otta players a target that will hang nearly to the ground when on all fours to give players that target, after all. Well played, developers. You sure got me there.
Stranger Things 3: The Game is trash that does more harm to the property than good. It was almost quaint going on a memory trip back to when video games were used to churn out cheap bonus money grabs every time a major film landed, but the industry has moved on from that nonsense, and there's nothing about this game that is acceptable in this day and age.
Like a wave of nostalgia, Focus on You is over fleetingly quickly, and it's not exactly a deep and meaningful experience. It is beautifully produced and performed, however, and an excellent use of the unique experiences that VR enables. It's not going to win game of the year awards, but nostalgia is a tricky beast for developers to work effectively with, and I think this one captures the aesthetic and tone of a nostalgic memory perfectly.
There's nothing outwardly wrong with Red Faction Guerrilla, and the HD remaster is handled competently. On the Nintendo Switch, and particularly in handheld mode, it actually looks really nice in capturing that grim-Mars wasteland. Sadly, open worlds age far worse than most other approaches to game design
If you've ever wanted to learn Shogi, then this is the most accessible learning tool that we've had released in the west. By the end of it, you'll be comfortable enough with the game to start playing the real thing.
Nekopara is like having a crepe, filled with cream and sweet fruits; you're going to be on your death bed saying "I'm so glad I didn't miss out on that in my life," but you're going to enjoy the hell out of eating it anyway.
I really wanted to see a bigger improvement from the original Super Mario Maker to this sequel.
Judgement is a brilliant effort in forging a new path forwards for Kamurocho and its denizens post-Yakuza, with not only a new protagonist and story, but an entirely new genre and look at the world. I
I love board games, and Catan is a board game. It's as simple as that.
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.
Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled is exactly what the doctor ordered. It's light-hearted, hugely entertaining, and made with a real eye for detail that helps elevate the overall experience. After the disappointment of the recent Sonic one, this has put everything in the world right again.
I want to know where rabites came from, and see those original overworld sketches. That said, the fact is that Secret of Mana is to me what Chrono Trigger is to most people who were into JRPGs on the SNES, and Collection of Mana has been a truly wonderful trip back through my very fond memories for this series.
It's light, breezy, gorgeous, and a joy to play.
There is fan service in there, and some people will look at that and the anime trappings and not be able to move past it, but underneath this exterior lies a heart that is in many ways the precise opposite of what you might be expecting. It's almost - dare I say it - feminist in the critique it provides over the way that women are treated in this fairy tale world.
For all its faults I couldn't help but enjoy my time with Golem Gates.
Vectronom is well made and attractive. It's got a strong sense of minimalist style, and as difficult as it is, it's also entirely fair, and once you've learned its rules and behaviour, it becomes comfortable, albeit difficult, to play.
I wish more horror games were like Layers of Fear 2. It's a mature and intelligent understanding of the deeper and more meaningful elements of horror, and while I can have as much fun as anyone creeping around a Resident Evil game and shooting the ugly monsters while being startled by the jump scares, it's something like this that I end up reflecting on well after I've finished playing, and this is the kind of game that I return to when I'm looking for an actual horror experience.
It's stylish, slick production that borrows from the classical masters of the crime fiction genre, while adding some genuinely creative approaches to the visual novel that help to make it both feel fresh and hard to put down. Even when I knew what was coming because I am far too familiar with how crime fiction works, I still delighted in the way that Alternate Jake Hunter presented itself.
I enjoyed Kotodama a great deal. It's just surprising enough to keep the narrative interesting, and the colourful humour and cheerful fan service certainly help make the game a delight to play.
I knew going in to Happy Words that it would be a Scrabble clone, and I was fine with that. As a fan of Scrabble - and board games in general - I like the idea of having it on the Switch for on-the-go play. But when the AI is about as interesting as a parrot with access to a dictionary, a UI that actively wants to stop you playing the game, and a complete absence of anyone online to play with, I was left speechless, that a developer in 2019 was somehow capable of making a worse version of Scrabble than what we had on the Game Boy back in the 90's.