This is a week to let your freak flag fly as a gamer. If you’re tired of the usual stream of shooters and annual sequels, this is a good week for you. Strangeness abounds in this slate of new releases, starting from a text adventure game based on an elite school for pigeons, Hatoful Boyfriend. There’s also a wild expansion for the already wacky Trials Fusion, as well as the old-school-style, stick figure ninja antics of N++, a long-distance follow-up to a 2008 game.
Reviews by Phil Villarreal. Phil is an author, blogger and Twitterer. Publishers provided review copies.
Hatoful Boyfriend
(PS4, Vita, $15, Everyone 10+)
A shining example of absurdist humor, this bizarre interactive novel is the weirdest Choose Your Adventure book you’ve ever heard of, that happens to be in video game form. Set at a prestigious academy for pigeons, the story — told in a series of text-accompanied slide shows — has you arrange social alliances, stand up to bullies and decide what to study as you attempt to fly your way to the top of the nest. You make choices both ludicrous and serious along the way.
Each playthrough passes by in less than an hour, but with more than a dozen endings to try for depending on your selections, the replay value is high. If you come across passages you’ve read already, there’s a helpful speed-up setting that bypasses the repetition to get you to your next choice. There’s a ton to see and discover depending on the way you tweak your selections, and it’s worth going back again and again to read the occasionally genius-level writing. It’s a refreshing experience on the PS4 but perfectly suited to the Vita, which makes it easier to read large blocks of text. A single purchase gets you both versions.
N++
(PS4, $20, Everyone)
It’s been seven years since the ragingly difficult single-screen platformer N+ started terrorizing players, daring them to master its ninja wall-jumping moves. The sequel keeps the same tiny stick figure and certain death aesthetics, challenging players to try, try and try again to master and conquer its increasinly hellacious levels. You run, hop and glide over levels lined with spikes and other hazards, constantly failing until you muster the combination of luck and skill to push on.
There’s not a lot of reinvention at play. This is the same N+ you’ve learned to love and hate since your Xbox 360 days. The rapid respawning makes the constant deaths easy to handle, and the endlessly diabolical design twists keep play sessions from getting stale. Whenever you’ve mastered a particular skill, you can bet that the next several levels will render your knowledge obsolete as they bombard you with more rage-inducing challenges.
Trials Fusion: The Awesome Level Max Edition
(Xbox One, PS4, $40, Everyone 10+)
The downloadable content keeps on flowing for this Excitebike-style, side-scrolling motorcycle-racing platformer. The biggest leap yet for the game is the Awesome Level Max expansion, which is so big that it’s sparked a rerelease. For $40, you get the base game, the new levels and a code for a season pass that nets you the several add-on packs that have come out since release. If you already own the game, you can tack this on for an additional $10.
Ever ridden a flame-throwing unicorn as a gun-toting cat? This is your chance to do just that. Courses and concepts are remixed, twisted and blown out in zany and ridiculous ways. You also get RedLynx vs. All Stars, which collects some of the best user-created tracks in a developer-enhanced chunk of new content that matches and surpasses many of the best previously released levels. If you’ve already worn your way through all the game has to offer, you’re really just getting started thanks to the expansion.