Augusto A.'s Reviews
The straightforward controls, intuitive gameplay, and bright colors make it a reasonably good game for kids, but when judged through more objective lenses, it falls a bit short, especially when compared to other 3D platformers released in recent times.
There is a good amount of content to be found in its story DLCs, and if you are lucky enough to find matches with good ping, then there is some fun to be had here and there, but maybe it wasn’t the best idea to spend your budget on actors instead of tightening up the game.
Noreya simply doesn’t do enough to differentiate itself from other Metroidvanias and ends up feeling like a bad imitation of the genre. The game has some good ideas, especially pertaining to the map changing depending on what deity you decide to align yourself with, but it’s too little when compared to all that it does badly.
It may be described as Final Fantasy XIV meets Touhou quite frequently, but Rabbit and Steel manages to be a lot more than the sum of its parts, and it fully deserves the overwhelming praise it has received so far.
If you enjoy timed challenges, kinetic movement, and games that do their best to polish and refine a single mechanic into perfection, then you will absolutely love Pepper Grinder. Anyone looking for something short to play on their Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck will also have a blast with this one.
As its own game, Samurai Warriors 4 is a really fun experience filled with absurd characters, impractical weapons, and lots of button mashing, but as an updated port, Samurai Warriors 4 DX is simply “fine”, which may not be enough to justify its price tag. It really is one of the better Koei Tecmo ports in recent memory, but then again the bar is not incredibly high.
BlazBlue Entropy Effect manages to deliver a really fun and fast-paced hack-and-slash experience while still respecting the characters and how they originally played in their fighting game appreances. It feels fantastic to upgrade your character as you progress through runs, and the Evotype system lets players constantly get stronger in a really interesting way.
Dungeons of Sundaria is a gracious attempt at repurposing assets from a previous unsuccessful endeavor, but the game’s mechanics and level design desperately need to be looked at, otherwise Industry Games will never achieve a successful multiplayer experience.
Hopefully Extremely Powerful Capybaras serves as a cautionary tale for developers who want to hit that 1.0 release as soon as possible. There’s no shame in publishing an Early Access game, in fact, it gives you a lot more leniency that a full release wouldn’t have otherwise.
The game may have some slight issues as far as run variety goes, but it still manages to feel conceptually fresh and worth playing, thanks to the extremely tight combat and controls.
Overall, Bem Feito would be a really good first chapter of a game. It’s easy to get hooked by its mysteries at first, as you keep wanting to see what else there is, but the fact that there’s nothing else afterwards is pretty disappointing.
Overall, The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria is an extremely solid survival crafting title, and stands proudly as one of the best Lord of the Rings games, as well as one of the best releases of 2023.
Overall, Hellboy Web of Wyrd is not offensively bad, but it surely suffers from a lot of issues that clash with the genre that it’s trying to emulate. The game is not compelling as a roguelike, and unfortunately falls short as a 3D brawler.
Despite its current caveats, My Hero Ultra Rumble is one of the more interesting battle royales out there, and I really hope that it improves in the future. Bandai Namco does seem to be listening to feedback, so things aren’t looking very grim.
It could just be that I’m masochistic and want some of the unreasonable difficulty present in the previous game to return, though. Even if it doesn’t scratch the itch the previous game placed in me, I do recommend Blasphemous 2, possibly more than the first one, as it’s a very polished and enjoyable experience.
Overall, Shadows of Change is a mixed experience. It has possibly my favorite character from the game, the Changeling, but it also brings two rehashed additions into the game, in the form of Yuan Bo and Mother Ostankya.
Overall, Eternal Return is a very unique battle royale; it has a lot of good ideas and fantastic characters with really diverse playstyles, but still falls for some of the trappings that other games from the genre do, especially when it comes to matchmaking.
Overall, Superhot VR is a really good way to experience the game, possibly better than the original, but it bothers me that it was censored so long after it came out. A toggle that allowed players to avoid sensitive content already existed, so it’s unnecessary to remove the graphic content from the game entirely.
All in all, I like Omega Strikers. I wish it would let me unlock characters faster and let me play against humans, but maybe it’s a good thing, as I can continuously inflate my ego dunking on bots that are just stumbling around the field.
Overall, I think I enjoyed my time with Exoprimal. I still don’t like the more live service-y things it has, and sometimes it felt like my enjoyment was in the hands of others, but I can’t say I hate it. It’s a game I’ll play every once in a while, but it doesn’t get me hooked for long periods of time.