RPGamer's Reviews
Together with the superb visual style and enjoyable music, Moonlighter provides an experience that is much more than the sum of its individual parts
Valkyria Chronicles 4 is tasked with recapturing the magic of the first and return the series to a firm footing. In this it mostly succeeds, with exceptionally engaging strategic combat that is a considerable improvement over the original incarnation.
While Odyssey is not the perfect package, it offers so much to newcomers and veterans of the series and was the reboot Origins should have been.
Despite a grueling second half and an incomplete ending, the overall experience is enjoyable; everything it does right more than makes up for a few missteps.
Though it still suffers from some familiar issues, The World Ends with You remains an easy recommendation for new and returning players alike with its excellent character development and very appealing sense of style.
There really hasn’t been an outright bad Mario and Luigi game, but this one lays a worthy claim to being the strongest of all.
The cast is colorful and fun, battles are fun, and the story will keep players engaged as long as they don’t mind the occasional back-tracking.
Yo-kai Watch 3 is an enjoyable time, and though targeted at a younger audience, there’s plenty to like for RPGamers of all ages.
It’s the sort of game that will gain a cult following. These super-fans will appreciate its millennial dread, imperfect friends supporting one another through crises both personal and apocalyptic, and a quirky style that draws on gamer culture, weird horror, and low-poly goofs without getting bogged down in uncritical nostalgia.
Slay the Spire is an absolute knockout of a devilishly simple concept that nevertheless merges the finesse of deck-building with the gripping strategy of a tightly-designed turn-based combat system, helped all the more by the desire to complete “just one more turn”.
Adhering to the phrase “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, Nexus takes the tried-and-true Etrian Odyssey formula and does well with virtually all of its components: music, battles, interactions, and world-building.
Coupled with a unique combination of rogue-lite elements and progression systems, and an atmosphere full of mystery and secrets that beg to be uncovered, it offers an immersive experience from start to finish, and plenty of reason to stick around even after finishing the final boss.
Fell Seal is a game that is easy to recommend simply because it does everything well.
From gorgeous graphics to deep crafting and combat systems, Lulua is an impressive game.
The combat continues to improve — it’s incredibly fun taking down huge groups of yakuza — and the story and characters really shine.
It’s of greatest interest to Etrian Odyssey aficionados looking for more intriguing dungeon layouts and worthwhile cartographic opportunities, but the blend of cast members from the popular Persona titles offers its own enjoyable time.
Originally conceived as DLC for the game’s Switch port, the franchise’s catalog of celebrated musical compositions and Nintendo’s unusual interest in lending its crown jewel to an indie developer quickly turned Cadence of Hyrule into a standalone entry that somehow manages to combine the best of both worlds.
Astral Chain keeps the level of style that has come to be associated with PlatinumGames, and it’s most evident in the combat.
It’s the perfect game for anyone looking for just the right title to dip a toe into the Zelda universe and proves quality top-down RPGs are not a lost art.
This is a unique and affecting title that is worth seeking out by any who haven’t tried it before.