Cattle Country’s biggest sin is being in an extremely bloated genre. Throughout my time with it, there was nothing it did badly. It’s a perfectly serviceable Cozy/Farming sim to sink hours of your life in as you grow your little slice of the frontier
. But in that lies the crux of the problem, the best aspects of the game don’t involve playing the game. The core racing loop doesn’t hold a candle to its contemporaries. In comparison, arcade racer Horizon Chase 2 is the same price, and while neither is perfect, I would recommend Chase every day of the week.
Yasha: Legends of the Demon Blade has a lot of fun to offer if you’re looking for a take on a roguelike or hack’n’slash game. The three characters are all unique and fun to play as, despite needing their own saves. The combat is fast-paced with enjoyable, with a diverse weapons list to switch up gameplay, even if you can expect each character to control the same throughout each run
Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is, at its heart and soul, a charming and cute experience. I loved every minute with it, even if those minutes were fleeting. That is the biggest crime here because this is a world I want to get more invested in with its great cast of characters, and over-the-top titular detective.
Spellcaster University has a lot of good ideas on display, which honestly might be its biggest issue. A management sim, wrapped with a card game, structured like a rogue-like, is a lot of concepts that need to work together, and they often don’t. The management sim is the best part of this, ass who has never wanted to run a magical school, but the card mechanic and the rogue-like at times feel needed, and honestly, a hampering to the core management mechanic at the center.
In truth, there were points in the game that felt like the game could have gone any way. Major mechanics like driving and shooting, which take up much of the experience, both had moments where I enjoyed them and moments where I hated the hell out of them. This was in between the repetitions that often hit the point of tedium, with some standout moments that made me laugh or smile as the absurdity of the procedural generation hit its apex.
Little Kitty, Big City delivers on its two big promises. Taking the role of a kitty that encourages you to embrace the feline inside of you is never dull, especially when you go off to do your own this. The City is beautifully crafted and fun to explore, filled to the brim with people who have cell phones you can steal! There is a lot to love in here if you’re looking for an experience that is tranquil and worry-free.
Revenge of the Savage Planet is a wild ride from start to finish that both feels like to honors the platformers of old while charting its own course through the universe that is gaming. It encourages you to keep exploring and has you enjoying every minute that you are.
Combat never reached the highs that the narrative achieves, but I also found that it never hit the lows that the pacing caused in the narrative either. It was safe in the middle. The characters’ varying skills on the battlefield, and how I found each one of them useful and valuable, helped every moment locked in the death struggle.
Lushfoil Photography Sim owns itself as an experience, but it has so much well-crafted gameplay as well. Whether you are simply walking the trails, getting lost in the beautifully crafted scenery, or capturing your own little slice of it to make your own, you can get lost in the moment here, in a way so few games let you. Even now, I am thinking about my little moments that captured me, like stumbling onto a small Japanese street, or watching the sunset on an Australian beach, knowing they are going to stay with me.
This progression also makes me more hopeful about the issues I had with the experience, from the creative team that feels to be moving forward as they grow, the character piece music lacked the oomph I think they were looking for and the game’s world was a little linear but showed a studio capable of evolution.
Most of the issues present in Shadows have been there through multiple iterations and I hope they do get fixed in the future. All this being said, though, there is one important point to make here, and it’s arguably the most important: I had fun.
For those looking for a stress-free, cozy sim to just kick back and relax too, this could be one you might try. It isn’t horrible and does have on offer a traditional loop of growing and selling crops, cleaning up your farm, and upgrading your items. The biggest issue it runs into when discussing that, though, is that there are just so many other games on offer these days that offer all of this and an insane amount more.
Sega and RGG have finally let the series embrace some elements like the vast array of the company’s history in game and music form, as well as let me fully customize my protagonist, and I seriously hope these elements are here to stay.
Citizen Sleeper 2 is a slow but meaningful journey into the deepest expanses of space and as such, it plays like it. Characters are well written with an engaging story that plays out over 10 to 15 hours, with weighted choices that can mean the difference between success and failure thanks to autosaving which often means you have to live with these outcomes.
On the one hand, it’s a reminder of how much the series has grown and a simple overall a simple game to break up your time with. On the other hand, as much as I loved my time with it, it was hard not to think about all the elements in the recent titles that I loved and just how much more satisfying they are to play. It’s a testament to how far Ys has come in its over 30-year history.
ts hunts are not as engaging, its mechanics not as enjoyable, and its combat not as fun. This isn’t to say by any stretch that it fails to be enjoyable, as slowly widdling away your years proves to be as enjoyable as I remembered. It is just hard to deny even Bandai Namco, the publisher of Freedom Wars Remastered has achieved another title I might be more inclined to recommend.
Closer The Distance is hard to play in the best way imaginable. It is emotional, raw, and familiar. This is a story we can all relate to and honestly, one that we can all benefit and learn from. The kind of story that breaks us, but in the process, hopefully, makes us better and stronger person in the process.
Dungeons of Hinterberg is the vacation I never knew I wanted and I’m sure you will feel the same. Learning the characters, exploring the city, and solving a puzzle or two are just the icing on this outstanding cake. There is also a beautifully crafted world to get lost in and abilities galore to unlock as the gameplay shifts around which area you choose to explore that day. Once you start discovering the Lore, you will never want to leave.
The shame of it all was that, up until that point, I was actually enjoying my time in the game. The combat was fast-paced and fun. Exploration had some interesting twists to it even if the world never felt groundbreaking or amazing. Best of all, the risk-reward system for receiving experience is one of the coolest ideas out there.