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Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles is a product of the late 90s, and it shows. Sure, it’s painfully easy, but man, if it isn’t super fun and quirky. It’s like comfort food, something I can play and immediately have the expectation that, yeah, I’m in for a delightful romp.
I might be the outlier here, but I just don’t enjoy 30XX in the way that I liked 20XX. The first game had charm, excitement and felt like a real love letter not just to Mega Man X, but to the entire genre unto itself. Much like A Robot Named Fight, it brought something unique to the table that also was clearly rooted in inspiration. 30XX feels like a side step, where things change but don’t necessarily improve.
Daymare 1994: Sandcastle is a step up from the original game and shows that the franchise does have the potential to grow. However, what we have here is a game that is messy; the story was laughably bad and the gameplay whilst improved, it just still isn’t there yet. Maybe with a third entry, Daymare can find its place, which I am very much hoping for.
Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is my introduction to the series, and I’m thoroughly impressed. FromSoft has delivered an ultra-fast-paced and challenging mech combat game. The deep customisation, great replay value, and level design will keep me coming back for more. If you love FromSoft games and like action-packed mech gameplay, then Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon is a must-play.
While this isn’t going to become a regular rotation for me, I sincerely admire and appreciate what Taito Milestones 2 is doing. Taito has such a wonderful history of creations and I don’t have access to most of them, nor do a majority of the world. The ability to look at these games and see them on modern hardware with a genuinely focused attempt at porting them brings a smile to my face.
In the end, the fantastic story gives the perfect gift to players: curiosity about the world we live in and questions about what it means to be alive. If a visual novel can cause you to question existence, it’s doing something right.
I feel like It’s A Wrap is, more than anything else, a great foundation for much better sequels. Its core gameplay idea is sound, but it needs a bit of tinkering with its difficulty spikes (even though the hint system is already excellent) and its visuals. Even though they are great, you can barely look at what’s happening onscreen on portable mode, while you don’t have access to its great touchscreen controls on docked mode. As for the rest, it’s a bit short, but it’s still worth picking up.
The fact that Fort Solis is devoid of gameplay isn’t what made it so unbearable to experience. Filling it with clunky walking physics, pointless quick-time events, and plot decisions only a braindead idiot would make, are what ruined it for me. It is an impressive showcase of what Unreal Engine 5 can provide to smaller games, but also a game so devoid of interesting interactivity I can’t help but think it would have been a better experience had I just decided to watch someone play it on YouTube, or if the devs just decided to turn it into a movie (it’s as short as one).
It doesn’t matter if you’re playing it on a PC or on an Xbox. Sadly, Age of Empires IV feels like a massive step back when compared to the immense levels of fun, customization and depth offered by Age II, III, or Mythology. Playing it on a controller just adds an unnecessary layer of complexity towards the gameplay, even though I still commend the developers for their impressive efforts. I doubt anyone else would have been able to pull off such task. With that being said, I can’t recommend playing this particular version, or Age of Empires IV as a whole for that matter. Just stick to its much better predecessors.
What Sega needed to do with Samba de Amigo: Party Central was to ensure that the foundations were solid, the controls worked as intended, and the gameplay loop was fun enough both on your own or with friends. This game is an absolute blast. It retains that wacky, experimental vibe from the Dreamcast era, with utterly ludicrous visuals, a bunch of nonsense blasting your senses, and enough content to keep you busy for a while… at least until the release of the next song pack.
The Making of Karateka is a fantastic trip down memory lane, teaching you everything you never though you’d want to learn from such an iconic game and its creator. Even though the game itself isn’t exactly THAT entertaining for today’s standards, I still had a good time learning more about it, as well as its predecessor, Deathbounce. That being said, I think the collection is missing some essential versions of Karateka, such as the 16-bit, Game Boy, NES, ZX Spectrum and 2012 versions.
Even though the story and its mystery are much better this time around, its pacing might turn off some players before they finally get to the interesting parts. It also suffers from poor controls and lots of needless filler. Honestly, it might have been an alright game if it worked well and was trimmed down a bit, but as it stands, I wouldn’t waste your little gray cells on this one.
Initial impressions of Deadlink were mixed. Whilst its presentation captivated me from the start, it took a while before the game’s core loop eventually managed to win me over. After a few rounds and some upgrades, I’d finally get a hold of its occasionally confusing controls. I’d start jumping around, shooting everything in sight, all while being bombarded with some great visuals and music.
Vaccine Rebirth offers little more than mimicking old school gameplay.
This game has aged a lot. Although I did have fun with Red Dead Redemption, I can’t help but think this is just a bit below the average of what we expect from a 2023 title being released at a ludicrously premium price. Having this on-the-go, whilst a novel concept, is a bit detrimental to its epic, movie-like plot and structure. This benefits from being played on a bigger screen, and by doing so, it looks a bit worse. Not to mention the fact its controls and physics are simply too clunky, even for Xbox 360 standards.
Adore is a cute little game that might scratch the monster collection itch, but at the same time there are so many games like Temtem that just do it so much better. If you’re looking for a budget game, Adore might be just what you’re looking for with plenty of replay-ability and the rogue-like concept. Outside of that though, this game is most likely a skip for most people who have the option of other games.
Overall, I have really enjoyed my experience with WrestleQuest. There are a lot of great influences that this game takes from that work well and blend smoothly together. The gameplay is fun, the art style is adorable, and there’s a lot of zany fun to be had with it. Hopefully, with the small delay that the game had, plenty of people will still give this game a chance, because it’s worth it.
This isn’t trying to be mere nostalgia bait or an ultraviolent shooter for the sake of it. It’s well-written, it’s well-designed, it’s smart, and it sounds incredible. It was a perfect mixture of slightly retro visuals thrown into a futuristic, Ghost in the Shell-esque setting, with all the post-processing effects and gimmicks featured in a more modern game, and juicy combat sections which will please both adrenaline junkies and those looking for a more methodical take on the genre.
Ikki Unite is not very polished or well-balanced, but once you get into a good run, with a character that’s actually fun to play as, it’s hard to put the controller down. As a blatant clone of Vampire Survivors, it does manage to copy some of that game’s most appealing features. Sadly, there’s not a lot of creativity in display. It’s just that: yet another Vampire Survivors, but inferior.
It’s not that Quantum: Recharged is bad, far from it. The thing is: it’s beyond basic. It feels like the Recharged games released a handful of years ago, back when they were basically vector-based remakes of old arcade games with little else to offer besides new visuals and an EDM soundtrack. This is still a somewhat entertaining game for a handful of minutes at a time, but after playing more interesting games by Atari in recent times, I’ve started to expect more from their outings. The best thing I can say about it is that it’s… fine.