All in all, my conclusion was pretty simple: if it’s been a few years since you played the original Doom — or perhaps you’ve never played it if you’re a young ‘un — then I highly, highly recommend you take a bit of time to enjoy it today. It’s a game that holds up extraordinarily well even after 30 years — and a first-person shooter that I’d still gladly take in favour of a significant number of today’s offerings.
All in all, I’d probably say that Xenon Valkyrie likely has a somewhat narrower audience than Riddled Corpses as a result — though it’s also worth noting that its excellent pixel art and chiptunes are just as appealing as its spiritual precursor. It really is an absolutely beautiful game to look at and listen to — and if that’s the sort of thing you like in your games, then you might not mind that it puts up one hell of a fight!
It’s safe to say that while Hyperdimension Neptunia U: Action Unleashed may not be the very best Neptunia has to offer, it was nonetheless an important entry in the series that acted as the jumping-off point for some of the franchise’s better installments in more recent years. And if nothing else, it deserves our respect for that!
Donut Dodo blends a lot of influences from classic ’80s games. You’ll spot elements of Pac-Man, the aforementioned Bomb Jack, BurgerTime, Bubble Bobble, Donkey Kong and numerous others as you play — but the way in which all these parts are blended together gives the whole game a distinctive feel rather than feeling like a quick and dirty ripoff of any of them. It’s an extraordinarily well-designed game, and while it certainly has the authentic early ’80s arcade game difficulty down to a fine art, it’s a game you’ll find yourself returning to time and time again.
All in all, Riddled Corpses EX is a great game. It’s a few years old at this point, but playing it today, it feels no less fresh than when it first appeared back in 2018. If you’re yet to enjoy the wonderful games of Diabolical Mind for yourself, this is an ideal place to jump in. And if you have a willing couch co-op partner willing to play along with you, be sure to rope them in — the simultaneous two-player mode is a real treat.
Flaws aside, Pretty Girls Tile Match is a solid addition to this ever-growing lineup of sexy casual games. As ever, it combines attractive character art (as usual, drawn from Zoo’s back catalogue of erotic visual novels), catchy music and straightforward mechanics to produce something that is simply fun to play, and ideal for those times when you don’t want to bother your brain too much. Plus I expect we’ll see a physical release with bare nip-nips at some point in the not-too-distant future, so look forward to that!
All in all, 9th Dawn III is a truly great game that is all the more remarkable an achievement for being mostly the work of a single developer. Well, I’ll add the caveat that these days it’s a remarkable achievement, anyway; back in the days of the original Ultima series — that which 9th Dawn III is heavily inspired by — games like this were made by teams of one or two all the time!
It should be abundantly clear by this point that the idea of risk versus reward is baked right in to the very structure of Mary Skelter 2, and this is entirely appropriate given the somewhat “Wonderland”-esque tendencies in parts of the game’s aesthetic. It’s a game that is designed to have a constant element of unpredictability and pressing your luck — and the result is one of the most compelling, consistently interesting dungeon crawlers in existence.
But if you’re willing to engage with the game as intended — by gradually developing your skills over time, and being rewarded by watching your scores climb the leaderboards day by day — then this is an absolutely wonderful game to add to your collection. Bonus points if you have a Flip Grip for Nintendo Switch and can enjoy it as the dark Gods intended, in vertical “tate” mode.
All in all, I really enjoyed Zero Time Dilemma. It feels like a fitting conclusion to the series, and gives a number of characters a pleasing amount of closure — even if it is in alternative timelines in some cases! It also features some of the series’ most truly horrifying bad endings, so if you enjoy that sort of thing you’ll have a good time. And, of course, most importantly, if you enjoy Uchikoshi playing with narrative conventions and structure, you’ll definitely have a blast here.
I’d say it’s a shame we haven’t seen more games like this from this dream team — but at the time of writing, the follow-up to stablemate Fairy Fencer F, known as Fairy Fencer F: Refrain Chord, is on the way, and it very much looks like a spiritual successor to Hyperdevotion Noire. So if you, like me, have been waiting nearly ten years for a new Hyperdevotion Noire… well, this isn’t quite it, but it certainly looks like a more than adequate substitute!
It’s clear to me that, just six hours in, I’ve barely scratched the surface of what Mary Skelter 2 has to offer, but it’s already abundantly obvious why this is such a well-regarded series — and that rare example of a Compile Heart game that even the company’s most ardent haters have to admit is actually very good indeed. I’m looking forward to diving further in — and if you’re yet to take the plunge yourself, I highly recommend casting aside any feelings of intimidation you might feel and just getting started!
As you might expect, the idea of jumping one’s consciousness through time and reliving events with different possible outcomes does get a little convoluted by the end of proceedings — but it does make consistent internal sense according to the logic established by the story. It also sets up the next game, Zero Time Dilemma, very nicely indeed — though interestingly at the time Virtue’s Last Reward was originally released, a third and final installment in the Zero Escape series looked like it might not happen.
Pretty Girls Breakers Plus provides exactly what I’ve come to expect from the series: solid gameplay, good presentation, excellent music and a surprising amount of longevity. While superficially similar to its predecessor, its improvements make a major difference, making it a worthwhile investment even if you played the original to death. And if you’re new to the wonderful world of Pretty Girls? This is as good a place to start as any!
It’s a refreshingly light-hearted experience, but one with plenty of depth to enjoy over the long term — particularly if you can either bring some friends along to play it in local multiplayer, or can recruit some buddies to play online. It absolutely deserves to be in everyone’s Switch library — so if you’re yet to enjoy it for yourself, pick it up this weekend and have a chaotic fun time defending the righteous princess from the totally bodacious dudes who seek to cause havoc in the kingdom.
For now, Grim Guardians: Demon Purge comes highly recommended. It may be the best Castlevania in years at heart, but it’s also unmistakably its own distinct thing, too, rather than simply being a slavish recreation of a Konami classic. Its solid gameplay, well-crafted mechanics and interesting structure all show that there’s still very much a place for classic 2D side-scrolling action in today’s video game market, and I sincerely hope it ends up a big success.
It’s generally better to have more options than fewer, particularly if there’s no fixed “best” way to enjoy the game. And Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line sets an exceptionally high standard in that regard. If, indeed, this is the last entry in the series, Square Enix have certainly found a means of letting it go out with a bang.
So regardless of whether or not you’re a Hololive fan — you certainly don’t need to be — I urge you to check out HoloCure if you haven’t already. It’s sure to become your new addiction.
That’s a bold creative statement, and one I very much respect from a passion project like this. Sure, certain elements of Violet Wisteria may cause some folks to bounce off the game — or even steer clear of it in the first place — but for those who are on board with what it has to offer, it’s a very good game that offers a stiff challenge and a decent amount of longevity.
Ultimately it doesn’t matter too much, but for a game that clearly wants to push the boundaries of erotic content on Switch, it seems peculiar that its unlockable content is so flaccid in comparison to the main event. Still, this aside, Shuttlecock-H is a great, genuinely enjoyable game. The gameplay is fun, the art is nice, the erotic animations are excellent and the soundtrack is an absolute banger. So I call that a win.