Leonardo Faria's Reviews
To Codemasters’ credit, it is the full version of GRID Legends, but now available in VR. It’s not a simple “VR experience” either: there’s a truckload of content in this game, making it one of the beefiest titles available on the Quest 2. However, the horrendous visuals, disappointing controls, and lack of immersion make this one a tough sell to all but the most die-hard VR enthusiasts, those who were eagerly waiting for a full-fledged racing sim on the system.
All in all, Dusk ’82 is really short and as simplistic as it gets, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s a little side project meant to pay homage to Castle Wolfenstein. Limited and clunky by nature, sure, but it gets the job done. It’s not particularly memorable (you can beat it in one sitting and then delete it from your Switch’s memory), but quite fun while it lasts.
Let me remind you once more that calling Breakers Collection a collection is an exaggeration. It’s one Neo Geo fighter and an updated version of it, with barely any changes whatsoever. The game itself isn’t bad at all, just pretty generic not only for today’s standards, but even the standards of the Neo Geo system as a whole. There’s little in here that would make Breakers stand out even from the B-tier fighting franchises of the time, like World Heroes or Waku Waku 7.
All in all, The Entropy Centre is a charming and inventive puzzle platformer. It’s nowhere near as memorable or innovative as its main cake-smelling source of inspiration, nor is it particularly replayable, but as a one-off, mind-bending puzzle adventure, yup, this gets the job done with honors for the extention of its runtime, more than making up for what little issues I’ve found in its voice acting and presentation departments as well.
At its core, this is still the excellent Mortal Shell we all fell in love with two years ago, but do bear in mind that the setbacks caused by this game being ported to the Switch largely outweigh the pros. The novelty value of playing yet another “impossible port” on the Switch is fantastic, but you will have to deal with unbelievably long loading times and some really poor framerate issues.
A likeable protagonist, new abilities and a personal, down-to-earth story made up for the fact Spider-Man: Miles Morales is shorter than its 2018 predecessor. It’s a game with enough qualities to stand on its own, one that proves that Miles isn’t just some fluke character being pushed by Marvel over the past few years. Not only that, but this PC port is the real deal, with some pretty good optimization and performance.
Miraculous: Rise of the Sphinx is a pretty basic action-platformer at its core, even though it tries to add some variety to the mix with its barrage of pointless combat mechanics. Not to mention the whole high school social life second half, that felt more like a way to extend its duration, at best. With that being said, it’s polished, it looks decent, runs well, features the cast from the show, enough elements that make the game feel less like a soulless cash grab and more like your typical “it’s average at best, but fans of the show will be very pleased with the results” game.
Sol Cresta is not a bad bullet-hell shooter at all, but it’s far from being the most interesting I’ve played in a while. Its visuals and soundtrack did not wow me, and while it had one very interesting gameplay feature, it wasn’t exactly a new one: other games in the franchise have had them in the past. It felt less of a modern revival of an arcade franchise and just a new version of a 90s title which was locked in someone’s storage for the past 25 years.
Harvestella is far from being the most impressive and innovative mixture between a farming simulator and an action RPG, but it’s far from being outright bad or worthy of being ignored, either. It’s got some neat redeeming factors, namely its phenomenal soundtrack and relaxing farming vibes, while suffering from an uninspired combat system, and some really poor pacing problems.
Is there anything else that needs to be said? The The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was nearly perfect back in 2015, mostly hampered by bugs (which have already been fixed) and the hardware they were running on. The hardware issue is no more, with these next-gen versions letting you play these games the way they were intended to be experienced, with nearly no loading times, improved visuals, and a much sexier framerate. Is it worth revisiting it yet again? Absolutely! It might be a nearly 150 hour long RPG (counting the expansions and Gwent, of course), but it’s just way too good to be set aside.
I laud Floodland for being a shockingly niche game, aiming to please a very minute and specific subsection of gamers into survival, city builders, and strategy simulators all at once. It is flawed, being way too slow before it becomes really interesting, not to mention some performance issues, but it does indeed succeed at what it was developed for. It’s just a really hard sell for anyone besides this very specific niche of gamers, and not enough of a “city-builder” for those who are into the genre in particular.
