As a whole, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is the most fun I’ve had on a Pokemon adventure in a long, long time. But this is completely in spite of itself. There are unforgivable graphical issues, and despite endless charming creatures and characters, the open world itself lacks nearly completely in personality or a sense of progression. Nonetheless, it has never felt better being a Pokemon trainer than it does in Gen IX, thanks to the smoothest mechanics yet and quality-of-life improvements.
Kirby’s Dream Buffet is a cute and fun game while it lasts. It feels like the kind of game you might play as a warmup for a short period before breaking into something more substantial. For what it is, it’s quite nice, but it’s hard to justify what it is against its price tag and the free-to-play nature of some of its competitors.
MLB The Show 22 is a finely-tuned baseball simulator that offers a nice range of options depending on your patience but is possessed of a nearly insurmountable difficulty curve for beginning players, especially those who are either uninvested in the sport, more accustomed to simpler arcade-style baseball games, or even fans of other popular sports simulators that require less pinpoint accuracy to succeed in. Fortunately, if you’re determined enough to learn to play the game, there are endless pitches to swing at and new games to start over as you fine-tune your button-pressing timing.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is a good addition to the world of racing games, with enough to make it totally unique but not too much to overcomplicate it. There are a few things I wish would make it feel more full, but for what it does deliver, it delivers it well.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Flynn: Son of Crimson. It feels just different enough from its genre brethren with cool unlockable weapons and upgrades and a whole heckin’ dog to fight by your side. It’s nothing special, though, and despite a constant feeling of progression, the game’s basicness eventually wore on me. For fans of action platformers, though, it will be an enjoyable new addition.
At the end of the day, Monster Harvest is a good game that a little too closely resembles Stardew Valley and does not execute its Pokèmon-like mechanics cleanly or uniquely enough. Fortunately, it’s mostly visually beautiful with nice music and more than plenty to do.
If you’re a fan of the base game, then Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Siege of Paris is more of what you’re already excited about. But it’s a weaker DLC than “Wrath of the Druids,” to be sure, despite higher levels of marketing hype.
Despite the mulligans I wish Mario Golf: Super Rush could take, it’s still a strongly delivered game any fan of party games and party sport simulators in particular can enjoy alone or with friends.
While I have been rather harsh on a many aspects of Rhythm Fighter, overall, I enjoy the game thoroughly and recommend it to enjoyers of rhythm games and roguelikes alike. It’s a creative blending of the game types that isn’t overly complicated in its mechanics despite a steep learning curve for its controls.
Skater XL doesn’t have to be for you. It’s a simulator with innovative physics-based mechanics in a genre that has long been built around arcade-style unrealistic tricks, racking up points, and nailing huge combos. If you’re looking for that classic experience, you’re best waiting for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 + 2. But, if you’re somebody who loves customizing and living your best-simulated life with no need for objectives to complete, this is absolutely the game for you.
Whether you have nostalgia for the original or not, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated is a genuinely worthwhile game to pick up in 2020 and enjoy. It offers enough to do to warrant the price tag and is certainly a step-up in terms of presentation compared to the original. While it doesn’t offer much new, what it does offer is a great looking, smooth playing action-platformer from the tail-end of the Golden Age of Collectathons.
RoboCop Rogue City’s level of emersion is impressive, and the mechanics like crouching that it removes from the modern FPS formula don’t feel missed in the one-man-army, high-octane firefights that make up the core of the game.
Ad Infinitum is a little off balance when it comes to how difficult and unfair a few of its challenges are compared to the rest of the game, but with enough patience or guidance to make it through those sections, the rest of the game is set at an intense pace, while an excellently creepy atmosphere and a family whose horrors and the trauma they and the war have imparted onto the protagonist fill the game with character.
APICO is a tightly constructed and well-presented simulator about a topic loads of people are curious about but few people dive into. It’s a good way to quietly spend some time thinking about the majesty of these little animals while having a complicated enough gameplay loop to keep you invested for hours upon hours.
LEGO 2K Drive is classic LEGO fun with hours of exploration and racing to enjoy at any age.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land’s simplicity is its greatest asset as well as its greatest weakness. It makes it a fun and simple platformer filled with great copy abilities and a drive to work towards upgrading them all into cooler and more deadly versions. But it won’t likely have the staying power of some of the franchise’s earlier entries either. It’s a AAA Switch game though made by Nintendo, so surely it’s fun and will have its fans nonetheless.
Dawn of Ragnarok has rich emersion and story in its epic family tale with great emotional weight
Into The Pit is a good way to reintroduce a genre one could have assumed a relic of the past. It’s a tad slowly paced and can get repetitive as any roguelike might, but it’s a strong innovation on a tried and true genre.
What Lake was for me was not a peaceful, slow-paced reflection on what matters most in life. Instead, it was an anxious and difficult exercise in letting go of things that don’t bring me joy, even if they might hold other values. And it was a reflection on queer experience and the radicalness of choosing what’s genuinely best for yourself despite others’ expectations. However, while some moments of my time playing was difficult, it was because of how I saw my own ongoing experience through Merrideth’s eyes. And if a game can make me do that through expertly crafted gameplay, a perfect soundtrack, and captivating characters and relationships alone, you can certainly color me impressed.
Already on track to be the Assassin’s Creed game I sink the most hours into yet, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla is excellent in many ways, but flawed in just as many others.