Toby Andersen
Towaga Among Shadows is something of a case of missed potential. What story it has is obtuse and hidden away in lore that no one will bother using their shards for. There’s some beautiful animation and smoothly made gameplay. It’s by no means a badly made game. For a little while the two battle modes will seem fun and offer a bit of challenge. But give it a few hours, and the odd design choices, lack of variety and a story that has little to no impact, and those good mechanics crumble under the weight of things that just could have been done better. It becomes stale, and no amount of survival mode score-chasing will entice me back.
As a single-player experience, there is little to keep you playing past the first few rounds, but as a party game with some mates, there’s fun to be had. It’s not the epic that Rocket League is, it’s not the clever and skilled party game that Over-Cooked is, nor is it as memorable as many classic party games, like the Crash Bash, Mario Parties and Pokemon Stadium mini-games of old. But it does what it sets out to do, just with absolutely no embellishments or flair. There’s just very little to it and that lack of content is the main story here.
While its evocative graphics will attract players on this beautiful journey, the simple traversal puzzles and lack of emotional weight mean Planet of Lana is just not very memorable.
Redemption Reapers is a passable strategy RPG with a focus on tight squad-based tactics that’s probably too simple for genre veterans. Its campaign is disappointingly dull and does nothing to pull your attention away from its forgettable squad and stilted animations.
Vertical 2D battles in a giant tower are a great USP, but GrimGrimoire can’t reach the pinnacle with a battle system more bloated and complex than fun. Vanillaware’s beautiful signature artwork and clever narratives are as ageless now as they were back in 2007, but some design choices leave a bitter aftertaste.
Bleak Faith: Forsaken is a competent sci-fi soulslike with a beautiful and brutal new world to explore. It’s combat is serviceable, but its lack of explanations, narrative or even lore will leave many floundering without anything much to grab onto. This is one for the really dedicated Souls veteran who leans far to the extremes of the From Software design school.
As a cyberpunk adventure Anno: Mutationem lacks much coherent or satisfying plot but its responsive combat will stand out and entertain through its short playtime. It’s just a shame the overall package doesn’t live up to the promise of those stylish trailers.
Sumptuously animated, Greak Memories of Azur draws you in with its high-end artwork. However, the game is an exercise in frustration and bad design choices. A central mechanic of three characters controlled by one player with no co-op option, hinders platforming and renders combat nigh on impossible. I’m out here trying to forget Azur.
Imagine Earth is a sometimes overly complex management sim with a laudable penchant for sustainability and green tech, even while it forces you through all the bad tech to get there. It lacks much life and personality, but if you need a new coloniser sim in your life, it’ll scratch that itch.
Pathway is a serviceable roguelite built around the fun idea of tailing Nazis across the desert in a jeep. However it lacks personality, character and narrative worth getting invested in. Its combat will satisfy for a time but quickly becomes too familiar for genre fans, and too dull for anyone else to jump aboard.
Biomutant is an ambitious animal populated open-world with so much to do most players could spend 60-70 hours exploring without seeing everything. However, size is its downfall. The player will get lost, and bogged down in the morass of thousands of side quests, thousands of superfluous items, before they realise there’s not much plot to hang it all from. Add a number of glitches at launch, no lock-on in combat, and a narrator that will drive many players to distraction, and sadly Biomutant does not live up to its lofty ambitions.
Though it’s pretty derivative, Devil Slayer Raksasi is a notable take on the roguelike. Its directly overhead camera perspective is novel but serves really to draw you too far out of the action, and its randomly earned drops leave it straddling the line between roguelite and roguelike. The real problem is that most of its other elements have been seen before and in better games.
Lasting a few fun hours, Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion is a simple but effective Zelda-like adventure in a colourful veggie-filled dystopia. However, this salad dodger’s gameplay is derivative of dozens of other better games, and it doesn’t really do anything to explore its novel concept.
On the surface Poison Control looks to be cut from the same cloth as Persona, brimming with cute characters, witty script and changing hearts. But under the poison mires you need to clear and the poor shooting, the gameplay lacks polish and chokes on repetition, and the story often descends into caricature and mishandles a sexual assault. Its style is really only skin deep.
Project Starship X is a well put together retro shmup with tons of style. It’s simple and hones its small selection of moves into well-handled and white knuckle sections of gameplay. However it’s also relatively short, and lacks any real depth unless you’re a score-chaser.
Neoverse is a deck-building roguelite with some impressive systems and lots of room for intricate strategy, however its presentation, lack of modes, narrative or personality really make it feel a few cards short of a full deck.
An interesting experiment that many players will find too taxing, Untold Stories shows what unique things can be done when telling stories through the medium of gaming, but ultimately fails to deliver on its own narrative.
Probably the quickest and most pleasant platinum trophy on the Playstation 4, Feather gives you the chance to soar like a bird. It’s a shame that it is held back by an empty world, a lack of interesting things to do beyond flight, and control glitches.
Odd design choices and an unsatisfying yet incredibly demanding gameplay loop mar a game that boasts the cutest plant people in video games. A crafting and survival sim with added base-building, Drake Hollow is not compelling enough to justify the demands it makes on the player or the lack of reward even when you manage to do what it asks.
Windbound is a fun sailing game set in a world that’s different every time you play, but it’s a frustrating and punishing survival game at the same time. It’s highly likely to not be the game players expect it to be. Without any story or narrative to anchor it, the player is left adrift at sea without a raft.