TMNT: Wrath of the Mutants puts you on a roller coaster ride through the world of the 2012 cartoon. The ride proves amusing, but digging any deeper into its game design reveals the game to be a rather sloppy bout of sewer surfin'.
Tales of Kenzera: ZAU rests on a solid foundation, yet prioritizes its narrative at the expense of its game design. Rather than allowing its gameplay and narrative to support each other, it discards some of the medium's unique strengths for a competent if bland experience that fails to give full weight to its subject matter.
Pepper Grinder offers plenty of fun during a surface level playthrough. Once you drill into the depths of its game mechanics, however, you'll find an overly forgiving "casual" game and a relatively frustrating "time attack" game. That said, you can collect stickers and that's pretty cool.
Dragon's Dogma II is a masterfully refined take on the original game. It's easy to get lost in its massive world for hours on end and truly immerse yourself into the role of the Arisen. There are a ton of technical problems and oddities throughout the game, but somehow those didn't stop us from having a blast. In an age where the limitations of video games are a known quantity, Dragon's Dogma II transcends them to become a game that truly feels real.
Berserk Boy bursts onto a crowded market of platformers in a strong flash of inspiration. With its literally game-changing form system, energetic soundtrack, and impactful visual design, it's a game well worth playing to the end. It just doesn't make as strong of an argument for you to stick around after the credits in its current state.
Momodora: Moonlit Farewell displays a quiet confidence that's easy to appreciate. It executes on its straightforward design sense effectively and without deviation. As a finale that goal may come across as a little complacent, but it still makes for a perfectly pleasant Spring day.
Ultros sows some fascinating seeds into a familiar framework. Although those seeds bloomed into a visually striking game, some poor soil hinders its ability to fully develop.
Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] does not reinvent the wheel so much as it refines it to its most effective form yet. That takes more effort than you'd expect – UNI2 is the culmination of a decade's worth of thoughtful design and carefully considered changes. Despite this, it effortlessly demonstrates why it's one of the strongest competitors on the fighting game market right now.
Tekken 8 blew us away with its excellent, engaging features that are fine-tuned to fit every fighting game fan's preference. It also offers a battle system that new and veteran players can enjoy...as long as you can take the Heat.
Elegance, finesse, style – whatever you want to call it, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has it. It sets the stage with familiar Prince of Persia elements while performing them in new ways. The production comes with a few stumbles, yet The Lost Crown always recovers with style, proving itself as a worthy heir to the elegance that this series represents.
For better and worse, Pokémon Scarlet & Pokémon Violet: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero Part 2: The Indego Disk is more Pokémon Scarlet & Pokémon Violet. Your enjoyment of it will largely depend on how much jank you can still tolerate, but this DLC does some interesting things to spice up the game. Trainers will actually put up a fight, there are cool optional areas to explore, and there's of course a ton of returning Pokémon to catch. It's a very small step back to where we fell in love with the series, but still far from its heights.
Everything about Move It! feels like it should work, and when it does it's a lot of fun. The problem is that doesn't always work. Some rotten apples in the microgame selection and the Joy-Con hardware's awkward fit with the overall concept muddy up an otherwise good time. Given the discombobulating nature of WarioWare, some muddying can be acceptable up to a point, but Move It! occasionally crosses the line from being playfully antagonistic to frustrating for the wrong reasons.
Mario is known for surprising you with new ideas and strong game design. Super Mario Bros. Wonder contains both in spades. Although it executes on the element of surprise in a way I hesitate to call an outright innovation, it always supports the strengths of both the expected and unexpected.
Way of Wyrd's shadow-heavy visuals perfectly capture the Hellboy aesthetic. Sadly, the game lurking beneath those shadows suffers from unambitious design, inconsistent mechanics, and occasionally devastating bugs. Fun can still be found in the Wyrd, it's just harder to find than it should be.
Mortal Kombat's "new era" takes more from the old ones than the reboot implies. While this allows Mortal Kombat 1 to bring the best elements of the series to the forefront, it also distracts from what should be a bold new beginning.
Gravity Circuit (grapple) hooked me after I threw caution to the wind. First playthroughs inherently emphasize caution, which means that truly appreciating the game will take some time. If you're willing to put in the effort, you'll find a game that twists old ideas in a fresh and fun direction.
Loop8: Summer of Gods aspires to capture the human experience through a multitude of ambitious subsystems. Unfortunately, virtually none of these ideas make a meaningful impact on the game. The end result is a shallow, disjointed, and undeveloped experience. Rather than reflecting the nuances of our everyday lives, Loop8 most closely resembles the lives of aquarium fish.
Marble It Up! Ultra applies the theory of controlled chaos to platformer design. It doles out exciting moments and frustrations in relatively equal measure thanks to the ambiguous nature of its marble physics. This unique juxtaposition often proves likable even if it can occasionally be hard to love.
Double Dragon Gaiden focuses on replayability to its detriment. Solid combat mechanics give way to balance considerations made to justify all of the difficulty sliders and upgrade systems. If I had to pick between a game with a lot of "replayability" versus a game I simply like to play, the latter will win out every time. Double Dragon Gaiden isn't far off from being enjoyable on the merits of the gameplay alone, but it's far enough to consider going back to the dojo and polishing its Sou-Setsu-Ken technique.
Humanity is vast, clever, inventive, and eclectic. It constantly proposes new ideas that redefine the basic experience into a grand design of puzzle mechanics that are just as fun to experiment with as they are to think about. While its best-laid plans have some faults, it all works out in the end. You couldn't ask for a better reflection of humanity than Humanity.