The Count straightened his tie in the mirror. The aluminum backing was far more forgiving about showing reflections than silver. He smiled at himself and switched off the bathroom light. His phone buzzed from the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. His rideshare was downstairs waiting for him. While he had his phone out, the vampire pulled up his social media to confirm the address on the invite. He checked his blackout curtains and reset his security alarm before locking up the apartment. Perhaps it was no longer an age of shadows and blood. But modern times certainly were more convenient.
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“They’re doing it again,” the naturalist called to his partner. The rare albino alligator species they’d come to study had the weirdest symbiotic relationship with a species of local freshwater crabs. As they watched, the gators lined up on the shoreline, allowing the crabs to scuttle onto their heads. They proceeded to march up and down the muddy beach, the crustaceans waving their claws in the air. The scientists were baffled. They couldn’t discern any advantage in the behavior. They were just… walking around. If the alligators could talk, they would have scoffed that the scientists just didn’t understand fashion.
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She stood by his side for decades. She supported him through the death rays and doomsday devices. When spies and superheroes infiltrated his lair, they would offer her an escape. She always declined. Was it so difficult to imagine that a man like her husband could feel love? Or that he could be loved in turn? She didn’t expect them to understand. They would leave her, only to be captured by her husband themselves. Finally, on the eve of his greatest triumph, they toasted with champagne. He took a sip, and she watched, waiting for the poison to start working.
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The Skinny – This reoccurring Zelda classic still plays like a dream.
Originally released for the Game Boy in 1993, The Legend of Zelda, Link’s Awakening may be the most revisited game in Nintendo’s catalog. But that isn’t without good reason. in 1998 it received an upgrade for the Game Boy Color, with a bonus dungeon and new functionality for the Game Boy Printer peripheral. A little over twenty years later, a new version for the Nintendo Switch has brought it back again with bright and colorful HD graphics. But how does a Game Boy game hold up over twenty-five years later? Pretty well, as it turns out. The story and gameplay are nearly untouched, with the only tweak being the inclusion of dedicated buttons for Link’s sword and shield, with two buttons for selectable tools, which makes better use of the Switch’s controls. The combat is familiar and satisfying. This game plays just as well as it did in the original. A few new items were added to the game, including a set of Amiibo-like collectibles and bottles, which allow the player to recover inside dungeons. There is also an expert difficulty added for returning players which bulks up enemies and removes heart drops from the game. This more than balances out the difficulty, and made the game a nice challenge. The added GB Printer sections have been removed, which is disappointing because even if the printer wasn’t available, the cutscenes for obtaining them were still fun to discover in the GB Color version. In its place is a new minigame that allows players to make and complete their own dungeons based on chambers in the game. This is a fun little diversion, but without the ability to design chambers yourself, it feels a little insubstantial. The minigames from the original GB release, a fishing minigame, a raft obstacle course, and a UFO catcher, have been expanded and improved. I usually skip the fishing in Zelda games, but this one was a lot of fun. Link’s Awakening has always been one of the stranger games in the series, with the titular hero washing up on a mysterious island and being thrust into its mysteries. The remake keeps the story intact, while also give a shiny toy-like aesthetic to the graphics. The game preserves the aspect of the original game with the update, which means that the action is a bit more zoomed out, giving a preview of what would be on the next ‘screen’ in the original version. Overall, I feel this is a good choice, and it helps reinforce the new diorama-like feel of the world. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening is a definitive edition of a stone-cold classic. Switch owners shouldn’t sleep on this bite-sized adventure.
The spirit looked upon its mountain and was pleased. Snow-covered the peak in a thick glacier, which melted in sparkling rivulets where the sun hit it. The pure water would trickle down the slope, feeding rivers that carried water and streams that fed the forests below. As the seasons turned, the leaves would change, the rivers would freeze, and the glacier would advance. The cycle felt like breathing to the mountain’s spirit. But something was off. The spirit looked down and saw its rivers dammed and forests cleared for luxury cabins. It had picked up a bad case of humans.
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When I woke up this morning I found that the world had changed. The Sun was a little brighter. My coffee tasted a little stronger. My husband’s hair was a slightly lighter shade of brown. I thought I was losing my mind until I checked my email. Dear Customer, you may have noticed a new update for Life™! We implemented a few bug fixes and improvements. Version 1.349 changes are listed below. I read the list and they matched the differences that I had seen. There, at the bottom, was a little red ‘Unsubscribe’ button. I wondered what would happen.
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Chrononaut Cinema Reviews is presented by https://www.skinner.fm and http://hughjodonnell.com, and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License.
This podcast was originally published at Skinner.FM on Sunday, May 9, 2021.
Welcome to Nostalgia Pilots! This week, Hugh, Jason, and Jurd take a break and discuss what we’ve been watching and playing outside of the Gundam franchise. Enjoy!
The Skinny – Cloudy with a 100% chance of MAYHEM!!1!
Inspired by games like Donut County and Untitled Goose Game,Rain on your Parade puts players in the driver’s seat of a mischievous cloud in a dazzling paper-craft world. Using a set of weather-based powers, players journey through fifty mission-based levels to reach their ultimate goal, the mythical city of… Seattle!
With tongue firmly in cheek, this clever little game delivers on a wide variety of challenges as you work your way across the world. The weather powers are fun to use and are constantly mixed up. Rain soaks people and can be used for other puzzle objectives like growing crops, but can be remixed by soaking up other substances, like oil which can be used to start fires with your lightning ability. Snow and tornado powers also let the player freeze objects or manipulate the environment, although both are unlocked fairly late in the game.
The levels, which range from beaches to grocery stores to the surface of the moon, are cleverly designed, although a few are VERY short. The writing in Rain on your Parade is the real highlight of the experience. It is wickedly sharp and unexpectedly varied in its targets. One mission will have you ruining a pool party by soaking all the sunbathers, but the next will have you delivering coffee in a parody of The Office or pulling off a museum heist. There’s always something new to do, with a clever twist to the mechanics in each level. The sharp, funny writing carries the game as well.
The paper-craft aesthetic of the world is also well implemented and helps to keep the game lighthearted and fun. The player’s cloud, which can be customized with hats, accessories, and a face you can redraw to your liking, is made of cardboard. The human figures resemble Fisher-Price Little People, and the settings and objects have a paper-craft aesthetic. It feels much more akin to overturning a toy box than a GTA-style rampage. This is reinforced by the brief story sections that frame the action as a bedtime story.
While the puzzles are varied, most of the levels themselves are pretty short and won’t require quick reflexes to solve. They mostly boil down to using the correct order of abilities on the right objects to solve a condition, then watching the effects play out.
Rain on Your Parade is a clever little gem of a game, perfect for unwinding, but it sits firmly into its niche as a casual toy chest of an experience. If you’re looking to relax with a bit of silly destruction, I highly recommend it.
The police found the strange device in a raid on a thieves’ den. The antique device was a brass dodecahedron, with lenses on two faces. But the machine didn’t seem to do anything. Until one day a detective idly held it up to his eye and scanned the office. Looking through the scope, he saw a bright red arrow painted on the wall. He put the device down and looked again. The arrow was only visible through the mysterious object. Something in his gut told him to follow it, and it led him to the strangest case in his career.
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Hugh J. O'Donnell 