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I gave my eulogy to flash games years ago. In the ever-evolving landscape of shifting digital architecture, the flash format was quite literally made for a different era of internet. We saw countless games and animations lost to the digital ether, some only persevering through YouTube archives and the occasional port.
In fact, one of those games was so influential to middle school Mikkel that it got a direct shoutout in my eulogy: Sonny. Sonny is as archetypical to the role-playing game genre that you can get. You start off under vague circumstances (people are hunting you because you are a zombie) and thrust into a weirdly alluring post-apocalyptic world. Combat is driven through a series of background times and clicks on a radial dial. You defeat different waves of enemies across different worlds, unlocking different skills and items, and occasionally make a friend or bigger enemy along the way. The game was not particularly innovative, but it was a solid game that you could play for free on Armor Games and came with just enough narrative juice and replayability that it became one of the rare flash games to warrant a proper sequel that became the rarer flash game not to fade into obscurity. Sonny 2 was not functionally different from its predecessors. The biggest changes were updated graphics, a slightly more involved skill tree, and a plot with a little bit more direction. It was fun. I remember fondly.
So, of course, when they announced a Legacy Collection port that would bundle Sonny 1 and Sonny 2 completed by the original development, I couldn’t help but be excited. I found memories of the game, so the question is whether or not it lives up to the original, the memory, and modern gaming standards. I would say it definitely meets two of those benchmarks. Let’s discuss.
All Coming Back to Me
I am very happy to report that the Sonny Legacy Collection feels exactly like the game did back in the day. The familiar art style, the voice acting, and the linear but still enjoyable combat and RPG progression. All of the assets looked clean and everything felt the same. Which is good because a nontrivial amount of appeal for a legacy collection of this is keeping the nostalgia. It felt good looking at the stat screen and min-maxing like I did back in the day. Doing inventory management, grinding away at training fights to eek out one more level before taking on the boss. The original Sonny took about 3 hours to beat the main campaign and unlocking the bonus World 4 of challenging fights.
And then I started playing Sonny 2 and then the repetition sort of kicked in. After acquiring one of the incredible form skills, the fights quickly devolved to the same process of entering the heightened state and proceed to do a simple skill rotation which would eventually lower the life bars of any enemy to zero. Some fights would last seconds, some fights would go on for minutes. There was a handful of optimizations that could be done (timing stuns, stacking buffs and debuffs), but the formulaic approach outgrew its welcome. And I had played this before.
Yes, as a younger child, but the game hadn’t changed. And the collection reminded you that it didn’t change, referencing the old Armor Games forums for guides and having the same tutorial reminder to level up every single time because the expectation was not that you’d play the game in one setting, but that you’d play the game casually over weeks.
A Relic of Its Time
But that’s not how a lot of us consume games anymore. It’s certainly a healthier way to consume games, and I’m enjoying my time in the collection, but it’s very clearly a relic of its time. The controllers were not optimized for the Steam Deck, which is not a particular knock on anything. It played beautifully on the Steam Deck, but I just had to rely on the touch screen to simulate mouse clicks rather than the natural and somewhat expected navigation via joystick and buttons for every other RPG of this nature. And on my laptop, it loaded fast and was responsive. But ally NPC AI behaviors would always reset after battle. The constantly clicking through the same four tool tips every time you leveled up I mentioned to stop flashing before definitely grew old. This game was the pinnacle for flash games back in its heyday, but the pinnacle has dramatically shifted, and other indie RPGs offer more depth and gameplay mechanics.
The lore and aesthetic of the game do manage to maintain a certain style nearly a decade and a half later though and the world, campy as it is, has a charm that makes it fun to stay in. The addition of in game achievements also felt like a nice bridge to modern gaming; however, that was the extent of the modernization. Nostalgia and pop ups can only carry a game so much.
I think the Armor Games devs deserve the support. I think the porting of old flash games to a platform like Steam is a great idea and the Armor Games library is deep and rich: Sonny franchise is a great example of a time when people made games with what they had and they were fun. But this collection is for the super sentimental, and that’s saying something from someone who is exceedingly sentimental. I enjoyed what I played. I’m going to keep enjoying it as I whittle through the remaining stages. And what I’m really hoping for is either a Sonny 3 or a proper reboot. One that takes the solid foundation of classes and skill trees and gives a little more meaning to the play loops. The core of the game is good, but good only gets you so far these days. Still, I’m glad I got to relive the excitement of middle school me for a few days.
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The post Point and Clicking Like It’s 2007/2008 – ‘Sonny Legacy Collection’ Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
I gave my eulogy to flash games years ago. In the ever-evolving landscape of shifting digital architecture, the flash format was quite literally made for a different era of internet. We saw countless games and animations lost to the digital ether, some only persevering through YouTube archives and the occasional port.
