Spirit of the North 2 is a visually stunning open-world adventure that confidently stands apart from its predecessor, featuring an emotionally moving orchestral soundtrack that wraps around the vivid scenery like a loving embrace. Making progress and completing puzzles feels rewarding, and even just exploring the vast environments feels like a reward all the same. The story is engaging and emotional, and it's easy to grow personally attached to the little fox as they learn just how big their world truly is.
As a debut title, Violet Saint has done an impressive job of building a world that feels both dark and dismal, but also alive and full of character. Moroi is so much more than just a hack-and-slash, with both mystery and puzzles to solve throughout. The cast of absurd characters and humour keeps things light, even with all the gore, and the action packed combat sequences are bolstered by the pumping soundtrack. Even if you aren't familiar with Romanian folklore, anyone who enjoys a good grimdark fantasy will enjoy Moroi.
Game Over: A Musical RPG is a passion project which is bleeding heart and soul. The soundtrack is incredible, every encounter is unique and entertaining, with nothing being repeated. All the characters are charming and have their own unique personalities that help the world feel grounded. The dialogue and comedy are perfectly timed and full of wit and there were genuine laughs around every corner. If you're a fan of Undertale, Earthbound or The Stanley Parable, please do yourself a favour and check out this home-grown Australian indie.
Dollhouse: Behind The Broken Mirror felt like someone attempted to make a horror game who didn't know what made them scary to begin with, and then didn't show it to a single person for feedback before releasing it. The story is all over the place, and any lore you get throughout the game is hard to make sense of or connect to anything you have already learned. The enemies are obnoxious in number and any possible threat or fear goes out the window due to the sheer frustration that they instill. It feels like a bunch of half-baked concepts and locations thrown into a pot and left to boil for way too long. The flaws in the gameplay and overall functionality bleed so far through the experience that it felt like a slog, and the scariest part was the fact it took 8 hours to finish.
While Waiting is a wonderful game about time wasting, and all the fun and creative ways in which you can do that. Sometimes all you can do is sit and wait, and sometimes that gives the most rewarding outcome. Sometimes the most important thing you can do with your time is nothing, as long as it's with people you care about. Living life, being with the people you love and doing the things that make you happy is never a waste of time.