MonsterVine
HomepageMonsterVine's Reviews
While the combat system does feel like a significant improvement over the previous two games, the narrative doesn't come anywhere close to either of those experiences. Octopath Traveler 0 is still a solid turn-based RPG with great art and music, but it doesn't hold a candle to the other entries. It's impressive for an experience made by cobbling together a mobile experience, but knowing what it started as doesn't make it more than just fine.
It’s hard not to overhype a game after waiting for over a decade, but when I think back to what I hoped for when I watched the original trailer all those years ago, it delivered. Routine is a creative, tense, and dread-filled experience that makes the most of its aesthetic and sound design, and horror fans shouldn’t miss it.
Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge before it, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is another wonderful love letter to the quarter devouring beat ‘em ups of the past. While it might not be breaking new ground, the changes to traditional beat ‘em up gameplay are fun and make squishing screens and screens of bugs a delight.
Kirby Air Riders is further proof that Masahiro Sakurai and his team just can’t go wrong. The racing mechanics are incredibly satisfying, there’s no shortage of content to enjoy, and it always feels like you’re accomplishing something and unlocking new things. Even if you’re not too into racing games, I implore you to give Kirby Air Riders a try, as it’s fun in its purest form.
Master of Command is a deeply replayable, razor-smart strategy roguelike whose historical flair and tactical depth outweigh minor AI quirks.
It’s safe to say I didn’t connect with the game and have a positive experience with it, and I hope that if a fourth game is made, it will be safely back in the hands of Tarsier Studios.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 stumbles hard with a directionless co-op campaign, bland multiplayer, confusing UI, AI-generated filler, and a disappointing Zombies mode. A major step down from Black Ops 6.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment does plenty of things well, making for an exciting and enjoyable musou game. I wish it had a couple more memorable characters and a bit of a stronger story, but pretty much everything else about the game is excellent and worth experiencing if you dig Tears of the Kingdom.
Morsels has an incredible look and style, but it's uneven across the board. The difficulty ranges wildly from levels to boss fights, the Morsels themselves range from utterly useless to feeling overpowered, and there aren't as many as I would want for a game where you have to do multiple runs. Interacting with items in each level is far too tedious to make them worth engaging with, even if the secrets themselves are special if you do actually find them.
Aside from the buggy launch, Demonschool is a must-play for RPG and turn-based strategy fans. Demonschool was made from top to bottom with care, and it shines through in nearly every frame.
Tales of Xillia Remastered is an unambitious remaster that takes a half-step toward accessibility and lets you play the game on your platform of choice. And as disappointing as that is, Tales of Xillia is still a wonderful addition to the series and one of the better entries. Making it more accessible in the modern day is a good thing.
ARC Raiders has some dizzying highs, but much of your experience is based entirely on luck. Gunplay, optimization, and social interactions can only take ARC Raiders so far. With issues like poor UX, high cost of cosmetics, use of AI, and some strange design decisions, it’s hard to recommend ARC Raiders.
If most Rome games are chasing the violence and melodrama, this is the Rome of documentaries. You can almost hear a soothing British narrator murmuring about the most assuredly excellent layout of your residential district or the placement of your market as you go about your business. Pax Romana, the era of relative peace and wealth, is right in the title, after all.
Dispatch is a fantastic take on the familiar adventure game formula that anyone who digs superheroes will find plenty to love. It has a couple of small things that could be improved upon, but it’s an overall refreshing adventure.
Bounty Star is a good time, with likable characters and an interesting setting ripe for exploration. Those are its strongest parts, but the rest of it is entirely serviceable despite some frustrating jank during combat and unrealized potential in the homesteading process. I could see a sequel to this game, with a bit more depth on the gameplay side, being a real hit that pleases mecha fans, story fans, and farming-sim fans alike.
The Séance of Blake Manor is an intriguing supernatural mystery filled with interesting characters and secrets to discover. While the time management aspect might feel intimidating at first, it adds a sense of urgency and helps the player feel like a detective while offering enough freedom not to feel stifled. Overall, it’s an excellent game for fans of mysteries and the supernatural.
The Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is another strong collection from Digital Eclipse, despite some strange missteps. The included games and ports range in quality, but they’re presented with the excellence we’ve come to expect from the devs. The online is frustratingly limited at launch, but the bonus content and various available ports make this worth checking out if you have any interest in the series’s early days.
Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake is a brilliant package that brings new life and depth to two of the most influential RPGs of all time. The improved visuals, voice acting, and story changes go a long way in making these classics feel both retro and new, even if the first game is a little tough for modern players. This is the best way to play these two once-revolutionary titles, and I truly hope that Square Enix continues to remake the earlier Dragon Quest games with such care and style.
Borderlands 4 is more Borderlands, but it plays better than any other game in the series. Improved movement, a new open world format to go with the new planet Kairos, and a better-written villain than the last entries’ heavily criticized ones. There are some weird parts, a bad and under-functional UI, and some real performance issues, but you would be hard-pressed to find a better looter shooter to play with friends that you haven’t already exhausted by now. I have to give the game its flowers for being a ton of fun to play, despite some questionable design decisions.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A is an overall strong step forward for the series, as it utilizes past mechanics alongside interesting new changes to great effect. The visuals are still underwhelming, and it takes a good while to get going, but other than that, this really does feel like the Pokémon Z we thought we’d get so long ago, but with plenty of exciting modern twists.