It is fun to see the lengths a dark theme like this will go, but there’s little light to be found beyond the thrills of surviving to fight another day.
This is a game that is very dense, with a time-consuming interface and a story that tries way too hard to be something grand, throwing strained dialogue and empty contrivances together to the point where most of the meaning is lost.
Critical Games’ 8-Bit Adventures 2 successfully finds this line by blending quality-of-life aspects with an enjoyable turn-based combat system while following a beacon of heart and charm.
There’s plenty to offer that makes the gameplay loop addicting: tons of weapons to craft, a balanced difficulty curve, and an amazing soundtrack.
This ease and accessibility may be welcome for newcomers, but for veterans the main appeal ends up being the nostalgic views and sounds, while character development and overall plot are hindered by sparse words that leave little impact on their own. For a Vast Future feels like a fun walk down memory lane, albeit a breezy and brief one.
A strong combat system that doesn’t punish players too harshly makes Asterigos: Curse of the Stars refreshing and approachable.
Sunday Gold has a story that is set in an interesting world, but its focus on a singular plot point, while entertaining, makes other content feel disjointed.
It’s a game that delightfully demonstrates the importance of connections, with each other or one’s surroundings, and of reaching out.
Square Enix’s remake of Live A Live shows that even nearly thirty-year-old games can use narrative tricks to have a game shine brilliantly. Modern sensibilities, such as easier quest tracking and voice acting help widen its appeal, but the core experience remains outstanding after all these years.
Although Fallen Angel suffers from some annoying performance issues and long load times when reloading after death, it also does some things right.
The Hand of Merlin is a quick tactical roguelite game with enough otherworldly energy packed into it that causes the short completion time to breeze by. With each run being only a few hours, players have the opportunity to try out new combinations that combine classes with various abilities to find new ways to create unstoppable machines of destruction.
Loot River‘s mileage will vary, with refreshing timing-based combat it can feel like a fun distraction or a listless drift down the river.
In short, Triangle Strategy weaves all of its elements into an immensely thoughtful and fun experience.
Dying Light 2 is a delightfully fast paced game, which has a few persistent issues bogging it down.
Melding real-time and turn-based mechanics cannot be easy, but Nova-111 does it deftly, with its gameplay being the top priority. Unfortunately, this interactive puzzle game has no story or substance to make it feel like more than a collection of mini-games.
It is ultimately a refreshing time that embellishes the best parts of a dungeon crawler, while simultaneously highlighting the genre's pitfalls.
There is scope for the humour to work, but factoring in fighting with the camera and struggling with the controls the whole experience is just not worthwhile. In a self-fulling prophecy, Naomi points out a lot of faults in games that The Good Life just blithely repeats itself.
Making it to the big top is a mechanically sound journey with a lot of great characters to choose and varied enemies making each combat fun. Unfortunately, the journey to each combat is fraught with graphical gaffes, sound repetition, and story doled out in odd intervals.
A colourful cast of playable characters, along with entertaining combat highlighted by the ability to devour enemies to gain new skills, are countered by plot threads that just end suddenly and bring the otherwise adequate story to a halt, as well as restrictive end-affecting mechanics that make the pacing fall flat. It amounts to an average game that has some fine moments but is murky to wade through.
The game is a very fun roguelite tactical RPG that introduces some very creative choices, such as the entire Mythic class and transformations. With simple combat that does not get boring even after many sessions, replayability is very high.