High Strangeness - Paying Tribute with Crystal Skulls

At first glance I don't think I thought much about this game. I was already dazzled by seeing Evoland a week before. Upon taking a closer look at the game and playing a bit I soon realized that this was a completely different beast, in a good way of course. This is not a tribute game. Well maybe it is... just a little.

You play as a young kid named Boyd as he wakes up to find some evil shadowy looking figures in his house. Only to find out they've invaded your town.Then you're whimsically transported to a magical place to fight hoards of demons, etc. and have the power to switch between 8 and 6 bit graphics gameplay on the fly.

While I've only played the demo the story looks interesting enough and doesn't take it's cue from any particular retro game. There are littered throughout the game various references from old NES and Super Nintendo games. Such as the part in the beginning where the main character tells one of the NCPs he's moving to Truce Village. Of which you'd recognize the Chrono Trigger reference. From what I have seen little easter eggs like that are the extent of the tribute elements in the game. Fighting is pretty much straight forward action RPG with a fatigue element, so you can't mindlessly mash on the keys to kill 20 things at once. Any normal 16 year old arms would get tired.

It's slated for a 4th quarter release and you can pre-order it for on their Asbogo site. They're also trying to get on Steam through Greenlight so check out some screenshots there as well.

Pre-order: HERE
Steam Greenlight: HERE