Paste Magazine
HomepagePaste Magazine's Reviews
Despite King of Fighters XV's quality-of-life shortcomings, there's no arguing that it's still a good fighting game. It's just as fast and entertaining as previous entries in the franchise and brings the series into a new era with vastly improved netcode, but it puts up so many barriers of entry that it's hard to recommend to newcomers to the genre or franchise.
Forbidden West isn't a game that will surprise you or make you rethink the possibilities of what games can do, but it's proof that games can still be really fun even if they don't try anything new, and that's something we don't often see from big budget corporate games like this one.
I really like OlliOlli World, but I dislike both how I played it and what it becomes. It’s whimsical and relaxed, propelled by vibes and an incredibly addicting gameplay loop, until it isn’t.
Still, Pokémon Legends: Arceus turns over a new leaf for the Pokémon franchise. Not only does it prove that a new game doesn't need a hundred or so new Pokémon and a shiny new region to feel fresh, but it also shows that Game Freak and The Pokémon Company are actually willing to experiment within core Pokémon games. It defies fan skepticism to deliver a truly rare thing: an ambitious Pokémon game that realizes so many players' dreams of bringing everyone's favorite pocket-sized monsters to life in an open world.
But it didn't and despite my efforts, Sifu constantly met me with a passing disinterest in its subjects and a reckless deployment of imagery it didn't seem to entirely understand, all the while passing itself off as admiration. Its weak writing and poor characterization strips the game's characters and settings of tension and texture and the lens of the game's creators seems to forget the people and culture at the heart of the movies they love to invoke. I don't think I can square that away and I'm not sure anyone should have to.
Anybody familiar with Dying Light's design can see how bad an idea this is from miles off, and obviously part of the team did because this is the exact moment that the game introduces fast travel. But it doesn't matter. It was in Breath of the Wild. And that's one of the best games ever made.
Or just chill out on the couch managing your party member's furniture at the Dragon Princess with the Switch docked on your TV, then slap the joy cons on and watch a terrible Netflix docu-series while you hang out with your epic anime friends, fight monsters, and pay rent to a horrible moe landlord. It's either that or doomscroll on Twitter, and this is a more productive use of your time. I promise.
Nobody is ambitious but not too in over its head, funny to boot and grounded in an idea that understands the joy of defining conventions. It may miss a bit of the formula that's made its influences as strong as they were, but it's got style and confidence and those are swings I'm glad connected. Most of all, it reminds me of the fun I used to have playing pretend, and even though I've stopped, games like this one help keep that sense of adventure alive.
This game doesn't give a blanket pardon or condone the actions of any state, instead inviting players to ask by what means and to what end the rules of a state and society are created. The Forgotten City implicitly and explicitly goes to bat for the value of education, and it provides a good time while it does it. We all like to think we know something of the world that came before us; seldom is it that a videogame spun out of an adventure in another fantasy game provides an opportunity to truly learn something.
I felt like begging the game to try something, anything new, no matter how badly it was implemented, just to break up the monotony. But Chorus rarely takes any swings, so in theory it lacks any "misses," with few glitches or moments where one element butts up against the rest. That might mean that people won't hate it, but it also means it's a game that people won't really love, either.
Higher profile, bigger budget indies games are here to stay. This is a perfect example of what the format could offer and a showcase of how a short game with a moderate budget can outdo its far larger contemporaries. If you've been playing Halo or Call of Duty and feel burnt out on what games are now, The Gunk is a perfect palette cleanser and an effective gateway to even better games.
Pocket Dungeon understands puzzle spinoffs in the same way that the original Shovel Knight and all of its DLC understands classic platformers from the NES. While its title is fittingly suggestive of just how small the whole game is, I have a feeling I'll be coming back for months until I move on to my next roguelike obsession.
With multiple endings to earn and only a few under my belt, I don't really want to come up either. Instead, I want to go back to the market, snipe an organ out from under WOOHOO CHARLIE, and work through Trading Simulator's absurd sense of humor, banger of a soundtrack, and mechanical twists on my journey to become the greatest organ-trading warlord in space.
Despite the comparisons it might draw to Shadow of the Colossus, Jet Set Radio or Hyper Light Drifter, Solar Ash delivers a wholly unique experience that combines a smooth, unparalleled sense of speed, incredible level design, and a gorgeous art style. Even if the same can't be said about its narrative or controls, Solar Ash skates in at the last minute to become one of the year's most interesting games.
The only real downside to these remakes is that anything that used the touch screen in the originals feels like an afterthought here. They're still the same amazing, if a little formulaic, Pokémon games they were back in the day. And we may not be the same people we were back then, but we can at least remember how it felt when we first visited Sinnoh as we make our return today.
I get asked a lot which game I recommend for people wanting to get into Wizardry-likes. And until now I didn't have a good answer; everything was a series of compromises and required me to lay out caveats or provide upfront guidance. What Experience, Inc has done with Undernauts is finally make a satisfying DRPG that looks good, plays well, and I can unequivocally say is where people new to the genre can get a taste of the richer, weirder treasures below.
In concept, Voice of Cards is exciting: a small game from a major designer (Yoko Taro is the game's creative director), released with little fanfare. It offers a lean framework for other RPGs and narrative games to come. Ultimately, though, it's far less effective at its core goals than the games it draws from. Voice of Cards positions itself as a more intelligent, if leaner, classic JRPG. In practice, it is a hollow echo of what came before.
I wanted to like Punk Wars. Its promise to be a stylish 4X style game about warring punk factions intrigued me, and it only really needed to strongly hit one target for me. I'd have happily taken a vapid but immersive tactics game; a thoughtful exploration of post-apocalyptic punk with bland combat; an all-style-no-substance experience that carried the game on vibes alone. Instead, I got the worst of all worlds: a dull, poorly balanced game that doesn't commit to its ideas.
I don't think there's a situation so bleak they wouldn't try to render in service of people-pleasing and making sales climb higher. Battlefield 2042 represents the pinnacle of a feedback loop that told its creators that bigger is always better. Now that we're here, I'm sure we were never right to think that and I don't think we're stepping back from it anytime soon.
The grind to the top is ascetic and practiced, with grand ambition and keen diligence towards paying the franchise's history its proper dues. It's an undeniably dark game, but quite optimistic in its intentions and eschews edgy clichés. Shin Megami Tensei V is Atlus's contemporary masterpiece, and one of the finest games this year.