Even without knowing the term "isekai", you have probably at some point encountered a story or piece of media that follows its basic framework. A Japanese term meaning "another world", isekai stories deal with the notion of being adrift in a setting quite unlike one's own; they follow protagonists who are ripped away from a world much like ours and dropped into an unfamiliar place or time. Be it Edgar Rice Burroughs's depiction of Mars as a futuristic kingdom in the Barsoom books or the fantastical realm of Oz, the specifics matter less than the intent - to challenge the protagonist's preconceived notions and lead them to personal growth in the face of unexpected conflict. I lay all of this out for you because I think the intent with Heir to the Queen, a small-scale adventure game, was to hit the basic points of the isekai journey under the constraints of a threadbare budget and no larger media presence. That's speculation on my part, though, sinc...
As of February the twentieth, it will have been thirty-five years since the release of Konami’s popular run-and-gun title Contra to arcades. The action genre in gaming did not emerge with Contra , but it was helped along by that property as the medium inched ever closer to the new millennium. Though games about muscle-bound soldiers and plentiful gunfire had existed before, the Contra series leaned into the absurdity of the setup while refining and building upon the basics of the side-scrolling action template. So, in honor of this anniversary and the property's significance to gaming, let’s take a look back and see how that beloved title fares now… The Experience One’s experience of the original game’s aesthetic leanings absolutely depends on the version chosen. There’s the initial arcade release from 1987, which sports the more detailed backgrounds and character sprites, and the later edition for the Nintendo Entertainment System (or Famicom, for Japanese players) that simpli...