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Honestly for as dismayed as I was over Mighty No. 9, I am even more surprised at how good Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night turned out. It is a good reminder that no single person can make or break a video game. They are truly a team effort where the directorial vision is important, but cannot compare to the execution needed from a large number of individuals. While not a perfect game, this title easily stands up to its peers as the best offerings of the Metroidvania genre. If you are not into that genre, than this is distinctly not for you. I’ve seen several reviews and opinions from people who don’t like this game, but they also wouldn’t have liked any of the other games in the genre. So it is a niche, but it does that niche better than anything else in the last 10-20 years. My first time clearing the game took me about 25 hours, which is a bit long for the genre, but as I said the castle is particularly large and the alchemy is very deep. Subsequently I have also beaten it on Hard and Nightmare, so all together I’ve spent over 50 hours playing it. That is a whole lot of game for $39.99 asking price, and it was even less for me as a backer. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is a great reminder that all is not lost in the realm of backer projects at Kickstarter. There are just some persistent issues that will need to be addressed going forward.
Overall, Ghost 1.0 is a remarkable Metroid-style game that drips with creativity. Strong plot, stronger narrative, a memorable cast, and extraordinary aesthetics allow Ghost 1.0 to stand up to the best the genre can offer. The few flaws in gameplay in regards to difficulty and mechanics do stand out because of how much they contrast with the rest of the game’s polish. The frustration in those moments is real and can’t be ignored. Having said that, Ghost 1.0 will please any fan of the Metroid and the Metroidvania genres, as well as most casual players looking for a solid game full of mystery and action.
I just have a hard time figuring out what the ambition or goal behind this game is. Who was this game for? I honestly don’t know of anyone that would find the writing style funny or would be willing to stick it out for the full length of the game. Personally, I think comedy is better when its balanced with drama. Having a focus on comedy doesn’t mean you have to constantly have an attempt at a joke in every single line of dialogue. It doesn’t help that none of the jokes landed for me. Maybe a small chuckle here and there, but more often than not, I found it annoying. I also don’t think it means you have to forego any sort of real character development. This feels like an episode of some bad “adult” cartoon sitcom but stretched to 30 hours. If you really like that sort of humor, I suppose I can recommend it. $15 is a pretty cheap price, so you might get your money’s worth. For everyone else though, I can’t recommend it.
I have to say, Atelier Lulua ~The Scion of Arland~ is one of the best games in the series. The characters are wonderful, the story while not unique is still very interesting and the combat is a pure joy. I played this one for around 45 hours and could’ve easily gotten more finishing up quests, doing post-game stuff or trying for one of the other endings. If you’re a fan of series, the game is well worth the $59.99 price tag. If you haven’t picked one of these games up in a while, now is the perfect time to jump back into this great franchise.
There’s clearly a lot to love with Nurse Love Syndrome, an all-ages title that conveys the most mature story I’ve read this year. For this review I spent 33 hours reading through all the good endings and knowing its price point sits at $40, I wholeheartedly recommend this title to not just fans of girls’ love but also fans of the medical field, great stories, and cliché romance.
Between the two story modes, hidden items and the bonus modes, Umihara Kawase Fresh! has a solid amount of replay value and if you really enjoyed playing the story mode, the game gives you a lot of reasons to come back to it. Long-time Umihara Kawase fans may find this one a bit weird and even alienating at first with all of the modifications to the gameplay and feel, but change isn’t always a bad thing and I think they did a solid job working with those changes. It’s still an Umihara Kawase title, which means it’s still an enjoyable time despite its flaws. If this is your first time jumping into Umihara Kawase and you find the fishing lure mechanics interesting, I highly recommend you check out some of the older games as well, especially Sayonara Umihara Kawase.
All in all, I exceptionally enjoyed Project Nimbus: Complete Edition. The game flow is perhaps the game’s greatest strength, as it was hard for me to be remotely bored while playing. Most issues are relatively minor and not game-breaking. Truth be told, if the game’s hit detection was a bit better along with better feedback, I would easily rate this four stars. If GameTomo and GameCrafterTeam were to work on any future projects, I would happily keep tabs on them. For $19.99 on PC and Switch, it is well worth the price.
