Strictly for the diehard shmup fans who just need another cheap-looking notch in their danmaku holster; nothing more.
Goodbye Volcano High just feels like a very tryhard Life Is Strange with furries and full of hodge-podge maudlin writing. I'm very sure this game will satiate its niche audience, but I can't say this is going to change anybody else's mind about visual novels made by Western developers.
It's amazing how this 2022 follow-up ended up being a huge downgrade that didn't learn & improve jack from a pair of its prequels made 20 years ago; that really takes talent. Yasuhiro Nightow's cool-as-heck series deserves better than Gungrave G.O.R.E.
D&D: Dark Alliance is a case for people to hop on board to play the analog role-playing game it’s based on. This video game is so goddamn boring, infuriating, and repetitive, it’ll make you appreciate the intricacies of a live RPG session.
Xuan-Yuan Sword VII has promise, but it fails in delivering a consistent and manageable experience. In meshing hack and slash games like Dark Souls, Bayonetta, and any mid-2000 mid-card action game out there, this action RPG feels like a hybrid that doesn’t know what to excel & focus on.
Even when its exploration and shooting works, you'll only get some small sense of satisfaction. The only reason you're continuing is because of that "one more assault" Skinner box mentality that's in these loot-and-shoot ideas combined with open-world checklist obligations.
While I'm no Power Rangers fan, aficionados of the series deserve better than this stock churned-out co-op beat-em-up that is less "Mighty" and more "Adequate". If you need a 90s beat-em-up with today's modern conveniences, you're better off with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge.
Developer Sunny Syrup Studio had the best of intentions in combining two awesome genres: Capcom-style run-and-gun action and platforming with deckbuilding ala Slay The Spire. In this unfortunate case, ambitions exceed game design and technical know-how.
While this Uma Musume spin-off game is fun, it's rather short and simplistic to a fault. It clearly needs more than 4 games to carry the entire package; RM128 isn't exactly cheap for a party game with just a few offerings and a bonus roguelite Vampire Survivor-but-on-track-and-field game. Fans will eat this up like carrots on stick, but this isn't the right gateway to the true Uma Musume experience. It's a serviceable party game with cute pixel graphics at best, and an expensive fan-tailored barebones gaming experience at worse.
The gameplay and note charts are serviceable enough, while its pop songs feel monotonous to listen to over time. At the very least, the game’s price tag and rough playtime of 3 hours seems appropriate from what I’ve played. And it made me want to play the other two mothership Gunvolt games out of curiosity. So mission accomplished with the cross-promotion idea, I guess. Unless you’re a diehard Inti Creates fan or a rhythm game fan who tapped out of other games like Spin Rhythm XD and needs some of that indie anime flavour, it’s a little tough to recommend this niche entry to everyone else.
Rocksteady's attempt at a pure action game with loot and live service mechanics isn't the worst thing out there, but it isn't exactly brimming with excitement. While shy of reaching the heights of Destiny or even the two Division games from Ubisoft, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League stands mildly tall at being just competent and serviceable, with one or two key story moments that are genuinely well-done.
The Last Case of Benedict Fox isn't a complete failure, but it's hard to experience when there are other better Metroidvania-style titles out there these past few months [...]
Luminous Productions has quite a way to go to captivate people from the start. A shame, because there’s a lot of potential buried within Forspoken’s flaws.
Simple and to the point with its yuri-flavoured storyline and trappings: That's Samurai Maiden in a nutshell. It's also quite a chore to play, as you can only get the best skills and powerups through grinding for relationship points with the three ninjas. And that means replaying the same levels over and over ad nauseam
Frogun’s aesthetics belies an annoying kind of 3D platformer that demands precision. For that, I’m not sure if I should recommend the game to everyone but the most hardcore of platformer enthusiasts.
Kao's 2022 venture is serviceable and by-the-numbers at best. Its developers have their hearts in the right place in using this 2000s mascot in their new 3D platformer reboot, but this sure isn't even a bronze medal effort if we're being honest.
No amount of charm and cute art is enough to hide The Company Man’s skeletons in its closet. It’s not the most superficial and worst title I’ve played, but there are way better and more rewarding indie 2D platforming options out there.
[...] you could do a whole lot worse than with Aluna’s competently average action RPG offerings.
There are shades and traces of a simple yet heartfelt action game buried underneath Marvel's Avengers' corporate-driven money-grubbing muck that clearly needed a few more months of QA and technical fixing. Until its updates and content elevates the base experience and assuming the Day One/Week One patch fixes a LOT of these game's grievances, you'll have to settle for Earth's Mediocre Heroes.
You could do worse than with a game [like Ruffy and the Riverside] that actually tries hard to capture that bygone early 2000s era of cerebral-challenging platforming, even if all it has going for is its deft use of 2D artwork onto 3D landscapes. At the very least, this game deserves a sequel that will hopefully iron out its flaws and repetitive moments.