Leonardo Faria's Reviews
It’s a great rhythm title with a shocking amount of content, both in terms of cosmetics and songs of all genres. I also did not expect for it to be that challenging. Sure, a bit of its difficulty stemmed from the sheer amount of visual noise onscreen, but its gameplay did not pull any punches.
Even though Cricket 22 is an excellent cricket video game, the sport of cricket just doesn’t translate well into video game form. You can’t just play a quick arcadey match when the sport is so slow, everyone around you (players and commentators) look and sound unenthusiastic, and matches take forever to complete. It’s just like chess: sure, it can be fun in real life (I guess), but not everything was meant to be turned into a game.
All in all, Wonder Boy Collection, as a compilation of older titles, is pretty good. It suffers from the fact that, while influential, these games are very flawed, with poor controls and collision detection being an issue shared among all of them. There’s also the fact that the best game in the series, The Dragon’s Trap, is the sole title not featured in the package.
Kao the Kangaroo is very flawed, but also very enjoyable. It feels like I’m playing the 2022 equivalent to Gex, Chameleon Twist, or Toy Story 2: a game that smells like jank, but has enough charm and redeemable qualities (namely its excellent level design) to be worth a shot if you’re a fan of the genre. It will probably not going to wow you in any way, or leave a lasting impression, but it is proof that B-tier mascot platformers are alive and well in 2022.
More than just a really bad soulslike, Dolmen is a major disappointment. After more than half a decade waiting for this game, as well as constantly losing faith in it ever being released, I was expecting for these constant delays to result in it feeling more polished, more akin to more modern soulslikes. What we ended up getting was the complete opposite: a clunky, shockingly behind-the-times husk of an action RPG which would have been considered dated back in 2016, let alone today.
It could have been a really pretentious and mediocre art game, but Mini Motorways ended up being the complete opposite. This is pure arcade bliss, a simple but ridiculously challenging puzzler that won me over like few games in the genre. I can’t remember the last time I played a Switch game until its batteries ran completely dry because of how addictive and perfectly suited for portable play it was.
Just like other games in the franchise, Cotton Fantasy is not meant to be challenging. It’s yet another cathartic power fantasy of a shooter, where you’re given an excessive amount of weapons to wreak havoc against some of the cutest enemies in the genre. Even if the polygonal visuals aren’t as charming as the graphics in previous games, the sheer amount of playable characters, as well as its nonlinear structure, make this game the single most replayable Cotton title out there.
Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril is a competent attempt at recreating the look and feel of the NES era, but even then I don’t think it is that impressive, especially considering it’s already twelve years old. Some of its issues, namely the hit detection, infuriating initial difficulty spikes and button placement are hard to ignore, even when taking its system limitations into account.
Get-A-Grip Chip and the Body Bugs is much shorter than the original game, feeling more like a standalone expansion than a re-imagining or sequel. It’s more of what made the original game so appealing, with a non-condescending edutainment coat of paint, even though its subject matter is oddly specific for an educational title. Were you a fan of the 2020 original? By all means, you’ll love this little gem, even though you’ll beat it in an afternoon at most.
You will still have a ton of fun with Little Cities, regardless of which city building style suits you best. I do have a few gripes with its progression system and poorly crafted happiness meter, but I was able to quickly ignore its shortcomings and play the damn thing for as long as the Quest 2’s batteries allowed me to. It’s a joyful little piece of software that will win you over in a mere couple of minutes, and yet more proof that city building and virtual reality are a match made in heaven.
There is a lot in The Tale of Onogoro that deserves praise, from its impressive presentation to its overall ambitious format, trying to be a more cinematic and story-focused action-adventure game in a brand new gaming medium. For as much as I think this is a gorgeous game with occasionally good controls and interesting puzzles, the sheer amount of dialogue cutscenes bothered the hell out of me really quickly.
Know what to expect from Trek to Yomi before purchasing it. I had a great time with it, but that’s because I knew this wasn’t going to be a high-octane, indie equivalent of Ghost of Tsushima or Sekiro. This is the closest to a Kurosawa game we’ll probably ever get. Not only due to its phenomenal presentation, but also due to its emphasis on storytelling and world building, instead of nonstop action and ludicrous combos. Combat sections were more sparse and sluggish than anticipated, but that’s fine since it’s so easy to sink into the game’s world.
At the risk of sounding like the typical scratched record begging for a difficulty slider, Ganryu 2: Hakuma Kojiro is the kind of game that would have been a lot more enjoyable if it actually had one. It gets so many things right, namely its great visuals and controls, but some of its difficulty spikes, most notably its obnoxious boss fights, will frustrate a lot of players.
Thanks to its intuitive controls, excellent new UI, and the overall addictive nature of the city-building genre, Cities: VR is now one of my favorite titles available on the Quest, possibly in VR in general, and another great example as how to translate a tried and true formula, once thought to work solely on computers, to a brand new system.
Sure, it might have a few technical issues here and there, but they are minute when you assess everything this hilarious and thought-provoking walking simulator has to offer. Not to mention the fact it runs superbly well on the Switch. In short, buy The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. It’s brilliant. It’s a testament to game design. It was oh so worth the wait.
It might be a bit nostalgic to some people, perhaps even a bit charming, but play it for a bit and you’ll realise why you asked your mom to buy you a copy of Banjo-Kazooie or Rayman 2 instead of this game back when it first came out.
Trolley Problem, Inc. is a hard sell. At face value, it’s a game that wants to make you feel dirty and disgusted. It’s really not fun to play it by yourself. However, you can get a sizeable amount of entertainment out of it by either playing its co-op mode or just discussing your answers with your friends. I don’t think I will want to replay it to find out different outcomes to my decisions, nor would I recommend it to the faint of heart, but this was an interesting social experiment to partake on.
MotoGP 22 might just look like another yearly (albeit competent) outing in Milestone’s long-running motorbike racing series, but the addition of the Nine Season 2009 mode, a jaw-dropping retelling and recreation of what’s considered the best season in bike racing history, makes it not only stand out from its peers and predecessors, but also turn it into an actual must-have for racing game enthusiasts.
The fact the Switch version is a remaster of the massively inferior Wii version, by itself, is a huge disappointment. You’re getting less interesting visuals, worse controls, and shorter levels. Why was that version chosen to be the basis of the remaster? The Switch is underpowered, but it can handle an Xbox 360 game with ease. The motion controls aren’t even that interesting in this case. It saddens me to say this, but the Switch version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed isn’t the blast from the past you’re looking for.
Serious Sam: Tormental is not mind-blowing, but it’s way more fun than it looks like at first glance. In fact, its main issue is the fact that it’s yet another indie roguelite in an increasingly saturated market, not any technical or design flaw of its own. Furthermore, it’s probably the best Serious Sam game released in years, now that I’m thinking about it.