In the fantasy world of Escholtia, a tragedy has happened. The crown prince has fallen into a mysterious slumber, and no healing spells or medicine has been able to cure him. Magic flowers called Chloris that bloom when people are happy will apparently do the trick though, and under the orders of the king a group of traveling performers called CIRCUS have been assigned to travel the land and spread joy to help heal the prince.

Our protagonist Tifalia doesn’t have any special skills to help with this mission, she’s just a humble barmaid at her aunt’s tavern in the capital city. She’s always dreamt of life outside the walls of this urban locale, but knows her family would struggle without her. Well when one of the performers falls on her from the sky it sets into motion a chain of events that’ll change her humdrum existence forever.

As you can probably imagine, the circus is a place with a rather diverse cast of characters. There’s the fabulous ringmaster, the fearsome warrior and the man who can transform into a dragon at will. Yes the world of Radiant Tales contains creatures who can switch between various animals and humans at will, which as you can imagine goes down a treat in the big top. Between this and the characters who can cast magic, a bit of juggling just isn’t going to cut it around these parts.

One aspect of Radiant Tale that really impressed me was the journey that you and the other characters go on. As this merry band of misfits travels on their royal quest, they’ll visit all the major cities of the continent from the dangerous city of gladiators where only the strong survive to the beautiful city on the water famed for its artistic spirit. In each location you’ll have to figure out what makes the people tick, and tailor your show accordingly. This loop of learning about the city (and often one or two of your characters who have history in the location of the day) is really engaging, and when the show starts and the gang succeed in blooming more flowers it’s hard not to feel happy for them.

At its core Radiant Tale is a pretty straightforward dating sim, with a handful of characters to romance. To get close to one of the talented lads you’ll need to spend time with them, which generally involves selecting them at one of the moments in the story where you’re free to explore a city with a partner. Then you’ll have a bit of time together promoting the circus or learning about the locals, during which you’ll be presented with a couple of conversation options. Picking the one that resonates most with your current love interest will help you grow closer to them, and if you do this enough you’ll end up happily ever after together. It’s a simple way to make the game a little more interactive, but don’t expect anything more in depth than that.

The love interests are all delightful though, and have surprisingly deep backstories that I really connected with. On my first playthrough I fell for the beautiful blue haired boy with a heart of gold, who it didn’t take long to discover was hiding a few shocking secrets. I wasn’t disappointed romancing any of the cast, and each playthrough just made me love the ragtag performing troupe even more as I got to know them better.

Once you’ve completed your first playthrough you’ll unlock the ability to fast forward scenes you’ve seen before (which is really handy) and can blitz through to see what happens when you fall in love with someone else. The first playthrough took me around ten hours to complete already, so if you start aiming to see all the endings you’ll get plenty of bang for your buck.

Radiant Tale is one of the most charming Otome games I’ve ever played, with a wonderful cast of characters and a colourful setting that couldn’t appeal to me more. If you’re not into text heavy visual novels that don’t expect much from the player then it likely won’t change your opinion of the genre, but the rest of us will be too busy smooching the clown to care.

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While sat having a chilled out session of Dungeons & Dragons (or one of many available pen and paper games), the four main characters are teleported into a strange world. Waking up naked and alone, without a single tool or weapon at your disposal, you must find your friends and work out what the hell is going on. It doesn’t take long until your first job is to save a friend from the top of a tower, and the opening section provides you with the knowledge needed to play, thanks to a decent tutorial. After bumping into the physical embodiment of Destiny, you learn about three tyrants who must be defeated in order to return home.

There’s no audible dialogue, instead opting for conversational bubbles and the odd quip in text. The writing is fun and fundamental, and acts as a nice gap between the times you are out trying to gather enough resources for crafting. This is where Doom & Destiny Worlds feels laborious at times, as you’ll do a lot of grinding by breaking rocks, chopping trees down, and gathering materials for what you need. Certain elements of crafting and farming aren’t as well explained as they could be, and gathering so many blueprints can lead you feeling lost, especially in the early stages.

There’s a lot to get your head around, and with a messy inventory, it’s easy to get lost in there. Much of the learning is done on your own, and it would have been nice to have a little more guidance in how to craft items, or a clearer UI for how to build things. You can craft a whole manner of things from armour, weapons, and building blocks to traverse across the islands, and when you do begin to grasp these mechanics, Doom & Destiny Worlds can be fun. There’s just a lot to take in and a lot to manage, and with four characters all needing to be equipped with tools and such, it’s easy to forget where you are.

One thing I did like was how streamlined the combat is. While it can become repetitive, it’s easy to get to grips with. Each enemy has a health bar and an energy bar. The energy bar provides the ability to use certain skills, and while you and your foe has it, it needs to be broken down until the health can be depleted. Once the energy is removed, the health is the only thing keeping their hearts beating. it also acts as an extra level of defence against enemies, feeling just as much of a shield as a way to dish out certain spells and attacks.

Doom & Destiny is gorgeous. The pixel art allows the developers to get creative with the sheer amount of islands available, and I’m a sucker for this kind of art style. Heartbit Interactive has made a charming adventure, and I couldn’t help but fall in love with it. The music was wonderful as well, and provided the perfect soundtrack to my journey to find the tyrants and go home. It’s humour is great, and the relationship between the friends is relatable. As a DnD player myself, I appreciated how the nuances of the game were implemented into certain aspects of it.

It may become quite the chore to grind for resources or to craft a particular item, Doom & Destiny does reward you for your dedication. The art style and music is wonderful, and the world is vast and ripe for exploration. Combat is straightforward and often fun, although it can become repetitive when enemies keep rushing towards you. It won’t be for everyone, but the charming characters and opportunities to craft some cool equipment is present throughout.

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The world of Ashan is under attack from a demonic otherworldly force, and it’s turning the five kingdoms against each other. With all the world leaders brutally murdered by this devilish foe, the only ones left to save the day are their young heirs. You’ll need to gather allies, legendary units and powerful artefacts from across the land if you want to win this war, so get ready for an epic fantasy adventure full of drama and battles.

Each combat encounter in Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes takes place across two halves of the screen, the top half belonging to the enemy and the bottom belonging to you. Both of these areas are filled with coloured units, and on your turn you can pick them up and drop them wherever you want. By lining up three identical units vertically you’ll activate them and a few turns later they’ll charge at the enemy, whereas lining them horizontally will turn them into a defensive wall.

Once a unit has charged up and is ready to attack, it’ll head straight upwards into the enemy forces. If it’s strong enough it’ll take down any walls and units in the way and reach the back of the army and deal damage to the enemy commander. Winning is (usually) as simple as dealing enough damage to reduce their HP to zero, but that’s easier said than done when the enemy is trying to do the same to you.

One way to get the edge over your opponents is to delete individual units to set off chains of matches and gain extra turns. You can also activate units of the same colour at the same time to set up a combo, which powers up the units enabling them to deal more damage. There are a lot of intricacies to this fantasy puzzle game, and you’ll need to keep them in mind if you want to deal some serious damage.

Another thing you’ll need to keep in mind are the differences between each of the units. You’ll start with simple archers that attack really quickly but don’t deal a ton of damage, but soon you’ll get hard hitting bears, soldiers, and even elite units. These special units are way more powerful than the rest of your army, with powerful special abilities like the deer that can jump over enemy walls, or the Treant that drains HP from the enemy and gives it to you. You’ll unlock all sorts of mythical creatures as you play, and can level them up to make them stronger too.

That’s right – Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes isn’t just about puzzle gameplay, it’s a full blown RPG. You’ll gain experience for your general and units after every battle, as well as resources to buy elite units and equipment that will add some interesting passive buffs to your team. The progression is really satisfying, and will ensure you stay interested for the entire lengthy campaign.

The story isn’t just made up of back to back battles either, there’s a world to explore, side quests, puzzles and boss fights packed into the twenty hour runtime. Separated into different chapters where you control different armies, there’s a wonderful amount of variety in this engaging puzzler.

Once you’re finally done with the main campaign, you can head into versus mode and take on bots, local friends or people across the globe. With a variety of different characters and units to use in this competitive mode it’s a blast taking on your friends, and it’s certainly a lot easier than online play was on the DS.

There’s not a whole lot to complain about in Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes – Definitive Edition, but calling it the definitive edition does feel a bit cheeky. The visual overhaul isn’t exactly jaw dropping, and the additional content is a single piece of non-story DLC. It’s a good job that the game was so good the first time around, and still feels fresh today.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes – Definitive Edition is a wonderful match three RPG that’s just as good in 2023 as it was in 2009. The army battles are thoughtful and engaging, and the campaign manages to change things up constantly throughout the twenty hour runtime. The Definitive Edition doesn’t add a whole lot of content, but if you missed it the first time around then this is your chance to play a classic that’s aged like a fine wine.

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Sometimes it seems like a Switch-era Nintendo thing to do. Take a beloved franchise and flip it on its head, adding in ideas and depth that you just wouldn’t ever think of. Pikmin 4 does this as well, removing much of the time constraints (though not all), adding in night modes, reviving caves that were missing from the third entry, and just creating the most full Pikmin title to date. It does that thing when you finish it, like so many current-era Nintendo games, by making you wonder “where the hell do they go next?”.

This time around you’re playing rescuer to Olimar, with a created avatar leading the rescue mission, along with faithful pooch, Oatchie. As before, you explore the oversized worlds with your miniature adventurer, collecting treasures for your collection. But right away, the feeling of quite how “big” this game is, shows its hand.

Now, you’re finding treasures which transform into power for your ship. You need to power it up to boost the radar to find levels deeper into the world to explore, and eventually get enough juice to escape with everyone you save. There are resources that can be gathered and spent in an item shop, upgrading yourself and Oatchie, or buying items. Oatchie can be upgraded too via his Pup Drive. For every person you rescue it’ll gain a Pup Drive Point, and before you know it your two-legged dog is able to wield the power of 100 Pikmin by itself, can swim, dash, kill foes in one go, and so on. This is Pikmin, but not as you know it.

Levels are enclosed but huge, but there are caves you can explore which will also be filled with treasures, and it’s often where you’ll meet new creatures in Pikmin 4. For those who aren’t aware, the leafy plant-based creatures you control throughout the adventure are the titular Pikmin, and each colour signifies a different kind of use. Red is fire and also your generic worker. Yellow handles electricity, Blueys can swim and venture underwater: every type has its use. New to Pikmin 4 is the ice type (light blue), and they are superb. Able to freeze enemies in place, in thirty hours I never got tired of bombarding a giant enemy with masses of light blue icy friends, then charging into them with Oatchie and utterly decimating them with the rest of my army.

The levels are also really clever, and designed in a way that you might set off to do one thing, only to be distracted by something else you have spotted, and spend your entire day doing that instead. There are side quests now, too, offering reasons to play more, expand your Pikmin army, and find survivors. Whether it’s being rewarded for blooming more Pikmin, or building more bridge structures, there’s always positive reinforcement happening back at your home base after a day spent in the field.

And it could have stopped there and still been a really good Pikmin game. But no, this time around, you can adventure out during the night. While I won’t spoil the reason behind why you do this, I will say the night missions are anything but a gentle sojourn. The creatures are rabid at night, with glowing red eyes, and all of a sudden it becomes a tower defence game. You control the green Glowmin here, and have to gather enough of them to defend against growing armies wanting to topple your bases and fail your mission for you. The music ramps up and screeches orchestrally at you: it’s an actual stressfest and a nightmare, but it’s brilliant, and offers a break from the “regular” Pikmin moments you might be used to.

Dandori is a word you’re going to hear a lot during Pikmin 4. On top of everything else, there are multiple Dandori battles within each level of the main game. Here your screen is split in half and you face off against an opponent, and the idea is you need to get enough points by grabbing treasures, enemy bodies, gold, and more, to win the match. There are bonuses for certain items, and even this mode evolves over time to become more and more complex. Some Dandori battles are just timed solo missions, and the idea behind the word is that you plan accordingly and execute a strategy, while also being able to change on the fly. And let me tell you, getting the platinum medal on one of these missions is as satisfying a thing as I’ve done all year. It requires you to entirely clear a stage of all treasures, enemies, and items. It’s great.

The deeper you venture into Pikmin 4, the more it reveals itself. Early stages offer simple battles and puzzles to solve with your strategy, but by the end you need to understand why and how things work, especially if you want to unlock and see everything. There is just so much game here, it’s difficult not to be impressed by what’s on offer. Everything is underpinned by adorable visuals, and a soundtrack and audio design that’ll almost certainly be overlooked by most. But when you hear the Pikmin singing as you’re wandering around, or hear footsteps change from metallic sounding to cardboard underfoot, it deserves to be applauded.

I understand why people might be reluctant to dive in with Pikmin on the fourth entry. But this is a proper, truly modernised version of a series that is crying out for more love. The storytelling, gameplay, and wealth of things to do makes it a great jumping-in point for newcomers, while fans will adore the easter eggs and new things to do. You don’t need to know how many times Olimar has been brilliant, because this is a new adventure; this is your adventure. Pikmin 4 has magic within it, and is a truly accessible, brilliant experience for all ages. I’ve always liked the series but this is something pretty special.

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Dead Man’s Diary does have an interesting premise for the zombie game though. A self obsessed villain decided that when he died the Earth should no longer function, and set up a chain of nukes that pretty much destroyed everything. When this happened people started to hide in underground bunkers, but space was limited and supplies started to run low pretty quickly. After drawing the short straw our protagonist is kicked out of the bunker so others can live longer, so prepare for a whole lot of walking around in a desolate world.

Walking about is pretty much all you’ll be doing for most of the game, gathering supplies to make yourself shelter and to generally be healthy. There are four things you have to worry about in terms of staying alive in Dead Man’s Diary. Food and water are obvious, but there’s also radiation level (which you lower by taking Iodine Pills), and fever (which you lower by wrapping fabric soaked in vinegar and water around your legs). It’s standard topping-up-meter gameplay, but finding the items to do so is a chore.

The main reason for this is that there’s a chance that all the food and water you find is unsafe due to the radiation. This means scanning every single tin of beans and water bottle with your Geiger counter. And sadly, it takes ages to scan them. Most of the supplies you find end up being contaminated anyway, so it’s usually all for nothing. The worst aspect of this gameplay loop though, is that when you switch back to your torch afterwards you aren’t able to move until you release the controls entirely for a moment. I don’t think I really need to explain why that’s frustrating.

Dead Man’s Diary is split into distinct areas, and in most of these you’ll need to find the materials to build a fire and shelter before you progress. The grind of walking around environments where all the houses and alleys look the same is miserable, and you need so much wood, straw and metal posts to complete this tedious objective. After a few minutes of gathering, a handy white dot will start just pointing to the exact place you need to go, as if the developers knew how much of a drag this endeavour would be. You can turn this off if you want the true immersive apocalypse experience, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Once you’ve done enough collecting, it’s time for things to start kicking off. A loud noise will alert you to some sort of incoming threat (or sometimes will just happen for no reason at all) and you’ll need to find a safe space to avoid death. Whether it’s an angry bear or an atomic bomb, there’s only ever one place the game expects you to magically know where to go and if you don’t make it there as fast as possible then you’ll die. This will happen to you, and when it does you better not be expecting a handy autosave to ensure you don’t lose too much progress, because Dead Man’s Diary doesn’t like providing those.

