Niche Gamer
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Penko Park is a wonderful attempt at making a “snaplike”. It captures a sense of childlike wonder and the easy-on-the-eyes graphics make it an easy game for kids to understand and get engrossed in. It is fine as a game for adults who are children-at-heart, but it is even better for actual children too.
Fans of classic survival-horror must not miss White Day: A Labyrinth Named School. It may not look like much, but it uses its limitations to enhance the uncanny ambiance. The chilling scares make it the ultimate Halloween game.
Volition tried so hard to move away from its edgy past and create a “smart” game with “biting” social commentary and humor but ended up creating a high-school-tier world that is doomed to fail. While I do not feel like this game is soulless per se, I do feel like anyone who worked on this game who has a soul should feel guilt over driving that final nail into the coffin of the Saints Row franchise. The funniest joke about Saints Row is that Epic was actually willing to pay money to make it an Epic Game Store exclusive.
It is convenient to have a bunch of these titles in one application and does add to the experience of having a variety of distinct platformers. Asha and Shion’s games are easily the highlight of the package, with the original arcade game being an amusing distraction with spicy challenge.
Evolution has always been a core theme of Splatoon. With the online updates, rotating maps, rebalancing, and new weapons; Splatoon 3 is a game that also will evolve; it is an inevitability that it will further improve.
Little Orpheus‘ has a solid enough foundation. It is too bad that there was not enough creativity put into the puzzles or platforming. The imagery is so good that it could have made up for the lack of imagination, but the rough controls and spotty inputs are what prevent it from achieving greatness.
This is a game that was worthy of a rerelease via JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle R with upgraded everything for every modern platform. The mystifying visuals and proper adjustments to audio all around make this is one that should be played with your friends.
Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection is worth the price of admission. Some are duds, but most of them are excellent beatem-ups and a classic NES game that a lot of gamers grew up with. It’s nostalgia bait, but nostalgia is a valid feeling and can be cathartic- especially when it involves overcoming a game that used to crush you as a child.
Ultimately, as a fan of Made in Abyss I’m disappointed more than anything given the potential of the source material. The game’s writing carries most of what’s good here and it’s a good introduction to the first part of the manga’s story.
Yuoni is a very standard example of the hide-and-seek variety of first-person horror games. It has decent graphics, even on Switch, but the gameplay is stretched incredibly thin and is over before you know it. For its price, Yuoni is a decent diversion. It lacks depth and has a few cheap thrills that make it a casual play for when Halloween rolls around.
But as someone who never played the game when it first appeared on PlayStation 4, I have to say, if you’re going to play one superhero title that is not a Batman Arkham game, this should be the game for you. It’s incredible, and Insomniac should be patting themselves on the back for making a game that feels genuine and fun. I know I will be going back in for a second playthrough before the year is over.
River City Saga: Three Kingdoms is a really fun game to play beat-em-ups or like the Three Kingdoms era. It’s take on the history and the novel were funny, with almost all the jokes being on point. It was just a good time from beginning to the moment I set my controller down. I think anyone who tries this game out will enjoy it.
If you loved Monster Hunter Rise and wanted more of it, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak is going to be exactly what you want. The dazzling cutscenes for the story and new music are a bonus surprise that add to the scope of the scenario and add a lot of polish to the presentation. The attention to detail is staggering and it will be interesting to see how Capcom will top this in the inevitable sequel.
The game can make players feel a variety of emotions ranging from pure joy to depression. Random characters you meet along the way tales can have you feeling heartbreak. The betrayal or the death of a beloved cult member can leave a void that only monster slaying can satisfy.
Which is the better game is debatable- but it is hard to ignore that Door to Phantomile has fewer areas that get recycled, while Lunatea’s Veil constantly introduces new ideas. No matter what, both titles are masterworks and anyone who enjoys Kirby or Nights into Dreams will surely find Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series to be very appealing.
If you are a diehard fan of the franchise, then this game will be an enjoyable ride; if you are someone whose not followed it along the way, then it is easy to be disappointed. Ultimately, each person will have to decide on their own if they like Digimon Survive.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 may not have the same spirit of invention that the first game had which made it such a huge success, but it is still an RPG masterpiece. Anyone who loved the first Xenoblade but had misgivings over some of questionable aspects of the second game (like the gacha mechanics), will find that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is perfectly balanced and delivers on almost every aspect imaginable.
There’s a good game here with Frogun, but it just needs to refine its very rough platforming, particularly with the “frog gun” before I could ever say Frogun is a great platformer that deserves to be compared to the classics of the past in a manner beyond that which is superficial.
For the price of $39.99 of just the basic version without other small DLC, this is a good collection of games that can be a nostalgia trip and also serve as a celebration of the classics that started it all and introduced the world to the Blue Blur. It’s a fantastic game that has replayability and charm with the only downside being the collision glitches against some walls and platforms and Tails glitching out. Those I have hope will be fixed with patches but even with those somewhat glaring issues, I enjoyed the classic and the new animated cutscenes that breathe new life into the franchise that started gaming career.
Metal Max Xeno: Reborn is a highly enjoyable and entertaining JRPG that is stuffed with ideas that mostly work, even if some come at the cost of logic. The story and characters lack presence and it is due to the after thought presentation. The protagonist is borderline mute, and it is jarring when he suddenly speaks and everyone acts normal.