What makes the game a challenge, and this is where the core gameplay comes in, is the enemies throughout the dungeons. Hordes of various nasty hellspawn gravitate towards you, the skull, and your band of merry murderers. In Skull Horde, it’s a matter of getting from point A to point B without being overwhelmed and collecting enough resources to reinforce for the next area. Akin to Risk of Rain 2, Skull Horde uses a timer mechanic to gradually ramp up the difficulty of each run. So, the weigh up is: grind out enemies for more resources, but end up with significantly harder enemies in the next area, or rush through and end up underpowered. The final boss of each level is much more of a struggle when its minions are beefed up from a slow run-through.
I was hoping for something fun and new with Crimson Capes. I am relatively fresh off SilkSong, which probably doesn’t help, but I didn’t go into it expecting something of that calibre. What I found was a game that could have had a rich world with interesting quest lines, innovative combat, and novel enemies, but really failed to deliver on every count. The world was empty, the enemies were a predictable grind, and the combat was uninspired. It’s just another 2D Souls-like that fails to bring anything new to the table.
A 9/10 game let down by a shoddy port to PC.
Although it has it's charm, there is little substance to this cat based pirate game. It is a game decidedly marketed at young children.
A wonderfully stylish game with puzzles that will have you pondering way beyond the confines of your playtime. The whole mysterious package is nicely wrapped up in a plot that will have you guessing just as much as the varied conundrums.
A love letter to Boris and Arkady that brings their anomalous horrors to the Pacific Northwest. Pacific Drive makes up for what it gets wrong in pacing with imaginative gameplay and exceptional design.
A game that has more bugs than it intended but still produces a standout experience. Helldivers 2 gives scale and gravitas to alien warfare in good old-fashioned multiplayer fun.
The Last Faith fails to make waves in a market already far too saturated to make space for something that doesn't bring innovation. Beautiful design, both in sound and scene, is let down by predictable gameplay.
Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty makes some improvements, but it fails to live up to its own lofty promises.