In fact, one of those games was so influential to middle school Mikkel that it got a direct shoutout in my eulogy: Sonny. Sonny is as archetypical to the role-playing game genre that you can get. You start off under vague circumstances (people are hunting you because you are a zombie) and thrust into a weirdly alluring post-apocalyptic world. Combat is driven through a series of background times and clicks on a radial dial. You defeat different waves of enemies across different worlds, unlocking different skills and items, and occasionally make a friend or bigger enemy along the way. The game was not particularly innovative, but it was a solid game that you could play for free on Armor Games and came with just enough narrative juice and replayability that it became one of the rare flash games to warrant a proper sequel that became the rarer flash game not to fade into obscurity. Sonny 2 was not functionally different from its predecessors. The biggest changes were updated graphics, a slightly more involved skill tree, and a plot with a little bit more direction. It was fun. I remember fondly.
So, of course, when they announced a Legacy Collection port that would bundle Sonny 1 and Sonny 2 completed by the original development, I couldn’t help but be excited. I found memories of the game, so the question is whether or not it lives up to the original, the memory, and modern gaming standards. I would say it definitely meets two of those benchmarks. Let’s discuss.
All Coming Back to Me
I am very happy to report that the Sonny Legacy Collection feels exactly like the game did back in the day. The familiar art style, the voice acting, and the linear but still enjoyable combat and RPG progression. All of the assets looked clean and everything felt the same. Which is good because a nontrivial amount of appeal for a legacy collection of this is keeping the nostalgia. It felt good looking at the stat screen and min-maxing like I did back in the day. Doing inventory management, grinding away at training fights to eek out one more level before taking on the boss. The original Sonny took about 3 hours to beat the main campaign and unlocking the bonus World 4 of challenging fights.
And then I started playing Sonny 2 and then the repetition sort of kicked in. After acquiring one of the incredible form skills, the fights quickly devolved to the same process of entering the heightened state and proceed to do a simple skill rotation which would eventually lower the life bars of any enemy to zero. Some fights would last seconds, some fights would go on for minutes. There was a handful of optimizations that could be done (timing stuns, stacking buffs and debuffs), but the formulaic approach outgrew its welcome. And I had played this before.
Yes, as a younger child, but the game hadn’t changed. And the collection reminded you that it didn’t change, referencing the old Armor Games forums for guides and having the same tutorial reminder to level up every single time because the expectation was not that you’d play the game in one setting, but that you’d play the game casually over weeks.
A Relic of Its Time
But that’s not how a lot of us consume games anymore. It’s certainly a healthier way to consume games, and I’m enjoying my time in the collection, but it’s very clearly a relic of its time. The controllers were not optimized for the Steam Deck, which is not a particular knock on anything. It played beautifully on the Steam Deck, but I just had to rely on the touch screen to simulate mouse clicks rather than the natural and somewhat expected navigation via joystick and buttons for every other RPG of this nature. And on my laptop, it loaded fast and was responsive. But ally NPC AI behaviors would always reset after battle. The constantly clicking through the same four tool tips every time you leveled up I mentioned to stop flashing before definitely grew old. This game was the pinnacle for flash games back in its heyday, but the pinnacle has dramatically shifted, and other indie RPGs offer more depth and gameplay mechanics.
The lore and aesthetic of the game do manage to maintain a certain style nearly a decade and a half later though and the world, campy as it is, has a charm that makes it fun to stay in. The addition of in game achievements also felt like a nice bridge to modern gaming; however, that was the extent of the modernization. Nostalgia and pop ups can only carry a game so much.
I think the Armor Games devs deserve the support. I think the porting of old flash games to a platform like Steam is a great idea and the Armor Games library is deep and rich: Sonny franchise is a great example of a time when people made games with what they had and they were fun. But this collection is for the super sentimental, and that’s saying something from someone who is exceedingly sentimental. I enjoyed what I played. I’m going to keep enjoying it as I whittle through the remaining stages. And what I’m really hoping for is either a Sonny 3 or a proper reboot. One that takes the solid foundation of classes and skill trees and gives a little more meaning to the play loops. The core of the game is good, but good only gets you so far these days. Still, I’m glad I got to relive the excitement of middle school me for a few days.
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The post Point and Clicking Like It’s 2007/2008 – ‘Sonny Legacy Collection’ Review appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
This Huluween, writer-director Brandon Espy makes his feature directorial debut with Mr. Crocket, which he co-wrote with Carl Reid (Grounded). The film is based on his 2022 short of the same name featured in the third season of Hulu’s Bite Size Halloween series. If you thought that glimpse of the titular TV personality was terrifying, get ready for the stuff of nightmares.
Set in 1993, the story follows Summer (Jerrika Hinton), a newly single mother raising her young son Major (Ayden Gavin). In the midst of mourning her husband’s untimely death, she’s faced with the typical struggles of parenthood made all the more difficult as a one-income household. Major behaves like most kids who don’t know how to process emotions yet, getting an attitude from time to time, not realizing how hard his mother works to keep them fed and sheltered. His unruliness only gets worse now that Summer’s on her own.
