Evan Norris's Reviews
The three new characters — Estel, Max, and Shiva — enhance an already stacked roster, and the endless Survival mode adds considerable longevity to the core experience, as long as you don't mind the repetitive, grindy gameplay loop.
A fine remake, with new mechanics, flashier gameplay, reimagined visuals, and reworked sound. As a bonus, it includes a score attack mode, a port of the 1993 X68000 version of Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams, and online leaderboards.
Ender Lilies is one of the finest games of the year. Part Metroidvania and part Soulslike, it manages to deliver in all phases: story, world-building, mechanics, gameplay, value, art, and music.
Is Curved Space more The Sixth Sense (a drum-tight, show-stopping thriller), or closer to The Happening (a meandering jumble of half-finished ideas)? The answer lies somewhere in the middle.
The biggest problem is that there simply isn't enough of it, due to a short running time. Let's hope this is only the first of Goose's intergalactic adventures.
Sludge Life is paradoxical. As a video game it's short, shallow, and often rudderless. As an artistic experiment, however, it's powerful, expressive, and bold.
Nishizawa and company could have updated a few old-school level designs and mechanics to improve the experience, but chose instead to preserve the identity of the original. The result is a remake that faithfully sticks to the established formula, warts and all.
Despite the passionate performance of its creator, Aluna isn't quite ready to compete with the better action-RPGs out there.
More R-Type is never a bad thing, even if it comes in a scrappy package like R-Type Final 2.
An audacious and ambitious game that ranks among the best of the series, even if it's a touch inharmonious.