Twisted Voxel
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Atelier Marie Remake, a nostalgic JRPG stripped down to its alchemical roots, leans into simplicity over more complex dynamics found in recent franchise iterations. This entry point, with its chibi-style charm and time-management gameplay, may delight newcomers but risks leaving veterans yearning for the rich character engagement of the later Ryza trilogy.
Park Beyond offers a unique and engaging park simulation experience with a focus on creativity and extravagant rides, making it a standout in a market with limited competition. However, it falls short in its economic management aspect, with the challenge of balancing park profitability often leading to frustration, and the controls can feel unnecessarily complex, detracting from the overall enjoyment.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails Into Reverie delivers an impressive finale to the Crossbell/Erebonia saga, offering a sophisticated narrative skillfully spread across three distinct story arcs and an ample cast. Its refined combat system, coupled with a wealth of replayable content, makes it an essential pick for JRPG enthusiasts, despite needing context from preceding installments for the full experience.
We Love Katamari REROLL + Reverie is a remastered version of the original game that offers enhanced visuals, improved performance, and new content, providing a unique and enjoyable gaming experience with its innovative control scheme and engaging challenges. However, the game's replay value is somewhat hampered by the repetitive humor and chatter from the King of All Cosmos, and the new content, while enriching the backstory, introduces a significant difficulty spike that may frustrate players who haven't mastered the controls.
Ghost Trick presents a unique and intriguing gameplay experience, successfully combining visual novel elements with environmental puzzle-solving. Despite its linearity, it engrosses the player with clever humor, witty dialogue, and an engaging cast. However, its short length and lack of replayability can be seen as shortcomings. The remaster significantly improves the game's visuals and user interface, enhancing the overall experience and making it feel like a modern title.
Final Fantasy XVI, with its shift towards a more action-oriented approach, offers a mature and dark narrative that is both captivating and contentious. The game's combat system, which echoes elements of Devil May Cry and Bayonetta, is commendable, although its RPG elements appear somewhat diminished in the quest for action. Despite some irregularities in the distribution of experience points and variable quality of cutscenes, the game's epic fantasy action, dramatic set pieces, and well-crafted characters make it a standout installment in the franchise. However, the polarizing ending may leave fans with a range of reactions.
Tin Hearts is a Lemmings-style game with an emotional narrative about family and relationships, where players guide tin soldiers through cleverly designed levels, using mechanics like time control. Despite some technical issues and lack of VR support at launch, the game offers an engaging experience and potential replay value with the upcoming VR support.
The Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection remasters the first three games of the series for the Nintendo Switch and PC, maintaining its unique dungeon crawling gameplay but struggling with the transition from dual to single-screen. Despite some compromises in the mapping function, the collection offers improved visuals, auto-battles, and remains an engaging strategic adventure, particularly on handheld devices.
Gorn VR's PSVR 2 port offers improved visuals but lacks significant enhancements, with unintuitive controls and underutilized audio capabilities. Despite these issues, its cartoonish arena brawls and weapon variety provide short bursts of entertainment. However, the minimal improvements in the PSVR 2 version make it a questionable upgrade.
Hogwarts Legacy is a visually stunning open-world adventure that masterfully brings the Wizarding World to life, despite a few bugs and long load times on the PS4 version. With an original narrative set a century before the Harry Potter series, the game offers engaging gameplay, rich lore, and a high degree of customization, although the spell-based combat may feel monotonous over time.
Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue transitions the popular franchise into VR, offering a non-linear adventure filled with puzzles and jump scares, but falls short in delivering a truly immersive experience. While the game's multiple playable characters and VR functionality add a unique twist, its lack of clear direction, potential for motion sickness, and limited object interaction may detract from the overall enjoyment.
Zombieland: Headshot Fever Reloaded is a humorous VR action game with varied missions and competitive gameplay. While the story is thin and humor repetitive, it offers decent replay value with speed-run levels and weapon variety. Best enjoyed in short bursts and group play, it's a fun, if not groundbreaking, choice for genre fans.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails To Azure offers a rich narrative and engaging characters, with commendable English localization. Despite an outdated combat system, the game remains engaging due to varied attack options. It improves on its predecessor with a fast travel system and diverse side missions. However, dated visuals and a high entry barrier for newcomers are minor drawbacks. Overall, it's a solid RPG that will satisfy fans of the series and narrative-driven games.
Despite a few setbacks, Diablo IV showcases a commendable effort by Blizzard to deliver a sequel that’s bound to please both new and long-time fans of the series.
Planet of Lana is a visually captivating side-scrolling platformer with a narrative delivered through environment and character actions. Despite minor control issues and simple puzzles, the game's stunning art style and compelling story make it a worthwhile experience.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor excels as a sequel with refined gameplay, stunning visuals, and an engaging story. With customizable difficulty and appearances, the game appeals to all fans. Despite some pacing issues and initial technical hiccups, this action-adventure is a captivating addition to the Star Wars universe.
Minecraft Legends doesn’t quite live up to the lofty ambitions of the game it is spun off from, as much of its potential has gone unrealized.
Live A Live is a captivating anthology of short JRPG stories with diverse settings and unique gameplay mechanics. Remade in HD-2D, it offers an engaging grid-based combat system and a fantastic soundtrack. Despite some complexity and convoluted storylines, the game's multiple endings and quality-of-life improvements provide a satisfying experience for classic JRPG fans.
Last Labyrinth struggles to deliver an engaging VR escape room experience, marred by sluggish gameplay mechanics, repetitive level design, and inconsistent puzzle quality. Though the game's mysterious premise and multiple endings hold promise, the novelty of its VR features quickly fades. Overpriced and lacking replay value, Last Labyrinth falls short of providing the immersive experience players might hope for.
The Tale of Onogoro offers an engaging VR experience with vibrant visuals and inventive puzzles, setting it apart from its predecessor, Last Labyrinth. While the game excels in delivering an immersive world and clever mechanics, it stumbles with repetitive combat and excessive cutscenes that interrupt the gameplay. Despite not fully realizing its anime-driven action-adventure ambitions, The Tale of Onogoro provides a more replayable and enjoyable experience overall.