Polygon's Reviews
Against all odds, The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog has a more sincere script than you would expect from anything that was released on April 1 for free ninety-nine. This is a fun game with genuine laughs, terrific art, and a killer soundtrack, and you don’t have to pay a dime to play it. I could quibble about minor stuff if I wanted, but at the end of the day, I’m happy it exists at all, and that it not only exists, but that it’s this joyful.
I am almost 50 years old now. I was once the daily newspaper reporter for Cooperstown itself. Buddy, I chewed tobacco when I played T-ball, and I am bonded to baseball through my father and friendships going back to kindergarten. Still, MLB The Show 23 found a way to teach me something about the sport, and give me new reason to love it.
As I played, I kept thinking, Let me love you, as I built so many pylons and tramway poles just to complete a scenario. I played the demo over and over again when it was first released last year, excited for what would come. Even if some of the gameplay feels unnecessarily rigid, I still have a lot of respect for the way this game emphasizes environmental stewardship, especially within a genre that tends to focus on the exact opposite. Despite the roadblocks, that sense of wonder is enough to bring me back into the game’s world.
Although some runs took me up to a quarter of my day, I was consistently entranced by the head-smashing music, and pulled along by the tactical decision-making process. Ishtar Games clearly knows how to induce a flow state, distort time, and balance challenge with approachability. Playing The Last Spell means settling in for the long haul; but when the long haul is this thrilling, I’ll keep returning.
Tchia could easily have filled the action-adventure mold of so many games before it. It takes even more of a risk by pulling so heavily from The Legend of Zelda. But, despite those influences, it isn’t weighed down by that sameness. Tchia’s transforming power comes from her eye, green where the other is not. It makes sense, then, that it would let us see Tchia’s world, and this genre, in a whole new light.
For all of the rough edges that it smooths over, RE4 pulls off the same trick that RE2 did in 2019, making a groundbreaking but now dated game feel brand-new again.
The game itself is beautiful and the battle mechanics feel great, but the deeper I dig into Have a Nice Death, the less value I find.
If you’re looking for a cute, cozy platformer with simple battle mechanics and a playful story, look no further than Cereza and the Lost Demon. For those, like me, hoping to see how Cereza truly gained her power, and harnessed the seduction and raw magical prowess required to become the ultimate umbra witch, this game is a miss. And that’s fine. I just wish this new approach excited me as much as the previous ones did. I appreciate approachability — but Bayonetta has always been a series about toeing the line, and nothing about this title took a risk. I hope the next approach is worthy enough to stand on its own among the series’ best games.
It’s impressive — especially for a game developed by a single person — how many disparate genres and how many distinct gameplay loops Patch Quest manages to juggle, without letting a single one fall. It may be a Pokémon, Castlevania, Binding of Isaac, Enter the Gungeon smoothie, but it’s a smoothie that I plan on ordering time and time again.
I’ve been enjoying Dead Cells since it first launched, and thus far I’ve been thrilled about Return to Castlevania. It’s one of the most polished and well executed of the game’s post-launch content. Castlevania fans, too, have plenty to swoon over, with numerous series references and large handful of unlockable costumes to discover, letting you explore Dead Cells as mainstays like Alucard, Richter, and Death itself. All we can hope is that this lays the groundwork for Motion Twin to pair up with other long-dormant franchises for similar passion projects. The Bubble Bobble x Dead Cells mashup is just begging to be made.
Considering that Lightfall’s story ends with many open-ended questions and is just the beginning of a year’s worth of narrative and gameplay content, which demands a level of time investment that many new players might balk at, it’s difficult to know whether the gameplay and the artwork — polished as they are — will be enough to draw in the uninitiated. Are they willing, once the campaign wraps up, to begin grinding, to devote themselves to this world that mostly ignores them, choosing to commemorate its “Veterans” (the title awarded to players who started playing six years ago) instead? There’s certainly something impressive about a game like Destiny 2, which has a history of its own, but also one that dates back to past franchises. But it leaves one wondering if there’s space at all for those who have no relationship with that history — who approach the game as visitors, witnessing just a sliver of what must feel like a lifetime of memories.
