pic unrelated, i just wanted a chance to use this somewhere, tak fujoshi is one of my best pieces of work. there isn't much of an introduction to be given here, three free games i played recently and a fourth i played at a trip to a local arcade, a standalone Life is strange 2 prequel, a dead smash style fighter (that did things super differently), a valorant clone that i think fixes many of that games issues and a very funny and overly hard classic Konami arcade game.

the best game here is also the only one that you can't even play anymore, divine knockout is marketed as a 3D smash clone by the people who made things like smite and paladins, but it's not fully that, it has the health system from smash and the stage knockouts but its actually much closer to being something even better, a new power stone clone! the best kind of fighting game i think. it's got stage hazards and varied characters and super fun combo strings with cooldowns and ultimates you an throw in there, it's a lot of fun honestly! though it did seemingly have heavy monetization to get those characters, not that i would know since by the time i played the devs just unlocked every costume and character for free in the games last days. so the game was just power stone smash, how did it go beyond that outline, well you picked a character at the start and you're in teams of 2V2 with a shared life system, you knock each other out until one team wins, it's simple but the gameplay keeps it super fun, there's varied stage layouts with the hazards like fire or wind or parts of the stage moving to knock you off and it's really fun, even a little kung-fu-chaos'y in parts, i liked it a lot, like if this was playable offline i'd probably still be playing it with friends, it's that fun.

i liked how some gods played but not others, like sol i found to be just unusably unfun with their weirdo fire attacks and DOT stuff, same with athena with her spear abilities and parries, some were more middle of the road like zues with his lightning bolts, punches and AOE attacks or sun wukong who uses his extending staff and has some very fun rage modey combo strings, plus a super cool doppleganger ability that lets him summon another of himself to the battlefield! though (who took a lot to get used to) there's also amaterasu who is a sword user with access to launchers and rush attacks, susano who is another sword user but his is more AOE and flourish attacks with wind. Hercules who can launch himself at enemies with his club, throw rocks and has a charging attack. thor has charge attacks and throws with his hammer plus a groundpound, he plays like every other thor based character really. Ymir who has some of the games cutest attacks with ice walls and ice breath, plus attacks with his club and he can even roll into a big snowball, it's cute! there's king Arthur also who has self buffs that he can share with his team and several ranged options with his claymore . now for my favourites, Thanatos who uses a scythe with darkness abilities and wide sweeps and he has access to lifedrain and debuff abilities. Izanami who can use duel sickles she can throw and use as boomerangs plus big AOE status fields that inflict fear which makes enemies lose control and wander near the edge. lastly there's also loki who has duel daggers, can go invisible and even has a fun charged launcher kind of attack, he's super fun! there's some alt modes i think like objective based ones and king of the hill, but i never had a chance to play these since the bot mode i played didn't have those, but i did like that it had a bot mode at all, too bad it doesn't work offline. the music is a lil generic though, sadly and the stages don't look amazing, they're fine but they can look a little bland, i do love the character designs though, they're chibi and adorable and there's even some really cool skins like a goth one for Izanami, though there was also a streamer collab i saw for Hercules which made me recoil in disgust a little. sadly this game is now dead, fully unplayable, you can't even get to the main menu even though the game had that bot mode and that's a real shame, this was super fun and i'd love to be able to play more of it.

after this i also played captain spirit. this was a standalone prequel game to life is strange 2, focusing on a character from the games second episode and giving a lot of context to his backstory. i love stuff like this, you used to see this a lot more, smaller downloadable chunks made to hype up a big new release, things like deadrising 2 case zero, deadspace ignition or fable 2 pub games, you still see it sometimes nowadays with things like the danganronpa 3 demo or bravely default 2's demo, but it is much much rarer, i die for these and we need to make them more common, they even throw it in as a bonus on the physical copy! the game itself is just more LIS, with the gimmick being your character can use their imagination to make mundane activities more interesting, it fits the vibe perfectly and it's super charming, it makes what would otherwise be a very boring situation into something really visually cool and fun and it says a lot about his character, it's super expressive! you have a small house and a backyard to explore, full of side objectives to finish and there's a lot of cool small items to look at and get comments on, you can even make a few small choices like what costume to wear that carry over to the main game which is super neat, though ultimately it is just walking around a house and doing menial tasks like washing dishes and finding toys, it's not the most interesting or exciting thing but it does feel really unique just for how low stakes and menial it can be, it has its own appeal. though this is a super short dlc with not much to do, if you rush it its maybe 40 mins long and even with doing everything its not much over an hour and a half and it is a very nothing story, just some cute childish adventures around a house and a sad backstory (that can hit a little too hard at times, there's one scene in the ending that hit too close to home and really upset me, so check some content warnings) that can be a little boring sometimes, but it is charming and it does add a little to the maingame. its super pretty too, with the same art style as the main campaign and it has a beautiful snow environment to walk around, plus a cozy little house to explore, they super didn't cheap out on this with the aesthetics and vibes.

