VGChartz's Reviews
With a simple scoring system, Strange Scaffold turns a polished action template into an improvisational ballet of spent rounds, thrown knives, and exploding barrels at a breakneck pace.
The base game is clunky, shallow, short, and repetitive, and the additional bells and whistles, while nice, don't do anything to elevate the core experience from 1991. If you're a Game Gear fanatic who doesn't want to pay $200 for a hard copy, you might want to consider picking this up, if only to help complete your collection. But remember: just because something is rare doesn't mean it's any good.
Limited launch content aside, Sloclap's mechanical deviations from the status quo successfully distill the beautiful game's essence.
Visually appealing, well paced, full of content, and well balanced in terms of challenge level, it’s a good long-term RPG for those who are ready to invest the time (and a bit of money) in it. Still, a relative lack of effort and freedom in terms of character development places it behind notable competitors in this field like Honkai: Star Rail.
As the descent continues and outside negative pressure multiplies, Siren's Rest's initial intrigue quickly begins to crack and then subsequently crumples like a soda can.
There's a fair bit of tedious backtracking and the detective segments don't require that much actual sleuthing, but those flaws are overshadowed by great art direction, exceptional combat, an addictive demon fusion system, and lots of rewarding, engaging content.
Despite the lack of ancillary features, Volume 3 is the best installment of the Irem Collection so far. Not only are the games here rarer than in earlier volumes, but they're better. Indeed, there isn't a bad one in the bunch; all of the titles range from good to great. If you're a diehard shoot-'em-up fan on a budget who wants to invest only in a single volume, make it this one.
Lumpy pacing and some odd puzzles aside, Daedalic's adventure can compel anyone to venture down this rabbit hole.
By retaining the core components of the franchise — farming, fighting, and flirting — and infusing them with addictive town planning and people management aspects, deeper tactical and strategic combat options, and more meaningful romance pathways, Marvelous has pushed the franchise forward in a bold new direction.
Judged on its own mechanics, systems, and merits, it's a brilliant racing game, a GotY contender, and one of the finest entries in the entire Mario Kart canon, not to mention another in a long line of exceptional launch titles from Nintendo.
Survival Kids on Switch 2 is a middling game — not because it doesn't follow the template of the Game Boy original exactly, but because it fails to leverage its rules and mechanics in interesting, engaging, and dangerous ways. As it stands now, it's fine for younger and less experienced players, but not ideal for those seeking something more involved, challenging, and long-lasting.
If Fast Fusion featured online multiplayer, better image quality, and 6 or 7 more race tracks, it would enter the game-of-the-year conversation. Even without those things, it's yet another gem from Shin'en Multimedia. The Munich-based studio has once again punched above its weight, delivering a blisteringly fast, mechanically nimble futuristic racer with outstanding track design and excellent music.
Provocative and entertaining, American Arcadia's high-concept premise, inventive storytelling, and creative gameplay scenarios place it alongside its closest inspirations.
A Pirate's Fortune rests between two strange polarities: stretching Outlaws' flawed mechanics to their furthest extent while nonsensically resetting its previous narrative goals.
No matter how you experience Capcom Fighting Collection 2 — online or offline, in single-player bouts against CPU opponents, or in versus mode against human rivals — you're likely to have a good time.
Bendy and the Ink Machine succeeds in capturing a specific personality and aesthetic, but falters in its gameplay craftsmanship.
Going into Deliver At All Costs, you would understandably assume it was mostly about driving, destruction, and Grand Theft Auto-esque high jinks. And for its opening hours — its best hours — it is. But the game quietly and gradually moves away from open-world mayhem toward a more focused, intimate narrative adventure, gaining emotional heft but losing some ingenuity and player freedom in the process.
Infuse Studio has a better grasp on incorporating storytelling & tone, but everything goes south once its worst open world impulses get in the way.
Apropos its soccer-themed subject matter, Despelote pulls off an impressive hat trick: successfully fusing unique aesthetic, narrative, & mechanical decisions with an assured vision.
For a narrative-driven game about the virtue of coexistence, it's a shame that's rarely felt emotionally or mechanically.