Waking the Glares: Chapters I and II is a perfect example of how some use the term "indie" to excuse everything. It looks amateurish, it doesn't work as well as it should, its "gameplay" is heavily unpolished, and its story is "symbolic and means stuff," despite it leaving you with a big, irritating question mark above your head, but it's okay, because it's "indie." The truth? It's a bad, bad, bad video game.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was a good fighter, and the updated Ultimate game is, undoubtedly… it's, well, the ultimate version… but other than that, it's not something that adds enough things to justify a purchase, especially if already having owned the console original. Capcom and Marvel fans will surely have fun with this somewhat lazy port. The rest can safely pass it by.
Dark Souls III's The Ringed City isn't exactly the final piece of the puzzle that people have been waiting for, as it's just more of the same (albeit, very good), and not something that will be hailed as a DLC masterpiece, partly due to its short length. Buy, rent, or never play? Irrelevant. Soulsborne aficionados are already on it…
There's no other JRPG like Nier: Automata out there. It blends all sorts of genres, although not flawlessly; it looks cool and has an awesome atmosphere, despite it being a tad rough around the edges; and its plot is simply an amazing piece of sad, thinking man's sci-fi storytelling, even though it disappoints quite a lot every now and then. Yoko Taro's newest creation isn't perfect… but this humble gamer is happy that it exists.
Minus a couple hiccoughs here and there, ACA NeoGeo: World Heroes Perfect is a flawless, and 100% faithful version of the original arcade effort. However, this cannot change the fact that World Heroes Perfect was, and still is, nothing more than a generic fighter that pales in comparison to the strong competition in the genre, and even compared to SNK's more famous The King of Fighters line. In other words: this is nothing more than a collector's item product.
Similar to the actual programming idea from whence this takes inspiration from, Human Resource Machine is "easy" to learn but, at the same time, quite hard to correctly apply the acquired knowledge. While this basically means that it can lead to some frequent hair-pulling, and although this is not an experience that will last for long, most puzzle fans are strongly advised to try out Tomorrow Corporation's latest release now it's on Nintendo Switch.
The freedom imbued in the gargantuan and beautiful world of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands' Bolivia sure makes this a worthwhile purchase, but only if you plan to enjoy it with a couple of friends, and only if willing to put up with the standard issues of most sandbox titles, like repetition, repetition, and, most importantly, repetition.
Yes, this is way too expensive; yes, it's in need of a decent amount of fine-tuning here and there; and yes, after getting a taste of a mini-game you have pretty much experienced everything it has to offer. However, while 1-2 Switch is not as good as it should be for a launch title, and although it gives a bitter tech demo aftertaste, it's hard to deny how fun it can be when gathering a bunch of friends ready to go bat-switch crazy with it.
DESYNC had a nice idea on its hands, but it executed it pretty poorly, as it forgot the most important thing when it comes to video games: not gameplay, but a carefully planned and balanced design. As a result, it's annoying instead of challenging, the combat feels sluggish and not fast or varied, and the whole thing is a bit too much of system hog for what it has to offer. Better stick to Quake…
The only reason for the existence of Super Blackjack Battle II Turbo Edition: The Card Warriors, is that it's a spoof of Street Fighter II… Or at least that's what it thinks it is, because, in reality, it's just simple, ordinary, no extra bells and whistles, no bonus nonsense, no reinvention of the wheel, plain, "good" ol' 21… and that's far from enough.
Hollow Knight is anything but hollow. Cut from the same cloth as Metroid (and a little bit of Dark Souls), its beautifully gloomy, as well as cute, hand-painted underground world, offers one of the best time sinks ever made; and one where skill is definitely in the spotlight. Its plot could be a bit more accessible, and the lack of hand-holding can sometimes be annoying, but these "flaws" can't really crack the surface of this diamond.
It's not that it's a pure niche piece of software, as every single simulation game is like that. theHunter: Call of the Wild's biggest issue is that it got released in a pretty bad state, and still hasn't been fixed… And it's a real shame, because, when it decides to work, it can be quite the immersive experience and feels a lot closer to what it wants to - the best of its kind.
Resident Evil 7's first DLC, Banned Footage Vol. 1, lies somewhere between must-have and… meh. Everyone will find something to like here, it's just that it would be nice if this something was a bit longer than two to three hours long.
'Rushed' is the politest thing one could say about Resident Evil 7's second DLC, Banned Footage Vol.2. Sure, it's easy to stomach a horror version of Blackjack, as well as a silly mini-game such as Jack's 55th Birthday, but it's hard doing the same with an extremely subpar prelude chapter, which could otherwise be the crowning glory of it all.
Those who run away at the sound of the words "hidden object game" should actually stay put because Hidden Folks is one of the better ones out there, with its tiny-yet-gargantuan worlds and "mouth-sound" audio effects giving it a unique, playful, and almost magical charm, and the gameplay portion seamlessly blends fun, challenge, and some welcome amounts of cooling off.
There are lots of bad things that can be said for Ubisoft's newest idea, with the most annoying one being its poor single-player portion. For those looking for the best medieval-themed PvP melee fighting game, however, it just can't get any better than this. For Honor is not flawless, but it's the current King of the Hill.
Redout could be a far better futuristic racer, with just a liiitle bit better controls, just a liiitle bit of variety, and just a liiitle bit of originality. It presents arms to the genre's big ones in a pretty decent way for an indie production… but it could do more than that.
Where does Root Double -Before Crime * After Days- Xtend Edition sit on the visual novel scale? The answer is: perfectly in the middle. Enjoyable plot? Yes, but nothing to die for. Well-written? Sure, but also way too long. Has an innovative choice mechanic? Yes… but then again, no.
This is very good… when it's not annoying; it has fantastic pacing… when the fun doesn't take a backseat; battles and puzzles are quite enjoyable… when they are not boring. Darksiders: Warmastered Edition is the perfectly average video game. It does so many things great, but, as a whole, it just feels as if there's something missing.
Rosenkreuzstilette is basically an identical clone of the 8-bit Mega Man instalments, but with anime girls instead of funny-named robots - and that makes it feel more like a shameless sham than a very similar title that actually adds some things of its own. Moreover, the level design is subpar when compared to its source material… something that makes revisiting it sound like a pretty swell idea.