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There’s a place for this kind of game, though, and thanks to the great sense of humour, Maglam Lord remains a delight from start right through to its end. It’s a kind of comfort food that operates within the expectations of the genre, and so, while someone who is not familiar with JRPGs will find it all confounding, if you do appreciate the nuances and of the genre it’s going to entertain you a great deal.
Historical fiction is a quick way to my heart, and while, if I were inclined to make a historical fiction game set in ancient Rome myself, I would probably go with some kind of retelling of Caligula’s story (note: I swear it’s so much more interesting than the popular stories would have you believe), I found this to be interesting and engaging experience on every level. The tactical action is challenging and deep, the management side of things is robust, and the story that it weaves will keep you invested, even 40 or more hours into it. This is an early game of the year contender.
Every time I think I'm losing interest in Pokémon, Game Freak does something to reinvigorate me. The Pokémon Pearl and Diamond remakes last year were fine, though I ended up spending more time just playing the original Pokémon Pearl again. I needed something like Arceus, I think, to get me to once again drop dozens of hours into a single game. This is a brave, bold game into new frontiers for Game Freak, and it confidently promises a new and revitalised future for the series.
I'm sadly torn on Gomoku. I love that we have a serious take on a great game on Nintendo Switch, but the lack of online play defies all logic. If you've been dying to learn Gomoku, then this will get you going (aside from the missing application of a critical rule). Otherwise, though, anyone interested enough in Gomoku to consider a video game adaptation surely has a board of their own for local play, and the game's utility as a training tool is hindered by how few opportunities most of us will ever have to want to play the game seriously enough to train. The application itself is presented lovingly, but I just don't see the audience here.
There might not be much of Hatsune Miku herself in Connecting Puzzle Tamagotori, but I can't see how a Miku fan would be disappointed by this game. It's warm, creative, bright and charming. It might not be the most challenging puzzle game you've ever played, but I doubt you've played a happier one.
The adventure does ultimately end up being a worthwhile one, with interesting characters, an incredible art style, and great music. But if there were more to the gameplay, the game – and its world – could have offered so much more.
If 2022 is going to be the year where I end up slamming dozens of games for being written like amateurish fan fiction, so be it. YA-style writing might sell well, but to be perfectly blunt about this it's good writing in only the most exceedingly rare cases. For narrative-heavy genres, like RPGs, the tonal dissonance that YA writing forces into to work to make it read and sound "modern" even if it's set in a world of swords and sorcery, is unacceptable. I could have and should have liked Reverie Tactics. In practice, I found it infuriating. Developers: please stop pitching your work at this level.
If you do like Space Harrier and similar, and you're familiar enough with the Neptunia series to know the characters and enemies without needing to have them introduced to you, then Top Nep is a short burst of nostalgic-themed fun. It's also a decent game to introduce people to the genre, thanks to the modest difficulty option, while eventually scaling to something more challenging to give the genre faithful something to sink their teeth into. I have very few issues with Top Nep as an arcade action throwback. My issue is that, as a Neptunia fan, the less-than-lip service paid to the property left the overall experience feeling humourless and soulless. For all the faults and missteps of Neptunia over the years that is something I never thought I would be saying about a game in the series.
Here's the thing about Pupperazzi: it isn't perfect, but it is perfectly happy. For days I've been obsessed with meeting new dogs, dressing new dogs, photographing new dogs, petting new dogs... you get the idea. Lord knows the world is a difficult enough place right now, and Pupperazzi makes things seem lighter and easier while playing. Photographers like myself will get a kick out of how the developers recreated the photographic process in a video game. Animals lovers will adore meeting each and every furry being. Aside from those two things that really irk me, the game is quite soothing... unless you're scrambling to take a photo of that ONE dog that will inevitably keep running away. And then you'll finally snap the sneaky little doggo and life will be all the happier.
