With the lack of direction, the difficulty spikes, and the time it takes to upgrade skills and equipment, Rival Showdown is an exercise in frustration more than anything else.
Miitopia isn't going to turn heads, nor grab the hardcore RPGamer crowd, but it's a fun little romp for those who want a much more compact and simple RPG experience.
Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is a celebration of the series, as well as a mindblowing finale to Kazuma and Haruka’s story.
While Galaxy of Pen & Paper doesn’t push any boundaries, it stays true to its 16-bit roots, offering a fun exploration into outer space, and a great excuse to hang with your friends, eat some pizza, and roll some dice.
As it stands, Dragon’s Crown Pro is a great title to play with friends, but if you’ve played this once before there’s not going to be much to draw you back in for a replay.
There aren't many games out there that do such a good job of emotionally tugging at your heartstrings the way this particular series does, and Banner Saga 3 is no exception.
While Odyssey is not the perfect package, it offers so much to newcomers and veterans of the series and was the reboot Origins should have been.
What Nelke presents is an embarrassing attempt to shoehorn battle sections in that bore the player to tears.
It’s fantastic to have a couch co-op game that takes all of the classic elements of beat-’em-ups and gives them an upgrade that feels modern and fresh.
Ryza herself may be among the best heroines in the Atelier series. She is chock full of determination and humour; she is sensitive and has empathy, offering players a heroine who is multifaceted in a way that the previous entries lacked.
Wide Ocean Big Jacket is for those who love curling up with a good book, or love seeing sweet summer romances blossom. It’s a funny, light-hearted experience that will take very little of your time and offer something that is sweet and reminiscent of summer.
The problem with Pong Quest on a whole is that for a crossover, it doesn’t lean heavily enough into RPGs to be interesting for RPGamers, and by the other side of it, you can only play so much Pong before it gets stale.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is such a calming experience from it’s very sweet and earthy tunes to its simple routine.
Best Friend Forever has fantastic humour and charm in its writing and presentation without a doubt. Honestly, my main bulk of fun came from the dog-training simulator because I needed Titan the Maltese to be the best of the best. I found the dating sim elements lacking, and while I do think that they belong in the game, fleshing them out more would have created a home-run.
Overall, I loved my time with Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and while there are imperfections in the game, they are equally a part of its charm.
This story is beautiful, thoughtful, and even uncomfortable at times, and the two endings are very different but equally important. A Summer’s End is easily one of the best visual novels I have played in a long time and its story is going to follow me easily for the rest of my life.
Ikenfell is a difficult game to adjudicate on. In terms of its storytelling and visual presentation, it is an enriching experience that always had me eager to know what was going to happen next. From a gameplay standpoint, it’s a dull slog that just feels like it needed more of a punch and a lot less padding.
Reinventing a series can be a difficult task, one which the first installment did with great success. However, Atelier Ryza 2: Lost Legends & the Secret Fairy is a great example of fixing something that was never broken to begin with.
Pioneers of Olive Town is a good game, but it is hard to recommend when Stardew Valley continues to dominate the farming sim genre.
There is absolutely good game hidden within it and damn does it have a lot of heart, but at this time the game misses it’s mark on the technical side, which makes it tough to fully recommend.