Kotaku's Reviews
Rain Code is built by a team that knows how to make these kinds of games, and as a long-time fan of the themes Kodaka tends to write around, I was pretty moved by the end even though it nearly lost me in the beginning. If you’ve never been a fan of Kodaka’s mix of camp, heavyhanded themes, and theatrics, Rain Code will likely not grab you. But despite it feeling like Danganronpa’s distant cousin, it makes it clear this team doesn’t have to lean on Monokuma’s death game as a crutch and can build something new upon its bones instead. Hopefully, this means Kodaka can continue to let old things die on their own terms and make new things instead.
The robotic puzzler makes repeated failure an absolute delight
Like a great novel might, this game made me feel more connected to the world around me, and it put me in touch with feelings of wonder that I haven’t felt in a long time. I’ve often felt that too much is made of the anecdote that Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired to create The Legend of Zelda by his childhood explorations of Japanese countryside. For so long, the series had lacked, in my view, any recognizable shred of real exploration, real play. But then, along comes a game like Tears of the Kingdom, which gives you both a wonderful world to explore and thrilling, imaginative new ways to explore it, and I get it. Playing this, I feel like a kid again, alive to the wondrous nature of the world, imagining myself on all kinds of incredible adventures.
A bold shift to action and a stirring fantasy tale make this the best Final Fantasy in ages
I don’t think Crash Team Rumble is going to be the next big live service craze, but it has its moments, I can’t help but pity a game that feels like the odds are stacked against it. I guess now I’m just left to see whether or not future support helps the game pick up steam, if Activision flips the switch and makes Crash Team Rumble a free-to-play game down the line, or if the plug gets pulled before either of those things happen.
Whereas something like Faust satirizes the tortured artist, conveying that creative people aren’t necessarily special people, that they can be as bad as anyone, Layers of Fear seems to say that art is uncontrollable. It’s a hungry, magical force, and if a wife, or a sister, or a daughter are caught and bloodied in its insatiable mouth then, well. So be it. I find that difficult to accept. I think it’s damaging, too, to contextualize art as something dangerous and wild, however reverentially Layers of Fear phrases it. Art isn’t the boogeyman. It’s not the problem—people are, usually. Blaming a monster, like the Rat Queen, feels too easy to me. That’s a narrative issue I’ve had with Layers of Fear since the beginning, and the new Writer and Musician stories have unfortunately made it snowball.
All of these twists and turns in Blizzard’s messaging have no doubt made things harder on the folks making Overwatch 2 as they deal with strife within Activision Blizzard in the midst of its harassment lawsuits, turnover at Blizzard on both a managerial and rank-and-file level, and forcing a once work-from-home staff to move back into the office after establishing their lives elsewhere. I feel for the team because, underneath all the poor planning, there is clearly a lot of talent and love for these characters desperately crawling out of the hole poor business decisions have put them in. I just hope that something, anything comes along that feels like it captures that passion, because I can feel my own dwindling every day Overwatch 2 doesn’t live up to its promise.
It’s a sublime fighter that makes smart changes that honor what makes the series great.
It’s really a shame that such a lovely and fun open-world sandbox is tied to stuff like a season pass, premium currencies, and expensive in-game purchases. Perhaps 2K will tweak some levers to make it easier to earn and unlock new cars—which would be nice—but until then the specter of greed will always be there, nagging at me as I build, smash, and race.
Respawn’s Fallen Order sequel is a big, bombastic blockbuster but doesn’t forget what made the first one special
And like I’ve hopefully got across, it has been a success! This is still a Civilization game, and it’s still a very good strategy game. It just also happens to be the weakest entry in that series, the one least equipped to endure this long of a wait between games.
Through its skillful environmental design and indulgent combat, Dead Island 2 is one of the best, most disgusting playgrounds I’ve ever played in.
That it’s not a very good game, and one that desperately needed a lot more development before this seemingly premature release, will matter almost not at all. It’s stunningly pretty, it lets you make friends with the Creepers, and the cutscenes are brilliant. And it matches those new pyjamas. Should they ever finish Minecraft Legends, allowing you to instantly gather your spawned troops from anywhere, fixing the atrocious UI, giving your units some vestiges of pathfinding, and hugely increasing the mission variation, I think it could be a great place.
I didn’t think we needed a Resident Evil 4 remake. I guessed that Resident Evil 4’s remake would look nice and play well, just as the other recent remakes. But what I didn’t expect was a game that not only recreates the original but also builds on it in smart and interesting ways to create something different and better than the classic.
As someone prone to bouts of climate doom every time I read anything about carbon levels and ice sheets, Terra Nil was the ultimate form of video game escapism. A little diversion, no matter how unrealistic it is, that rather than asking us to live through the planet’s destruction let us try and recover from one instead.
The future is still bright for Destiny 2. We just have to get there.
That’s what I hope developers in the genre and players of these games take away, as well. Sometimes, you need help to take down an army, especially one with demons and evildoers high on performance-enhancing drugs. Doing it yourself is possible, as shown in something like Bloodborne. But as 1986's The Legend of Zelda put it, “It’s dangerous to go alone.” So, why not take some reinforcements with you? You’ll be grateful you did.
You know what happens as a direct result of the Meiji Restoration and Japan’s rise to international power? The colonization of Taiwan and Korea. The horrific genocide against Chinese civilians. Empires demand resources, and modern Japanese history is inextricably tied to wider Asian suffering and bloodshed. It was the reason why I had hoped that Hajime would leave the Shinsengumi before the end of the story. Being part of violent institutions has never suited Kazuma Kiryu. It doesn’t suit Saito Hajime either.
It may have taken 17 years and one disappointing sequel along the way, but Relic are to be commended here for somehow managing to take tactical perfection and redefining it not just for old veterans, but for a whole new generation of armchair generals as well.
And I’m thankful for that. I’m old enough now to witness girls partake in the video game industry outside of “girl games,” and to experience its full breadth for myself. Metroid Prime Remastered isn’t as perfect of a game as it seemed to be over 20 years ago. Too much time has passed for that to have ever been the case. But it will always know how to let a woman live.