Leonardo Faria's Reviews
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.
If ProtoCorgi was merely a cute ’em up with decent controls, that would have already been enough to make me recommend it to fans of shooters in general. It’s just that good. Thankfully, there’s more to it than just adorable pups with fricking lasers. The inclusion of a level editor makes it stand out from its peers. It’s not the most intuitive of editors, but I’m sure someone else will get a hold of it and exponentially extend this game’s lasting appeal.
My past experience with Hatsune Miku games has been shockingly positive, but The Planet Of Wonder And Fragments Of Wishes is just too shallow and brief to be considered a worthy purchase, even for fans of the vocaloid diva. Even though some its minigames were indeed fun to play, there’s not a lot to enjoy in this package, and you can’t even play them with a friend. Its boring story, dialogue, and mediocre soundtrack (again, a shocking thing considering the source material) weren’t enough to make up for the overall lack of content.
At the end of the day, what matters is that Street Fighter 6 did manage to overcome a ton of odds. It might have an issue or two when it comes to the visual fidelity of its campaign mode, as well as some odd artistic decisions, but as a complete package, there’s little to complain about. It’s Capcom, yet again, delivering. Great controls, buttery smooth performance, and one of the best single-player campaigns ever put in a fighting game are but a few of the highlights in this roaring success of a title.
This one was quite a surprise. With the appropriate pair of rose-tinted glasses, you can actually have quite a lot of carefree fun with Terminal Velocity. I’m not going to sugarcoat the fact that this game is beyond dated, but there is enjoyment to be had with such a simplistic gameplay loop. It is the quintessential “shut your brain off and have some fun” kind of experience.
We Love Katamari has always been the fan favorite of the franchise, so having access to a modernized port, which retains everything that worked in the original (namely, almost everything), all while slightly improving its UI and giving players even more content than before, is something worth celebrating. Would I prefer an actual modern Katamari game, with new levels and content to enjoy? Sure, but I get that this franchise is a really hard sell. I would, however, absolutely recommend picking the remaster of We Love Katamari up. This kind of ultra-dumb but ultra-fun game is rarely seen nowadays.
Shame Legacy might possibly be one of the most “okay” horror games I’ve played in a while. There’s nothing about it that’s bad. It’s glitch-free, it controls well enough, it has one or two neat ideas. At the same time, nothing about it impressed me, be it its underwhelming plot, 30fps cap, or an overall lack of innovation. It’s just… there. A game worth a look if you’re into horror, but not one to expect a lot from. If anything, the best thing I can say about it is that it didn’t infuriate me or gross me out like Outlast 2 did.
There is little else that needs to be said. Shinobi Non Grata is a very straightforward retro platformer that isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel or offer much more than a retro-infused action-platforming experience that might look, sound, and feel like an old-school Ninja Gaiden/Strider hybrid with a handful of quality of life improvements. But that’s not a bad thing. If anything, the fact it’s so down to the point in its premise, being focused on being challenging but fair, is what made me like it so much. It’s no The Messenger, but it wasn’t trying to compete with that game’s level of ambition. It’s just fast-paced, challenging, and above anything else, fun.
After Us is a game of contrasts. A game where the harsh grays and pollution of its desolate landscapes contrast with the gorgeous rays of light and greeneries summoned by its protagonist. Where its unwelcome setting contrasts with its easy-going gameplay loop. It’s also a game where the decent gameplay loop contrasts with its excessively on-the-nose story.