lastly was spectre divide, this was one i tried on a whim because i found the European comic book style really nice looking and also because it seemed to advertise itself as being a game made by a streamer I'd never heard of, i find these kind of youtuber games weirdly fascinating like with race with ryan or asagao academy (which i am also currently playing through) so i figured i would give it a try and honestly it wasn't bad, though the idea of a youtuber made GAAS game feels a lil weird and wrong to me, like throwing parasocial issues in there with the issues GAAS games already have, and i honestly do just find the idea of big ongoing games like this having ties to influencers, it feels weirdly dystopic, i don't like that. but the game beyond that isn't bad for sure, at least by youtube game standards. the basic gimmick is that it's a valorant style shooter, slow and tactical and with super quick deaths but the difference is you control two people at once instead of one, which is neat, it's like resi 0! though maybe not done as well as that game because your body double doesn't really do much, it just sits there when not in use, but it can ping you for nearby enemies, making it like a motion detector and you can also use it like a second life once your main body dies, which i actually do like a lot, though i'd have liked maybe a turret mode or something instead as an option. this ads some very positive tactical opportunities and depth to the game that i like a lot, distracting with your main body before switching to your alt and flanking someone, or just using them as a motion detector and second life which makes the game feel a lot more forgiving than valorant ever did, since now if you make one mess up it won't cause you to be stuck in spectator mode for 5 mins, i like that a ton, that second chance really improves the flow and feel of the game for me. that's about all there is to it, instead of heroes you have sponsorships which give you different items like a shield or a smoke bomb and the rest of it beyond the main gimmick is just valorant with the tags took off, it's fine and inoffensive but i do like that gimmick a lot. the graphics though are nice, there's a few cool cosmetics there and i do think the euro comic booky anime style works super well for the game, though i wish it followed through to every aspect, the maps for example look very generic and don't share that same style, they could very well be from any other game of this style and you wouldn't even notice, same with the music which is very bland and its also so full of cosmetic gaas garbo that now feels worse since you have two characters to customise, it's a game with as many annoyances as good points. i'd recommend it if you want to try a more forgiving variant of this kind of game, but beyond being a more accessible version it really doesn't have much of an identity of its own. also of note is this one is wholly online, no bots or anything, which is a real shame.

lethal enforcers is a classic Konami arcade game and a very early light gun game, it's a cute lil shooter set in a city with digitized sprites and some pretty varied locations, but it's held back by some very imprecise shooting and going far too hard on the difficulty, especially on the two players mode. i i played this on a trip to a local arcade and it was the main game that i wasn't familiar with as far as their rail shooters go, they also had point blank and time crisis 3 but i'd already played those, so i ended up committing to finish this and i did enjoy it, though it wasn't a flawless experience. the gun was very heavy and it wasn't super precise, though i acknowledge this could be an issue with my specific machine, but it made aiming super difficult, enemies in general were very hard to see and hit because of how they blend into the environment and frequently take cover and the sprites in general are a little hard to make out in some levels like the airport. the music is cheesy and super catchy, i think it uses the same soundchip as some of those TMNT arcade games because it sounds a little like what I've heard of those games osts, kind of funky but with some dadrock guitars, the first stage, stage 5, the first chase music, the name entry music and the end credits theme are all standouts, it's a nice OST. the stages have a decent amount of variety, car chases, bank robberies, boat chases, a Chinatown level and even a cool subway level and an airport, though many of them do share enemy designs, except Chinatown which opts for racism instead. not much else to be said, it's about half an hour long, has a bunch of home console ports including one on the ps1 that bundles it with its sequel and i do recommend it if you like light gun stuff, though i do find its too tough for me personally, it does have its charm though with its weirdo quirks. with today's games if i had to reccomend one it'd probably be lethal enforcers or DKO, though since you can't play DKO anymore i'd say play captain spirit instead, but really if you like the genre even spectre divide is worth playing, much as tactical shooters tend to bore me, they're all good games, just a shame the best one here is the only one you can't play.