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Cassette Beasts does fall into some familiar pitfalls, making for a hit-and-miss adventure. Some might find its complexity appealing, but that comes at the expense of casual appeal and legibility. Still, I’m encouraged by how many of its original ideas land. Monster fusion is a truly impressive trick, exploration feels classic and modern in the same breath, and its cassette motif is a clever bit of theming that gives it a distinct style. Perhaps Game Freak should be the one taking notes this time.
Changes to the core systems, meanwhile, take two steps forward and one step back. The game's long list of improvements is paired with the return for grinding for grinding's sake. Check back later this week for our final impressions.
Battle for Azeroth is off to a weak start. The new zones are beautiful, to be sure, but the climatic introduction cinematic and quests lead into a whole lot of cliché and not a lot of action. If the War has come back to Warcraft, well …I've not seen it.
Empire of Sin delivers a clever, genre-melding experience that perfectly marries the world of 1920s organized crime with strategy gameplay. Bugs and a lack of combat speed or automation options can grind its pace to a halt, but it does a stellar job of putting the player in the mindset of a mob mastermind (or a gun-toting buffoon) with streamlined speakeasy management.
Perhaps it’s thematically fitting that the game itself is such an oddball outlier that’s been met with cruelty and misunderstanding since its announcement. There’s poetry to that, but it didn’t make my 11-hour playthrough any more enjoyable.
While not outright broken like Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) or Sonic Boom, Sonic Frontiers is a heavily misguided game that muffles good ideas with questionable narrative, technical, and gameplay design decisions.
Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark is an insultingly overt cross-marketing bid that isn't worth your time.
The Order: 1886 is a dull, plodding experience that's beautiful to behold but spends too little time giving players a reason to stick around.
South Park: Snow Day! brings the cartoon’s up-and-down foray into gaming full circle. The co-op adventure underwhelms with sloppy action, repetitive combat, and a poorly implemented roguelite structure. Fans of the show’s first few seasons may get some laughs from its throwback humor, but the fun setup gets flushed down the drain like Mr. Hankey.
Balan Wonderworld is a hodge-podge of half-formed platforming ideas that squander a whole lot of charm.
This spin-off is the unambitious median point in a triple-A market saturated with zombies and stealth-action games that have narrative aspirations.
Atlas Fallen has some ambitious ideas for a game of its scale, but its poor presentation holds back a promising combat system.
AEW: Fight Forever will win over N64 nostalgists, but anyone looking for a modern wrestling experience may be let down by an unpolished, bare-bones package.
Redfall makes concessions to work as a middling multiplayer game at the expense of a promising single-player experience.
Valkyrie Elysium delivers an average action experience that fails to revive a classic RPG series.
Steelrising has some lofty ambitions, but poor execution slays this potentially innovative Soulslike.
Madden NFL 23 is an improved game when compared to Madden NFL 22, but that isn't enough to make it good.
Tunic offers players an adventure full of mystery, but delivers a purposefully obtuse world that's impossible to sort out.
Monark tries a lot of new ideas, but only finds success with an intriguing battle system ... and even that has a mileage that may vary.
Rainbow Six Extraction's ridiculous plot and repetitive nature prevent the experimental spinoff from achieving its full potential.