Gabs Tanner's Reviews
Exist Archive: The Other Side of the Sky has a solid foundation in its art style, characters, and combat. It’s just a shame that a lack in variation holds it back from being something truly engaging.
Blade Arcus from Shining: Battle Arena has beautiful art design and a number of difficulty options, but the limited fighting styles result in a lack of any real depth.
Crush Your Enemies hides a surprising strategical depth behind its crude humour. Whilst simple, it provides just enough challenge through the fast pacing to keep you engaged until everything in your path has been destroyed.
Highway Blossoms may not bring anything new to the table through its story, but it gets you emotionally involved through the cute, and relatable characters.
RefRain -prism memories- may lack a few details, but it more than makes up for them with the variation between playable characters and a satisfying attack system.
Ray Gigant follows a lot of the RPG dungeon crawler tropes, while changing up the protagonists and enemies just often enough to keep things from getting boring. It’s not a challenge by any means, taking the focus away from grinding, and instead onto sitting back and enjoying the journey.
Leap of Fate is a rogue-lite title that brings together a lot of separate elements to create a very fun experience.
Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures is a 2D platformer with a retro game style. The title tries really hard to capture the difficulty of old NES games, as well as the character of the Angry Video Game Nerd. While the graphics, music, and controls are all fantastic, it falls a little short in the level design, story, and humour.
World of Warships is a game that most players will be able to pick up and play due to the simple controls. Fans of the franchise are sure to have fun with the levels of strategy and assortment of ships to switch between, but there possibly isn't enough to entertain players with no real interest in naval warfare.
Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power is a puzzle platformer with stunning 3D environments. Players will enjoy finding the solutions to puzzles by switching between the three playable protagonists, but may find frustration with the necessity to find most of the collectables in order to progress.
The Park is a single player experience good for a short game with lots of tension. There is a minimal amount of actual horror or action, with the focus instead being on a psychological journey for the protagonist, while surrounding the player in a tense situation and environment.
The art style and music in Read Only Memories does a great job of drawing the player into the game. However, too much attention is centered on the complex lore of the cybernetic future world, so characters spend more time explaining the features and practices that are available than furthering the plot.
Project Zero: Maiden of Black Water keeps the essence of previous titles in the franchise with its setting, story, art style and gameplay, while creating fantastic atmosphere and tension. However, the combat can be fiddly, while the necessity to traverse the same location multiple times, as well as the repeated information in the story text, may leave some players with a lacklustre experience.
Hard West is a strategy game that enjoys exploring its Wild West theme. There are strategy elements both in the RPG story segments, as well as the turn-based combat, which keeps the player invested. Unfortunately, too much time is spent outside of the gun-fights, and the RPG elements quickly get repetitive, meaning they end up being more filler than fun.
Blood Bowl 2 features a lot of customisation, with a focus on the player building the perfect team for their gameplay strategy. There is a heavy 'luck of the dice' element, which may frustrate some players, but serves to add to the board-game feel that the game is emulating.
Hero and Daughter+ utilises an interesting core mechanic that makes for a refreshing RPG. Much of the combat and art style is straight from RPG Maker, which may put off a lot of players. However, the dialogue is full of humour, and there are plenty of optional side missions to keep things interesting, making the overall gameplay an engaging experience.
Project X Zone 2's overall plot is pretty basic, but the focus is clearly meant to be on the numerous gaming characters, and their humorous banter with each other. The mixture of RPG combined with strategy and fighting in the combat gives the game a unique feel, even if the formula does get a bit repetitive at times.
Tales from the Borderlands – Episode Four: Escape Plan Bravo may disappoint some players with its lack of in-depth story and character development. However, the episode makes up for any faults with the constant character banter and some truly emotional moments.
This remastered version of Mr. Driller DrillLand is just a fresh coat of paint, but frankly, that's all it needed.
The epitome of good things coming in small packages, Minecraft Dungeons is simple, wholesome fun.