Nick Mangiaracina's Reviews
Atelier Ryza is the best place for new fans of the series to jump in and a relaxing entry for older fans. Not the easiest game to get a handle on but once it clicks, you won’t want to put it down.
Masquerading as simply an adventure game set with Scandinavian folklore in mind, Röki offers so much more and I urge you to give it a shot if this type of game is your bag.
Pikmin 3 Deluxe is not just a great entry to jump in on, but also try out if you’ve ever been curious about the franchise.
Once I found myself hitting my stride in Cozy Grove, it became a before-bed ritual.
Minute of Islands is an incredibly stunning game with a timely narrative, minimal gameplay, and small platforming puzzles.
If you’re willing to let your guard down, open up your heart, and accept Button City as it is, you will get a very wholesome experience with lots of laughs and some very charming art.
Deck Nine manages to take Life is Strange’s classic signatures of indie music, small-town mysteries, and teenage angst and elevate it from the original creation. What could have been a bumbling soft-reboot of Life is Strange, Life is Strange: True Colors turned into the best game in the series so far.
Interconnected stories between games are always going to be fun to me. Anyone who enjoyed Backbone will most assuredly love the world being explored in Tails. I hope they continue this trend because Eggnut has created a very interesting world to explore.
There’s a fine balance struck in The Last Spell between Tactical RPG and roguelike. I think Ishtar Games did an excellent job adapting the genre to a roguelike. Initially hesitant at first, The Last Spell won me over with its fast paced battles, hero customization, and light town-management gameplay.
With fun turn-based combat, enough strategy development and random elements outside of combat, and a decent primary objective, Dicefolk refines an existing genre to make something both unique and recognizable. Dicefolk isn’t just for genre fans, it’s a very enjoyable game all around, especially if you dig turn-based combat.
A stunning visual feast for the eyes that managed to create a fun and challenging set of gameplay rules that carried me through to the end in a few days.
Whether or not you’ve partied with corpses before, Dead Patient gives you a good taste of what’s to come in this new entry of the Corpse Party overarching plot. Even as just a single episode, it’s quite good.
Orangeblood feels like a great game mired by small technical issues and has a short road to being an easy recommendation. With the developers still working on and releasing updates for the game regularly, Orangeblood could be a great pick-up for the turn-based JRPG gamer that’s looking for something off the beaten path.
I think if you’re into either the anime/manga series or turn-based JRPGs you’re going to have a good time with Fairy Tail.
The Pathless may not be my favorite game, I found quite a bit wrong with it, but the messaging was clear and resonated with me.
Ryza 2 does little to break the mold, but what it does do is polish the existing formula.
Not bested by its predecessor, Bravely Default 2 offers a fairly inoffensive experience with some interesting gameplay tweaks and a very enjoyable job system.
While I have my grievances, of which there are many, I still really loved playing Element TD 2 and know I’ll be sinking a lot of time into it in the future, especially if any of my issues are resolved.
Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key offers so much and is really the ultimate game in the Ryza series. It just wasn’t for me.
Though not without issues, I think Silent Hope is a good game at its core and is hopefully a jumping off point for more games like this from Marvelous in the future.