Kenneth Shepard's Reviews
Fretless - The Wrath of Riffson is a musical deckbuilder that weaves songwriting into everything it does
Sandfall Interactive's debut RPG signals a hopefully bright future for the studio
Hazelight's latest co-op adventure is an excellent victory lap
Afterlove EP is sympathetic to the fact that none of us handle grief in a way that is easy to swallow for everyone around us, but its best moments come when it’s willing to slap you across the face and tell you to do better.
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage captures how hard it is to make and maintain friendships no matter how old you are
NetEase's take on the hero shooter is unapologetic about its inspirations, but it should learn from Overwatch's mistakes instead of repeating them
It's an odd experiment, but charming humor and engaging gameplay make this blocky parody of Aloy's story a successful one, too
The long-awaited fourth entry in BioWare's fantasy series isn't just good, it's some of the studio's best work
My hope is that Sega going back and reflecting on what Shadow has lost in the past 20 years will make the company think about what it can reclaim. What better time to realize this than during the Year of Shadow, just as a new generation of Sonic fans is about to learn all about him when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 premieres in December? Sometimes brand synergy leads to a genuine celebration of something, and in the case of Shadow Generations, it’s long overdue.
Structurally, The Answer is an often frustrating epilogue that shaves off some of the best parts of Persona games. Thankfully, Reload’s quality-of-life updates make the grind more tolerable and the remake adds enough small social elements like reading books and watching movies with your friends that it doesn’t feel like it’s all business. But as a meditation on grief, it feels like a kindness afforded to characters who once had to rile in the ambiguity of the original ending. It would have been easy for Persona 3 to end on a nihilistic note, showing the entire group fall apart without their leader and denying all the lessons they learned. But grief never really goes away. We just learn to help each other live with it a little more each day.
This overly ambitious adventure game’s heart is in the right place
Arranger is a brisk adventure, but it’s filled with so many clever, perfectly executed ideas that by the time it was over, I was just left wanting more. Jemma’s story might be over by the end, but I’d love to see Furniture & Mattress add new puzzles in future updates because the team has such an immaculate, clever eye for what makes puzzle games so satisfying. Now I’m just waiting for my memory of the game to fade so I can go back and try to solve those puzzles with fresh eyes once more.
If Hi-Fi Rush proves anything, it’s that the fight for a better future, one in which we are free from corporate clutches, is only possible when we fight together. I hope it’s remembered most for that.
Detective Pikachu Returns isn’t setting up a sequel, and while I’m glad to have some closure, I am sad to leave Ryme City. Sometimes I get tired of sending Pokémon out for battle to knock each other out, and I just want to go on adventures with Pikachu by my side. Detective Pikachu Returns is imperfect, but lets me revisit the Pokémon world I’d most like to live in. I hope, even if this is the end of Tim and Pikachu’s story, it’s not the end of The Pokémon Company doing interesting, off-the-wall adventure games that can look at this universe in fresh ways.
But it’s also still this. Scarlet and Violet already showed major signs of technical stress, and the bulging seams are even more apparent in The Teal Mask. As much as I enjoyed this DLC, it remains disappointing that some of Pokémon’s best stuff is being dragged down by a game engine that feels like it’s just a slight breeze away from falling apart.
Ultimately, those final moments are the ones I leave Eternights thinking about. Where often the game feels like it’s struggling to execute its own ideas, it’s clear that it at least has ideas. It gets in its own way with what feel like expected genre pressures to undermine itself, but it knows the emotions it wants the player to feel, and they aren’t as superfluous as the gags at characters’ expense it throws out along the way. It makes me hopeful about what this studio might make in the future, because while Eternights may be imperfect, it’s clearly made by a team that wants to create moments like this game’s finale, ideally supported by games that are fully deserving of them. It just needs to work on ironing out all the wrinkles that held this game back.
I’m enamored by Stray Gods’ writing and art, but the thing that makes it unique is the worst part about it. Whenever I was enjoying the writing, acting, or art, the music would kick in and I’d mutter “oh, okay, here we go again” until it was time to pick my choices and direct the song one way or another. It’s such a cool idea, but the foundation is so shaky that I sometimes wish it was just a standard adventure game so its best parts could shine through. It wouldn’t have been as eye-catching or original without its gimmick, but it would’ve been a better game.
I can try a new playthrough and build things back up and game the system to get the “better” outcome where the dice roll in my favor every time. But there’s something kind of beautiful in a messy playthrough that you can’t experience more than once as each permutation becomes more apparent with each replay. For now, this imperfect outcome is mine, and I want to maintain that memory of my Baldur’s Gate 3 story. At least for a little while longer.
Rain Code is built by a team that knows how to make these kinds of games, and as a long-time fan of the themes Kodaka tends to write around, I was pretty moved by the end even though it nearly lost me in the beginning. If you’ve never been a fan of Kodaka’s mix of camp, heavyhanded themes, and theatrics, Rain Code will likely not grab you. But despite it feeling like Danganronpa’s distant cousin, it makes it clear this team doesn’t have to lean on Monokuma’s death game as a crutch and can build something new upon its bones instead. Hopefully, this means Kodaka can continue to let old things die on their own terms and make new things instead.
I don’t think Crash Team Rumble is going to be the next big live service craze, but it has its moments, I can’t help but pity a game that feels like the odds are stacked against it. I guess now I’m just left to see whether or not future support helps the game pick up steam, if Activision flips the switch and makes Crash Team Rumble a free-to-play game down the line, or if the plug gets pulled before either of those things happen.