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Renan Fontes

RenanXIII

Favorite Games:
  • Devil May Cry 3
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
  • Mother 3

233 games reviewed
65.3 average score
70 median score
48.1% of games recommended
Mar 2, 2021

Juggling sub-par game design with a host of technical issues on the Switch, Gods Will Fall is a painfully disappointing roguelike that plays more like a proof of concept than anything else. Fashioning gameplay around eight distinct playable characters who can all permanently die is certainly interesting and adds an inherent tension to the experience, but stiff controls, laughable enemy AI, and shallow combat do nothing but remind audiences that they can be playing something better. The fact DeepSilver would publish a title so blatantly unready for public consumption - let alone purchase - is frankly baffling. Gods Will Fall is as much a waste of time as it is money.

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Jun 6, 2020

Considering how mindless and tailor-fit for mobile audiences the substanceless gameplay loop of Shop Titans is, one has to wonder why Kabam saw fit to pursue a PC release. Of course, the "why" is made painfully clear the moment players hit their first wall. Progression is very blatantly designed around micro-transactions. Anyone who doesn't want to spend a dime will need to contend with a very long grind. Even then, the game actively withholds items and content from players who don't want to spend real money. Worse yet is the monthly subscription service, which Kabam fully expects anyone who wants to play Shop Titans in earnest to purchase. Already aggressively mediocre experience by design, jumping from mobile to PC has done Kabam's shopkeeping "simulator" no favours. Shop Titans is worse than video game junk food; it's slop.

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Oct 20, 2019

That A Knight's Quest is being sold on the eShop at all is ludicrous. Combat, enemy design, the camera, the save system, and the script were all in desperate need of more time. Sky9 releasing the title as is, is simply downright embarrassing. Beyond the lack of polish and the frequent bugs, this is a title that ignores 20 years of conventional game design philosophy, and massacres itself in the process. Few have managed to mangle the basics of 3D combat so badly. Play anything else. A Knight's Quest is one of the worst games of 2019.

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Aug 19, 2016

Ninja Strike: Dangerous Dash is little more than an overpriced iOS game. In fact, that's precisely what it is. Low quality visuals are masterfully blended together with low quality sound design to deliver a package that can't seem to even reach the glories of mediocrity. There are countless endless runners on the Wii U eShop, and Ninja Strike simply doesn't offer anything to make it worth purchasing.

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2 / 10 - Dinocide
Feb 13, 2016

Dinocide shows an incredible amount of promise at the beginning, but it simply does nothing with the ideas it presents. It meanders around aimlessly, never accomplishing a thing, and seems to exist solely to torment those who want an accurate NES platforming experience. This prehistoric nightmare just can't deliver on that.

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2 / 10 - Avoider
Oct 15, 2016

Avoider is very much trying to hearken back to the Atari era of videogames with its simplicity, and that's a fine goal to have, but it also suffers from the exact same problems of that era without adding any modern design philosophies into the fray. Tedium rules Avoider's world. Playing through the same scenario over and over again for a high score can only be fun so many times. The lack of real skill or growth also hinders the dodging simulator from being anything other than an unpolished homage. At an incredibly low price tag, it might seem worth it, but it would just be throwing away money at a product with a shelf life of half an hour - if that.

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Jul 9, 2016

A low price tag doesn't excuse the low amount of effort put into Ascent of Kings. Everything works on a technical level, but it's just so unimaginative that it can't justify a second play-through, let alone a first. It's a meandering mess of ideas taken from far better platformers, blended together in an hour-long hurricane that destroys any and all quality in its path. There's simply no appeal to the MS Paint drawn world that's been created; it's a boring and thoughtless mini-disaster that should just be ignored and forgotten.

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Jan 18, 2017

Alekhine's Gun proves that ambition can only get a game so far. There are good ideas from both a gameplay and narrative perspective, but Maximum Games' implementation of all those features stops at the inclusion. The stealth aspect is never fully developed or utilised, while the gunplay has had the bare minimum of effort put into it. The story jumps between World War II and the Cold War, a genuinely novel idea, but mediocre writing and spastic pacing disallow the plot from actually developing any of its themes or characters. With no polish or direction to speak of, Alekhine's Gun is little more than a broken third-person shooter that believes it's so much better than it is.

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Sep 14, 2022

SYNTHETIK: Ultimate is a wonderful roguelike that's been utterly ruined by its Switch port. What should be one of the best games on the Nintendo Switch is instead emblematic of everything wrong with the eShop. Frame rate dips, technical hiccups, and game breaking glitches tear down all the goodwill this game establishes. When there's no such thing as quality assurance, amazing games release in unplayable states. SYNTHETIK: Ultimate should be played, just not on Nintendo Switch.

