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There are some rough edges to be found, and one person’s relaxation will be another’s repetition. However, Grow: Song of the Evertree succeeds in its attempts at presenting a wholesome, laid-back experience. Its successes are admirable, and its missteps are negligible. It lives up to its philosophy and presents something that has all the satisfying progression of a typical game experience, but without all the violence. There’s still room to grow, but the roots are firmly planted.
The ease of access of Hextech Mayhem ensures that if you’re coming off of Arcane, you can immerse yourself in the League world with a lot less strife than the MOBA.
However, it’s a fun time if you know what you’re getting into. It’s Date Night Bowling, and it does what it says on the box. There’s bowling and there’s dating. It’s a fun time if you can wrangle a partner, romantic or otherwise, but it doesn’t really have lasting appeal. A few times through, then you can take your balls elsewhere.
If you haven’t experienced Pokemon Diamond or Pearl yet and don’t have access to Platinum, then the Gen 4 remakes on Switch might be worth exploring. Sinnoh has its own charm to it, and completionists will likely enjoy the endgame that is Grand Underground collecting. I just hope that when the time comes to remake Black and White, whatever team handles it is a lot less conservative.
I’m not sure I’ll go back to beat it on all five Mind Level difficulty tiers (twice is enough for now), especially with more DLC packs on the way. But I am pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Vaas: Insanity, and I hope I feel the same about Far Cry 6‘s next two villain stories. I’d give it a nod even if you don’t always mesh well with roguelites. Because it doesn’t outstay its welcome, the format works well for Far Cry. A lack of true variety hurts the long-term appeal after the first successful run, but that first win is exciting.
So, to recap my advice at the beginning: stick to your original copies if you still have them. If you need to see this mess in action for yourself, either wait until developer Grove Street Games heavily patches this collection or wait for a deeply discounted sale.
Battlefield 2042 feels like it could become a cool game, but it’s tantalizingly out of reach today. There’s enough promise with the satisfying-when-it-works gunplay, large-scale chaos (that’s starting to feel more controlled over time), and fantastic legacy Battlefield content in Portal that I’ll stick around for a bit. It didn’t have to be this way, though.
Tunche is a spirited jungle jaunt. A charming action-adventure that wears its Peruvian heritage with the utmost pride. While the marriage of roguelite to brawler is definitely a solid fit — particularly in multiplayer — it cannot be denied that the repetitious trappings of both genres are readily apparent, which will be enough to turn off some players. Those well-versed in the grind and willing to put in the effort, however, will be rewarded with a very agreeable bout of forest fisticuffs. Now, about that animated series…
And I do intend to keep the fun going for as long as I can because I truly enjoy what it is I’m doing as an employee of Paradise Planning. As I said above, there is nothing I like more in Animal Crossing than fidgeting around my house and changing the layout on a whim. That’s all you’re going to do in Happy Home Paradise, and for me, that’s more than enough to keep me logging in every single day.
Bright Memory Infinite gets in its own way, and occasionally takes the focus off of its strongest quality: the core mechanics. I wish that Infinite was just a full extension of the action-packed prologue and was a little more polished, as it would be easier to recommend. If you can deal with that headache, you might like it.
To wrap things up, again, I think Jurassic World Evolution 2 is a much better game than its predecessor was at launch. That said, I can’t shake the feeling that much like the original, it’s only going to get better and more content-rich in the next coming year or so. It’s a beautiful trend from Frontier Developments that I think will make an already great game all the more excellent.
In the long history of the CoD series, it’s fitting that Vanguard stayed true to form with the World War II setting, because when all is said and done, I think it’ll be considered among the greats. If it’s already this fun to play now, I can’t wait to see how it evolves in the coming months with any updates Sledgehammer has planned.
So while Mario Party Superstars doesn’t necessarily break massively new ground, it’s so good at replaying the classics that it will probably be my new go-to for Mario Party fun moving forward. It isn’t just the Nintendo 64 nostalgia talking here; this is a good collection of minigames, a smart board selection, a nice-looking game, and it’s got tons of settings, dials, and options to fiddle with for repeat play sessions. It might not be filled with new ideas, but Mario Party Superstars plays the hits, and plays them as well as it did the first time around.
It would be foolish of me to say that Forza Horizon 5 is the best game in the series given my very limited knowledge of its history. However, I can say with confidence this is the most fun I’ve had with a racing game that doesn’t involve a plumber and a princess. There is just so much to do and so much to see that I can easily lose hours of my day exploring all it has to offer. And with continued support from the developers and community, I’ll have no reason to stop playing anytime soon.
The seemingly endless possibilities of Shin Megami Tensei V directly fueled my desire to play it from the moment I got my copy. It’s overwhelming, but compartmentalized. The world is technically finite, but feels limitless. It’s just what a lot of people want out of an RPG, and the strong personality-driven throughput helps propel it past a lot of its competition.
It’s not a soulless game or one without a spark — there’s definitely a lot of love in the final product. It just seriously needed a few more sets of eyes on it to draw out its flaws. A lot of the things that vexed me most severely could be fixed with a few more passes of the floor buffer. Yet here we are, and Demon Turf doesn’t strike me as territory worth conquering.
Give it a shot, and once you get into it, you might see it the way I do: as a gripping, strategic adventure that is not only a game but a celebration of one of the great innovations of the turn-based RPG genre.
With all that said, I can clearly see why Corpse Party is a cult classic. It’s a dismal, oppressive horror game that sinks you into the hell it has constructed. It presents a thick, sticky mystery to wade through and presents it with panache. It’s maybe not the most essential remaster of a game, but the same spooky tale of hopelessness is still present. I just wish it would keep its obvious fascination with human excrement to itself.
Not all of the activities are equally enjoyable in Riders Republic, but the highs — namely, the harrowing downhill mountain bike races and over-the-top snow sports — deliver.
This is all speculation on my part, but Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water comes off like a game that had some incredible artists with cool ideas for this setting and the Wii U tablet, but they couldn’t quite figure out a cohesive story to tell. To make matters worse, I get the impression they also didn’t want to scare away newcomers on a new system and toned the scare factor right down.