Cubed3's Reviews
Short, sweet, and to the point, Lydia makes for a memorable and engaging hour of gameplay. Its story of abuse will prove uncomfortable, but a restrained hand ensures audiences never have to confront anything too visceral through gameplay. There isn't much in the way of replayability, but a well told story, plus an excellent visual style make Lydia a worthwhile play-through for anyone looking for something emotionally dense.
A charming and relaxing experience from start to finish, milk it for all its worth.
With the pedigree and ideas going into this, Phoenix Point should have been much, much better than it is. The cool ideas are overshadowed by ever-present bugs, glitches, and hiccups that constantly get in the way of the player. Even excusing these, the ideas and presentation come off as incredibly bland very soon into the adventure. Little customization, little options, and little reason to care about your soldiers or base, round out reasons this is in need of massive updates and overhauls if it is to be saved.
From a gameplay standpoint, Wide Ocean Big Jacket is an extremely simple game - with 'game' put between the biggest quote marks imaginable. As an experience, though, this is something else entirely. Turnfollow's tiny adventure is basically a funny, and occasionally very sweet, slice-of-life tale of four people enjoying themselves in the woods, while also dealing with some serious matters, but not in a very serious way. It's not a narrative-driven game. It is vacation in video game form - and only the good parts are included.
This is jam-packed with mini-games that can be enjoyed both against other players and alone, with enough content even for those with limited hand and/or arm mobility issues. It's the cutest party title known to mankind. This really is a game that everyone can find something to love: no compensation will be given for any arguments that multiplayer conjures up.
Too easy, too simple, and more often than not, too dull and slow, LUNA The Shadow Dust counts on its beautiful, fairy-tail, dreamy graphics, and soothing OST, a bit too much than it should. It's not a bad point-and-click adventure, sure, and those who can look past its heavy flaws will be entertained for about two to three hours, but if it weren't for its stunning hand-painted world, few would give it a second look.
Old lady Talma's melancholic tale of utter loneliness and inevitable end does provide some tasty breadcrumbs every now and then, but as a whole, this farm sim/narrative-driven title overstays its welcome, doesn't manage to be enjoyable, and ends up being a chore that just happens to include some pretty, and mildly coloured vistas, as well as a nice calm-and-then-ominous aura.
The heavy criticism towards Warcraft III: Reforged has nothing to do with the quality of the experience therein. This remains the wonderful real-time strategy that thousands of people have loved. The real problems begin when you take the changes of this remaster into consideration. The half-baked, unimpressive new engine and hit-or-miss design choices; the numerous bugs and network issues; and, finally, those mind-numbing, corporate-smelling decisions, like the fact that custom maps now belong to Blizzard, or how Reforged effectively ruins the original for those who don't even own the new game.
Big booties aside, the easiest way to sum up Atelier Ryza is: an absolutely great game framework, waiting for a game. The battles are interesting enough, the gathering okay, and the alchemy very good, but it all fails to connect on a purposeful or coherent level. With no driving narrative or reason, pretty rapidly the whole point becomes to simply battle, gather, alchemize, repeat; all of which fails to pull the player into something deep or meaningful. The is a great casual-friendly title, but it lacks any serious staying power.
The decision of picking up Harcore Mecha is going to rest purely on if this type of platformer, and its over-the-top anime tropes' appeal.
The play style adjustments in the campaign to the core gameplay loop do enough to keep things interesting
A good tactical game makes you feel dumb when loosing, Banner of the Maid makes you feel cheated, as it's less about forming a plan, and more about retrying missions to discover which exact "route" to follow. Add to this a heavy lack of balance, some annoying friendly AI, and a needlessly long length, and this makes this Chinese-born SRPG hard to recommend. Its flawless pixel art style, and sexy anime look are really the only things of any worth here.
Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace deserves credit for managing to retain a desire to spend more time with these characters, and runs with the humour and nerdiness in combination with the sexually natured and light-hearted narratives that Okabe ends up entwined in. It does the series justice by sticking to what makes everybody so appealing, but it is a very specific type of visual novel that doesn't get into any serious or dramatic situations. Understand what you're setting yourself up for and this is a fun alternate diversion to the original title.
StarBlox Inc. is a perfectly enjoyable action puzzler that manages to balance reflex-based gameplay with on-the-fly puzzle solving. The core gameplay loop doesn't have much in the way of depth, but it's easy to pick up, and fun to play, especially in groups of four. Unfortunately, no online means that StarBlox has no real shelf life in spite of a surprisingly decent single player campaign. If nothing else, this makes for a decent couch multiplayer alternative to Puyo Puyo and Tetris.
Not for the faint of heart, but a survival horror masterpiece nonetheless, Resident Evil 2 sets a standard for good horror, good action, and damn good game design.
Technical issues, and lack of polish put aside, Evil Genome is just a mediocre action-adventure, that only metroidvania aficionados can manage to enjoy for more than an hour. Bring its many problems back in, and what you get is a bargain bin metroidvania that simply isn't worth the trouble... fan or not.
There is no denying that Touring Karts VR is rough around the edges.
Great graphics, a compelling experience, and overall heart, paint the general picture of this adventure game. While some aspects of the story go unexplored and the animal-shifting aspect largely goes under-utilized, these are not enough to distract from a positive experience. Gamers need to know going in that Lost Ember is a very casual-friendly experience, but one that is still well done. The only thing holding it back is a lack of truly diving into the mechanics presented, or truly investigating the story themes brought forth.
More unlockable rooms with some further challenge would have been welcome, but The Turing Test passes on many fronts. Well worth a purchase - and launches at a great price, too.
Mechstermination Force is a terrific boss-rush adventure that grants a few hours of undisputed, frenetic, and fast-paced gunplay against gargantuan robotic titans.