Then come the harder questions. Will you be an ally or a hindrance? Do you even care that people are dying around you? And, most importantly, if you can stop it, will you even try to? Once again, DigiXArts has left me with an experience that will haunt me. Something that feels so disturbingly plausible despite the distance between them and us. This is the power of narrative storytelling in gaming.
Ys Memoire: Revelations in Celceta is at its worst, extremely dated, and outdone by every experience that has come after it. The change in name, especially for a game that is still around, feels like a dubious decision. I mean, I get it; the Memoire series seems like it is designed to recontextualize older games in the series into a new series. I genuinely do hope to see more (please do Ys Seven next), though in this case, I could see some confusion.
There are a lot of ways I could take my thoughts when it comes to Mouse: P.I. For Hire. There were some issues I noticed, and I will note them. The thing is, though, it’s fun! It’s old school, unadulterated fun! It’s booting up your PlayStation 2 after rushing home from school, new game fever levels of fun!
GreedFall: The Dying World does the thing that vexes me more than anything else. It does plenty of good things that make me like it, enjoy it, and want to keep playing. Then it goes ahead and does many bad things, sometimes bafflingly so, given that the prior game did not, which frustrates me to no end.
City Hunter, as a port, is a competent remaster. It runs well and plays well. That’s not the issue here. That was never the issue here. City Hunter is just a bland game that, in 1990, was attempting to capitalize on a manga and anime that had already ended, while MAYBE trying to bridge the timeline until the 1993 Jackie Chan film came out.
Scott Pilgrim EX is a passable nostalgia romp that will offer you and your friends enjoyment, bashing your way through the world. The throwback world combines multiple aspects of games I grew up with, both as obvious references and easy-to-miss sight gags, with a fun roster of characters to beat your way through everything that stands in your way. The biggest issue I had with this experience was how hostile it got towards playing solo later on in the game.
I might be in the minority on this, but having just played both chapters in the Ethan Winters saga back to back for this review, I personally found Resident Evil Village to be the more enjoyable of the two. It starts with a ton of minor improvements that make this game flow better. Ethan has a legitimate run, the menu pauses action, and the boss battles don’t feel like claustrophobic nightmares.
In 2017, there was a reason why Resident Evil VII: Biohazard made such a splash. Five years before the series had hit a roadblock with the over-the-top, three-story action entry that abandoned almost everything that made the series great. Then, Ethan Winters goes to Louisiana and discovers true terror.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is one of the best-looking RPGs out there and offers a genuine alternative approach for Square Enix to the 2.5D approach popularized with Octopath Traveler. I want more games like this! That’s the problem, though. I want more games like this. As I followed the beats, my mind kept wandering to which games I want to get this kind of treatment, and there are a few.
What mostly won me over was how very campy everything is. Yes, the shifting around is methodical and precise, if a little annoying at times due to the trial and error, but the underlying narrative is pure teen drama.
This brings us to Ys X: Proud Nordics, and that’s where the conversation gets complicated. If this were some AAA juggernaut franchise, we probably wouldn’t be here. But it isn’t. There are probably a lot of players who haven’t enjoyed the standard release, or even played a Ys game, and there is nothing here that stops the franchise from delivering everything fans love about it. It’s just unfortunate that those fans are the ones it’s hardest to justify this title for.
There are some imprecise controls in Romeo Is A Dead Man that would hold any other developer back. With a Suda 51 and Grasshopper Manufacture game, you are probably well aware of what you will get. For the trade-off, you get epic action and fast-paced gameplay that never fails to be fun. You get a bizarre story that gets more engaging the further into it you delve, and tons of replayability along with that
Dynasty Warriors Origins tries plenty of new things, though not things the team at Omega Force is unfamiliar with, to breathe new life into a series that has been going on since 1997. For the first time, though, I really didn’t feel like I was playing just another Musou, just another Dynasty Warriors. Yes, it’s just as fast-paced as it has always been and just as zenning if you let it, but no longer will it just let you have your way on the battlefield. It bites back, making the process more engaging.
Every element of Fairy Tail Dungeons has a certain charm to it, bolstered by the retro indie aesthetic that harkened me back to the classic era of anime games. The charms quickly fade, however. The turn-based mechanic is interesting, but it quickly drags on in the repetition of trying to bolster my characters for the coming boss fight ahead. The boss fights feel like the absolute worst example of card-battling RNG.
There is a lot in Formula Legends that I could see why it is appealing. The reason I was interested in it is that it didn’t look like your typical racing experience. For the most part thats kinda true, though not in the way that was desired on my end. The game is extremely punishing, even on its easiest setting, and it can be weirdly selective on when it wants to really force you into a sim experience and when it doesn’t.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Beyond the Horizon is a fun game once it starts going. This has been an issue with the series since the start, though. A slow beginning that bombards you with names you should know, events you probably should have seen, and important narratives that will require twenty or so hours to become relevant can become fatiguing. Thankfully, great lore building and enjoyable performances make even the slower points manageable, especially when you know what’s eventually coming.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 fails to fully delight with its story; this much I’m hard-pressed to deny. The interesting twist to the formula is that the form of the hallucinogens leads to some interesting outcomes, but not always rewarding ones. It is also used far too often to harken back to Black Ops 2, which invites constant comparison to a game that is objectively better designed, with a much better villain than the one on display here. All this being said, the story has some bright points, like the open world you eventually unlock, and the ability to level through its tight gunplay.
There are a lot of ideas at play across Demonschool, and a lot of inspirations that really don’t act as a backdrop but are fully apparent. They are never used as a crutch, though, serving to build a great game rather than trying to invoke another. The story, which could very well be my favorite thing about the experience, plays to both horror and comedy and lets both have their moments without sacrificing the others while managing to tell a collection of coming-of-age stories set against an impending demon invasion. Mixing this with the puzzle-based combat takes the best aspects of a turn-based game and somehow doesn’t use them to that end at all is just crazy.
Atelier Ryza DX Trilogy could come off as dated for its time, especially when compared to other Japanese franchises in the genre. Coming into the trilogy, it was still finding its own footing, and the popularity the series absolutely deserved. More importantly, though, Ryza is just fun. It has a great combat system mixed with the best version of alchemy that the series has seen both before and after.
If we are going to compare Ninja Gaiden 4 to its predecessors, it is a strong return to form. It never hits like 2 did, but compared to 3, it is a much more genuine experience that players have been waiting years for. At its heart, it is competent, and the fact that the combat is so good detracts from most of the negatives throughout, though with traversal, they forced me into it so often that it just can’t.