It’s these little things that really ruin Dead Man’s Diary. Things like the sheer amount of invisible walls that’ll stop you from exploring and occasionally even trap you forever. Or your helpful white dot suddenly taking you to materials you don’t even need. In a game that’s already laborious, anything that makes it feel even worse to spend time playing is just not acceptable.

I also can’t talk about Dead Man’s Diary without mentioning the story and voice acting, which is cringe inducing. Cheesy and occasionally nonsensical lines are constantly spouted by the protagonist, and it’ll either be the worst or best part of the game for you based on how funny you find it.

As much as I didn’t enjoy playing Dead Man’s Diary, I can’t deny it has a few impressive elements. The visuals are way better than they have any right to be, and if you enjoy Skyrim style lockpicking you’re in for a treat. I’ll admit this doesn’t really feel like much of a selling point, but I like to give praise where it’s due.

Dead Man’s Diary is tedious, full of invisible walls, and often downright unfair. Whether you’re repeatedly scanning food to check for radiation or looking for the same old materials to build yet another shelter, I can almost guarantee you’ll be bored doing it. When there are so many better games with an apocalyptic setting, there’s sadly really no reason to play Dead Man’s Diary.

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Essentially Trails into Reverie is a continuation and ending of two different story arcs, the Crossbell arc (made up of the recently released Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure) and the Cold Steel arc. That’s six massive games that you pretty much need to have completed to fully enjoy the newest entry in the series, or you’ll be as lost as I was thanks to my lack of Cold Steel experience. I at least recognised Lloyd and the other SSS members though, so at least that’s something.

Recognising a few characters in a game with this many people in every scene is simply not enough, especially once you leave the first story route focused on Lloyd and his Crossbell friends. From start to finish big reveals were lost on me, but if you’re up on your Trails then this game is like Avengers: Endgame on steroids. Even without that required knowledge though, Trails Into Reverie is an epic tale with sensational turn based combat.

Trails Into Reverie has similar combat to the Crossbell games, with characters taking turns to use their Arts and Crafts. Crafts are individual to each character, use CP and can do anything from damage, heal or deal painful status effects. Arts are the magic of this series, and although they take time to cast the elemental effects they unleash are more than worth the wait.

To ensure you have the right Arts for the job you need to equip Quartz to your characters, which are basically gems you put into a little grid. Providing passive buffs and access to powerful Arts, you’ll want to experiment with these colourful rocks to create a team of powerhouses. Since Trails Into Reverie expects you to be familiar with the series, your characters come equipped with some decent Quartz from the jump, and you won’t have to worry about lengthy tutorials and boring battles in the first few hours.

This is especially true when you take into account all the special attacks and complex systems you’ll be expected to remember and use right away. S Crafts are special attacks that use up all your CP but can be used even when it isn’t your turn. Then there are follow up attacks that use up teamwork points and special Order Commands that apply buffs. It might sound a bit overwhelming at first, but before you know it you’ll be a master of combat and beating up bosses with the best of them.

To level up your team and be ready to save the day you’ll need to head into the True Reverie Corridor. This weird pocket dimension houses a big dungeon full of enemies, treasure and items called Sealing Stones which unlock characters, mini games and bits of story that help fill in some narrative gaps. You’ll spend a lot of time in the True Reverie Corridor, so it’s a good job it’s full of as much interesting stuff as it is.

All the best RPGs have plenty of mini games to invest your time into, and Trails into Reverie is no exception. There’s the series staple of fishing, a card game (be still my beating heart), and a quiz which is probably more enjoyable if you know the series inside out. When you don’t fancy whacking mechs with an axe, they’re the perfect distraction.

The biggest shock for me coming into Trails into Reverie were the 3D visuals. After the 2D chibi character models and isometric perspective of the Crossbell games it was interesting to see some of my favourite locations and party members in all their high fidelity glory. The visuals are nice enough, but I think I preferred the charm of those remastered PSP games.

The English voices were an unexpected addition too, but they’re certainly a welcome one. The audio in general is absolutely top notch, with some fantastic tunes waiting for you both in battle and while exploring the world. I’d expect no less from a Trails game, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive.

I played through Trails into Reverie entirely on the Nintendo Switch, and unfortunately that meant dealing with an inferior version of the game. The framerate of the game is shoddy at best, and while exploring the 3d world and moving the camera about the slowdown is real. Fortunately the combat isn’t really affected by these issues, but it’s pretty damn distracting and disappointing regardless.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie is clearly an epic RPG set in a deep and interesting universe, but unless you’ve played through at least six massive games before this one you won’t really understand what’s going on. Even if you’re a Trails veteran though I wouldn’t recommend you play the Switch version, and instead find another way to enjoy this brilliant and much anticipated game.

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The main premise of Manic Mechanics is straightforward enough. By inflating tires, polishing car doors, and fixing engines via quick and easy minigames, you’ll fix cars and move on to the next one. You collect the parts off a conveyor belt, take them to the correct station, complete the minigame, take it to the car, and repeat.  At first, it’s all rather formulaic, but as you unlock new areas and levels, new challenges are added, as well as new parts to attach to the broken down bangers.

Batteries start to play into proceedings, whereby you have to charge them and add them to cars, however, if you leave them charging for too long they’ll explode. These batteries can also be connected to the engines at another new station, or they can be used to create shortcuts within the confines of the garage by powering up blockades to move them, or powering on huge fans to get you across areas. Sometimes, a car part will be gleaming on the conveyor belt, meaning they don’t need any work before attaching them to the car.

There are a lot of moving parts in Manic Mechanics, with other small hacks to get the job done quicker. You can dash towards a station or the belt, and parts can be thrown either onto the car or a station, helping to speed up the process. To counteract this, certain garages will have opposing forces ready to counteract your progress. Oil and water spills can cause you to slip, electrified floors and flowing lava can provide a hindrance, and when it comes to facing the bosses in the final level of an area, you better bring your A-game.

Between levels, you can drive around an overworld of sorts. By honking your horn or dashing, secrets can be uncovered which will lead to new characters being unlocked along with more cogs being found – the game’s currency. There’s not a lot to do here, but it acts as a nice segue between the levels when you want a short break. What makes Manic Mechanics great, though, is the co-op elements. You can play online, however, I spent a fair few hours sitting around with my daughters trying to remain as calm as possible.

Just like Overcooked, it is the moments in co-op that provide the most fun. Trying not to get in each other’s way and doing your best to formulate some kind of strategy, only for it to backfire the moment the clock begins to count down. There’s plenty of room for you and your friends to work together and get the most out of the different levels, and by focusing on a particular part or job within the team, it allows your score to rise a lot faster than it does on your own.

Manic Mechanics doesn’t change the co-op world or flip it on its head. It isn’t pushing boundaries, but it finds a great balance between fun and challenge, especially when playing with others. It’s a charming little game with colourful characters and a childlike sense of humour perfect for all ages. If you want a nice and chilled (for the most part) party game, this is definitely one to try. It never feels repetitive, always adding new mechanics and ideas, and the cartoony look was appreciated by me, an older player, and my two kids.

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Our protagonist Marie isn’t the potion making whizz kid you’d expect from an Atelier game, she’s actually the bottom of her class at school. In order to light a fire under her posterior, Professor Ingrid gives her one final test, in the next five years either make an item worthy of a true alchemist or be expelled from Salburg academy. This isn’t long for Marie to step up, so get ready for a big adventure with a healthy dose of time pressure.

Although based on a game well over twenty years old at this point, the gameplay loop is pretty similar to the alchemy games we all know and love. You head out into the wilderness to gather materials, fight a few monsters along the way, then make your way back to the Atelier and make some items. Even in the simpler form of this older title it’s a great hook, and has all those lovely levels to raise so you improve along the way.

What makes Atelier Marie Remake different though is that five year time limit. Every action you take in the game uses up at least a day of your time, and they tick down fast. Gathering materials at a shiny spot, fighting monsters, and even going home to your Atelier will take a day of time away from you, and if you’re not careful those five years will be up before you’ve become a master cauldron mixer.

Alongside this overall time limit, there are also mid-semester assignments and quests from the inn that have their own deadlines. Whether you’re being made to gather a bunch of herbs or make friends with a certain number of the townsfolk, having a month to do so might sound like a breeze, but before you know it you’ll have spent a week fighting blue slimes.

The combat in Atelier Marie Remake is about as simple as it gets for a turn-based RPG. Marie and anyone she hires to adventure with her can attack, use an item or use their single special ability, and that’s pretty much it. That doesn’t mean that the battles aren’t enjoyable, but if you’re expecting to have to think long and hard about moves to use and different combat systems then you’ll be disappointed.

Alchemy is a lot simpler than it gets in later entries of the series too, and pretty much just involves finding the right items and hoping your alchemy levels are high enough to make a handy new bomb without anything going wrong. Crafting as much as possible will help level you up though, and with a bit of cash you can buy more recipes from the academy shop and extra equipment to make more advanced items. Although it’s lacking the puzzling elements of games like Atelier Sophie and Atelier Ryza, it still feels pretty good when you realise you can make something new of a decent quality rating.

Although the combat and alchemy feel a little dated compared to modern games, the visuals are fresh and modern. The chibi style character models work perfectly with the isometric viewpoint, and I loved pottering around the village and looking at the other adventures and NPCs doing their own thing. The music is delightful and catchy too, which is pretty much standard for the series at this point but appreciated nonetheless.

There is one aspect of Atelier Marie Remake I really need to bring to people’s attention, and it involves the five year time limit. This game is a pretty lengthy RPG that you’ll likely put dozens of hours into, and if you fail to make a good enough item once the five years is up then you simply fail. There’s no way to get extra time or rewind and make the game easier, you just have to start all over again and try harder next time. There is a difficulty mode that negates this (at the cost of a few story elements) but don’t go into the standard mode expecting to relax and take it easy if you want to actually finish the game.

Atelier Marie Remake: The Alchemist of Salburg is an interesting look at the genesis of a popular RPG series, but compared to more modern entries it’s hard not to be a little underwhelmed. The time pressure you’re under provides an interesting hook, but the simpler combat and alchemy just don’t cut the mustard. If you’re looking for an RPG history lesson then you might get a kick out of Marie’s adventure, but don’t expect it to hold up to other recent releases.

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Oxenfree 2 takes this intuitive system up a notch. The dialogue rarely stops, informing as it does so much of the narrative, but it’s some of the best writing and voice acting I’ve heard in such a small-scale game. In fact, Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is that perfect kind of sequel that uses the original game as a solid foundation, and then builds upon it in every way it can.

Perhaps the most telling element is the “Netflix” logo that fades in as Oxenfree 2 begins. This feels like a game made for the Stranger Things generation, as indeed the first one was before Stranger Things was even a major hit. The “small town gone bad” theme is prevalent, evoking parallels with Netflix’s paranormal TV show.

We’re introduced to protagonist Riley right away, as she prepares to start her first shift working for an environmental research department, planting radio transmitters along the coast near the small town of Camena. It sits opposite Edwards Island, the small lump of rock and sand that served as the setting for so much calamity in the first game. What begins with a simple radio chat with Evelyn, Riley’s supervisor, soon degenerates into something much creepier. Shortly after meeting her co-worker, handyman Jacob Summers, Riley finds herself repeating the same moments again and again thanks to a transdimensional anomaly on Edwards Island.

It doesn’t take long for Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals to become unsettling. Together with Jacob, Riley is tasked with planting four transmitters at the highest points around Camena and the nearby abandoned ghost town of Garland in a bid to overpower and remove the anomaly. But rather than this be a breakneck race to the finish, it’s much more intentionally slow-paced. Jacob and Riley have no vehicle, and must hike and climb to their destinations, dealing with increasingly hostile spirits trying to break into our world, and what may or may not be a sinister cult known as Parentage who have a connection with Camena’s checkered history.

Riley is a great protagonist too. A former resident of Camena, she joined the military to escape a broken home and has returned now, in her thirties, with secrets of her own. She’s strong, and confident, but carries an air of someone who has earned that confidence through training and conditioning, and developed that strength by fighting her whole life. She’s outdoorsy, athletic, pragmatic, but she’s also a realist who has little time for flights of fancy or what-ifs. Jacob is the perfect foil. Mild-mannered but courageous when his loved ones are in danger, unsure of his place in the world and living in the shadow of his more successful, estranged twin brother.

The interactions between Riley and Jacob power the beating heart of Oxenfree 2 in a more vital way than the relationships between Alex and her friends in the first game. It helps that these two are world-weary adults instead of snide teenagers, but it’s more than that. As they face increasingly messed-up, occasionally terrifying phenomena, they come to rely on each other, encouraging and supporting one another. Of course, you can choose to play Riley as a stone-cold bitch at times thanks to the dialogue system, but I found the warmer version to feel more natural.

It would have been quite easy for the writers to skew the dynamic between Jacob and Riley, to either include romance or, worse, make her a Mary Sue and him a bumbling cliche. Instead we get a relationship that feels believable, and proceeds along a natural course given the events that unfold. But it’s not just these characters who grow and change as the story progresses. Without spoiling too much, there are also “cult members” to contend with, who seem hell bent on opening a portal to let the Sunken into our world.

These antagonists continue the plot from the first game. Sailors on an experimental submarine, lost at sea thanks to a tragic friendly fire accident, now trapped in another dimension and seeking a way to return no matter the consequences – the Sunken are a terrifying, single-minded presence in Oxenfree 2, often possessing the living and steering events out of your control. Beyond that, though, Riley has a walkie-talkie with which to communicate with various other residents of Camena, including Evelyn, park ranger Shelley, fisherman Nick, and scientist Hank. Through your actions and choices these and other characters may or may not survive the night, adding an undercurrent of menace and accountability.

Outside of one moment in the first hour that felt a little slow, the 5-hour campaign is incredibly compelling, pulling you from mystery to mystery, exposing the secrets and pain of Riley’s haunted past, but also offering flash-forwards to a potentially grim future. I say “potentially” because, again, your choices will inform multiple events and endings.

While I felt the first Oxenfree had some issues with pacing, Lost Signals has no such shortcomings. There is, as I said, a moment early on where I was running for a long time with little to do, but in fairness I had gone the wrong way and had to backtrack. And the running was still filled with exposition and character building, so it wasn’t a waste. Arguably, Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals lacks big “wow” moments. There’s a few larger set-pieces in the back half, but it rarely comes close to thrilling, instead pulling you along with its incredible atmosphere, smart writing, and likable characters.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s gorgeous. Characters are animated with exaggerated personality, slumped shoulders, waving arms, ragdoll physics when they fall that add an unsettling air to moments of crisis. But the backdrops are often beautiful, and the environmental detail and juxtaposition of muted colours with the sharp, digital aesthetic of the otherworld are always effective. The map seems much larger than it actually is, and travelling anywhere never feels laborious, even if Riley has a tendency to force you to walk sometimes.

Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals is a special game, one that feels almost old school at times despite the modern spin on dialogue and storytelling. It’s a small-scale adventure with far-reaching consequences, starring characters that are never sure whether they’re saving the whole world or just their own skins – or if they’re imagining it altogether. You don’t necessarily need to have played Oxenfree to enjoy Lost Signals (though I’d advise you to anyway because it’s a great game), but knowledge of the characters and events would help you understand some of the intricacies of the plot and the backstory of Camena and Edwards Island.

It’s not often a game of such comparatively small stature keeps its claws in after the credits roll, but Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals will likely stay with me for much longer than just another playthrough. Partly, this is down to the mysteries and secrets, some of which you just won’t see in one run because of the weight of choices you make. It’s occasionally scary, often funny, consistently creepy, and manages to be moving, usually when you’re not expecting it to be. But it’s also good-looking, fantastically well acted, and very clever. It’s quite light on puzzles and things to do beyond running, climbing and talking, but I devoured it in two sittings and couldn’t wait to play it again to make different choices, and find all the things I might have missed along the way.

The post Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

What happens next is the start of a strange, supernatural journey for our heroine. Regardless of which option you choose, an ethereal force won’t let Angie walk away, nor will it allow her to die. Even when you succumb and kick the chair away, the beam above cannot take the weight, and she lives to see another day. At this point, the decision is made to accept the offer of employment, with a view to earning enough to vicariously fulfil the dying wish of her late husband, and see the beautiful cherry blossoms of Japan.

The new gig is, on the surface, as a live-in carer to an old boy ensconced in the Devon countryside. This idyllic scenario takes a distinct left turn when Angie discovers a portal to another dimension behind a creepy door in the basement of the farmhouse. It transports her to the purgatory-like alternate reality known as Burnhouse Lane, where she is challenged by a mysterious feline to endure a veritable gauntlet of five horrific tasks, which if completed, will grant a cure to her lung cancer. As gaming scenarios go, this is a doozy.

Gameplay is a combination of side scrolling platforming and exploration set between Burnhouse Lane and the farmyard. There are puzzles, items such as keys to be found, and branching dialogue paths that affect the direction of the story. There are even combat sections that are evocative of other survival horror titles from days past – if you are a fan of the creepy and macabre stuff like this, then you will recognise these when they occur.

There is no dressing up the fact that there are some very disturbing sequences and adult themes at play, which I will not spoil here. There is a very good reason that you get a content warning when you boot this one up, something that Switch gamers may not be used to. Pikmin, this ain’t. It touches on things that some of you may find abhorrent or disgusting and unable to deal with.

As the plot thickens, things do also become a bit hammy and suspension of disbelief becomes impossible, particularly if like me you are English and know what actually goes on in the Devon countryside. Harvester would have you believe that it is a lawless land packed with firearms and crazed serial killers. It also becomes apparent that a lot of the game is actually taking place in the “real” world, as opposed to the vastly more interesting, monster-infested Burnhouse Lane.

This macabre, arcane horror is helped along nicely by the extremely effective soundtrack, which has a splendid post-rock feel, and is deployed with a light touch. Voice acting is a mixed bag, but there is some sterling work on display for Angie and kindly farmer George. The visual style is also a treat, employing a clash of styles which blends quirky hand drawn characters with backgrounds and environments that almost appear photoshopped.

The gameplay is not the most dynamic exploratory platforming you will ever experience, but it is soaked in atmosphere and intrigue, as well as being memorably disturbing to the point where I found myself thinking about it during a recent restless night. If like me you are like a moth to a flame for this kind of oddball folksy horror, then I would advise you to take a look – just be warned, it isn’t for the faint-hearted.

The post Burnhouse Lane review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Our protagonist Kisa has always loved acting. As a child her older brother would come up with plays for her and her best friend to act in, and ever since she’s had the theatre bug. Cut to present day and with her brother off chasing his dreams it’s up to Kisa to look after the rest of the family. At least until she’s approached by the principal of the Univeil Drama School and given a unique opportunity.

You see Univeil doesn’t allow girls to study at the academy, and the principal thinks this is unfair. The school bigwigs won’t be convinced to change, and without any other options the principal has decided that sneaking you in and proving you’re just as good as the guys is the only way to prove his point. Yes, Jack Jeanne is basically Mulan at drama school, and it’s just as amazing as it sounds.

The way Univeil works without girls to perform the female roles is all a bit Shakespearean. Students at the school are assigned as Jacks (actors playing male characters) and Jeannes (actors playing female characters) for each performance, and because of this about half of the students live day to day life as girls. This is ideal for Kisa because everyone just assumes she’s another Jeanne, but that doesn’t mean her time studying at Univeil will be easy.

Once it has been decided which of the school’s four houses Kisa will join, the intense semester of drama begins. You only have a set number of days until the first performance of the year, and with Kisa landing a big role there are lines to learn, songs to sing and a whole lot of rehearsals needed. While you’re reading about all the trials and tribulations of daily school life you’ll also need to decide how best to grow Kisa’s talent, by choosing one of six stats to focus on. Do you want to improve at singing and dancing to make the rhythm sections easier and impress the lads, or would you rather focus on charm so that you understand how to play different roles better? Every weekday you’ll choose a stat to improve, and at the weekend you can make a bit of time for your friends.

Because Jack Jeanne is an Otome game at heart, there are six hunky boys that you can get to know in your downtime. Whether you’re into eccentric writers, graceful dancers or athletic leading men, there’s someone to pursue for everyone. The individual stories of each of these characters are all really interesting, and getting to know them better will only make you love them more. To trigger the main relationship scenes you’ll need to raise the acting stat they care about and hang out with them enough in your downtime, but all that effort is definitely worth it.

As much as I loved hanging out with all the boys, the best parts of Jack Jeanne for me were the rhythm game sections. Any time a song or dance number needs to be rehearsed or performed you’ll trigger one of these, and they’re an absolute blast. For the songs you control a cursor that goes along a track, and using the shoulder buttons you have to switch lanes in time with the music. The dances function more like a traditional Guitar Hero style rhythm game, in which you need to press one of four buttons when a note reaches you. Both are the perfect way to break up the reading though, and the music accompanying them is sensational.

I was initially a little disappointed by the music in these sections though, because how they function in rehearsal is totally different to when they appear during a performance. Your practice runs feature no vocals and a plain background, but when the curtain comes up the performances have singing, dancing and are frankly the highlight of the whole damn game. Seeing how the show comes together as a whole after months of hard work is incredibly satisfying, and although you know the jist of the story from rehearsal seeing the end result is just delightful.

Jack Jeanne is one of the best visual novels I’ve played in a very long time, but it does have a few minor issues. Later in the game it takes ages to level up your stats, and it just doesn’t feel great to spend a week leveling up a single point. There also just aren’t enough rhythm game sections, and I actually ended up replaying some in the menu to break up the reading.

Jack Jeanne is an incredible visual novel with a really unique setting. The rhythm sections are a great way to break up the story, and getting to know all the other students at Univeil is a joy. It’s been a long time since I got this invested in a video game story, and if you have even a passing interest in visual novels or Otome games then you owe it to yourself to play it.

The post Jack Jeanne review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

My main takeaway from playing this one is that it actually does a surprisingly good job of simulating the technical aspects of running and working on a crab-fishing vessel. In keeping on-brand to the Discovery channel, Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe offers up some narration, which led me to wonder whether one day we will also see a Worm Dung Farmer sim, or Alligator Egg Collector: The Game.

There is an impressive, if somewhat banal, amount of depth to process, with multiple considerations to be made such as forming your crew (naturally, you do this by visiting a pub), buying the necessary supplies needed to entice the delicious pincered beasts, and then the art of actually netting the blighters. My knowledge of catching deep sea crustaceans is patchy at best, but it turns out that the best way to do this is submerge a crab pot, essentially a giant 750lb cage that crabs can enter but not exit, and play a waiting game as they become trapped. This means a degree of in-game waiting, too, before you get to the next step of processing and grading the crabs.

Now, the world of high-risk crab fishing has a pretty hardline set of rules and regulations. Equipment must be of a certain standard and tagged by the powers that be to prevent illegal and over-fishing. And it is also illegal, for obvious reasons relating to conservation, to flog crabs of the lady variety. What this means for Deadliest Catch: The Game players is that until you earn enough in-game clout to get some other AI mug to do it, you will have the ball-aching pleasure of spending long periods of time examining and sexing eight-legged sea critters.

Once you have sorted your crabs, you return to shore, cash in, and then upgrade your ship and crew to repeat the gameplay loop afresh, and hopefully catch even more crabs the next time around. It soon becomes very dull, very quickly, but is also annoyingly finnicky. There are a number of steps needed to be adhered to when lowering or cracking open a pot, with a whole bunch of different levers, pulleys and buttons to worry about. Accidentally dropping a whole cage full of hard-earned crabs is a real possibility if you lose concentration on the task at hand.

The presentation is as choppy as the seas upon which you carry out your arduous task. The graphics are merely functional, with some strange pop-up and clipping, weird character models and animations and unimpressive environmental effects. Considering the gravity and drama of the television show, which portrays one of the most dangerous professions imaginable, the dull music and lack of atmosphere or sense of peril is distinctly lacking.

Deadliest Catch: The Game had the almost admirable ability to make me not want to either take up crab fishing in real life, nor to find out what the eventual endgame of its videogame counterpart was. Unless you really must get heavily involved in looking at a shitload of crustacean genitalia, then my advice would be to have a look at the dramatic and compelling television show, which will make you think twice next time you hear rappers like Rick Ross boasting about chowing down on expensive crab meats, and be more inclined to hit up your local estuary and try to bacon-bait some little UK crabs into a bucket.

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As you can imagine, this has driven the cost of a PAL version into the realms of the ludicrous. More people should have had the chance to play this one back in the day, but timing is everything: Super Mario World had set the gold standard for the genre, and over the next 18 months HAL Laboratory spawned Kirby into the public consciousness. Thank goodness, then, that Bitwave have done the right thing and ported this charming platformer to modern consoles.

The most striking thing about Gimmick! Special Edition is how good it looks and sounds. The team producing it knew that they were having to compete with the superior graphical capabilities of the newer 16-bit machines, and managed to employ some clever tileset trickery to squeeze every drop of juice out of the ageing console. The art style is an evocative blend of cutesy influences from the era. There are shades of Jaleco’s magical Rod-Land, Taito’s Bub & Bob saga, and even first party Nintendo fare, but somehow it retains its own identity. The soundtrack is an eclectic blend of freewheeling jazz, pop and rock, with Sunsoft’s in-house composer Mashashi Kageyama taking a leaf out of literally nearly every 1980s footballer interviewed by Shoot! magazine in citing jazz-funk legend George Benson as an influence.

You take the role of super cute Yumetaro, a plushy whose child owner has been abducted to an alternate realm by the disgruntled remainder of her toy collection, seemingly borne of their jealousy towards how enamoured the kid is with the little green fella. To rescue his owner, Yumetaro has to adventure through over a half-dozen teak-tough platforming stages, employing use of the magical stars he carries above his head to take out enemies, but also to use as rideable platforms which can be used to reach hitherto unreachable areas.

You can ping the stars off the scenery and employ timing to hop on top of them, a bit like leaping on your own bubbles or rainbows in the aforementioned Taito classics, albeit with trickier physics and timing at play. There are other collectable projectile attacks to be had in the form of potions, and each of the six stages has a super-secret hidden treasure to find, as well as a boss character to defeat. Completing the game by simply acing the six levels and bosses will see your quest to rescue Yumetaro’s owner grind to a Ghouls ‘N Ghosts-esque halt, as you are sent back to the beginning. In order to get the true ending there are conditions to be met, which add a ball-achingly tough extra layer of longevity to what is already a tricky experience.

This is the ultimate remaster of the 1992 lost classic, and as such comes with a variety of extras, including some in-game achievements and art galleries. Best of all is a rewind function which really takes the sting out of some of the hairier platforming moments.

Unlike Cyber Citizen Shockman, which also allowed you to wind back proceedings, the actual physics, collision detection and platform positioning of Gimmick! Special Edition are on-point and, despite the high level of challenge, it never feels unfair and is very satisfying when you manage to ride a magic star all the way to some lovely treasure. It was a tad unfairly maligned at the time of release and stands up very well to some of the other NES and PCE titles of the time. This deserved a wider audience back in the day and is well worth your time if you are a fan of old-school platform hopping fun.

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Not only does the HORI Split Pad Pro connect to your Switch like standard Joy-Cons, but it also has an attachment peripheral which you can connect both controllers to and play as an ergonomically sound wired controller. This bumps up the price from the standard unit available but if you are looking to buy this thing, for the sake of about £20, it is absolutely worth it, and still considerably cheaper than buying a couple of Joy-Cons.

The larger size of the HORI Split Pad Pro makes playing nearly every genre of game a more palatable experience. As much as I adore it, I won’t lie in saying I had been finding Metroid Prime a real chore in handheld mode. No more! The triggers and bumpers are far more comfortable and satisfying to use. There is more room to manoeuvre around the triggers and shoulder buttons which makes playing FPS titles so much better. The sticks feel more like what you would expect from a Pro controller or even a PS5/Xbox Series device.

The face buttons are smooth and rounded meaning you don’t have to endure the somewhat sharp edges you are used to. There are three levels of turbo options, and some assignable pads on the rear of the controller, with their own assign button that you have to hold down to map. You can do this for nearly every button on the Split Pad Pro, with the obvious exceptions like turbo and the Home button.

Turbo is something of an anomaly these days, unlike my burgeoning formative gaming years where owning a SNES pad with a turbo function gave playground bragging rights. It is questionable how often it is needed with a lot of modern titles, however I did find that it was quite handy playing some old school shooters and run and gun titles from the Nintendo Switch Online service.

There is no getting around the fact that this is a controller designed for solo use. You cannot use the two side attachments unless they are slotted onto your Switch. There is no wireless option here in that respect, but that’s where the Split Pad Compact comes in. Offering a smaller form factor, there’s an argument to be made this is even the best option of the two. Sitting more flush to the Switch due to the size difference, the HORI Split Pad Compact looks more like an official product in many ways, and loses very little in the way of functionality due to the size decrease.

For example, you’re still getting a better pair of analogue sticks and a nice, full D-Pad that will make fighters easier to play, but you’re still getting a larger amount of real estate and fuller, chunkier buttons to press on the right side of the Split Pad Compact. The turbo functionality remains, too, so of the two options, it’s really more about how you play that should help you decide which is better for you.

There is no rumble or NFC on either model, but that’s a Nintendo-thing, not a HORI thing.. Obviously (and for the same reason) you won’t be able to use either for games requiring motion controls, either. Portability may be an issue for some with the HORI Split Pad Pro – you cannot fit this into a standard carry case – so carrying it around with you along with the attachment unit and wire is a cumbersome thought, so again, maybe the Compact might be the better pick for you, if you do a lot of travelling.

