VGChartz's Reviews
For all of the ambitious transmedia gimmicks surrounding it, Reflector's first title fails to awaken any sustained interest due to shoddy execution.
Despite some faults, including simple puzzles, a clunky control scheme, and tedious exploration, Hifumi Kono's seminal survival-horror game is worth playing, at least once.
Nomada Studios' sophomore effort Neva-r ceases to impress – in spite of a couple of missteps.
Once again, the Gold Master Series proves to be the gold standard in game preservation, documentation, and celebration.
As both a dull walking sim and story, Tonguç Bodur's latest feels like yet another purposeless jaunt.
The games here are arguably better overall than those in Volume 1, mostly due to the greatness of GunForce II, but they've received fewer upgrades. Hopefully future installments will include more refinements, more bonus content, and more ways to appreciate and celebrate each game.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is a magnificent heroic fantasy JRPG, the likes of which we haven't seen for decades.
For a new IP, Card-en-Ciel shows potential. The premise is intriguing, the core rules and mechanics provide a strong foundation for tactical decision-making, and the replay value is absurdly high. Regrettably, the campaign that houses everything is a slight letdown, due to clichéd storytelling, forgettable characters, and generic, tedious dungeons.
In terms of murder mysteries, it doesn't get much better than Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Plus. The setting is fascinating, the story provocative, the characters full of personality, and the game world dripping (literally) in atmosphere. The only area where it stumbles is gameplay, which, unfortunately, is the most important area.
Strange Scaffold's shooter is like a drunken boxer in a bar brawl: lacking consistency, but the blows that connect are knockouts.
Even with a short running time and a lack of special set-pieces, Iron Meat does justice to the genre, not to mention its own on-the-nose name.
By marrying the expectations of a typical top-down 2D entry with the improvisational, do-it-yourself gameplay from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Grezzo has arrived at a winning formula that mixes old and new. That said, not everything is perfect: the echo system isn't great in combat situations and the game's dungeons demand more complexity.
The Plucky Squire's misused potential and diminished challenge keep it from scoring a Newberry Medal, but it still remains a charming children's page-turner that's tough to put down.
Digitales Interactive's sophomore effort explores intriguing topics with solid puzzles, but certain design and writing missteps prevent its interstellar potential from leaving orbit.
Goodwin Games' interactive folktale ironically evokes its dour atmosphere in two ways: impressive presentation and unpolished gameplay.
Featuring every arcade Marvel game that Capcom has produced, Arcade Classics boasts high-speed action that stands the test of time, and a wide variety of characters from both companies' catalogs.
Slight reservations towards mechanical simplicity aside, Astro Bot's polish and relentless fusillade of charmingly creative concepts places it among the best 3D platformers in recent memory.
Thanks to refined camera controls, additional moves, quality-of-life enhancements, expanded 2D platforming sections, and the retention of almost everything that made the Wii version special, Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed is the best way to experience Mickey's adventure in Wasteland.
Overall, Star Wars Outlaws is an ambitious assemblage of different mechanics and concepts gracelessly pressed into an open world too confused to handle them.
Thanks to three must-play DS games, innovative porting work, a slew of special features and quality-of-life upgrades, and a surprisingly strong remake of a former franchise dud, it's among the best collections released under the Konami banner in the last five years.