Jake Arias's Reviews
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is easily one of the best games of 2019. It’s not just a worthy successor to Paper Mario, which serves as its obvious inspiration—in many ways, Bug Fables is an even better game. Those who determine value based on how long a playthrough lasts will be thrilled to learn that it’s easy to play for 40 hours or more. Those who appreciate pacing will be glad to hear that there’s no padding to reach that playtime. Whether you’re looking for a game with well-written characters who grow on you, mechanics that allow you to devise interesting strategies, secrets waiting to be discovered and subsequently exploited, or a soundtrack full of catchy themes, Bug Fables delivers in a big way.
I really liked this game at first, but only while operating under the assumption that everything would be polished up; Infected Shelter‘s release state is so repetitive and RNG-dependent that less than 1% of people have reached its ending. I’m part of that .9% percent, and it’s hard to recommend this anymore.
I used to think that I was missing something by not playing Devil May Cry games. Beloved series are usually beloved for an obvious reason, after all. If Devil May Cry 5 is any indication of what can be expected from earlier games, though, consider me thoroughly disabused of that notion.
The randomization is a blessing and a curse. Early on, the ever-changing world map allows for a real sense of discovery as you relearn where everything is, but it doesn’t take long before you begin to recognize how empty and featureless areas tend to be as a result.
Objects can be picked up and dropped at vast distances while retaining the size that they are in your hand, allowing you to shrink and grow anything you can pick up. Many mechanics only show up for short sequences before being replaced by something even stranger, too, allowing Superliminal to surprise you constantly all the way to its ending.
The fact that I chose to finish it anyway says a lot. For one thing, it proves that Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is more than just a spiritual successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. After all, I’ve never played that game (nor any other Castlevania in any meaningful amount). It also speaks to how excellent the mechanics are when the pacing holds up, because there are hourlong sections where you have no idea where to go or what to do but wander in search of something you missed.
Pacing is a far more important consideration than most people give it credit for. Good pacing can reinforce a gameplay loop and make it truly addictive, whereas bad pacing tends to result in sections that are such a slog that many players stop playing and never continue. Cathedral is a game that doesn’t just embrace bad pacing—it builds a temple to it and worships at its altar.
Feeling railroaded and wanting to have something to show for my troubles, I shrug and press the button, wiping out an entire town with the kind of insouciance you’d expect from someone throwing away a food wrapper; no one who lived in the town was particularly memorable, and the party member who initially protested never brings it up again, so it’s hard to care. The Outer Worlds tries to replicate the magic of Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas, but it suffers from many problems and moments like this that become increasingly prevalent until the illusion is shattered and you realize that it’s just a hollow pretender.
Disco Elysium describes itself as a “groundbreaking open-world role-playing game,” which is a slightly misleading way of describing a game that feels like the gamebook lovechild of Planescape: Torment and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. Its similarity to those classics is its greatest strength, though, keeping it afloat amid an endless tide of irrelevant factoids and a twin pair of mysteries that slowly build up the intrigue, only to fizzle out at the very end in a bizarrely unsatisfying way.
It’s difficult to put into words just how much profanity I’ve lobbed in this game’s direction while playing, and some of the criticisms my rage-addled past self brought up are real examples of Driven Out playing unfairly. At the same time, it occupies that enjoyably bizarre realm of “so difficult that it doesn’t seem difficult in hindsight.” Many of Driven Out‘s fights are downright fantastic and don’t suffer from any problems, and it’s during these that it shines. Low points are also common, however, thanks to some awkward animations that disable your ability to block for uncomfortable spans and a bevy of minor frustrations that create some very strange difficulty spikes.
It’s safe to say that Pine makes a good first impression. I found myself charmed by its Breath of the Wild-style exploration and intrigued at the underlying systems that appeared poised for complex faction dynamics, and that’s saying nothing of the quality visuals and music. Those first several hours I spent with Pine promised a truly fantastic open-world experience. Unfortunately, the developers appear to have become sidetracked trying to hew to the puzzle-action formula of traditional Zelda titles, and that has the unfortunate side effect of highlighting Pine‘s worst elements.
Indivisible doesn’t have a great first couple of hours, oscillating between its serious and playful tones so quickly that both are meaningless. The game’s early boss fights are also horribly gimmicky thanks to a tendency to shoehorn awkward real-time sequences into the turn-based combat. Still, Indivisible finds its footing 5+ hours in and maintains a solid stride all the way to the final boss fight, which is one of the worst final encounters I can recall seeing in a game.
When the Argonauts’ ship, the Argo, is wrecked after an encounter with sirens, Argonus is saved by Athena and tasked with opposing a mysterious threat that’s turned his shipmates to stone. In the process, he encounters numerous gods and goddesses who require something of him and are often willing to grant something in return. This makes Argonus and the Gods of Stone a fantastic stroll through Greek mythology. However, the pacing becomes questionable toward the end, and the ending is so deeply unsatisfying that it feels like a large chunk of the story at the end is simply missing.
In practice, however, enemy ships frequently launch bullets directly in front of them. Enemy ships can inflict contact damage, as well. Since it takes time to complete grabs successfully and punching makes it easy to lose track of where you’ll end up once the punch motion ends and your ship has shifted closer to enemies, neither are practical outside of a handful of boss fights. Freedom Finger takes its idea of a no-nonsense space shooter with political overtones and oodles of profanity and builds off of it in interesting ways, but “interesting” and “fun” don’t always overlap, and I didn’t have as much fun with Freedom Finger as its outlandish concept appeared to promise at the outset.
This remake of the classic 1993 adventure isn’t as polished as I expected, sporting a new physics system and camera angle that introduce entirely new problems. It’s wonderful to think that Link’s Awakening on the Switch will introduce one of Link’s most intriguing adventures to a new generation, but it’s obvious that the goal was to replicate the aesthetics rather than the feel.
Devil’s Hunt is a significantly clumsier game than its premise and marketing suggest, feeling like a series of linear Final Fantasy XIII corridors interrupted only by combat that plays like a poor man’s version of Batman: Arkham Asylum‘s freeflow system. Those who can appreciate jankiness will likely find something to enjoy, but those expecting Devil’s Hunt to live up to its considerable promise are bound to be disappointed.
Super Dodgeball Beats is unquestionably one of the most stylish rhythm games I’ve ever played. It’s also one of the least readable, with the timing of your inputs being dictated by quickly closing circles that frequently get covered up by opponent powerups and jostled by a screen shake effect that can’t be turned off. If you can get past that and are merely looking to play a multiplayer game that’ll result in someone throwing a controller across the room, Super Dodgeball Beats could very well be the game for you. Anyone looking for a single-player campaign that plays fairly is in for a rude awakening, however, with a number of the underlying design decisions here proving downright player-hostile in the harder tournaments.
There are so few events with such minimal upsides that it’s usually best to walk away from every single one, and that, combined with the forgettable story and bizarre difficulty spikes and valleys, leaves the gameplay feeling like a grindy jRPG that just happens to have extra steps and annoyances.
It’s only when you dig into the mechanics and stories of previous games that you get a sense of how much effort was put into making River City Girls a familiar trip without sacrificing its unique voice or accessibility in the process.
There’s a sense of interconnectedness that pervades everything Children of Morta does, and while some of its decisions sometimes result in unpleasant—and arguably unfair—difficulty spikes, the story beats always revolve satisfactorily enough to be worth a little extra trouble.