Leonardo Faria's Reviews
NEO: The World Ends with You is the perfect combination of all style, all substance. It’s gorgeous to look, it’s one hell of a feast for your ears, but above all, it’s a fantastic JRPG-beat ’em up hybrid. It has a fantastic story, intriguing characters, and an excellent combat system that is easy to learn but very hard to master.
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is more of what you love, but with a different coat of paint. If you aren’t a fan of the franchise, or visual novels in general, I doubt this collection will be able to change your mind in any way. But if you’re a series veteran, you’ll be in for one hell of a ride. It’s the best looking title in the franchise so far, and it features some of the most memorable (and ridiculous) cases and characters Capcom has ever managed to come up with for the series.
Samurai Warriors 5 is proof that you shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken. Instead of trying to deviate from its predecessors like Dynasty Warriors 9 did, it reverted back to the franchise’s characteristic formula of mindless-but-cathartic button mashing coupled with a shocking amount of content and unlockables. Be advised, this is a shallow game, and it’s meant to please a very specific niche. But boy oh boy, does it know how to please said niche with its simple yet addictive gameplay loop.
It all boils down to how long you can actually put up with its puzzles, uneven framerate, and bad controls in order to actually enjoy its engaging story.
In short, even though Urban Trial Tricky was clearly meant to be enjoyed on a portable, I won’t deny I had quite a bit of fun playing it on an Xbox. Even if I don’t have access to the novelty of portability, I was more than satisfied with its improved performance and faster loading times. The game as a whole is a bit rough around the edges, but its presentation is strong and its gameplay, despite a bit janky at times, is simple to learn and fun to mess around with.
Akiba’s Trip: Hellbound & Debriefed will be reviled by many people for its dumb premise, but its perverted combat system isn’t even what’s most egregious about it. It’s an underwhelming remaster of a PSP game that doesn’t look nor perform much better than its 2011 counterpart, which was already an underwhelming technical achievement at the time.
There are excellent things about its plot, its level design, and its gameplay choices. But they are equally offset by some terrible design choices in the same segments. The same can be said about this remaster. For every welcoming improvement, such as the fantastic graphics, performance, and being able to ditch motion controls altogether, there is another annoying setback, such as the implementation of said non-motion controls and the bizarre camera movement.
This game is less about being challenging and more about being cathartic and completely crazy. It’s not about testing your skills, it’s all about throwing as many things for you to shoot at, reaching a point you can barely tell what’s happening onscreen. Thankfully, I love chaotic games like this, so I had a great time with Cotton Reboot!, especially with its brand new “Arranged” mode.
Out of Line is quite short, clocking at around three hours, and not exactly replayable, but I did enjoy this brief ride while it lasted. It wasn’t so much for its themes, as they can (and most certainly will) fly by everyone’s head as the storytelling isn’t this game’s forte, but I did enjoy its gorgeous art style, relaxing level of difficulty, and inventive puzzle design.
The borderline perfect usage of the AIM controller resulted in one of my favorite VR experiences so far, and weirdly enough, my favorite Sniper Elite game so far, even if it has very little to do with its mainline counterparts.
The reduced framerate on the Switch version of Boomerang X might be a bit of a downer, since the game feels perfect on a handheld, but I still had a great time with it. It’s fast-paced, arcadey, stylish as all hell and allows you to experiment a lot with its combat mechanics. Regardless of its technical shortcomings, it’s yet another banger from Devolver, a fun little title from the single best indie curator in the market.
I can sum up my experience with Crash Drive 3 in one word: “why”. Why was this released on next-gen consoles when this game is basically a port of a mobile game (which can be acquired for free, mind you)? Why did it not take advantage of improved hardware to boost its visuals or framerate? It’s not terrible, but it’s oh so boring and uninspired.
It just isn’t as fun as any of its turn-based counterparts. In a sea of multiplayer shooters with way more content out there, some of them not requiring an upfront payment in order to access them, this game just doesn’t have what it takes in order to stand out.
As it stands, Curved Space is a pretty good arcade shooter that manages to stand out even though it suffers from an annoying amount of feature creep.
I don’t think anyone was expecting for Space Jam: A New Legacy – The Game to be amazing. Let’s face it, it’s a marketing ploy. It’s here to raise awareness for the brand new movie by giving you a few minutes of fun and some easy achievements. With that being said, I expected a lot worse from it. It’s decent for what it is. I still think that there is no reason for a beat ’em up based on Space Jam to exist, but all in all, there are worse ways to spend half an hour of your time.
Wave Break is, at best, an average Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater clone that just so happened to be launched at the worst time possible, right alongside the debut of its main source of inspiration on the Switch. Sure, it’s cheaper than its main competitor and I suppose ultra-die-hard Weezer fans will want to grab it just because of the inclusion of one of their songs in its soundtrack, but it’s inferior in every conceivable way.
Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards should have been a hit. I would have been able to ignore its dated visuals and uninteresting characters if its gameplay wasn’t so shallow and boring. I really love the fact it’s set around the rich and detailed world of Incan mythology, a setting barely explored by developers for the past twenty years, but even though it feels quite unique at times, I cannot exactly recommend a game so repetitive and menial.
If anything else, Lego Builder’s Journey proves that you don’t need to tie the Lego brand to a third-party license in order to craft a successful game. It shows that there are no limits to what you can create with the simple concept of building structures with bricks, just like how there are no limits to what we can build with these pieces of plastic in real life.
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries focuses too much of its efforts in pointless filler, such as a milquetoast story and an annoying progression system. Its insane multiplayer is where it shines the brightest, but then again, I feel like this is best experienced on PC, with a mouse and keyboard setup.
You can have a tiny bit of fun with Sun Wukong vs. Robot. It’s not inherently terrible. It’s just one of the most generic and forgettable metroidvanias I’ve played in a while. It offers nothing new to the genre, its visuals are lackluster, and its overall design is just beyond bland.