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  • [footsteps, computer fans whirring]

  • -Christmaaas.

  • -So he’s just sitting there? -Christmas!

  • -You gave him the photos, right? -Christmas!

  • -You know what needs to be done. -Christmaass!

  • -What needs to be done will be done. [inane chuckling]

  • ["Carols of the Bells" plays]

  • Greetings and it’s still December, so Christmas LGR continues!

  • This week weve got a slightly newer game than usual: Hyper Princess Pitch, released

  • in 2011 by Swedish game maker Daniel Remar under the moniker Remar Games.

  • And if the name Remar rings a bell for you then I would not be surprised, seeing as he’s

  • one of thoseserial game devsthat’s constantly bouncing from one project to the next.

  • Whether it’s collaborating with folks at Ludosity on games like Ittle Dew, Slap City,

  • or personal favorite, Muri.

  • Or putting together his own games for game jams or just because,

  • like Iji, Princess Remedy, and Garden Gnome Carnage.

  • That last one is of particular interest, originally being released in 2007 as a downloadable game

  • for Windows, then becoming an online Flash game and making it onto the Xbox Live Indie

  • Games storefront for the Xbox 360 in 2010.

  • Garden Gnome Carnage itself was a potential topic this month, seeing as it’s a Christmas

  • game in its own right, where you play a bungee gnome hurling both bricks and himself at legions

  • of elves and Santas in an attempt to stop them from gathering presents.

  • And it introduced the character of Princess Pitch: a blond-haired lady of royalty in a pink gown.

  • She bears a passing resemblance to Princess Peach of course, but her voice has been pitched

  • higher by about 10%, hence: Princess Pitch.

  • In the 2010 version of Garden Gnome Carnage she pops up every so often to hand out deadly

  • explosives, and is even briefly playable in a platforming mini-game where you have to

  • guide her through rooms filled with gold and smashy ceiling things.

  • But as enjoyable as Garden Gnome Carnage is as a Flash game time-waster, it’s the spin-off

  • game, Hyper Princess Pitch, that thoroughly grabbed my attention.

  • [explosions, machine gun firing]

  • -Yeah! [preposterous explosion]

  • [Princess Pitch menu theme plays]

  • Now that is an intro!

  • One that harkens back to classic ‘90s action games, namely Midnight Synergy’s Operation:

  • Carnage for MS-DOS from 1996.

  • [BOOM, CLANG, EXPLOSIONS]

  • [EXCESSIVE BOOMING]

  • In fact, Mr. Remar himself described Hyper Princess Pitch as “a remake of Operation:

  • Carnage,” with all thefast-paced arcade action, short completion time, high replay

  • value, and cheesy characters.”

  • Now, Operation: Carnage was itself a remake, or at least a loving tribute, to the Williams

  • arcade classic, Smash TV.

  • And seeing as that is one of my favorite twin-stick shooters, it should be clear why I was more

  • excited by Hyper Princess Pitch than its gnome-filled predecessor.

  • Enough with the preamble though, let’s get hyper!

  • After choosing a difficulty level from a selection of five, with an additional one hidden away,

  • Princess Pitch tells the full story so far.

  • With that deep lore taken care of, youre dropped into a snowy scene without enemies

  • so you can come to terms with the controls.

  • Up, down, left, right, fire, and change weapons, that’s it.

  • Note that there are no controls for aiming, and after heading inside it becomes apparent

  • that in that respect this really is an Operation: Carnage remake.

  • There are four main stages to complete, with each one split up into a dozen or more rooms.

  • Upon entering, baddies start streaming in from just outside, sometimes one at a time,

  • sometimes in massive groups and clusters.

  • It’s your goal to shoot anything that moves, pick up bonus items for points, and grab as

  • many power-ups as you can.

  • Your basic attack consists of throwing bricks, a la Garden Gnome Carnage,

  • and fires rapidly with infinite ammo.

  • But you also have two weapons with depleting ammunition: an ice thrower that has a limited

  • range but destroys smaller projectiles, and a rainbow laser that’s slower to fire but

  • bounces off walls and packs more of a punch.

  • Weapons can all be temporarily upgraded by picking up lettered tokens, granting you fleeting

  • access to things like triple barreled firing, massively upgraded firepower,

  • shields that rotate around you and fire bricks, and hyper pickups

  • that can deal ridiculous damage in short bursts.

  • There’s also the Catstrike that calls in a carpet bomb attack across the middle of

  • the current room, and the Bowbomb that sets off a circular explosion of rainbow lasers

  • from the princess.

  • Once a room is clear of enemies, one or more exit doors will open up, providing access

  • to the next room where it begins all over again until you reach the end.

  • Despite appearances though, this is not a twin stick shooter like Smash TV.

  • Instead, again it’s just like Operation: Carnage, being one of those top-down shooters

  • where you move in eight directions, and once you start firing youre locked onto that

  • direction until you let go of the trigger.

  • Many home versions of twin stick arcade games did this back in the day, since players often

  • only had a keyboard or a single joystick or gamepad.

  • But seeing as Princess Pitch came out in 2011, I assume this is a purposely-chosen limitation,

  • implemented in the name of faithfulness to the source material.

  • The developer couldve easily allowed aiming using either the mouse or the second analog

  • stick on a controller, but nope!

  • This is an Operation: Carnage remake dang it,

  • so it’s gotta have 8-way aiming and locked strafing mechanics.

