Kotaku's Reviews
2016's turn-based Golden Age continues
Perhaps to put it more positively, play the first game if you haven’t! And then absolutely play this one.
It's often said that, as a medium, video games suck at storytelling. Stories feels like it's trying something rewardingly different, to do more than just ape the linear style of a summer blockbuster movie. It's embracing tried-and-true hallmarks of action game design and weaving them around interactive fiction elements. The result is both familiar and fresh.
As a sendoff to the series, Dark Souls 3 is a fine one. It's time for something new.
This is a game that can broaden an individual person’s horizons and that of the entire medium, as well. It’s definitely worth your time.
ADR1FT is a game torn right down the middle. It places the player in a position of imminent danger, but invites them to relax and enjoy the scenery. It gives you a fun way to jet around in 3D space, then gives you nothing to do with it but navigate corridors. It wrote and recorded an extensive backstory, but presents you little reason to care about it.
Despite how pedestrian some aspects of the game may be, I concluded Quantum Break feeling like something new had happened. Something special had happened that more than compensated for some of the flatness of the story and the mostly rote gunplay. A game simply never worked like this before, nor has a TV show. Because of that, what might have otherwise been ordinary feels extraordinary.
The Division's mechanical underpinnings are sturdy enough to make me forget how much of a bummer its story can be; its shooting and looting are slick enough to make me wonder if it still might evolve into something more inspired.
It's easy to see why so many people look back at this game so fondly.
Pokken Tournament might not quite be the Pokemon fighting game I've been dreaming of for years, but to be fair my dreams are ridiculously lofty. Despite its limited-by-reality scope, it's the closest we've come to capturing the excitement of animated Pokemon battles in video game form.
The first episode of Hitman is a very strong start, and it's a return to form for a series that some were worried had begun to wander.
Remember when online shooters were fresh and fun? Garden Warfare 2 certainly does.
Beautiful but clumsy, with a very helpful wet dog.
Primal is worth playing, but only once you're hungry for more and only if you're prepared to plumb its depths.
Evertyhing really is cooler in slow-mo.
To many I imagine Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is just a colorful but simplistic role-playing game with a slow-to-start story and repetitive dungeon environments. To me it's the chance to spend hours capturing Poyomon, Digivolving it to Tokomon, reaching max level and then De-digivolving it back to Poyomon, reaching max level and Digivolving to Tokomon, then Patomon, and finally increasing Patomon's stats so it can Digivolve to Angewoman. If that sounds exciting to you, then boof!
With Fates, the series hasn't frayed under the pressure. Instead, Intelligent Systems has created one of the most narratively ambitious games to hit a Nintendo platform. Fire Emblem Fates lets you explore the value of familial love and friendship, then offers you the option to go back and kill everyone you love, while loving everyone you killed.
With Fates, the series hasn't frayed under the pressure. Instead, Intelligent Systems has created one of the most narratively ambitious games to hit a Nintendo platform. Fire Emblem Fates lets you explore the value of familial love and friendship, then offers you the option to go back and kill everyone you love, while loving everyone you killed.
Street Fighter V delivers strong multiplayer competition but feels much emptier than previous entries in the franchise.
A sprawling, satisfying expansion to an already good game.