Either way, both accessories look great, and enhance just about every non-motion-related title you can think of. As soon as I felt the pleasing click as the two sides of this slotted onto my Switch, I knew it was gonna be hard to return to the dinky Joy Cons for some time. It brings portable Switch gaming controls in line with what you would expect from a premium controller, and as such is highly recommended.

The post HORI Split Pad Pro & Compact review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

If you haven’t played a Pikmin game before, the story follows Captain Olimar, an adorable astronaut who crash lands on an unknown planet and discovers the Pikmin. These goofy little guys grow underground, and once plucked will follow their new master and perform tasks for them like breaking down walls or carrying heavy items. The only way Olimar can make it home is by using the Pikmin to help recover parts of his ship, and with a limited supply of oxygen time is of the essence.

You have thirty days to make it home safely, and each of these lasts around fifteen minutes of real time. To make the most of this limited time you’ll need to get yourself a whole load of Pikmin, which involves commanding them to gather coloured tokens that grow on stems and take them back to their home – a weird UFO called an onion. This then poops out some seeds which grow into Pikmin, and before you know it you’ll have an army ready to explore the world for ship parts.

You won’t get far with just the starting red Pikmin though, and will need to find the yellow and blue species if you want to make it past certain obstacles. Each Pikmin type has its own set of skills to take advantage of, so having a selection of all three with you is usually a good idea. The red Pikmin are the toughest fighters and can’t be hurt by fire, yellow Pikmin can be thrown higher and are able to carry little explosive rocks, and blue Pikmin are the only ones that can swim. Some trickier ship parts will be hidden behind rock walls, over streams and with flame breathing enemies guarding them, and it’s your job to use the appropriate Pikmin to bring these electronics home safely.

Combat in Pikmin is pretty straightforward, and mainly involves Olimar rapidly throwing the little fellas at an enemy until it collapses and you can carry it back to an Onion. Sometimes the aiming can be a little tricky with your little cursor, other times you’ll need to quickly call your Pikmin back to avoid them being chomped. There’s not a lot more satisfying than watching a big ole Bulborb with dozens of Pikmin clinging to it collapse, but there’s always a decent chance you’ll end up with a few Pikmin eaten and you’ll have to watch their sad ghosts drift away.

Pikmin 2 progresses the series perfectly, featuring Olimar’s brother Louie and a whole host of improvements to the formula. No longer stranded in a dangerous environment, this time around our protagonist’s peril is financial. Turns out that being an intergalactic explorer doesn’t come cheap, and Olimar has worked up quite a bill. Realising that there’s plenty of junk that’d sell for a fortune on the planet of the Pikmin, they set off to raise some money and clear their debts.

Pikmin 2 has some new features that spice things up a little, and the most important of these is Louie. At any time you can switch between Louie and Olimar, and because of this it’s easier than ever to efficiently explore multiple areas at once. There are also new types of Pikmin to utilise, Purple and White Pikmin. The purple Pikmin are chonky fellas, who can carry more and use their weight to solve puzzles. White Pikmin are immune to poison, and actually hurt enemies that eat them. The added variety of carrot minions makes the second adventure much more interesting, and there’s less pressure this time around without the thirty day oxygen time limit.

Regardless of which Pikmin game you’re playing, you’ll be hit with an overdose of that Nintendo charm. From the colourful visuals to the delightful music, Pikmin 1+2 just ooze pure joy. There are so many little touches that add to the magic of this series, from the trumpet fanfare that plays when you guide your Pikmin in a certain direction to the little noises they make when thrown through the air. There wasn’t a single moment playing these games where I didn’t have a massive grin on my face.

The HD upgrade to these games certainly improves the visuals, but don’t expect it to hold up against Pikmin 3 or 4. The colourful cartoony graphics hold up much better than a lot of games from the GameCube era, but there are plenty of muddy textures throughout too. The framerate is also locked at 30fps, which is totally fine for the game in question but some will obviously be disappointed with this. With a price tag of £39.99 for the two games, it’s hard not to be a bit disappointed with the amount of work that’s gone into this collection.

Pikmin 1+2 is a joyous bundle of two fantastic games, but the price tag and lack of technical improvements might put some off. The Nintendo brand of RTS style gameplay still holds up perfectly in 2023 though, and the charm of the games is undeniable. If you need something to keep you busy until Pikmin 4 arrives, then these two updated GameCube games are the perfect cure for Pikmin fever.

The post Pikmin 1+2 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Playing as Yuma, you are an amnesiac would-be detective in the World Detective Organisation (or WDO). You’ve made a pact with a Death God called Shinigami, who appears as a Luigi’s Mansion-like purple ghost in the real world. You can’t remember anything before your deal, but Shinigami has given you the power of coalescence, meaning in a world where the WDO members have unique individual abilities, you can share them. Oh and you can also enter a Mystery Labyrinth dungeon which helps you solve each case, whereby Shinigami turns into a female who constantly makes sexual references, and even refers to her own jiggle physics. Yeah, this is that kind of game.

Rain Code plays out across multiple segments during each chapter. First of all there will be some exposition and time spent with your fellow WDO agents, then you’ll end up embroiled in an investigation to solve a mystery. This takes place in an open world of sorts, in a place called Kanai Ward. Here there is no traditional enforcement, and instead the megacorporation runs rule with an iron fist. There are slums, posh areas, and it’s all as you’d expect. The Amaterasu corporation opposes the WDO and is trying everything to stop the mystery of Kanai Ward being solved, one case at a time.

Exploring the case will eventually lead to you entering the Mystery Labyrinth, and it’s here the game turns into more of an adventure. There are mini-games galore, including the often fun Reasoning Deathmatch. During this event, the person trying to hide the truth will fire accusations and rebuttals back at you, and you have to find the right solution key (gained through your prior investigation sections) to fire back at them. They will shoot red herrings at you, and it’s your job to get the right key for the right enquiry, over multiple stages, eventually forcing an enquiry.

During the dungeon you have a stamina bar that can be depleted if you get things wrong, though it’s worth noting it’s easily upgradable and you won’t get enough wrong to really trouble yourself until the later stages. The RPG elements come into play as everything you investigate count towards your overall level, with each acquired one giving you a point to put into a skill tree that can upgrade your stamina, or alter the mini-games.

The trouble is, some of the upgrades seem like they do the opposite of what you’d want. There’s a mini-game where you have to shoot swords into letters on a barrel to solve a missing word and unveil a bikini-clad Shinigami, and you can slow the turning barrel down, which makes it harder to solve quickly. You can remove some of the red herrings from the Deathmatch scenes, but there are still enough that you don’t always know exactly what question it is the game wants you to solve.

And therein lies one of the major issues at the heart of Rain Code: logic. You are at the behest of the minds behind the title, in that you might come up with the solution, or guess the culprit early on, but it won’t be for another five hours that you are allowed to solve it, and only in the way the developer intended. The narrative might go to great pains to explain (as it does during an early chapter) that a vent is only big enough to get a finger in, then later on explain a case by saying a nail was hammered on through that very vent. It’s fine to suspend your disbelief for an otherworldly adventure like this, but it’s important that the person weaving the narrative follows the logic that they themselves put down.

But that isn’t the biggest issue the game has. The pacing is some of the worst I’ve ever seen in a modern title. After spending 3-5 hours adventuring, exploring, deducing, and going through the labyrinth, you have to complete a “Deduction Denouement”. Here, you’re presented with a book that has gaps in it, and it’s the final mini-game in each chapter. You’ve already solved the case (as that’s what the entire labyrinth is for), but now you have to piece it together again, to complete proceedings.

As if that weren’t enough of a waste of your time, after doing so Rain Code will show you a lengthy cut-scene that wraps up the entire chapter again, which actually feels insulting. Having solved the case not once, but twice (and assuming you didn’t guess the culprit earlier) you have to sit through a scene showing you what you just deduced, again. I kid you not, after spending nearly five hours in a chapter, the scene I got was seven minutes long. It wasn’t alright in Danganronpa V3, and it isn’t alright here, and I just can’t help but feel like a heavy edit would have made this all a better game.

There is merit in Rain Code, however. It’s unique and interesting, offering a dark world to explore and some strange humour that, while on the nose, does tickle the funny bones. Almost everyone has a name like it’s from The Mighty Boosh; we’re talking Viva Twilight, Pucci Lavmin, Zilch Alexander, Halara Nightmare, and more. It’s really well voiced throughout, as well, and Kanai Ward is one of the stars of the show. The neon lit location is always raining, and it has a beauty to it that really does stand out. The camera is pulled in close to Yuma, creating a claustrophobic city that feels alive.

Neither a visual novel nor a full-on dungeon crawling role playing game, Master Detective Archives: Rain Code struggles to find a rhythm, with some of the worst pacing issues I’ve seen in a game. Requiring you to sit for sessions upwards of four to five hours is asking too much, but not doing so means you are going to forget key minutia of a case you’re investigating, and it all adds up to feel like it doesn’t respect your time in any way.

Were this a visual novel, I’d have no issue recommending it, but the expansion into dungeons, investigations, and more, hurts the game due to how long everything takes. It may feel like I’m labouring the point, but I cannot stress how much time every single part of the gamer takes to get through. While it has a vast amount of ideas that work individually, Rain Code rather feels like a missed opportunity that doesn’t quite come together right.

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I mean no hyperbole when I say that these two games are among the best of Ms. Croft’s adventures, top-down action-adventure games full of puzzles, platforming, and lots of violence from the short-short-clad tomb raider herself. As a huge plus, the Collection comes to Nintendo Switch with not only the two games but also 7 DLC packs across both titles – including the Deus Ex themed skin pack for the second game.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light hit before the 2012 reboot, at a time when it was still unsure where the character and franchise would go. Switching from the third-person camera of old to a new isometric viewpoint, it sees Lara searching for the fabled Mirror of Smoke. Sadly, it contains an ancient demon called Xolotl, who gets released and promptly goes on a rampage, leading to Lara teaming up with the guardian of the mirror, Totec, to stop it.

When played in two-player co-op mode (which is still available on Switch), Totec and Lara can work together directly. He’s a big dude with a spear and shield, which can be utilised for leg-ups and to make climbing points in the environment. When solo, he instead gives his magical spear to Lara, inadvertently creating one of the most satisfying one-shot weapons ever.

From there you’re pretty much doing the usual Tomb Raider things. Solving puzzles to unlock contraption ostensibly made by ancient civilisations but which would stump even the most forward-thinking modern physicist, destroying craftsmanship that has literally survived for hundreds of years until Lara came along, and, of course, annihilating the local fauna like she has a grudge against them.

The action is smooth and exciting though, with Lara able to cycle through several weapons including her signature dual pistols and an assault rifle. There are also bombs you can drop and detonate to damage enemies or help clear the way. You’ll find idols and artefacts scattered around that Lara can equip for permanent buffs (which sometimes have a light debuff attached, too). The isometric viewpoint and fixed camera can be a bit of a pain when you’re behind a high ledge or you’re trying to jump from pillar to pillar, but generally speaking it’s an incredibly competent action game with cool combat, and some interesting if rarely taxing puzzles.

One issue that plagues both games in the Lara Croft Collection is, unfortunately, unavoidable when played in handheld form: the camera is pulled back so far that Lara and the enemies are tiny on screen. On a TV or monitor it’s nowhere near as egregious, but on the Switch’s small screen – even the OLED – it may be enough to put some people off.

Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris is a slightly better-looking game, though, having been released four years after its predecessor in 2014. It’s a touch shorter though, but makes up for it by upping the multiplayer component from two to four players. In this title, Lara teams up with two Egyptian gods, Horus and Isis, to track down the pieces of Osiris (like, his actual dismembered bits, for real) before the evil god Set can find them.

Again, the emphasis here is on exploration, puzzle-solving, and wildlife-bothering, only with a few added features. The spear is replaced with a magical staff, which can be used to direct light beams into mirrors in many of the puzzles. There’s also more gear in this game, and Lara can equip rings, amulets, and even vests with various stat-boosting features attached.

Puzzles change depending on how many players you have (similar to how Totec will lend you his shield in the first game), which is a great way to encourage multiplayer sessions and keep you on your toes each time. Although the runtime is shorter, it feels like there’s more in Temple of Osiris, perhaps because a lot of the optional challenge rooms feel a little more elaborate.

Fans of Lara will get a lot of joy from the Lara Croft Collection, but even newcomers just looking for an interesting adventure game will find a lot to like. Neither game is particularly deep or long, but the addition of the DLC packs helps to pad it out a little, and you can always go for 100% completion if you relish a longer challenge. If you’ve never played these games before, I can’t recommend them enough. They may feel and look their age now – especially on the Switch – but the gameplay and puzzles are still top notch.

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When it gets down to brass tacks, action inside the ring is relatively simple and addictive. Despite it being clunky at times, that feel of No Mercy and WrestleMania 2000 from the N64 days has been faithfully recreated, and more often than not, the gameplay is straightforward. The fundamentals are easy to master. You can punch and kick to deliver short combos, and lock in a grapple to perform a handful of moves. You can Irish whip an opponent into the corner or the ropes, and perform a few simple aerial moves off the top rope.

The move sets aren’t too varied, but it’s the ease of performing that makes it engaging. Some of the basic moves like picking up an opponent off the mat or turning them round for a grapple from behind aren’t detailed anywhere, so I had to work them out for myself. It’s a little frustrating, especially as some of the best signature moves are performed from behind. However, once you work it out, matches can flow reasonably well, and when you incorporate diving moves like the Tope Con Hilo et al, action is frantic. One of the coolest aspects of AEW: Fight Forever is how you can keep performing signature moves without losing the ability to do so.

For example, in one of my first matches, I played as Kenny Omega and hit a Dragon Screw Suplex, followed by a V-Trigger, then another couple of Dragon Screws. In a game that doesn’t take the realism too seriously, it adds one of the most realistic aspects of professional wrestling to it. Many matches will see a signature move performed a couple of times in succession, and it’s good they’ve incorporated it here. To perform a Special, or finishing move, you simply have to taunt the opponent with the right stick, then get in the correct position and flick the right stick again.

With most of the signatures and specials, you’ll get a quick replay that adds to the arcade feel, and it’s wonderful to watch. My biggest gripe, though, is that matches can be won in under a minute. Now I know this does happen, but AEW is known for its epic matches, and these quick finishes diminish the grandeur of getting Bryan Danielson to step up against the likes of CM Punk or Jon Moxley. It’s not the worst thing imaginable, but I often refused to pin an opponent because I wanted the matches to keep on going. The way you get to the point of pulling off a fancy move is by building momentum, and this can be done by executing different moves or gaining buffs for specific actions during a match.

It has a nice flow to it, and in 1v1, AEW: Fight Forever is excellent. Tag matches are also a lot of fun, as are the triple threat and 4-way matches, however, the real stars of the show are the Lights Out and Exploding Barbed Wire Matches. These are the moments where it doesn’t take itself seriously. Lights Out offers players a ton of different weapons to use against an enemy, such as a mop wrapped in barbed wire, a football helmet that can be thrown on an opponent, a baseball bat with nails attaches to it, golf clubs, and the more traditional weapons like steel chairs and tables. You can reach over the barriers and pick up a weapon quickly, making these matches even more enjoyable.

