All in all, TMNT: Splintered Fate stands as one of the better games seen in the franchise, delivering a busy and accessible action roguelite supported by a tone-perfect narrative. All we need now is for Super Evil Megacorp to make good on that roadmap and beef up the content, but any Turtles fans and roguelite aficionados should find enough here already to spur their next grind session.
Unknown 9: Awakening's best ideas never clear the landing.
It must be a challenge to thread inspiration’s needle in a game like this one. Critics and players might point to Neva’s most obvious references as thematic shortcuts, but the game’s personality and careful sense of craft always shined through. I’m tempted to compare Neva to Playdead’s influential duology of Limbo and Inside, even though the tonal qualities remain quite different, primarily for the impeccable quality of its design and richness of its world, dialogue-free as it may be. It's a brief experience overall, but most players should feel compelled to happily join Alba and Neva in starting the seasonal cycle anew, their screenshot key on a hair trigger.
Still, the essential excitement of turning the page to discover what's next is so powerfully represented in The Plucky Squire, and the game retains this energy into its final chapters, even while otherwise lacking notable tension or danger. It’s an entertainingly busy book to play through, but it's a pity that many of The Plucky Squire’s best ideas are ultimately underexplored. Perhaps these are just being held back for any plucky printed new worlds to come.
Releasing an appropriate amount of time after Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree DLC was the right move, as Deathbound can't really go toe-to-toe with the greats. Still, anyone with a tolerance for jank and an interest in the game’s new ideas should come away satisfied, even while recognizing that this pluckiness only takes it so far. Deathbound is an indie soulslike through and through, a scrappy moonshot with some interesting tweaks on the genre, and a satisfying depth of lore to boot. Its flaws hold it back, but that shouldn’t distract from its enjoyable character-switching combat and overall gumption.
Eden Genesis has a rich pool of references to giddily point toward, but very little unprecedented innovation or personality to uplift its genre, and that’s a big problem. As a time-trials platformer, it’s only just about average in terms of control quality, creative hazards, and challenge level. For the latter, it leans more towards achingly precise triggers, but muddies this water with mechanics that are more frustrating than fun.
Screenshots of the game may immediately summon games like Zelda vibes, but they wouldn’t be exactly accurate, and the wider regions of Dungeons of Hinterberg aren’t packed with secrets and interactive details; it’s almost a dialogue-oriented Zelda-lite sort of experience. Call it “cozy Zelda,” call it “Zelda Crossing,” call it “Persona of the Wild” if needed, it’s really just a charming blend of all these notions, and certain standout dungeons on their own are worth chartering a flight to Dungeons of Hinterberg.
Anger Foot is a fun and frenetic FPS with a sizable campaign, only sputtering out in its brief slower segues, but remaining entertaining throughout.
This feels like a game obviously made by fans of that era, spinning the style into a contemporary mode that stands on its own. Here’s hoping the very worst of #BLUD's bugs get promptly squashed, because the more novel aspects of the game – the Perch app, a static map which slightly changes over time, or the clever fast-travel system – deserve a stable experience to best appreciate. #BLUD is a beautiful animated action-adventure with plenty of vampires to bash, but it needs more polish.
Still, pitting it against the mountains of similar roguelite releases to dig through every month, Harvest Hunt stands out with its great style and unique concept. While it's not yet announced as Steam Deck compatible, the game plays perfectly on the handheld thus far, with a smart controller configuration to match. Harvest Hunt remains worth checking out for anyone into folk horror, roguelites, and asymmetrical games – just try and poke the game's bear whenever possible.
Little Kitty, Big City fulfills its feline obligations and then some, offering a beautifully animated adventure packed with appropriate cat-ivities and whimsical, gentle humor. It’s all-ages, elegant, and over much too quickly, but it’s the best of its breed.
As an existential piece peppered with surrealist agitprop, Indika feels successfully distinct. There’s even something convincingly personal about the story that ably cuts a path through its weirdness, a core built around toxic romantic relationships. None of its decisions and ideas seem beholden to interference, but like an original concept produced with integrity and personality. Even if stretches of Indika may not be “fun” in the conventional sense, it’s an intimate and stimulating experience that sticks around long after it's over.
TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants wears its age as a nearly-decade-old port, and some of that is to be expected. It’s still hard to understand why any of its elements weren’t modernized to keep in line with beat ‘em ups released over the past five years, let alone the recent Shredder’s Revenge, which remains the conspicuous elephant of comparison in the room.
Anyone who loves spatial puzzles or novelty action games should feel catered to here, and score-chasers will be battling over the leaderboards and sharing video clips of their best clears in the days to come. Overall, Children of the Sun is a great video game idea done well, a darkly beautiful assassin simulator with a worthy and fulfilling hook.
Rise of the Ronin is an immersive open-world title that does a lot of work to value the time of its players, making for a rewarding journey.
Alone in the Dark is a fun horror romp with a great cast and a visible love for the original, but the action is stiff and the puzzles are quite easy.
In the end, though, the repetitiveness makes it difficult to fully recommend Slave Zero X, especially at its retail asking price of $24.99. Aside from just enjoying the story, replay value is restricted to high-score hunters (who themselves will have to deal with an arguably unpredictable grading system), and anyone not completely smitten with the presentation will find themselves looking for an excuse to persevere, even with its relatively short campaign. For the right player, Slave Zero X will seem like a custom-made surprise, but it’s a little too short to box with the beat ‘em up gods.
As it stands, though, The Thaumaturge remains quite special overall. Hanging out with Rasputin, shmoozing with turn-of-the-century elites, and exploring some unexpected golem developments with beset Rabbis make for compelling content, even when a few lines in the script fail to land. Anyone taken in by this setting will genuinely want to play The Thaumaturge, and it joins several other recent experimental Slavic fantasy adventures that prove the countless avenues video games have yet to fully explore.
It's everything surrounding those battles and skirmishes that makes Skull and Bones a harder sell. The simulation aspects are limited and under-baked, the questing is almost always tedious, and there are only a few main ship models to work with. Lacking the ability to dock and explore, ocean exploration feels perfunctory and artificially hampered. Better ship customization options open up eventually, and it’s initially interesting to tinker with armaments, but it’s hard not to want even more of the best boat blueprints, more gear, more detailed inclusions that would make these vessels feel authored and unique, something to elevate the vacant core routines. Skull and Bones could have been a welcoming and rare new beacon for pirate game fans but, even with seasons of promised premium content yet to come, this boat is visibly sinking.
With its unlockable deck types, tricky economy, advanced joker concepts, challenge runs, and ascension-like “stake” system, Balatro offers countless hours to engage its treacherous machine of diversion. If this was preinstalled with Windows in lieu of Microsoft’s mandatory, productivity-wrecking Solitaire back in the 90s, modern civilization as we know it could have very well ground to a halt. For fans of deckbuilders, Balatro is an addictively delicious, menacing creation which devours hours without mercy. It should be handled with great care.