Unboxed's Reviews
All in all, while PacMan 99 is not fundamentally different from its older brother, I still found it to be a blast. And I highly recommend trying it to see how you like it. I really don’t think I’ll never return to Tetris 99 after this because when I play this game, it’s my time to shine.
While Bowser’s Fury is an impressive addition to 3D World, it will barely clock in any more than 6 hours of playthrough which in this reviewers opinion, really doesn’t justify double-dipping. I wouldn’t say 3D World is an inferior Mario title but it is absolutely standing in the shadows of its bigger bros.
There’s much more to learn while playing Double Date. Refreshing on the basics and learning how to focus on each girl is easy enough. The challenge comes with the new ‘Stamina’ and ‘Baggage’ feature. And the changes don’t stop there. You now have several new lovely ladies to interact with. Each having twice the questions and convos than the first game.
Olija is a fun mystical little game that doesn’t overstay its welcome lasting only 6 or 7 hours at best, boss battles aren’t really that difficult even the final one felt way to simple. Really the only thing that will impede your gameplay is the game locking up, we were playing on the Switch and we found the game having moments of slowdown nearing the end to the point it crashed in the middle of a boss fight and even silently crashed during the final cutscene with the screen staying black and the music fading away.
Cyber Shadow is an attempt for lightning to strike twice with Yacht Club and while the presentation and music are absolutely brilliant its missed some of the best aspects that made Shovel Knight work, like the combat, story and characters which really kept the world structure together.
Age of Calamity seemingly fixes all those niggling little qualms that people had with Breath of the Wild, first and foremost there is no weapon degradation. It was without a doubt one of the most frustrating parts of the game, constantly having to find a new sword halfway through a battle. While you still collect numerous items, food and weaponry in Age of Calamity you really only address that between missions where you can sell or even fuse loose weapons together. Even frustrating enemies from the original game like Lynels have been essentially neutered here to the point that you can easily defeat them,a lot of aspects from Breath of the Wild have been brought over here including Flurry Rush, Paraglider, even the freaking Koroks.
Ghostrunner has a lot going for it, it's an awesome concept that really could have benefited from some more fine-tuning. While there were times I was getting visually frustrated in segments, I couldn’t put the game down for long. It reminds me a lot of Katana Zero, basically the same slow-mo ninja concept but as a retro 2D game and I absolutely adored that title.
There isn’t much challenge or strategy with I Am Dead and honestly, there really doesn’t need to be. It’s more about the sights and the people we meet along the way, it goes to show that even after we’ve passed on we are never truly gone, our stories, our legacies will be remembered by the people around us, sometimes even for centuries. The design of the world is incredibly basic, with a simplistic vector style that doesn’t even have any shadows, but honestly, I don’t hold that against the game.
While there are certainly some complex sections, especially with Bonus Stages it is a real stretch to consider this game “hard”. We’ve gotten used to so many games hand holding us that we have become blind to any real challenge. Anything even considered hard is automatically paired with Souls or Cuphead. But anybody who is going to strive for full completion, you are certainly getting your money worth with each level having a “Twisted” version with its own set of gems to collect.
Mario 35 was an attempt to replicate the success of Tetris 99 but as legendary and timeless as the original Mario is, it isn’t exactly simple enough for this battle royale-style multiplayer. Tetris 99 is something you can pick up and play for a few minutes or even a few hours and not get bored, you can only play Level 1-1 so many times before you’re just wading in a pile of Goombas, and I’m not going through that…..not after last time.
I honestly want to like Serious Sam 4, it has been almost a decade since the last title came out and there are definitely some good points, the characters and story are so bad it’s actually hilarious, especially Kenny who is basically Woody Allen crossed with a wet sock and the weapons do have the right amount of oomph, the way a double shotgun clears an area or mowing down the big guys with dual-wielding chain guns is an absolute dream. But you wake up from that dream quick smart with just how badly the game works, even after a hotfix was released while writing this review did I find the game still not running properly.
To celebrate Mario’s 35th Anniversary Nintendo has released a brand new All Stars Compilation, and unlike their 25th Anniversary it isn’t just slapping the SNES game onto a disc. The brand new 3D All Stars contains three of the biggest 3D Mario titles in Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and the original Super Mario Galaxy.
If you want a story driven game that makes you question everything you know and think about yourself . If you want something with gameplay that isn’t too hard and that you can relax with, get this game. If you want something that narratively challenges you while respecting you as a person, then get this game. If you want a bang for your buck and one of the most underrated gaming experiences this year then please, for the love of god, get this damn game.
With some more time in the oven. Ary and the Secret of Seasons could be a stellar Zelda Clone. The dungeons offer some decent challenge with the seasonal powers and later on you get access to a seasonal slingshot which helps with strategies. But that doesn’t change how the game feels soulless, characters frozen like it’s winter everywhere, the sounds characters make during conversations, even things like the choice of font, the objectives hanging on screen all the time, even just Ary’s reactions to new tasks feel empty. There is definitely some potential here, just some polish could make this game really shine.
I want to love Best Friend Forever more. I want to recommend it to my equally doggo obsessed friends with excitement and not warning. And I will do this when the game is fixed with a simple patch. I also hope the devs will listen to their fans and add more customization options. But for now, 20 bucks is far too great of an asking price. Dear doggo loving reader, wait for a discount and give a good woofer pats while you do.
The Last Campfire is a simple yet heartfelt story that really anyone can pick up and play, my biggest gripe with it all is that it is far too short and would have really liked to have spent more time in the world with the game barely clocking in at 8 hours.
Soon enough levels get extremely complicated with reflective surfaces that break after one use so be prepared for trial and error, A LOT of trial and error and restarting levels as the game throws new mechanic after new mechanic into the fray like killer crows and rotating platforms.
The game plays similarly to the original God of Wars with fixed moving cameras over a 3D world, although the camera feels incredibly far away making Raji almost a speck on the map. Combat is a standard affair with normal/heavy attacks and the dodge button, but Raji can also pull out some Prince of Persia moves with her wall jumps and swinging around poles to attack the beasts that show up.
While the game is a beat em up at heart, that hasn’t stopped the game going completely off the wall and throwing everything from platforming puzzles to a full-blown twin-stick Bullet Hell Shooter into the game, this is accompanied by self-aware dialogue that ends up being 50:50 between hilarious and cringe worthy. The entire game feels like a jumbled schizophrenic mess where they felt the beat-em-up sections on their own weren’t enough to carry a new Battletoads game and chuck a whole bunch of random affairs into the second half of the game, some work like the aforementioned Bullet Hell levels and others just frustrated and confused me like the elemental Jeff slide.
You will find yourself coming back to the game over and over again, just to spend time with everybody and explore the islands. The lack of any kind of rush or failure allows for a serious relaxed approach that I can definitely appreciate at the moment. There are also some truly entertaining moments like catching lightning in a bottle during a storm, musical mini-games to help your plants grow or saving a giant serpent by driving a pickaxe into their skull.