As for the Exploding Barbed Wire Match, after a certain time, the barbed wire that’s replaced the ring ropes will explode, greatly damaging anyone close enough. The Casino Battle Royale is also in AEW: Fight Forever, as are ladder matches, giving fans plenty of match types. It would have been cool to see trios matches included, along with the Iron Man match, Blood and Guts, and a few others, but in many ways, it feels like the game isn’t the complete package.

AEW: Fight Forever has a limited roster. Some professional wrestlers are being added, but there’re some notable omissions like The Acclaimed and Swerve Strickland, and future DLC additions like FTR, Keith Lee, and Hook should simply be a part of the original roster. I’m hoping that other professional wrestlers will be added later down the line because it does feel like it’s missing some key members of the roster. In other ways, AEW: Fight Forever feels massively out-of-date, and that they got to a point where they had to stop updating or else it would never be released, however, Ortiz and Santana are nowhere to be seen.

The Road to the Elite mode acts as a career of sorts, and Omega’s influence is felt right through it. He’s a massive fan of the Yakuza series and developers Ryu Ga Gotoku, and a lot of interactions have a similar humour and presentation. It’s silly at times, but I loved it, probably because I adore Yakuza as well. The mini games are also a ton of fun and again, feel like they’re a respectful nod to RGG as well. It only lasts for a year, but each block is made up of four weeks where you can go for a meal at a local restaurant or sightsee at specific places depending where Dynamite is being held; do some training at the gym; appear on a talk show; and even compete on Dark and Rampage, followed by competing at one of the four major PPVs.

Each week, completing these tasks help to improve your motivation, energy, skill points, and cash. The higher your energy and motivation, the better shape you’re in for your weekly match on Dynamite. The more skill points you have helps to upgrade your created wrestler’s (although you can play though the career as an AEW wrestler), and cash can be spent on unlocking weekly perks, however, I never felt like I needed them as the time I had across the week gave me enough opportunity to maximise things like how motivated or recovered I was. When it comes to the weekly match, stories from AEW’s early years feature, such as Inner Circle and MJF’s rivalry.

It is in these moments that it feels out of date the most. I get it’s celebrating its beginnings, but showing video packages of Taz introduce the FTW belt feels like a lifetime ago. Maybe I’m being too picky, as the actual flow of Road to the Elite is nice and quick, arcadey, and funny. Watching Hangman and me pose in front of the Lincoln Memorial, or getting a boop from Kris Statlander while eating my New York Hot dog shows how it doesn’t take itself seriously, as well as paying homage to RGG Studio. There’re also a ton of Easter eggs and in-jokes, including a few references to WWE thrown in for good measure.

The custom suite isn’t packed full of options, but there’re some decent enough options in the custom arenas. The custom wrestlers are limited, though. I couldn’t find a decent beard at all, and I hope these get added to the in-game store. By the end of my year in the career mode, I had so much cash I didn’t know what to do with it, so fingers crossed more stuff gets added. While it doesn’t feel unfinished, it does feel outdated at times, but thankfully it’s so much fun to play.

The gameplay in AEW: Fight Forever isn’t going to blow fans away, but it does remind me of the times spent on my N64 pulling off quick and simple moves that look awesome. Some of the wrestlers don’t look like who they’re supposed to be, but the characters are more cartoony than lifelike, and I’m fine with that. This isn’t a polished 2K WWE-style game. Fans might not like that, but I honestly enjoyed getting involved in matches. It’s quick and easy to jump in, and I hope more gets added to it over the coming months. It would be a shame if, after a few DLC drops, that’s all we get.

While AEW: Fight Forever does feel a little empty and outdated, jumping into a match as Chris Jericho, Orange Cassidy, and Britt Baker is so damn cool. I love this company with all my heart, and while I might have been down on it at certain points, I’m in no way disappointed. I just pray to TK and Yuke’s that there’s more to come from it down the line. Still, the developers have reminded us why they were so good at making wrestling games fun, just like what All Elite Wrestling has done for the sport as a whole.

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Our protagonist Hiyori Sena is your everyday 22nd century high schooler, living her best life in the Japan of the future. Alongside her childhood friend Tomose Banjo, she spends her days studying, worrying about grades, and chatting away about all the latest rumours. One of these rumours is based around “The Other World Stream”, a mysterious video in which the people who take part are granted anything their heart desires. Sena and Banjo get to find out about this first hand, when they blackout and find themselves in a strange world.

This world is controlled by The Director, and at first it seems great. You, Banjo, and seven other boys have all been transported to this shady location, and for the first couple of days are just told to hang out in a lovely house. Not only that, but anything in the world you all desire can be provided just by asking. Some things are just too good to be true though, and after this initial period the real fun begins.

The reason all these characters have been gathered together in this paradise is so they’ll act on the Other World Stream. At any time the futuristic bangles on their arms might activate, and when they do they’ll be mysteriously transported onto a set and given a script to follow. You might think this doesn’t sound too bad, but eventually what’s expected of the cast in the script becomes more and more sinister. Anyone who refuses to act out a scene will be forced to play The Punishment Game (which is horrendous as it sounds) and the only way for them to escape back to their normal life is to earn enough points by performing well or by discovering who The Producer is.

While the gloriously camp Director is the one who tells the cast what they need to do in this other world, The Producer is the one pulling the strings behind the scenes – and it’s one of you. Yes there’s a traitor among the characters you’re getting to know and love, which means Sena can’t trust anyone. There’s deception, death, and even unexpected romance packed into the story of Charade Maniacs, and I loved my time with the boys acting my little heart out.

As you’d probably expect from an Otome game, there’s a nice variety of hunky lads that you’ll be spending your time with here. Whether you’re into bad boy chefs, board game buffs, or hoping for a childhood friend to turn into something more, Charade Maniacs has you covered. The only issue with the setup of the game though is that because so much of the focus of the story is the fact you’re stuck in a horrific situation, you don’t really get to spend a whole lot of time one on one with your potential partners until very late in the game – and at that point it feels a bit rushed.

I was also a little disappointed by the lack of choice in the majority of Charade Maniacs. There are hour-long portions of the game that play out without a single narrative choice to be made, and it just makes everything feel a bit static. I’m all for a traditional visual novel that’s full of text to read and not a lot else, but without expecting me to make a few decisions along the way some of the fun is taken away.

Charade Maniacs is a great concept for a visual novel, but a lack of narrative choices prevents it from being a top notch Otome game. The setting and characters are really interesting, but you don’t really get to spend enough time with all the lovely boys to really get to know them. If you’re looking for some Otome action with a bit of an edge then you could definitely do much worse, but my personal preference would lie elsewhere.

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After finding yourself dead in the middle of a junkyard, you play as a spirit with no memory of who you were or what happened to you. It’s a simple premise at first, but one that grows into a much bigger conspiracy that has you hooked throughout. While some of the gameplay can drag due to its linear nature of solving puzzles and tons of dialogue, it was still enjoyable, and the various people you encounter along the way are full of surprises. In order to complete certain puzzles, you must possess different objects during ‘Trick Time,’ and these can range from a spinning Christmas decoration to a screwed up piece of paper.

Each area is self-contained in Ghost Trick: Phantom detective, and you can travel to a new location through the phone wires. At each area or chapter, you’re tasked with solving a certain puzzle. I’d have liked to be able to try different methods in order to do so, but it’s more a case of finding the one way to solve whatever your presented with. Thankfully, they’re varied enough, keeping things fresh as you press forward. Some are much more complex than others, and some are as simple as knocking a pair of headphones into a fish tank.

Other puzzles join together to create longer conundrums to solve. One had me trying to get a rat from the attic to fall down to help a posh, terrible mother find her dictionary that you need to possess. As she moves you over to her table, you can then take control of a desk lamp that makes her mess up her typing (she’s writing a smutty novel, obviously) and throw a piece of paper into a bin, with you having to possess the paper at the right time so you go flying across the room with it. Some objects can’t be used, acting as a pathway to a more useful one, however, there’re plenty of ways to get the attention of the living and complete these puzzles.

While most of the challenges give you as much time as you need, there are specific sections that rewind back to four minutes before a death (and there’s a lot of dying), where you have to find the solution quickly or else you’ll fail. You can of course replay these until they’re solved, yet they offer a nice bit of pressure in order to progress. As you get used to moving around the screen and switching between Ghost mode (the time when you can move around as a spirit and possess objects) and the real world, Ghost Trick: Phantom detective is at its best.

One of the biggest downsides for me was the amount of dialogue you have to read in order to actually play. This could be story-building, or it could be a conversation, a thought going through someone’s head, or even Sissel’s (that’s you!), always popping up when you’re eager to start solving the latest puzzle. While some of the writing is funny, it’s also unintentionally so, however, there’s just too much silliness, even for me. If you can get past these awkward moments then there’s plenty of enjoyment when it lets you play.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is gorgeous to look at, and every environment is packed full of detail. The character animations are smooth, and while this is a HD remaster of a Nintendo DS title, it looks great on a PS5. The music is always funky and upbeat, with a vast soundtrack for you to enjoy as you play. You can check out a fancy gallery to listen to the excellent music, as well as unlocked artwork. It’s presentation is one of its biggest plus points, and I never grew tired of the visuals or the score.

If, like me, you never got to play Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective back in 2010, then now is a great time to experience one of the most inventive point-and-click puzzlers ever made. While there’s plenty of dialogue and little freedom, the variety in how to solve puzzles and get through the story is varied enough to hold your attention, and with a killer soundtrack and beautiful visuals, it still holds up almost 13 years later.

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There’s an evil lurking within the town known as the Greed. At first, you’re not too sure what they are or where they came from, but as you progress through the episodes, you understand your own family’s involvement in their emergence and what your relevance is in the story. It’s often played out through 80s-style cartoon cutscenes between episodes and after spending coins to dig deeper into the lore. Even the story feels like a homage to classics from the time, and it really comes into its own after arriving on Main Street.

I’d never played a Kingdom game before, and its base-building elements were a nice surprise. Each episode follows a day and night cycle. In the day, you spend coins on expanding and reinforcing your base, hiring local kids to become builders or warriors ready to defend against the Greed when the night falls, and finding other ways to help your fight. You can head east or west of the base, chopping down trees to connect your base to the next area (wherever a traffic cone is present), while at the same time finding other objectives like recruiting one of your friends to help you out, or unlocking a new bike or mode of transport.

At the same time, you can upgrade your base to allow better fortifications against the enemy, and in turn unlocking a dumpster to help protect you as you push towards whatever the episode’s main objective is. As the day unfolds, you’ll earn more coins by finding chests or telephone boxes; collecting them off the kids within your camp who might have killed some nearby animals; through jobs the kids can complete like fishing or being a lifeguard; and more. The more coins you have, the stronger the base can become, and as you progress, new things can be constructed to help you out, such as turrets and laser-firing robots.

Kingdom Eighties has a nice flow to it, with the day and night cycle and the ease of dropping a few coins into something to either build or harvest, and there’re a ton of secrets to find that offer some really cool Easter eggs. My favourite involved a certain scene from Back to the Future Part II and an iconic skateboard, but there’s much more to find, and fans of pop culture from the time are going to have plenty of fun finding it all, with nods to E.T., Gremlins, and more.

When the night rolls around and the Greed begin to attack your base, it can be a tense experience, especially when you’re trying to decide whether you have time to fortify before one of the little creatures takes out a worker, or whether five archers are going to be enough to fend off the next wave. When I first started playing, I felt lost when it came to earning coins and what to do, as there was little guidance other than a floating figure who told you to go to something and pump some coins into a building or object.

You do begin to work out what you need to do, but the enemy can be relentless, and if they knock the crown off your head and take it back to where they came from, you’re screwed. Thankfully, the more coins you have and the better your defence, it starts to become rather satisfying. As the Leader, you start to unlock your friends to join you. The Champ is a jock with the ability to fend off the Greed with force; the Tinkerer is able to tweak inventions and help to fight the Greed; and the Wiz is a tech-loving nerd who helps with certain contraptions and problems you encounter.

The pixel-art is stunning, with various neon signs and homages to the 80s done so in plenty of detail, with gorgeous colour in everything you see, whether it’s at the camp you initially start at or the mall, it just looks so good. Even the animations of the various iterations of the enemy look great. The soundtrack is also a great addition to Kingdom Eighties, helping to bring the era alive and create both tense and beautiful moments throughout the story.

I love Kingdom Eighties. Not just because of the era it was set in, but because the gameplay is so addictive. The base-building elements and the exploration make every new episode exciting to play, and the different ways you must progress all pose interesting challenges. It was tricky to get to grips with at the start, and unless you’re fully prepared it can be easy to lose your crown. Regardless, I had so much fun with it, and I fell in love with the story and animation.

The post Kingdom Eighties review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

The series as a whole was not exactly groundbreaking in terms of dynamic platforming, but did stand out due to the anime-inspired characters. Whilst it’s sequel had more of a straight up Rockman/Mega Man feel, the first game in Winds platforming mini-saga is more of a scrolling hack and slash platformer, with a nice structure that allows you to choose your destination through the game using a Super Mario World-esque map.

You play the role of one of male/female due Tasuke or Kyapiko, who have been given crazy cyborg fighting upgrades by a mad scientist, so that they can take on the nefarious the rogues gallery of classic baddies. There are Gundam style robots, cybernetic monkeys (a real mainstay in games of the time, see Strider and King of the Monsters if you need further evidence) and even one dude who looks like a knock off of Darth Vader. Beating stages and rescuing citizens in distress allows you to buy stuff in shops to upgrade your character. But each boss you take down will also give your hero a permanent upgrade too – such as an improved energy bar, or boosted defence.

The stages look like you would expect from a 1989 PC Engine game – decent pixel art, some interesting, if heavily recycled enemy sprites and bosses, some of which have really lovely designs. The music is very much of its era, but suits the action perfectly. There is a two player coach co-op, and some lovely comfort options such as the now-standard scanline filter mode.

So far, so good….except for the fact that, sadly, the game just isn’t a very good one. The problems surface immediately and tell you that you are in for a bad time. The physics are all to-cock, with the inertia of movement an absolute pain. Acceleration is slow but once you do build any momentum it is hard to slow down. Dinky little platforms and this kind of setup are a terrible mix, and negotiating even the most simple level can be a traumatic lesson in pain. Throw into the mix some of the most outrageous collision detection I have experienced for many moons, and you have a game that is hard to recommend to anyone but the most hardcore PC Engine fans out there.

But then, thinking about it, this kind of title and its annoying unpolished controls were ten a penny back in 1989, and I would have probably still played it to death just out of sheer determination and spite. I can remember other platformers around then having similar issues, with the NES Turtles game being a prime suspect; and I must have spent weeks on that excruciating mess.

