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Death Stranding is a great first look into Sony’s willingness to be more platform-agnostic. It also proves that Kojima Productions doesn’t have to regulate themselves to specific needs or restrictions of a console. While the developer didn’t entirely loosen its grips on its vision of Death Stranding, with the lack of standard PC settings, adapting to an open platform still couldn’t have been easy.
Destroy All Humans is a faithful remake of a great action-adventure series from our past. It brings the series to a new generation while retaining its classic quirks and gameplay systems. In many ways, this works, but not without noticeable systems appearing dated. That said, I was happy to have the chance to get beamed up to invade Earth once more.
Paper Mario: The Origami King might not be the RPG that I was hoping for, but the new systems and clever features made me forget all about that. The attention to developing a compelling plot within this fantasy world makes it a must-play experience for all Mario fans. Battles do inevitably become redundant, but that doesn’t overshadow this beautiful origami world begging to be explored.
Megadimension Neptunia VII on Switch is perfect to play through if you haven’t already experienced this entry. The narrative holds up, but the same can’t be said for the dungeon design. The state of the Switch port is lacking modern quality-of-life updates, which does hurt the user experience, but the battle system makes it a decent RPG experience on the go.
Roki is challenging and captivating during each moment of gameplay. The narrative flows naturally alongside the puzzles, and the world acts as a beautiful set-piece that begs to be explored. Direction and backtracking can bring the pacing down a bit in the later parts, but the conclusion makes every obstacle worth it.
Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection is a great collection of some of the most iconic fighters released to date. However, it comes at the cost of probably playing single-player or local coop only given the limitation of the online features. Regardless, this was an awesome walk down memory lane and offers a way to share a series’ humble beginnings.
Necrobarista’s focus on death is approached in such a unique way that you can’t help but immerse yourself in its setting. You begin to feel as if you are a part of the group, which makes the idea of letting go so much harder. This is a visual novel experience that transcends traditional systems within the medium and is definitely worth your time. Some of the dialogue might go over your head, but this is an easy recommendation from me.
Panzer Paladin is inspired heavily by retro 8-bit games, but it ends up setting itself apart with its own distinct identity and gameplay. The robust number of weapons and abilities you can experiment with creates a unique experience whether you’re piloting the Paladin or taking on the level on foot. If that wasn’t enough, the added bits of post-game content gives more reason to get back into your mech and play again.
Ghost of Tsushima makes it easy to immerse yourself in this dark and historical setting. The story’s pacing is expertly tuned to how the player wishes to take it on, and the controls allow actions to be both fluid and responsive. The enemy AI could definitely use some attention, and the menus are exceptionally vast, but in the end, I was glad to find something that reminded me I was playing a video game because there were moments I forgot.
Forgotten Trace: Thanatos in Nostalgia has a great first chapter that may be overly wordy, but sets up a gripping mystery. However, it almost immediately turns into a mess due to poor pacing and character building. The timeline feature works to a point but fails to really capitalize on the system, which ends up doing nothing for the narrative. Hopefully, the sequel delivers a more promising structure for these characters to grow in.
Neversong is an aesthetically pleasing platformer with absolutely killer sound design and overall presentation. The six-hour adventure doesn’t overstay its welcome and is full of clever puzzles and interesting boss encounters. However, if you plan on playing this for the narrative, you’ll discover a decent set up that never pays off.
Neon Abyss is a mixed bag. While power-ups and synergies offer a fantastic variety, the same cannot be said of the Abyss and its design. There’s fun to be found here, but it ultimately doesn’t supply the addicting gameloop that other genre greats provide, making it tough to continue after an untimely death.
Deadly Premonition 2 might be fun for a tiny group of gamers, but I had a terrible time drudging through it. The B-movie esque plot and narrative scenes can be enjoyable in a cringy sort of way, but everything from the graphics to the controls makes it insanely hard to enjoy. Instead of wasting 20 hours with this game, I’d say you’re better off just going back and replaying Deadly Premonition.
void tRrLM(); Void Terrarium is a roguelike dungeon-crawler that doesn’t punish the player after a death. Instead, it creates a challenging gameloop in more unique ways revolving around keeping a young girl alive. Each item crafted progresses the narrative as your terrarium becomes the set-piece of all your hard work.
Sword Art Online: Alicization Lycoris marks a new era of Sword Art Online games, both graphically and narratively. This is an adventure for fans and newcomers that truly builds upon this virtual world through new characters and hundreds of quests. The downside is that you may have to clear a lengthy first chapter to discover everything it has to offer, but luckily for those who do, there’s so much awaiting them. There’s still some quality-of-life work that needs to be done in terms of loading times and assist pop-ins, but as a fan of the previous SAO games, this entry simply blew me away.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 builds upon the foundation that the first entry laid out and made the entire experience more accessible without taking away the challenge for genre lovers. There’s room for balance when switching between single and cooperative modes, but there is nothing more fun than taking down demons with a friend in this adventure.
CrossCode really impressed me. Instead of overly leaning on the retro-inspired graphics, the developers created an exceptionally unique and incredibly fun RPG experience. Thankfully, the console release doesn’t change that, even with a few controller issues.
Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town is the perfect farming simulation for Switch. It eases you into the genre but provides tons of special events and milestones to hit for those who invest the most time into it. There are more than enough reasons to make this your first entry in the series or revisit Mineral Town again.
Collar X Malice is an absolutely fantastic visual novel. It has a strong narrative and a compelling cast of characters to work within its intriguing mystery. The title uses a whole bag of interactive tricks to pull you into its uncertain world, and it works wonders, with the masterful visual style being the icing on the cake.
With a wave of retro-inspired games released, it seems only fitting that an actual retro game finally gets some needed attention after all these years. Ultracore is like a time capsule of what made this genre so fun and addicting, however, the platforming mechanics didn’t age as well as the shooting action. Still, it’s clear from the first moments that this release was a labor of love and I am glad to have finally had the opportunity to play it.