Ollie Barder's Reviews
Overall, Demon’s Souls is still the most interesting and varied game in the Souls series. This remake not only looks lovely on the PlayStation 5 but is also a joy to play with all the tweaks and improvements that have been introduced. Now if only people would look past its supposed difficulty and see its carefully crafted intricacy instead.
Overall, this is not your typical “game”, but it is still a lot of fun one to play. Game Builder Garage is also a game that is uniquely important and necessary for people to understand how games work. While all of this may sound like a chore, it really isn’t, as Nintendo is probably the only company that could make visual scripting actually fun. That alone is a huge achievement and one I am excited as well as relieved to champion.
Overall, Skyward Sword HD is a wonderful remaster and is a joy to play. However, it requires more effort than your typical Zelda game, not least due to the new control options available, but with diligent practice the game opens up into something genuinely beautiful.
Overall, Actraiser Renaissance stays true to the original game, while building it out even further and keeping the essence of what made it so special intact. If you never played the original Actraiser, then you are definitely in for a treat as it’s not every day you don the mantle of the Lord of Light and defy the will of Tanzra.
Overall, Metroid Dread brings a narrative close to a decades long story with excellent level design and combat. It also looks great as well. So until Samus Aran is needed once again to save the Galactic Federation, I am happy to just savour the joy of another successfully completed mission.
Overall, Super Robot Wars 30 is an excellent tribute to the 30th anniversary of the series. The new mission setup is a bit daunting at first but works well on multiple playthroughs and with the new DLC. Considering the challenges the development team must have faced during the pandemic to get this game done, it’s remarkable how well it all turned out.
Overall, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is an amazing and involved modern platformer, with a surprising amount of content. While Super Mario 3D World gets a lot of attention on the Switch, Kirby and the Forgotten Land is actually the better game and pushes the platforming genre forward in a surprisingly involved way.
Overall, Andro Dunos 2 is genuinely a brilliant shmup that feels like something that was released during this genre’s 90s heyday. From the gameplay, to the graphics and the music, Andro Dunos 2 is a pixel perfect shmup.
Overall, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is arguably the best game in the series and builds upon the prior entries in both a deft and quite magnificent way.
Overall, Bayonetta 3 delivers a frantically intense approach to “stylish combat”, with a complex and multi-layered combat system that has remained remarkably robust across each game in the series. While the presentation is hugely over the top, Bayonetta 3’s real worth is in how it plays and as such comes thoroughly recommended to anyone that can keep up.
Overall, Sonic Frontiers takes the lovable blue hedgehog into new open world territory, while staying true to how Sonic should feel in a functional sense. There’s also a lot to unpack here, so don’t take on too much at once and just go with the high-speed flow.
Overall, Tears of the Kingdom is a genuine improvement and evolution over Breath of the Wild.
Overall, Unicorn Overlord is one of the best tactical role-playing games I’ve played in a good while. The tactical complexity is also carefully introduced in a fairly gentle and intuitive way. With its wonderful visuals cementing this as a definitive game in the genre and one everyone should check out.
Overall, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a very good role-playing game and one that not only is a proud addition to the Xeno series but also adds another great game to the library of the already buoyant Switch. That said, the discrepancy in performance between the docked and portable versions of the game is somewhat unfortunate and may limit your enjoyment.
Overall, this is an amazing game that works on its own and fleshes out the story and setting of Final Fantasy VII in a remarkably cogent way.
Overall though, Super Mario Wonder is an excellent 2D platformer. With excellent level design, polished visuals and mad Wonder Flower setpieces. It’s not my favorite Super Mario game in recent years, but it’s definitely worth checking out.
Overall, Kingdom Hearts III is a very involved game, both functionally and narratively, but on each count, these aspects of the game can be awkward and difficult to fully understand, especially for newcomers. If you are one of the many people that have waited patiently for this installment and the chance to stick it to Xehanort, then you will definitely enjoy yourself a great deal.
Overall, I really enjoyed playing Attack on Titan. Being able to traverse the environment and fluidly take out giants felt great. While there are some glitches and it could get repetitive for some, I can still happily recommend this to any curiously minded gamer and doubly so if you are an Attack on Titan fan.
Overall, Street Fighter V is a thoroughly excellent game and one that Capcom intend to support for a good while to come. It is, however, an intensely involved beat-em-up, as well as a work in progress, and only time will tell if the online community will be able to support players unfamiliar with the series. If you are into your beat-em-ups though, then Street Fighter V definitely has you covered for the foreseeable future.
Overall, 4.1 is a raucous and fun shooter with a different as well as more open ended approach compared to the more scripted movie wannabe type games out there.