adventure, which was released
on Game Boy all the way back in 1989. Sadly, it's only a mockup, so we can't
actually play through this delightful demake, but it's nonetheless a lovely feast
for the peepers. It's been a few years since Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was
released, and while we've been treated to DLC and an 8-bit spin-off in the form of
Curse of the Moon, we've yet to sink our teeth into a fully-fledged sequel.
Happily, one is on the way. Back in June last year, the official Bloodstained
social media channels confirmed that a follow-up is happening and that it's "in
very early planning stages". Don't miss out on all the best titles making their way
to PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and PC with our guide to new games 2022.