So what I am saying is, this is a great little piece of history, a gaming museum piece, and a labour of love that deserves a bit of respect, even if it is a pain in the arse at times. For the meagre asking price, you get some nice artwork and renderings of the original packaging and manual, the aforementioned filter and screen curvature options, and even have the ability to rewind gameplay which, admittedly, does take the sting out of some of the more precarious, anxiety inducing leaps of faith. But all told, if it’s better gameplay you want, then track down the far superior sequels.

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It’s a side-scrolling action-adventure game with more than a gentle dusting of Prince of Persia that won’t eat up much more than three or four hours of your week. What threatens early on to open up into a sprawling Metroidvania keeps things refreshingly tight, presenting a solid action game with a cool core mechanic and a handful of new ideas.

If there’s anything that feels undercooked though, it’s the narrative. Nocturnal tells the tale of Ardeshir, a soldier who has returned home to find the island he grew up on ravaged by a terrifying entity known as the Mist. With his family slain and his sister missing, Ardeshir must brave the horrors of the dark with only a huge flaming sword and infinite restarts to help him.

I joke, obviously, but the truth is if you want to learning anything about the world or the Mist or the Sacred Flame Ardeshir uses to imbue his sword, you’ll need to explore every nook and cranny. What story there is is told in tiny scraps of text split across twelve collectibles, which you’ll need to find and arrange. It’s more than a little annoying, especially as the mysterious old woman who keeps turning up would be an ideal exposition tool instead.

The fact that the devs even refer to it as a “love letter to the original Prince of Persia” should tell you everything you need to know here, though. Nocturnal is beautiful, fluid, and a joy to play, even if it does occasionally throw just a little too much at you.

As Ardeshir you must ignite your blade to carve a path through the darkness and defeat the tortured souls claimed by the Mist. The flame has a short timer which you can extend by spending Ash on a small upgrade tree. Once the light goes out, you’ll begin to take tick-damage until you expire or you cab reach another torch. Most are unlit, and the focus is on spreading the flame from point to point to create pools of luminescence that weaken your enemies.

The various contraptions such as lifts and doors are also powered by fire, necessitating speedy platforming between points. The jumping and dashing is precise, but when you start mixing it with sword swipes to light torches and activate ledges, it can become a little difficult to nail the timing. Likewise, there are times when you’re thrown into combat with multiple enemies and a rapidly dwindling flame, which feel frantic and desperate as you try to stay alive and reignite your blade.

A three-hit combo, i-frame dodge, and handful of special abilities make combat feel slick and rewarding, especially when you manage to fight your way out of a pile of enemies. The flames heal can heal you, but will be extinguished when they do so, forcing you to think carefully and adding an element of danger even to restoring your health.

About a third of the way in you’ll unlock a throwing knife for use in puzzles and combat, which will also ignite when it comes into contact with fire. This gives you more combat options – as does a powerful move that you unlock for the back half of the game. Nocturnal has cool ideas throughout, too, such as being able to set fire to dried vines and tapestries to create light and reveal puzzle solutions.

There’s a definite sense here that Nocturnal may have been envisioned as a Metroidvania once early in development. For example there are sometimes multiple routes, but it’s fifty-fifty if you pick the route that leads to a secret or the route that locks you into the critical path. Sadly, there’s rarely a way to tell which is which, either.

A small but well-thought-out skill tree allows you to improve your stats and abilities as you travel, and the core conceit of having to literally fight against the darkness trying to choke you is such a powerful and respectful homage to PoP that I couldn’t help but smile even when it became frantic. It’s never too stressful though, as regular checkpoints reduce the amount of retreading you’ll do even when it gets tough.

After only a few areas and a handful of boss fights, Nocturnal ends without much flourish, and left me wondering if it’s a secret proof of concept for a much grander sequel at some point down the line. For all that I appreciate the brevity, I kind of hope so, because Sunnyside have something very special here that could easily stand with the best if it had just a little more story and content.

The post Nocturnal review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

For the uninitiated, these are chirpy, super enjoyable romps through first-person dungeons, which were just about perfectly designed for the original DS thanks to the way you are tasked with drawing your own maps as you proceed. You can still use the Switch touch-screen or manual tools to do so if you are docked, and there is a surprisingly effective auto-map function that does it for you. If you wanted to, you could also grab a bit of paper and write it down, old school-style.

There is a loose story and theme running through each game, but strong character-based plots have never really mattered too much in the series – it is all about the art of looting intricate dungeons. The gameplay loop is essentially edging your party deeper into each of the gorgeously designed dungeons, battling enemies in turn-based fashion, and crapping your pants every time the scary, intermittent FOE super beasts appear; before returning to base camp after each crawl to level up using acquired skill points and improve your party and its gear. You get to keep a guild of characters that can be switched around between sorties, so you can work out the best possible combo for each situation.

Effective mapmaking is a key skill, as it will enable you to find crucial save points which enable you to complete your escape when the going gets tough. Customising your party and skills offers the player an almost endless number of combinations, based around different weapons, classes, and their associated abilities, buffs, and status-altering possibilities.

As the series progresses the maps become more sophisticated with more symbols and customisation, and new, exciting class types are introduced. The first two are still excellent games in their own right, but there is no doubt in my mind that with its seafaring theme and most refined systems, the third game is the clear pick of the bunch, and as such, given the quite high price of the package as a whole, would perhaps steer first-timers toward a solo purchase of that one, instead.

As a package, this is pretty bare bones and I am a little surprised that the quality of life features that Atlus put into their superb 3DS games are not present. The remastered graphics do look fantastic, however. And even though it hasn’t been refined at all, you get to experience your dungeon adventures with superb soundtracks from one of the greatest of all time video game composers Yuzo Koshiro, who started scoring RPGs back in 1986.

In a nutshell, even if you do spring for the whole thing, it will cost significantly less than it would to legally track down the originals, so there is that. There may not be any real new features to speak of in Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection, apart from a difficulty selection and a lick of paint, but there is still a huge amount of very enjoyable gameplay, which stands the test of time well, and is a great way to while away a few hours of your time.

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Dr Fetus has been thwarted by Meat Boy more than enough times now, and he’s got a new plan to deal with this platforming problem once and for all. By cloning the square red hero he’s hoping he can abuse his power to do those dark deeds he’s so famous for, but this scientific endeavor isn’t exactly simple. The Meat Boys he’s producing just aren’t quite right, so to try and weed out the good ones Dr Fetus is throwing them all into deadly test chambers and hoping the best evolve into something resembling his rival. It’s a gloriously stupid concept, but it gives you a reason for the upcoming chaos.

Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is at its core a Puyo Puyo game, but if you’re not familiar with this particular puzzle game then this is how it works. Sets of two coloured clones slowly descend from the top of a stage, and your job is to rotate and place them together so that at least four of the same colour stick together. When this happens they’ll disappear, let any clones on top of them drop down, and give you more room to place more blobs.

This probably sounds pretty easy, but the real trick is learning how to place the clones so you can set off combos of matching colours. The easiest way to do this is by placing colours on top of each other so that when a set of clones is cleared the ones above them fall into place and connect with matching Meat Boys, but it’s easier said than done. High level Puyo Puyo gameplay is particularly mind blowing when you see the chains and combos start popping off, but Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine is less about high scores and more about bloody carnage.

What makes this Meat Boy spinoff different to other puzzle games are the hazards that litter every single stage you’ll be presented with. Saw blades, swinging chainsaws and spooky ghosts litter every single level of this colour matching puzzle game, and are hell bent on ruining your carefully planned combos. If you happen to hit any of these hazards with your descending puzzle pieces you’ll immediately lose the level and have to start from the last checkpoint, but if they hit any of the clones you have placed on the ground they’ll just destroy them and leave you with less to match with. Navigating the hazards and making matches is hard work, and unfortunately not a whole lot of fun.

There’s definitely a reason why most puzzle games don’t have the constant threat of your coloured pieces being sliced into a pile of viscera, and that’s because it massively takes away from thoughtful gameplay. Even in the first world of Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine it’s rare you’ll find a moment to put together a clever combo of clones, because there’s either not enough room to set it up or there’s a saw blade waiting to clear it away after a few seconds. Even dodging the obstacles as your pieces fall is annoying, and the punishment of having to start over after one accident with an enemy is way too punishing. I ended up turning on invincibility on the accessibility menu so I could actually enjoy the game, but in doing so was basically just playing standard Puyo Puyo.

There are a couple of clever ideas in the game that are supposed to mitigate the difficulty somewhat. One of these is the temporary invincibility you get when you manage to pull off a combo. This would be really helpful if setting up combos was easier with all the hazards, but it’s a start. There are also checkpoints in the middle of stages that ensure you don’t end up losing too much progress when you die, and getting enough matches to trigger them is pretty manageable. Each level will still feel like a grindy war of attrition as you slowly manage to make your way closer to the next checkpoint, but it at least makes it plausible to make it through a level.

I’ve been hard on Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine, but it isn’t without its charm. One part of the game that’s undeniably great is the soundtrack, which is consistently banging. There are also some interesting elements that change as you progress in the story, like the designs of the clones as they evolve. It’s a cool visual twist that fits the narrative, and although not exactly important to the game as a whole I thought it was really neat.

Dr Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine makes a great case for why you shouldn’t add dangerous platforming hazards to a perfectly good puzzle game. All the intricacy and combo planning that goes into a good round of Puyo Puyo is lost when dealing with Fetus’ saw blades, and I just ended up feeling frustrated. If you’re a real puzzle game whizzkid who’s looking for a challenge then maybe you’ll have more fun than me, but otherwise it’s worth keeping Puyo Puyo and Meat Boy as far apart as possible.

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This bundle of retro games is predominantly made up of the four classic Sonic games that we all know and love. Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic 3 and Knuckles and Sonic CD are where you’ll spend most of your time in this collection. These (mostly) fast paced platformers are as much fun as you remember, with corkscrews, loop the loops and springs aplenty littering the colourful stages and ensuring you have a fun time spinning about. If somehow you haven’t played a Sonic game before, the blend of satisfying momentum through a stage and hazards to deal with is truly 16-bit magic, and you should get to beating Robotnik as soon as possible.

Another great reason to have all these wonderful Sonic games in one place is because it means you can have fun with all the different bonus stages. I absolutely love the various levels housing Chaos Emeralds in these titles, from the spinning mazes of Sonic the Hedgehog to the tunnels of rings and mines from Sonic the Hedgehog 2. A fantastic feature of Sonic Origins Plus is the ability to retry these stages when you fail at the cost of a measly collectable coin, which means gathering all the gems and turning into Super Sonic is more manageable than ever.

There are a few other helpful features that make the games less punishing too when you’re playing the Anniversary versions of the main titles. One of these is the removal of lives entirely, meaning that death no longer has a consequence other than pushing you back to the nearest checkpoint. You can also restart stages at any time, which is great when you miss out on gathering enough rings to unlock a bonus stage. Finally you can save your game at any time and play something else, which doesn’t exactly sound like a feature but back in the good old days you had to beat Sonic in one sitting or start over.

The ability to play a few dusty old games probably doesn’t fill you with the urge to spend £35 on a new video game, but there are a few extras that add some value to the package. My favourite of these are the missions, which are specially designed mini stages with objectives to complete and a time limit. The variety of these missions is pretty fantastic, with some showcasing Knuckles flying to kill enemies, as well as pacifist missions and specially designed mazes that’ll really test your skills. You’ll be rewarded with those precious coins for getting a good rank too, which you can spend over at the museum.

The museum houses all sorts of artifacts from the history of Sonic, from concept art to videos of live concerts playing the themes we all know and love. It’s a cool thing to explore for hardcore fans of the series, but after unlocking some of the cooler animated story scenes and music I still had a whole lot of change that I wasn’t bothered about spending on pictures of crabs.

Pretty much all these features were available in the original Sonic Origins when it was released last year, so why buy the new Plus version of the game I hear you ask. Well the main reason for this is supposed to be the added Game Gear games. These twelve portable titles originally released on Sega’s ill fated handheld back in the day, and it won’t take you long to notice their limitations thanks to that. Honestly these additional games are barely worth playing, with massive framerate dips, subpar level design and horrendous sound quality. There are much better versions of some of the games included on other systems too (like Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine and Sonic Spinball) so including these piss poor versions feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth.

The other new feature of Sonic Origins Plus is the addition of Amy Rose as a playable character. Playing as the adorable pink hedgehog brings a couple of very minor changes to your moveset, but for the most part she’s pretty close to a palette swap of Sonic. I like the idea of adding a new character to the collection, but it’d be nice if her addition had shaken up these classics a little bit.

When playing Sonic Origins Plus, I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d played loads of better collections of Sonic games in the past. When I bought Sonic Mega Collection on the GameCube in 2002 it included most of the games you’d want to play from this bundle alongside classics like Ristar, Sonic 3D Blast and Mean Bean Machine, so the selection here just feels a bit lackluster. The games are still great of course, but especially for a more complete version of Sonic Origins it feels way emptier than it should.

My final issue with Sonic Origins Plus is one that can’t really be helped, but is still very unfortunate. The music in Sonic 3 (which for those who don’t know was initially developed in part by Michael Jackson) can no longer be used for licencing reasons, and it just isn’t the same without the tunes from my childhood. Obviously there’s no easy fix for this, but it’s a shame nonetheless.

Sonic Origins Plus is a great way to play four fantastic games, but the overall package is a little bit weak. The new additions to the Plus version are weaker still, making it hard to recommend even the budget priced upgrade let alone the full package. Despite this though you simply can’t deny the quality of the fantastic games in this collection, and if you’re desperate for a way to play them on modern consoles then you’ll probably still be happy spinning your life away.

The post Sonic Origins Plus review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

As is traditional in any farming game, you start your botanical adventure as a young whippersnapper who has inherited a farm. This time it’s because some relative has passed away, which means that the family dream of owning a successful farm falls to you. After getting a bit of help from the community you’re expected to get your hands dirty and sort out some produce to sell, so grab a hoe and some seeds and go hit the field.

If you’ve indulged in a bit of virtual farming before you know what to expect from the fruit and vegetable side of the game. First you’ll need to use your hoe on the soil to prepare it for planting, then pop a seed in and water it regularly until it starts producing food. It’s about as basic as farming gameplay gets, but when coupled with a need to manage your limited stamina every day it can become a little more strenuous.

It’ll take a while for you to really have to worry about getting too tired to finish your chores, but you should still prepare for this moment by learning to cook some stamina boosting snacks. You’ll find recipes for tasty meals dotted all over the village, but you can also experiment by cooking a couple of ingredients together and hoping for the best. Shoving a few vegetables together in a saucepan will probably produce some sort of tasty soup, but once you start finding scary mushrooms and dairy products it becomes a little trickier to freestyle your way to culinary greatness.

If you want regular milk and eggs for the kitchen (or just to sell for cold hard cash) you’ll need to get yourself some animals for the farm. At the start of the game you’re given a cow you can milk daily for a tasty sellable beverage, but with a bit of love, food and space to roam your livestock will become happier, produce higher quality goods and potentially even breed to give you even more furry or feathered friends. As long as you remember a few simple rules (like not letting your animals outside when It’s raining) you’ll have an endless supply of money and tasty food just waiting to be collected each morning.