Blazing Chrome is another success story from the folks at JoyMasher. It’s a ton of fun and has surprising longevity. Once you beat the game once, on any difficulty, you’ll unlock all the other goodies the game has to offer. These include new playable characters, a harder difficulty, mirror mode and even a boss rush. That last feature is one I’m shocked I’ve never had in a Contra game before, and it makes perfect sense to include here. While it’s true you can get through Blazing Chrome in a few short hours, it’s time well spent. This is one of the few games I have played more than once just cause I enjoyed it so much, despite no achievements for doing so. Oh and while I didn’t try it out, Blazing Chrome also has local co-op, for the truly faithful Contra experience. While this probably won’t make any fans out of those who hate the genre, it’s a wonderful present to old fans like myself. And for $16.99, it’s a very affordable adventure. I’m pleased by the latest from JoyMasher, and can’t wait to see the next modern retro classic they have up their sleeves!
Overall I love Forager for how simplistic it is in it’s design, and how grand it is in it’s execution. It’s a very cute game with lots to do and explore. Behind the minimal exoskeleton lies a really big game that I just keep coming back to, even after 10 hours of playing. If I had one complaint, it would be that, as a crafting game, it does get very grindy if you don’t choose the right skills. My second go around I had a much easier time, but an option to respec somehow would be a nice addition. I would definitely pick this up for the small price that it is. As of writing this, you can get the game for about $16.99 on Steam, which is well worth that price.
Dark Devotion was a game I didn’t think I’d like at first, but then it drew me in. Still, I think that overall it’s not really a game for me. A lot of players will have a hard time with it because of it being a Souls-like with rogue-like elements. So many players might get stuck unable to make progress, or eventually quit as the game wears down their desire to keep playing. I definitely like the dark story, though. I’ve got well over 30 hours in the game at this point, but there is a lot more gameplay than that if you try to unlock everything in the forge or go for all the achievements! Dark Devotion is available on Steam and the Humble Store for $19.99. It is also coming to Nintendo Switch and PS4 this year. Do you have what it takes to make it to the deepest depths of the fallen temple, or will its dangers and secrets be too much for you?
Overall, I did rather enjoy SENRAN KAGURA Peach Ball, though I feel it will mostly appeal to longtime fans of the series. It’s fun and colorful with good replay value, but it also feels very repetitive and lacking in terms of content. I saw there’s a tab in the game shop for DLC, which makes me hopeful they will add additional character packs later on. But I still can’t help but feeling they should have loaded the base game with more content from the get go. Cause while I do feel you get your money’s worth for $39.99, I also feel there could be much more variety here. That said, I easily got some 10 hours playing through campaign, and it will take many, many more hours to unlock everything. If you’re a fan of SENRAN KAGURA, you’ll find a lot to love here. If not, you might want to wait for the next main game in the series.
Redout is a game with beautiful visuals and great music to go with its incredibly enjoyable, fast-paced, and challenging gameplay. I do wish there was a local multiplayer mode and not just the seemingly dead online multiplayer, but there’s a wealth of single-player content with over 200 missions in its career mode that I wasn’t able to get all the way through in the roughly 20 hours I have between the Switch and PC versions. There’s a decent amount of variety through the different event types, ships, and stages, and with how much fun the racing itself is, even just knocking out a quick single race is a good time. It runs for $39.99 USD, not a bad price considering the surprising length of the career mode. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who misses F-Zero, or whoever wants a fun, fast, challenging sci-fi racer.
Overall, Moonchild is an intriguing story driven by satisfactory depth and palpable emotions expressed through several memorable characters. The narrative is the high point, a feature most fans of RPGs will appreciate and the entire story will easily hold your attention and interest throughout. Familiar gameplay and commonplace aesthetics neither hurt nor help the experience, but again, I know Aldorlea is capable of more. A first playthrough will take you around 15 hours and fortunately most of those hours are an enjoyable time. Despite its flaws, Moonchild is a pleasure to play and regardless of whether you’re a casual player or true RPG enthusiast, Moonchild has plenty of charm for all.