I don’t have strong feelings for Eternal Radiance. It’s got no egregious flaws, and boasts a lengthy quest and a combat loop sure to keep players satisfied. As a bare-bones, back-to-basics look at the action-JRPG, it’s fine. It’s just that on the Switch there are so many available games that take a more interesting look at the JRPG formula, whether it has to do with narrative or gameplay or visual aesthetic, and that makes Eternal Radiance seem woefully bland by comparison. Reading the situation generously, it does feel like the game’s simplicity comes down to the developer’s affection of JRPG tropes, rather than a lack of creativity or ambition. But it's still a quality that holds the overall experience back. The finished product is fine, and quite nice to look at, but it is something that makes me want to play something else instead.
Aside from being an imperfect port, Concordia is an excellent digital board game for Eurogame veterans. That's a fairly small niche on Switch and I do think most people will be happy with Wingspan, but if you do like your board games to be smart and engaging, this is one that you don't want to overlook.
I wasn't expecting much from Space Stella. It's a Trooze-published game, after all. But what I actually good exceeded my expectations in the most wrong way possible. I don't like bandying around terms like "unplayable" much, since "unplayable" implies that the game cannot be completed, and most of the time it's juvenile hyperbole for "this is just a game I don't much like playing because it has some flaws in it." But Space Stella is genuinely unplayable. Even if I could handle the sickeningly janky gameplay (which I can't), I have a visceral desire to avoid playing a game so shallow, uninspired and downright empty as this one.
With all of that being said, I don’t think Card Fighters is bad by any means. It’s quite the joy to play, and it is by no means the only "retro" experience that displays limitations that become more apparent with age. For the modest price being asked of players with this Switch release, it’s a great opportunity for a hit of nostalgia. As I said at the top of the review, however, it's not quite the timeless experience that its immediate peer is.
Like all of qureate's games, the fan service of Duel Princess crosses far beyond the light and bubbly stuff that sits within a lot of people's comfort zones and lands squarely into outright titillation. Those who tolerate fan service if they otherwise enjoy a game will find this a bit much, and as a consequence qureate has certainly limited the audience more than the team needed to, given how little relevance the erotic elements have to anything else in the game.
To Be Or Not To Be is an excellent - and rare - example of Shakespeare being brought to video games. It works as a satirical deconstruction of Hamlet, and it works as a simple (but enjoyable) choose-your-own-adventure gamebook in video game form. I wish more developers were willing to tackle this kind of source material.
My issues with Arcadia Fallen have to do with my issues with the wider YA narrative genre that it belongs to, but I really cannot stand the tonal inconsistencies, the juvenile writing style, or the complete shallowness of these things and the thoughts they express. It seems that I'm increasingly in the minority here, but I'm not a fan of treating audiences like idiots. However, if YA writing doesn't annoy you as much as it does me, then you're going to really get along with this one, since the presentation is impeccable, and it does have its heart in the right place.
Should the very negative impression that Alone Musc levels be tempered by the fact that the credits list just four people? Perhaps, but then perhaps those four people should have worked on something more in-line with what they had the resources for. Alone Musc is, by a long way, the poorest rhythm game on a console that has a lot of excellent rhythm games, and unfortunately, for a genre as straightforward as this one, there was nowhere for this team to hide their inability to compete with the other developers working in the genre.
Theatre of Sorrows isn't worth your time. It's dressed up nicely with some good art and the occasional sinister moment to dwell on, but underneath that is little more than a basic resource management experience, with such egregious repetition through its "roguelike" elements that it becomes rote well before you've even finished the game for the first time. As a carefully-planned, linear and focused experience, Theatre of Sorrows could have been something creepy and evocative. Instead, it's like reading the same snippets of Lovecraft over and over again. Do that, and it doesn't take long at all for them to lose all meaning and value.
There is some effort that has gone into making Epic Dumpster Bear 2. There are even some genuinely nice touches, like little facts about bears that pop up during loading screens, and some elements, powerups, and similar that make it clear that the game is Canadian. I like it when the developers don't shy away from identifying their work with their culture. Unlike many low-budget platformers, there is a soul and sense that the developers weren't just looking to make a cynical dollar. So much of Epic Dumpster Bear 2 is admirable, it's just a pity that there wasn't a stronger vision behind it.
I love Poker Club's design and philosophy, but unfortunately, where Ripstone's other games on Switch are exceptional, this is a vastly inferior port and experience.