The Diofield Chronicle excels with fantastic strategic elements that give a fresh take on the genre. The game moves away from the traditional turn-based chessboard movement system and allows for a deep real-time strategy involving a diverse unit customization system. However, The Diofield Chronicle fails to deliver a solid overall experience because of its basic plot, bland visuals, and lack of engaging side activities. Players don’t have a reason to get attached to the characters and the story, making the playthrough a tedious one. The game certainly shows promise, and it looks like the developers have a solid framework they can work on here, making us look forward to what the next iteration of The Diofield Chronicle will look like.
Endling: Extinction is Forever has moments of heart and engaging gameplay with its interesting blend of survival management and immersive narrative adventure. However, it screws the pooch by giving us too much of its message while not motivating us to play more because of its slow pacing and unclear tutorials. Don't be mistaken, there is an excellent game underneath the many frustrating elements.
The Quarry doesn't hit the same highs as Until Dawn, with very simple QTEs and the lack of good and genuine scares that do the game a disservice. It is unfortunate because the star-studded cast delivers the goods but isn't enough to lift the game to the heights that it aimed to reach. I commend how The Quarry attempts to stand out with its accessibility and slightly revised mechanics, but for all intents and purposes, it is an overpriced version of Until Dawn. The Supermassive formula is begging for a refresh, and The Quarry is its latest victim.
There’s a lot of enjoyment to be had with Metal Max Xeno Reborn in the long run, but it’ll take a long while before you get there. The moment you’ve established your base of operations, recruited all your survivors, and maxed out your tanks, there’s a real cathartic way that the post-apocalyptic world of Dystokyo comes to life with its intense bounty hunting and fetch quests. However, the game terribly suffers in its early to mid-game, which can be a bit of a disappointment due to its rushed tutorials and unforgiving difficulty spikes. As a longtime JRPG fan, it really reminds me of old-school JRPGs that had a bit of jank but had their unique charm. As with classic JRPGs, it also comes with its quirks that make the game frustrating, especially when starting out and getting lost in the process. It gets better in the endgame if you last that long.
For fans of the series, Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong would hopefully quench your thirst until the eventual release of Bloodlines 2. However, I feel that newcomers to the series will have varying degrees of enjoyment regarding the lore, and if you’re not a fan of reading, it’ll be a bumpy start. The magic of Swansong is that succeeding playthroughs will definitely get better as you learn more of the lore and paint a complete picture of the whole mystery. If you have the patience for all that legwork, more power to you to be able to unravel every one of its mysteries. It also really doesn’t help that the puzzles are quite obtuse and the visuals aren’t as inviting as something like Vampyr or Detroit: Become Human.
Card Shark is a rather unique game with an interesting premise, but I strongly suggest you try out the demo before committing. The aesthetic and narrative are entertaining enough, but require you to learn a rather tedious mini-game system whose costs outweigh the rewards. There are a few strange design decisions that prevent the enjoyment of Card Shark, as a simple manual save could save us a lot of grief going through the journey. The tutorials are quite obtuse, but the early quests keep it easy that when it starts to combine variations of techniques, there’s no way to review old tricks to keep the momentum going.
Personally, I appreciated A Place For The Unwilling due to its atmosphere and unique way of interacting with the world. The title really makes you feel the alienation and awkwardness of being a stranger in a strange land, while always having you be on your toes for an unseen danger. However, from a gameplay perspective, it is marred with inconsistencies that rob the game of its enjoyment.
Weird West is a game that I enjoyed because of its unique take on both the Western and Weird sci-fi sub-genres, making it an impressively immersive RPG experience. What sullied my experience were the multiple glitches on top of the repetitive quest system, preventing me from completing the story because I played the game the “wrong” way. Weird West is designed to be free-flowing but these glitches are fundamentally the antithesis of what they’ve designed the game to do. I’m a patient gamer when it comes to gameplay bugs, but when glitches stop story progression because of something the game has been designed to do, it’s really a red flag going forward. It can be patched eventually but until then, minus points for now.
It’s pretty ironic that for a game that tests so much of your patience, our rating asks you to wait some more. That’s because, given the chance, there is some semblance of fun to be had with Babylon’s Fall, but getting to that point is an extreme test of willpower that not many will be able to overcome, especially given its $60 price point. There are some interesting ideas here, especially with its class-less and weapon-based systems, but a lot of conflicting mechanics muddle the whole product. Each of these systems taken on its own sounds solid, but they come together to form an incoherent game that requires a lot more effort from its players.
Submerged: Hidden Depths sticks to its game promise all the way in its brief 4-6 hour journey, offering a violence-free adventure that stops at just the right time before it completely loses the player. While there are many interesting mechanics involved with this game, we’re given a bare-bones experience overall and I actually hoped for more of the story over than the game I was playing.
Life is Strange Remastered Collection is a curious case that begs the question – was this really necessary in the first place? Fans of narrative adventures will find much to love with the game, especially if you are a newcomer to the series that will be experiencing the games for the first time. However, if you’ve already played the original versions from years back, there’s very little reason to go back and purchase this at a premium day one price
Rainbow Six Extraction is an interesting pivot for the Rainbow Six franchise and could've easily been a great sci-fi horror co-op shooter if it wasn't for much of the preparation involved to get the best out of the game.
There is a lot of fun that could be had with Serious Sam 4, however many of its design issues make it a loud, overwhelming, and unbearable mess. There are some really great moments in this game with some entertaining cut scenes and many moments where it becomes a genuine run-and-gun fest. However, it feels like the game takes a good thing and gives you too much of it. While I appreciate all the extra content with the launch, a lot of it feels like unnecessary padding.
Unfortunately, Darksiders III is an example of a flawed port, where the hardware deficiency really shows its weak points. If you’re able to forgive its framerate issues and other frustrating hitches, you’re left with a decent adventure that puts a focus on deliberate and thought-out combat.
You have to admire the amount of thought and effort put into the intricate level design of Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. Yet no matter how much appreciation I have for this genre, it takes a specific kind of player to enjoy this game and it definitely isn’t for everyone. A lot of emphasis is placed on modernizing the game, adding as many accessibility options and extras which newcomers will certainly appreciate.
There’s a lot of fun to be had with BPM: Bullets Per Minute, evidenced by the dedicated cult following from its PC launch. Ultimately, the enjoyment of the game will be dependent on the player and how well they’ll be able to cope with the rhythm-related mechanic on top of its difficulty. There’s always the option to switch to Auto if you can’t quite cope with the beat, but this is the biggest selling factor of the game and turning it off relegates it to being a generic shooter.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits makes a strong first impression with its beautiful visuals, engaging soundtrack, and decent combat that you'd mistake for a AAA title making its rounds. After a while though, the many little hiccups that I've experienced in the game wore me down, ending my journey with a whimper.
I deeply loved Life is Strange: True Colors and at a certain point it was fast becoming my personal game of the year. Sadly, with inconsistent storytelling and a really messy final act, it feels that I’ve been emotionally manipulated to like the game until a breaking point. While one could argue that “it’s all about the journey”, a really messy resolution really ruins that journey it built up.
Crown Trick has all the elements to succeed as a roguelite dungeon crawler: addictive gameplay, randomized dungeons and enemies, and a huge variety of monsters and weapons. However, with a market getting saturated by an endless number of similar titles, it does little to make itself stand out with its generic story and presentation.
Golf Club Wasteland has an excellent premise with how it combined golf with the world and overall story. However, when the novelty ended, the frustrations just kept piling on top of each other because of the inefficient and broken controls.