For all the little ways I can nitpick Fire Emblem: The Three Houses, there is no denying the elegance with which so many of the gameplay systems are intertwined. I enjoyed micromanaging the progression of my students on and off the battlefield. I just wish I was able to think of them as more than colorful pawns.
It is a beautiful-looking game with a juvenile mind-set that’s fun to pass through but hard to be riveted by.
It’s fair to say that few other games have enchanted me this year as much as this platformer.
If one were to judge a horror title solely on its ability to suspend its audience in a state of dreadful tension, Resident Evil 2 would be quite accomplished.
“The Last of Us Part II” is one of the best video games I’ve ever played; I hope the cost to the developers was worth it.
Happily, Death’s Door, the new action adventure game about a hard-working, soul-reaping crow is very much a love letter to the old Zelda games. Its mechanics are satisfying in a chip-off-the-old block way, its visuals are a delight and its story line is touched with assured, easygoing humor.
While the lessons might not be very deep, the liveliness of the game leads me, ultimately, to the conclusion that “Mythic Ocean” is a neat game to turn kids on to philosophical reasoning.
A particular strength of the game is that it alternates between perilous action and periods of reflection where the characters process the changes they’ve observed in the world and in themselves.
In truth, I wish Mario Golf: Super Rush was a bit zanier. The dash mechanic and the Super Shots are fine, but I can’t help thinking that the courses could have been a bit more whimsical than, say, the arid landscape of Balmy Dunes.
This is old-school Zelda the way you’d like to remember it.
With a running time a little short of an hour, Promesa is meant to be played in a single sitting. For those intrigued by the more artistic side of gaming, it is a dream worth having.
“Subnautica: Below Zero’s” conventional sci-fi story line, which revolves around a greedy corporation looking to get ahead in the weapons business, never raised my interest. But the painstaking effort it takes to get Robin from one minor narrative point of interest to another made me appreciate its small, very human scale of success.
For those looking for a blockbuster, family-friendly experience, “Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart” checks the boxes. It is hyperkinetic and full of cutesy-looking characters that wear their emotions on their sleeves. If you’ve seen one of the trailers then you basically know what you’re in for: something totally familiar but with next-gen graphics. In other words, from a marketing perspective, it’s a safe bet.
If the idea of zoning out and basking in the serenity of being an unstoppable predator sounds appealing, then consider this an inviting summertime snack.
If only more big-league developers dared to be this bonkers, the industry would be that much more untamed.
But as someone who went out and got a PlayStation 3 just to play “Demon's Souls” (2009), and, moreover, loved Housemarque’s last two games, Returnal makes me rue the influence that Souls games have exerted on the industry. In my view, Returnal’s severe difficulty level does a disservice to its entertainment value.
Alas, what should be a runaway creative success for the game’s director, Josef Fares, is marred by a tone-deaf narrative element which shows that asinine ethnic caricatures unfortunately still exist in video games.
Wolfenstein: Youngblood provides a decent co-op experience for friends to indulge in. It’s like going to a place where you know the service is fine and you wouldn’t look for anything unusual.
Although “The Medium” is billed as a psychological horror game, I found it to be consistently unsettling rather than scary. There is a vengeful monster that Marianne must deal with intermittently, but except for one breathtaking scene where he chases her through different realities — resulting in shifts in perspective that strike like tidal waves — I didn’t think much of him. Nothing robs a creepy game of its power as forcing a player to confront the same monster too many times so, thankfully, the monster encounters are nicely spread out. “The Medium” might not have the most nightmarish adversary but its blanketing, foreboding atmosphere and uncompromising ending amply makes up for it.
It’s vexing that a game that requires such skill on the part of players has technical issues. As with FromSoftware’s other games, you don’t have to look hard to spot enemies whose attacks pierce through walls, or notice fluctuations in framerate. To be sure, neither of these issues have sharply dampened my appreciation for “Sekiro,” but I very much hope that a patch will be released to improve the waffling framerate on consoles.