Overall, I must say, I was really impressed by my time with Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. It's a polished X-Com style game that removes some of the obtuse layers to ensure the early gameplay curve is accessible, uses humor very well, and kept me coming back for more.
Arms is a really weird game. At its core it's a simple, accessible fighting game with a really strong gameplay loop and room for player growth competitively, but a pair of fundamentally flawed control schemes, a lack of decent modes and a glacially slow random unlock system for items that fundamentally change how characters can function make it a really tough package to recommend.
While that core combat is still strong, I'm personally getting a bit weary of Tekken relying on it's barely changed core combat to keep it relevant in a world where fighting games are fast evolving into vastly more rounded products. Tekken 7's combat isn't bad, it's just a bit stagnant, and I don't know how much longer it can get away with that reliance on not fixing what ain't broke.
Overall, Injustice 2 takes a strong fighting game, delivers an incredibly rewarding and lengthy single player that feels like a priority rather than a tacked on afterthought, and considerably increases the scope of the game by adding in a vast number of well made additional characters to the mix. Sure it hits the uncanny valley a bit, and I'm not keen on the loot boxes or their DLc plans, but it's hard to deny how much fun I had with the game at launch.
I was damn impressed by Persona 5, and will certainly be returning to it once I've had a few months to decompress from this super concise playthrough. I played 120 hours in just a couple of weeks and damn it was a lot of fun.
Ultimately, For Honor doesn't focus on making sense or being historically accurate, it just puts cool stuff in a field and tells it to go out and fight. Everything outside of playing online sucks, like microtransactions, customization options and single-player. Hell, the multiplayer itself sometimes sucks when it pairs you with a badly selected host player. However, when the game is working and you're murdering a single human player while screaming "FOOOOOOOOOOOR HOOOOOOOOOOOONOOOOOOOOOOOR" at their corpse, it's pretty damn rewarding.
Much like an anime fan on prom night, I would rather be at home playing Mega Man than here. I would rather be playing Shovel Knight. I would rather be playing most games in this genre. Mighty No. 9? More like Shitey No. 9!
If you're a fan of games like AudioSurf and own a Vive, you owe it to yourself to pick up Audioshield. It's an incredibly polished VR imagining of the generate-music-into-levels concept, and it was only let down by the physical realities of how gross VR gets after energetic use by multiple, sweaty people.
There's a fascinating story here, but it's seemingly stretched out just to justify a price point comparable to That Dragon, Cancer, at the expense of quality.
When it comes to fighting against someone, it's one of the most polished Street Fighters to date. When it comes to everything outside of that fight, it's a huge steaming turd that I look at with a scrunched up, grossed out face.
American Truck Simulator is comfortingly more of the same
If, like me, you fell off the Naruto bandwagon during the early parts of Ninja War, it's a great way to put a few hours in and still know how the whole narrative ended up playing out.
Shadow Puppeteer tries to do interesting things, but ultimately comes off as unpolished, bland, repetitive, and mediocre. I really tried to enjoy it, but I just couldn't bring myself to care about it.
So, here's the deal with Rise of the Tomb Raider's newest DLC. If you're looking for several hours of story content that's supernatural in nature, yet offers very little additional content post story? Well, Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch is probably your thing. Just be aware it reuses some assets in that two hour length and offers very little in the way of options for using your weapon once the story is over.
That Dragon, Cancer is a beautiful experience, if one that would have benefited considerably from having content cut to improve the flow, pacing and tone.
Pony Island messes with players in unexpected ways that stuck with me for days. It took a number of unexpected turns that caught me off guard and was constantly filling me with a sense of inescapable unease. It wasn't on my radar at all before it released, but at under $5 it's a wonderful use of two hours of your life.
Fast Racing Neo made a strong impression right off the bat, and is easily one of my favorite games this year. It's fast, it's responsive, it has a compelling color-switching mechanic, and Hero Mode provides a stupidly fast-paced challenge that's going to last me quite some time. I have very little bad to say about this game beside the fact that the resolution dips in split-screen. When that's the worst you can say about a game, it's pretty darn impressive.
Overall, Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is a really rock solid game, with a few visible creases that need to be noted before purchase. It captures the bright colorful fun of the Mario universe perfectly, pairing it with incredibly well localized dialogue and a very strong combat system. While it sometimes holds your hand for a little too long and at times fails to take proper risks, it was consistently polished, enjoyable and memorable.
Ultimately, I came away from Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires extremely satisfied. The tactical elements outside of battle were well balanced as to be challenging while fair, and the combat carries over the best elements from the main game. It's a bit of a specific niche it's catering to -- fans of Dynasty Warriors combat and long-term strategy elements -- but if those two things are your jam, then Empires should have you hooked.
Ultimately I'm left at a little bit of a loss with Poncho. It's a great concept, and when it's working it's a great inventive challenge, but when it goes downhill, it put a huge damper on my experience as a whole. I wanted to like it, but it was tough given some of the rough puzzle and level designs on show.