Matt Sainsbury
That single decision, which is non-optional and you can’t turn it off, turns the exceptionally balanced and fine-tuned Machi Koro into something more akin to a party game. It’s still a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong. I’ll be playing this with my brother for our weekend gaming catch-ups for quite some time, there are already lengthy periods where there is not a single online game of Machi Koro With Everyone available, and you can be sitting in a lobby that you’ve created for 10 minutes just to get a group to join randomly (in a game that is less than a week old). Given that, it’s unfortunate that the party game flavour makes it less viable as a long-term single-player experience. I love it, but at the same time, Machi Koro With Everyone is an almost excellent adaptation of a brilliant board game that made one very big, unforgivable mistake.
Trails Through Daybreak is a new starting point for a new, epic arc (with the second chapter already out in Japan). By the end of it, I was not only invested in the new characters and contribution to the Legend Of Heroes history that was being created through their actions, but I wanted to go back and replay all the rest of the games in this series all over again. More than a single game, The Legend of Heroes is an expansive project, and it’s inspiring every time I get to play one.
Battle Cats has endured, successfully, for many years now for a very good reason. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times you play it on different platforms, either. You pick up a “new” version of it, such as with Battle Cats Unite here, and you get lost in it all over again. If that’s not classic, then nothing is, and now it has multiplayer!
However, if you take Radiant Tale – Fanfare! as professional-grade fanservice to simply have fun with, it’s difficult to be disappointed with it. After all, as I noted with Radiant Tale, this is one of Idea Factory’s more charming and enjoyable visual novels in recent years, and as the saying goes “a little is good, and more is better!”
For a series that has struggled to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of that first title from a few decades ago, it’s great to see that with Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble the developers have landed on what might be a strong future direction for the series. Banana Rumble in itself is a little undercooked overall, but it’s still pristine Monkey Ball action, backed by manic good fun multiplayer, and hopefully will be backed up with a second game that more completely executes on the potential.
I can only hope that my own visual novel, which will also be a first-time commercial product by someone that looking to contribute something different to the wonderful genre, will be as fundamentally enjoyable to read as Love & Country. What I do know is that it doesn’t matter how poor the next press release is, I won’t have any concerns over the quality when I load up the next Guhuhu Games title.
Thistlemire is a weird, strange, and beautiful little thing. It serves a niche within a niche within a niche, but if you are curious to see how an RPG combat system could be alchemised into an unforgiving yet rewarding puzzle game, then this is going to intrigue and fascinate, and you may even fall totally in love with it.
Aside from that, Republic of Pirates is an enjoyable, if generally uninspired city builder and light-touch RTS. It’s pretty to look at, has a comfortable, laid-back vibe, and aside from wrestling with the controls, is an easy-playing experience that you can tune out to. It ticks all the boxes and leaves you wanting nothing, even if, after a few weeks of solid play, it will then be buried in the Steam list to gather virtual dust.
Overall, C.A.R.D.S RPG: The Misty Battlefield is a brilliant idea and, mechanically, it’s executed well. But it’s also hard to shake the impression that this is just the first iteration of the idea and that a sequel, while unlikely, would be all the developer needed to really elevate this concept to become something special. As it is, though, it’s a very fine time waster, and, personally, my favourite application of the Slay The Spire style of deckbuilding roguelike yet.
Monolith is made by people who love the genre, and has clearly been made for people who love the genre. I cannot fault the intent or the effort that has gone into it. It’s beautiful, most of it is genuinely intriguing, and it’s filled with classic puzzle design that the genre’s biggest fans must surely be missing for long stretches of time these days. If only the onboarding in the first hour wasn’t such a poor start, and if only that ending wasn’t such a rug-pull, this could have been something memorable.
Just as Persona 5 Royal added something meaningful enough to actually be worthwhile, without being a full sequel or changing anything that people liked about the first game, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance really does deserve the moniker “ultimate version of the game.” You’re going to need a ridiculous amount of time to play it (again), but if you enjoyed it on any level the first time around, you’re going to love what the development team has done to it this time.
It’s fast, furious, and often frustrating. Slave Hero X is what it wants to be, and in principle, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s just that Slave Hero X also does little to stand out within its little niche. The original is a cult classic, and perhaps this will be too, especially among the collectors for the new physical edition. If I were a betting person, however, I’d be inclined to argue that it will be simply forgotten.
The appeal of Democracy 4 is pretty obvious – it’s for anyone who has an ideological interest in politics and is interested in seeing how their ideology would actually play out and how they would perform as a leader. It’s not perfect, of course, and certainly not training to become a real politician. It’s also not a game for someone who only has a pragmatic interest in politics. It’s really not fun trying to envision how you would actually lead a nation versus how you would aspire to if you could be completely uninhibited in power. But it does get you thinking about political policy and ideology and, if nothing else, if you play well you end up with a screenshot proving that you could achieve what Che Guevara could not. And that *is* fun. I’ve done that. You can all call me Dee Guevara now.
I appreciate Yeo for being willing to put himself out there, put the art ahead of the commercial best practices, and craft something that is eccentric, nuanced, and even profound. Fading Afternoon isn’t an “entertaining” game in the traditional sense, but it’s a powerful one that will leave you reflective and pensive by the time you put it down. The games industry needs more people like Yeo.
I understand why the developers set Crown Wars: The Black Prince during the Hundred Years War. It’s a compelling era of European history and you inherently want to play it. It got me playing a game I otherwise would have glossed over because of the promise of its theme. The problem is that once you have someone’s attention this way, you need to deliver on what you’ve promised them. Crown Wars doesn’t quite get there and fails to fill the void with something memorable.
There’s not much else I can say, given that any commentary on the story would be a spoiler to the first game, and as much as I can breathlessly enthuse about the aesthetics and presentation, that’s something you’re going to have to see to get a feel for just how well it works despite being so eclectic. Cupid Parasite: Sweet and Spicy Darling is a sequel to a game you should play before it. But it’s also a game you really should play, because it is the most artfully unique and downright entertaining otome visual novel out there. Sweet and Spicy Darling is more of the same, and that’s all it needed to be.
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a delightful, wonderful little game. My life is better for the joy that it has injected into it and there’s not a thing about it that I think the developers could have done better.
That is probably a big part of the reason that Thousand-Year Door doesn’t feel like a “retro” game to play, despite being 20 years old and this “remake” being barely touched from the original. It’s rare for a game to be quite this timeless, and thank goodness it hasn’t been lost to the GameCube platform and now people can discover or rediscover it on modern hardware.
The authentic Taiwanese ghost stories, an intriguing university campus to explore, and a fun – if B-grade cheesy – cast make The Bridge Curse 2 well worth your time. There are also some genuinely memorable monsters and eye-opening scenes. This is one of those super-niche horror games that you’ll be glad you discovered.
Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution is an admirable effort to find a way of introducing more characters and an all-new plot-line, while also in some ways going back to the fundamentals in terms of storytelling and structure. I do wish the Idea Factory people would give up on this action combat system when the turn-based approach was less obviously affected by the budget, but the usual gorgeous fanservice art and antics of the characters kept me smiling throughout.