Niche Gamer
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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.
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.
The droll and shockingly boring game loop is spread far too thin. The level requirements demand the player go and grind with side quests, but that also means having to endure more of the same tired, coma-inducing gameplay. After a while the inane chatter of the characters and the constant hail of bullets become white noise and the game’s basic components become all too apparent.
Babylon’s Fall should’ve been an 11-13 hour action game with a lot of replay value and over the top cutscenes. It should have been an outrageous and addictive action game. This is a free-to-play game but with the greedy audacity to charge people $59.99. If this was free-to-play, then most of its faults would sting slightly less, but they would still sting.
The most disappointing aspect of Gunvalkyrie is its tiresome and repetitive gameplay. The unconventional controls can be adapted to, but nobody can adapt to boredom. At around five hours, gamers will see everything Gunvalkyrie has to offer and even then, it will feel like 15 hours.
Fighting waves of boogers could have been fun if the mechanics were refined. The ugly and garish visuals with unappealing characters also might have been tolerable if the gameplay loop wasn’t so repetitive. With some rebalancing and checkpoints before bosses, Popslinger could have been a decent guilty pleasure.
Final Fantasy XIII is one of the weakest Final Fantasy games ever made, but it isn’t without its merits. The only aspect that is legitimately impressive on all fronts is its graphics. Square Enix was unafraid to let the money burn on screen, and every cent is on fire with how much effort was put into making this one of the best looking games of its generation.
Life is Strange: True Colors still feels like a low budget and rushed episodic released adventure game. The premise is not fully realized, and it never reaches its full potential. For a full priced game, there is not enough substance; and the best parts in this package are a short RPG and a decent port of Arkanoid.
It’s hard to recommend Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town as anything but a novel relic, it’s a remake of a game with historical importance for a well-loved franchise, but offers nothing that newer players who started with Stardew Valley or Rune Factory 4 will find interesting or worthwhile.
Crystal Chronicles is fundamentally broken in its current state. The overall package feels rough and unfinished for a remaster and patching in local co-op won’t fix the dull and boring gameplay or the anemic story.
Battletoads 2020 is for fans of Rick and Morty, and for those who enjoy insufferable hipster humor. The joke is that Rash and the boys are outdated, and the writers constantly reinforce this agenda of theirs; robbing Battletoads of its identity and making it indistinguishable from the endless dreck that oozes from Adult Swim’s sewer.
Fairy Tail manages to be little more than a mediocre JRPG. While definitely worth serious consideration for fans of the series, it is an irrelevant release for everyone else.
This game won’t win any awards, and it’s almost certainly a cash grab, but it’s worth a go if you’re bored and feel like playing something dreadful.
Bad games have released and been saved after years of updates and patching before, but I don’t see that happening with Crucible. The player base dropped so dramatically and in such a short period of time that I have a feeling Amazon will be pulling the plug sooner rather than later, where it will go on to join the likes of Battleborn, Gigantic, and Paragon.
If this was the “remastered” version of The Eternal Castle, I would hate to see what the original was like. The best thing about this was the marketing gimmick and the music.
The kind of challenge where things are so boring but you keep tuning out, defines the Rack N Ruin experience. It is not a buggy or glitchy mess, and most things work as intended. The problem with Rack N Ruin is that it sets such a low bar for itself and whoever picks it up, that it leaves no impression at all.
As it stands now, Kill la Kill IF is no where near worth buying for anything nearing full price.
At this point do I believe that MachineGames can make another good Wolfenstein game? Honestly, I do not know, even with the help of a talented studio like Arkane, they were up able to learn from their previous mistakes. Honestly, Wolfenstein fans deserve better than what they got here and that is saying something.
Some criticize JRPGs for being weird, having too much talking, brain-dead gameplay, being pretentious, and even pandering too hard to be likable to nerds. I can think of one game that fits those criticisms, and it was trying to honor the best of them. YIIK? Yuck…
In a year where Square Enix also released The Quiet Man, I’d be hard pressed to decide which of these games is worse. Just Cause 4 may have a slightly higher score, but I think I’d prefer playing The Quiet Man. At least that title is short.