With a fun addictive gameplay loop, Astro Aqua Kitty is often a purr-fect sequel. It features expanded level design and enhancements over the original. If you liked the first, you’ll like this, but seven out of ten cats would say it’s missing anything to truly make it memorable, rather than just a quirky shmup.
A unique and complex gem, Spacebase Startopia is an engaging and constantly interesting take on the management genre. The Sims in space is selling it very short, because it is much much more. On console however, it’s intricacy and scope are its undoing, causing severe slowdown, frame-rate issues and regular crashes. Its campaign is a fun set of tests, but free mode (just running your station without parameters) is easy to get completely engrossed in.
What Synergia lacks in play, confining its players to a single advance-dialogue action, it makes up for in engrossing characters and story. Its cyberpunk world, lore, mysteries and soundtrack will draw you in, even if the central android/human love story is problematic and its ending very abrupt.
A satisfying reimagining of the classic ice-block puzzle with ninja and a revenge narrative, Red Ronin adds a slew of interesting takes on a formula thought exhausted. It’s tightly designed and demands your concentration. Revenge is a dish best served ice cold.
Ys IX Monstrum Nox may come from an established franchise, but it treads the line of least resistance, trying to be as safe as possible. While its painfully slow narrative ends strongly, combat remains its strongest asset. It takes no risks, ending up as an almost cookie-cutter version of the previous title in a different setting.
A dream-like point-and-click story of love and grief told through memory vignettes, When The Past Was Around is memorable but when you can finish it in a few hours, it feels oh so fleeting.
Timeless and strange, Katamari Damacy is as original now as it was when first released. There’s nothing else like it. REROLL is a faithful remaster, but on PS4 that means retaining a very out-of-date control scheme, and no new features, but even that can’t hold back this big ball of fun.
Some accomplished character work and a narrative full of heart, sits next to a deep and detailed rice-farming mechanic that will have you sinking hours in trying to get the perfect crop. However, fiddly combat and shallow platforming take their toll. If you’re anything like me, you’ll get lost in the farming, and let the other parts lie fallow.
The Falconeer lacks an actual Falconeer protagonist to hang its adventure from and ends up impersonal and fragmented. Odd dis-incentivizing design choices seek to undermine what is an otherwise wonderful lore-filled world and some of the most fun and frenetic aerial combat this generation.
A satisfying platformer aimed at a younger age group, Yestermorrow is memorable for its aesthetics and inspirations. However it’s gameplay doesn’t really do anything we haven’t seen before, and fumbles what could have been more interesting uses of its Everlight and time-based premise.
The nomadic lifestyle translates into an interesting take on the resource and management genre, that is more interesting for its ideas than its execution. However, those who fancy a more contemplative slow going game will find solid goal-oriented challenges in this journey back to the source.
An atmospheric adventure, The Coma 2 has enough puzzles and personality to keep horror fans going until Halloween. While it succeeds in gameplay, it’s story is pretty simple, and it gets repetitive by the end of it’s six hour campaign.
With one foot in the classics, and one foot in the modern era, and a plethora of fun and witty puzzles, Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town is worth your time. It’s just a shame it’s such a short amount of time.
Spitlings is a satisfying and solid puzzler, and provides plenty of challenge for those who enjoy a fun mechanic with plenty of wacky design. There are so many Spitlings to unlock, that anyone will find the game lasting them a fair amount of time.
For an indie pixelart RPG, there’s a lot going on, and Crosscode is polished, ambitious and charming. Combat is a treat, although it can get very challenging with the tactical demands of some enemy types. The puzzles are up there with the classics of the genre, but there are so many of them that the temples can become a marathon slog, only to find an unbeatable boss that’s so hard it’s no longer fun.
If you need a Metroidvania in your life, it’s a good one. It’s simple to grasp and is very appropriate and playable for kids. It’s got a lot of charm. It’s just not very memorable for those of us who have played the greats of the genre.
Yes, Your Grace is a very different sort of game. It has a delightful premise, tasking you with the minutiae of running and managing a kingdom and a royal family. It keeps the mechanics of this simple, where they could so easily become unwieldy, but it lets the ramifications and narrative spin from your decisions in all sorts of interesting ways. However, it is also somewhat bleak in tone and unforgiving in its gameplay.
Memories of Celceta is like a bite-size RPG for kids or for the millennial with time constraints who still wants to play RPGs, but can’t commit to 100-hour behemoths like Persona 5. It’s fun and doesn’t outstay its welcome. Combat is fast, but it also suffers from being simple and heavy on the button-mashing. The story takes you for a ride, but it’s also pedestrian and does nothing new – it’s like deja vu, in that it feels like an RPG story you’ve heard time and again.
If you enjoyed Hyper Light Drifter and like me, you’re a sucker for good pixelart, there are things to like in Resolutiion. It’s got plenty of HLD’s beauty, just little of its charm. Basic combat, an empty world devoid of reasons to return, and some odd design choices, mar its otherwise great potential.
The Complex offers a fun and engaging personalised movie experience, and demands the attention and immersion of the player in its decision-making interactive elements. Its budget is small, so set your expectations accordingly, but if you’re in withdrawal after Bandersnatch and need another hit of choose-your-own-adventure, you can’t go too wrong with this, while we wait for the film and games industries to catch up.