The abundance of bouncing, wet boobies that Senran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash is full of is, strangely enough, not capable of making this something more than what it is: a subpar, repetitive, extremely grindy third-person shooter that's actually boring (yes, boring) to look at.
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…
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.
Necropolis had a somewhat awful start, with a product that was repetitive, buggy, and very rough around the edges. The problem is that, even after its recent Brutal Edition release, many of its flaws still persist. Repetitiveness and monotony, unrewarding challenge, bugs and glitches, an unfair for soloists focus on co-operative play, and still no way to re-map the controls. Ultimately, this is simply not worth the price-tag.
Police Tactics: Imperio may not offer the coolest concept, but it could work as a fun strategy title. The problem is that it isn't, and while at first it may seem that the boring micromanagement and subpar UI are the main flaws here, in reality, it's the fact that this has a severe lack of content, and feels the same from beginning to end - which won't exactly take long to reach.
Visuals-wise, Slain: Back from Hell for Nintendo Switch is one of the most '80s Metal videogames in existence. Unfortunately, the actual gameplay just doesn't cut it, as the controls often feel unresponsive and the level of challenge unfair. Want to play a Heavy Metal-powered Castlevania? Just play a Castlevania title with Iron Maiden on the headphones.
Demetrios: The Big Cynical Adventure disappoints on almost all fronts. It doesn't look or sound good (not even for its über-indie production values), its tiny content is stretched over too many hours, the "puzzles" are either easy, boring, or both, and the core of it all, the toilet humour, just doesn't have what it takes to keep things interesting.
The few good bits of Stranger of Sword City, like its immersive atmosphere and beautiful 2D art, amongst others, get drowned in a sea of problems.
The term "slice-of-life" is no excuse for a lack of plot, a lack of well-developed characters, and a 50% lack of new graphics and tunes. That being said, NekoPara Vol. 2 is probably the best of the three titles so far (but only by a tiny margin), since it actually has a character that's somewhat likeable, because it's slightly more funny and less serious, and due to the fact that it has a more balanced length for what's offered.
A world that makes Disneyland feel threatening in comparison, a cast of the most lifeless characters imaginable, a look that is as pretty as it is uninspiring, and a level of challenge that's insulting to the average adventure gamer. In other words: Order of the Thorne: The King's Challenge isn't just mediocre, but mediocre to the point of annoyance! Hopefully, Infamous Quests will not repeat the same mistakes with the next page of this fairytale, Fortress of Fire, and spices things up a bit.
While it's more disappointing than bad, Coast Guard's overall quality doesn't justify its current £14.00 price. It tries mixing the replication of real life scenarios dealing with maritime law enforcement, along with a lot of detective work, but it fails both ways in doing so. The simulation part is almost non-existent, and the detective one an uninteresting and slow-paced fetch quest - and if that wasn't enough, the various bugs, almost broken controls, and badly implemented game mechanics are more than enough reasons to throw this back to where it belongs: the digital ocean of shoddy video games.
Grimshade is a love letter to the JRPGs of the '90s. Trouble is it's one that wasn't as eloquently written as it should. The weak-to-decent presentation cannot be fixed, of course, but there's some hope for this, if the developer ever heavily rebalance the tactical battles.
Assassin's Creed III gave you the chance to enjoy some simple yet fun Assassin's Creed action, in a vast, Colonial-era Boston - and now you can carry all that on your backpack. It wasn't perfect, sure, but the same can be said for the rest of the earlier entries as well. The real disappointment here comes from its new, remastered iteration, which doesn't really upgrade things as much as it should - at least when it comes to the Switch, which is the worst of the available versions.
The excitement of being able to play what is effectively a WarioWare game on the PC, quickly dissipates after realising that, despite being a recent release, Game Soup is actually inferior compared to its inspiration, with a severe lack of variety, and a couple of - easily fixable - rough edges here and there. A free addition of more mini-games, plus a little bit of fine-tuning, would certainly help this become much better.
In many ways, it's not Checkmate's fault that it's not that enjoyable. The blame certainly goes to the previous chapters of The Council, which failed in being engrossing enough for anyone to care for what happens next. That being said, this doesn't get a free pass, as it doesn't fix any of its problems.
Two things must be taken into account here. First, AT SUNDOWN: Shots in the Dark is extremely light on content. Secondly, and maybe, more importantly, it uses a stealth mechanic that enables hiding from plain sight (your sight included) by walking into the dark; a mechanic that will probably turn out to be quite divisive. Definitely try out a demo before a purchase.
Once again, the DLC on offer is just another, very short side-quest that could easily be part of the core game, or at least part of a pack with more of those. The interaction with one of the most interesting characters of Kingdom Come: Deliverance is certainly a plus, but, in the end, that doesn't provide much incentive to try The Amorous Adventures of Bold Sir Hans Capon out.
The first few hours into this amateurish, loot-gathering dungeon crawler make it pretty clear that, while this is far from great game, it sure can be fun. After those, though, it soon becomes even more clear that Battlepaths simply doesn't have what it takes to last for more than an evening or two.
Pillar of Eternity II: Deadfire - Seeker, Slayer, Survivor is a DLC that feels as if it doesn't understand the strengths of the main game. Focusing mainly in okay-ish battles, and throwing role-playing out of the window, it's a hard title to recommend.
While there's one more chapter left to play, Episode 4: Burning Bridges puts the final nail in The Council's coffin by bringing along the same mistakes, plus some new ones, and with the quality of the storytelling taking a big, sad plunge.