Despite its bloat, the game boasts a short 20 or so hours to complete and in a world of 100-hour games, and there's something to be said about a short but sweet experience. When the game is going, it feels great to play and has a compelling story, if not overwhelming to get started. Regardless of its dark and gritty war torn world, Fuga Melodies of Steel 2 provides a little bit of hope in the tactical RPG space.
Controlling one character per Joy-Con is an annoying experience I wouldn't suggest. The real stand out here is the soundtrack. I would put this soundtrack in the same tier as games like Hollow Knight and Ori and the Blind Forest. My biggest takeaway is that the Blanc soundtrack should be on everyone's playlists, even if the game itself shouldn't.
Physics adjustments on the fly, animation adjustments, and massive maps. In an attempt to include this fully featured PC game on the Switch there had to be concessions and we see that in both visuals and how it plays. It's a miracle that the game runs at all, but just because you can port it, doesn't mean you should.
At the end of the day, RE:CALL is a sleek solo-dev indie title that provides a new history-rewriting game mechanic. Each puzzle acts as its own bite-sized puzzle box for you to analyze and explore while the story provides a lot of fascinating noir-themed goodness. It does swing and miss at a sentimental secondary story, but that doesn't prevent this game from being a refreshing new indie I'd recommend anyone to try.
When compared to the original Alan Wake, though, the Switch port is absolutely comparable. There's similar gameplay and visual treatment that we'd seen back in 2010, which isn't a bad thing, though you may not want to revisit it too often. Porting an Xbox 360 game to the Nintendo Switch isn't necessarily a big feat, but at the end of the day, at least we now have another fine way to play this fantastic game.
The soundtrack blasts your ears with grimy hype up beats that rocks the combat even more than it does on its own. There's a very obvious issue with a bland story that puts a halt to the game but there's a lot to enjoy here. Midnight Fight Express is a fantastic game that plays great, sounds fantastic, if only it would get out of its own way with the story.
It's easy to write it off as a copy-pasted clone, but the additional features of co-op battles, deep synergy combat mechanics, and rich endgame content culminate in a real diamond in the rough for those finding the competitors lacking. The main story content can be rote but for those hardcore fans wanting something deeper, Temtem may be what you're looking for. Temtem is both better and worse than the opposition, and I think that's okay.
It grabs and keeps your attention the entire time, making this game a joy to finish. It may lack a depth in its mechanics but makes up for its seamless animation and catchy musical score. It's a fantastic freshman offering from indie dev Happy Juice Games and promises a bright future of things to come.
The OlliOlli World VOID Riders DLC is a welcome addition to a fantastic game. If you have already exhausted OlliOlli World, this will give you more reason to return for new score challenges, cosmetics and mechanics. The music adds new catchy lo-fi beats and the writing remains wholesome throughout. One of the most positive things to be said about VOID Riders is that it reminds you of how great OlliOlli World is and continues to be.
The characters are fun and inviting with just a hint of devilish mischief up their sleeves, including the speechless protagonist. There's a richness to the storytelling in both form and execution and that's definitely a highlight in a more uncommon narrative mechanic. Cards on the table: This game is great.
Despite the repetitive nature of Nobody Saves the World, the lows never outweigh the highs of completing quests, upgrading abilities, and mixing and matching new class combinations. The map size and story length aren't overly large, so even if it wears out its welcome a bit, it isn't as egregious as it could have been. Leveling up and crushing waves of enemies never stopped feeling good, even after this Nobody had rolled credits.
Matt: Meanwhile as a fan of both Persona and fighting games, I can say pretty surely I am the target audience, and Ultimax is just as good now as it was a decade ago. This is the game that solidified my faith in Arc System Works as a developer, and they've only proven themselves more and more in the years since. Admittedly part of me would've preferred a sequel that also included the cast of Persona 5, but I'm not complaining about getting a chance to revisit one of the finest fighting games I've ever played.
Atelier Sophie 2 does not reinvent the wheel nor blow me away as far as RPGs go, but it did lull me into a peaceful, coma-like state of gratification. This game severely lacks intensity or high stakes and I think that's kind of the point. It's a warm bowl of soup when the weather outside is frightful.
The animation is impressively overhauled, the level design is intricate while evolving, and the gameplay is as smooth as butter with even more ways to flow. There's something to be said about iterative evolution but this is on another level of progression that makes the older games harder to go back to. Trust me, I tried and it was a grind.
There's so much to dig into and explore that it's easy to lose hours upon hours without batting an eye. Despite the learning curve, I found myself putting on my headphones and zoning out to the sweet soundtrack and some mindless digging. I wish that the systems were explained a little bit better but some light reading and personal discovery help this underrated indie shine.
Combat wasn't bad, but I always generally wanted more of the better parts of the game, like the slick soundtrack. By the end of my time with Dungeon Munchies, I certainly wasn't full. I felt like it deserved more and could be more, maybe a little more time in the oven.
The game moves at a good pace and when finding the perfect combo of skulls and items, the gameplay is very satisfying. When in the midst of high-intensity action, there are some framerate dips but it rarely hindered my fun; in fact, it kind of felt good to know that I had caused so much chaos that the game couldn't handle it all. In the vein of run-based, combat-styled platformer games, Skul the Hero Slayer proves that there's still life in these old bones yet.
There are new twists on the drawing and quiz formula, but I doubt their staying power overall. These devs have a history of making high quality fun games so if you are a completionist or are new to the series, I would recommend it, just not over many of the older ones. Jackbox is like pizza, even when bad it's still pretty good.
The fully realized world has its charm, but it hardly breaks the mold anywhere else. While it doesn't do anything necessarily offensive, it does demand more when the rest of the game is so well done. It's clear Pixpil have got the writing chops down, now let's tighten up some of the stuff around it.
e., not playing to contemporary tastes), but otherwise I would recommend this collection. As it turns out, NIS' catalog, while grindy, still holds up compared to what you'd play today.