Balan Wonderworld is not comfortable or fun to play. It isn’t memorable. If you want to understand everything happening, you have to buy the ebook and go to that outside source for an explanation. It is bland, repetitious, and has design choices that are the opposite of ensuring a good quality of life.
Open Roads is a game that relies heavily on a lo-fi aesthetic, but all that ambiance is surface level and doesn’t offer actual substance.
Fashion Dreamer isn't the Switch Style Savvy successor I was hoping for, and what's here is a very basic, tedious experience.
Loop8 feels like a game that wants to be more poignant and meaningful than it really is, due in part to problematic pacing issues.
If it was a budget title, Samurai Maiden might be worth someone's time as a guilty pleasure. Unfortunately, it's not.
The Hundred Year Kingdom is a brief, simple, tedious, and unchallenging civilization builder in which you manage a world while a goddess compliments you.
The downside is, while it can still be compelling, the way it’s handled can also make things tedious. In review, Danganronpa S pales in comparison to the minigames its based upon.
There are reasons people might be happy about Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed. It’s a win for folks who enjoy the series, as they’ll finally get to play the one that started it all. Those who appreciate obscure games getting a release outside of Japan might be pleased to see it show up worldwide. Not to mention it helps with game preservation efforts, as this is a PlayStation Portable title being “rescued.” I’m glad people who want it have a chance to play it. But it’s a big step back from Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed and incredibly frustrating.
Makee definitely knew what it wanted Rise Eterna to be. I applaud some of its ideas, like how the developer tried to implement a crafting system and skill tree. But on the whole, it doesn’t offer the same balanced challenges as its contemporaries.
Unfortunately, I found it completely unappealing in every way, which isn’t great when it was surrounded by better games every time I turned on my system.
There is no doubt in my mind The Midnight Sanctuary will find an audience. Fans of CAVYHOUSE and Carpe Fulgur may give it a chance out of loyalty and visual novel aficionados may pick it up out of curiosity. This is not a game for a more general audience. Hell, I have been playing visual novels since before they became popular in the west, and I had trouble sticking with it. Lots of strange choices were made in this game, and all of them made it more difficult for me to connect with the story and its characters. I imagine others will feel similarly. But hey, people who enjoy constantly shifting and awkward camera angles, a storyline that takes about an hour and a half to really start getting good, and playing peek-a-boo with a stylized crane will definitely dig it.
Eiyuden Chronicles: Hundred Heroes is designed to bring players a modern take on a classic JRPG experience. Get ready to lead 100+ playable characters through a war-torn world only you can save. Switch version reviewed. Review copy provided by company for testing purposes. On a PC, I imagine Eiyuden Chronicle might generally be fine, but on the Switch it is a mess.
Like My Time at Portia, the My Time at Sandrock Switch version doesn't feel quite ready at launch and hampers a promising game.
The Crimson Flower That Divides: Lunar Coupling is a game that puts its characters through hell and features a localization fraught with issues, but its heroine is absolutely wonderful.
There was clearly a vision for Sports Story, but overextending to include too many sports and a buggy launch means you should wait to play it.
However with Seven Pirates H, the latest adventure, it feels lacking compared to the other entries. There is the same level of fanservice people familiar with the series would expect. (I’d say in some ways, it feels pushes the envelope more than past games.) However, there doesn’t seem to be as much content and gameplay as other installments.
If you need a farming-and-fighting fix, Rune Factory 5 is an option. It just isn’t the best one out there. It’s living in the shadow of its far superior siblings. Even if patches fix all of the technical issues, it would still feel uneven.
Not every game needs to be remade. That’s fine! Some games are fine as-is. Especially if the ensuing revisitation doesn’t do all that much new. Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World feels like a project that happened because Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap inspired not one, but two good games in the 2010s. So now Asha is back and, while the game is fine, it doesn’t have the same level of improvements and investment.
After spending time with Bakugan: Champions of Vestroia, I can see where WayForward tried. It attempted to create a world for players to inhabit, one alive with both Bakugan brawls and more common activities. It tries to offer customization options, both for our avatar and the characters in the party. It even attempts a competitive scene with online matches. I’d imagine fans of the anime adaptation or toys in general might be really pleased with this direction, especially if they’re on the younger side.
So yes, Zoids Wild: Blast Unleashed isn’t setting any records or making innovative strides into the fighting game hall of fame. We’ll never see it any sort of formal competition. But even so, there’s heart to it. It tries to stay true to the the source and does offer some degree of variation to it. It is just made for a very small, narrow audience.