Like all of qureate's games, the fan service of Duel Princess crosses far beyond the light and bubbly stuff that sits within a lot of people's comfort zones and lands squarely into outright titillation. Those who tolerate fan service if they otherwise enjoy a game will find this a bit much, and as a consequence qureate has certainly limited the audience more than the team needed to, given how little relevance the erotic elements have to anything else in the game.
To Be Or Not To Be is an excellent - and rare - example of Shakespeare being brought to video games. It works as a satirical deconstruction of Hamlet, and it works as a simple (but enjoyable) choose-your-own-adventure gamebook in video game form. I wish more developers were willing to tackle this kind of source material.
My issues with Arcadia Fallen have to do with my issues with the wider YA narrative genre that it belongs to, but I really cannot stand the tonal inconsistencies, the juvenile writing style, or the complete shallowness of these things and the thoughts they express. It seems that I'm increasingly in the minority here, but I'm not a fan of treating audiences like idiots. However, if YA writing doesn't annoy you as much as it does me, then you're going to really get along with this one, since the presentation is impeccable, and it does have its heart in the right place.
Should the very negative impression that Alone Musc levels be tempered by the fact that the credits list just four people? Perhaps, but then perhaps those four people should have worked on something more in-line with what they had the resources for. Alone Musc is, by a long way, the poorest rhythm game on a console that has a lot of excellent rhythm games, and unfortunately, for a genre as straightforward as this one, there was nowhere for this team to hide their inability to compete with the other developers working in the genre.
Theatre of Sorrows isn't worth your time. It's dressed up nicely with some good art and the occasional sinister moment to dwell on, but underneath that is little more than a basic resource management experience, with such egregious repetition through its "roguelike" elements that it becomes rote well before you've even finished the game for the first time. As a carefully-planned, linear and focused experience, Theatre of Sorrows could have been something creepy and evocative. Instead, it's like reading the same snippets of Lovecraft over and over again. Do that, and it doesn't take long at all for them to lose all meaning and value.
There is some effort that has gone into making Epic Dumpster Bear 2. There are even some genuinely nice touches, like little facts about bears that pop up during loading screens, and some elements, powerups, and similar that make it clear that the game is Canadian. I like it when the developers don't shy away from identifying their work with their culture. Unlike many low-budget platformers, there is a soul and sense that the developers weren't just looking to make a cynical dollar. So much of Epic Dumpster Bear 2 is admirable, it's just a pity that there wasn't a stronger vision behind it.
I love Poker Club's design and philosophy, but unfortunately, where Ripstone's other games on Switch are exceptional, this is a vastly inferior port and experience.
So, while the horror might be a little too much of a pastiche for its own good (it does go places sometimes, but a "haunted letter", Ring-style, is a shoddy hook in 2021), there's something very readable and enjoyable about The Letter. It's not particularly deep, but it's significantly better than amateur standard, the editing is clean, and you can just tell that this was a labour of love for the development team. It might not be an Otomate production, but this is of a standard that well exceeds most other indie visual novels.
You can play regular chess, too, and it works, though there's an utter lack of inspiration behind the little battles between the chess pieces. Worse, the AI isn't going to throw up a challenge to anyone but the most beginner of chess beginners. Finally, it's all terribly ugly, most notably with the backgrounds, where we're meant to be able to fight in "towns", "graveyards", "castles" and other locations, but in practice, the developer just has just dropped a differently-shaped rock here and there and called it a day. There are exceptional options for chess on the Switch. Pawn of the Dead, meanwhile, is one of the poorest games on the console.
The only real problem with Oink Games is that the single-player experience is a bit too no-frills for its own good. Why can't I organise a five-round game of Startups against the AI, developers? You've implemented a great scoring system that demands play over five (if not ten) rounds, but when you're playing solo you're restricted to one game at a time. Thankfully the AI is a challenge without it ever feeling like they cheat, but still, between the limitations of solo play and the fact that two of the four games don't really work as single-player experiences, you'll need to go into this being aware that you're only getting a quarter of the experience unless you can get a Friday evening group together. Thankfully, that should be pretty easy since, once you do play Oink Games, you'll want to play it a whole lot).
I'm not the world's biggest fan of shooters, but I have a soft spot for Serious Sam. It's partly because it exists to make fun of the rest of the genre, and do so in a colourful, easy-going way such that it's the equivalent of a Sunday morning cartoon. It's also all-action, but in the right way. I find more realistic shooters stressful when I'm being swamped from all sides, but Serious Sam does such a great job with the power fantasy that you'll look at a screen filled with 100 ugly beasties... and wish they had brought friends. I enjoyed getting re-acquainted with Serious Sam earlier in the year with the collection. With Serious Sam 4 I have a game that should have done better on the PlayStation 5 hardware, but is a new favourite shooter anyway.
