Pierre-Yves Lanthier's Reviews
So overall, while Oceanhorn 2: Knights of a Lost Realm may not live up to its predecessor of Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas, it still offers up a fun time if you can get past some of the limitations. The writing is decent, the characters have personality and the world is gorgeous to look at. The only thing that it really needs is some mechanical refinement and it’ll be that much better. All that said, I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing an Oceanhorn 3 down the line.
So unfortunately, there is a lot here that can't be overlooked. Even with version 1.02 having fixed some issues that were much more prominent in version 1.00, between some of the design decisions and just the sheer amount of crashes that I've had post launch date on two separate XB1 units... I really wanted to love Tears of Avia being a huge SRPG fan, but unfortunately between the issues and just the overall drop after the introduction, I unfortunately couldn't.
Overall though, and without too many other spoilers, I enjoyed, laughed, cried, and damn near yelled at the TV over the course of sixty plus hours for the normal ending before even starting to head back for the true ending and conclusion to Class VII’s adventures as we await what comes up next in The Legend of Heroes: Hajimari no Kiseki which released this year in Japan.
So overall, Teyon and Nacon’s Monster Truck Championship is a lot of fun. The controls make it rather easy to get into and with how short the championships are, it’s easy to play a few in between a variety of scenarios such as before or after dinner or while waiting for laundry to be done. The boring adult stuff that we all have to take care of. Want to play longer than that though? There’s no shortage of challenges both online against other players or offline against the CPU putting this probably into my surprise hit of the year for CGR’s 2020 Games of the Year!
So overall, while Torchlight III doesn’t surpass its predecessors or do anything revolutionary* for the genre, it was a fun return to the ember filled world. With loads of enemies, challenges and class combinations in both single and multiplayer, if you’ve been needing a Hack & Slash fix, Torchlight III will have you covered. *Victor Vran let you jump and wall jump… still blown away by that.
So overall, while Darksburg has come a long way from its original version, the final version feels a bit empty once you’ve finished it once or twice. I do hope to see more content and new stages in order to give players more to do. Having kept the original version through a Legacy Mode is great, but it’s going to need more if it plans to be around for a while.
Otherwise, if you’ve been looking for a new Tennis game to challenge yourselves and have already been through Big Ant Studios’ AO Tennis 2, Tennis World Tour 2 is a great place to look with hours of gameplay at the ready between the various modes and your potential golden career.
So overall, Necromunda: Underhive Wars will not be for everyone. The price of entry is high and the cost may be too much for budding strategists while veterans should find plenty to challenge them through the three modes. Otherwise? The hardcore strategy and the additon of a 1v1 initiative factor really changes the playing field making a lot of well known and used turned based strategies useless and this the perfect ground to test your mettle if everything else has been seeming too easy for you.
While it may act as a prequel to the original, Vaporum: Lockdown is an excellent return to the Arx Vaporum tower. Capitalizing on the features of the original while also making some minor adjustments to how you interact with the environment, this was hard to put down as I tried my best to help Ellie on her journey to escape this scientific wonder turned deathtrap.
So overall, while Ary and the Secret of Seasons does need some patches to fix some rather large issues on the Switch, the adventure itself is light and fun even if it doesn't really do anything new. This isn’t exactly a bad thing as what it sets out to do it does well, but, until it gets patched be warned that you may have to do the same thing a few times over.
So overall, Gleamlight is a good testing ground for a different kind of adventure but unfortunately some of its more unique ideas are what does it in. Gorgeous to look at, there’s simply no challenge to the combat and the platforming never really becomes complex enough to “make you sweat”. Adding in that the puzzle solving is extremely basic and I’m glad that it only took a few hours to go through because it all started to feel rather repetitive. That said, I’m hoping to see more in the vein of Gleamlight down the line with perhaps more refined features and a harder difficulty such as two hits and you’re out which would increase the stress of your decisions and the difficulty dramatically.
So overall, while Nexomon: Extinction may not be perfect, it’s still one of the better experiences that I’ve had in a while when it comes to the monsters or creature capturing style. With well done retro inspired visuals from the GBA era of RPGs, over the top and hilarious dialog and a solid base for combat, there’s plenty to love and with the price tag attached to it? If you love the style it would be ridiculous to pass up on it.
So while New Super Lucky’s Tale doesn’t do anything “new” and could be viewed as playing it safe, what it does it does well. Solid platforming experiences in 2, 2.5 and 3D environments alongside an adorable saturday morning cartoon script and it was easy to sink hours into it regardless of the platform and if you are a trophy or achievement hunter as there’s plenty to unlock!
So overall, Windbound is a lighter survival experience that I would recommend if you’re looking for a more relaxing experience. Regardless of the modes, there’s never anything that will outright destroy your rafts or kill you because you landed on its island. Taken at your own pace, this is perfect for those quiet Sunday afternoons where you have nothing planned and simply want to listen to the sounds of the waves or some light ambient music.
So while Ogre Tale is a much newer title, it felt like a few steps back when it came to the much shorter gameplay levels and challenges. While a bit of balancing will help from Normal being too easy and Hard being ridiculous when it comes to boss fights, I just hope that the potential sequel that is foreshadowed could bring back a more 3D element to combat and skill trees instead of having to rely solely on weapons and hope that they have weapon slots.
Now while I wouldn’t say that Yakuza Kiwami is a perfect experience, it’s damned fun and I can see where other brawlers got their inspiration over the years. With a solid story, great mechanics and characters that you actually care about, I regret having taken this long to get into the craziness of Kamurocho with Kazuma Kiryu.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 wasn’t just a continuation to the first, but a proper successor to the first. Continuing the storyline from where the first left off to implementing a ton of new features and quality of life improvements, and I look forward to seeing The Yakuza Collection (3-4-5) and Yakuza 6 release on the XB1 to continue Kiryu’s tale.
Cold Symmetry have nailed it. Mortal Shell is an amazing, brutally hard, rewarding, frustrating, thrill ride that the genre has needed from development teams outside of From Software. With a genre that everyone has been gravitating to, it’s not an easy one to pull off especially on the first try and that’s what was done here. Out of the box and having made the style work in a different manner may just change the game moving forward while having also brought back the thrill of exploration and the fear of what’s behind the next corner.
So overall, Hellpoint has some good ideas and it has a great framework in place. Unfortunately, even with the good ideas and the framework it feels a bit bland as even with the inclusion of being able to jump and it being part of the exploration, the areas held no mystery of threats of death by those that live within them like Bloodborne, Demons or Dark Souls or the The Surge. That said, the devs are still working on this and I’m hopeful that some of these issues get addressed and I would be glad to try it again down the line and also hope for a sequel or new project with the ideas that they’ve put in place here.
So overall, this will NOT be for everyone. It’s well done, it’s well designed both graphically and audibly, but with the subjects that it touches, it could very much be too much for a person to handle especially if they’ve been in that sort of situation before. To counter this, what the Milky Way Prince: The Vampire Star does is both list exactly what it’s about in the description as well as give you a very upfront disclaimer before even hitting the main title screen. While the first time through was impactful, I just wish that the subsequent playthroughs carried the same weight.