Paste Magazine
HomepagePaste Magazine's Reviews
From the beautiful and lively opening animation to the start screen, it immediately felt both comforting and fresh like putting on a pair of brand new pajama pants. I'm glad they took a chance on getting developers who originally started work on Sonic ROM hacks because they really nailed the feeling. This is what nostalgia should feel like and hopefully this leads to more excellent reboots of Sega properties.
Ultimately, while I hope that the writers at MachineGames continue to think about how the narrative of the series might be refined in the coming years, Wolfenstein II is a superb and impeccably designed shooter. I have my misgivings about some of the finer points of its message and how it is delivered, but nonetheless it's a masterfully balanced blend of action, heart and campy extremes that make it one of the strongest virtual entertainment experiences of 2017. Wolfenstein II is a masterpiece.
If you played Metroid on the NES, Super Metroid in the early '90s, or any of the other two-dimensional Metroid games made for Nintendo's handhelds over the years, Samus Returns will be an instant jolt of history, an immediately recognizable old friend that might have picked up a few new tics and traits but is still largely the comforting presence you've known for decades.
As a "director's cut" or a "take two" of the original games, these Ultra revisions really do hit the mark, and directly address some narrative and mechanical flaws that Sun and Moon had.
Jokes aside, Battle Chef Brigade is pure fun, which as this horrific year wraps up and I throw myself into epic holiday preparations, is just what I needed. With its anime sensibilities and a play style that even my mom likes and appreciates, I suspect it will have strong generational appeal and make for a great family game. I can't recommend it enough.
This is both the fighting game and Dragon Ball spin-off I never realized I always wanted. The production values are better, and the narrative tension is vastly improved. Given how Dragon Ball FighterZ amps up the drama on existing Dragon Ball storylines, increases engagement by allowing the player to take dialogue sequences at their own pace, and puts a polished, beautiful spin on the old cartoon, this isn't just my favorite Dragon Ball game. It's my favorite Dragon Ball anything.
Dead In Vinland scratches the same itch as Darkest Dungeon's less combat-focused parts and King of Dragon Pass's more personal moments. It's unique in the world of games, and it shows what the medium can do when it's committed to a distinct vision of what numbers-and-narrative can do when they're understood as intertwined and integral to one another.
Whether you're a bullet hell aficionado who blasts through the main campaign in a few hours, or a fumbling novice preserving through each level by sheer luck, Just Shapes & Beats is the whole package.
The game has completely taken over my life the past few weeks and, honestly, I'm fine with that.
The only problem with Dontnod being so good at what they do is that, sometimes, they're a little too good.
Given its focus on unity, it's not surprising that the game always returns to ideas of harmony. It's a game about music, after all, so the motif fits. And while playing Wandersong, I also felt like harmony was that much closer, that the greatest evils were defeatable if only we could rally together. And that's a powerful thing for a game about a humble lil bard.
They're big questions. They don't have neat answers. But they're as relevant now as they were in Hypnospace Outlaw's alternate 1999.
Pathologic 2 is a deeply weird game, with a Mayakovskian cast of characters, plopped into an apocalyptic Bertolt Brecht play set deep in the Russian Steppe. And while the actual gameplay maybe disappointing or frustrating to some (it was to me), I can't help but be compelled by a game so enthusiastically bizarre.
There's no "best Final Fantasy game" because Final Fantasy has become largely indefinable—something most franchises can only dream of. Maybe, no matter the feats this incredible series continues to achieve, Final Fantasy VIII is the lighthouse to which the series should constantly look back to. It'll always be there, waiting, serving as a reminder that Final Fantasy can tread new grounds while maintaining the brilliance that has made it one of the most influential series to exist.
If Found bridges the gaps between a handful of different mediums and artistic disciplines to create a sad, poignant, ultimately uplifting tale.
While on the surface the core gameplay loop may seem repetitive, it manages to be anything but. With each new technology unlocked, the level of complexity and resources required in creating new items increases, demanding the player create larger and larger factories to keep up with their own self-imposed demand.
Every choice you make, from dialogue options to money management, gives the feeling that you really are in a wasteland, just trying to get by.
Four generations in, I felt it was time to retire and did so with a smile on my face. Crusader Kings III forces you to play as a human capable of only human feats, and constantly reminds you of that fact. But it is this limitation that gives every action you take a real sense of weight, and makes even the most mundane of decisions feel like life and death.
In a way, Bowser's Fury's restraint in world design and simplicity actually puts it more directly in line with 3D World than Odyssey, feeling like its true successor, but settling for this halfway step between them due to how it was released. Regardless of how both titles were delivered, I'm absolutely delighted with 3D World and fascinated at what a fuller title in the vein of Bowser's Fury might look like. Here's hoping we see more like both of these standout Mario titles sooner rather than later.
While it may seem unengaging because it effectively plays itself, it really is just prompting the player to look at gameplay from another angle, namely a more systems-driven one. For a person like me, who doesn't really craft "builds" in RPGs, it's made me realize why that is actually a rewarding aspect of those games. Now I spend half my time in Loop Hero making numbers go up and making optimizations I never would have, before embarking on another loop.