Gabs Tanner's Reviews
Xenoblade Chronicles X is an RPG that has players exploring the beautiful world of Mira, while helping the human race to survive on their new homeland. The story is slow to get going, but the game is packed full of side-quests and missions, meaning players will always find something to do. Meanwhile, the combat has an impressive amount of customisation, with a choice of weapons, skills, and classes, that allows the player to create fighting style tactics to suit their preferred play style.
Persona 5 smoothly surpasses previous entries in the franchise with its stylish coat of paint and emotive storytelling.
Psycho-Pass: Mandatory Happiness is a visual novel that kept me interested through its characters, world, and story, while constantly engaged by the player choices impacting on the plot. There’s a bit of information overload at times if you haven’t seen the anime, but that shouldn’t be enough to put anyone off.
Okhlos is organised chaos at its best. The challenge level may provide moments of frustration, leading to multiple viewings of initial areas, but it’s easy to lose hours of time from the determination to send every God back to Olympus, where they belong.
Steins;Gate 0 easily lives up to the emotive journey of the original, delivering a darker half of the story that fans didn’t know they needed.
Tales from the Borderlands – Episode Five: The Vault of the Traveler is a journey packed with action, laughter, and tears. Emotions are high, as players and characters alike question whether or not they made the right choices. Telltale has certainly created a powerful conclusion to the episodic series that successfully ties up all the loose ends.
Tales from the Borderlands – Episode Three: Catch a Ride builds upon the set-up from the previous episodes and delivers a more intense atmosphere and deeper story development. Players who dislike quick-time events may get frustrated at times, but the majority give plenty of reaction time and serve to both hold attention and up the action.
Freedom Planet is a fantastic fast platformer with lots of content. The three different playable characters all have different styles and levels, encouraging replayability, while the levels themselves include multiple pathways and hidden collectables. Any negatives are small, and easily forgotten about.
Tales from the Borderlands – Episode One: Zer0 Sum does a brilliant job of drawing the player into the world of Pandora. Both fans of the franchise, and players being introduced for the first time, will appreciate the engaging characters and their story.
Prison Architect takes a while to get the hang of, but once the basics have been mastered, it offers multiple options for experimentation in its impressive sandbox. The Campaign and Escape modes give a good change of pace, while the quirky art-style and dark undertones grab the player's attention.
Adventures of Pip is a charming platformer, with an amusing story and world born from the game's central mechanic. The platforming and puzzles increase in difficulty with each level, while adding new challenges to keep the gameplay fresh. Some aspects of the platforming require a lot of precision, but this encourages players to improve their skills.
Tales from the Borderlands – Episode Two: Atlas Mugged continues where the first episode left off, with a return of the fantastic humour and intriguing story line. There is a focus on conversation between characters over action, meaning that there is little plot progression, but the use of humour combined with an investment in the characters makes playing the game worthwhile.
Gunman Clive HD Collection includes both Gunman Clive games. The art style may put some players off, and the game is very short, but the level design is both challenging and fun, with some huge bosses thrown in for good measure.
Mushihimesama may be on the short size with only five levels, but packs in a range of difficulty modes to make up for it. It is a fun game, which makes players feel over-powered while attempting to dodge beautiful and well-designed bullet patterns.
While the mystery and intrigue can only be obtained during the first play-through, Her Story makes use of a simplistic concept combined with FMV to create a personal and rich atmosphere.
Deathsmiles manages to hit the perfect difficulty level so that both newcomers and old hats at the genre will find the challenge level they desire. The bullet patterns, crazy bosses, and badass protagonists all combine to create a fun experience, even if a run of the campaign can be completed in half an hour.
Return to PopoloCrois is a charming RPG with a cute world, and characters, that players will find themselves getting attached to. While the basic combat is enjoyable, it can become repetitive if the random encounter rate is set too high. That being said, it is possible to break from the main quest at any point to go farming, befriend the local ladies, or complete side quests, that all work towards keeping the game fresh.
Anarcute will put you in a good mood through its happy art design and music. The strategy gameplay is simple, but still fun, while providing a decent difficulty curve along the way.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel is smothered in detail which creates a living, breathing world at the cost of some story and character development.
Overfall successfully mixes some unlikely genres to create a fulfilling experience, both through its brilliantly written dialogue and stimulating tactical combat.