Pierre-Yves Lanthier's Reviews
Shiness: The Lightning Kingdom is both an amazing nostalgic trip to an older generation of gaming as well as a breath of fresh air with its fast paced and solid combat mechanics. It's rare for a developer to take martial arts and really try and do the philosophy and flow of them justice in a game, and for that Shiness is a most welcome addition to the RPG library.
With a planet in danger as an evil tyrant invades with his army at the press of a button, a duo from the Zheros squad is dispatched to protect it. Taking out the initial invading forces in the span of time equal to that of writing a Twitter post, it doesn't take long for even more of the invaders to be sent off in order to finish both the job and the duo that stands between liberation and subjugation.
Regular readers of our site know what a tremendous fan I was of Dragon Quest Builders. It was Dragon Quest with the best parts of being able to build through an open concept voxel world. Portal Knights is exactly this in concept, though it shifts points of emphasis. Here we have less story, more combat, and the ability to share in the fun with others.
When Nintendo announced the Switch, Disgaea was the last thing that I ever would have figured would be coming its way. They, being Nintendo, are surprising a few of us however with some of the - and hang with me here - mature content. Disgaea can often be seen as immature to some, but that is selling the brilliant dark humor that lies beneath short. Murder, death and subjugation at the hands of the one known as Void Dark is back and it runs just as brilliantly on Nintendo's new platform as it did on Sony's current one.
Samurai Warriors 4 was a great entry into the core vein of the series. Samurai Warriors 4-II took things a step further with some slight modifications to the experience both in terms of gameplay and narrative approach as it focused more on the people than the Dynasties that they fought for. Building further on the ideas presented in 4-II, Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada finds a balance of both while also improving upon the gameplay for possibly the best Samurai Warriors entry yet.
Seasons After Fall has been out for some time on the PC and is only recently made its way over to the consoles. Being woken up by a soft female voice, you'll be taking control of "the seed" as it possesses a nearby fox in order to traverse the lengths and depths of the forest in order to perform the ritual of the seasons.
Cladun Returns is exactly what the series needed in order to make a successful comeback. Originally for the PSP, this newest entry is releasing for both the newer PlayStation handheld as well as the big box that sits in your living room. Conceptually Cladun hasn't changed all that much, as its scope still aims for small stages that are designed to be done in a minute or less. That is the core concept, at least in theory. In actuality Cladun is anything but small, with tremendous amounts of content that provide considerable replay value as you simultaneously grind for experience and tackle challenges within each stage in under the target time.
If Nox and Magicka had a baby, Mages of Mystralia would be it. Fun, easy to get into, it won’t take long before you are swinging magic like a pro as you guide Zia on her adventure, crafted by Ed Greenwood and the team from Borealys Games from Montreal.
Everyone thinks that being royalty is easy. Sit on a throne, yay or nay the missives that cross your desk. You know... be the boss and have your minions, errr advisers, take care of the rest. In some cases everyone may have been right. In other cases? Strap in for a debt-inspired adventure framed around when royalty came back to claim land that was theirs. Let's just say that there was a freaking huge bill attached to it and not paying it off is not an option!
Pixel Heroes is some good old classic dungeon crawling action. The lack of narrative context makes it a tough, but not necessarily rewarding game, but putting that aside, the endless gameplay loop is simple and clean, and there's a fun combat system to make it all worth at least a little of your time.
There comes a point in one's life where they simply have to accept the facts. Danganronpa is a prime example of this as it continues to raise the bar on each subsequent entry. Thinking that the first title had set the bar for insanity, craziness and the darkness that mankind is capable of, it wasn't long before the second game released and passed it and Another Episode that dark trend. Having only recently played the first two entries through the PS4 release of Reload:1 and Reload:2, I wasn't sure how these tales could get any darker.
Black the Fall by Sand Sailor Studios is one of the better platformers that I've played in a while. With both Nick and myself having previewed it at various stages of development I'm both confident and happy to say that the final product has been worth the seemingly long development time.
Yonder is an important title because it proves that you don't need conflict, violence or combat in order to bring about a good adventuring experience. Everything that your avatar will see or do brings about a peaceful experience as you think things through and get creative in order to move forward. Need to make a bridge? Mine some stone or cut a tree (that is perhaps the most violent thing you'll do) to make the required bridge. Don't know how? Take the long way around and look for someone to teach you!
“If what is currently available is any indication of the final product, Antihero is going to be good.” I’m happy to say that this statement from my preview stands. Having just released, Antihero simultaneously places you in the role of being a Master Thief and the leader of a guild as they take to the streets in order to both make it theirs and remove any competition that dares to get in the way.
Cardboard Utopia’s Children of Zodiarcs is the next “Final Fantasy Tactics” that you’ve been waiting for. While there may not be classes for your characters to switch between, dive into a world based on dice rolls and the luck of the draw as a group of children try to survive by stealing from the rich in order to buy enough food to survive.
Overall Cryptark is a great, albeit limited, fast paced experience. While it could have benefited from having a greater narrative scope and dialog between the characters, the action and replayability will be more than enough to keep you going for a long time.
Accel World vs Sword Art Online: Millennium Twilight is the latest in the SAO series’ original entries. Merging both SAO and Accel World, it is up to both sets of characters to save Kirito and Asuna’s beloved Yui and both groups’ respective Online Worlds.
Masquerada: Songs and Shadows in an interesting game. On one hand, we have a title that could have made a beautiful point-and-click or even a visual novel. On the other, we have the amazing adventure RPG that sees an unlikely group follow through an investigation that leads ever further down the rabbit hole.
Original Journey is an interesting beast that doesn’t show it claws until you are several hours in and then realize: it’s been several hours. Taking the best parts of a side scrolling shooter and a Roguelike, welcome to the end of an alien race’s time as they perform their last ditch effort in order to not perish and become another of the galaxy’s footnotes.
“Don’t get greedy.” Wiser words from my younger brother have never been more true. These are truly words to live by as unlike the Souls series that it takes inspiration from, Immortal Planet follows some of the tenants of the creator’s earlier title of Ronin which is a turned based platformer that involved plenty of thinking before committing to actions. How did that line of thought transfer over to an adventure hack and slash? Very well.