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vacation games: dark escape 4D, carnevil, golly ghost and disney music parade: encore so on a few trips in the past year I've played a selection of games during them, some on arcade trips and some on plane rides and i wanted to talk about them in one page, for reals this was totally a planned page and not just my way of covering some very tenuously related games in a way i can make look thematic, seriously, it's not that. it is a fairly diverse selection though, at least tonally, with dark horror rail shooters, edgy 90's gorefests and a Disney rhythm game. the first game, carnevil, is one of the most cruel and punishing rail shooters I've ever played, probably the most cruel and punishing one even, it's mean and violent and gory and that difficulty ends up fitting that tone super well, it adds to the atmosphere in a way i think is kind of neat, it's a gross game and it feels gross to play and i say this entirely non derogatorily, it's a very unique experience to go back to. the game has this grimy early CG look to it in a way that looks very strange to look at, it's clearly all real time but it looks pre-rendered in a way that's very hard to describe unless you really look at it and it's a very one of a kind look i find, it's really cool! there's a lot of variety in the stages too, circuses, Christmas villages, haunted houses, freakshows and a particularly cool segment set on a Ferris wheel, the game has variety and its all super atmospheric, even if i think it's a little too crass and gross for me, reminded me the most of house of the dead overkill, particularly with the freakshow stage and weather that's a positive or negative comparison to you will tell you how much you'll get into this. that said i do have some issues with it, while i love that the guns are on the smaller end and very light, the amount of reloading you need to do with these shotguns ends with you being super tired super fast especially if this isn't your first arcade run of the night and your arms will burn afterwards for sure, it does at least make gunspam easier since you can just continuously cheat the reloads that way if you don't mind pushing though the pain! it's also got that brutal difficulty too, it has tons of cheap enemyspam that come out and shank you before you even have a chance to shoot them, trying to beat this legit will be downright impossible, i can't imagine a 1CC run is even an option, it's that difficult and cheap, though it's still a step above halo: fireteam elite in that regard. it's also not got that many levels, though this i would consider a positive, they're super varied considering the theme of the game and it does feel a lot longer than it is, even though it's only about 25 mins long it feels like a more lengthy experience which is nice, i did enjoy the time i spent in this grimy, edgy world. golly ghost is the second game i played, this is a very different rail shooter to the other two i'll talk about and that's because it's not really a game in the traditional sense, at least not a video game, it projects things onto a real set of physical items and you have to shoot them from there, it makes for a very unique playing and looking experience, it's beautiful and the props around the house all look fantastic, it's just a fun little score attack game and its really cool to be able to experiance it on real hardware, though it was ultimately the least interesting of the 4 games i ended up playing that night, but still a very neat curiosity. the last, and best, shooter i played was one that i'd played before, at least a little, dark escape 4D. i'd tried to play this on several occasions in Japan and never was able to get passed the first level, not really because of difficulty, though the game is tough, but because it was too scary, the game may honestly be he scariest game I've ever beaten and for an arcade game i think that's really impressive, it's one of the best and coolest games in the genre and i loved my time with it. i think the thing that made it beatable for me this time was playing with another person and it made it a lot more manageable, not easy by any stretch but it got me to the ending and that was a big step considering just how much this game can be. it's very much trying to be like that, it has stages based on fears, a lot of gore and scary designs, a heartrate monitor that it grades you based on how afraid you are (though its readings are iffy and it has bad detection rates) and it has the loudest speakers that blast air at you all the time to simulate impact, it's a seriously in depth experience for what it is and it all combines to make the game into a really cool one of a kind experience and its an experience i seriously recommend, an emulator will not do this game justice. it plays mostly pretty standard, it has some mounted turretty guns instead of a house of the dead style gun setup, it's closer to say a deadstorm pirates in that department and you have to aim at weakpoints and sometimes try and open doors and stuff, there's also a pretty neat system where if you sync up your shots they become more powerful and it's really the best way to take out tougher enemies, you're very much recommended to do so, that's really about it, you don't have grenades or anything. the only other big mechanic is the choices you make sometimes, instead of diverging in routes like in something like HOTD they will instead give you two choices, one of which will give you free passage and sometimes health and the other will damage and jumpscare you, it's super tense and it fits the game well, they were always some of the scariest moments in the game. stages are super varied, you have really nice looking log cabins, destroyed labs, prisons and the darkest sewer level you will ever see and the game is beautiful. some of those stages even have neat gimmicks, like one that's pitch black that you need flashlights to see with or the siege on the cabin which is my favourite stage, they all use the fears they represent to give the game some really cool mechanical gimmicks to keep the game feeling fresh, which it always does for its pretty short hour long runtime (though you have multiple endings so it has some replay value). the environments all look amazing and the enemies are really well designed, the spider monsters still make me feel ill even thinking about them, the bosses too! like the venus flytrap looking plant zombies and the weirdo humanoid lizard things, or spider alligator looking boss and the actual massive building sized spider that will haunt your nightmares for days, though the nemesis looking final boss is a little bit of a let down with its design, even when it becomes a huge kaiju, i do love the design of the mask clad villain though, and the random horror game protag girl that accompanies you throughout the whole game, she's very of her time and it owns. i can't say the music or story are as interesting, there isn't much of the former and the VA isn't as funny as something like HOTD, but the cutscenes are nice. the music is something i remember nothing of, which is always going to be the case when you're in a loud and crowded arcade, though listening to it online it is pretty good and is super effective in the moment at creating that atmosphere the game excels at, the game is seemingly composed by naohiro aito, who has worked on games like