The story here is intriguing and occasionally shocking, but it isn’t particularly affecting. I’m sure this story would’ve hit me more had Schmied spent more time developing the world and the characters, giving the audience a better chance to connect with them.
Mega Mix will likely be a fun entry for those newer to the series, but for veterans, it really doesn’t have much to offer. Stick to Future Tone instead.
Overall, Infinite: Beyond the Mind is a fairly straight-forward action platformer that could have been more enjoyable, despite its wonky difficulty curve, if key parts of the platforming engine actually worked reliably. When I wasn’t struggling with jumping walls or climbing ladders, I was having a decent time playing through.
The story falls absolutely flat, as it can’t be carried by core characters that receive little development and secondaries that I couldn’t bring myself to care about. The gameplay is exceedingly dull, somehow finding itself in a horrifying fusion of too vague and too specific. The visuals, despite the entire game taking place in a singular environment, are underbaked and unattractive.
Overall, Final Fantasy VII Remake is a stunning game and absolutely worth your time, so long as you go into it with an open mind and don’t expect it to stubbornly adhere to a nearly 25-year-old tale. I, for one, am rabidly excited to see where future entries will take this story.
Overall I feel it was worth the experience, and I’m looking forward to replaying the game in the near future. If you’re down with often crass humor and underground music, Freedom Finger is a game that should be on your radar.
Overall, Half Past Fate is a bit of a mixed bag that hits more than it misses. Whilst the individual stories here are of varying levels of quality, the overall plot and writing was still enjoyable enough to carry me through to the end.
These presentation issues definitely temper my excitement for what is easily one of the more accessible fighting games I’ve had the opportunity to play. Then again, that feeling of accessibility likely comes from the fact that I’ve mostly focused on the single-player mode here – a mode that everyone, not just fighting gamers, can enjoy.
Despite some weird framerate issues during cutscenes in both games, Bayonetta and Vanquish are both well worth your time (although I’d personally lean toward Bayonetta more if I was forced to pick between the two). If you don’t mind the occasional difficulty spike, and especially if you’ve never played either title before, this dual-pack release is definitely worth picking up.
The problem is, everything here has been done before, and better. It does feel like Toge Productions wanted to craft a homage to Valhalla, but doing so puts them right up against a cult classic. I truly think that they should have done more to differentiate themselves, to stand out more in this burgeoning genre. I do believe that Coffee Talk is a game worth playing, but it doesn’t quite live up to the shadow cast over it.
At $14.99 it’s priced about right (although it’s a bit short at three hours to complete), and the game isn’t offensive, it’s just that there’s so much better available now in virtual reality, and things in Eclipse that would have been impressive at the time are fairly standard now.
Orangeblood is a game of half measures. It feels like it’s afraid of taking its bold style all the way, and the game suffers for it. While it did catch my attention at PAX West last year, actually sitting down with the full release was a disappointing experience.
Despite those issues, though, Virgo Vs The Zodiac is still a solid experience, and a great JRPG that just popped up out of nowhere at the end of the year. If you’re looking for something to play through during the holidays, this is a title definitely worth considering.
Overall, I can see why this game continues to receive updates and ports even eight years after its original release. Jamestown+ is an incredibly well-polished and engaging experience, offering up both a great entry point to the bullet hell genre and a satisfying challenge to veterans.
Overall, Tokyo Dark was an interesting title that was worth the experience. It definitely has some faults that are hard to overlook, from the scattershot presentation to the lull in the story, but pushing through these reveals a relatively well-told horror mystery tale.
As someone who’s long figured that the Atelier franchise just isn’t for me, Atelier Ryza comes as a huge surprise. It seemed like Gust had been resting on its laurals for so long, pumping out these feel-good low-stakes cute girl games year after year that just didn’t interest me. Ryza, though, shows that they’re willing to change things up and do something new.
Between the integration of RPG and platforming mechanics and the downright beautiful presentation, I can easily say that this game is one of the best that I’ve had the pleasure to play this year. The only thing keeping it from being perfect is that its battle design can become repetitive and boring if you let it.
The game is budget priced at $14.99 at the time of writing, which may still be a bit steep for such a short game. Despite that complaint, Gunvolt Chronicles is just simply a fun game to play, and is very much worth your time. I would recommend playing the baseline Azure Striker Gunvolt games first if you care at all about the world and lore that’s expanded on here, though.
There are some glimmers of inspiration here. The stupid macho tone and the comic-style cutscenes were particular portions that I enjoyed. Having them wrapped around such boring and repetitive gameplay and environments feels like a waste.
If you’re in for the grind or just enjoy repetitive actions, Niffelheim might be something for you (although I honestly don’t understand why). For someone like me, though, this isn’t a game that I would recommend.