XboxEra's Reviews
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.
Old school DOOM + Warhammer 40,000 are a match made in Hell
Planet Of Lana is a truly cinematic puzzle adventure as advertised. The package as a whole is delivered perfectly and leaves you wanting more upon completion. With out-of-this-world visuals, music, sound and puzzle variety this really is an ‘Off-Earth Odyssey’ that you cannot afford to miss. Developers Wishfully just delivered an indie masterpiece.
Nostalgic gamers and people dying to play something resemblign a new 3D Mega Man are still bound to have a pretty fun time with Protodroid DeLTA, and here’s hoping that the title can be successful enough to warrant a sequel that fixes some of its shortcomings.
TrackMania (2020) is in many ways the highest point of the series so far, with more game modes, events and updates than ever. It may not be the racing game for everybody, but if you’re willing to dedicate yourself to an adrenaline-packed yet technical arcade racer for months or years to come, you’ll find a lot to love in Nadeo’s and Ubisoft’s latest racer.
LEGO 2K Drive is one of the most fun arcade racers in recent years and already one of my favourite games of 2023, and one that I really hope to see become a long-lasting franchise.
Teslagrad 2 is a short but well-designed and pleasant experience. Perfect for those who just want to master speed and puzzle solving in a Metroidvania over fighting hordes of enemies.
The Creepy Syndrome is not creepy and features no syndromes. It is a low-budget horror title that relies entirely on jump scares and stilted, cliché-filled writing. If you skip the dialogue and get a strategy video you can get an easy 1000g out of it in an hour or two, but you will not have an enjoyable time while doing so.
with only the limited variety of tracks that the island offers, an unimpressive and frankly unnecessary open world addition, flat graphics and rather basic game features, it’s hard to recommend the rather average experience that is TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3, one that I hoped would be a bigger upgrade from RiMS Racing.