Trek to Yomi’s gameplay woes — as well as the stunning lack of a chapter select feature — drag the experience down and mean that its swordplay is not nearly as sharp as its presentation.
Through its thoroughly engaging writing and cutting commentary, The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe is able to make fun of exactly what it is and get away with it, allowing the game to have its cake and eat it, too.
Ghostwire: Tokyo isn't Bethesda Softworks' best first-person shooter, but it still earns its spot within that publisher's peerless shooter pantheon through the sheer ingenuity found in its mechanics and world.
Dawn of Ragnarök could have righted some of Valhalla’s wrongs, but it mostly inherits and compounds them. The more imaginative setting is betrayed by its mundane and uninspired open-world trappings that focus almost exclusively on the quantity of trivial and all too familiar activities at the expense of discovery.
Project Hel is short, sweet, and satisfying. The expansion isn't just a rehash of the base campaign but a piece of DLC that intuitively builds on it with a more precise and capable character.
Shadow Warrior 3 did take the series back to basics, but a Wang this basic is not always as satisfying as it should be, especially when it isn’t hard enough.
Forbidden West outmatches its predecessor in both quality and scope, elevating itself not only over said predecessor, but also over many of its contemporaries at the same time.
Sifu knocks its players down with little remorse but also makes getting back up and overcoming obstacles immensely rewarding.
Memorable levels, a fascinating art style, a heavy customization system, and a staggering amount of replayability fortify those pristine mechanics and show that OlliOlli World is thorough and consistent with its quality, earning it its place within Gnarvana among the Skate Godz.
Dying Light 2 doesn’t reach its full potential and is partially betrayed by Techland’s inability to ship a game that isn’t riddled with bugs but still manages to fulfill enough of the fantasy associated with being a free-runner during the apocalypse.
Solar Ash is a little more ambitious than Hyper Light Drifter with its jump to 3D, but it has traded ambition for quality. The gameplay puts up the impression that it wants to be a kinetic platformer, yet it’s a shallow imitation of one that repeats a depressing number of times before it hits credits. Like a solar flare, Solar Ash hits players with a sharp burst of energy as it opens with some promising, speedy mechanics. But that energy quickly dissipates as it loses momentum right after its initial explosion as it trudges from level to level and never picks back up.
Guardians of the Galaxy is a lot like the actual members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s got Star-Lord’s wit, the tragic underpinning of Gamora and Rocket, Drax’s combat prowess, and Groot’s tender heart. All of its elements are strong on their own, but much stronger as a unit. Eidos-Montréal can even relate to the Guardians as it had to step out of its comfort zone and grow for this game; a successful move that resulted in a memorable and marvelous experience.
House of Ashes has a distinct setting with themes and twists that give it more meaning and style when compared to its other Dark Pictures brethren. It is unequivocally the best thing Supermassive has made since Until Dawn. But that bar is pathetically low as the five console horror games following that unexpected 2015 hit have been all mediocre or downright terrible. House of Ashes is getting close enough to the surface to see sunlight beaming through the cracked bits of earth above, but it’s still stuck underground.
Far Cry 6 is ultimately a safe sequel that doesn’t aim to redefine what Far Cry is. However, it is still the well-tuned entry that does improve upon the formula in key areas, mainly the upgrade paths, gunplay, and cutscenes. It disappointingly doesn’t take that formula into a new direction or modernize it and can feel antiquated as a result, but it can still be mindlessly addictive even amongst its familiarity. Its narrative may posit revolution as the only possible answer, but its overall presentation posits that a solid evolution can still be quite effective.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a more than passable first attempt for a studio that has newly transitioned to video games. It’s a visually stunning world that is occasionally calming to poke around in. However, it’s still very evident that it is from a team that’s new to the medium, given all of its gameplay inadequacies and narrative missteps. There are glimmers of a truly great experience in here, but it’s hard to see underneath the spots of rot at the core. And unlike the little Rot wisps in the game, it’s not cute as it robs the game of its potential.
Deathloop isn’t as liberating as some of Arkane’s other games and suffers a bit because of it. Only being able to take two powers into missions that initially lead players by the nose is puzzlingly restrictive, as is the underdeveloped stealth. But Deathloop is still a compelling enough shooter with a solid story hook that creatively combines its new ideas and inspirations into one unique experience, resulting in an imperfect loop, but one well worth living through a few times.
As its title implies, The Artful Escape is, indeed, an artful escape from the reality of most games. The vibrant visuals and larger-than-life story with its share of personal elements coalesce with its innate, performance-driven musicality to create an electric experience. However, it comes at the cost of its gameplay, which is boring at worst and merely passable at best. Such an imbalance undersells its message a bit as its mechanics can’t match its narrative ambitions, but those narrative ambitions are tuned well enough to drown out its mechanical flat notes.
Despite its scope, Last Stop is a wholly captivating tale. Its grounded and fantastical halves work in harmony to create a narrative that has enough humanity to draw players in while also having a supernatural mystery at its center to keep players on the hook. It may not be the most interactive game in its genre, but it’s certainly one of the most charming, intriguing, and British.
Simply porting over these old games points out their age and doesn’t properly highlight the quality of the first two entries. And while Ninja Gaiden Sigma and its sequel are still worth going through once again, even the best swords can get a little rusty if not properly maintained.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has one foot in a past dimension and one foot in a future dimension and, thankfully, it spends more time in the latter dimension over the former.