An idyllic farm life is nice, but it’d be nicer with someone to share it with. Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life has you covered in this department, with a whole host of potential spouses just waiting to be swept off their feet if you give them enough gifts. Each love interest has different present preferences, so you’ll need to learn what your bae likes if you want them to move in. I personally went for the aloof girl who liked my fish because it was easy to get these for her, but if you’d rather pick flowers or whip up a tasty treat to impress someone then that’s an option too.

The first few days at the farm will probably seem a little boring, but before you know it you’ll discover all the extra things you can get up to to fill the hours of the day. Fishing is an easy option with plenty of opportunity for making money, but you can also go to the archaeological dig site and find some precious artifacts or head to the notice board and solve some of the problems of the other village people. Whichever route you take, with a bit of hard work you’ll soon start turning a profit which means more seeds for the garden, more animals, and plenty of kitchen upgrades to invest in if you really want to live the high life.

As much as I’d like to pretend that this loop of farming and chores is engaging in Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, it doesn’t take long for the whole experience to start feeling a little tedious. Everything just moves a little bit too slowly, and none of the side activities, festivals, or locals can distract from that. The lack of a hook to really pull you deep into this picturesque world just means it feels like a chore to play the game, and I think a lot of that is because of the outdated source material.

Not all aspects of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life feel old fashioned though. The character creation features the option for a non-binary character (which definitely wasn’t available on the GameCube!) and all the romance options are now available to you regardless of the gender you choose. It’s a relatively small change that doesn’t really affect how the game functions a whole lot, but it’s lovely to see a remake focusing on making the game more inclusive the second time around.

Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life is a perfectly adequate farming game, but compared to some of the fantastic modern options out there it’s really hard to recommend. There’s just not a whole lot of interesting progression hooks to keep you invested in this world of countryside industry, and although the updated gender and relationship options are fantastic everything else about this game just feels dated.

The post Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Liva’s Story acts as a prologue to the events seen in Gerda, and follows a woman called Liva as she has to escape Copenhagen with the members of her resistance after a failed mission, on the run from the Gestapo with the goal of setting up a new base of operations in Tinglev. While Gerda was known for being an everyday citizen who was thrust into dangerous situations, Liva is familiar with conflict, and isn’t afraid to do what is needed, even if that resorts to violence.

Much like Gerda: A Flame in Winter, Liva’s Story is superbly written. When a game can convey emotion through words you’re reading on a screen, it highlights how good the writing is. As you progress through the story and are forced to make tough choices, the actions of your own decisions play a big role in certain outcomes, and I was always impressed with how both Liva and her teammates deal with them. As the leader of a resistance, you’re responsible for making tough decisions and earning the trust of your men, and more often than not, you won’t be able to please everyone.

You’ll choose what missions to accept, whether you deviate from your main goal to help others, and which people you’ll choose to focus your attention on. It was never going to be easy being The Sparrow, and Liva’s Story constantly reminds you of that. I found that while there were certain characters I grew fond of, the need to help everyone could never be satisfied. Everyone in your team has a story to tell, all with their own personalities, but there is only so much you can do. These choices affect how you’re supported, and it’s down to you how that support is used.

Most of your choices are based on three specific skills. Duty is all about following the mission to its end and refusing to deviate; Care allows you to be more compassionate; and Fury often ends in violence towards the enemy. How you respond earns points towards each skill, which in turn can be utilised for specific responses as the game goes on. Virtual dice rolls also play into whether certain decisions are successful or not, so if you don’t have a lot of points in one category, you’re more likely to be unsuccessful.

Gerda: A Flame in Winter – Liva’s Story manages to offer players a chance to see war from all angles, and leaves you questioning your decisions throughout. The writing is excellent, and the same art style might not appeal to those wanting crisper or more detailed environments, however, war was never beautiful painting. It was messy, violent, sorrowful, and tough. Liva’s Story is all of those things, but at the heart of it is a woman who believes she knows what the right thing is, and will do whatever she can to achieve her objective.

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The main story follows a woman called Polly who returns home after a long time to find out what happened to her mother, who has gone missing. A simple premise on the surface, but one that gets much bigger and important after discovering her connection to a mystical realm known as Reverie. It is here where she meets the Aspirations, individuals that embody the aspirations of humanity, such as power, chaos, and glory. The choices you make in the real world of Atina will affect what happens in Reverie, eventually choosing who will rule over the realm.

In Atina, you realise that the once peaceful community is under the watchful eye of a megacorporation, ruling with somewhat of an iron fist. They are ruining the very heart of Atina and all that reside there, forcing people to live in fear, struggling to have their voices heard, and having their unique history forgotten. When you’re responsible for certain decisions that affect both worlds, and not being able to reverse certain choices you make, there feels like there’s a lot riding on everything you say. It’s hard to say more about the story without ruining anything, but I became fully invested in Polly’s story, and the supporting cast of characters were all beautifully written.

While there’s an overarching story that manages to pack a lot of character development and grandeur into it, I became fascinated by the more personal story of family and love at its heart, and how important the ones in our lives are. The voice acting is strong throughout, especially some of the aspirations, and it always manages to throw some interesting decisions your way, whether they’re unexpected or inevitable.

The focal point of Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is the Augural. It is a map of choices, including ones you’re about to make, ones you can choose to make later on, and ones that can’t be accessed because of previous choices already made. The risk of saying the wrong thing is always at the front of your mind, and it offers an interesting mechanic that hasn’t really been seen before. You could say something that will upset someone, or you could play it safe and say what they want to hear, but how will it help you find out where your mother went?

Other choices can affect your relationship with the Aspirations, and knowing who to side with for the right result all plays into the risk and rewards of using your words correctly. It’s impossible to know where the story is likely to go, so your basing your path on the chapter that lies before you, however, there’re certain tells that give you an idea of what might happen. Still, I found this approach to the choice mechanics fresh, unlike many visual novel games that feel rather barren of variety and personal sacrifice.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie is a beautiful game. The visual novel style may feel restrictive to players not familiar, as being able to explore so many gorgeous environments would have been a joy, but each scene is filled with vibrancy and attention to detail. Atina is a summery town and the sun-kissed streets and colourful backdrops are always beautiful to look at. Reverie is equally stunning, and I was always finding new locations as my favourites. There’s an almost old-school Disney charm to the style, and it’s definitely one of its strongest features.

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie challenges you to make the right choices although the chances of missteps are littered throughout. You learn through your mistakes, but they can often be costly to later chapters and story beats. It is the small realisations of your choices that highlight how strong a game it is. While the visual novel style might put people off, the writing is excellent, and probably DON’T NOD’s finest effort to date. The art style is delightful, and the way everything feeds into everything else shows the work put into its diverse story.

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In this lo-fi fantasy world, everything has pretty much gone down the toilet. The king has been betrayed and murdered using the titular Bleak Sword, and darkness has descended across the realm. Now nowhere is safe, and the only one who can change that is our white pixelated hero and his sword fighting skills. As you can probably imagine the story isn’t supposed to be the star of the show here, but it certainly sets up your time stabbing in this desolate locale nicely.

There’s not a whole lot flashy about the combat in Bleak Sword DX, but everything it does, it does perfectly. Your character has a light attack for quick strikes, a heavy attack for extra damage, a dodge roll and a block – and that’s it. It’s how you use these abilities that matters though, and how you manage the stamina meter that drains once you do use them. You’ll need to master parrying and countering attacks, dodge rolling out of harm’s way and knowing when to time your strikes if you want to survive the simple square stages, and even then you’ll probably die a lot.

Although each level takes place on a single screen, there’s a nice variety throughout Bleak Sword DX. Some stages feature fog that obscures your foes, others have wind that’ll blow you about a bit and impact your ability to dodge, and the best of all are the horseback stages. You can’t block on these tricky scrolling levels, but instead can jump to dodge incoming logs or attacks. These variations in the environment might not sound like much, but it makes a huge difference to how you play.

If the different levels don’t excite you though, the enemy variety will. Every single foe (be it a basic bitch grunt or a big ole boss) in Bleak Sword DX requires a different strategy to deal with, from spiders that lunge at you at top speed to flying demons that throw spears at you from afar. Working out which attacks you can block and which require a well timed roll is just as important as your ability to time your attacks and blocks, so make sure you fight smarter not harder.

If you’re really struggling with a certain stage though, you can always go back and grind on some earlier easy battles. You earn experience for every level you complete, and every time you level up you can choose to upgrade your attack, defence or maximum HP. These stat upgrades make a huge difference, and going back to previous worlds after a few levels up will make you feel like a god.

Alongside getting experience, there’s also a chance you’ll find an item when you beat a level. You can hold two items at once, and they come in the form of equipment that boost your stats and consumables that health your hp or provide a more temporary boost. If at any point you die though these items will be taken away, and if you die a second time when you go back to beat the stage to retrieve them they’ll be gone forever, along with any experience you have towards your next level up. It can feel a bit harsh when you lose a load of XP and some particularly good items, but it worth remembering you don’t actually need any of the buffs they provide to progress.

If you’re able to beat the campaign of Bleak Sword DX, you’ll unlock a whole host of extra difficulty levels and modes to dive into for more slashing action. Boss Rush and The Arena are fairly self explanatory, but the mode I enjoyed the most was the randomiser. This mode shuffles the enemies you’ll encounter on your quest entirely, and is a whole lot of fun if you don’t mind the balance being thrown out the window.

One aspect of Bleak Sword DX I wasn’t sure I’d appreciate at first was the visuals, but after playing for a little while I realised just how much they add to the game. The simple three colour palette and chunky pixel aesthetic really suits the dark fantasy setting, and also ensures that you always know exactly what’s happening in the heat of battle. I’d advise that you don’t judge this book by its cover.

Bleak Sword DX takes simple action game mechanics and polishes them to near perfection. The combat is immensely satisfying, and the enemy and level variety keeps things interesting from start to finish. How much you get punished for dying can feel a little harsh, but as long as you become a master of the sword and board you’ll save the kingdom and feel great doing it.

The post Bleak Sword DX review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

In our preview, we acknowledged that MotoGP 23 is going to be a tough cookie to crack for new players. While this is still the case, there’re various options known as Neural Aids that can help you drastically, if a little too much. On the most easiest setting, all you have to do is use basic turning to remain on the track. Acceleration, breaking, and controlling the bike is practically done by the game itself, meaning you have little control over the bike. It’s a good feature if you’re coming in fresh, but the stabilisers feel well and truly stuck to you without any real wiggle room to move.

If you feel too constricted this way, the next setting is much more relaxed, but the difficulty spike is rather large. Learning every aspect of the nuances of handling is going to take time, along with many falls off your bike, but if you’re willing to stick to it, there’s a challenge that once conquered, makes MotoGP 23 a thrilling racer. It’s tough, especially when the new dynamic weather plays a part, but learning the importance of when to break, take advantage of tight corners and long straights, and track layouts, is all part of the fun, and teaches you to become a better driver.

The dynamic weather is an excellent feature in MotoGP 23. You might start a race with the weather being a touch overcast or even sunny, and after a couple of laps the heavens will open and you’ll be forced to change how you race. With rain pouring down onto the tarmac, it’s easier to lose control. In one of my races in the Career mode, I had the red flags stop the race due to dangerous driving conditions. While it was frustrating as I’d fought hard to take the lead, I like how the real-life elements show themselves.

The Career mode is the best feature of MotoGP 23. Starting as a rookie, you’ll race to win and rise the rankings, all while having to deal with other racers through social media. Certain people will message you, be it a rival or someone within your own team, and how you respond can affect the way they race against you on the track. Do you want to create a salty atmosphere and risk aggressive driving, or play it safe and be nice? The option is yours, and while I noticed some of these choices come in to play, it wasn’t always obvious. There are also objectives like beating a rival in a competition or finishing in a certain position, giving you something else to work on while playing.

As you progress through your career, you’ll be able to upgrade your bike, choose teams to race for, and more, giving you plenty of things to think about in-between races. While the career has improved since last year, the racing is where MotoGP is at its best. What makes this better is how good it looks. Tracks around the world are intricately designed, as are the bikes and their racers, but so too is the weather. When it rains, you’ll see rain drops on the screen which can affect how cautious you have to be, all in all creating a realistic experience.

The haptics on the DualSense are remarkable, with every small bump or terrain change felt, along with gear changes and throttle being felt in the controller. A lot of focus has been put onto how MotoGP 23 performs on modern consoles, and it’s more than noticeable. While there aren’t a ton of modes to choose between, you can still create your own Grand Prix, take part in time trials, and go online against other racers. There’s also a ton of customisable options for your racer, adding a personalised touch to proceedings.

MotoGP 23 is an improvement on last year, with a Career mode that’s trying out new features to make each season feel different to the last. The dynamic weather is a standout, as it forces you to change on the fly when the rain starts to fall, and the visuals elevate the feature while also leaving you impressed with how good it looks. While it still features a tough learning curve, there’re aids in place to make the transition between difficulty levels easier, helping to offer a smooth racing experience whatever mode you’re in.

The post MotoGP 23 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

Essentially what Metalhead has delivered is a terrific balance of humorous, over the top cartoon charm, and a surprisingly deep set of gameplay mechanics that improve on the previous entries in the franchise and makes it a must buy for fans of America’s favourite pastime.

Whether or not you are familiar with the sport, the fundamentals of pitching, hitting and throwing are all implemented in a way that makes gameplay enjoyable, intuitive, and accessible. Striking the ball effectively is a simple case of getting timing right, whilst pitching is handled by using a simple aiming cursor. Being able to change the difficulty can make things easier and more simplified depending on the skill level of the player, meaning this is truly one that can be picked up and played by all.

There are a ton of features that offer all-new experiences or build on existing Super Mega fare. The level of customisation is frankly ridiculous and puts most fully licensed sports games to shame. The Shuffle Draft is one such winsome addition, which allows you to pick a roster that includes the fictitious (and nearly always highly charming, and hilarious) Super Mega stars with genuine licenced MLB legends like 25 time All-Star and in-GOAT-conversation Hank Aaron. There will also be over 200 other Legends that will be rotated in and out of rosters in the online Pennant Race mode.

The Franchise Mode is sensational, and one of the most enjoyable I have played in ages. You now have to be extra mindful of the chemistry within your team, and how the decisions you make will affect the morale of your team. An excellently implemented “loyalty” meter can swing both ways depending on how you deal with your charges. In keeping with the rich vein of humour that runs through the entire game, some of the player reactions will genuinely crease you up.

If you can develop a squad with pockets or cliques of players that share the same chemistry then it can give you buffs on certain traits. In game currency points enable you to upgrade the stats of players, and you can do so at whichever pace you wish: saving them to use down the line and rely on the chemistry and your own skill, or splashing them all in one go for instant baseball gratification.

