The game has an intriguing premise and I want to believe the developers had some intelligent ideas behind what they're doing, but between the painfully shallow strategy, the laboured (via translation) writing, the mundane, uninspired presentation and the shonky interface and UX, there was nowhere left for me to go to find something I admired about this game.
That is your "reward" for "playing" the perfect game, and if you don't find some deep philosophical implications in that - enough to make you miserable to the point that you just give up completely - then you're not thinking hard enough. On the plus side, that's the point where you'll realise you'll never play the cruelty that is Snakes & Ladders again.
In the end, the started and overt point of Archlion Saga is that it was developed to introduce people who are less familiar with JRPGs to the genre. The developers failed in doing that, since anyone who plays this as their first JRPG won't touch another one for a very, very long time. No one likes having their intelligence insulted, even if they are completely new to something.
Blade II is a great example of what happens when you let a content-driven business make a content-driven game. There's plenty in there to do, but doing any of it is a complete waste of time.
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's nothing that actually redeems Hollow. It's a B-grade Dead Space clone that follows the "rules" of horror without actually understanding any of them.
I would love for nothing more than Kemco to give its development teams a little longer to actually refine these games, because I do genuinely believe that they could be turned into something worthy, but until that development time is there, these things are a plague.
The Legend of Dark Witch franchise is far too limited and nowhere near of the standard where its music is ready stand alone, and Rudymical is just not worth playing on any level.
I don't think I've ever played a more pointless game than R.B.I. Baseball 17. Yeah, sure, you can argue that it's cheaper than the MLB The Show games, but surely if you're enough of a fan of baseball to want to buy a video game take on the sport at all, you'd be willing to spend that extra money for a game that you will actually want to play, and a game that will actually do your favourite sport justice. I just don't see how anyone, anywhere, could possibly want what this one is offering.
Why a small team thought it could make a grand open-world RPG is beyond me, but Skylight Freerange 2 demonstrates the horrible consequences of vastly overreaching what your resources and skill level allow. Full props to the developers for trying - the game is oddly fascinating in just how badly it has failed -, but make no bones about this, if the screenshots and video haven’t proven it to you: this game is an utter travesty.
I appreciate everything that the developers were trying to achieve with Rollercoaster Dreams, but this game should be a real lesson in working within your means. The best, most well-resourced developers in the world would struggle to make a quality simulation game with online sharing, VR support, and the ability to fully explore and interact with your creations. This is the work of a small indie developer that should have focused on getting a few things right, than throwing in everything and failing at it all.
[T]here’s not a single picture in the dozens and dozens of puzzles the game boasts that you’ll actually want to put together.
The solution is always obvious, and never elaborate enough to be truly entertaining. In other words it’s pointless busywork.
It’s irredeemable.
Niche sports are difficult. Sports are always complex, demanding things to code, and everyone expects their favourite sport to get the FIFA treatment. That level of experience is just not possible with an audience as limited as Pickleball is. However, it’s not unreasonable to expect the game to at least try to look and feel like the real sport. PPA Pickleball Tour 2025 doesn’t even come close.
I realise that Asterix & Obelix isn’t as commercially valuable as, say, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars or the Fate anime property. It’s never going to attract a major project from a top-flight developer. Nonetheless, there are small developers who have taken the iconic French comic and done something that shows respect; at least they have done their best. There is nothing like that in Asterix & Obelix: Heroes. It’s a cheap and tacky cash-in, and everyone involved in the comic over the years (the 40th book in the series comes out this year!) deserves better than this.
I never thought I’d see Cricket Captain on the Switch. Cricket Captain 2023 should have stayed on platforms where I wouldn’t have been tempted to pay for it. What a waste of money.
Sorry, devs. You are very wrong about that. Demon Sword Incubus may technically work. But it’s not inspiring or interesting. It’s not even good. Most egregiously of all, though is that it lacks the one thing people bought the game for. In a very real sense, buying Demon Sword on Switch is like buying a porn DVD with the nudity and sex cut out. What’s left when you do that?
Honestly, Fragment’s Note+ comes across as what would happen if someone who smooshes dolls or figures together to make them kiss were to write a visual novel. There is a lot of talent that went into making some of the elements of the game. The art is nice, and given more narrative context the “steamy” scenes would have been so much more fun. The localisation is also far better than the game deserves. It’s just that underneath it all is a ridiculously, stupidly juvenile story, and there’s no saving that.
Ten-pin bowling works as a little minigame, aimed at a social and party environment. It’s a simple, easy-to-grasp sport, and the consistency with the rules makes it ideal for pick-up-and-play fun. However, PBA Bowling 2023 aims to be more than that. This wants to be a serious simulation of a sport where the skill involved cannot be adequately abstracted into button presses. As a result, while PBA Bowling 2023 is a perfectly well-made game that is free of bugs and glitches (sadly a rarity among niche sports titles), it is also an intensely boring, shallow game. You’re better off sticking to the light and frivolous take in Wii Sports.