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Though SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy is not the Gals Fighters 2 we may have been hoping for, it is a very daft, very fast, and fun brawler. There is a serious question of longevity to be considered, and veteran players should consider the game's simplicity before purchase. But in a group setting, or among newcomers, sisterhood of sluggers will get the job done, looking fabulous while doing so.
Spider-Man isn't just a great superhero game, it's a proof of concept for Insomniac as a company. This project shows that they can basically handle pretty much any universe, because if you can accurately recreate Peter Parker's nimbleness and gentle heart you can do anything: and with multiple teasers at the end, I think they'll get that chance.
For the time being, The Golf Club 2019 finishes in the middle of the pack. It had such promise and potential but duffs it too many times on what should be easy shots. Until HB Studios goes back and fixes its swing issues, give this a pass.
Donut County is as charming and funny as it is inventive and beautiful. It excels at what it sets out to do --there's never been a better hole simulator in video game history. But underneath its colorful scenery and intuitive gameplay is an experience that feels like its inches away from true greatness.
There are a few glitches here and there and the final level is more frustrating than it probably needs to be, but when you're speeding by a gang of dynamite-wielding hooligans shooting shotguns and smacking them with a pickaxe, you'll forget all about the minor small annoyances. Hopalong: The Badlands is a fun and intuitive arcade shooter that lasts just long enough for you to feel like you've truly mastered its controls, but not too long to overstay its welcome.
By taking a genre that thrives on its deep mechanics and attempting to streamline it into something anyone can pick up and play, we're left with an experience that doesn't wholly appeal to anybody. It sucks because there was so much potential here, and it ends up shooting itself in the foot before it really has the chance to bear fruit. With some updates and balancing, Bad North could, one day, deliver on its promise. Right now, however, it just feels like a wasted opportunity.
Enix, and by proxy Square, have found myriad ways to repackage the journey of Dragon Quest and Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age proves that they haven't run out of ideas yet. It's one of the easier modern Dragon Quests to get into precisely because it gets back to basics. If you've been pining for an older-school character-focused RPG instead of the player-created party focus of IX and the MMO aspect of X, the wait has ended.
There's a very simple reason why so many modern pro-wrestling games are bad. Pro-wrestling is not a legitimate competitive fight, it's two or more people working together to put on an incredible, breath-taking performance. Wrestlers work within slight nuances of pace, timing and storytelling. The psychological skill of knowing when to kick it in and when to cool it down is just as important as the memorable characters and jaw-dropping moves.But in a video game, you're working against each other, because you're both trying to win. That's all well and good for FIFA, or Madden, or even Street Fighter. But you can't accurately translate the speed and intensity of modern pro-wrestling to a complex, realistic sim. That's why when Adam Cole (Bay Bay) and Ricochet have a ladder match in NXT, it's a breathless thing of beauty, but if you have the same match in a WWE 2K title, it's a boring clusterfuck. The more "realistic" the genre gets, the worse it gets.Fire Pro Wrestling is a long-running series that strips wrestling sims back to basics, while featuring deep gameplay mechanics and so many customisation options that it becomes less a competitive wrestling title, and more of a sandbox wrestling title. Fire Pro isn't attempting to perfectly recreate Sports Entertainment "like on TV", it's instead trying to encourage players to create their own memorable moments within the confines of the squared circle.
The Messenger is without a doubt one of the best indies available on the Switch right now. It has a lot of competition with the sudden sea of metroidvania games available, but its stunning look, fantastic soundtrack, and clever writing coupled with the amazing gameplay put it a step above the rest. When I walk away from a game every night only wanting to play more, there's little to complain about.
In the end, Death's Gambit resonates as a flawed gem, one I'm happy to have played. It's an uneven experience bogged down by technical woes and stilted combat, but if you can enjoy less-than-pristine games in spite of rough spots, it's worth taking a chance on. Just hold out for a few patches first.
It doesn't make the games feel modern, but that likely isn't the point. This HD remaster is mainly here to provide fans with a new way to play some of their favorite games. I can't fault Sega too much for wanting to stick true to the original vision of Shenmue. If you were worried about compatibility issues or crashing, then you can rest easy. These ports are fine.
For my money, it is the best way to experience this particular story and improves enough of the game to make for a great time sink. Maybe certain aspects could have been tweaked to be more faithful to the source material, but the worst thing that could happen is you end up wanting to play the original to see the changes firsthand. That isn't such a terrible outcome.
Little Dragons Café is the type of game I walk away from feeling more hopeful in the world. Each chapter ends on such an earnest note that it raises my spirits. Sure, it doesn't have the deepest mechanics, and it's not the most polished title I'll play this year. But it has a soul and a kind heart that uplifts the basic gameplay to a place that makes Little Dragons Café an easy recommendation to anyone looking for a soupcon of positivity in their life.
Call of Duty: WWII - Shadow War is the strongest pack to date, but given what we've had so far that isn't a major accomplishment. As Activision continues to forge on with Call of Duty and weighs the needs of myriad fans, more exciting DLC needs to factor into that assessment. I don't envy the task but with $50 Season Passes something has to give.
Not once during my playthrough of Guacamelee 2 did I feel bored or look at the clock, and once I was done, I felt compelled to hunt down everything I'd missed. It's yet another triumph for DrinkBox and they probably have at least one or two more of these in them.
Battle for Azeroth isn't my favorite expansion but it's definitely up there.
It's hard to complain about new free stuff in a game I still enjoy, but I'm hopeful the last expansion for the Year of the Raven will have a better single-player mode.
I thought the game looked kind of silly and fun when I first saw it, but I honestly didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Sure, it was frustrating at times as I ran around the town with each character trying to trigger the one specific thing I needed to do to advance the story, and yeah there are some minor bugs that cause your characters to freeze or disappear behind some level architecture. But after the game was over, I had forgotten most of my previous complaints and found that I had legitimately enjoyed playing it. This has somehow become one of my favorite games, and I couldn't be happier about that.
There's a cute little story about rewriting the past at the heart of Tyler: Model 005. It's a shame those robots can't revise history and trim this game's excess so that it can focus on what's important.
It's problem isn't even that it's poorly made, or that it's built on a faulty premise. Indeed, I feel bad to be ambivalent about this game, because it sounded cool on paper. It just misses the balance, leaning too heavily on the side of frustration, with too little to show for all the hard work a player could put in. Really, when I realized playing it was work and I felt relieved to end a session, that's when I knew I ought to just stop playing for good.