Kotaku's Reviews
It's an odd experiment, but charming humor and engaging gameplay make this blocky parody of Aloy's story a successful one, too
Almost ten years after her terrific debut, Max Caulfield returns in a worthy if uneven sequel
The long-awaited fourth entry in BioWare's fantasy series isn't just good, it's some of the studio's best work
While this new Quiet Place game isn’t the most innovative or scariest game I’ve played, it’s a very well-made and tense adventure that had me more terrified of metal cans and broken glass than any random zombie I’ve encountered in Resident Evil. Who knew trash could be so scary?
That’s unusual for me. I mostly play horror games for the scares, to distract myself from what I believe is the horror of my life — my anxiety disorder and a new round of insomnia, which can keep me up for days. On the most terrible occasions, I get too exhausted to do anything other than cry with the lights out. But Fear the Spotlight offers me solace over escapism. It tells me that love is everywhere, especially in the dark.
My hope is that Sega going back and reflecting on what Shadow has lost in the past 20 years will make the company think about what it can reclaim. What better time to realize this than during the Year of Shadow, just as a new generation of Sonic fans is about to learn all about him when Sonic the Hedgehog 3 premieres in December? Sometimes brand synergy leads to a genuine celebration of something, and in the case of Shadow Generations, it’s long overdue.
Fusing classic series sensibilities with modern ones, Echoes of Wisdom is an inventive and endearing adventure,
Funko Fusion could have been something fun! A wacky adventure mixing together different franchises and worlds. Instead, its a boring, annoying, barely functional third-person action game starring ugly Funko Pops solving bad puzzles and fighting the same 10 enemies over and over again with guns and laser pistols. Don’t play Funko Fusion. Save your money, buy some pizza, and watch one of the movies included in this collection instead. It will be much more enjoyable and you won’t have to restart the movie five times to reach the end.
It’s not the biggest budgets or the most polish. It’s creativity and experimentation, a willingness to try new things and keep pushing a young medium forward. With any luck, we’re just getting started.
The Plucky Squire's inventive puzzle-platforming looks to the past and future of the medium
It’s tempting to call Wild Bastards an evolution, but that’s unfair to Void, which has its excellent crafting elements and the permadeath of characters (albeit with persistent progress). What’s crucially similar about both, beyond the excellent art and fantastic sense of humor, is that unlike so many roguelite games, they both want you to win. They’re about progressing forward, being able to reach an ending, and then starting all over to try it completely differently. It’s just that in Wild Bastards, there’s so much more that can be different each time.
Structurally, The Answer is an often frustrating epilogue that shaves off some of the best parts of Persona games. Thankfully, Reload’s quality-of-life updates make the grind more tolerable and the remake adds enough small social elements like reading books and watching movies with your friends that it doesn’t feel like it’s all business. But as a meditation on grief, it feels like a kindness afforded to characters who once had to rile in the ambiguity of the original ending. It would have been easy for Persona 3 to end on a nihilistic note, showing the entire group fall apart without their leader and denying all the lessons they learned. But grief never really goes away. We just learn to help each other live with it a little more each day.
I can confidently say WoW is back. Well, it was back in Dragonflight, but it’s extra back now. Not only does The War Within make the player experience better with great additions like Warbands and Follower Dungeons, but it also demonstrates that Blizzard isn’t afraid to keep refining good ideas like Hero Talents or reworking those that may have failed previously and molded them into nuggets of fun and flavor like Delves. If this is just the start of what to expect with Warcraft in the era of The Worldsoul Saga, then I’m eager to stick around and see where these new adventures on Azeroth take us next.
For what it is, though, Astro Bot is incredible, and that is worth celebrating here and now. I just can’t help walking away from the experience with a bittersweet taste in my mouth and a hope that someday soon, we don’t have to look to gaming’s past for the best bits of it all.
Come for the 12-hour campaign, stay for the co-op mode all about becoming the ultimate alien killer
This overly ambitious adventure game’s heart is in the right place
The first mainline Mana in over a decade is a wholehearted vision for a different kind of modern RPG
By the time the curtain closes on Stray Gods: Orpheus, I’m left conflicted. The DLC is a stunning improvement over the original game, thanks to a smart choice of lead and some excellent songwriting. However, the dialogue-wheel-esque system for changing song style remains as flawed as ever, and it means Orpheus still can’t reach those original ambitions of melding musical theater and RPGs. Still, the team at Summerfall Studios should feel proud of how well it addressed the issues in the base game. Stray Gods: Orpheus might not be musical greatness, but it is the rare musical sequel that I’d recommend over its predecessor.
Arranger is a brisk adventure, but it’s filled with so many clever, perfectly executed ideas that by the time it was over, I was just left wanting more. Jemma’s story might be over by the end, but I’d love to see Furniture & Mattress add new puzzles in future updates because the team has such an immaculate, clever eye for what makes puzzle games so satisfying. Now I’m just waiting for my memory of the game to fade so I can go back and try to solve those puzzles with fresh eyes once more.
This game came out of nowhere for me, but its tightly paced film noir mystery is built on such a fascinating world that it’s quickly become one of my favorite sleeper hits of 2024.