While that might sound like a catastrophic weakness for a tactics game, it’s really not and hidden well. Look at how compelling Advance Wars or Final Fantasy Tactics is despite the simplicity of the enemy AI and the actual on-field tactics. Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector aims for a similar casual tactical feel as those kinds of games, and, thanks to the excellent and authentic depiction of the grimdark 40K universe, nails it. This is just plain good tactics play, and sometimes that’s enough.
The core fundamentals of Monster Rancher are delightful, and while this collection has its issues, there aren't all that many modern equivalents to what it offers, so they hold their value well. Whether this is some kind of elaborate market research with Koei canvassing interest for a potential new Monster Rancher, or a simple acknowledgement that the series still has fans and they'll buy anything Monster Rancher-related, I don't know. I almost hope they don't make a new Monster Rancher, because the appeal of these games is in their simple charm. Simplicity that modern game development can't get away with. In that context, I actually believe that Monster Rancher 1 & 2 DX will be the best of this series. Putting aside the inability to summon monsters via CD, both games have aged like the finest of wines, and remain some of the best examples of design from their era.
Slap Them All is by no means perfect. It's shallow, even by genre standards, lacks the all-but mandatory four-player option, has been balanced for two players to the point that it doesn't really work as a single-player game, and fails to give players any reason to give it a second go once powered through. And yet at the same time, it is the best use of the beloved Asterix & Obelix property that we have seen in years and for us long-suffering Asterix & Obelix fans, for that reason alone Slap Them All is a gift.
Real Boxing 2 is everything wrong with mobile gaming, and while it's free of the microtransactions on Nintendo Switch, all that it has to offer is an endless parade of matches that display no personality. I'm no expert on boxing, but I know enough about the sport to know that boxing fans aren't going to find this satisfying on any level.
To be blunt, I would never call Ultimate Summer Camp a deep or important game, but it is pure, undiluted fun. It's not trying to be deep or smart, but rather a bubbly-light bit of nonsense with a healthy dollop of fan service, and it delivers that with some spot-on delivery. Think of this as a reward for making your way through the 60-odd hours it takes to get through the Danganronpa series and the relatively serious and deep-thinking themes that those three titles explore. After that, you deserve a reward, and as a positive foil to them, this is the perfect delivery mechanism. So don't judge this in isolation. Consider that Danganronpa Decadence contains all those other games as well, and that you really ought to have played through them all before even stepping into the joy of this thing, making the overall collection the best that has been released on the Nintendo Switch to date.
The appeal of Date Night Bowling is incredibly limited. It's for people that want to play a game with their romantic partner, and need something that both can enjoy equally, regardless of their gaming experience. At the same time, it's for those that don't want to become too competitive or heated. And both people also need to be old enough to enjoy the 80's and 90's vibes and aesthetics. It's inoffensive enough in fulfilling that very narrow role, but its concepts fall down badly when you're playing single-player, or with anyone other than your significant other. Throw in a dearth of depth and character, and even when you are playing it in its optimal environment, you're going to wish that you decided to take date night to a real bowling alley instead.
BloodRayne 2 does clean things up in comparison to the original. It plays better (platforming aside), and is generally a more coherent experience. It gets rid of the Nazis (largely), but ups the sex. And yet it loses a little X-factor in being better. Rather than aiming for cult appeal, BloodRayne 2 aspired to be an actual game and where the first succeeded at being what it wanted to, the second did not. However, as I said at the start of this review, because it is a better base game, and its themes have translated across better into 2021, it is the better of the two to play today.
There's nothing overtly wrong with BloodRayne: Revamped. It is an opportunity to replay a trashy (by deliberate design) early example of a B-grade "exploitation grindhouse" video game. These kinds of experiences only really became viable with the power that the PlayStation 2 generation brought to the party, so BloodRayne really is one of the first of its kind, and there's historical value in that. It could have done with a more substantial remake than this, though. If there was anything from back on the PlayStation 2 era that would have really benefitted from a full, top-to-bottom remake, it's the "sex sells" stuff like BloodRayne must surely be at the top of that list.
It's a succinct and heartfelt game with a gorgeous aesthetic and an evocative narrative. The Kids We Were seems destined to be a thing that people will overlook, but I really hope that they don't. The way it taps into both a sense of nostalgia for youth and the Japanese nostalgia for the golden 80's might not be the most original narrative angle ever, but it's a story told so well that you won't be able to put it down.