89. Curses 'N Chaos (Tribute Games, Playstation 4, 2015)

Curses 'N Chaos is a simple arcade-style, single-screen action game where you fight waves of fantasy monsters. It comes from Tribute Games, a Canadian developer who make retro-styled games. I had previously played their 2014 Mercenary Kings and not really enjoyed it at all, but Curses 'N Chaos is actually a big step up, even if it's a more scaled-down game.

While the game uses an 8-bit style, the animations are very fluid and the spritework is great. Whatever qualms I had about the gameplay in Mercenary Kings, I can't knock the art. Gameplay here is simple but effective. You have a punch attack on the ground, as well as a jump kick in the air, but that is basically it other than items. There are a wide variety of items, both healing and offensive, and they are dropped fairly frequently by enemies, so the core of the game becomes managing items (you can only carry one) and using items before they disappear.

I like that health items actually have to be used in order to heal you, it makes the game feel much more deliberate than if you just healed by touching them. Enemies each have one basic pattern, bu there are such a wide variety that the game stays interesting, though your limited moveset does make me want for more.

This being an arcade-style game, the focus is on scoring and once nice touch is that you can press down on the d-pad to dance/taunt, which earns you a small number of points every second based on your current chain. There is also an item shop where you can mix items to create new ones, so there is some meat on the game's bones, and ever since Power Stone 2, I can't resist mixing items.

4/5, Fun arcade action, but the moveset is a little limited