Leonardo Faria's Reviews
It didn’t feel like a revolutionary remake, and that might actually be for the best. Ubisoft didn’t try to change too much of what made Black Flag so iconic. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is more of a package of small quality of life enhancements, as well as vastly improved visuals, than a brand new recreation of the iconic title made from the ground up. Better visuals, improved controls and some modern sensibilities make the game more streamlined than the 2013 original, but everything you’ve loved about it, such as the story, setting, ship combat and so on, is still intact.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a victim of the gaming industry’s changing trends. Eleven years ago, a AAA game like this might have felt fresher and more exciting. Nowadays, after years of market saturation and a broader shift in how AAA gaming is perceived, it simply doesn’t feel as entertaining as it once might have. Rise of the Tomb Raider ultimately comes across as a formulaic action adventure game, not bad by any means, but certainly not amazing either, saddled with a terrible and obnoxious depiction of one of gaming’s most iconic female protagonists.
I’ll give Monopoly: Star Wars Heroes vs. Villains credit for being more creative and innovative than expected. Just like most people prior to the game’s launch, I assumed this was simply going to be Monopoly with some Star Wars fanservice sprinkled on top. Thankfully, there’s more to it than meets the eye, as it’s actually a brand new way to play a classic game. Whether that makes it BETTER than traditional Monopoly is honestly up to the player.
This is one of the best action games ever made, and it’s finally available on Switch 2. I can’t emphasize how cool it is to have a fully optimized version of Devil May Cry 5, on-the-go, on a Nintendo system. Despite a few small graphical and content setbacks (though nothing too egregious), this is, by and large, the same game I fell in love with all those years ago.
The overall score might look much higher than the admittedly bitter tone of this review, I get it. This Star Fox remake is still a great game, as it’s still Star Fox 64. That game is timeless, so a remake of it will still be great. If you’ve never played the original, this is an absolute must-have for your Switch 2. But if you’re someone who grew up playing the original… well, there’s no other way to say it. That game oozed charisma, and this one is completely devoid of it. It might have the best graphics ever put in a Nintendo game, and it plays like a dream, but the line deliveries, slower-paced progression, and lack of new content are hard to ignore. It’s gorgeous and fun, but soulless.
I don’t mind that eFootball Kick-Off is a smaller, slightly stripped-down version for the Switch 2, as it actually takes advantage of the system’s portability with more arcadey, “pick up and play” modes that feel like a match made in heaven for the console. It runs well, controls decently enough, and has enough content to keep you busy for a while, though this is the perfect case of a game that is best suited in smaller, twenty minute sessions at a time.
I will always welcome another Tetris game, so I can’t say I didn’t have a good time playing Tetris: The Grand Master 4 – Absolute Eye. Despite being a total unoriginal game, the kind of Tetris game you’ve played a billion times ever since you were born, it retains all of the mechanics and rulesets that make Tetris so appealing in the first place. Even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it’s impossible to call it a bad game. It’s highly competent and worth checking out if you’re a die-hard fan of the franchise, but at this point in time, you must own two or three different Tetris games for your Switch, at the very least.
Pokémon Pokopia is a lot better than I could have imagined from its horrendous reveal trailer, and it consumed my free time over the past few days and weeks. It’s one of the most content-filled and charming Pokémon games to date, with a great plot and addictive gameplay loop. Now, do I think it is THE absolute killer app available on the Switch 2? Far from it. It is still, at the end of the day, a slightly stripped down version of a superior game made by the same development team. It pales in comparison to the insanity that is the Dragon Quest Builders series.
I knew this was going to be a good game, considering its dev team’s track record, but even then, Mina the Hollower surpassed my expectations. It is a bonafide masterpiece of a game. Not only does it pay homage to the Game Boy era of Zelda, I’d go as far as to say that it surpasses its main source of inspiration. It’s colorful, it’s charming, it’s incredibly well-written, well-designed, with a great combat system and a dense world that just begs for you to explore every single corner.
