After a year and a half of early access, Kill It With Fire 2 finally reached the state of a definitive release, it's a sequel that managed to understand all the flaws presented by its predecessor and twist them to deliver a much more robust, interesting, and fluid product in its own right. If the first Kill It With Fire felt like a demo, its sequel is a complete experience. And it's great to see such a clear evolution for a project like this.
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Rue Valley ends up being a very interesting adventure due to its premise, and it does a good job of subverting and combining its various sources of reference. While the general outlines of the multiple plots are engaging and the possibilities offered by the protagonist's attribute structure contribute to the narrative's diversity, the title sometimes takes on a tiring and unstimulating tone. Even so, although derivative, it's a quite solid product and seems tailor-made for those who constantly think about their own mistakes and imagine having a new opportunity to correct them. It's like a small experiment on the perception of time and regret, whose inconsistent rhythm is responsible for both prolonging and shortening the overall perception of the journey.
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Thrasher is undoubtedly a more classic arcade experience than it actually seems. The eel's control is impeccable (despite some bugs and other contextual influences, such as the backgrounds) but both the level and power-up design doesn't capitalize on this great triumph. It seems the title is so desperate to immerse the player in its sensorial pool of lights, colors, and sounds that it seems to have forgotten that one way to do this is through practical challenges designed in a more logical and less conceptual way.
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This new release of Kizuna Encounter: Super Tag Battle is a welcome addition to SNK's remaster catalog, especially given the unconventional nature of the choice, as it's not one of the company's flagship titles. While it follows the example of its predecessors in being sparse on additional content, the core gameplay remains as fun as it is brutal, and that's what matters at the end of the day.
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Silent Hill f is a true representative of its franchise. Abandoning its Western setting, the title embraces the Japanese horror tradition at its core, attempting to recapture what truly sets Silent Hill apart from other experiences within its genre. The combat may seem a bit limited at first, and the overall puzzle design lacks consistency, but the new thematic approach and the unquestionable success in creating an immersive and strangely inviting Ebisugaoka when it comes to exploration are a welcome shake-up to a stagnant formula. After all, the series spent so much time in Konami's fridge for a reason.
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Hotel Barcelona is a complicated game in every imaginable way. While it offers an interesting challenge thanks to a high degree of unpredictability, it's hard to ignore its performance issues and clunky gameplay. It's a stylish game that lovingly pays homage to horror cinema, but it nearly ruins everything with its clumsy and almost inconsequential execution. It takes effort to see its precariousness as its own charm, like a genuine low-budget trashy horror film with questionable intentions. Once this hurdle is overcome, it quickly carves out its niche, for which it can be seen as one of the best games in the world.
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The supposedly open ending of Assassin's Creed Shadows' main campaign actually made some sense, as it was a way for Ubisoft to make it clear that the game has a long life ahead of it, both narratively and regarding the ongoing support updates. In Claws of Awaji, however, this vagueness felt a bit mocking. Even so, while the island of Awaji itself doesn't offer inviting elements, the DLC isn't entirely bad, as the inclusion of the staff, the straightforward mission progression, and the boss fights manage to add value to the overall experience.
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Baki Hanma: Blood Arena lives up to what Baki really is. Inherently campy, a true fan will understand how the game manages to capture the essence of the IP as a huge parody. Cloning Punch-Out!! is a cool proposal, however, it relies too heavily on the player's good faith in valuing the concept over the borderline-acceptable execution. It definitely doesn't serve to introduce the series to a new audience, but at least they captured the spirit of Itagaki’s work.
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It's curious how many games are nothing more than deluxe remasters, yet they sell themselves as remakes, while Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is almost a brand new game from scratch, yet still has the humility to renounce the terminology. Considering it's the most solid game in the franchise in years, it's great that Marvelous is finally getting its IP right, something that helps us build anticipation for the next new title in the franchise. In the meantime, the effort spent helping the Zephyr Town bazaar regain its glory days will be worth it.