It might be a bit frustrating in the beginning, given how punishing its first few hours are, but once you rack up some cash to afford new parts and cars altogether, the game becomes a blast. It may not have received the biggest marketing budget, and being borderline stealth released in December did it no favors, but do not miss this one out. It’s one hell of an entertaining racing experience.
Beholgar is just… there. It’s not a terrible metroidvania, but it’s severely lacking in notable elements that make it positively stand out among a sea of other indie metroidvanias in the market. Not even the fact this is the closest to a Conan metroidvania we’ll probably ever get seemed to pique my interest at the end of the day. All in all, it’s not an offensively bad game, far from it, but it’s very unmemorable.
For those who were already used to expecting actual mechanical improvements in each WRC iteration, WRC Generations might be a bit disappointing, as it is, for the most part, more WRC 10. That is to say it’s more of the (still pretty good) same. It makes up for its lack of innovation with a sheer amount of tracks and cars at your disposal, in a “greatest hits” kind of way. Even though it’s slightly less polished than WRC 10, I still absolutely recommend checking WRC Generations out.
New Joe & Mac reminded me a lot of Ghosts ‘n Goblins Resurrection. It has its audience of retro arcade platformer enthusiasts who will be drawn towards gorgeous visuals and what they call “challenging gameplay”, but at the end of the day, it’s a brutally unfair game filled to the brim with difficulty-increasing mechanics implemented in order to extend its duration. It has its charm, I won’t lie, especially with these gorgeous visuals, but this isn’t the easiest of recommendations.
Don’t get me wrong, Bayonetta 3 is still an excellent action game. If you like the franchise, you’ll still have a great time with it. It still retains the dumb fun vibe the franchise is known for, and the fact you can play this over-the-top nonsense anywhere you want to is a major plus. But I cannot ignore the fact it feels more like a game being held hostage on a console which cannot run it like it should. Being a Nintendo Switch exclusive is a detriment to its potential, and, as a result, we’re getting drab visuals, less impressive level designs, and serious framerate and resolution issues.
I love the open world design, but hate its visuals. I love the inclusion of multiple routes and storylines, but despised the brand new gym battles. I loved the new pokémon designs, but didn’t care that much about its new gameplay gimmick, as usual. It was released before it was ready, before the hype caused by Legends: Arceus could calm down a bit. That being said, it’s Pokémon: it will still sell, it will still be really fun for those into the franchise’s gameplay loop, and Game Freak will surely release a new generation in a few years without caring about fan feedback, as usual.
I know I’ve said time and time again that “game x” is a love letter to “franchise y”, to a nearly exhaustive degree, but Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is just something else. It’s a worthy celebration of one of the most important companies not in gaming’s history, but technology history in general. Hell, maybe even the 20th century as a whole. The sheer amount of games included in it, both old and new, would already make this collection worth checking out for a retro enthusiast, but the tons of extras, namely footage from the 70s and modern interviews with Atari alumni and celebrity fans, result in this almost becoming a playable documentary.
Let’s put it this way: there’s enough content in Let’s Play Curling to justify its existence as a video game, and not just a mode in a winter sport compilation title, but not at the currently asked price tag. It’s not a deep experience, it doesn’t look appealing, and you won’t play it for more than twenty or so minutes at a time. I commend Imagineer for milking as much content as possible with what little they had at their disposal, especially in an ultra niche sport like curling, but this one is a tough recommendation.
Arkanoid: Eternal Battle is a fun take on a dated and immovable gameplay loop, that suffers from the fact it will only be fully enjoyed if more people buy it and play its excellent battle royale mode. Even though it has other modes to satiate your brick breaking needs in case you’re a solo player, be it with the inclusion of the old arcade game or bots, it’s just not the same without the sheer chaos provided by lots of players going nuts at once.