Leonardo Faria's Reviews
In short, if you liked the original Knights of the Old Republic, then you’ll certainly want to grab this port of Knights of the Old Republic II. For the most part, it’s more of what you’ve loved since 2003/2005, as well as more of what you’ve loved from Aspyr’s remaster of the original, but with the added benefit of a potentially game-changing free DLC pack meant to fix plot holes and an overall lack of content which plagued the original game ever since it was first released, making it the definitive way to play this underrated gem of an RPG.
I was pleasantly surprised with how competent Zorro The Chronicles ended up being. It uses elements from both old-school Assassin’s Creed and Sniper Elite in an easy and forgiving environment, making this game the perfect gateway title for kids to learn how to deal with a stealth game. I never thought I’d play a Zorro game in 2022, let alone one as good as this one.
More than simply a love letter to the golden age of arcade beat ’em ups, as well as the franchise as a whole, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is both Dotemu’s and Tribute Games’ best title to date. It is a quasi-perfect arcade title that perfectly blends fanservice, fantastic controls, a downright pristine presentation, and some chaotic fun with up to six players at once. I am so glad this game ended up exceeding my sky-high expectations.
Why Pizza? might be wacky and unique (for better or worse) in terms of its presentation, but at the end of the day this is yet another subpar indie platformer whose sole selling point is giving hoarders and compulsive completionists another easy platinum trophy in less than half an hour. No matter how unsettling its presentation is, there are literal hundreds of games like this one out in the market, a good chunk of them offering a lot more polish and bang for your buck.
You can enjoy Postal: Brain Damaged for the great retro-inspired first-person shooter it is as long as you shut your brain off when it comes to anything that links it with older Postal games, namely the bad voice acting, the edgelord “plot” and the terrible attempts at being funny with (innefective) shock value. At its core, this shooter has some of the most impressive level design I’ve seen in a while, and its combat is also pretty good. There was some love put into this title, something that cannot be said at all about the mainline Postal games.
In short, Remote Life is an interesting shoot ’em up with a strong art style, neat implementation of twin-stick shooting mechanics in an R-Type-esque setting, and the occasionally impressive boss battle. It is your standard “one and done” game, though.
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.