Yoshi and the Mysterious Book innovates on a stagnant franchise by being a really interesting mixture between platforming, puzzle-solving, and zoology cataloguing. Collectathon enthusiasts and cozy gamers will have a blast with this low-stakes experience. It’s super easy but not condescending, adorable to look at (in docked mode, that is), chock-full of content, and best enjoyed in smaller sessions.
This is still, by and large, the pinnacle of the racing genre, a game with a sheer ludicrous amount of content and quality. It is just a game released after the franchise had already peaked, so there’s no other direction but downwards for it. It could have done a bit more with its Japan-centered setting, and its progression system is starting to get a bit old at this point. With that being said, I’ve been playing it for nearly a hundred hours up to this point. There’s a lot to love in it. Looks great, sounds fantastic, controls like a dream. There’s still nothing like a Forza Horizon game. Even when it’s inferior to its predecessors, it’s still much better than its peers.
Rugrats: Retro Rewind Collection is, once again, a respectable Limited Run Games effort in terms of preservation of some older, less acclaimed games. Don’t expect gems in this collection: for the most part, the games included in this package are mere licensed shovelware. I can’t particularly recommend them if you’re not a fan of the beloved Nickelodeon cartoon, but if you are, then you’ll probably be able to put up with their many issues.
Bubsy 4D is indeed one of the biggest surprises of the year, not because it’s a masterpiece or anything, but solely due to the fact that it is a Bubsy game that doesn’t suck. Atari and Fabraz weren’t messing around with this project: they knew the franchise sucked, yet they were dead set on proving the world that you can, in fact, make a decent entry in the series, with somewhat decent production values and actually pretty good controls. It’s not perfect, its protagonist is still an insufferable twerp, but it is what it is: a good game that just so happens to star Bubsy the freaking Bobcat. There must be a god after all.
This is a pretty straightforward conversion. R-Type Dimensions III is not as exciting as its predecessor, as it’s only covering one game, instead of two, and said game just isn’t as iconic as the first few classic R-Types. It gives you all the (optional) presentation overhauls and accessibility options that you would expect and want.
I expected less from Fruit Mountain Party. It’s a clunky, somewhat repetitive puzzle game with just enough content and charm to justify the occasional ten to twenty minute gameplay session on a portable. It features charming visuals, decent performance, and a handful of different modes to experiment with. I still think that playing 2048 on a phone is less time-consuming and more cost-efficient of a solution than actually investing money on this title, but there’s nothing overly wrong about it.
In no moment did I feel annoyed whilst playing This Is Fine: Maximum Cope, to my absolute surprise. It was a competent, somewhat well-designed metroidvania, with decent level design and boss battles to make up for underwhelming visuals and a generic combat system. Is it my favorite metroidvania? No. I also doubt I would have ever considered playing it if it wasn’t for this reviewing opportunity, as I have zero interest in the meme that inspired the game as a whole. But I’ll be honest with you: I expected a LOT less from it.
You’re done with it in less than three hours. Local co-op can make the experience less aggravating, but won’t help make the gameplay feel exciting. There’s just no magic in this game about fairies.
Everything is Crab succeeds because it manages to feel fresh and creative in a genre known for feeling bankrupt of ideas. It’s a really simple roguelite with superficial combat and basic visuals, but its take on biological evolution and ensuring your adorable little freak will survive against predators is actually quite engaging and addictive.
Instead of being just like every other safe and overbudgeted action adventure by the company, this is a gameplay-first experience, just like how Returnal had done five years prior. It shows, once again, that Housemarque might actually be Sony’s most important internal development team, masterfully mixing arcade-like controls and an endlessly replayable gameplay loop with higher quality visuals and cinematic storytelling.
There’s truly no other racing game like Screamer, and I commend how innovative it is. Furthermore, it’s got great visuals, excellent voice acting, and it miraculously manages to blend in a heavy visual novel narration into its story mode, without ruining its pacing. It’s just quite complicated to control, however, requiring you to basically forget everything you’ve ever learned about driving cars in a videogame in order to get used to its bizarre mechanics.