Traversing a beautiful and colorful world with only your wits makes for a fun-filled cringing experience as you frequently watch the demise of your hero time and time again. Illusoria sets out to recapture the feeling of classic 90's platformers and it succeeds.
This new content expands on the game quite a bit and adds both a new depth to making these characters your own, as well as more overt customization to the whim of the player.
Bohemian Killing, with its unique plot and great artistic style, is a great experience for fans of murder mystery, however, it does seem to be a niche game targeting a very specific audience.
If you are looking for a nice, light rogue-like to jump into that doesn’t feel mindless, this is the game for you.
South Park: The Fractured But Whole's DLC Bring the Crunch had the potential to be a great story and truly fun addition to an already exemplary game. It's short length, lack of content, and unnecessary boss battles to pad the run time of an already short experience feel weak compared to the insane and wild content of the base game itself.
______________________ “snooping and investigation will lead you through the story but the ending will be hit or miss
The graphics put into this game are pretty satisfying for what it is: despite the odd appearance of the ships it felt pretty crisp and enjoyable, although where the game started to lose me is its cringe-worthy dialogue.
Octahedron: Transfixed Edition is a solid and deceptively simple platformer that uses its challenging structure, pumping rhythm, and striking visuals to create a package designed to overwhelm the senses. While each part is solid, the final product wasn’t enough to hook me into playing long term.
The combat is fun if a little awkward at first, and customization options are a bit limited, but all in all, this is a game that’s fun to go a few rounds with friends and knows how to entertain players in the short term.
The Outer Worlds: Murder on Eridanos gives us an interesting and inspired tale to jump into with that loveable band of misfits you call a crew. It pays great homage to classic sci-fi and vintage serials when it comes to the main quest, but it doesn’t feel like it leans enough into that aspect for the rest of the DLC to make it stand out from its predecessor. The writing is absolutely on point and a true delight every step of the way, but the technical issues with dropped textures and exhaustively long load times kill the atmosphere the main quest is trying to set. If this could have leaned harder into the narrative it would easily stand tall over Peril on Gorgon, but instead, we are getting more of the same. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as The Outer Worlds is a sleeper hit, but this should have been something greater.
Overall, Oneiros has proven to be a satisfying and enjoyable puzzle game to unwind with. The worlds are beautifully rendered, the puzzles are complex and challenging. It almost feels like a light-hearted digital escape room. The underlying narrative Liam is trying to unravel about events in the real world is compelling, driving the story forward as we try to understand what happened. We are teased just enough to keep wanting a little more, but Liam himself is the biggest force against immersion. Every other box from the environment, to the backstory, to the puzzles themselves, lean into the notion of something serious on the horizon, but Liam seems like he couldn’t care less. That and those minor graphical hiccups are the only thing that stand in the way of an otherwise delightful first-person puzzle game. It’s perfect for a rainy day or just relaxing after a nice dinner.
The Innsmouth Case is a beautifully written, delightfully dark, and truly excellent experience on a rainy day.
Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath is an enjoyable remaster which has managed to age with grace, bringing back a classic feeling that isn’t too dated and is just as easy to play now as it was back in 2005.
Phoenix Labs has built Dauntless to be the same game for all gamers. That has been their mission from the start and in that they have absolutely succeeded.
Earth Defense Force: Iron Rain is light on narrative and heavy on fast paced action.
While these games were iconic trendsetters for their time, only a handful of them hold-up to today’s standards of playability, ingenuity, and fun. While the library size is large, so many of these games feel like reskins that it doesn’t quite reflect the broader scope of SNK’s accomplishments over the years. If you love a fast-paced challenge than this is definitely for you, but rather than being a memorable throwback like the NES or SNES Classics, this feels too bogged down in its lack of variety for what it could have been.
While I understand their aim for making this an arcade game, I find myself disheartened as it had the potential to be more with only a few tweaks.
Despite its unique concept and quirky humor, it feels like a game best used to pass the time.
Cornerstone: The Song of Tyrim is very fresh and has the nostalgic essence of some of the best platformers from the 90’s.
Spintires: MudRunner is an off-roading simulator with serious potential to be a surprise hit for fans of simulators.