XboxEra's Reviews
Maquette is a short, impactful experience. Through clever use of its puzzle mechanics, it forces you to think in ways only the best of the genre tend to do. While the story and writing aren’t as good as the other parts of the title it is still an easy recommendation for anyone to check out for a night or two through Game Pass.
Exoprimal is a solid foundation. What is here now will be fun for a month or two, and Capcom will need to show that they can back up what sounds like a solid live service plan. It is available for $60 or on Game Pass for both console and PC. Solo or with friends it is a hell of a lot of fun, and an easy recommendation to at least give it a try.
But really, Atelier Marie Remake is a fun game. The clock system keeps you on your toes, making you plan out your days, and the town of Salburg always has something to surprise you. An easy recommendation for the systems-driven or RPG player.
Whilst looking nice, the game is overly complex and pretty boring. If you don’t care about the story, characters, mythology, or plot branches which are on display from the start of each act, this soon becomes a slog to play through.
Killer Instinct is a good use of your gaming time. It is well-written, nicely voice-acted, fairly short, and can be seriously creepy at times. Fans of slasher films will have a blast playing this. While I think it would probably be best experienced in VR, it is worth experiencing on a console.
Perhaps the most important game ever gets potentially perfect DLC?!?!
With beautiful visuals and expertly crafted levels alongside a dash of simple but intuitive gameplay, NeverAwake is a fantastic twin-stick shooter and one I can recommend to just about anyone. And lemme tell you, I haven’t quite liked an on-rails shooter in quite a while. This one is the real deal.
AEW: Fight Forever rekindles the flame of the classic N64 wrestling titles. Featuring a fantastic mix of nostalgia and new it is only let down on occasion by budget and scope constraints. I hope this is the start of a new, long-running series that takes this excellent foundation and adds more variety on top of it for years to come.
A well-made, beautiful action focused Metroidvania. The combat starts off slow but when it clicks it is excellent. The traversal and platforming are top-notch, and even though I’m not too much of a furry I grew to enjoy the characters and story quickly.
Dr. Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is an occasionally brilliant match 4 puzzler. It has great ideas mixed with middling execution. I can’t say I “enjoyed” my time playing it, but I appreciated the looks and sounds when I was sane enough to pay attention to them.
But to put simply, Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is an addicting and relaxing farming game with a solid gameplay loop and lots of replayability. Definitely one of the better farming games out there, so put down the sword and shield and pick up a watering can for a change—you won’t regret it.
Chronicles of 2 Heroes is a solid platformer with a few quirks. Its challenges are unevenly distributed and its physics are rough, but I like the hero switching concept and I found a lot of fun in taking on some of the game's difficult puzzles. I can definitely recommend this game to the folks that love pixel-perfect jumps.
a solid compilation of two decent horror titles. It is a massive graphical upgrade that uses a new narrative to tie them together in a satisfying way. Releasing at $30 MSRP if you haven’t played the games before and love to get creeped out then this one is well worth checking out.
Though bittersweet, Dordogne offers a thoughtful, well-paced narrative that is accompanied by beautiful visuals and sounds. It’s a pleasant adventure title through-and-through. One that I recommend to just about anyone.
But ultimately, F1 23 remains a great racing game, more accessible than ever for newcomers, more authentic than ever, more customizeable, and most notably featuring the comeback of the excellent Braking Point story mode. It is by all means an iterative upgrade with not many standout features, but the unified F1 World experience and various smart changes make F1 23 a worthy addition to F1 fans’ libraries.
a great game for fans of simulators and builders. It tries to find the middle ground between being accessible and challenging, with the chance of losing the more advanced players in the process. The developers can cherish what they’ve created. But could expand upon the ideas some more for the next iteration. As I’m sure plenty of players would love to go deeper into the world of building a railway empire.
No One Lives Under the Lighthouse is a solid low-budget indie horror that aims a little too high with its gameplay mechanics. They only happen in certain endings, and its short run time means any horror fan will gladly seek them all out. At a $12 MSRP it is a no brainer if you enjoy getting the shit scared out of you.
Xbox players have had to wait a long time for Street Fighter to come back to the platform, and luckily got the best iteration yet.
Diablo IV is a triumph. It fulfills its promise, combining the aesthetics and feeling of Diablo II with the fantastic gameplay of III. It is dark and gory, featuring a meaty campaign and endgame that should delight fans of the series for hundreds if not thousands of hours.
Chasm: The Rift is an old-school FPS that didn’t set the world on fire at the time and is quite far behind some of its contemporaries. Yet, a rather original level design style, good action, and a cool gibbing mechanic make it a worthy playthrough for hardcore “boomer shooter” fans, while casual fans should probably find one of the many, more iconic alternatives from the era.