Nirav Gandhi's Reviews
While lacking in story and heart, the life sim and city building mechanics enable players to use beloved Disney characters and decorations to truly design a whole new world.
Good for genre veterans and even better for newbies, Steamworld Build is a steamlined, silly, and smooth city-builder that's fun from the first foundation block to the last keystone.
The Pale Reach is as good a reason as any to dip back into one of the best indie games of the year, but it falters in a lack of content, interesting narrative, and scares.
With some of the worst writing, voice acting, dialogue, and misleads in the history of video games, this rip-off of Danganronpa is an achievement unto itself.
Mirage delivers what I've wanted from Assassin's Creed better than it has in over a decade. In a fantastically recreated 9th century Baghdad, finally I feel like an assassin again.
Starfield is the culmination of Bethesda's 25 years of excellent RPGs and makes me feel the insignificance, humility, and thrill of exploring space. Every time I think I understand Starfield, it finds a new way to surprise me.
While I wish it allowed for more freedom, Shadow Gambit is an admirable meeting of stealth and strategy with just a drop of immersive sim.
Exoprimal could have been an exceptionally fun Overwatch successor, but its disgusting monetization and pay-to-win structure have doomed it to extinction.
Oxenfree II didn't knock my socks off like the first game, but it's a smartly written and thrilling sequel to one of my favorite adventure games ever.
GYLT is packed with great atmosphere, music, and spooks galore, but the juvenile theming leaves the narrative wanting.
Crime O'Clock is boring, tedious, and infuriating all at once: I recommend an I Spy book for a much better time.
While it doesn't offer much new to management games, Nova Lands perfects and streamlines automation in a variety of clever ways.
Harmony shows off DONTNOD's narrative chops with unconvential storytelling, unique deicison mechanics, and stellar character designs.
After Us beats you over the head with paper-thin themes, but between the truly awful platforming and the frustrating level design, it'll be the least of your worries.
Cassette Beasts manages to iterate on Pokemon in a meaningful way. The fantastic music, A+ monsters designs, and fun characters are only slightly held back by the overly-complex combat.
While some truly brilliant player dungeon designs shine through, Meet Your Maker needlessly over-complicates a simple and fun concept to the point of exasperation.
Road 96 Mile 0 is a wildly disappointing follow-up to one of my favorite indie games of all time. Unless you love poor writing, acting, animation, dialogue, controls, and gameplay, pick another route.
While very well written and highlighted by some excellent fourth-wall breaking horror, Paranormasight far outstays its welcome with hours of unskippable rehashed and replayed text.
The beautiful art and relaxing music of Outlanders can't save it from totally busted systems, constant softlocking, and exceedingly poor UI design choices.
You can’t see rhythm. No one can. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Whether you can read music or not, whether you’ve mastered an instrument or can’t manage to play Hot Cross Buns, you are a rock star. You may not know it, you probably don’t believe it. But you’ll tightly navigate those progressions, finesse those pull-offs, and slice through those harmonies until you do believe it. Hi Fi Rush is going to make you believe you are a rock star.