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My overwhelming thought after completing Ni No Kuni II was of what could have been. The combat system is excellent, but Level-5 didn’t have the confidence to make it challenging. The story is endearing at times, however it seems like the money ran out when it came to doing full voice work for all the cutscenes. There’s a great game under here somewhere, but perhaps not a $60 one. I’d have preferred a twenty-five-hour game without the tedious stuff and perhaps a $40 price point. Far too much of the extra content feels like filler. In trying to include a bit of everything, Revenant Kingdom ultimately mastered nothing.
Iconoclasts took me about fourteen to fifteen hours to complete. Around ten hours was fun. However, it’s the other five hours I’ll remember like the frustration of trying to figure out what obscure mechanic I needed to use to progress or the time spent wandering around aimlessly with no direction. Iconoclasts tries its hand at action, puzzles, and Metroidvania and doesn’t commit to any of them. The end result is mediocre.
The Devil May Cry franchise deserves better than another low-effort HD collection. Dante’s Awakening is still a great game that you should play if you haven’t already. However, the second game is terrible and the first game is a little rough due to the awkward camera. The lack of any extra content celebrating this great series is disappointing and makes this collection hard to definitively recommend for new and existing fans alike.
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine contains charming stories, wonderful illustrations and voice-acting that fits the game’s slow-paced and relaxing nature. And this is where the budget ran out. I have to assume that after paying Sting, the writers, and the illustrators, there was no money left to design the over-world and flesh out the short stories. This leaves Where the Water Tastes Like Wine being half of a great game that requires you to wade through the weaker parts to get to the good content. It’s an eight to ten hour game when it would have been better as a four to five hour one.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider‘s sense of familiarity is so strong that it might have been better as an expansion along the lines of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. That game also took place largely in one environment and felt exactly the same as the game that preceded it. At least The Lost Legacy came with a lower price tag and online multiplayer and its shorter length made it feel less dragged out. Ultimately, Shadow of the Tomb Raider is a by-the-numbers sequel to Rise of the Tomb Raider, capitalizing on the great puzzle tombs but failing to take any other worthwhile steps forward.
Quarantine Circular is engaging for most of its run-time, with punchy dialogue and a slowly-unraveling story, however it didn’t land the ending and left me feeling a little flat. Regardless, I love how Bithell Games keeps experimenting and I’m looking forward to whatever it springs on us next.
OnRush is a thrill and, appropriately, provides a real adrenaline rush for short play sessions. The lack of depth would have made for a great budget release and perhaps if it had been sold at $20 or $30 it wouldn’t now have empty multiplayer lobbies. As it stands, OnRush is good fun in short bursts and that’s about it.
Battlefield V‘s war stories have tedious mission design and are a step back from those of Battlefield 1. The multiplayer is only a slight iteration on its predecessor and, while the online experience is stronger overall, the lack of content on release means it feels like DLC for Battlefield 1 instead of the new game I waited two years for. I will consider increasing the score when Battlefield V is complete in March, however as of November 2018, I don’t recommend you buy in at full price. Wait for a sale, by which time Battlefield V might actually be finished.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey ends up being a textbook example of how you can have too much of a good thing. I enjoyed clearing out forts in Origins, and for about fifteen hours I enjoyed doing it in Odyssey as well. But nothing changes. You keep doing the same thing again and again, and the gameplay, while fun, is nowhere near compelling enough to justify you spending over seventy hours on it. Thank God there’s not going to be an Assassin’s Creed game in 2019. I need a rest.
Timespinner has a great art style and the music is excellent, but a five-hour crawl through relatively bland maps isn't enough in a year with incredible games such as Guacamelee 2, Dead Cells, and Celeste. I spent another hour with Timespinner after finishing the story but didn't quite get 100% and felt no desire to finish it off. Timespinner is decent, but when compared to other titles that came out this year it comes up lacking. It needed more abilities and more interesting ways to use them in puzzles. Doubling the length would have also helped because it felt over way too soon.
GRIP has moments of brilliance, but not enough for me to recommend a purchase unless you’re a fan of Rollcage and are interested in what is essentially an incredibly late Rollcage 3. The addition of either some more courses or a level editor would be a huge improvement although I don’t know if that is in the works. GRIP isn’t everything I hoped it would be, however there is a solid base and plenty to suggest that Rollcage‘s formula still has something to offer in 2018.
Combat is challenging and enjoyable enough that I briefly started a second playthrough on hard. I wanted to master the combat challenge and solve the puzzles properly instead of brute forcing my way through them. I got through a few encounters and then it hit me just how similar the experience would be the second time around. There weren't any cool new mutations to play with or better weapons to acquire. So I stopped playing. My first playthrough lasted fifteen hours and it was decent. I'll keep an eye out for a sequel or an expansion, but at the moment, Mutant Year Zero doesn't have enough worldbuilding or interesting variety in its upgrades for my tastes. I doubt I'll ever finish that second playthrough.
While True Learn doesn’t quite live up to its fascinating premise and could have done with more time in Early Access. However, developer Luden.io has already proven responsive to customer feedback and, in six months to a year, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see While True Learn living up to its cool concept.
Mass Effect: Andromeda offers the dream of exploration in a distant galaxy, but every time the dream looks like it’s within reach, it’s snapped from your grasp by poor quest design, performance problems, or simply mediocre writing.
Despite how bad it is, you can have some fun with Hidden Agenda. If you play it with friends over a few drinks, you’ll probably have a laugh in the same way you do when watching bad horror films. That’s the best I can say for Hidden Agenda. It’s a narrative game with a dull and poorly written narrative. It’s a choose your own adventure game with boring and uninformed choices. It’s a “play with friends experience” that is likely to leave you with fewer friends at the end of it. Hidden Agenda manages to scrap a two out of five because, despite itself, I did laugh out loud a few times.
Rogue could have been an essential game in the franchise, if only for the story and the rare chance to see inside the world of the Templars. Instead, we barely get any story development except for cameos and knowing references to other games. The missions are tedious and the lack of interesting locations is a step back from previous entries. Rogue might have scraped a three out of five if I’d reviewed it back in 2014, but in 2018 it doesn’t even deserve that.