Game8's Reviews
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse is an alluringly gorgeous, polished and expressive comeback of the series. It plays things mostly safe across the board, which is a design philosophy that’s bound to alienate more expectant Castlevania veterans. For most other players, Belmont’s Curse is a gorgeous, rewarding and deeply engaging adventure that introduces the Belmont Bloodline and the series’ legacy wonderfully. It resulted in a return to form that hopefully serves as the foundation for braver titles, but until then, Belmont’s Curse is a powerful resurrection worthy of Dracula himself and a great Metroidvania all the same.
Truckful is a strange delivery game that shines in its genre mix, blending horror with cozy exploration. However, it also has plenty of speed bumps in its controls and exploration, creating a frustrating driving experience that could use more quality-of-life improvements. Still, once you get past those roadblocks, the game becomes surprisingly heartfelt, with a compelling story and a charming cast of NPCs who stick with you as you unravel the town's mysteries. It’s a bumpy ride, but if you’re willing to stick with it, Truckful is worth taking for a spin.
Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival has its share of frustrations, from clunky combat to bugs that can wipe out hours of progress. Yet beneath those rough edges is a survival horror game that understands what makes the genre work: limited resources, dangerous encounters, and the constant feeling that survival is never guaranteed. More importantly, Hellraiser: Revival is faithful to the twisted world Clive Barker created, bringing its disturbing ideas about desire, suffering, and obsession into a format where players have to face them firsthand. The game could certainly use more polish, but it offers more than familiar horror imagery. It's a compelling expansion of Barker's universe and a strong survival horror experience in its own right, especially for players who can stomach its rougher moments.
Star Wars: Galactic Racer scratches an itch I didn’t realize I had for this kind of stupidly fast arcade racer, largely thanks to a roguelite campaign that injects adrenaline into every run. Managing risky builds and chasing the high of that big payout makes it easy to get carried away, and even easier to crash and burn. It is repetitive in the same way a classic arcade cabinet is, but that magnetic pull remains; it leaves you frustrated for all of five minutes before you’re right back at the starting line for another tour.
Like its predecessor, Minecraft Dungeons II’s biggest enemy is novelty, or rather, its eventual lack thereof. Though better equipped for the long run with innovations like its expanded equipment system, connected map, sidequests, new story, new mobs, and an entirely new dimension, the game still falls to the same tired numbers game once the new ideas run dry. This game is strictly bigger, strictly more complex, and strictly better than the original; the bar just wasn’t that high to begin with. There’s no doubt that most action RPG players will enjoy this game. Whether they’ll enjoy it for long is a toss-up.
Silver Pines proudly wears its darkened, beating heart right on its sleeve, and it is in that unabashed love for its influences that it emerges a confident, distinct experience for survival-horror fans both new and old. Its central mystery will keep you awake and desperately thinking for an answer, while its old-school horror gameplay is a fun, uncompromising love-letter to the genre that remains compelling despite the rough edges. It’s an acquired taste that’s a lot like black coffee: strong, bold, and deeply engaging. To that end, Silver Pines is a damn, fine cup that’ll keep you wired for days.
While the Ace Combat series often flies under the radar, Wings of Theve is definitely the one you don’t want to miss. It outdoes its predecessor with a wider variety of missions, a more grounded narrative, great characters, and more satisfying gameplay. The presentation is also outstanding, with sound design and its musical score taking center stage, with the former a strong contender for this year’s best. There are problems with its multiplayer features— particularly its monetization and online servers—but thankfully they don’t affect the core single-player experience, which remains unmatched in the combat flight simulation genre.
Though most expect it to be endless, the end of End of Abyss is its best part, and the journey to get there is a rough one to start. Though it gets better and more fun as players progress, it will take all of their patience to get past the initial onslaught of RE-style resource scarcities, twin-stick controls amid 3D isometric views, and repetitive encounters. It’s a fun game with some of the best vibes I’ve ever seen among Metroidvanias, even if barely a word is ever spoken through its moderately long run; but as an overall experience? Definitely a destination over the journey type of deal.
I had a great time with Gears of War: E-Day, even when the campaign started showing its unpolished edges. The combat is still incredibly satisfying, and the free-roam sections gave me some of my favorite moments; it gave me more time with characters I ended up caring about more than I expected to. That made the campaign's weaker points stand out more, though, with the repetition and occasional technical issues becoming egregious at times. Neither was enough to sour the experience fully. I finished it satisfied, thinking I probably could have used a little less Locust shooting, which is about as Gears of War a problem as you can have.
AION 2 has the foundation of a substantial MMO, with smooth class-based combat, layered progression, a large world to explore, and plenty of activities that gradually encourage players to interact with both the world and each other. However, that foundation is held back by a story that struggles to make its protagonist feel involved, movement and flight that don't always live up to their potential, limited social systems, and monetization that become more intrusive the deeper you get into the game. There's a lot here to enjoy, especially for players looking for an old-school inspired MMO experience, but its weak storytelling, demanding progression, and aggressive monetization keep it from reaching its potential.