One day a little book nook (like those free “take a book, leave a book” library boxes) suddenly appears in front of their house. Inside is a VHS of Mr. Crocket’s World, a 70s/80s-era fictional kids show. Desperate for some semblance of peace, Summer doesn’t take the time to question where it came from and just pops in the tape. To her relief, Major immediately becomes enthralled and gives his full attention to the kindly Mr. Crocket (Elvis Nolasco) and his puppet friends.
After watching the tape nonstop (for an unidentified amount of days), Summer shuts it off and takes it away. Major responds like most kids whose precious TV time is interrupted. His mini tantrum quickly turns into a fight, harsh things are said, and mother and son go to bed on unpleasant terms. This is the catalyst for horrors to come.
Mr. Crocket’s World is a deranged version of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The mustachioed, bow tie and sweater vest-wearing host sings and dances with his child “co-stars” a la Barney & Friends. Michelle Patterson’s (Appendage) set design for the in-world show resembles a mix of Mr. Rogers’ welcoming home and a toy store with the extra zaniness of Pee-wee’s Playhouse and H.R. Pufnstuf. In other words, what appears on screen is an exciting, colorful dreamland for kids and an obnoxious, slightly unsettling sight for parents.
Via his catchy song lyrics, written by Alex Winkler (Molli and Max in the Future), Mr. Crocket promises viewers at home, “Whenever you’re in trouble, you can call on me, I’ll be there to protect you in a heartbeat.” He follows through on that promise for kids with bad home lives, killing their parent(s) and then luring them into his parent-free analog dimension.
The film opens with one of Crocket’s murder-kidnappings. He comes out of the TV to teach an abusive stepfather (Akim Black) a lesson, killing him in a gruesome fashion and taking a boy named Darren (Jabari Striblin). His mother Rhonda (Kristolyn Lloyd) is left traumatized but determined to bring him back home. She teams up with Summer, along with another parent of a lost child, Eddie (Alex Akpobome), to find out where Crocket’s keeping their kids.
Despite the otherworldly circumstances, Summer doesn’t react the way one would expect. Yes, she’s scared, angry, devastated, and frustrated, but that doesn’t always come across in her actions and expressions. Then again, she just lost her husband and has now witnessed a man crawl out of a television set and kidnap her son. It’s reasonable for her to be consumed by shock and grief.
The police assume Major ran away because she’s an unfit mother, not bothering to take a minute and consider this could be connected to other missing child cases. Something Jerrika Hinton does very well is convey the utter exhaustion of single parenthood. Her character is struggling to deal with her son’s behavioral changes, finally has a breaking point and yells at him, and the next thing she knows he’s been taken by a demonic TV show host.
Elvis Nolasco completely steals the show as Mr. Crocket. The frequency with which he subtly changes his tone is genuinely creepy. The silly father figure persona fades every time his smile slips and the sinister predator is revealed. We don’t learn his full backstory or real motivations for punishing awful parents until the third act, making him all the more mysterious.
In Mr. Crocket, Brandon Espy expands his creepy six-minute short into a fun and frightening feature film that captures the eeriness of analog horror with static and distortion, made all the scarier by Elvis Nolasco’s captivating performance that will stay with you after the film. Fans of Channel Zero’s first season “Candle Cove” will love the similar uneasiness of the imagery.
Mr. Crocket makes its world premiere September 26 at Fantastic Fest and hits Hulu on October 11, 2024.
The post Review: Brandon Espy’s ‘Mr. Crocket’ Promises a Fun and Frightening Good Time appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.
We’re just five weeks out from celebrating 15 years of ONE Musicfest, the largest music festival in the Southeast. It all goes down in Atlanta, Georgia, Oct. 26 and 27.
ONE Musicfest promises a weekend of gratifying entertainment from yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s hitmakers. The two-day program is bringing multiple headliners to multiple stages who speak to multiple genres within Hip-Hop and R&B.
Day one boasts megastars such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Fantasia, Method Man & Redman, Nelly and Cardi B. Atlanta’s own DJ Greg Street’s OMF Anthem will showcase homegrown talent including Young Dro, Crime Mob, Travis Porter, and Trillville.
Day two is packing its own heat. It features Jill Scott, Victoria Monet, Keyshia Cole, Dru Hill and this year’s hottest Hip-Hop acts: Gunna, Glorilla and Sexyy Red. Festival goers can expect DJ Drama to pull up with a lineup of special guests. DJ Mars Block Party is featuring T.I., Keri Hilson, Lloyd and others to do what needs to be done. The upcoming 15-year celebration of ONE Musicfest will certainly be one for the books, and with less than 40 days left, you don’t want to miss it. Peep 2023 OMF below.
Tickets for the event start at $99 for a single-day ticket and are available at ONEMUSICFEST.com. Ticket buyers should be aware that $99 tickets are limited and part of a last chance promotion that ends soon. Those who are seeking more affordable options can use the “buy now, pay later” deal and reserve your single day ticket for $30.
RELATED CONTENT: ONE Musicfest Founder J. Carter Talks Event Strategy, Innovation On Black Tech Podcast