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Solid and definitely has an audience. There could be some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.
What I mainly took away from Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom is that its creators had a lot of fun crafting it. There’s a lot of love poured into it, and it shows in all the small ways it goes the unnecessary extra mile. It’s surprisingly polished, even if there is the odd frustrating moment of fighting with the physics. It just feels like a complete, uncompromised package that succeeds in what it sets out to do.
Death Noodle Delivery is sympathetic, but it has no answers for you. It may remind you that you’re not alone in your struggles, but rarely have I found that sentiment to be helpful. Instead, we can only be like Jimmy and hope that by continuing to put one foot in front of the other, we’ll eventually get somewhere better. At least there are noodles to comfort us in the meantime.
A calm, cozy experience you can really immerse yourself in for a few hours while shutting out the world and enjoying somewhere somewhat strange yet utterly comforting.
I was pleasantly surprised by Princess Peach: Showtime, and the aforementioned unpredictability is a huge reason why it will likely remain in my permanent rotation of Mario games going forward. I’d love to see Nintendo give more mascots a showcase like this, with a similar go-for-broke variety format. Keep ’em coming!
Even though I have plenty of Dragon’s Dogma 2 to experience, I’m already incredibly immersed in the journey. If you’ve played the original, you know exactly what you’re getting here. If you haven’t—why haven’t you?!—you can expect a massive living open-world RPG with rewarding combat and an intriguing storyline. It’s not a seamless experience, but in my 40 hours of play it’s certainly been a worthwhile one.
The Making of Karateka feels like it was told by someone who really loves video games, whereas Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story feels more like it was told by someone who loves Jeff Minter. It’s more interested in showing the man and less about telling his story. Instead, Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story just feels like an organized box of stuff. It’s a pretty great box of stuff, but it should have been more than that.
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth somehow manages to spin multiple plates without smashing any of them. It’s over-the-top serious when it wants to be, and it’s utterly absurd in the next moment. Great Final Fantasy games have always managed to walk this line, and it’s a testament to how the brand has stayed relevant for decades on end.
There’s a lot here that feels great, but it’s the inconsistency that lets it down. All those great moments are padded by a framework that doesn’t do them enough justice. Too much emphasis on scrounging, an unfocused narrative, and a generally poor feeling of momentum and progression. I’m still certain that there are some who will be able to overlook the game’s flaws and latch onto its unique charm. However, I think just as many people are going to bounce right off it. Either way, it isn’t a comfortable ride.
Kill the Justice League is the epitome of, “it gets good X hours in.” It’ll suck at first, then it’ll show you it’s capable of at least some moments of awesomeness. Fans of the DC universe may find a little more value in it, especially if you value narrative over gameplay, but Rocksteady’s latest is simply okay – nothing more or less.
Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is such an unjudgmental love letter to Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon. It’s a reminder that whether or not a game is good or bad isn’t the whole store. It’s more complex than that. The internet found legitimate entertainment in the CD-i Zelda games, and rather than write them off as ridiculous, Seedy Eye dug in and asked why. It found what was so compelling about those astounding failures and applied those lessons in a thoughtful and deliberate way. The result transcends its influences and takes on a life of its own.
I could see myself blasting through levels of Mario vs. Donkey Kong while waiting for a flight at the airport, or on the train to work, and that’s the best-case scenario for this package, brimming with bite-sized platforming challenges. It may not contain all the spectacle of others, but there’s enough precise jumping and quick calculations here to satisfy the more hardcore, goal-oriented, score-chasing Mario players around.
However, Cannibal Abduction is solid for what it is. It’s to the point where I might recommend it to any newcomers. If you want to introduce someone to slasher horror games, it’s a comfortable entry point that might not immediately scare them away. For any longtime fans of the indie scene, however, it might feel a bit too familiar. Nonetheless, it’s still an enjoyable morsel that, at the very least, justifies its price tag.
If you’re looking for a stealth VR game, Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice will certainly scratch that itch. The story is intriguing and thought out enough to make it worthwhile if you care about Vampire: The Masquerade. And it’s very evident that Fast Travel Games aimed to fit into the overall material setting. But the underwhelming RPG elements, primarily the Vampire Powers, as well as buggy controls and AI, make the experience fall a bit short of what I think this bloodsucking journey could have been.
It’s odd to say, but I felt sad playing Reload. Not for anything occurring within it. Rather, it reminded me that I had fallen out of love with Atlus. If anything, it’s fitting that Persona 3 Reload helped me realize that. Much of it is about learning to move on, and I’m going to do just that.
Impressive efforts with a few noticeable problems holding them back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash.
Phantom Abyss isn’t a perfect endless temple speedrunner, but for a dozen or so hours, it has a great hook.
Granblue Fantasy: Relink features an incredibly satisfying gameplay loop on the back of an outstanding, fast-paced combat system. If you’re looking for a narrative-driven experience, this isn’t it. But if you’re looking for a fun grind that constantly feels satisfying and rewarding, that’s exactly what you have here.
So, to digress, The Adventures of Panzer: Legacy Collection features a pair of okay platformers that will probably have more value if you have an affection for the NES platform. They’re really nothing that you have to play, but for a relatively low price tag, you can get a glimpse of someone growing as a game designer. And that’s pretty cool in its own right.
Despite floundering a bit with meta-progression mechanics, Backpack Hero is still a thoroughly entertaining deckbuilding roguelike. Its use of item management as a central game mechanic is wildly inventive, and I consistently wanted to reenter the dungeon just to explore new item synergies. I do wish the town sections didn’t drag the pace of the main campaign as much as they did. But even if you strictly use the Quick Game mode, Backpack Hero is still a worthwhile venture.