SmashPad's Reviews
You’ll have more fun waiting in line at the DMV, and you’ll feel more accomplished because at least you know you’ll be done there. The Quiet Man is simply terrible, so let’s hope that was loud and clear.
There is absolutely no reason to turtle up the $50 for this game.
If you’re not head-over-heels for Deadly Premonition, or if you were hoping that a sequel wouldn’t suffer from as many technical issues as the original, then you’re probably better off sitting this one out.
There’s not much that’s engaging about The Longing which makes it a hard one to recommend.
Not a single choice I made felt like it had any consequence, and with one chapter remaining next week, the fact that it’s the last one is really my only motivation to finish. The first chapter started with such a high note, so we can only hope it all ends on a high note too.
The game being hard isn’t what brings it down. We all love a good challenge. It’s the fact that so many factors go into the actual gameplay, and it simply isn’t worth the effort. It’s stressful for no reason, and it’s unfortunate because of how much I enjoy different “out there” ideas.
Harmony: Fall of Reverie is a beautiful title with a heck of a story, but the lack of any real action and its disjointed, but very promising decision system could definitely be a deterrent to a lot of people.
There’s promise in this kind of game, but it lacks the polish that definitely could’ve benefitted from more time in the oven–especially with how needlessly difficult the arcade minigames are.
The problem is that the game, arguably, struggles with its identity, and therefore can’t really lean into one.
The lack of difficulty settings makes that a harder proposition, but I don’t want to dismiss the game outright simply because I didn’t have fun with the gameplay, when the core of the game is about celebrating a culture I’m not familiar with.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot isn’t a particularly bad game — it’s average at worst, but it’s simply frustrating to see it miss the mark on so many things that should work in a Dragon Ball game.
Resident Evil 3 is a game that starts off with one hell of a first impression; a bigger, badder villain, a great opening level, and an intriguing story all work together to set a high standard for the rest of the game, but try as it might, the rest of the game fails to ever reach that standard, resulting in a final product that feels like an empty, undercooked Jill Sandwich for which you paid sixty dollars.
For me, the gameplay experience is just such a drag with its inconsistencies and its difficulty that it’s hard to really connect with it. So in another way, it’s not worth the time.
If you’re looking for a fun couch multiplayer experience, Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 could be recommended, but not at a full $60. The nostalgia and enjoyment are definitely there, especially with the laughs you’ll have with boxing and fencing among others, but clunky controls and the abundance of bad camera angles will leave both casual and core gamers frustrated.
Even though YIIK strikes out, there’s definitely some potential in the game’s overall design with a pretty solid foundation that leaves room for plenty of improvement, and I wouldn’t mind giving Ackk Studios another chance at making another Post-Modern RPG.
"...essentially last year’s game with a shinier coat of paint, and we cannot recommend the game at full price primarily due to the fact that everything new in the game does absolutely nothing special, and it makes the package feel like a bloated mess."
Star Fox Zero really could’ve been the best Star Fox in the series if Nintendo didn’t try to be so cute with it for the sake of innovation, and it’s thanks to these decisions that Nintendo will probably be saying goodbye to a lot of Star Fox fans.
From a purely story point, The Wolf Among Us is a very good conclusion to Bigby’s tale because they did a good job of resolving the major plotlines that have been hanging over the investigation since episode one.
Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas is nothing more or less than solid. With a sequel coming up soon, we hope the game is better suited for those playing on a console than this one was. We just can’t recommend this for the full $15.
There’s certainly plenty of content here to make Madden NFL 25 worth the money if you’re fine with the way things are in this year’s game.