Gamer Escape
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I don’t think the game is truly atrocious, and I think if you’re in need of another roguelike game and you have played all of the offerings out there, this will… perform as advertised. But I can’t really recommend it to others.
Exo’s adventure is well worth a playthrough, and fans can breathe easy knowing that this romp in the Arq Grid is an experience worthy of the TRON name. Jumping into this Grid is a perfectly acceptable entry, but you might want to go in with tempered expectations.
I like The Alters. It sells its premise in a way I wish more science fiction games would. We need more of them. But the watering down of its gameplay elements makes it hard to recommend. If you’re willing to slog through tedium and gameplay filler there is a wonderfully fun story to experience. I’m debating if I want to push through a second time and see how my journey plays out.
If you’re a VA geek, Date Everything is an absolute must-play; I don’t think we’ll ever see another game with this many high-profile performers together in one package. Recognizing the voices of the Dateables you find is a core part of the fun here, in my opinion. But even if you’re not well versed in modern voice performers, this game is still a fun and often hilarious romp.
The truth of it is, you’ll probably have more to do in this game than you’ve had in any previous Rune Factory title. But that comes with the understanding that the journey may not be as fun, and the scripted moments not as emotional. For die-hard fans like me, that can come with disappointment.
It’s still fun to guide Sophie to safety through puzzle and pursuer alike thanks to a decent mystery and neat camera angles, but a more challenging level of difficulty and a more thorough aversion of many tried-and-true puzzle mechanics would have elevated Out of Sight into something truly special.
If you're not really a fan of deckbuilders, this game is not going to change your mind. But if you like them but often find them kind of disappointing, I think Monster Train 2 is going to be a real winner. It doesn't do anything I've never seen before, but all the things it does that I have seen before are things it does really well. And that's worthy of praise.
Maybe you don't have a couple of hours to make serious progress on the big RPGs that are out right now. Maybe what you have is 30 minutes to play some Tetris and also build yourself a merry little kingdom. And Drop Duchy is positioned perfectly for that.
I enjoyed my time with Shotgun Cop Man but, where I couldn’t stop replaying My Friend Pedro, I don’t see myself returning to this one. Shotgun Cop Man is frantic, fun, and funny. It is also repetitive, irritating, and doesn’t separate itself from the pack. What it does have is enough charm and sharp gameplay to make itself a worthy pickup.
Pilo and the Holobook is a game that knows what it wants to be, and succeeds at it. It’s a cute and cozy little adventure aimed at a young audience, short and sweet with a price to match.
The Talos Principle: Reawakened is a great chance for people like me who skipped out on the original to get a look at the game for the first time, and for fans of the original to have a good reason to re-explore the game along with seeking out new mysteries. It is a calm, serene experience of puzzle-solving that will also twist your brain along the way. And I quite enjoyed it, and just like the original? Yeah, it’s an excellent game almost everyone will enjoy.
Battlefield Waltz could have for sure been much more than it was. It suffers from bad storytelling and bad pacing, but the characters had so much potential and were so fun that this didn’t have to be the case. On the bright side, you probably won’t notice or care all that much about the story’s flaws if all you’re looking for is a gushy, tamed, romance sort of game.
Look Outside is a unique and dense experience. It leverages its relatively short runtime by being fit to bursting with interesting mysteries, meaningful gameplay decisions, characters both eerie and endearing, and a horror aesthetic that knows when to depict its grotesqueness outright and when to leave things up to the player’s imagination. Its mashup of survival horror resource gathering and turn-based combat is less successful for the way the former garners more satisfying engagement than the latter, but even still, Look Outside is an easy recommendation for anyone—but horror fans in particular—on the lookout for something new.
And that's really the ultimate takeaway. It has a load of really fun parts, a fun gameplay loop, an engaging story, and an earnest effort to split the difference between the various elements of the franchise history. It's a good game! Take these reservations not as a subversion of that fact, but for what they are: Acknowledgement of its limitations.
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii proves to fans and newcomers alike that you can step out of your comfort zone in more ways than one as a player or developer. Not only does a fan favorite finally get the spotlight he righteously deserves, he shines in a way that only Goro Majima can. I had a blast being a right scallywag with the Goro Pirates, and I’m confident that anyone that picks this up will likely feel the same about their high seas shenanigans. If Secret Agent Majima somehow becomes a thing, you better believe I’ll be there enjoying every second of it. Turns out you can teach a Mad Dog new tricks.
So it’s probably pretty weird that I am going to recommend this game with one big fat caveat. If you’re a fan of the genre, there are a lot of cool and original things happening in MainFrames. If you’re not already comfortable in the space it’s probably not going to work as shining introduction to the world of indie platformers.
Taken as a whole game, Carmen Sandiego is a perfectly cromulent romp despite its relative simplicity. Slipping into familiar trappings isn’t always a bad thing, especially when you’re aiming to make a return like this. While not quite a triumphant return to the gaming space, it’s definitely a welcome one. I like to think that there’s still a place in the gaming world for The World’s Greatest Thief. So seeing her land on her feet like this is a welcome surprise. Carmen isn’t one to rest on her laurels, so I hope this isn’t the last we see of her.
I came into Stories from Sol: The Gun-Dog solely for two reasons: the initial art and the promise of a “PC-98 style adventure.” What I got was an enthralling story straight out of late-80s mecha anime, with some honestly surprising turns, all accompanied by stunning pixel artwork evoking the era.
I walk away from Trails Through Daybreak II feeling very little beyond “well, that all worked distressingly well.” In some ways, that is kind of a bad thing. This is a game that does nothing badly in a large sense. There is nothing I can point to and say “holy crap, that is a huge misfire on a fundamental level,” and in some ways that makes the game a bit boring. It accomplishes all of its goals in a very reliable fashion and doesn’t shoot beyond those goals and, as someone who generally gets invested in characters and story, the fact that those didn’t totally connect renders the experience a bit lukewarm for me. Sorry.
This is one of those games I absolutely think everyone should experience. Do play the original first if you haven’t, because that was also an amazing experience, and it’s entirely worth the 200-300 hours you might end up spending to play both. I don’t regret one minute of it and I don’t think you will either. Even certain upcoming AAA-budget titles that I am still eagerly awaiting are going to have to pull out all the stops to match what I just experienced.