Puzzle! Mushihimetama, ibara sorekara, muchi muchi pork and music! gungun 2 though he is not credited for this game on places like mobygames, just in the games credits. the game itself is made by Namco though and directed by norihiro Nishimura, director of games like ninja assault, many later time crisis games and who also worked on death by degrees and mazan: flash of the blade, though the games credits also list nex entertainment here, a killer studio involved with tons of great games ranging from SMT: nine, shining tears,shining wind and shining soul, they helped in development with games like time crisis 3, dino crisis and code veronica, plus resi survivor 2 to boot, they worked on linkle liver story, D-XHIRD and battle arena toshinden's Saturn version and very late in their lifespan they worked on some cool stuff like bayonetta and crimson shroud, their last noted game being Sailor Zombie: AKB Arcade Edition which just sounds rad, they also seemingly worked on the cancelled killing bites game, a game i remember being super excited for back in the day, shame it never released . the game has sadly never had any sequels or ports though, but if you ever see a cabinet for it i'd consider it a must play no matter what. trying to tenuously connect these games to my last game is probably a stretch but this game is another one i beat while on vacation, albiet different vacation. on a trip to paris this week for distant worlds (it was great! i'll talk more about it in a final fantasy 16 page i'm also writing) i had played through the entirety of Disney music parade: encore over the course of two flights and a hotel stay and it was overwhelmingly.... fine, it was good, fun but also one of the more sad cases of wasted potential I've seen this year so far, a case of the most "could easily have been one of the best games in its genre" with just a few small tweaks and additions, but it wasn't meant to be, at least not this time. the game itself plays good, it's a Disney themed groove coaster clone and it works well enough, you have your standard inputs and they work well enough and it's super pretty with amazing stages that make the most of the parade aesthetic, it would be a real treat to look at on a large tv or an oled i imagine, though on a lite it can be a bit hard to see everything and the effects, combined with how small the circle can be for your inputs, make the game very difficult at times, though the sheer spectacle of it alone makes it honestly worth the mild occasional annoyances, it's a real sight at times even on some of the lamer songs, agraba alleyways, parades and festivals, it's very abstractly shown like its something from child of Eden but it's super varied in the visual styles shown, like how big hero 6 has a neon cityscape or how the Alice in wonderland worlds get super trippy with the visuals and card theming's. those lame songs are the games real issue though, while it has some of the tracks you'd want, songs from tangled and little mermaid and Aladdin and beauty & the beast, all the classics, but it also has a lot of... less wanted music? and some of the weirdest omissions possible, for example some of the movies you'd want more songs from like tangled and little mermaid only get 2 tracks each, while others that shouldn't even be here like monsters inc (all the Pixar picks are a waste of a slot honestly) get 3 tracks, none of which are all that good. they also omitted all of the villain tracks, weather by forgetfulness or a want to eventually sell them as DLC (which i don't think ever happened), so no gaston, no mother knows best, no poor unfortunate souls, no be prepared, none of it, oh but don't worry because instead you get things like 4 Disney parks songs, one of which is just a medley, pixar slotfillers like monsters inc and movies like Alice in wonderland that end up with more tracks than actual iconic musicals like tangled and little mermaid, entire movies like hunchback, Pocahontas, Encanto and Tarzan are absent in favour of some really forgettable choices like peter pan, coco, the aforementioned Pixar movies and Zootopia, even iconic tracks from the movies that are featured are missing entirely, like i won't say I'm in love from Hercules, half of the best songs from tangled or kiss the girl from little mermaid, it's even weirder since many of these *are* in the mobile version, so you're just getting an overall worse package for seemingly no reason, full of that games lesser tracks with a few hits sprinkled in. to its credit there are some classics here, be a man, all the tangled and little mermaid tracks, i love that it has the fall out boy song from big hero 6 (could have went without the instrumental track there though), it has you're welcome and some fantastic stitch tracks and most of the hits from movies like Hercules and Aladdin, you even get some Winnie the pooh and nightmare before Christmas tracks, which is always welcome. it's not an awful track list, just one full of missed potential and filler. the games length isn't too long if you just play every track through, if it wasn't for the lategame grind for the last few tracks that'll have you replaying songs for an hour or two the game would only be about 3 hours long, though with that grind included you'll get a good 5 or so hours out of it, moreso if you go for the collectables like movie stills, clips and some extra art of vehicles i assume are usable in the mobile version, there's also a multiplayer mode here too! though i never had the chance to test it out myself, there isn't much in terms of real single player stuff to do though beyond just playing the songs, which i didn't expect but i think it'd have been nice for a little more, even a randomized arcade mode or something. it's easy enough too and pretty accessible with a few difficulty options each and it never gets too fast on the lower options, though the visuals can make even easy songs more difficult just through how hard it can be to see the inputs and the train. recommending the game is a whole other ballpark though, the game is full priced, which is a bit far for a mobile port with this little content, it was never localised in American or European territories so you'll need to put up with importing or e-shop shinanigans though if you do go the physical route there is an English version floating around with the Asian english port from china, though to be fair i don't think even the most non-Japanese non Japanese sparker would need because the game is so import friendly and has so little text that i think even a toddler could figure their way around the game, so i don't think you'd need to seek out that version specifically, if you do it's about the same price as the Japanese version at least, though you'll still be looking around 50 for it, sadly, it's new enough to not have had much of a price drop yet. it's a hard game to recommend overall, even though i did like it, it's lacking in much to do and that tracklist can be pretty dire, but the really good covers and some of those better songs do make it worth it if you fit the very specific niche of: Disney megafan, but not too much of one that the lack of songs will bother you, but enough of one that you'll happily spend the cash to import a full price switch game possibly in a different language, which is a very small niche but if you are in that niche, hell yeah go and play this, it's a fun enough time.