I’m mostly interested in seeing how a different team reinterprets the game. I think the project is very interesting.
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Maybe a little off-topic, but a big gap in my gaming history is Half-Life. I know I don’t have to play Half-Life 1 first, but is there value? I don’t mind dated games and have been leaning towards playing 1 first because I like to see a series progression.
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Lot of people really still love Half-Life and I’d say it holds up pretty well. I’d argue its easier to go back to Half-Life than something like System Shock just given the progress in first-person games between the two. You’ll feel a pretty big step up from Half-Life to Half-Life 2 however.
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I may have forgotten to post the winner yesterday…
…but our next Grouvee Game Club pick is Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD!
Ty the Tasmanian Tiger originally released for Gamecube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox in 2002. It is the first of its four entry platformer series that was developed by Krome Studios and published by Electronic Arts. After a successful Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, an HD remaster was initially released exclusively to Nintendo Switch in 2020 but has since been made available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Since the theme is reboots/remasters/remakes, we do encourage playing the HD remaster instead of the original but do what makes you happy. We’re not gonna turn away discussion of the original release.
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No sale prices for this one, as of yet. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for one if that changes.
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Oh wow, Krome Studios are the same folks behind Blade Kitten! It’s an incredibly clumsy platformer, but I’ve always had a soft spot for how it lets you climb every single wall and ceiling you can see.
Will definitely have to give Ty a look.
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Hello everyone! I am back from Japan so apologies for kinda skipping a month for the game club. Now that I’m back, maybe we can vote on our next game topic! This may be really biased but here are my suggestions:
- Play a game set in Japan
- Play a Japanese developed game
- Play a JRPG
If you have further suggestions or like one of these topics, chime in! Then we can start the game suggestion process. Also it’s very nice to be back. I had a lot of fun but I missed my Grouvee fam. 
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@WildScallion Seasoned classic Half-Life vet here, still love the series: My advice if you missed this but are curious to check it out, you should just pick up Black Mesa. It’s basically a reboot of the original, it looks better, it plays better but it retains all the good things and even expands on some things. In my opinion its the ultimate version of this game. Classic Half-Life is still an exceptional game even with its dated gold source engine it is just very immersive, has great atmosphere, and some of the best level design in FPS since like… ever! Without Half-Life there would be no steam and maybe the PC Gaming market would be half of what it is these days… Not that, such a thing is a legitimate reason to choose to play an old game from the 90’s but FEW games really have that influence or can make such claims. It’s worth mentioning hah. I don’t know what the state of multiplayer is in the original game these days, and I don’t know what multiplayer support is offered by Black Mesa. Could be a deal breaker for those seeking nostalgia of Death Match but for new players just wanting to flesh out their collection and nip this in the bud its probably not so applicable. The main thing would be mods, to those that want access to it in this day and age: For that the Orange Box package seems to be the best route (that’s the route I took anyway) I try to spread that word because I had to do a bit of research on how to get some of the mods working and wound up going through several different versions of the game before settling on Orange Box to play mods.
@Roach
lol i’m not complaining… as i love Japan, but you really picked the smallest subgenre ever! 
I’m currently happen to be playing Shadow Warrior 3, which is I guess ‘a chinese game’ in the loosest since! 
After I survive that experience I had planned to make my way to The Talos Principle finally since Epic or Amazon or whoever gave it away the other week or two. I guess from what i’ve got currently installed and on my plate it looks like Yakuza 3 Remastered will be my ‘Japan’ game but I dont know if i’ll return to it this month. Technically that meets 2.5 of those three categories (its not a JRPG but it would arguably be a kind of J-RPG?)
This challenge would be a cinch in the 1990s. Almost every game we played back then would be Japanese! When it comes to Classics, i can make some great recommendations!
I want to turn more people onto the Sega Master System’s Ninja Gaiden every chance I get. Why not play a Japanese game on a distinctly Japanese console, set in Japan, played chiefly by Japanese kids to train and turn them into literal gaming ninjas? It’s a long lost legend.
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Seems like people are okay with the themes without picking one in particular so I’m going to slightly change the topic to Japan in general. You can suggest any game as long as you can connect it to Japan somehow.
Does it have a Japanese character? Does it take place in Japan? Is it developed by a Japanese studio? Does it teach you Japanese? Is it inspired by Japanese culture?
I’m interested in seeing any whacky connections y’all make.
- You may suggest two games for the final poll.
- Suggestions will close on Feb. 19th and the final poll will open.
- Winner will be announced by Feb. 21st.
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Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is your answer. The game features the following:
- Japanese setting
- An adaptation of Japanese folklore and the Kagura, a Shinto ritual practice and ceremonial dance
- Yokai and other Japanese demons and monsters that Kagura traditionally wards away
- Architecture, textiles, sculpture and wood carvings like ema plaques depicting Japanese artisanal practices.
- Traditional Japanese’s sweets
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Honestly this game sounds incredible. Whether it wins or not, I hope I end up liking it.
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I think it will come down to whether or not you like it’s mix of strategy and real-time combat. It’s not a tower defence game, but you do place units like you would in tower defence or RTS, but you also actively participate in combat with the protagonist.
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I think I’m going to use this as an excuse to suggest some Japanese retro games I haven’t gotten around to playing yet which would be Metroid and Zelda II.
Boring suggestions but I haven’t made progress on my retro goals shelf in a really long time…
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Click here if you want to read a bunch of my ramblings.
The game that’s peak Japan for me is Pokémon Crystal. When I first traveled around in Japan, I slowly realized I had already seen many of the places I visited hidden in one of the games (and series) I’ve spent the most time with during my childhood. But this is probably a game many have played already.
So next, as a lover of PS2 sword-fighting jank, with Japan as a setting and anime as a basis, basically double dip on this theme, I thought of Samurai Champloo: Sidetracked and Blood Will Tell: Tezuka Osamu’s Dororo. Fighting with katanas is however probably one of the most, if not the most common way we’ve seen Japan depicted in video games.
So for my suggestions, I’d like to go for something that’s a bit of a deeper cut. First, how about Auto Modellista? Drive Japanese cars, in Japanese locations, in a game made by a Japanese developer. A good start, I think. My next suggestion is Kwaidan. What if Onimusha had stayed on the survival horror path of Resident Evil with Japanese Yokai as enemies? Could’ve been this perhaps. Might be good, I don’t know I haven’t played it.
To summarize, my suggestions are: Auto Modellista and Kwaidan.
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The Onimusha series is getting a big revival soon and I’ve never played a single game from it, so Onimusha 1 is my first pick!
And for my second pick I’ll go with Nikujin, a freeware ninja game from my favorite Japanese indie developer, Ikiki.
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Ghostwire: Tokyo
Everything about it screams “Japan” and it’s an amazing game.
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Onimusha and Ghostwire: Tokyo are definitely on my list. Ghostwire I’ve actually started and got pretty damn far but ended up dropping it so I’ll probably restart it if it’s the winner.
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Hope you enjoy it. I thought it was a fantastic game. Such a great mood and the history behind all the Japanese mythology was fascinating. Really original title.
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The side missions chasing down different Yokai are honestly some of my favourite missions in any game.
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I remember really liking it but becoming very bored with the environment and collectibles after like 30 hours. Looking at the same architecture assets over and over wasn’t doing it for me. But I still very very much enjoyed my time and still very much want to continue exploring Tokyo in it so I think it’s a minor critique that I got bored visually after so many hours of having fun.
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