For 10 bucks, you’re getting a personality-driven rhythm romp with the hindsight of a decade-plus of genre experience. That’s pretty good! I mostly just wish it was bigger; because if it was, it would be able to expand its firm foundation and take things to the next level. That said, the ease of access of Hextech Mayhem ensures that if you’re coming off of Arcane, you can immerse yourself in the League world with a lot less strife than the MOBA.
If you haven’t experienced Pokemon Diamond or Pearl yet and don’t have access to Platinum, then the Gen 4 remakes on Switch might be worth exploring. Sinnoh has its own charm to it, and completionists will likely enjoy the endgame that is Grand Underground collecting. I just hope that when the time comes to remake Black and White, whatever team handles it is a lot less conservative.
Halo Infinite‘s multiplayer component releasing as a free-to-play system across multiple platforms is a bold move, and I think it’s a healthy one. Halo doesn’t hold the same cachet as it once did, so making it easier than ever to jump into a still relevant series is appreciated. If 343 keeps innovating, creating interesting events and rewards, and fixes the season pass, Halo Infinite could be one of the more talked about multiplayer games on the market. I hope the extension of the season until May 2022 allows them to deliver on that. Even if the campaign is a letdown, multiplayer has secured its legacy.
Bright Memory Infinite gets in its own way, and occasionally takes the focus off of its strongest quality: the core mechanics. I wish that Infinite was just a full extension of the action-packed prologue and was a little more polished, as it would be easier to recommend. If you can deal with that headache, you might like it.
The seemingly endless possibilities of Shin Megami Tensei V directly fueled my desire to play it from the moment I got my copy. It’s overwhelming, but compartmentalized. The world is technically finite, but feels limitless. It’s just what a lot of people want out of an RPG, and the strong personality-driven throughput helps propel it past a lot of its competition.
When it gets going and it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s fun. But it’s also exceedingly linear and many of the choices it offers are surface-level at best. Treat it like an arcadey weekend romp and you’ll be fine: bonus points if you already adore these lovable little bandits.
Still, you’re getting the entire campaign, and that’s an important thing to circle back on. You know how the Wii version came out, and pointer use changed the way you played an already fantastic game? It’s like that all over again, but on a bigger scale. At this point I want all of the Resident Evil games to get this treatment. Hell, bring Dino Crisis back like this, so I can look backward and see a T-Rex running at me while hoofing it. Port Onimusha and add real-time swordplay. The sky is the limit!
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles is another decent brawler adaptation that asks you to already have a bit of background on the source material to truly enjoy it. In that sense, it joins a very crowded space of many other anime games before it, and many of you out there know where you stand on these.
Metroid Dread doesn’t take a lot of big swings, but it rarely bats a foul ball.
Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania was a pleasant surprise, in that it doesn’t mess too much with a formula that works and it makes strides to welcome newcomers into the fold. Not all of its stages are created equal, but this is a great entry point into a series that’s been lacking one on modern platforms for a long while.