Polygon's Reviews
Sonic Forces creators' good intentions and interesting ideas don't amount to much in a game so clumsy and limited in design. It certainly doesn't help that Forces follows right on the heels of Sonic Mania, a game that not only demonstrated a more focused design sensibility but also did a far better job of realizing its creators' ambitions. Forces may have had a larger budget than Mania, but it feels like the poorer creation all around. Unless your dearest dream has always been to play a Sonic game as your own original fan art character, Sonic Forces doesn't have much to offer.
The campaign attempts to bring up the "tough" questions about war, but when you're intermingling those questions with outrageous, comic violence, it comes off as disingenuous.
Steven Universe: Save the Light feels like watching an episode of the show mixed with some sweet old-school RPG nostalgia. It's got the pure heart that makes Steven Universe so special, which makes it all the more tragic that it's just so riddled with stability issues. I hope that future patches will alleviate these problems, but this is a game that could have been perfect. Instead, it's just a colorful shell of its potential — beautiful on the outside and a complete wreck on the inside.
And that's the strength of this sequel. It balances a steady stream of suffering and hurt with exuberant humanity. It deals with our darkest impulses and our best, and plays them both up to a ridiculous degree. There's nothing subtle about Wolfenstein 2, but it's all affecting in a way that makes the game feel special and coherent. There are moments in the game that made my heart swell, while others were so grisly I had to look away.
In essence, Assassin's Creed Origins is much the same game as the original Assassin's Creed, which came out a decade ago. It's a formula that people like to play, and it's certainly been honed and improved over the years. Origins is, then, undoubtedly the best iteration of this formula yet. But I yearn for a fresh approach and new ideas, something that astounds the senses as much as the wondrous world this game inhabits.
For a character nearing 40 years old, it's amazing that Mario has remained not only a beloved character but one whose games are generally expected to be great. From that perspective, it's no surprise that Super Mario Odyssey is, yes, a great game. But more than that, it's a fantastic, even fundamental addition to Mario's legacy. From a plumber to a doctor to a tennis star to, uh, a Goomba, Mario has endured. No, this will not be the last Mario game, but it is almost certain to be lauded as one of his best.
Rogue Trooper Redux is a fun game, but after plowing through the campaign I'm left wondering why it exists. Why re-release a game that's perfectly adequate but doesn't do anything particularly noteworthy or special? What's even more puzzling is that it ends on a cliffhanger. Considering there has never been a sequel, I would have rather have seen how Rogue's next chapter played out than tread down a well-worn path once more.
Much more than a licensed game functioning as a box of fan service for existing Gundam cultists, Gundam Versus is a fresh, well-crafted fighting game that's worth your attention whether you care about Gundam, the fighting genre or both.
While Etrian Odyssey 5 may not be well-suited for genre novices or people who shy away from the combat side of RPGs, you'd be hard-pressed to find a stronger example of this particular slice of the genre. It offers enormous customization; fresh challenges both inside and out of combat; a setting rich with things to do besides simply fight; and best of all, that addictive mapping feature. Here's a game destined to appeal to the lizard brain of Type-A personalities, to people who love to line up details and see everything slowly take shape. With each line you draw on the in-game map, you bring a tiny bit more order to chaos and transform the unknown into the familiar. Etrian Odyssey 5 isn't simply the best game in its own franchise, it's easily the richest and most satisfying dungeon crawler to appear in the past decade.
At the beginning of this review, I outed myself as someone who's not a huge South Park fan, but I've watched enough of the show to understand that this is its modus operandi. It foregrounds loud, over-the-top, “edgy” humor, and it backgrounds surprisingly thoughtful character arcs. South Park: The Fractured But Whole matches the show's strange mix of intentions; it is totally aligned in that way. And in that way, it provided the perfect reminder for why the show (and, to a lesser extent, this game) aren't for me.
It's a brilliant horror game, one that understands when to ratchet up tension and when to pull back and let you collect yourself. If the first game was a failed attempt to capture the spirit of Shinji Mikami's classic Resident Evil 4, the sequel is a successful attempt at something much better: finding a chilling, exhilarating voice of its own.
Raid: World War II disappoints on all levels. It's not that one thing in particular is badly broken; it's that so many aspects of the game are clumsy or incomplete. It made playing the game a chore, even in its best moments. Sometimes a terrible movie or game will still have things that make it enjoyable — hilariously cheesy dialogue or over-the-top action that I end up liking in spite of the low budget or poor production values. With Raid, there's just nothing here for me, and I can't imagine there being much here for anyone else.
Superstar Saga is the real meat of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions, and it's nothing but approachable, engaging, real fun and the addition of the wearisome Bowser's Minions doesn't take away from it. There's nothing new in Superstar Saga itself, but what's there is worth it.
If you can get past the microtransactions, Shadow Wars seems set to provide a much meatier extended playtime than Shadow of Mordor ever offered. But more than anything, that's my biggest disappointment with Middle-earth: Shadow of War: Everything about it seems to come with a caveat, some small annoyance or two that you need to dig past to get to the still-very-fun game underneath. The Nemesis System is still a wonder that has yet to be replicated. The movement and combat are thrilling.
I didn't go into Battle Chasers: Nightwar expecting much of anything, given the development studio's relative youth as a company and the spotty record of Kickstarted games. However, Nightwar's focus on style and character, coupled with a mostly excellent combat system, kept me hooked for much longer than I had imagined. Whatever your familiarity with its source material, this game builds a beautiful world with a surprising amount of depth just beneath the surface.
When I think of my time with Cuphead, instead of frustration I'll remember the dozens of tiny breakthroughs, when the impossible became possible, and a game that built an identity around difficulty helped me to feel, however briefly, undefeatable.
By the time I fought Mother for the third and last time, I was prepared to throw my controller because of how quickly she evaporated my energy and health bars the first two times. Ruiner is one of those games that is unabashedly difficult for the sake of being difficult. It demands you face waves upon waves of the same enemies and mini-bosses before you can even see the final, incredibly trite cinematic. Are you the ruiner or the ruined? I won't spoil the answer that the game offers up, but I will say that I sure didn't feel triumphant when I finally set the controller down.
FIFA 18 is still seductively deep and delivers excitement. It gave me the feeling that there is still so much to learn about what appears to be a rather straightforward sport, and that the game would gladly help me understand. This is always the time of year when I ask myself why I don't just spend all of my time playing FIFA, and FIFA 18 poses the question more forcefully than ever.
Turn 10 has become highly proficient in taking this basic mechanic and turning it into a full on fantasy, of conquest, of acquisition, of personalization.
Pairing the tactical brilliance of the Total War series with the rich lore of the Warhammer universe is a natural fit, and Total War: Warhammer 2 fulfills the promise of that combination. It is a deep and challenging experience with an epic story to tell. It is also one of the most overwrought games of the year, a game where complexity seems to be piled on for complexity's sake.