Surviving the calamities of Wo Long requires nearly obsessive hours of practice. But what comes after is the exhilaration of being able to deftly execute hordes of enemies and demons alike with merely a reflexive twitch of your well-honed limbs. With its intricate combat system and an equally evocative setting, Wo Long is a journey worth embarking on — even if it means devoting three more hours to your next boss fight.
I’d be able to forgive these UI foibles if they contributed to a cohesive thematic style. The busy interface of a game like Highfleet appears even more inscrutable than Phantom Brigade, but it funnels its droves of information into a gorgeously intricate cockpit UI. The sliding gray menus of Phantom Brigade, on the other hand, are bland and indistinct. The bare-bones story and setting, with their anonymous blue and red factions, could very well pass for a placeholder. The game’s unique command system manages to capture what is so intrinsically awe-inspiring about giant, fickle robots battling other giant, fickle robots — but the surrounding framework lacks the same refinement and clarity of purpose.
The Pale Beyond, for all its flaws and frustrations, still manages to retain a desolate sort of charm, rough edges and all. It isn’t afraid to put Shaw in horrendously painful situations where there’s no good outcome — there’s one exceptionally bleak scenario where you can practically feel the game gleefully milking what’s left of your serotonin. Coming off the ice and making land after nearly 40 weeks of hell really feels like moving between two worlds; the background art and environments are positively unearthly when shrouded in ominous fog and hazy light. The ocean scenes with icebergs awash in pinks and oranges are truly gorgeous, as are the dark, roiling storms. If only the internal logic of the overall plot was a little more cohesive, and a little less patched together, I feel like I would actually return to the Temperance and give it another whirl. As it stands, I’m still choosing the ending where I get to head home and eat a civilized meal.
The best way to play this game seems to be in multiplayer, perhaps with a younger person on the team who can appreciate the novelty of the decor and combat without getting stuck. While the subgames and epilogue mode do provide more content, they don’t actually add much substance. For those who missed the game on Wii and want to try out the co-op, it provides a variety of ways to do so. But if you’ve experienced the original, Deluxe is just a larger version of the same — a little flashier, a little longer, but nothing unmissable.
I’m a sucker for studios that don’t play things safe. IO Interactive kept toying with the Hitman formula until the very end, Supergiant reinvents itself with every new release, and there’s not a genre that Thunderful won’t touch. With Company of Heroes 3, Relic could have easily taken the safe route — or, to put it in Sid Meier-speak, ignored the “completely new” and “improved” pillars of sequel design in favor of something familiar. Instead, it looked outward, recognized what made the best modern strategy games tick, and adopted those factors into its own formula. Company of Heroes 3 is a great sequel, yes. But it’s also just an excellent game.
Anyone who’s spent any time in fandom circles knows how a little goes a long way when it comes to filling in the gaps in character relationships. A hand on a shoulder, a passing compliment, a little joke — anything can be fuel for the imagination. There was plenty of time in Octopath Traveler 2, during exploration and combat, when my mind was free to wander and would have done most of the work — if there was any foundation for me to build from. But I can’t help feeling that imaginative fuel wasn’t put into the script to begin with. Without it, Octopath Traveler 2 is beautifully realized, but there’s a hole at its center.
Hogwarts Legacy is a game that relies entirely on your nostalgia to power your enjoyment — it’s a piñata with nothing inside.
For all of its strengths, Like a Dragon: Ishin is still weighed down by its cartoonish undercurrent and abrasive ending. On a mechanical and systemic level, it’s a fun jaunt, with familiar faces and more fan service than anyone could possibly ask for, in a vivid historical world. But narratively, it’s a reminder of how quickly the stories in these games can go south. And by the time the credits rolled, I remembered why I’ve had difficulty keeping up with the series over the last few entries. Ishin may be a remake of a 2014 title, but those problems have persisted throughout the interim, and each time it tries to address social issues — current or historical — it takes one step forward, two steps back. The more things change, the more they stay the same, especially in the world of Yakuza.
I can’t recommend you play this video game, but I won’t encourage you to look away. And so, here I am at the end, and all I really know for certain is this: Thank goodness I don’t have to assign a score.