Miguel Moran's Reviews
All of that gameplay polish is wrapped up in a slick and stylish aesthetic that delivers some of the best fighting game music and most memorably characters in recent years
It’s an easy sell for brand new players, but I think only the most hardcore of Warriors fans will feel like the price-tag of the DLC update is worth it for Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate.
It’s tough to have to pick between sharp visuals or consistent performance, but when it comes to this kind of game, performance is key, and they nailed it with this port.
While Atelier Meruru is my favorite of the trilogy, each of the games in this pack is cute and fun enough to warrant a purchase, especially if you’re an established fan of the franchise who hasn’t gotten a chance to try the Arland trilogy out yet.
Flashpoint is a promising expansion that adds a wealth of variety to the Battletech package. It won’t occupy you for nearly as long as the base game did, but it definitely adds enough to justify dipping back in for a while.
With the jump to the Nintendo Switch, this latest version of World of Final Fantasy Maxima brings the adorable console experience into the palm of your hands once more. Unfortunately, it sacrifices some of that visual charm along the way.
Aragami: Nightfall adds a wealth of new missions and stories to Aragami that are worth checking out if you missed the game the first time around, and doubly worth checking out if you never picked it up at all.
Okami HD is a classic video game, and this Nintendo Switch port could be seen as the best way to experience it.
"...the absolute best way to experience these iconic games."
The overall level design is, unfortunately, a bit more hit and miss than the enemy work. Ashes of Ariendal thrives on putting you into tight corridors filled with enemies, and it’s rarely a good time. The overall structure of the world is branching and open-ended, which provides the player with plenty to explore, but with the environments all looking so samey with their rocks and snow, it’s hard to tell where you are sometimes.
Minoria still has gorgeous art, haunting music, and addictive exploration that is sure to keep any metroidvania fan well entertained.
Left Alive is an ambitious new development from Square Enix. Unfortunately, that ambition is squandered. The gameplay is dreadful, the enemy AI is broken, and the visuals are bland as all hell. Those issues are complemented by a boring story and a slew of audio and gameplay bugs that simply make Left Alive a failure on all fronts.
I'm truly sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I am. I had wished and wished for years that Bandai Namco would give Gundam fans outside Japan a proper way to experience some of the amazing games they've developed in the series. Today, this wish has come true, but like a cursed monkey's paw, it has come with a terrible price. New Gundam Breaker is available in Europe and America, yes, but it is also terrible. It is not fun to play, look at, or think about.
Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash is a failed cash-in on an incredibly popular manga and anime franchise, that doesn't seem to understand what makes that franchise so popular to begin with.
Touhou Mechanical Scrollery is a mess of a game. It's obvious that there's high ambition and plenty of love for the source material, but the final product is riddled with poor controls, rough visuals, and forgettable combat mechanics that make it an absolute chore to get through.
Crossover games are nothing new to Bandai Namco or Shonen Jump, so it surprises and disappoints me to see that none of the good aspects or successful mechanics of these previous games made their way into Jump Force at all. Jump Force is a visual mess, It lacks the fun and charm that a wild crossover like this should embrace, and It's just a technical mess from top to bottom. Jump Force is a huge celebration of some of the most iconic manga in history, but it fails to do any of them justice.
While the Senran Kagura series has always been rife with fanservice and hyper-sexualization, these moments were at the tail-end of addictive action gameplay, funny character interactions, and classic anime cheesiness. These things are what make up the heart and soul of Senran Kagura, and by removing those and placing full focus on the T&A virgin wish-fulfillment, Senran Kagura Reflexions is just a lifeless alternative to an afternoon with your Chrome Incognito tabs.
There's still plenty of potential left in the rogue-lite and I doubt these kinds of games will be going away anytime soon. As video games grow and evolve, we'll come to remember the select few roguelikes that truly shook up the genre and presented a polished, ultra-satisfying product. Hypergun will not be one of those games.
The Lost Child is a dull, uninspired dungeon crawler. On paper, a Lovecraft dungeon crawler with a Japanese flair could be something truly iconic and memorable. Instead of realizing that ideal, The Lost Child apes existing dungeon crawlers and throws a dozen ideas at the wall, with none of them managing to stick. Combat can be fun and the El Shaddai nods are cute, but it isn't enough to make this cosmic terror worth losing your sanity over.
It's hard to recommend The Seven Deadly Sins: Knights of Britannia to anyone but the most hardcore fans of the original series. Even then, though, I feel like a true fan would end their time with this game wishing they could have bought something better. A truncated story mode makes it impossible for newcomers to engage with any of the plot, and what little content that remains will only infuriate existing fans. It would be nice to be able to jump into Duel Mode and bypass Adventure Mode entirely, but when practically the entire cast needs to be unlocked, that really isn't an option. Long-time fans of Seven Deadly Sins might find some joy in seeing their favourite characters make the jump to a big, 3D action game, but that alone is hardly worth suffering through the rest of what this poor package has to offer.