Victor Vitório's Reviews
Walking the fine line that distinguishes metroidvanias from Zelda-likes, Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo nails the fun of adventure and displays a strong identity of its own, which is shown both in its irreverent satire style, as well as in the gameplay of ricochets and yo-yo tricks.
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With its unique approach to the 2D platform genre and an enjoyable story told in long dialogues, Aureole: Wings of Hope is a great surprise that gives us the tools to balance high speed and meticulous movements when throwing a halo both in search of secrets and in the race against the clock.
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With a lot of charm in its cartoonish parody of crime stories, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami makes the pleasant surprise of shaping a seemingly banal premise into a story that has much more than we can see at first glance. The simple mechanics of searching for clues to fill in gaps of deductions are superficial, but require reasoning to reach conclusions and the brevity of this tale prevents its pace from becoming boring and repetitive.
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As a sequel, Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping repeats the dose of its predecessor, which means both that all the charm, enigmas and surprises are present, with deeper plot twists than it might seem at first glance, and that there is no innovation.
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The hidden cat game genre has been growing in recent years, and Hidden Kittens: Kingdom of Cats is yet another game that offers a cute, short, and enjoyable experience with hundreds of kitties to find. It's an easy recommendation for both those who already enjoy the genre and those who want to have some relaxing, casual fun, especially with children.
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With a simple and pleasant audiovisual presentation and an interesting and well-developed story, Wings of Endless convinces as a retro action RPG. Although the combat suffers from long fights against unbalanced bosses and the trio of playable characters does not balance the individual relevance very well, exploration is fun and has a good atmosphere of a satisfying adventure in a fantasy world.
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Strengthening the genre of games that depart from the metroidvania structure to meet the soulslike style, Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree has more hits than misses. The energy management combat is slow and can be repetitive and somewhat clumsy, but it also has its highlights. The crafting system is bureaucratic and offers few incentives for counting on it, affecting the feeling of reward of finding items. The world is well-built and enjoyable to explore, although its biggest highlight is really the rich 2D visuals, making it one of the most beautiful in the genre and easily recommended to those who enjoy the style.
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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is an exemplary turn-based RPG that nails everything right. From the beautiful visual presentation to the world-building, from the dynamic and active battles to the deep customization systems, it is a piece of work that knows how to take advantage of classic JRPG structures and stands out for taking them further in a unique approach.
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With a completely revamped look, design improvements, gameplay features, and an entirely new chapter in the story, The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a robust and well-made return to a ten-year-old game that was already notable for its mix of good puzzles and humanist philosophy.
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LUNAR Remastered Collection offers two classic JRPGs from PS1 with improved anime scenes and some quality-of-life options that, while discreet, are gladly welcome. The visuals have received only minimal, almost imperceptible touch-ups, but both games remain adventures that stand out for their naive and charismatic heroism, typical of their times. These are two games that find their strength in the honest and engaging simplicity of saving a beautiful fantasy world with sword and magic.
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As a combat-free metroidvania, entirely focused on environment traversal and diagram interpretation puzzles, Exographer breaks the mold of the genre and shatters expectations. What sets it apart is its focus on the field of particle physics, but it is not necessary to have prior knowledge of the subject, because, deep down, what drives its world-building is the enthusiasm of the scientific hunt for understanding the structures of the universe, celebrating each small fragment of knowledge gained. Although this does not make Exographer inaccessible to a wider audience, it defines it as a niche game that should please those interested in getting into a mix of puzzles and science.
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Kemono Heroes walks a tightrope by delivering a campaign that is as fun as it is short. It's the arcade action experience in its immediate simplicity, made to get people together and go out and beat up creatures from Japanese folklore in beautiful pixelated visuals. The amount of content offered, however, is more appropriate for retro experiences and may be unsatisfying for those expecting modern versatility that deepens things.
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With its vampire story focused more on relationships than horror, Cabernet achieves its goal of being an engaging narrative RPG. Both in its well-written plot and in its choice mechanics, the unlife of a doctor who has just become a creature of the night is competent in addressing several human themes and allowing us, if we so wish, to face them with optimism and empathy, always so necessary for humanity.
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Beyond the Ice Castle 2 brings back a simple game from the 1980's in a new edition with much more substance. For better or worse, it goes back to the old elements of Castlevania with linear stages, a great dark fantasy atmosphere, slow and heavy movement, and high difficulty that's reinforced by the not so generous healing system and the long distances in between the save points. This makes death a stage repetition that can be frustrating and repel the public that isn't keen to facing this kind of retro punishing experience.
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Cats and Seek: Dino Park is another game about finding cats hidden in large illustrations. That's enough to know that the game offers casual, calm and enjoyable fun, recommended for anyone who wants to spend some relaxing time looking for cute hidden animals.
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With a modest production that adapts the 2019 series material well, Carmen Sandiego serves its young target audience well, alternating geography- and history-based investigation and simple minigames. For older audiences, however, the educational entertainment essence may have less appeal, as the simplicity in the mechanics and initial enigmas make the really good challenges show up only in the second half of the campaign.
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Momodora: Moonlit Farewell is a modest but worthy farewell to a series that has always been humble. The concise campaign focuses on what works and gets straight to the point, with a good pace of exploration and progression, but its basic metroidvania mechanics fail to impress, both in the simplistic traversal abilities and in the merely satisfactory combat. Fortunately, the aesthetics refine the visuals with good effects, making this a game that, despite being unpretentious, is fun, enjoyable and very beautiful.
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Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter makes up for it with its impressive combat, detailed visuals, interesting medieval fantasy with animals and a narrative that heightens the atmosphere. However, the game fails to build on the achievements of its predecessor and suffers from superficial systems, bland level design, unnecessary backtracking and repetitive and unbalanced fights. The new epic of the rat kingdom may please with what it has good, but it will not impress those who played the first one.
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With a manor and its surrounding gardens, Arabella has more than a roof of her own to cultivate both fantastic plants and scientific treatises. Botany Manor uses the historical context of a Victorian female scholar to build an ingenious exploration puzzle game, delivering the satisfaction of solving riddles while illustrating a clever historical insight represented by the protagonist's overlooked intellectual life. Both narrative and gameplay are bounded together in our minds by their clues and fragments, making this game a beautiful and worthy whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
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Though ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the Mist plays it safe by being too similar to its predecessor, it also surpasses it in every aspect. It's a challenging, beautiful and melancholic metroidvania, but also heartwarming in its emphatic narrative tone and quality of life upgrades — especially the excellent mapping —, along with the difficulty management.
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