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The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily may not have the historical weight or complexity of the genre's classics, but it has something few games manage to display so naturally: presence. Like its charismatic protagonist, the title doesn't hold back, arriving in high heels and with a sparkle in its eyes, standing out for its addictive gameplay and colorful presentation. It's a debut that, if it won't send the nobility to the guillotine, at least ensures no one gets distracted while it does a catwalk across the battlefield in a delightfully subversive manner.
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The Drifter exudes respect and passion for its inspirations, from pulp magazines to the point-and-click genre itself, while simultaneously establishing its own identity by combining these elements with unparalleled success. With an engaging, precisely paced narrative and a well-crafted noir atmosphere, the game proves to be not only an intriguing experience, but also an accessible and fluid one. Knowing how to work with its influences, it understands the value of conciseness, both in progression and design, and, like its drifting protagonist, it never allows itself to stagnate, leading the player through a memorable mystery of death, paranoia, and acceptance.
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Although the anime aesthetic is eye-catching at first glance, AI Limit delivers functional but reductionist gameplay, quickly becoming exploitable as the player masters the parry system. The result, as a whole, lacks consistency and identity, stuck in a gray and overly protocolary approach within its genre. It may still have some value to the niche audience it's trying to reach, but it's still a factually forgettable bureaucratic experience that fails to stand out from the crowd.
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The idea of mixing strategic management with existential drama and science fiction results in a game that will demand both the player's technical and social skills. This is where my perception of it being a weird subversion of a farm simulator, such as Story of Seasons, comes into play. It's just that instead of planting turnips, milking cows and trying to woo some of the village's bachelorettes (or bachelors), we have to mine an inhospitable planet, maintain a functional mobile base and prevent alternative versions of ourselves from killing each other. In short, The Alters can be as welcoming as it is irritating — but it is also unique in its own way.
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Although Taiwan has established itself as a relevant creative hub in the Asian gaming industry, Yasha: Legends of the Demon Blade seems to be failing to keep up with this evolution. With its repetitive structures, lack of gameplay diversity and abscence of difficulty, the game seems to be a product that corroborates the mistaken view that the most prejudiced players have of this market rather than actually doing justice to its current state of development. It's a superficial attempt to jump on the Hades bandwagon, as if the audience were not capable of discerning the quality of this derivative production in relation to that of the source material.
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Overall, The Darkest Files does a very interesting job of blending education and gameplay into a single product. After books, films, and even games that use World War II as a backdrop, it's refreshing to see a unique approach that treats the subject with the delicacy it deserves, which at times, even in the 21st century, tends to be almost trivialized. The thing is, although the game manages to implement its distinctive approach effectively, it doesn’t evolve it throughout the very short campaign, resulting in a positive experience for what little it offers, but with an overall inconclusive impression.
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In the end, the game consolidates itself as an engaging experience that competently balances the best aspects of the saga — and this, let's face it, is a success amid an almost constant identity crisis.
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Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is a bizarrely unique experience. Addressing many of the main concerns players had about the previous Gaiden, Ryu Ga Gotoku did an excellent job of creating a soulful adventure for what is certainly one of the most beloved characters in the fan community.
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It takes a certain amount of creativity to make your management simulator stand out from the crowd in a genre that has been so badly misfired over the years. Blood Bar Tycoon even gets there in this conceptual aspect, but it proves that a cool idea alone is not enough. What was missing was a more solid execution of the proposal, which has difficulty developing amidst so many technical problems and creative decisions. It has potential and room for improvement, something that the developers are committed to putting into practice for now, but it's a little hard to consider it positively in its current state, since all of its good ideas ended up being poorly executed. How much we miss early access before the final release, huh?
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More than the meme-game it seems to be, MiSide convinces you with its waifus, but enchants you with the masterful execution of a surreally well-optimized product signed by a team that clearly knows what it is doing without aiming and getting lost in pretentious delusions, but still managing to achieve them with a lot of work, competence and passion.
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[...]Marona's, Ash's and Apricot's adventure is yet another worthy entry in Nippon Ichi Software's catalogue and a memorable experience for fans of the company or those who like a borderline experimental touch to the tactical RPG genre.
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