Bumbling Through Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore p.1 - Game Over, Return of Daimur
We're used to 8-bit nostalgia games. 16-bit nostalgia games are old news. 32/64-bit nostalgia games have come into style. But finally one dev was BRAVE enough to bring us CD-i nostalgia.
Bue-Buenos Dias Muchachalatas- chachalatas- Chacha-
Limited Run Games did a presentation a few days ago, and my personal highlight was Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore! Such an exciting prospect I waited... a week to do something about it! A positively lovely homage to a pair of infamous adventure games that helped give birth to the grand Dadaist art movement known as YouTube Poop. It had me like "Ye! (brief pause) YESSSSSSSSS!" and to my friends I was like "Look at this FUCKn SHIT!" but in a *click* Nice way.
Seriously, words cannot express how much of my current appreciation for the strange and the terrible was truly shaped by this nonsense. From the ancient cravings of "Lotsa SPAGHETTI!" and "Dinner" to the extremely high concept works like Jeff Lindblom's Deltarune covers and Schaffrillas's Sharkslayer saga, and even the legitimately terrifying (and hilarious) Mr. Krabs's Unquenchable Bloodlust by Emperor Lemon.
Why am I sauce sauce- so excited for this game though? Well, it's quite simple Mah Boi, it takes a special kind of understanding to craft a good game out of a mold so... riddled with lumps. And if you ask me, WE WAS ROBBED of adventure games like this for a while!
Alright, I'll stop. What I'm getting at is "Go buy Arzette when it comes out because I really wanna see people take things they love and make new things out of them more often", ya dig? Right I'm gonna go see a man about a ship. That sails in the morning! I'm makin' waffles! for the trip~!
Two games that were extreme send ups to very specific games with very specific artistic identities with narratives that instead of clinging to said games veer towards embracing change and breaking cycles. I really like this notion of having very strong and specific artistic inspiration but realizing you have to move beyond the past to get anywhere worthwhile.