Leonardo Faria's Reviews
Hell Pages is a very mediocre take on the ultra-saturated shoot ’em up genre, with little going on besides its edgelord themes and art style. If you’re a massive fan of classic Doom and pretty much any piece of media that tries to emulate its visuals and soundtrack, then I’d say you could give this game a try and have a few minutes of fun with it.
I enjoyed Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom almost as much as I enjoyed Marenian Tavern Story. KEMCO and Rideon’s take on the JRPG-business simulator hybrid is still very fun, just like it was a few years ago.
Sometimes, aiming for a wider audience isn’t the right solution. Override 2 isn’t better than its predecessor at all. Its gameplay is much simpler and less appealing, its visuals are far from impressive for a PS5 title, and it’s still very underwhelming if you decide to play it on your own.
El Hijo is a fine stealth game. It does what it intended to offer, but besides its nice visuals and excellent Morricone-esque soundtrack, it does little to stand out over the dozens, maybe hundreds of much better stealth titles out there. If its nonviolent approach isn’t exactly something so important to you, then I’d recommend looking at its polar opposite in terms of color, violence. and vibe, A Plague Tale: Innocence, instead.
Just like other Double Dragon games released over the years, Double Dragon Neon isn’t exactly bad, but it’s so downright mediocre it’s hard to find anything worth praising in it besides the excellent synthwave soundtrack.
Empire of Sin is in a better state now than how it was at launch, with several fixes to its UI and performance, but this is still too much for the Switch to handle. I’m not talking solely about its still-underwhelming performance, but also the fact that it tries to be an excessive amount of games at once, without ever exploring all of its features to a reasonable degree.
It is beyond simplistic in terms of gameplay, but it’s challenging enough to keep it interesting. It features some interesting level editing mechanics and it does let your imagination run wild if you’re skilled enough when it comes to drawing characters with a mouse.
If you’re looking for fun, retro-inspired titles in one package, Space Invaders Forever can fulfill your needs. But bear in mind this isn’t a retro collection. You’re getting a DS game, a mobile spinoff and whatever the hell Gigamax 4 SE is. You’re not getting the history of Space Invaders, any meaningful additional content, or even a reskinned version of the original.
The graphical improvements didn’t exactly wow me, but I definitely did not expect for EA to come up with one of the coolest implementations of the DualSense’s adaptive triggers to date. It makes me look forward to what they’re capable of doing in maybe two years, when everyone will already own a PS5 or a Series X.
If you want to add another platinum trophy to your collection with little to no effort, then sure, go ahead, My Name Is Mayo 2 is the game for you. Just be aware of the imminent carpal tunnel syndrome you’re going to develop.
Ponpu doesn’t always deliver in its gameplay department and it’s far from being the spiritual successor to Bomberman we actually aren’t in a desperate need of right now, but it’s still quite fun. What really makes the game stand out is its bizarre presentation, visuals and surprisingly catchy soundtrack.
Phogs! might feature a confusing control scheme, whether you’re playing by yourself or with a friend, but it’s hard to get mad at it. Its puzzles are simple yet not exactly obvious, its stakes are so low to the point of making the entire experience very relaxing, and its presentation is so unbelievably adorable you can’t help but want to jump into the TV screen just to be able to actually pet that adorable protagonist.
I, AI is far from being one of the most innovative shooters in recent memory, and it clearly suffers a bit in its presentation department as a result of a pretty obvious microscopic budget. Still, what the developers managed to pull off with such limited resources is commendable.
I’m still impressed with Immortals Fenyx Rising, despite its fair share of issues. Ubisoft managed to craft its own homage to Breath of the Wild, with enough unique elements to make it stand out as its own thing. It’s vivid, colorful, full of puzzles to solve, with great combat and a surprisingly hilarious script.
Absolute Drift: Zen Edition is not the most welcoming game at first, since its drifting mechanics require some practice, but once you get a hold of them, you’ll be greeted to a very unique mix between a car simulator, a collectathon, and an old-school extreme sports arcade title.
I seriously doubt there are many differences between the next-gen and current-gen versions of the game, as this PS5 port doesn’t exactly look much better than Tesla vs Lovecraft, nor does it take advantage of the capabilities of the Dualsense. With that being said, it’s still a really fun twin-stick shooter with good controls and a freaking fantastic soundtrack, an easy recommendation for fans of the genre, even if the game didn’t feel like a huge leap over its predecessor.
I don’t exactly think Chronos: Before the Ashes was worth the hype, but even though its combat was lame and its visuals underwhelming, it featured enough interesting puzzles and well-designed dungeons to make me want to play it to the very end. It didn’t make me want to revisit its Oculus counterpart, nor do I understand why this and Remnant had to be connected, but hey, it wasn’t exactly THAT bad. It certainly is better than the sum of its parts…
Astro’s Playroom is more than just a well-crafted proof of concept, it’s a phenomenal 3D platformer in its own right that perfectly showcases the capabilities of the Dualsense and the visual prowess of the Playstation 5.
I loved what Bluepoint has managed to achieve with the Playstation 5 remake of Demon’s Souls. This is, without a doubt, the prettiest the series has ever been, featuring gorgeous graphics and a buttery smooth framerate to die for. With that being said, this is a very faithful recreation of the 2009 original, meaning that most shortcomings related to that game’s overall level design are also featured in here.
Kosmokrauts did not wow me at all with its shallow, repetitive, and intentionally clunky physics-based gameplay, but it oozed so much charm with its goofy visuals and superb voice acting, that I decided to keep on playing just to be greeted with some exaggerated Russian accents and dumb puns.