The Evoland Legendary Edition collection is a modern take on old-school visuals and mechanics which have been implemented perfectly to create a artificial nostalgic experience around a modern game.
Once I was absorbed within its beautiful world, I never wanted The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince to ever end. The visuals are stunning, the music is enchanting, the gameplay is addictive, and the story is emotional. Sure, you could see the game as one big escort mission, as you’re escorting the Blind Prince to the witch in the forest to restore his sight, but the platforming, puzzles, and combat all come together perfectly to deliver a truly emotional and magical story.
Anyone’s Diary may have left me confused about its story but I really enjoyed the visuals and puzzles. Sure, we do see the same mechanic for the puzzles repeated a few times as you travel through this artistic puzzle platformer, but each puzzle has its own spin on the mechanic and keeps you interested. The design choice to have everything made out of drawings and writing from your diary really helps create a surreal and symbolic experience in this twisted world.
If you’re looking for a nice looking game to relax and wind down with, Glass Masquerade fits the bill perfectly. It’s a jigsaw puzzle in which the image isn’t the key to solving it, the curves and angles of each of the shapes are. This adds a new level of difficulty to the game as well as gives you a great sense of achievement once you successfully slot several slivers in succession. I love that the timer is there purely as a ‘git gud’ mechanic and doesn’t actually halt gameplay or deal any kind of punishment/restriction on those who take their time. Glass Masquerade is quite simply the perfect game to play when you have a spare moment and want to relax.
My nostalgia glasses allowed me to enjoy the Atari Flashback Classics Vol 3, your mileage may vary though. As the third collection in the series, we’re once again greeted with some classic Atari 2600, 5200, and arcade titles, yet we’re missing some notable franchises and games which is most likely down to licensing. With the power of nostalgia, me and my dad loved playing all these old classics again with our modern controllers in full high-def with a split-second load time, yet I imagine a lot of younger gamers may not see the same appeal.
A Fisherman’s Tale is one of the most imaginative and surreal narrative experiences on PlayStation VR. From the moment you put on your headset, you’ll be ‘hooked’ as you become fully ‘submerged’ within this fantastical and dream-like experience. The ‘as above, so below’ mechanic works seamlessly and turns a simple puzzle game into one which stands out above the crowd with its unique and interesting concept. The game itself isn’t very long, clocking in at around an hour from beginning to end, but if you wish to get the platinum then expect that time to be a bit longer as you backtrack for collectables and random trophies. If you like imaginative and thought-provoking puzzles, coupled with an interesting story and bizarre characters, then A Fisherman’s Tale is pulling on your line waiting to be reeled in today!
Genesis Alpha One is the Frankenstein concoction of many different genres, and I love it! When you’re not trying to expand your ship with new and essential components, you’ll be micromanaging your crew of clones or down on an alien planet harvesting materials. It’s all very unpredictable and you’re always on the edge of your seat, especially when you start to hear sirens and see a bunch of red blips appear on your map! The combat itself isn’t the greatest, with sensitive controls and an ‘off feeling’ non-iron sight mode, but you’ll eventually get used to it and it will begin to feel much better. For a rogue-like title, I found the time spent on each ‘run’ was quite long, this made getting eliminated much more intense and impactful.
Visual Novel fans looking for a new story to become absorbed into should pick up Song of Memories upon release. The game is a flip on the Otome style, having a male protagonist who is surrounded by big breasted beauties who he’s grown up with yet has suddenly begun to have feelings develop regarding one of them (players choice). The baseline story sees you preparing for and hosting a Halloween event within October, the real endings kind of bring about the end of the world! However, depending on your choices, what happens next will leave you with very mixed emotions, tears will fall, people will shout at their TV, and minds will be blown as we all know, happiness comes at a price.
The Hong Kong Massacre is a very bloody and strategic shooter with very satisfying and addictive gunplay action. I personally found the game to be very hard at first but over time, after I played it for about eight hours, I still found it to be very hard! However, the combat is very addictive and you can respawn within seconds, so I found myself trying over and over again with a determination I usually don’t have for games which are hard for the sake of it. I believe the AI has been given unfair advantages in some places, with X-Ray vision and the ears of a bat. However, once you know where everyone is and you plan out your breach in your head before-hand, you can create some rather impressive <60 seconds in-and-out action scenes as you frantically kill anything that moves before that single stray bullet takes you out.
