Xeno Crisis & Tanglewood

23.10.2020

Critic 70/100

Genre: Shooter Platform Puzzle

Xeno Crisis & Tanglewood Dual Game Cartridge is a bundle cartridge for Evercade, containing the indie games Xeno Crisis and Tanglewood, homebrew games originally made for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.

Xeno Crisis: The game begins with Commander Darius receiving a distress signal from Outpost 88, a scientific research facility. The two controllable space marines are sent on a drop ship to the facility, where they begin to work their way through each level of the facility, where they face off against aliens, robot defenses, and even Cthulhu, on their way to figure out what is going on. Along the way the two space marines find survivors of the facility that they are able to rescue and release to safety. When the space marines reach the final stage, they are confronted by Dr. Herzog, where he reveals that he was behind the various horrors the space marines battled up to this point. If either space marines drank any "elixers" (the continue feature in the game), or if the player used any cheat codes, Dr. Herzog reveals to them that these elixers were designed by himself and they contained nanomachines that will kill the player characters and the game will end with the "bad" ending. If the player did not use any elixers before confronting Dr. Herzog, he will attack the player as the game's final boss where he reveals himself to be a creature like the creatures battled up to this point. When they players defeat Dr. Herzog, the "good" ending will be revealed with the two space marines evacuating the facility. Tanglewood: Set in the realm of Tanglewood, the game follows a young creature, Nymn, separated from the pack after the sun sets. Unable to get back to the safety of the family's underground home, Nymn must find a way to survive the night terrors and get to morning. Tanglewood’s world is a dangerous one after dark; guiding Nymn you must use your skills of evasion, traps and trickery to defeat predators.