  • Not to mention that chunky pixel art aesthetic, a 4:3 aspect ratio in lieu of widescreen,

  • and a soundtrack made up entirely of tracker tunes.

  • I dig all of those choices by the way, but the music especially.

  • Hyper Princess Pitch includes an impressive allotment of C64-inspired tracks composed

  • by Niklas Ström, who releases music as Salkinitzor.

  • Despite that chiptune sound though, theyre all sample-based XM files made using Milkytracker,

  • and are thus playable in the mod player of your choosing.

  • [Princess Pitch menu music plays]

  • It's more than an intentionally retro presentation though,

  • Princess Pitch does not hold back on the on-screen action.

  • Unlike Operation: Carnage, here there are no mid-90s DOS PC restrictions, opening up

  • the floodgates for pixelized mayhem to flow more freely.

  • Mecha elves, deadly ornaments, toy trains, armored sleighs, four-legged walkers, plasma

  • turrets and more can all come together at once to completely ruin your run in no time.

  • None of them are particularly deadly on their own, but the sheer number of them bombarding

  • you, each with their own unique attacks?

  • Yeah, it’s gonna take a couple tries to make it to the end in one piece.

  • And that’s without the involvement of the dozen or so mini-bosses, many of which have

  • several times the hitpoints of the strongest normal adversary,

  • along with even more deadly attack patterns.

  • You can avoid a good number of these by simply skipping the rooms they live in, but youll

  • also be giving up thousands of points you’d earn for defeating them too,

  • so y’know, priorities.

  • No matter what though, there’s no skipping the end-stage bosses, of which there are four:

  • Ultra Sleigh, Atomic Elf, Steam Annihilator, and of course, Mecha Santa, the cyborg Saint

  • Nick that kicked off this whole ordeal in the first place.

  • And he is seemingly content to cycle a few clearly telegraphed attacks while shouting

  • references to Skies of Arcadia, Karate Kid, Gurren Lagann, and TMNT.

  • -Legendary Charge!

  • -Wax On, Wax Off!

  • -Giga Bomb Breaker!

  • -Cowabunga!

  • Once Santa’s sufficientlysploded, a robotic arm reaches down offering the princess

  • a gift, seemingly making her second guess her actions

  • as she flies away on her rocket-propelled cat.

  • Naturally though, this feeling of regret is momentary, because that gift

  • [explosion, blink] ...was not a gift at all.

  • Looney Tunes-esque presents will not stand man, so the princess flies right on back to

  • piledrive Santa into oblivion once and for all.

  • [KABOOOM] -Awesome.

  • And with that, Christmas is saved!

  • By which I meanruined,” as intended.

  • Yeah I gotta say, I didn’t have nearly as much trouble taking out all the bosses as

  • I did surviving some of those overwhelming swarms of seasonal psychos earlier on.

  • Sure the bosses boast a whole lotta health, but their predictable patterns are a cinch

  • to deal with compared to rooms filled with

  • seemingly endless elves and razor blade tops flying all over the place.

  • Er, well, then you play on higher difficulties and never mind,

  • these bosses are ridiculous, forget what I said!

  • This crap is hard.

  • Not impossible, but hard enough to ensure your doom in a split second of transient inattention.

  • Thankfully, Princess Pitch still boasts a few additional moves to help level the playing field.

  • At any given time, you can press Up+Down+Left+Right to perform a piledriver when next to an enemy,

  • which takes them flying into the air and crashing down on their head in an explosion thatll

  • damage anything nearby.

  • It also doubles as a counter-attack against projectiles, acting as your one and only defensive

  • move, however short-lived it may be.

  • These moves can be tricky to use effectively in the heat of battle, but there really is

  • nothing quite like a nicely-timed Christmas piledriver to lift the holiday spirits.

  • Then there’s the ability to summon Pitch’s mother, the Goddess of Explosions.

  • You can only do this once per playthrough, but she is fantastically deadly, taking out

  • every enemy on-screen or half of a boss’s health.

  • You can also smash those purple X’s on the ground to uncover more power-ups, or annihilate

  • skittish gift-wrapped presents to reveal even more goodies before they hop away.

  • And finally, there’s also a chance to gain some additional points and a different ending

  • by countering this boss’s giant rainbow attack.

  • This brings about a fifth stage, Stage X.

  • There’s no boss or miniboss here, but completing the area does unlock the Galactic Princess

  • Buster to use at the end of the game, something I won’t spoil here but suffice to say it

  • is as awesome as it sounds.

  • And that is Hyper Princess Pitch!

  • One of the more enjoyable Christmas games I’ve played since...

  • well since the last one I played, I guess.

  • Whatever, it’s good stuff and it caught me off-guard with how much I enjoyed getting

  • my butt handed to me, and replaying it until I got decent enough to unlock the next set

  • of moves, maps, and power-ups.

  • I admit I was initially turned off once I discovered it was a twin stick shooter without

  • the twin sticks, but props to Remar Games for putting things together with such skill

  • that it still exudes excellence despite the arbitrary limitation on controls.

  • If only all freeware Christmas games were this well done.

  • -Evil will never triumph!

  • [game over sound]

  • [Princess Pitch music plays]

  • Well, this month of Christmas LGR was shorter than I’d planned

  • but I hope that you enjoyed regardless!

  • There’s still one more video for 2019 if all goes well, so stay tuned for that if you so desire.

  • As always, thank you very much for watching, and Merry Christmas folks!

[footsteps, computer fans whirring]

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