Recent reviews by Mr. Domino

You go into the game and see that it uses just one button. You press it when against people to talk and against chests to open them. "OK, so this is just a ColecoVision-style adventure game." Then you talk to someone to heal him, and that's when the shooting starts.

Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt is a cute single screen shooting game which uses auto-fire. This makes it play unlike most single screen Robotron-inspired shooters and gives it a fresh feeling. Difficulty curve is excellent, but any shoot-em up veteran won't have any problems here. I only "died" on an optional challenge, and the game took me just a little over an hour to get everything but the Jealous Chest. (The Jealous Chest is the other optional challenge and something you'd want to consider for a second playthrough.)

This game is too good to be free. The soundtrack is great, the graphics are understated but solid, and the story is just too charming. Off to play the sequel!

Product not as advertised.

Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap includes several video clips spotlighting the musicians behind the game's audio. It's obvious that the developer is proud of its rendition of Shinichi Sakamoto's original game score, and it has every right to be. Lush melodies and fantastic mixing make this a delight to actively listen, and the variety is just wonderful. I still can't get over just how decadent "Mind of Hero - Beach" manages to be within a span of two and a half minutes. Headphones, please. It's just beautiful.

The first disc -- well, we're looking at digital distribution here, so "disc" sounds dumb, but whatever -- is the game's full soundtrack. If you've played Skullgirls, "Pyramid" and "Tower" will sound oddly familiar -- not just due to the use of violins and clarinet, but the melody as well. Of course, Dragon's Trap came out in 1989, and the catchy melodies are just as wonderful now, just with more bells and whistles now that they're freed from the shackles of old technology.

The second "disc" is chock full of variations of the game's arrangement. You want the beach theme in salsa? Here you go. "The Monster's Lair" with Japanese drumming? Got you covered. That awesome and memorable "Last Dungeon" theme but all distorted and heavy? Yeah, we got that. I will say that having upwards of TWELVE variations of a song can feel a bit much, and some of the sillier and harsher sounding novelty interpretations aren't likely to stay in your listening queue for long, but they're all impeccably arranged and mixed nonetheless.

This two "disc" soundtrack offers lots of quality across its two hours of music. If you're a fan of the original or just absolutely loving this game for the first time, then you'll probably want this. Sakamoto's melodies are legendary and instantly recognizable, and this love letter will last long after the final dragon has gone down. It's a real shame he's not better known, because Wonder Boy's soundtrack is as much a classic as the game which envelopes it.

NOTE: Make sure to buy on Bandcamp! Steam's soundtrack implementation is horrid.

I loved the original Xbox Indie Mute Crimson, but I held off on picking this remake up since, well, I figured I already bought and played it. Took my little blocky caterpillar ninja through his high contrast world, gathered all of the coins, and liked it enough to publish a poorly written review for my Xbox Indie site. I didn't see much reason to return.

I was wrong. The big improvement here are certainly the graphics. The old shoebox now looks like an actual ninja guy. The scant enemies and levels look much better and animate smoothly. We now can enjoy some impressive cinematic art between levels as well, and everything just pops. For a game with a mostly two color palette, it looks really good. Kinda like a 2-D MadWorld. Well, maybe not, but it oozes style.

Platforming is tight and a joy to play. If you're like me, then you're a fast approaching middle-aged white guy, but then you'd also find the level design strict and at times maddening but always fair. You'd also hate the rising lava levels which Mute Crimson+ employs on occasion, stressing out our fat middle-aged hearts to dangerous limits. Welcomed modern conveniences of infinite lives and checkpoints will help keep your sanity intact, though they're far from a crutch. An optional goal of finding hidden coins in a level provide further challenge, and it can be tough to secure it and make it out alive.

There's still a bit of clunkiness present what with the inexplicable arrow zones which alter the control of the ninja, but these spots add some much needed variety to the game and help flesh out a journey otherwise dominated by jumping and slashing. I'm so glad there are people out there who remember that platformers can exist between the extremes of masochist memorization and cakewalk adventure fetch-quests. Mute Crimson+ feels so refreshing by comparison, even after playing the XBLIG original. It's not going to blow anyone away, but it's an immensely satisfying game all the same.

Eversion is a simple looking and playing indie platformer, just another drop in the flood of "retro" platformers we've seen since Braid. Eversion, like Pony Island, presents itself in a cutesy way but quickly succumbs to a subversive horror element. This is just edgy, needless window dressing -- the creepy stuff neither meshes with the game nor impresses on any level.

What is kinda interesting is that use of "layers." At certain points in a stage, Zee Tee (your avatar in the game) can trigger a "door" to another layer of the level. It feels like a hokey version of the time alterations seen in Sonic CD, but it provides some variety to the otherwise by-the-books platforming. Moving through the layers is too clunky to be truly enjoyable; and the poor enemy design, some collision issues, a poor and repetitive soundtrack, and the game's penchant for shutting down after clearing one of the endings annoy as well.

The real reason to buy Eversion is for its Steam cards. The game's foil badge is the best badge available on Steam, and the cards sell for quite a bit of money. I'd marginally recommend this one with the outlook that the game is more of a consolation prize should you not be fortunate enough to receive a foil card. Eversion is built well enough to hold my interest, but it's a pretty lukewarm recommedation all the same.

I don't remember how I came into possession of Pony Island. As with many user's Steam libraries, it sat unplayed for who knows how long until by chance, the title caught my eye when browsing my game list one day. A little under six hours later, I had completed the game, surprisingly captivated by what I had just experienced.

