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The cover system is absolutely fantastic and just works as described. The level of destruction and interactability with the environment is something every RTS should have. It launched with two full campaigns as well, even if I much prefer the mission based one to the Total War knockoff. The biggest issue I have with the game is how unbalanced and limited the Multiplayer feels in its current state. There’s also a total lack of Multiplayer progression, which feels like a weird omission for an RTS title. Still, there’s nothing broken here that can’t be fixed, and while I’m really getting tired of playing unfinished games, at least the foundation here is incredibly solid and fun.
This game is unbelievably silly, almost to a surrealistic degree, but man, it works. Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star is a fun mixture between a workout session you can take with you on-the-go and a fun homage to one of Japan’s most famous franchises ever. It looks the part, sounds the part, and its controls are way more reliable than I was expecting.
Even if I didn’t care at all about its plot, and there were a handful of issues with its gameplay, namely feature creep, I played it for hours and hours. The brilliant mixture of Nioh, Sekiro, Bloodborne, and even a bit of Battlefield resulted in a game that feels familiar and fresh at the same time, and one of the most exciting action RPGs released in recent memory.
It is an ungodly flawed game in need of some patches, without a doubt. Some of its design choices are questionable, to say the least. Yet, somehow, I still liked Clive ‘N’ Wrench way more than expected. By no means was this up to par with some of the other love letters to the collectathon genre released over the past decade, but its charm and creativity somewhat outweighed its cons.
Scars Above impressed me and it left me satisfied in the end. I’m glad it didn’t just try to be Returnal or a straight roguelite, and instead had its own unique ideas on how to take on bosses and puzzles. There are some flaws here, but I think that is due mostly to a smaller team and it being an AA game.
It might have a compelling concept, but a good premise just isn’t enough to carry an adventure by itself. The game suffers from really lacklustre visuals and a gameplay loop that just left a lot to be desired by the end of its runtime. A bit disappointing, considering how solid its predecessor was.
So this basically ends up being the typical licensed game that feels like a godsend to fans of the franchise in question, but is a cautionary purchase for everyone else. Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart is easily 3DClouds’ best attempt at a kid-friendly racing game, and it has enough mechanics to make it feel like the perfect introductory racing title for your kids before you teach them about the horrific tale of the Blue Shell, but it’s a bit too brief in terms of content.
I get that this review, when taking the pure scoreboard statistics out of context, sounds overly harsh. Please allow me, then, to add the context. When you take simple toy avatars, drop them in a child’s playset, introduce catchy music and a theme song that gets stuck in your head, and you deliver simple and repetitive gameplay, all in two minute long levels that keep you moving along, then something wacky happens. You end up with something extremely fun. You end up with What the Bat?.
The classic case of a jack of all trades, master of none. I also have to commend the developers for a truly gorgeous presentation, decent tutorial and a user interface that isn’t half-bad, despite being made with a largely forgettable gameplay loop in mind. We have enough city builders and strategy games out there right now. Just get one of each and enjoy their vastly different purposes. You don’t need a game trying to be both at the same time.
With that being said, this is not bad DLC. Far from it. This is the perfect kind of content I’d want from a PowerWash Simulator crossover expansion. The Midgar Special Pack uses the base game’s inexplicably appealing gameplay loop as a foundation for players to immerse themselves into some extra Final Fantasy VII content. It’s lengthy enough, giving fans of both franchises more of what they love, be it some healthy doses of fan service or just more horrendously dirty machinery to clean up.
Sure, a full-fledged remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin! would have been the better deal, but finally being able to play a localized version of this ludicrous Yakuza spinoff is still great. Even though it’s a bit dated for those used to the Dragon Engine, the controls are still excellent, the sheer amount of content is staggering, and the combat styles at your disposal are some of the best the franchise has ever seen. This is what we’ve been asking for years, and Sega delivered. I can’t complain that much.
Backbone was already a compelling game, but after gaining some insight into some of its main characters, it has been elevated to a new level because of the existence of Tails: The Backbone Preludes. Now if we could get a proper sequel to finally wrap up some of the loose ends in Backbone, fans will be elated. I am ready to have my heart ripped out yet again.
Though it’s not necessarily my favorite otome to date, The Crimson Flower that Divides: Lunar Coupling is an excellent piece of work in terms of appreciation and dedication to the story and the player. The sheer amount of choices and nuanced results can lead to hours upon hours of replay, and the locked endings force a player who wants to find out more to actually walk the path before arriving at the destination.
Inti Creates knocked it out of the park with a game that feels right at home on the Nintendo Switch. What little I have to complain about is so minute it feels like nitpicking. If you’re a fan of Castlevania, but are fed up with the sheer volume of metroidvanias flooding the indie scene nowadays, Grim Guardians: Demon Purge is the perfect pick.
So everything is being given to fans here. As many songs, as many characters, as many different ways to play and enjoy and remember as possible. This may very well be the swan song for THEATRHYTHM, but it is an impossibly wonderful last act. My only hope is that we might, someday, see a PC port so that fans can continue to keep it alive and, perhaps, give justice to the songs that were forgotten (Gau and Shadow, I’m sorry). But, as it lies right now, there is nothing left to give but a standing ovation.
If this is what Atari will keep releasing from now on, I’m game. It might be a brand new title, but Akka Arrh feels like the perfect marriage between the Atari of old and the technology of today. It’s also weird as hell. It took me a while to understand what on Earth I was supposed to do in this game, but once I got the hang of it, I had a blast with this bizarre mixture between a space shooter, a puzzler… and a golf game.
So treat it as such. I don’t think there’s anything horrifically bad about the game, but there’s nothing here that’ll make me fire it back up in a year or so. If you want an entertaining action metroidvania, and you have already ticked some other boxes, come and pick up this interesting yet forgettable journey. Otherwise, you may need to hire a totally different mercenary to do the job.
Dust & Neon is a well-made roguelite with some satisfying combat that is only let down by its lack of level variety and movement capabilities. It hits all the boxes of a roguelite that is well-made, it just doesn’t quite do enough to stand out from the pack for me. We are at a point in the genre where we have so many hits that I just wasn’t wowed by a run of the mill twin-stick shooter. I do think this IP has more potential if it could expand some gameplay ideas, more mission structures, and different weapon types, like at least dynamite or a shock grenade.
It’s a captivating tale, and it’s told in such a remarkable way that it does credit to its inspirations and to those it may inspire. It’s a perverse take on empowerment and justice in a world devoid of either, and it won’t sit well regardless of how you swallow it down. I don’t know what I felt in the end, about Loretta herself, but I do know that Loretta is affirmed in what she did, even if it tears her apart on multiple levels.
Just like other FMV-based games by Wales Interactive, Ten Dates is not an easy sell. You need to be into this different kind of visual novel with limited interactivity, you need to like dating sims, and you need to like rom-coms. With all that said and done, Ten Dates might be my favorite Wales Interactive game so far.