Warhammer Inquisitor: Martyr succeeds in giving players an action RPG experience that manages to combine the action of a 'Diablo clone' with the Warhammer 40K license.
Not once has SEGA let me down, and Yakuza Kiwami 2 is no different. It's a bloody brilliant game.
If nothing else, the simple reality that Shenmue is again a living franchise is, all by itself, something truly amazing.
It's a rare example of where the randomisation of the roguelike structure doesn't feel like a lazy excuse to ignore level design. Rather, it provides a canvas to allow some of the cleanest and engaging tactical action that we've seen in quite some time play out.
God Wars is too Japanese in tone, aesthetic and design to ever have much of a hope of reaching a mainstream audience, but as a culturally relevant artifact, anyone who is interested in seeing how a game can explore ancient folk tales and spirituality in an interesting and engaging manner should not pass up this opportunity
There's not much wrong with We Happy Few that can't be fixed with some patches, and regardless of what happens there, the game has a narrative that is brave, intelligently crafted, and so incredibly poignant.
Phantom Doctrine did come out of nowhere to become a truly enjoyable and memorable experience.
We might not have any of the real classics just yet, but The Amazing Shinsengumi is a perfectly good stand-in while we wait.
Ōkami is to video games what something like Spirited Away is to film; it's not only beautiful and powerful, but it speaks to the very core of the Japanese soul, and because of that it's hugely educational to anyone that has an interest in the country and its culture.
I'm glad to say I can actually recommend Tetra's Escape. It's by no means essential, but it's enjoyable enough to be a bit of time-killing fun.
Just two things hold SubaraCity back from being genuinely memorable
Salt and Sanctuary is a solid homage to its blatant source of inspiration. It doesn't supplant its predecessors, but it does an admirable job nonetheless, and offers players a moody, intricate, and fundamentally enjoyable dark fantasy experience. [OpenCritic note: Matt Sainsbury separately reviewed the PS4 (4.5 stars) and Switch (3.5 stars) versions. The scores have been averaged.]
There's nothing inherently wrong with Crush Your Enemies. It's presented nicely, has some nice, clean mechanics and is cleverly designed to be playable in short bursts of time. But it's also a strategy game that struggles to encourage players to be strategic, and its best feature, the multiplayer, is dead on release.
In an odd way the game gets the benefit of the doubt because the translation is that bad that we have to assume that it's something great in its native language (and indeed there is an option to play in Japanese if you'd like to). But that doesn't help the people who have been suckered into buying a visual novel they thought would be playable in English.
There is a point where a homage becomes a flat-out copy, and sadly, Tanzia simply doesn't seem to care that it's so brazen in its "influences."
I'll be committed to Train Sim World for quite some time, I suspect. Give me some DLC train routes through Asia (especially Japan), and I'll be all the happier. Give me one or two routes of the Sydney network and I'll buy them just to gloat to Sydney Trains that it is possible to deliver passengers to their stops without a three hour delay. I'm oddly proud of my virtual train driving skills.
Not only is it hugely enjoyable in its own right, focused as it is one one of the most dramatic moments in living memory, but it has also managed to completely upstage an Academy Award-winning film that looked at the same moment in history.
It would be nice to see the world of Code of Princess explored in greater depth in the context of a more narrative-driven experience. There's enough material there for a "proper" JRPG, and the characters are certainly an appealing, amusing bunch.
There's plenty to like about Element. The game's stated goal was to distil down the strategy game to something that still felt grand and "complete" in scope, but was playable for a few minutes at a time. It achieves that, and at the same time gives players a compelling look at a theme that is quite pressing, as the world looks towards an era of depleted resources. But it's also hard to push past the feeling that there should have been more to this one.
Zaccaria Pinball is also a very expensive way to play bad pinball. You get better quality tables with more recognisable designs and franchises in either Pinball FX 3 or The Pinball Arcade, and so, while pinball fanatics like myself might find Zaccaria Pinball curious from a historical perspective, and as a way of remembering what the B-tier of the industry looked like, it's hard to imagine too many other people playing this over the other options.