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Urban Strife is far from a polished AAA production. Its visuals and audio lack polish, the user interface needs refinement, and the enemy AI requires further improvement. Yet, if you’re willing to overlook those shortcomings, you’ll find an impressively deep and rewarding tactical experience underneath. Ultimately, games like this live or die by the quality of their gameplay, and White Pond Games has delivered where it matters most. The turn-based combat is engaging, thoughtful, and consistently satisfying, providing dozens of hours of strategic encounters that make the rough edges well tolerable.
For me, Temirana: The Lucky Princess and the Tragic Knights is a light read on a day off: it’s fun, not memorable, and inoffensively entertaining. Good, but not great.
Fans of MMOs and loot driven games will feel right at home here. There’s an enormous amount of content to sink your teeth into, and the additional Endless Ragnarok expansion only adds to that. The addictive Conflux roguelike mode is an absolute highlight, providing yet another compelling reason to keep coming back for “just one more run.”
I firmly believe that this is the best Splatoon title since the very first. It’s got degrees of complexity and madness that the most hardened minmaxer can appreciate, but it’s also crazy approachable in presentation, explanation and fun. It lets you focus on what you want: what weapons, how your base looks, your fashion and your burgeoning relationship with Shiver. This becomes your game. And, as such, it’s easily one of my favorites of the year.
Disgaea Mayhem ended up being far more entertaining than I expected, especially considering the initial wave of negative reviews it received. I even found myself enjoying its utterly idiotic premise and overlooking some of its gameplay shortcomings. It was quickly becoming one of those perfect “switch your brain off and have fun” kinds of games. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t have enough to offer in the long run.
An amazing surprise, without a doubt. I went into Star Ocean: The Second Story R knowing next to nothing about either the game or the franchise as a whole, and it completely won me over. It’s a gorgeous JRPG that more than makes up for its admittedly cookie cutter premise with a memorable cast, excellent presentation, and, above all else, an impressively deep gameplay system. You just have to push through its rather slow opening hour first. Do that, and you’ll be in for one hell of a ride.
While I still love the flow, pacing, and the health packs of the original, since that is my main source of memories and nostalgia, I feel this is a better option for those just now getting into it. It really cemented this opinion for me when my son was gushing over the details in this game that weren’t present in the original, like being able to hijack. Is it perfect? No, there are some things that need to be ironed out because of bugs and some odd settings, but overall this is a great nostalgic trip for older fans and a great entry point for newer fans.
EA Sports UFC 6 was a really nice surprise that I felt had a good amount of new content and core upgrades to the formula. Perhaps that’s because I went through a long gap, but I honestly think the core elements that they added here were for the better. Flow State, The Gym, Perks, the Hall of Fame, and general gameplay improvements all felt like great additions. I’d like to see a bit more effort go into the storytelling and writing for the story mode, but it offered a few hours of something a little bit different.
Fading Echo is a really great idea with some unique aspects which is exactly what I was hoping for when I first saw the game. I think Emeteria succeeded what they were going for and it is an overall enjoyable game. I do wish that there was more variety in combat and enemies, it just got quite a bit repetitive in that aspect. However, the puzzle design is great and that is what kept me engaged throughout.
I didn’t hate my time with Amnesia: Rebirth. It was nice to see the series continue on Nintendo consoles, but the game feels far more dated than it really should. Between the disappointing performance and the step backwards in gameplay, it ends up feeling older than some of its predecessors. Perhaps it’s just a speed bump on the road to Amnesia: The Bunker. If that’s the case, then at least Frictional Games clearly learned a few valuable lessons along the way.
I really enjoyed my time with Dark Scrolls. If I’m being honest, dear reader, it took a few runs before everything finally clicked, but once it did, I could really see what Doinksoft was going for. In fact, I ended up finding it noticeably easier than Demon Throttle. It’s still a fairly niche game, though, one aimed squarely at players who love the NES era of gaming, and don’t mind a healthy dose of roguelike progression. If that sounds like your kind of thing, the variety between runs does a great job of keeping you coming back for more.
If you’re looking for a solid cooperative horror experience, The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu has plenty to offer thanks to its inventive sanity system and genuinely tense, sprawling environments. At the same time, it can become repetitive as you’re asked to revisit the same maps and face the same enemies over and over again.
At its core, Heave Ho 2 is more of what made the original so addictive and hilarious, but this came at a painful cost. Making it multiplayer-only, with no way to enjoy solo levels or bot support, makes this particular PC version a lot less enticing. Simply put, it has a major disadvantage compared to a Switch version with detachable joycons. You either have to hope for online support to be steady (and if so, it works like a charm) or just stick to the original. The introduction of online play is awesome, but I don’t like how more limited this game is in terms of how you can play it.
I liked it well enough. There’s nothing about Deathbulge that would lean me towards discouraging players from enjoying the game. The music is great, the animation is brilliant, and the storyline, believe it or not, goes a lot of places that I didn’t expect in a positive way. The humor is great when it works, and it gives the player a brief moment of eyeroll when it doesn’t. It stands well enough on its own, and, I imagine, long time readers of the comic will really vibe and enjoy the references and drop ins from the rogue’s gallery.
Denshattack is a wacky, over the top experience that demands your full attention and offers plenty of replay value. I will say, though, that for as absurd and fast paced as it is (and believe me, I love my games when they’re completely ridiculous), it throws a few too many mechanics and reflex checks at you all at once, all while expecting you to squeeze in trick combos during a run. It can be a bit overwhelming and frustrating at times, but the game is just so damn charming that it’s somewhat easy to overlook most of its flaws.
D-topia is a game that I was intrigued by after playing the demo, but I wasn’t prepared for just how much I’d end up enjoying it. It surprised me in a lot of good ways. Beneath its cutesy exterior, D-topia is an unexpectedly thought-provoking game. It addresses some deeper topics such as an overreliance on technology and what it means to be human, all in a charming manner.
Moss: The Forgotten Relic is a really great collection of some of the best VR action/adventure games out there. They have heart, whimsy, partnership, and joy. I do absolutely recommend playing these games. However, if you do have a VR headset or access to one, I still recommend playing those versions as it adds so much more to the experience.
The Incident at Galley House is a thoroughly engrossing visual novel that tells a richly layered murder mystery filled with ambiguous characters, mounting bodies, and an atmosphere that captures the very best of classic detective fiction. And above all, it’s a game that genuinely challenges you to think and deduce rather than simply follow the story. I love games that trust the player’s intelligence, and I only wish there were more like this. Highly recommended.
Who could have thought that, after the surefire disaster that was the Suicide Squad game, the salvation to the cherished Batman Arkham gameplay loop would arrive in the form of a Lego game? Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight isn’t just “a good Lego game”, or “a fun diversion if you like Batman”. It’s an impressive new direction for the TT Games Lego formula, focusing on quality over quantity, deeper gameplay over mindless collectability, and an even deeper level of polish and writing.
Everything comes back to how limited your ship’s stock feels. You end up paying more attention to your resources than the game itself, and unless you’re playing a survival horror game, your eyes really shouldn’t be glued to the corner of the screen.