Overall, however, I found myself playing long and deep sessions of Against the Storm. There are times when complexity can be a good thing, if it’s done well. Against the Storm gets that much right, giving us a challenging and also rewarding city builder with a compelling replay loop that will have you playing right through the night for weeks at a time.
The thing is, though, I did find myself having fun with this stupid thing. Each time you unlock a new minigame, that little Dante guide (actually a body-less mouse-creature with long arms) gives you a very self-aware summary of what the minigame is.
“Director’s Cut” is the right term for this Yakuza 0 release. The biggest addition is additional minutes of narrative footage, and it’s been spruced up to work on a handheld console for the first time. That’s really all it needed, because it was already the pinnacle of one of the greatest JRPG properties we’ve ever seen.
Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army is one of the more niche Atlus classics, but the remaster has been well worth the time and effort. There is a dark and culturally interesting heartbeat at the centre of this one, and while I do prefer turn-based combat to this action button-mashy stuff from Atlus, I was more than willing to put up with it for everything else about the game.
Mario Kart World is magnificent. It features the tight and refined gameplay you expect from the series, a brilliant new Knockout mode, and such colourful energy and vibrancy that it was the perfect title to launch the console. I really didn’t think there was much else Nintendo could do after Mario Kart 8, but I stand corrected.
This is a beautiful, heartfelt, and wonderfully classical JRPG, and as much as I love Mario Kart, over the past week, I’ve wanted to play this one so much more.
As one Steam review pithily, yet totally accurately put it: “It’s like if Runescape was fun.” Fantasy Live i has that big MMO feel to it, yet throughout the adventure never becomes exhausting. Whether the post-game stuff is for you or not, the journey there is such pure, wholesome, moreish escapism that it doesn’t matter. Level-5 took many years to get this out the door, but the wait has been more than worth it.
This is the strongest entry in a beloved series, and made all the more special because, after the original developer of the series closed shop, it looked like the entire series was dead for several years. This is a pretty good statement that there’s still so much more that it can offer yet.
Elden Ring Nightreign is a very clever game. FromSoftware has produced a multiplayer-focused “Souls” experience that borrows some of the best ideas from the multiplayer giants while retaining the Soulslike formula and style. It’s not really for me. I’m a mega Souls fan, but I’m there for the dark fantasy storytelling and exploration more than the action and bosses. But I can appreciate what FromSoftware has done with this, and I certainly think the team has nailed what they set out to achieve with it.
There’s a real heart and soul to this project, and Poland has produced yet another developer that is well worth keeping an eye on.
There’s absolutely room for an anime Returnal, and the base mechanics are there. Scar-Lead Salvation does play well. It is so achingly close to a good game. It’s just crushed by trying to spread that quality across a very, very long gauntlet.
All in all, the original Duck Detective was a wholesome, entertaining, totally charming bit of brilliance, and this stand-alone sequel does it justice.
There are otome visual novels out there that are far darker, more explicit, sharper, more horrific, and more intense than this one, but it’s not a criticism of 7’scarlet to say that it’s for those that want something more relaxing and straightforward to enjoy. A truly lovely setting that will have you pining to explore small-town Japan, and some lovely art, make this pulpy-style otome an easy-going page-turner.
It’s far sharper and smarter than the over-the-top fan service suggests it will be. That’s the archetypical half. Meanwhile, the JRPG mechanics are competent and enjoyable, but very standard with little experimentation.
Those gripes and wishlish items are minor issues that would be nice to see Big Ant address in future titles, but I don’t want to take anything away from AFL 26. It plays incredibly well and has had a lot of effort put into it, despite being a game that only really has Australia to count on as far as marketability. What’s more, Big Ant’s still patching away. It’s going to be fascinating to see where this one ends up in a year.
My gut tells me that as respected and successful as this game has already been, it’s only really getting started and over time will sit alongside the likes of NieR, and Planescape: Torment as the most literary and intelligent games ever made. Goddard, Camus and Sartre would be proud (well, perhaps not, existentialists are not a particularly jovial bunch by reputation).
The world of Oblivion alone is a perfect recreation of the Dungeons & Dragons descents into hell from my tabletop days, and I had such a rush of nostalgia playing that through again. It has made me feel old to reflect on the fact that it’s a 20-year-old game and I swear I remember playing it new like it was yesterday, and nostalgia always comes with some rose-tinted glasses, but yes, I haven’t minded having the opportunity and excuse to play this again at all.
Anything that truly challenges the player is anathema to modern design best practice. That’s why Amerzone is such a rare treat. It looks the part of a modern game, tells an exceptional story with a page-turning quality that only one of history’s finest comic book artists could achieve, and is willing to throw some genuine puzzles at the player. If you’ve got the resolve for it, then you’re in for a ride with this one.
I’m not sure why Square Enix has decided to become so prolific with the SaGa property. Three games in a single 12-month timespan is the most ambitious release schedule we’ve ever seen for it. But I’m also not complaining. SaGa has always been something of the forgotten child of Square Enix’s JRPG properties. With any luck, that’s changing now, and a whole bunch of people are going to realise just how good Frontier 2 here is for the first time.
The fact is that as a fan of Chu Chu Rocket, I am continually disappointed that there isn’t more done with that kind of puzzler, and Tempopo more than scratched the itch. This has been my favourite puzzle game in years.