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3 / 10 - Dauntless
Jan 3, 2020

Uninteresting and uninspired, Dauntless is certainly impressive in its own right, but as far as actual gameplay goes, what's present fails to engage beyond the surface level. Perhaps that'll be enough for most who download the free title, but between aesthetically resembling Fortnite and aping Monster Hunter's combat wholesale, Phoenix Games has failed to contribute anything truly novel to the experience. Dauntless is as derivative as they come, and while that lack of price tag may be appealing, there are much better games to spend one's time (and even money) on. Go play Monster Hunter instead.

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It's always a good thing when old titles are once again available for purchase, but Capcom should perhaps start pricing their rereleases accordingly. Devil May Cry 2 wasn't worth the money in 2003, and it certainly isn't worth much today. A miserable hack 'n' slash, it's a miracle the franchise managed to survive such a blunder in the first place. It's perhaps worth playing from a historical context - if only to gain a deeper understanding of how it failed the original's legacy… but Devil May Cry 2 is otherwise better left in the past.

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Apr 15, 2019

Evaluated solely by its presentation quality, Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey is a solid enough point and click adventure, but it is sadly marred by technical issues and by a general lack of engaging puzzle solving.

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Jan 12, 2019

In spite of a fairly interesting and unique set piece, JCB Pioneer: Mars never quite manages to take advantage of its Martian background.

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3 / 10 - Soulblight
Oct 23, 2018

Tedious, meandering, and needlessly obtuse, Soulblight is far better conceptually than it is in execution. The prospect of uncovering the mysteries of a dying world is gripping enough, but the story is told in such a convoluted manner that forming any sort of narrative attachment is virtually impossible. Not helping matters are the title's poor technical performance on Nintendo Switch and the sheer insufferable nature of its combat. Coupled with a top-down aesthetic that frankly does the gameplay no favours, Soulblight offers little of value despite a relatively interesting premise.

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Mar 11, 2018

As shallow as it is boring, Guilt Battle Arena is a conceptually fine attempt at a fast-paced party shooter that does very little with its mechanics and premise. Constantly being on-rails adds a layer of difficulty, but doesn't feel necessary to the core design of the game; the obstacles are charming enough, but the static layout of each stage keeps them relatively easy to avoid with some muscle memory; and the one-bullet mechanic, as interesting as it is, doesn't feel properly taken advantage of as its held back cramped layouts. Levels and matches are certainly fast-paced, but the core gameplay isn't addictive enough to warrant long play sessions. With some mechanical re-tweaking, varied stages, and an improved main mode that doesn't boil down to endless waves of shooting and dashing, Guilt Battle Arena could turn into something worth playing. As is, however, there's nothing particularly impressive about it.

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Oct 5, 2017

Destination Ares settles the age-old argument of whether it's worse to be shallow or overpriced by adopting both banes as a core part of its identity. What praise can be given to the premise of managing a crew and ship to their destination is better directed at the far superior FTL, which Ares lifts most of its ideas from. Even with an excellent base to build off of, however, just about every feature and gameplay element fails to capture the fun of managing a spaceship. The flavour text is mostly bland, making a dynamic choice is always accompanied by a grating minigame, and all sense of progression is surface level at best. In no way whatsoever is Destination Ares worth the price of admission. Price accordingly, or don't price at all.

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Oct 17, 2017

The scariest thing about Don't Knock Twice is how poorly it plays on the Nintendo Switch.

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3 / 10 - Shock Tactics
Apr 28, 2017

Far too often developers pay "homage" by lifting elements from far better games and stripping them down to their shallowest parts. Unfortunately, Shock Tactics is no different than those vain attempts at cashing in on a much better franchise. Point Blank Games steals as much as they can from XCOM, but they neglect to snatch any of the charm and level design that made the series so popular. The enemy AI is horrendous, maps under designed, and missions range from easy to annoying, but never challenging. In a world where XCOM exists, there is little reason to give Shock Tactics the time of day.

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3 / 10 - In Vitra
Apr 16, 2017

In Vitra is an ugly, unfortunate mess of an RPG that never quite manages to form an identity of its own. The already pitifully short and poorly written plot ends far too soon without really resolving anything, with a shameless sequel hook that fails to close out the narrative in any meaningful way. Gameplay is traditional, but boring, without any visual flares or twists to mask the fact it was haphazardly put together in RPG Maker. In Vitra is an unpolished, overpriced attempt at an RPG that desperately needed a redraft and another year, minimum, of work done on it before it could even be considered launch ready.

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Dec 6, 2015

Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash should, quite frankly, not exist. It is an embarrassment with next to no content, absolutely no strategy involved, and feels like a blatant cash grab more than anything. Nintendo has gotten far too safe with the Mario IP if the developers felt that they could release a skeleton like this for $50. Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is nothing more than a platform for selling amiibo and should not be purchased by any means.

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