Ultimately, BDSM isn’t very good when it comes to the actual gameplay to start with. It’d be a not tremendously good game even if it was exploring stuff like themes and meaning with some actual depth. But when you get into the “parody” aspect that’s really just a thin veneer to defend against people calling out the content, it slips hard into the territory of just not being worth your time.
If you’re desperate for another farming life sim and have nothing else to play, or you really like the art style so much that you’re willing to overlook a relatively lackluster play experience, then you’ll get something worthwhile out of the game. I sure hope you do. But for the average player, I just can’t find much to recommend it over a lot of other games. Re: Legend falls far short of being a legendary experience.
So the score I’m giving this game is on the high end of that same number… but ultimately, it’s a game I can’t really recommend to a lot of people. For all the neat ideas at play and the interesting visuals, it never quite has enough meat on its bones. There’s just not enough to rave about here.
But sadly, at the end of the day I just can’t really recommend Tears of Avia to anyone else. Not being terrible is not the same as actually being good, and while I understand that this was made with love, it is ultimately a love that has little to nothing to add to the genre aside from being more of it.
But otherwise? Caveat emptor. This is a fun game when it works, but the “working” part isn’t assured. It’s just that the technical issues don’t render it unplayable.
This isn’t a terrible game. If you’re a fan of the series and really eager to have more of it, it’ll probably serve decently for those purposes, but that’ll still mean overlooking things like weak translation, poor mechanics, and a slipshod feel across the board. But if you aren’t already a fan, there’s little to nothing to recommend it to you, much less to inspire you to learn more.
Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia isn’t a truly dire or bad title, but it’s the sort of thing that you’re either going to love or hate, and that feels like a pretty big ask for the game. It was a title I found very exciting in concept, but found myself increasingly disappointed by the more I played it.
I found myself looking at a pile of things that seemed like they would be fun, like there was a fun game under everything else, but the whole thing needed another few passes at the design stage to actually get out that fun game.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?