XboxEra's Reviews
After spending 12 or so hours with review code, I’ve come to the conclusion that frankly, this game just isn’t very good
It may overstay its welcome in the end, but fans of the first game will have a lot of fun playing this. Are Twenty Dates on the horizon? Only time will tell.
It plays ok, looks decent, and is an easy 1000 gamerscore for a couple of bucks.
This feels like it’s a cheap Gamerscore game, but it’s neither cheap enough or easy enough to get the full 1000 achievement points. If you can get this for a couple of bucks on sale it might be worth frilling away your time, but even then I’d say give this game a pass.
Hogwarts Legacy borrows a lot of design choices and ideas from other open-world titles, and yet, it creates a truly unique product, unlike any title in the genre, with a true focus on world-building rather than non-stop combat encounters. It’s a game that should be experienced, even by those who aren’t Potter fans at all.
Although TRANSIRUBY isn’t particularly evocative, it’s a solid Metroidvania through and through. Completion is a couple of hours, and its slow pacing makes it a game that I can recommend to beginners of the genre.
The idea of cleaning, repairing, and building ancient European houses and castles was an appealing one. Unfortunately, Castle Renovator fails to be enjoyable by any metric.
Despite my frustrations with the combat system, there’s a lot of good you’ll find in Chained Echoes. I can easily recommend this game for any Super Nintendo era role-playing game. A beautiful rose with a very sharp thorn.
Fashion Police Squad is smart, plays pretty well, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. It’s priced at $20 on Steam, and if that holds true for the Xbox launch then this one is an easy recommendation for any lover of first-person shooters and fashion.
I am sure that there are people out there (completionists especially) who will love this game as it is, but I cannot help but feel that a bit more inventiveness and a less cliché story would have made it much better.
It isn’t the most complex or riveting gameplay loop, but then again the popularity of titles like Muse Dash show how simplicity and polish walk hand in hand, and now Rhythm Sprout is furtger proof of this. Recommended to all rhythm game fans looking for a more humorous take on the genre.
The Dead Space Remake has no flaws for me. It took one of my favorite franchises and reinvented it perfectly. It is stunning to look at, and every single change or addition they made works. This remake is a masterpiece and I hope that this is the rebirth that the Dead Space franchise deserves.
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is the best SpongeBob game ever. There’s a lot of love that went into this project and you really feel it as you jump, swing, and kick about. A solid pick up for platforming and SpongeBob fans alike, this game is an example of what game software for children (and licensed property) should strive to be.
At its core, OddBallers is a fun game with an engaging gameplay loop and good enough variety to last for a while, but with little marketing, a seemingly nigh non-existent playerbase and some technical woes it’s hard to recommend this one just yet, unless you’re guaranteed have a group of friends to play with.
Shoulders of Giants is a wonderful surprise. It’s a third-person action roguelike with a ton of heart. Great gameplay, stylish graphics, satisfying progression, and a killer soundtrack combine to create a game I loved spending time with. I know it’s great solo so as long as the co-op runs well this is a title you and your friends won’t want to miss.
Hi-Fi RUSH came out of nowhere and floored me. It is one of my favorite-looking games, maybe ever. The combat is sublime, the story is great, and the music just works. Tango Gameworks has shifted from making ok to good horror games and created one of my favorite action platformers of all time.
I came into Forspoken unsure of what I would find. Its initial teasers promised a gorgeous magical world full of incredible sites. Instead, we’ve been given something boring, that runs terribly and has a story full of overused tropes. The combat fares no better, and it’s retailing for $70 at launch. Do yourself a favor and only sate your curiosities once this game is on a deep sale.
There really isn’t much more to say about Kingdom Rush on Xbox. It is a faithful 1:1 port of the mobile game, for better or worse. The controls work well in the end but did require some time to get used to. At only $10 at launch, it’s an easy purchase if you’re already a fan or someone new to the series. Here’s to hoping that this is just the start of the franchise porting over to consoles.
If you love the idea of taking a floppy tube, pointing it at something hot, and spraying all over it until everything is cold and you’re filled with regret then Firefighting Simulator - The Squad can be done alone, but it’s far better with some friends.
Need For Speed has found its identity, and while a few concepts require some finetuning, it’s the best episode in a long while and one of the most stylish and generally finest racers of the generation thus far.