What I would love to see is a similar situation to Fairy Fencer F. That game also felt rather incomplete when it came out, but Advent Dark Force definitively cleaned up all those issues for me and ended up being a truly great game. Dragon Star Varnir isn’t a bad game, but it does need some more time in the oven to make it a lot better. Even the story itself felt perfunctory at times, and the game was pretty short for a JRPG, even if you aren’t rushing through in order to prevent Little Sister deaths. It only took me 40 hours my first time, with a severe Madness Ending (I was pretty much 100% Mad by Chapter 9 out of 11), and about 20 hours to get the Normal Ending. That is pretty standard for a AAA game in other genres, and justifies its $59.99 price tag, but for a JRPG that is pushing the limits of size. But overall the combat and characters do make up for a lot of the shortcomings, and more than likely another reviewer might have enjoyed it more if they like brutal and dark stories. So, not exactly what I was looking for, but I don’t regret playing it either.
I honestly feel that Furwind had all the elements it needed to be a great game, it just put them together in the wrong configuration. Had this been a metroidvania like I thought, one with well translated text and more diversity of challenges, it would have been fantastic. Instead, we get a throwback to games of the past that felt awkward and disappointing. While it’s pretty affordable at $9.99, and I did get about 6 hours of gameplay out of it, it’s really hard to justify buying it at full price. I respect what I think JanduSoft was trying to do here, but it missed the mark. Here’s hoping they take this constructive criticism in the spirit it’s intended and make their next game a masterpiece.
I spent 22 hours to complete the main quest and there is some postgame content to delve into as well. If you’re a fan of the series you’ll probably want to pick this one up as well. It will be worth the $49.99 asking price. While it’s not as good as other spin offs there is still some value here. If you are new to franchise this may not be the best entry point, but you don’t need any knowledge of the rest of the franchise to jump in either.
Overall though, I did rather enjoy My Friend Pedro. It’s far from perfect, but there’s lots of ingenuity and ambition on display here from the folks at Deadtoast. Though the plot was a bit psychotic and hard to parse at times, the humor kept me invested. For $19.99 I got about 10 hours of gameplay out of it, and had a good time. If nothing else, this is another worthy game that Devolver Digital has in their stable. Now I just hope we get a sequel that smooths over the issues I mentioned and explains the ending of the game…
I don’t like to equate money to time spent on a game. I think that’s a horrible way to value a game. I also don’t like to say that a game isn’t worth playing because some other game is better. However, this game utterly fails to be compelling or unique. There are so many better games in this genre, with so much more vision and so much more effort. In my opinion, this is simply not worth your time, and absolutely not worth your money.
All in all, I did enjoy my time with Space War Arena. It wasn’t perfect, but for $14.99 this is a very solid and enjoyable game. Though I would have loved a few things to be different, I’d say this is an easy recommendation to any strategy fan. Granted, the game isn’t for everybody. But if you want a complex yet simple game that’s easy to play in quick bursts, then Space War Arena is the game for you.
My issues with the story are that it tells you the specifics once, in large information dumps during key scenes, and then expects you to remember it all through the depressing dialogue and obtuse combat. I wanted things to be more fun, I wanted the dialogue to make me laugh and be full of hidden jokes and respectable interactions. Instead, everything is a chore to read and a punishment to experience. I really wanted a fulfilling journey for Alex and his friends, and I didn’t feel like we earned that goal based on most if not all of the dialogue in this game. It was all very depressing and felt like it had been written specifically with self-reflection in mind. I felt like YIIK was a game made to analyze. I wished it carried those critical elements of fun and enjoyment. Even though the world was beyond interesting to look at, its contents and message were just unnecessarily padded with inner monologue. It took me roughly 30 hours to beat the main story and begin some of the side extras. YIIK will cost you $19.99 on PC, PS4, or Nintendo Switch.