Game8's Reviews
Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy is a strong adventure because it knows how to make its puzzles, combat, stealth, and narrative blend together while giving each part enough time to shine. The mystery surrounding Sophia and the island will keep players invested throughout, while the carefully paced reveals give just enough information to keep asking questions without making the answers feel dragged out. There is no point where the gameplay feels unnecessarily bloated or where the narrative slows down just to fill its runtime. With its intuitive gameplay, emotional storytelling, and consistently engaging pacing, Resonance delivers a journey that knows exactly when to push forward and when to let its moments breathe.
How to Fish is a great online co-op game to play with friends, but it’s slightly less enjoyable solo because of its grind-heavy progression. However, when you have a full squad by your side, the game’s chaotic gameplay and boss fights make the repetition much easier to stomach, as you’re immediately pulled into its addictive blend of fishing and first-person shooting, hook, line, and sinker.
I had a good time with Brigandine Abyss, but that comes with a lot of caveats. It’s not for everyone—SRPGs rarely are—but more than that, its story never gave me much reason to care about the world or its characters, and its presentation belongs to the early 2010s. What kept me playing was just how good the game’s strategy elements are, especially the amount of time I could spend putting my armies together and figuring out how to get the most out of them. There are plenty of things I wish Abyss did better, but fortunately, it’s very fun to play.
Starsand Island is frustrating precisely because its foundation is so promising. Its satisfying grind, interconnected progression, generous resources, and charming presentation provide the makings of a genuinely enjoyable farming RPG, but a hollow narrative, underdeveloped relationships, and an unfortunate number of bugs keep it from reaching its potential. There is enough here for dedicated farming game fans to enjoy, but at 1.0, it feels like a game that needed more time to grow into the experience it was promising to be.
Built amidst real-life horrors and evoking eldritch ones, The Sinking City 2 is a sequel among sequels. Though not perfect owing to some implementary bugs and vestigial progression, the game offers mastery across all other aspects that few survival horror games can hope to reach. It is the kind of game that one must experience to truly appreciate, bringing with it the artifice of Lovecraft’s universe and the vision of Frogwares’ dev team. Consider it a game that only the mad would avoid, and one that the horrified would return to.
Whether it’s bad on purpose or just plain bad, it’s clear to anyone with eyes, ears, or hands that Agefield High: Rock the School! is a bad product. From a visual identity that both confuses and revolts to a gameplay loop that prevents itself from ever being enjoyable, everything about this game screams inadequacy—though it notably doesn’t scream lack of effort. If the game had more time to cook, say another decade or so, perhaps it would’ve been a passable homage to one of gaming’s most iconic coming-of-age titles. As it is now, though, it’s an unplayable, unlovable, unappreciable mess I’d rather forget than remember.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Cost of Hope is a fantastic expansion that builds on what made the base game so compelling, even as its slow-burn pacing and punishing gameplay remain largely unchanged. Its strong narrative on two of the series’ popular factions, as well as its deeper dive into the convoluted science-fiction mythos makes it a worthwhile return to the Zone. The addition of Update 2.0 and two new explorable regions, including the iconic CNPP, gives longtime fans more than enough reason to soak in the Roentgens and smell the irradiated roses.
Mortal Shell 2 is one of those games that'll make you smile when remembering it, but frown when you recall the details. Its horrifying audiovisuals and polished combat create plenty of memorable moments, but repetitive stages, limited build variety, and a painfully slow narrative make it equally frustrating. Its content also falls short of justifying the $49.99 price against the competition. For all its strengths, Mortal Shell 2 gets the pieces right without quite putting them together.
Sister Other Paranoia isn't without merit. Its thematic ideas, literary influences, visual symbolism, and commitment to making Hasuya as unpleasant as possible show that there's a deliberate vision behind the experience. Unfortunately, that vision gets buried beneath inconsistent writing, limited interactivity, and a protagonist whose worldview isn't nearly as thought-provoking as the game seems to believe it is.
After playing through the original and Elite years ago, I love how much I still enjoyed going back to Akihabara to re-experience Steins;Gate. Reboot doesn’t fix everything I wanted it to, especially that painfully slow first half, but the new material and Worldline gave me enough surprises to make another trip worthwhile. It’s still the same story I fell in love with, just with a few new reasons to get attached to it all over again.
