THREE TO PLAY
PSN games you might have missed
Every month, loads of games come to the PS Store. You’d be hard pressed to play them all, so each month we look at some that didn’t quite make the cut. This month, fantastical adventures abound, from a metroidvania to quirky worlds, and little a murder, as a treat.
Been looking for a new Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night fix since 1997? Record Of Lodoss War: Deedlit In Wonder Labyrinth is a pretty close match. If you’ve played Konami’s genre-defining metroidvania, you’ll largely know what to expect here, but an elemental twist keeps things interesting, with elf Deedlit able to swap between wind and fire modes for health or attack bonuses respectively. It’s based on the Record Of Lodoss War novels, which in turn were based on published transcripts of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Wonder Labyrinth’s story is set before the Diadem Of The Covenant novels, which star the elf and have yet to be published.
From one 1997 revival to another, with Moon: Remix RPG Adventure. This incredibly quirky JRPG debuted on PS1, but only received its first English translation recently as a part of a remaster project. You play as a young boy sucked into the world of a videogame where a stereotypical RPG hero has done more harm than good, which you must fix in your role as a support character. It’s quite obtuse; you must play around a calendar system in order to help the world’s inhabitants, while making sure you return to bed before your small amount of action points run out. This cult classic actually inspired Undertale creator Toby Fox to create his game. After Moon creator Yoshiro Kimura spoke with Fox, he himself was inspired to try to get the game localised once again. And here we are.
We move from a fantastical mystery into something a bit more sinister in Kansei: The Second Turn HD. It sees the return of Kangai, a sleuthing teen who has the ghoulish power to relive the final moments of a dead boy. Naturally he once again finds himself wrapped up in a murder case, this time having no choice but to work alongside other children with strange powers. There’s a lot of text to read (and, unusually for this kind of game, full voice acting in English) and locations to click around to find clues. This time, a true ending can only be revealed after you’ve uncovered multiple less ‘true’ endings.