Mollie L Patterson's Reviews
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony is a worthwhile new chapter in Spike Chunsoft's now-beloved series about the struggle between despair and hope, bringing some legitimate twists and shocking surprising with it. It also, however, serves as a sign that Danganronpa may be running out of steam—and that this should perhaps be the chapter where we say goodbye to that adorable psychopath Monokuma.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite looks ugly, feels kind of cheap at times, and suffers from a disappointing initial roster—but it's also a frenetically fun fighting game that got almost all of the things it needed to get right right. With (hopefully) a bit more polish and DLC helping to flesh out its character choices, this is set to become a worthy—if still flawed—new chapter in Capcom's beloved fighting franchise.
Sega took a chance in letting a longtime Sonic fan and a few smaller dev teams bring the original 16-bit iteration of their mascot back into the modern era, and the result is Sonic Mania, one of the purest and most enjoyable Sonic games we've ever been given. The question isn't if this experiment in reviving classic Sonic was successful or not—the question is what happens next.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is the action adventure genre stripped of its excess, until a smaller, more personal journey remains. While it may feel shallow and lacking for some, those wanting something other than the usual big-budget 70-hour fare will find Senua's story to be unlike anything else in recent years.
While Splatoon 2 wasn't the go-all-out sequel I would have loved to have seen following the original Wii U game, simply getting it onto the Switch and giving it a selection of new content still makes a trip back to Inkopolis more than worthwhile. Previous fans should find enough new here to reignite their interest in the series, while new players will have a whole lot of fantastic gaming to sink their cephalopod teeth into.
Final Fantasy XII released to mixed opinions when it first hit back in 2006, and even today, fans will still argue over where it deserves to land on a listing of the best chapters of the franchise. It received those opinions because it was a bold, daring, and different chapter of a series that up-ended our expectations for what Final Fantasy should be—and all these years later, those elements are part of the reason why I still think it's one of the best entries we've ever received.
Nex Machina is another fantastic arcade-inspired retro homage from the folks at Housemarque. I think it may be the most stressful of the trio of such releases from the studio so far, but that'll give more hardcore players an added push to get good and improve their scores. Lesser-skilled players, however, may feel even more lost among the madness.
I walked away from Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers surprised at how much fun I could still find in the game, even when playing on the less-than-adequate controls the Switch offers by default. Still, that enjoyment doesn't change the fact that Capcom was off the mark on this release—we either should have received the game as a cheaper digital download, or as a more expansive collection.
Puyo Puyo Tetris seemed like an unexpected crossover when it first hit Japan in 2014, and it still does now that it's come to the West. And yet, the idea has come together wonderfully, providing a release that has a lot to offer for fans of either game or simply the puzzle genre in general.
1989's Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap could have felt way out of its league here in 2017, but the impressive job that LizardCube has done updating it for our modern era has really given it a second life. It's a great retro-meets-future gaming experience marred occasionally by elements that just don't work as well all these years later.
It's hard not to wish that Persona 5 had taken more influence from Catherine than it did, but as the culmination of the past ten years of the Persona series, it still stands as one of the best Japanese RPGs to exist—and a visual masterpiece whose style has no equal.
While Nier: Automata at times feels unpolished or under-developed, when taken as an entire experience, it's a fantastic journey of a group of androids struggling to live up to their purpose in life. Here, unconventional narrative design meets tightly-developed combat gameplay, and that turns out to be one heck of a combination.
You'll go into Team Ninja's latest project thinking it's Dark Souls with samurais and ninjas, but come out knowing it to be its own unique experience. Nioh is an enthralling adventure, filled with great combat, characters, monsters, and locations, and only really stumbles when it tries to be a little too much like other games out there.
While the original Gravity Rush pushed the Vita to its limited, Gravity Rush 2 is unleashed upon the far more powerful PlayStation 4, giving us a game that’s as big in scope and substance as the concept designs its world and characters were born from. Among Sony’s efforts to give their console a wide array of more niche experiences, this gravity-controlling Kat is Queen.
Western Vocaloid fans—and the Project DIVA franchise itself—have now received the very best that Sega’s music gaming efforts have produced up until this point. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone is a stellar rhythm game, offering fantastic gameplay supported by a massive list of music.
Final Fantasy XV is nowhere close to the game that we should have received after 10 years of waiting—but it also isn't anywhere close to the trainwreck that it easily could have been. While the storytelling is a mess and the game feels incomplete far too often, there's enough to love here—from combat, to exploration, to the four Japanese pretty boys that make up your main party—to make FFXV a road trip worth going on.
I don’t know exactly how the idea to create World of Final Fantasy came about in the halls of Square Enix, but it’s a game that could have been so much better had it been given different focus. As it is, it’s a relatively enjoyable RPG that offers up some legitimately enjoyable moments while simultaneously causing you to sit in bewilderment at what you’re experiencing.
A weird, niche, visually out-of-date little game from a Japanese team you’ve probably never heard of became one of the best horror games to be released in America in years back in 2013. Now, it’s being given new life on the 3DS, and the changes it’s received make for a better experience—mostly.
Sadly, Dragon Quest Builders isn’t quite the Dragon Quest meets Minecraft mash-up that I was really hoping for. What it does, however, is offer an engrossing adventure that proves giving a world-building engine some storyline, characters, and proper combat goes a long way.
While Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse could easily have been a lazy reuse of content from its predecessor slapped together to make a quick buck, a different perspective on the story, a host of improvements, and the return of Shin Megami Tensei IV’s quality gameplay come together for a pseudo-sequel that’s a worthy experience.