Life is Strange: True Colors presents a great adventure in this beloved series with significant choices and player-driven interactions. The result is a beautiful story of empathy and new beginnings where players have the freedom to shape the narrative the way they want and deal with the consequences along the way. The character animations and voiced dialogue only elevate it to new levels of quality, but long loading times and strange responses can hurt the pacing tremendously.
F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch is a gorgeous Metroidvania that tells a much better story than any anthropomorphic narrative has a right to tell. It’s emotional and engaging during each scene brought together with challenging moments of action and puzzle-platforming. This game respects your time, but some moments can drag on due to limited fast travel and some confusing objectives. Who cares though, you’re a rabbit with a robotic fist attached to your back; how cool is that!?
Kitaria Fables is a laid-back experience of item collecting and farming, all brought together by a decent narrative and a responsive action system. Pace yourself, though, because getting the most of this adventure requires it. However, the artificial padding on the gameplay found in the limited fast travel, lack of universal storage, slow-moving characters, and much more causes some confusion and endless backtracking. This won’t replace your love for Rune Factory, but it’ll definitely supplement your craving for a charming adventure.
Aliens: Fireteam Elite is extremely fun to play once through with your friends, but when you’re expected to play the same stages multiple times, the gameplay wains on the player. It becomes more tedious than anything because the stages themselves just aren’t that interesting. Playing higher difficulties provides more challenge to your crew, but it gets repetitive. You’re expected to want to do this for more gun customization, but that’s barely interesting. Regardless, I have to admit, shooting down waves of aliens with friends sure is entertaining.
Hoa doesn’t want to be a challenging, head-scratching puzzle adventure, and that’s okay. What it provides a gorgeously designed experience with a brilliantly executed soundtrack. The gameplay never hinders the player’s progression through this beautiful world made even more immersive due to its beautiful sound design. It’s easy to lose yourself in moments of gameplay as everything comes together for a wholesome experience.
Tormented Souls knows what it wants to be during each moment of gameplay, and that’s shown in its puzzles and deadly enemies. The developers prove they are fans of the genre as the game feels like it was created to even test their skills. The lack of direction works for what they are going for, but some elements just feel like they unnecessarily pad on the game’s runtime. Still, this game is gorgeous with genuine moments of survival horror. Caroline has what it takes to become a recognizable face in this beloved genre.
Madden NFL 22 is meant to deliver a simulated and engaging experience to fans of football. Its animations are great, and you’ll likely only gravitate to one mode that you prefer over the others, but it all acts as a way for fans to connect, and sometimes a rare glitch won’t impact that. There’s a lot of demand for some growth of the series, and this game has a long way to go, it seems, but seeing my dad pick up a gaming controller for the first time in years and can’t be overlooked.
Yuoni doesn’t break new grounds in the first-person horror genre, but it offers an interesting premise of folklore that will definitely have you engaged for its short runtime. Its sound design is at the forefront of its jump scares, which is the crux of the most heart-racing moments. Still, repetitive level design, confusing direction, and limited exploration elements dampen the overall experience.
Greak: Memories of Azure has a gorgeous presentation and world to discover, but the added features, although unique, require a specific type of adventure fan to enjoy. Things just become overly confusing, and my muscle memory never seemed to adapt to the constant demand for accessing the menu and switching between characters. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great game, but some elements are largely unnecessary.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: The Siege of Paris is an awesome expansion featuring gorgeous environments to explore and dozens of ways to progress through the campaign. There’s around 15 hours of content to dive into, packed with choice-driven events and distracting treasures. The added infiltration missions make the expansion feel like a true Assassin’s Creed title, but that also includes the limited enemy AI and random glitches fans of the series are used to by now.
Jupiter Hell doesn’t need the word Doom in the title to make an impact, but it’s commendable how well it presents DRL through modern design. At its heart, it’s a turn-based dungeon-crawler RPG, but that doesn’t calm my nerves when I’m blasting through a hallway of enemies from around the corner with more approaching from behind. This game’s launch version is serviceable, but the lack of enemy variety will leave your first hours of gameplay feeling repetitive in some areas. Still, it’s clear that there’s more on the way for this standout roguelike experience, and I’m all here for it.
Blaster Master Zero 3 is the perfect way to cap off this series for long-time fans. It’s highly encouraged that you play the previous titles, given that the challenge here is significantly higher than the previous entries. This game will test your 2D action skills to the fullest with unique upgrades for both Jason and G-Sophia SV through difficult platforming sections, dungeons, and bosses. However, as a reward, you’re treated to an amazing finale of an over-the-top narrative about a man named Jason who followed a frog named Fred into a portal.
Unbound: Worlds Apart has the appearance of a familiar indie platformer. However, there’s an exceptionally charming and memorable narrative here that guides the adventure through its many challenging areas. As beautiful as this game is, a high amount of skill is needed to progress, so thankfully, there are enough checkpoints to push yourself until you get it right.
Fuga: Melodies of Steel is a brilliant RPG adventure that relies heavily on its cast. Every moment of gameplay is emotionally charged with added choices that weigh on the player’s experience and alter the conclusion. The puzzle-esque battle system is addictive but introduces repetitive scenarios and random difficulty spikes depending on your actions. However, this beautiful story deserves to be experienced by all.
Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed needs to played without any distractions from other games because the second you put it down, you may never care to return to it. Its lack of quality-of-life features solidifies it as a relic of the past, but its writing and characters make it out to be something that fits right in with your group of otaku friends. It’s not an easy game to get through, but its charm is enough to want a true sequel.
Cris Tales is a fantasy adventure akin to a fairy tale in both narrative and setting. It’s an amazing experience accompanied by memorable characters, an addictive battle system, and wonderful discoveries. Every moment of the gameplay pushes the RPG to new heights, which is only hindered by lengthy load times and lack of direction for some missions. However, if you’re looking for a callback to retro RPGs, this is one game you absolutely need to play.
Sniper Elite VR is an immersive FPS VR experience that combines arcade mission types with a simulation level of interactivity. Each mission objective varies, and while the sniper class steals the show, there’s a large variety of weapon types that each feels comfortable and fun to use. Item interaction and limited enemy AI can cause frustration, but after playing, I don’t think I can play this series any other way.
Scarlet Nexus could have easily become a new IP used to test a few systems as the studio focuses on larger projects. However, there’s an awesome battle system here that evolves throughout the entire campaign. Each fight has a brilliant rhythm to it as you take advantage of enemy weaknesses and use the environments to your advantage. The team introduces a large cast of characters but still manages to provide insight into their goals to make it worth seeing through to the end. Sadly, not everything works, but you might forget about floaty controls and convoluted narrative as you ride atop a bus into the battlefield.
Legend of Mana is all about the memories you make from the moment you start playing to the credits. Every new area created is a new adventure waiting, and every character met provides a unique perspective on storytelling. Its non-linearity allows it to stand out in the series, but it comes at the expense of a few confusing quest lines. The remastered backgrounds, improved loading and attack animations, and additional options make it such a charming RPG to play over and over.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart ushers in a new generation of adventure games headed by this charming heroic duo. Sadly, Rivet is a strong setpiece in the narrative but doesn’t differentiate enough in combat. Still, this doesn’t affect the sheer amount of fun you’ll be having during every moment of gameplay. There is so much packed in this adventure complemented by competent level design, amazing weapons, and strong platforming. This is Ratchet & Clank for the new generation, and I hope it’s not too long before we see them again.