Corsair Cove is a fun and challenging pirate-themed city-builder with exploration and turn-based combat elements that is a decent addition to your pirate game library. It's got its charms in its vertical tactical city-building gameplay and complex systems that keep you on your toes. Although, it would definitely benefit from more QoL improvements to make the actual building and routing less of a chore.
Lootbound is a great, bite-sized roguelite that’s best enjoyed in short bursts. It’s addictive, sure, but its barebones storytelling, overreliance on luck, and early-game grind can sometimes get in the way. What ultimately carries the experience is its surprisingly deep buildcrafting, which should appeal to veteran roguelite fans while giving you plenty of freedom to shape your own journey through the loot you pick, party members you recruit, and bosses you face. It knows exactly what it wants to be, giving you just enough control to feel like a Dungeon Master while leaving enough to chance to make every victory feel earned, one roll at a time.
Hell Let Loose: Vietnam is, quite simply, more of the same as in 2021, but with a different setting. Its gameplay design and setting remain its strongest points, and it offers an enjoyable experience when it works on both the player and technical sides. However, the game certainly feels dated in its textures and has key issues across most aspects, making it feel underdone even with the delay in its release.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is an electrifyingly fun, stylish fighter that has earned its place as a highlight of the Marvel fighting game lineage. It succeeds both as a gorgeous love letter to Marvel Comics and the stories, characters, and worldbuilding that has made it such an enduring force in pop culture and as a deeply intricate fighter for newcomers and veterans to break down and enjoy. There are some unfortunate caveats, particularly with a few strange system mechanics, roster omissions, and, most importantly, the frustrating PC performance, that bring the experience down a bit across the board. Nonetheless, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls has laid the console groundwork for a glorious reunion between Marvel and fighting games, and the result is marvelous.
IRON NEST: Heavy Turret Simulator stands out as a remarkably distinctive indie simulation game. Its tactile artillery procedures, oppressive industrial atmosphere, exceptional sound design, and demanding mission design combine to create an experience that feels both immersive and refreshingly unlike the typical military shooter. While the story is stronger as a thematic framework than as a deeply engaging character-driven narrative, the strength of its core gameplay loop makes it an easy recommendation for players who enjoy methodical simulations and hands-on mechanical interaction.
Fields of Mistria is a rare farming RPG that manages to improve upon the genre's familiar foundations without losing what made them so appealing in the first place. Its farming, RPG progression, relationships, exploration, and narrative all complement one another, creating an experience where nearly every activity contributes to the larger journey. A few rough edges in combat, resource RNG, and quality-of-life keep it from absolute perfection, but they do little to diminish an otherwise remarkably polished and thoughtfully designed experience. Fields of Mistria doesn't just prove that the genre still has room to grow, it sets an incredibly high bar for what a modern farming RPG can be.
Big Walk succeeds by turning communication itself into the heart of its cooperative adventure. Its strongest puzzles emerge from simple mechanics, environmental awareness, and the unpredictable interactions that happen when a group of friends tries to solve problems together. A handful of less inventive challenges and some technical rough edges keep it from feeling completely polished, but they do little to diminish a multiplayer experience that consistently rewards curiosity, experimentation, and teamwork.
Time hasn’t changed the conversation around Pokémon Sword and Shield, but it has made it easier to appreciate what the games accomplished. Galar may never reach the heights many fans imagined seven years ago, yet its approachable design and memorable Gym battles still make it a worthwhile journey. It fumbles in places that deserved far more ambition, though the journey itself remains one that I still enjoy returning to years later.
Beast of Reincarnation isn't a perfect game, but one can argue that it came close. It had all the makings to be one of 2026’s breakout hits, but its flaws and weaknesses in all of its aspects were just too noticeable to let go. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad game at all. Its extremely strong worldbuilding, enjoyable hybrid combat, and great art direction make it into an experience that’s compelling enough to get you through till the end.
Mistfall Hunter's blend of Soulslike combat and extraction gameplay shouldn't work on paper, but Bellring Games has found a compelling middle ground that delivers addictive progression and tense PvPvE encounters. While its technical issues and uneven class balance leave room for improvement, the game lays a strong foundation for a live-service adventure with plenty of long-term potential. The mist hasn't lifted just yet, but I can already see what's waiting on the other side.