As a series, Bomberman has its bad entries but is otherwise considered to be among the ranks of gaming classics. Super Bomberman R spits on that as one of the undeniably worst entries in the series, taking into account the time at which it was released and what came before it. As a “celebration” of 33 years of the franchise, it does sweet bugger all to actually encapsulate what has made the series good. Whether it be uninspired design, the most standard mechanics of the series with no innovation, and a lame attempt at including a story, Bomberman R is not short in ways to disappoint long-time fans. I find it incredibly difficult to believe that anything remotely resembling pride was involved in its development. If this has been a budget, eShop title on release then it might have been forgiveable. However, this was released as a full priced launch title for the Nintendo Switch, and for that I would expect much better than this.
I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting from Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers. Like many others, I think the biggest draw was that it’s another SFII remix game, which have traditionally been well received in the past and a joy to play, even if you’re not a fighting game fan. There were so many missed opportunities to introduce new modes or improve versions of old modes, and anything that was included honestly felt like it was thrown in as filler. As far as SFII sub-series re-releases go I can unequivocally say that this is the worst; for both time and money, there are better SFII remix titles out there that you could be playing. It’s plain to see that Capcom, knowing that the SFII allure would sell units, pushed out a half-assed release as a full priced game. If this is their idea of quality these days, they need to let this sub-series rest.
I’ve compared Agents of Mayhem to Saints Row a lot in this review, and perhaps some of you reading might think that unfair. I think it’s entirely appropriate, however, since at their core they are essentially the same game, and there’s even some canon crossover happening between the two. Agents of Mayhem is just a stripped down Saints Row with less charm and character, less willingness to embrace its own silliness, and dreams of being something like Crackdown. There are too many player characters with not enough customisation, and little point to there being so many for the lack of unique content in this title. Well done, Volition, you spent four years making a terrible version of one of your most beloved franchises. Please don’t do this with whatever comes next for Saints Row.
This isn’t a bad remake, per se. The game functions without crashing, and it’s a close approximation of what the original Secret of Mana had on offer. The problem is that in recreating the game, Square Enix forgot what the point of a remake is. Very little in this remake can have a serious claim to being “better” than the original, and in some cases, it’s arguably worse. Once the nostalgia wears off for returning players, your enjoyment with it will go downhill fairly quickly. It’s also hard to recommend to anyone that hasn’t played Secret of Mana before since there isn’t anything noteworthy you would get out of this version that you couldn’t experience in the original.
It’s not uncommon for sequels not to live up to the hype established by their predecessors, but State of Decay 2 comes in below even those expectations. Both the design and the way it plays are so similar to the first game that it feels like an expansion to the original rather than a sequel. It even still has all the same bugs and technical problems of the first. The only major difference being that State of Decay 2 feels more aimless than its older brother because it had loftier goals that it couldn’t even begin to live up to. When the basic survival mechanics are a grind, chore, or straight up don’t work, you’re left with another stock-standard zombie survival game.
Fallout 76 is broken, not just on a technical level but by its very nature. It doesn’t challenge its players as they work towards their goals, it actively hinders them with bad design. It took the worst elements of Fallout 4 and even a few of the good ones that it diluted into their most basic forms and made an entire game around them. It wanted to have its cake and eat it too, being built like one of the single-player RPGs but with a veneer of multiplayer design and ended up being atrocious in either capacity. And then yes, it’s technically broken in the literal sense, boasting not just the “classic” Bethesda bugs, but an entire swathe of new issues that make the game borderline unplayable. This wouldn’t just take a bunch of patching to fix, it would take a Final Fantasy XIV style rebuild to salvage this game. It is, without a doubt, the worst Fallout game to date – and I say that having played Brotherhood of Steel.
I don’t know why Travis Strikes Again exists, but it does, and that’s what I’d call “unfortunate” within the broader context of the series. No More Heroes was a great-but-crude product of its time, and with clever writing, its style of humour can be brought into the modern era. There’s so much to draw from for a new game in the series, and Grasshopper just didn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact. Many series staples were removed in favour of bland gameplay, frustrating and boring design, and some visual and thematic hints that this game might have actually been good had the vision been there. As it exists now, however, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone, not even longtime fans. You lose nothing from not playing this… Well, except perhaps the hope of another title in the series.
My real question is: Why? Why was this made, and for whom? If ToeJam & Earl: Back In The Groove was intended as a remake, why try to emulate the original so closely in appearance and design while making everything measurably worse? If it was intended to be a sequel that only had a passingly similar design then, again, why make it so close to the original? Especially when the original is so much better in basically every regard. I’m not exaggerating when I say that in the process of writing this review, I ended up playing the original for far longer than this new version. At first, it was just to see if I remembered the game utterly wrong, as being something fun when it wasn’t. But it is, and I kept on playing it because it was preferable to this…”alternative.” The original is a great “arcade” experience, even by the standards of today, and you should definitely go play it if you want that nostalgia hit. Back In The Groove will just bore you at best and make you uncomfortable at worst.
I know a director isn’t the be-all end-all of a development project, and the idea of videogame “auteurs” has been romanticised to a ridiculous degree in this industry. That said, given that this is the first (and last) major release for the game without Tabata on board, his absence was notable. At no point was the game ever broken, it’s execution was definitely “competent,” it just felt incredibly uninspired. Even the story, arguably the biggest draw-card given the overall mysteriousness of Ardyn in the main game, was cryptically conveyed. Maybe it could be put down to a “B-team” in the studio working on this last piece while their new IP is in the works, or a new director trying to find their groove in the wake of their predecessor. It’s certainly not a knock-out, however, and I’d only really recommend playing this for the sake of completion.
FFXV Comrades isn't great – for now – but the development team behind the game's post-release content has a track record of improving things over time. The expansion has a mountain of technical problems, a ham-strung design in comparison to the main game, and becomes tedious and repetitive to play after only a short while. These are, however, all fixable issues, and in the immediate wake of Comrades' release, it was already receiving improvements and fixes. I have little doubt we'll see more added to it over time, likely in the form of new mission types and possibly some narrative improvements. Whatever the changes, I'm certain that this will feel and play very differently in six months time. For those interested, or burned by the initial offerings, I'd recommend keeping an eye on it and waiting.