Posted in: Games, Movies, Video Games | Tagged: Bad Voice Acting, Don't Starve, Legend of Kay, Mega Man 8, Octodad, Roundabout, Splatoon, Ultra Street Fighter IV

Sweet Release! Splatoon, Legend of Kay Anniversary, Ultra Street Fighter IV, Mega Man 8

By Jared Cornelius

Welcome back to Sweet Release! Bleeding Cool's look at the new video games hitting store shelves and digital platforms this week.  With the Witcher III dominating most of gaming's mind share and E3 a scant few weeks away, it doesn't really feel like the right time for another big game to be hitting the streets. However in lieu of another triple A game series we have a collection of titles that celebrates a more strange and artistic spirit.  Nintendo has a game for their often neglected Wii U, and there is another retail release whose existence is kind of baffling.  The upside is we have an excellent crop of downloadable titles to choose from this week, but enough banter let's find out about were-squids.

Hey who wants were-squids?  Yes were-squids, that's how I'm referring to the characters in Nintendo's newest title, Splatoon.  The 3rd person action puzzle shooter, has you play squids who can transform into human children.  Nintendo calls them "Inklings" but I think were-squid is better.  Anyway the games based around a mix of combat, platfoming, and level traversal, with players shooting colored ink on the level and using it for movement in squid form.  Aside from single player, Splatoon has various game modes including a one on one Battle Dojo, four on four Turf War, and a series of ranked online game modes like Tower Control and Rainmaker.  It also supports brand new Splatoon themed Amiibo, but don't expect to find them at retail as they sold out the moment they went up for pre-orders.  Splatoon looks like an interesting new franchise for a company that's normally content to continue releasing variations on their existing series so kudos for that.  Also I can't shake the feeling this game will generate a ton of weird porn on Deviant Art.  Splatoon releases exclusively for the Nintendo Wii U on Friday.
High definition remasters have become such a standard thing that companies are now re-releasing games that no one possibly could've asked for.  Case in point, Legend of Kay Anniversary, from Nordic Games.  You may remember Nordic as the folks who picked up a bunch of licenses at the THQ fire sale a few years ago, including Darksiders, Red Faction, and Destroy All Humans.  Well they already re-released two of those and I guess no one wants an HD version of the underrated Destroy All Humans, (cough…me…cough).  So instead we get Legend of Kay, a mascot platformer from a time when the consoles were lousy with them, that features an anthropomorphic cat who is also a samurai.  The story is steeped in Eastern mythology and features the generic puzzle platforming and combat you'd expect from that style of game circa 2005.  There's honestly no reason for this to exist, if you want to play a puzzle platformer that badly all three of Sony's platform mascot trilogies are around $20 online.  Legend of Kay Anniversary released Tuesday on PlayStation 4 and Wii U.
Can you contain your excitement for the final installment of Street Fighter IV?  Well it's finally here, Ultra Street Fighter IV on PlayStation 4.  Releasing almost a year after the PlayStation 3 version, Ultra Street Fighter IV comes with all the bells and whistles of its PS3 predecessor except it looks better.  Those bells and whistles include 4 new characters and 6 new stages, tweaks to existing fighters, and ability to select gameplay styles from the previous releases.  Ultra Street Fighter IV releases on the PlayStation 4 digitally on Tuesday.  At one point there was a retail release scheduled, but it may have fallen prey to Capcom's new digital re-release initiative.

Speaking of Capcom and re-releases, Mega Man 8 comes to PS1 Classics on Tuesday.  Originally released in the US way back in 1997, Mega Man 8 was the Capcom's last stab at the more traditional 2D platform action game on home consoles, before transitioning further into the X series.  It's not the best Mega Man game by any means and features some of the worst robot masters and some laughably bad voice acting.  Seriously Mega Man sounds like a little girl and Doctor Light is Elmer Fudd with a beard.  Flaws aside, Mega Man 8 does have some of the best looking graphics from the series and is historically important as the last traditional, standalone Mega Man game to be released by Capcom on a disk.

Finally to finish out the week let's do a few quick hit releases from games that have already been featured on Sweet Release! before, starting with…
Octodad: Dadliest Catch comes to the PlayStation Vita on Tuesday.  It features an octopus masquerading as a man and should be cross buy if you own any of the other versions.

Roundabout, the revolving limousine game and story of the world greatest revolving limo driver Georgia Manos comes to PlayStation 4 on Tuesday.
Don't Starve: Giant Edition, is a rogue-like survival game from the people who made Mark of The Ninja and is available on the Wii U on Thursday.

That's all for this week folks, make sure you check out my other regular column, Typing on The Dead, where I review and dissect the latest issue of The Walking Dead.

Jared Cornelius is some guy from the Jersey coast who really want's that Destroy All Humans re-release.  Tell him your fond memories of it on Twitter @John_Laryngitis.

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