Leonardo Faria's Reviews
When it comes to their work in this Rise of the Triad remaster, I have nothing but the utmost respect. The problem is that Rise of the Triad is very underwhelming, even for shooters of its time. Boring level design, nearly nonexistent geometry, excessively fast-paced gameplay, an emphasis on platforming when there isn’t even a dedicated means to jump, average-at-best weaponry… this is a game that wouldn’t have impressed me that much in 1995, let alone today.
This is one mess of a game, isn’t it? Greyhill Incident could have been considered a hilarious, “so-bad-it’s-good” experience due to its dumb premise and Wiseau-esque levels of voice acting, but it’s way too boring to be considered worthy of an ironic playthrough. Poor stealth mechanics, samey environments, and an emphasis on being an Amazon delivery boy for a bunch of tinfoil hat lunatics cozily sitting in front of your house make this slog of a game feel less like an unintentional gaming version of Plan 9 From Outer Space and more like an exercise in how long you can stomach it before turning your PS5 off.
Mr. Run and Jump stands out from the barrage of challenging precision-based platforms infesting today’s indie scene by having some well-crafted (albeit utterly infuriating) level designs, but most importantly, some commendable accessibility options for newcomers to the genre. It wants you to get angry at its gauntlets, but it doesn’t want you to ragequit. It will always give you an extra push to help you beat a section just a few runs before you lose your patience.
Operation Wolf Returns: First Mission had one goal: prove that you can, indeed, revive a classic light gun arcade franchise with the power of virtual reality, especially with the added benefit of the Quest 2’s portability. Even if it has a handful of issues (it’s really short, the occasional framerate stutter, visuals that aren’t particularly amazing), it wasn’t trying to be an immersive, complex experience. It’s pure arcade fun, and it gets the job done with honors.
Bloodhound isn’t a bad first-person shooter, but it’s a wasted opportunity. It could have been much better if the developers hadn’t focused so much of their efforts in ensuring the game would be as edgy, grotesque, and (non) erotic as possible. The foundations for a good DOOM-esque shooter are here, but the terrible enemy placement system and lackluster sound effects brought the combat mechanics down several notches.
I guess ACL Pro Cornhole does a good job at recreating all the sheer excitement of cornhole to a virtual environment, but here’s the very obvious issue: this is too boring, and not particularly exciting to be played as a video game. Cornhole can be fun on a county fair, or when you’re a freshman in college, but as a game being sold for thirty outrageous bucks? Yeah, there’s just not enough substance and content to justify its existence outside of a minigame included in another, much larger title.
Ed-0: Zombie Uprising is the poster child of crappy, nearly irredeemable, but oddly endearing Japanese jank.
The Invector series may have started as a tribute to a specific artist who had actually been part of its development, but I cannot deny that Invector: Rhythm Galaxy is the perfect follow-up for these games (as controversial as the idea for an Avicii-less sequel may sound), as well as the obvious next step for the franchise. It’s easily one of the best rhythm games released in recent memory, combining a fun and intuitive gameplay loop with an expertly curated setlist.
I ended up enjoying Testament: The Order of High-Human quite a bit, despite being a game suffering from a myriad of design issues. Thankfully, it didn’t suffer from a lot of technical issues. What we ended up getting was a decent first-person action adventure game with good controls, an interesting combat system, and a big emphasis on puzzle-solving, even if those sections go on for way too long at times. The overall game feel was just good enough to make me ignore the pointless story, poor voice acting (kudos for the effort, though) and loathsome boss battles.
Raging Bytes is a bit on the easy side, and not at all scary for a survival horror title set in a zombie apocalypse, but I have to give credit where credit is due: I had way more fun with it than I could have ever imagined, and was really intrigued with its simple, but effective story. Its combination of JRPG combat and zombie apocalypse themes is something rarely, if ever, seen in games, so I also have to commend the developers for the game’s overall originality.
The excellent parkour mechanics, decent combat, and the option to actually limit the amount of quips coming out from Frey’s mouth (a character way more likable than I was expecting, mind you) more than made up for the actual quality of the quips and the incredibly bland open world and sidequests. Forspoken was fine enough. The quintessential “decent and worth getting at half-price” game.
It’s just a very good compilation of fun, but overlooked bullet hell shooters. I did like RayStorm and RayCrisis more than RayForce, but all of the games included in Ray’z Arcade Chronology are leagues better than the vast majority of arcade shooters released back in the 90s. Add in M2’s godlike ability to remaster seemingly every single game they touch into ultimate improvements upon their original releases, and you know you’re in for a good time.
For better or for worse, this is now the easiest and most practical way to play Pikmin, and figure out why has this franchise managed to stand the test of time for so long. I particularly didn’t understand the hype. To me, Pikmin is average at best. It’s a game that has aged poorly, especially when it comes to these dated controls. The fact this wasn’t even a remaster, but a bare bones upscaled port of a game from 2001, certainly didn’t help. It did nothing to fix its many issues, nor did it receive improvements in its visuals, audio, or performance.
They say that interacting with dogs makes your brain produce and spread oxytocin, the “happiness hormone”, in your body. They also say that owning dogs improves your blood pressure and helps cure depression. This is why we can’t get enough of these adorable little creatures. Little Friends: Puppy Island doesn’t exactly reach that point, but even though this game is beyond simplistic, even more than Nintendogs itself at times, it makes me smile while playing it.
Crash Team Rumble features the solid foundations for a neat gameplay loop, as well as excellent controls and decent visuals… but this is something that should have been a multiplayer mode in a mainline game, not its own thing. I actually think that this should have been the better approach with this idea, as it is fun… for a few minutes at a time. The fact it’s a paid game with an additional payment towards a season pass just adds insult to injury.
Sludge Life 2 is basically Sludge Life, just on a new map. Were the original a good game, or even a passable game, I’d understand its appeal. But that’s not the the case. The original Sludge Life was a dour and pointless adventure game drowned in tryhard imagery and completely devoid of charisma… and the sequel is just that. Again. No fixes to visuals, controls, glitches, a dull gameplay loop, nothing. You are simply getting more of what you (don’t) love.
I don’t particularly think any of the inclusions in this package are game changers, be it the inclusions of new characters on older games or the many, many emulated ROMs of Game Gear titles, but the overall package is quite good. Considering the price tag and amount of content on offer, I’d say this is an easy recommendation.
Park Beyond is in a better place now than when it first dropped into digital storefronts, but even if some of its glitches were fixed, something else hinders it even more: the lack of content available on basic versions of the game. There’s just not a lot in it to make a savefile last for more than half an hour at a time, with most of its content updates being planned as paid DLC, which is just unacceptable for a game as expensive as this one.
Purists might feel this game is way too different from anything that had come before it, be it for its vastly darker tone or emphasis on hack and slash action. Others might not enjoy how long it takes for the game to stop being Final Fantasy XIII levels of linear before finally opening up for exploration. My position on it is simple: I loved it. I loved its gameplay loop, and I fell in utter love with its setting and story.
Silicon City is a much more limited and stripped down version of the traditional city builder simulator you’ve grown to love since the 90s, with small map sizes and a somewhat limited amount of buildings to place, but it’s also faster to learn, as well as to simply pick up and play. It’s a more casual take on the genre, all while retaining a chunk of the elements that made it so popular with PC gamers in the first place.