This is a slower, more painful, and in many ways more failure-prone sort of game. But for players who enjoy the option of a slower ludonarrative and want to experience a build through this difficult situation, stalking the wreckage of the exclusion zone is going to be a lot of fun. If you’re willing to be patient and survival-minded, you’ll find a lot to enjoy here in Chernobylite.
At the same time, I do think there’s an appealing and fun game there just the same. The core gameplay loop is well-defined and unique, and the game has a unique charm to it. I might not be the target audience for this particular title, but I can tell that the people who are the target audience are going to get a real kick out of how harsh it manages to be while always feeling just shy of being unfair. It’s never easy, but it’s always unwelcoming in that peculiar balanced way. Just… be prepared for some interface weirdness and losing before you get into it, and you’ll probably get more out of it in the long run.
See, again, that’s part of what makes this either work for people or not. This is a game that brushes up against a lot of different genres without diving too deeply into any of them, and some players are going to either clock out from that or find that they like one or two parts but not all three. It is kind of a weird game and it is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But if the idea of the game sounds interesting to you? Hey, this is a classic remastered and improved, and it’s well worth the asking price.
Well… maybe. There’s definitely a strong sense of the Norse in the cultural zeitgeist in the moment, and I can see someone being curious enough to take what amounts to a walking tour of these locations and places to understand a little bit more. And what the game actually wants to deliver it does. While I have some minor quibbles here and there, by and large this is very good at being an educational tour of a historical period with a few fanciful elements to support beliefs.
In many ways, I keep going back and forth on Triangle Strategy. On the one hand, it’s not exactly the game I was hoping it would be when it was first announced. On the other hand, it’s also not fair to hold that against the game; it’s not whether the game is what I dreamed of but what it is actually trying to be and how well it succeeds at that goal. On the third hand, there are some actual issues there with what the game is trying to be, some places where it winds up falling short of the marks it sets for itself.
At the end of the day, Fashion Police Squad is a cute, rather lightweight game with a strong sense of humor, telling a simple joke over and over… but it’s a joke that makes me smile, and isn’t that what really matters? I had fun with it and I enjoy its approach to things. Control issues might be there, but that’s really about choice of interface, and if you’re looking for a solid retro FPS on the Switch, it’s a strong candidate. One might even call it… vivacious.
There are definitely some rough edges in Affogato, like poor sprite work and the odd technical issue. But while those issues are noteworthy, they are far from being a significant drain on the game. Indeed, I found myself consistently enjoying the game, and while the issues do drag it down they don’t really hurt the game. This is a fun, inventive title with a lot of heart to it.
The list of things to find might seem a little short at first, but it’s remarkably devious and should keep you searching for a consistent stretch. If you see the scenes above and think “that looks like fun,” hey, you are probably going to have a good time.
However, if you like to march through corridors, blow through your enemies, and maybe get a few one-liners in along the way? Phantom Fury is going to be a good time. It's a legacy throwback that has done its homework, and while it didn't delight me it also never made me want to throw the dang thing in the garbage. It's some good lightweight fun. Let's just hope that this time around the title avoids becoming the main character of controversy, hmm?
On the one hand, I feel like Kunai kind of missed its mark. The game is definitely trying to be something different and set itself apart, but there are just enough pain points that it’s hard to think it really works. There’s a lot of effort to keep you engaged and offer a slight twist on the formula, but most of those twists come off as broadly neutral.
There’s a lot to love here, but I don’t think the main mechanic works very well. Which is sad, because I wish it did. I want to love it, but ultimately I just found it frustrating, and watching the credits roll felt like a compromise. So be fairly warned before giving it a shot.
At the end of the day, if you’re a genre fan, Deiland will provide you with enough bang for your buck that you won’t feel your time was wasted. But it’s kind of a lightweight thing, and between the short duration and the lack of long-term hooks it’s more a case of genre fans wanting more than it is of a new game to really sink your teeth into. That doesn’t make it bad or disappointing, just perhaps a bit more slight than you’d hope.
That doesn’t mean the game is truly dire or a disaster. Indeed, if you’re a fan of the franchise or you want something that feels a bit like a good old-school hack-and-slash platformer, you’ll get some enjoyment out of the game. But it ultimately feels like a very pretty and well-intentioned game that made itself too easy and ultimately lost out on its main appeal.
The problem is that not only are those few missteps there, the goals it's aiming for are already far lesser than I would expect from the game as a whole. It promises something that is nice, fun, comfy, and cozy. While the game is certainly light and avoids getting bogged down in unnecessary detail, it also fails to really capitalize on its ideas and winds up being a bit unbalanced, a bit undercooked, and a lot underserved compared to a lot of other entries in the field.
But then, that perhaps is the worst thing about it. The game isn’t terrible, but it’s a bit forgettable. It comes out on the right side wherein you can have some fun with it, especially if you really like strategy games, but it doesn’t really feel like it works very hard to do more than just be good enough. If you’re in the mood for a strategy game but don’t want quite so much strategy, it’ll fill you up, but it’s not going to delight you in the process.
If you do enjoy the idea of what amounts to a never-ending survival horde defense mode and are willing to do quite a lot of playing before you earn other characters? There’s stuff to like here! This is not a bad game. But it’s a game that looks a lot more charming than it winds up being. It’s an all right game masquerading as a good one, and while that doesn’t make it bad, it does make it less than the sum of its parts.
The story works but it has some notable flaws, and if you’re familiar with the property lots of it feels like familiar ground. The gameplay is solid enough but it’s very much about following a very strict path rather than going off in new directions. The visuals are afforded far too much weight and don’t actually work all that well beyond seeing quick snippets in trailers. Which, when you look at it all in one go, might make this the most Star Wars game possible in all of Star Wars. I just wish that felt like a compliment.
If you’re looking for a metroidvania game to play that you haven’t played before, this game is going to deliver. It’s not without charm and it’s not wildly incompetent. But it’s a C- effort and that’s all the worse when you know that the studio is capable of delivering much better. Unless you’re in dire need of a new metroidvania or a big fan of the series it’s based upon, I wouldn’t rush to grab this one.
As it stands, ArcRunner is not a bad game. I don’t think it’s truly dire by any stretch of the imagination, even with the font being kind of awful. But it’s just not a very good game either. It’s fine. And just fine doesn’t get much more than a tepid recommendation. There are a lot of games in this genre, and a lot of those are more fun to play with
Despite all of those couple-thousand-words up there, I think on some level that I kind of hit this one right when I started out. It’s a Touhou kart racer. For the people who dearly want a Touhou kart racer, this provides exactly that, and the reality is that the only really big criticism that’s actually crippling is the game’s length. Everything else winds up landing at the point that this is a game without Mario Kart money or polish trying to be Mario Kart.