As you'll see with most reviews of the game, the less known, the better. Screenshots already spoil the "twist" as it were, so happening upon the game as I had made it more compelling, I suppose. I will say that the story behind Pony Island isn't particularly strong, but it's that lure of "what's next?" which keeps you glued to the screen. Remember when you were in high school and what you thought would be edgy and deep? That's Pony Island's plot, yet it somehow works.

Gameplay is often redundant and too simplistic to truly be entertaining on its own, but it keeps the game moving and even will impress you at times. My advice would be to understand that there's a fair amount of arcade gameplay in here, and while nothing's super taxing, completists may have some trouble gaining one particular ticket of the 24 hidden throughout the game. I'd also strongly encourage players to play full screen. It helps with immersion for sure, because this simple looking, throwaway indie title proved itself to be quite immersive during my playthough, but I don't think it would have been as good with random desktop clutter in the background breaking the illusion. You need to allow yourself to get lost into the strange world of Pony Island to truly enjoy it.

Steam tells me I poured 9.5 hours into this game. This is not a game you'll enjoy if you're OCD and stuck looking for missed tickets. As memorable as the initial experience is, there's nothing here really worth revisiting. Having just located my last ticket, I'm happy to be done with it. Pony Island is not built to be replayed, and frankly, a lot of it isn't fun when the interest in its plot is removed. Still can't believe I played this thing for so long. Pony Island is truly a case of a game being better than the sum of its parts, as the saying goes. I'd love to go into more detail how exactly, but that'd just spoil the fun.

AdVenture Capitalist is Skinner box, a barely interactive "game" in which you click some buttons and watch the numbers get larger and larger. The player becomes satisfied watching the money escalate and in turn clicks on more buttons to ensure even larger numbers. There's precious little to do here, and if you've "played" Progress Quest -- the first of these "run-it-and-forget-it games" -- then you'll be well acquainted with AdVenture Capitalist. It's a terribly hollow experience which can barely be considered a game by any measure.

That said, there is a bit more to it than Progress Quest. You do get to pick which of the stores you want to invest into or upgrades to buy, but it's all window dressing in the end. Sure, the game gives the appearance of some light management, but all upgrades and stores are roughly the same -- you're just buying what you can afford so you can earn enough for the next set in a never-ending series of upgrades. The somewhat interesting and devious feature of the game is found in the angel investors, which accumulate as you earn money. These angel investors allow you to earn even more money -- significantly more money being a requirement for getting the super big bucks -- but at the expense of resetting all of your progress. You'll be stuck repurchasing all of your stores and upgrades again, but on the next pass, you'll be earning even more money. Millions become billions, sextrillions become septrillions, and so on exponentially until you enough time and resets have given you enough to buy the Earth.

Users of Kongregate and other Internet browser game sites will know that AdVenture Capitalist offers the option to watch advertising to multiple the funds accumulating for a period of time, hence the Ad-Venture title. This "feature" is absent from Steam, leaving the draw to earn more in the achievements. Despite it being horribly shallow and repetitive, AdVenture Capitalist is an addictive thing, and the one way you truly win is to not play it. You'll waste enough of your own valuable time jumping through the never ending series of hoops the game throws at you to keep those numbers churning. Of course, you could cheat by just advancing the clock on your computer (money tallies even when the game is closed), but that only serves to indicate how empty an experience the game offers, an inescapable pit of rolling counters.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

I click to roll my die. I move. I click to roll for combat. I take damage. I'm attacked. I click to roll and die. I roll to revive. Another turn. I roll to revive. Another turn. I roll to revive. Another turn. I roll to revive. At some point, I'm back on my feet. A CPU player intercepts me. I'm knocked back down. "Maybe if I had some cards," I think. The CPU guys are dishing out damage that I can't hope to match. I'm stuck with my weenie deck and no where to go but last place time time and time again. I don't think it'd matter, though, because the dice hate me all the same.

After four games of 100% Luck-and-Grind, I've had my fill. Having to grind stars to buy cards just for the chance of getting something playable is one thing, but the constant abuse of the CPU opponents and terrible combat system completely kill any fun to be had here. This game is sadistic, even on "casual," and the CPU will completely kick you around as they all possess stacked decks and better rolls. It's absolutely infuriating. There's no interesting challenge here, nothing you can overcome with practice and skill. No, you just have to chain yourself to the game, left clicking through loss after loss, farming stars for cards until you can maybe stand a chance against the other AI players and enemies. It's Progress Quest passed off as a legitimate game.

It's too bad, too, because 100% Orange Juice looks nice and has a fair premise, but having to roll to breath takes all the fun out of living. I see people claiming it's fun in multi-player -- which I can see, but then, that goes for pretty much every game in existence -- but having to rely on other humans to overcome the cruel AI just to play what remains a luck heavy time waster isn't saying much. This is a game for anime nerds and RPG fans who think babysitting some enemy spawn point killing creatures for hours just for the chance of a rare drop makes for a great game. I know there's a lack of Japanese cute games on Steam, but we don't have to embrace crap just because there's so little from which to choose.

Little Inferno is an odd quasi-puzzle game with a similar style and consumerism narrative as World of Goo, 2D Boy's previous acclaimed release. The player is simply tasked with ordering items from a catalog and then burning them in the Little Inferno fireplace. The challenge comes from unlocking more advanced item catalogs, which require a certain amount of burn combinations to access, but you're really here to just be a virtual pyromaniac. Item design is excellent -- I love the screams from the school bus -- and the game's gradually unfolding story (told via snailmail letters) keeps you enthralled to the end. Little Inferno lacks the replayability of World of Goo, but it's an excellent experience on its own.