What if the best game of the week wasn’t even a game? That’s the case here, with Art Academy: Home Studio proving to be a prime piece of software. A wholesale art education tool that can take you from stick men to cartoon drawing in days, the game gently guides you through the process of giving you the basics of two-dimensional drawing and painting to find your artistic talent.
Old-school gaming devotees will likely fall for Rogue Legacy, which finally makes its way to the Xbox One after a two-year holdup. And Vita fans have yet another wacky JRPG to adore in a new entry into the Hyperdimension Neptunia series.
Reviews by Phil Villarreal. Phil is an author, blogger and Twitterer. Publishers provided review copies.
Art Academy: Home Studio
(Wii U, $30, Everyone)
Since its beginnings on the DS, Nintendo’s Art Academy series has been a cute but not-so-useful tool that was meant to help teach players how to draw and paint. But the handheld’s small screens made it tough to create anything significant, and the games’ limited online functionality made it a pain to get your artwork out of your pocket. As a result, constructive lessons went to waste.
Now comes Art Academy: Home Studio to solve those problems. The Wii U GamePad provides enough touch screen real estate to draw or paint whatever you like, and the connection with the TV lets you see your images come to life. Even better, YouTube connectivity lets you post time-lapse videos of your process, showing others all the hard work that went into your masterpiece. Lessons range from beginner to advanced, with new modes unlocking as you go. You can draw and paint everything from pixel art to canvas portraits and 360-degree panoramics. You can save your creations on an SD card and share it to other Wii U users via Miiverse. This is more of an app than a game, but it’s a hell of an app that gives you a reason to knock the dust off your unused Wii U.
Rogue Legacy
(Xbox One, $15, Everyone 10+)
Harkening back to one of the first popular video games, Rogue (1980), Rogue Legacy subscribes to the unforgiving dungeon crawler rules of games that followed, known as “roguelikes.” Permanent death, unpredictable items and locations and randomly generated dungeon layouts. In Rogue Legacy, you play as a series of ill-fated heroes who die and die often, each leaving their collection of items and accomplishments to a child who follows in line.
Your lineage evolves as you proceed, but some generations are better equipped than others at taking on the family business. Some heroes are blessed with amazing abilities or cursed with horrendous handicaps, making no two playthroughs alike. The enemies, attacks and level design are both varied enough to keep you coming back for more, despite numerous setbacks along the way. While the game’s unforgivingly old-school nature may be too intimidating for most, those who crave a challenge will find much to relish here.
Hyperdimension Neptunia ReBirth3: V Generation
(Vita, $40, Teen)
As quirky as JRPGs can get, the Hyperdimension Neptunia series specializes in making clever swipes at gaming culture as it hooks you into a strong story populated with fascinating characters. A Vita remake of the 2012 PS3 title Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, the game is set in 1989, not only the year of Taylor Swift’s birth but the height of the 8-bit era. You guide buxom heroines through a maze of deceit and treachery.
Combat is based on racking up big combos, and there’s also a Persona-like social aspect that works as a meta-game, letting you build up your party and resources by forging alliances with other characters. Those who have been looking to replay the original will be pleased to find plenty of change ups in the remake. The story has been bulked up with several missions and settings, all of which pop with riotous new dilaogue. Purists will relish free DLC of the Japanese audio track available at launch.
