John Friscia's Reviews
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening for Switch completely faithfully updates the Game Boy classic for modern audiences, and Zelda fans would be out of their minds not to play it.
Ultimately, Grandia HD Collection is two games that play very similarly but with opposite tones. Grandia is for bright-eyed young kids, and Grandia II is for their cynical older siblings. Yet they both have excellent dialogue, open dungeon design, and battle systems that invite customization.
Project Nimbus: Complete Edition can be a very repetitive experience, but for only [a few dollars], it’s still an experience fans of the mech combat genre will enjoy. The controls just feel really good, and blowing stuff up is satisfying. And with three difficulty levels, you have a reason to stick around even if Warpath gets too redundant. Consider giving this a shot.
So basically, if you’d love to play an RPG but can’t dedicate hours a day to it, Shadows of Adam could be a great solution on Switch.
Super Dragon Ball Heroes: World Mission is a frustratingly monotonous, plodding, mindless game. Being skilled at hitting the A button at the right moment is more important than the cards you bring into a battle.
My enthusiasm for Elli ebbed and flowed over the course of my run, from boredom to excitement to finally settling for something in-between the two. It’s not a game that does anything you haven’t seen before, but it puts together a decently enjoyable experience with its time-tested mechanics.
Ultimately, Strikey Sisters is an excellent value for its price, with exciting arcade gameplay that is as accessible to adults as it is to children. This could be a great game for bridging a generation gap.
Cinders is a short but highly replayable visual novel with dynamic characters and sharp writing. The visuals and soundtrack aren’t revolutionary but serve the narrative well. However, slowdown, while infrequent, can be a game-breaking experience when it appears.
Etrian Odyssey Nexus is Christmas morning for dungeon crawler lovers, thanks to its incredible party customization and abundant maps.
Ultimately, BQM -BlockQuest Maker- is an incredibly enjoyable game maker for its budget price.
NAIRI: Tower of Shirin is a gorgeous and entertaining puzzle adventure with charming characters. It lasted me, a puzzle novice, 8-10 hours, but mileage will vary. If you can forgive the awful cliffhanger ending, this is a game worth buying. But wait a couple weeks so the developer can fix the serious game-stopping bugs!
Ultimately, Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 is only worth buying if you really love the X series formula and are willing to experience it in bizarre and inferior forms. Mega Man X8 is the singular high-quality X title to be had here, so you have to ask yourself if X8 plus three not-so-terrific titles is worth your $19.99. I love Mega Man in all his forms, so it's worth it for me. But for you? Maybe not.
Anyone who has never played Mega Man X should absolutely buy this collection and change that. And for those who have played these games before, it's probably worth their time and money to play them again.
Octopath Traveler isn't perfect, but its major faults mostly pertain to the story. Beyond that, the game looks beautiful in a distinct way, interacting with NPCs in the game world is goofy fun, and the combat system is a multifaceted and rewarding revamp of Square Enix's previous offerings. When you put it all together, Octopath Traveler is an engaging RPG with a unique identity that it can be proud of, even if its narrative falls far short of Square's other classics.
Lost in Harmony on Switch tries to do a lot of things and fails at most of them.