8-Bit Hordes is a really fun and enjoyable second instalment in the 8-Bit Franchise and an interesting RTS as a whole. Instead of fending off the enemies with guns and bullets, we resort to melee, magic, and brute strength this time around as the ogres and wizards get involved. the gameplay and mechanics are identical to what we saw in 8-Bit Armies, but that’s not a bad thing as that game was also a great casual interpretation of the RTS genre on modern consoles
The music is a delight to listen to, the narrative is very witty and humorous (as well as serious when it has to be), and the visuals are amazing eye candy with all the colours and visual effects used. The controls can be a little sensitive in some places and the DS4 speaker needs to be adjusted outside of the game, but overall I would have been extremely proud if I was one of the lucky ones who backed this project initially on Kickstarter.
Arcade VR wave-based shooting doesn’t come much better than Guns’n’Stories: Bulletproof VR, a game about a story with guns! The one thing that plagues this genre is repetitiveness and monotony, this game eliminates that by changing your weapon mid-round as well as performing a few strange things based on the story being told. The story is humorous and fun, and I love the fact you’re sat in an actual cinema seat with popcorn watching the cutscene play out.
Smoke and Sacrifice is a beautifully drawn survival game with an emphasis on its interesting story. For me, it felt like a ‘survival-lite’ game, as it didn’t have any intense survival aspects other than finding components and crafting your way to victory, but that was great for me as I prefer them like this. At times, the game may feel like it’s ramped up the difficulty, especially if you go off the recommended path, but nothing felt unfair or impossible – You just have to master the controls and upgrade your gear. It truly is a stunning game which will challenge you and have you coming back for more, regardless of how many times you perish to the horrific creatures within the smoke!
I can honestly say that YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is one of the most hands-on and unusual RPGs I’ve played in a while. There are a lot of QTEs within the game, almost every attack and literally every defence will require you to grab your controller and test those reflexes, but you get used to it after a while. The game may not be a ‘looker’ with its simplistic design, but it all adds to the charm. With its brilliant writing, equally as good voice acting, intuitive combat and progression system, and overall quirkiness – I can’t help but recommend this game to all RPG fans.
Suicide Guy: Sleepin’ Deeply is a continuation of the fun puzzle-platformer in which you try and wake up the protagonist. Although this expansion has almost four times less content than the original, the levels seem bigger and more thought-provoking than some of the ones we have seen previously. Other than one of the bonus levels, all the solutions and puzzles presented are completely original and nothing like what we’ve seen previously.
Single player, Multiplayer, or co-op, Override: Mech City Brawl is such a fun game to play whatever your preference. I’d say the game feels like the combat came first, then the multiplayer, and finally the single player – that’s not a bad thing, but the single player does wear thin after you’ve completed it a few times. The co-operative mode, in which up to four players control each limb, is rather amusing and can lead to some stressful moments as you must all work together or fail as a whole! I found it hard to jump into an online match, but locally and online with friends was a great experience and tonnes of fun – highly recommend if you’re looking for some local brawling action.
Lightwood Games likes to take classic puzzle formats and switch them around, One Word by POWGI is a perfect example. Instead of looking for a group of words within a grid of letters, you must decipher a quote or phrase and then find a single missing word within a jumbled up grid made up of only that words letters. As this is the case, and it isn’t going to have random X, Y and Z’s in there (unless the word contains those), it actually makes it a little bit more tricky to solve.
Pic-a-Pix Pieces is the perfect evolutions from Pic-a-Pix Color, which Lightwood Games gave us last year. Instead of solving ~150 self-contained Picross puzzles, we’re solving over 200 10×10 – 20×20 puzzles which combine together to make bigger images. As such, the difficulty is ramped up a little due to no smaller grids and the fact you’re working on part of a puzzle and not an entire image. However, The game is fully accessible to fans of the Picross logic puzzle and also new players who have never experienced them before as the game brings you in gently and explains everything as you go.
Atelier Rorona ~The Alchemist of Arland~ DX is an amazing Atelier game which all JRPG fans should try out. From its amazing soundtrack and voice acting to it’s very colourful and cutesy aesthetics, Atelier Rorona is a solid JRPG with its narrative, combat, story, and interesting characters. Sure, there is a time limit and you’re given a new task every three months which ultimately decides if you carry on or lose the game, however, I never had any issues meeting the deadlines and I had plenty of time to explore on my own.
Atelier Meruru ~The Apprentice of Arland~ DX was the most addictive and enjoyable game I played in the Arland trilogy. We have the same core mechanics we saw in Atelier Rorona yet there are a few small enhancements here and there which makes the game much more accessible and easier to pick up and play. I thoroughly enjoyed the kingdom building aspect, even though it was rather simple, as I enjoy games where I can see my progression and hard work in physical format. The timer is much more relaxed in this third title when looking in comparison to the others, this is a major plus in my opinion as I don’t like restrictive timers. in my opinion as I don’t like restrictive timers. For a third time, the magic of Arland drew me in and captivated me into its addictive and entertaining story.