Nivalis Nights is a gorgeous cyberpunk game teeming with life in its fully realized city. Still, it also stretches itself too thin with an unnecessarily shallow management system and extra gameplay mechanics that don’t quite mesh with its social systems. There’s a fascinating story here, from the unique tales of its NPCs to clever writing that paints a troubling picture of our inevitable future. However, unless you can put up with its performance issues and look past its underwhelming gameplay, you might struggle to fully appreciate everything this neon-soaked world has to offer.
Qliphah in Providence’s Shadow is an unfortunate case of ambition easily being the most compelling part of a game. Its core vision and foundation are razor sharp, but are buried beneath a lack of substance, a faltering and mismatched presentation, and a narrative that fails to match the concept’s lofty ambitions. When Qliphah does double down on what makes it stand out, like the unique combat, charming leads, and gorgeous world, there are signs of a much more interesting game just waiting to be unearthed. Until a potential sequel (which I honestly hope happens, weird name and all) confidently finalizes the game’s strong core identity, Qliphah in Providence’s Shadow is an underbaked title that wears out its ambitious charm a little too fast.
CONTROL: Resonant is the kind of sequel that swings for the fences, and for the most part, it lands. Remedy has taken everything that made the original Control special and expanded it into something bigger and stranger, filled with otherworldly level design that feels pulled straight from an alien’s mind and brought to life. Dylan’s melee-based combat is also a welcome shift, creating satisfying encounters that complement its semi-open world with focused, fast-paced action. Still, many things need addressing, from performance issues during crowded encounters to a deeply underwhelming ending that leaves more questions than answers. Overall, these faults don’t take much away from the experience, which is packed with Remedy’s visual and audio splendor. With just a few imperfections, it remains an otherwise mesmerizing science-fiction story that breaks the traditional Pattern of what videogames can be.
In a perfect world, Final Fantasy 15 would’ve been a fully realized game that exceeded everyone’s expectations. But we don’t live in a perfect world. The result may not have matched what Square Enix initially envisioned, with its shallow real-time combat and disjointed storytelling delivered through a bizarre transmedia format. Still, flawed as it may be, it became a serviceable Final Fantasy adventure that ultimately grew beyond what was left of the Versus XIII promise through its series of updates, backed by a fantastic bond between its four main characters that, despite all those royal fumbles, still walked tall.
Townfall isn't without its rough edges, particularly when it comes to its visuals, combat, and some of the character development, but those issues never overshadow what it gets remarkably right. Its story keeps unraveling in fascinating ways, its puzzles actually make players think, its survival mechanics reinforce vulnerability, and its music and atmosphere capture the identity of Silent Hill exceptionally well. Most importantly, it manages to modernize the series without losing sight of what makes it terrifying.
Code Vein 2’s Mask of Idris is an absolutely phenomenal expansion that adds far more than you’d expect. It has a substantial side story to explore, complete with several expansive new stages, alongside tons of new classes, gear, partners, features, accessories, and more. It has its own problems, of course. The underdeveloped narrative is one clear example, while the lack of difficulty for post-game players is another. But with everything else it brings to the table, the DLC is easily worth the money and then some.
Two games in, this remake is making a very strong case for why Trails in the Sky deserves to be revisited. The story and characters remain the heart of Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter, and the new presentation makes Liberl feel more alive than ever. Some dungeons drag, and the sheer amount of dialogue can test your patience, but there is so much good here that I was already wishing for the 3rd Chapter before I was even done with the game.
Aniimo takes a familiar creature-collecting formula and builds a surprisingly broad adventure around it. Idyll is a colorful world worth exploring; its creatures have plenty of uses beyond filling out a collection, and the combination of story, side activities, and progression gives the journey a satisfying sense of discovery. Some of those ideas feel more fully realized than others, but the strongest parts come together well enough to give Aniimo a character of its own. It may not reinvent the genre, but there is more than enough here to make it an engaging creature collector in its own right.
RuneScape: Dragonwilds condenses 25 years of magic into one massive survival crafting open-world game. This major shift from its traditional “Buying GF” MMO roots feels like a natural evolution for a franchise that inspired countless others, and now it’s RuneScape’s turn to take a few pages from its peers. What keeps 1.0 from being the complete package, however, is that this addictive grind eventually hits a wall, as the lack of meaningful endgame content leaves little reason to keep pushing once you’ve conquered its biggest challenges. Still, that hasn’t taken away what makes its gameplay loop so addictive: horizontal progression that's more forgiving for casual players, while still giving you another reason to keep going until you suddenly realize how many hours have passed.
Another Eden Begins understands exactly why classic JRPGs remain so appealing. It takes a familiar formula and gives it enough personality through its time-traveling adventure, earnest characters, satisfying combat, and wealth of content to make the journey feel distinctly its own. Its rougher edges are difficult to ignore, but they never overshadow a game that consistently understands what makes a good adventure worth seeing through to the end.