Leonardo Faria's Reviews
It’s colorful, adorable, not entirely hard to play, and most importantly, it’s one hell of a nostalgia bomb for those who grew up with it back in the day. I’m beyond delighted that Jankenteam and Merge Games took their time to bring this 80’s hero back to the spotlight and I hope they come with even more Alex Kidd games in the near future.
Red Solstice 2: Survivors can be a bit too simplistic for a tactical game at times. You might feel like the game is basically playing itself and you’re just there watching things unfold, but this is actually a pretty accessible action-strategy hybrid that offers you a ton of tools to play the game according to your level of expertise with the genre.
Not having a single licensed team or roster just makes it really hard for me to get invested in it. Sure, it has an editor, but that means we will have to wait a bit until a community becomes large enough to start releasing roster updates for the public.
Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a wonderful game and I had a great time playing it on the PS5. It actually takes advantage of the DualSense in ways very few games do, be them AAA or not. It’s colorful, charming, and above anything else, stupidly creative.
I like the overall concept, as hunting down dinosaurs while trying not to get killed by your so-called “prey” is fun and unique. I even liked the Nintendo 64-era sound effects, which brought an odd sense of nostalgia. On the other hand, I was bummed with unbelievably dated graphics and lethargic progression system.
You’re getting two of the best action games of all time, as well as Razor’s Edge, with great controls and that borderline satanic level of difficulty that makes Dark Souls look like Elmo’s Fun With Numbers. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I love this collection even though I’m more than sure I will eventually break a Joy-Con or two out of anger during some of its harder sections.
The Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom is flawed beyond belief when it comes to its presentation, but I definitely wasn’t expecting for its gameplay and controls to be so solid. Nor was I expecting for it to feature some engaging bouts of vehicular combat and 4-player local co-op.
If you put it next to pretty much any other open world superhero game released over the past decade, sure, it will stand out like a sore thumb. When you put its target demographic into perspective, however, you’ll realize this is a competent title that will appease to fans of the show and younger kids/preteens, especially preteen girls. It has charm, a ton of content, and beyond its layers of jank and simplicity, it’s quite fun at times.
This could, nay, SHOULD have been a killer action game had the developers had more time to fix its literal dozens of glaring issues and huge emphasis on (bland) storytelling. This game just wasn’t ready for release. Hell, it was barely ready to be considered a beta build of a AA title. I also don’t think patches can fix all of its problems. As it stands, this one just failed miserably in its delivery.
There are times you can barely pay attention to what’s happening onscreen, with bullets and enemies flying around at a million trillion frames per second. And this is why I liked it so much. It’s fast-paced, it’s energetic, it’s incredibly challenging at points, and most importantly, it’s fun as heck. Step aside, Untitled Goose Game, we have a new waterfowl king in town.
I had high hopes for Beautiful Desolation, but this Switch version just doesn’t work very well at all. It’s absolutely gorgeous to look at, especially on a small screen, and its story is actually very compelling, but I felt I was struggling against its controls and egregious loading times throughout my entire time with it.
Are you a fan of the source material? Do you have kids who love the show? Then this is an easy recommendation, as they’ll have a blast with its decent presentation and easy-to-acquire platinum trophy. If neither you or your kids care about Spirit, then there’s little in here that will make you want to play it. It’s way too simplistic and quite unpolished, with little to no challenge or lasting appeal for anyone over the age of ten.
The franchise’s traditional layer of jank is still present here, but I won’t deny that I had a lot of fun playing Earth Defense Force: World Brothers, way more than I could have ever expected. It’s far more entertaining than it has any right to be. The adorable voxel visuals, coupled with an actually good framerate for the first time in the franchise’s history, result in a game that’s pleasant to look at as well as to play.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is a must-have. It will reignite your love for the franchise if you’re a veteran, or it will turn you into a brand new die-hard fan if you, like myself, are a newcomer.
Wonder Boy: Asha in Monster World is a Mega Drive classic with a modern coat of paint, which isn’t a bad thing. Some aspects of its gameplay take some time to get used to, but you cannot deny it’s gorgeous to look at and way too charming to ignore.
The vast majority of these games have aged surprisingly well, being as fun and challenging now as they were back when they were first released. Sure, games like Ghosts ‘n Goblins and Bionic Commando are way too clunky for today’s standards, but when you have dozens of other extremely fun games at your disposal, you’ll ignore the fact some of them aren’t worth your time anymore.
RWBY: Grimm Eclipse Definitive Edition falls under the same category as most average-at-best licensed games out in the market: if you like the show, you’ll love this game. If you don’t know anything about RWBY, you basically need to be a die-hard hack n’ slash aficcionado in order to truly enjoy it. It’s not bad, far from it, but it’s just a safe action game with a bit of fanservice, decent controls, and not enough people to populate its online lobbies.
It might still not be a very good horror game overall, but Layers of Fear 2 is a much more enjoyable experience than its disappointing predecessor. Its story and premise were much more interesting this time around, but its limited gameplay and the fact it’s just not scary at all left a lot to be desired.
It tries to tell a story in a minimalistic way, but fails to deliver due to its poor presentation and awkward cutscenes. It wants to exude style and a hip hop aesthetic, but its disappointing soundtrack is comprised of short samples being looped ad nauseum. Finally, its gameplay is too shallow and uninspired to make you want to play it for more than a few minutes at a time.
Essays on Empathy feels like a collection of elevator pitches, of small technical showcases of what Deconstructeam will develop from now on. Some of the games in the collection are too vague and occasionally way too pretentious to be fully enjoyed, but other titles in here, while short, ooze potential.