However you decide to play, this is a superb looking title that is brimming with hilarity and comedic timing, with something for everyone. The presentation is whimsical and enticing and capable of drawing you in, but Super Mega Baseball 4 has massively addictive hidden depths that bely the cartoony feel, and for me place it amongst the best sporting titles to have dropped this year. It begs to be played in couch multiplayer with a few cold ones over the summer, but the franchise play will keep you going way beyond that. A home run.

The post Super Mega Baseball 4 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

If you haven’t played a Katamari game before, the concept might sound a little unusual. You play as a little green fella called The Prince, and the aim of each stage is to push a ball (the Katamari) around the environment and roll up as many objects as possible. As the Katamari grows due to the amount of cakes, bottles of super glue and small children stuck to it you’ll be able to assimilate bigger objects, usually to a fairly ridiculous degree. It’s an extremely satisfying process, only made more entertaining by the silliness of the environment, lovely (updated) visuals and wacky soundtrack.

Controlling The Prince and his big ball of bits is rather unusual too, but once you get used to it the control scheme really works. To move forwards you hold both sticks forward, and can steer by releasing a stick or turn sharper by pushing the sticks in opposite directions. There are a few fancier manoeuvres too, like a dash done by pushing the sticks in opposite directions repeatedly. I know it sounds a little odd, but in the end it gives you a great deal of control over your Katamari.

You might be wondering why The Prince is so dedicated to rolling up objects. Well once a Katamari reaches a certain size it can be sent into orbit to become a planet obviously. This time around though The King of All Cosmos isn’t sending you on missions with the purpose of making planets, in a very meta twist you’re actually just taking requests from fans of the series and the planets are more of an afterthought. It’s nonsense at its finest, and the King especially is a truly wonderful character to interact with.

Once you’ve found a fan to help, you’ll be sent to a level to roll up some bits and bobs. Your standard stage of We Love Katamari Reroll sees you dropped into a location like a school, bedroom or zoo, and given a time limit to reach a certain size. It almost always feels like there’s easily enough time to accomplish this task, but at the end of each level you’ll set high scores and be generally moaned at by the King of All Cosmos for your poor performance which might make you go for a replay.

As someone who hadn’t played this particular game in the series, I was surprised by how many stages of We Love Katamari Reroll strayed from this tried and true path though. There was one stage where I had to light a campfire with my Katamari which meant avoiding water and constantly moving to keep the fire burning, in another stage my Katamari was replaced by a slender sumo wrestler who needed to bulk up for a fight so had to be fed as many kilograms of food as possible. My favourite stage though is set on a racetrack, and although it seems like a regular “get big” challenge you move ridiculously fast and do laps of the course while absorbing all the other racers. The variety is fantastic, and no matter what you’re doing it’s always a whole lot of silly entertainment.

There’s one part of We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie that’s entirely new too, and that’s the Royal Reverie bit. This mode takes you into the memories of The King of All Cosmos, when he was just another small dude pushing a Katamari. These five brand new stages are all pretty challenging, with some wild conditions to fulfil if you want to beat them. Personally I thought the difficulty of these made them the least enjoyable part of the game, but if you’re a long time fan starved for ball rolling content then you might feel differently.

It’s the little things that make We Love Katamari Reroll special. Things like when you finish a stage and can find out how big your Katamari is by comparing it to everyday objects. I absolutely want to know that my big stupid ball is as big as 54,609 pencil sharpeners, and the fact you can keep spinning a slot machine to change the comparison object is genius. I also love dressing up my little prince in unlockable accessories, and taking selfies mid level for no reason whatsoever. We Love Katamari Reroll knows it’s completely daft, and embraces it with gusto.

There’s not a whole lot to complain about in We Love Katamari Reroll, but one aspect of the game did irritate me a little. The King of All Cosmos likes to pop up and talk while you’re in the middle of a mission, and when he does this he blocks the whole screen. Honestly it’s not a particularly big issue, but it was enough to interrupt my good times a little.

We Love Katamari Reroll+ Royal Reverie is a lovely remaster of my new favourite game in the Katamari series. The nonsense the series is known for is here in full force, and the variety of missions is fantastic. The new content isn’t incredible, but if you missed out on this game on the PS2 then you’ve got a hell of an opportunity to rectify that.

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You play as either male or female Agent 11, a Bourne/Bond-esque super agent tasked with infiltrating and dismantling six global gangs or agencies from the inside – often by smashing in faces and snapping femurs. There’s no spy work at play here beyond slapping the shit out of everyone who gets in your way.

It’s structured like a turn-based tactics game, with you allocated a set amount of movement and action points referred to as Momentum. Moves are dished out on cards, and you’ll begin each fresh run by selecting a deck with a certain theme. The default focuses on a mix of offence and defence, but others have specialisations or mixtures. You will need to unlock further options through progressions, so if you find yourself muddling on a little, hold tight and push through as you’ll eventually have a decent choice available.

I found most of the more successful runs to be book-ended by difficulty, particularly before I had unlocked enough new decks to vary my tactics. The challenge ramps up fast, too, as the game throws more and more enemies at you in small spaces crowded by vaguely defined furniture and scenery. The cards give you a good variety of attacks and defensive moves, but you must build up Momentum before you can spend it. This means playing certain cards tactically where possible, though there are times where you’ll have to make do.

Ultimately, you’ll be aiming to take out your enemies as quickly as you can, utilising the surroundings if possible. Smash their heads off a pipe or convenient for all works a treat, or booting them out the nearest window. The cast of enemies have various strengths and weaknesses, and it’s up to you to identify them and use them against your foes. For example, some enemies will attack with wild haymakers, and so luring them within range of their buddies will cause a chucklesome “accident”. Some have firearms and other weapons that you can manipulate and exploit.

The roguelike nature of the default difficulty means you’ll replay a lot of earlier missions (which you can skip after a certain point), but this has the upshot of getting you intimately acquainted with the mechanics of each enemy and card you can pull. You can also allow for replayable missions if you’d like a less strict challenge.

Another inspiration from John Wick Hex is the action replay when a mission is done. Ostensibly this is to show off your cool moves and level-headed tactics, but it suffers in the executions. It’s not smooth enough, and even with the dynamic camera on it judders and stumbles in motion. It doesn’t produce the kick-ass fight sequences it aims to, but it’s still a nice touch to have.

Fights in Tight Spaces has a solid core concept that mostly works in practice. It’s held back in some ways by its difficulty, which often demands perfection from the player and so leaves little room for real experimentation or risk-taking. Yes you can ultimately try different decks and combinations, but one wrong move can destroy you and so you’re discouraged from using tried and tested methods for each type of enemy.

Still, it’s a fun and stylish take on the turn-based tactics genre and blends deck-building and roguelike progression in a unique way that feels like it almost has a genre of its own. The replay system needs some fine-tuning and the difficulty may put you off at first, but it’s a decent game for those after a different kind of challenge.

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For a relatively short game, Convergence packs in a serious amount of gadgets, powers and collectibles. It’s a MetroidVania at heart, as you bounce back and forth around small, compact areas, utilising Ekko’s suite of trinkets to get from A to B – and sometimes C.

The story focuses on the rivalry between two organisation, the Ferris Gang and the Poingdestre Family, who are locked in conflict over a rare mineral scattered across the city of Zaun following the explosion of a huge Spire. Joining forces with a slightly dodgy future version of himself, Ekko has no choice but to answer the call and put an end to both gangs before they can do permanent damage to the city.

Equipped with various time gadgets, Ekko is a pretty resourceful kid. Able to rewind time to undo damage or get out of scrapes, he is also able to combine a multitude of traversal moves to get around. You can wall-run, rail-grind, wall-jump, even teleport, and you’ll steadily unlock more and more powers such as the ability to slow time, and activate distant switches with a well-aimed throw.

Combat is a fast-paced affair, with a simple enough mix of melee attacks, parrying, and dodging through enemies. Red attacks can’t be dodged or parried, and later encounters become dense with enemies and projectiles. It’s not quite a bullet hell, but it feels close at times. You will need to utilise all of Ekko’s considerable abilities to survive.

Regular boss fights pit you against the controlling forces of the gang and the family as well as their toughest minions. It’s usually a case of pattern recognition and timing, but it’s easy to rely too much on the rewind mechanic and leave yourself open to attacks. Silly mistakes are costly in these boss battles, but the rewards are plentiful.

There are tons of collectibles to find in hidden chests that allow you to exchange goods with Ekko’s friends. You can customise your appearance, unlock special moves and skills such as a ground slam, and even assemble gadgets that can be equipped to increase Ekko’s innate abilities such as attack speed and survivability.

Convergence: A League of Legends Story doesn’t do anything really new or unique, but it’s a beautiful, fast-paced adventure nonetheless. It reminded me a lot of F.I.S.T: Forged in Shadow Torch, another superb steampunk-inspired Metroidvania. It’s aesthetically beautiful, incredibly stylish with some great animations that really convey the sense of speed well.

It’s all so wonderfully fluid, too, so racing from one place to another and solving puzzles to reach hidden chests never stops being fun. Some sequences require fast fingers and precise timing, holding platforms up with the power of time or slowing huge presses in a steampunk factory so you can dodge under them without being flattened.

Occasional issues with precision can mar the experience a little, though. Ekko has a time splitting technique that does massive damage to nearby enemies and it has an inexplicable tendency to just trigger on the other side of the screen – unless I missed a tooltip somewhere. Also, the platforming can sometimes feel a bit imprecise and fiddly, especially during challenge sections where the game is hurling enemies at you in quick succession.

Once again, though, Riot Forge demonstrate a commitment to this universe that goes far deeper than simply making bank. As with The Mageseeker and The Ruined King, Convergence is a fully fleshed-out experience that feels like it could exist completely separately to the larger franchise. It’s slick, good-looking, and very well-made, and developer Double Stallion have done an amazing job imbuing Zaun and its environs with colour and personality.

If you’re a fan of MetroidVanias, feel free to jump in with or without prior knowledge of the larger League of Legends universe. It’s a fantastic game in its own right, only held back by a few inconsistencies in the platforming. It may not bring anything truly new to the genre, but Convergence is a great time nonetheless.

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In Japan of old, two siblings have been raised in a secret village to become the mightiest warriors since birth. This is because the Empress Himiko has plunged Japan into an age of chaos and misery, mainly because she’s possessed by a god who’s a real piece of work. After one last bit of training Ayame and Kensei are sent off on a quest to take back the country from evil and make all the civilians happy again, which might not be the most original of stories but it certainly gets the job done.

As you may have guessed from the name, you actually play as two characters in Chronicles of 2 Heroes, and this doesn’t just mean switching between characters when you fancy it. This is because they both have abilities that you absolutely must use to make it through even a single screen of the game. Ayame can jump and throw kunai, whereas Kensei can attack with his sword and do a horizontal dash across long distances. You read that right, one of the characters in this platformer can’t jump, so it’s a good job you can swap between the two with a cheeky press of the X button.

It’s a really fun mechanic, and means you’ll constantly be switching siblings to make it past tricky platforming puzzles. Maybe there’s a big line of flames that only Kensei can dash through, but on the other side there’s a punk with a bow whose arrows you’ll need to jump over. Swapping characters is instantaneous, so once you get used to how often you need to tag in your other hero it becomes second nature and feels amazing.

The basic abilities of the duo are fine, but it won’t take you long to start unlocking a shed load of other moves to play around with. Ayame gets a double jump pretty quickly which changes the game, whereas Kensei soon unlocks the ability to slice through enemies in his path when he dashes. The medallions that unlock these skills come thick and fast, and always lead to a new selection of tricky platforming challenges.

Honestly, tricky might be an understatement. Within the first hour of playing Chronicles of 2 Heroes I found an optional route leading to a health upgrade that was probably the toughest section of a game I’ve played this year. With constantly spawning flying enemies and vanishing platforms over a pit of flames I died over and over again until I finally made it to my reward, and it felt a little excessive for the opening area of a game. I suppose I could’ve skipped this area and proceeded down the main path, but I don’t really want to imagine how hard the rest of the game would’ve been with one less heart. The difficulty only gets worse later in the game too, especially when the checkpoints start to drift further and further apart.

Perhaps the mechanic that got me killed the most in Chronicles of 2 Heroes though was the parry. Both Ayame and Kensei can parry attacks, but in totally different ways. When Ayame uses a parry successfully she teleports behind the source of the attack, which means you can reach otherwise inaccessible places with ease. Kensei’s parry reflects projectiles, which although less flashy is very helpful against some tricky enemies. The idea of these different damage negating abilities is great, but in practice it’s another story. The window for parrying attacks is actually pretty long, but is way way before anything actually makes contact with your character. Trying to wrap your head around this timing is an absolute nightmare, and because of this the sections where you have to parry feel awful.

Chronicles of 2 Heroes describes itself as having MetroidVania elements, and that’s a very accurate description. Every so often you’ll see a path you can’t access with your current setup, and will need to come back later (using a handy teleporter) if you want the upgrade or hidden collectable cat that’s hiding at the other end of it. There’s not full on backtracking through areas, but it’s definitely worth remembering any suspicious bits of a level you go past.

It’d probably be easier to keep track of the places you want to return to if the map was a little more useful though. The whole thing is just a purple mess of squares, and has no points of interest marked on it whatsoever. You also can’t zoom it out far enough to see more than a small area, scrolling around on it is sluggish, and it takes a few seconds longer to load than is ideal. It might sound like a small aspect of the game to nitpick, but it’s really bloody annoying.

It might sound like I have a lot of complaints about Chronicles of 2 Heroes, but I actually really enjoyed playing it. It definitely helps that the 16-bit aesthetic is lovely to look at, and that the soundtrack is chiptune joy. It’s so close to being an absolutely great title for fans of tough as nails platformers, but a handful of issues hold it back from that.

Chronicles of 2 Heroes: Amaterasu’s Wrath is full of fantastic platforming and clever ideas, but has a few dodgy elements that prevent it from being truly great. The map and parry are just plain bad, and the difficulty is a little excessive especially at the very start of the game. The two character system and amount of upgrades you get for each of them is really impressive, but it probably won’t be enough for most people to forgive its issues.

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On the picturesque island of Brinn, a lovely community lives happily together. This is mainly due to the inventor Theo, who uses his big brain to help solve everyone’s problems and make life easy for them. It’s tiring work though, so he plans a three day break to rest and recuperate. The other dunces on the island apparently can’t last 72 hours without needing help with something, so Theo summons a dragon (you) to do their bidding while he’s gone. It’s not the most complex story in the world, but it’s told via lovely rhyming Irish voiceover which is as charming as it sounds.

When I think of dragons, I think of fire breathing monsters with big claws that ruin your day. Skye isn’t like that, and really looks more like a flying snake. Controlling Skye is pretty simple, you point the stick in a direction and magically glide where you’re pointing. It sort of feels like the Sega classic NiGHTS, but much slower and more laid back. Skye can also pull objects, sing (which is more of a shrill squeal than anything) and do a little dash. That’s all there is to it, but that’s all you’ll need to start solving puzzles.

Especially early on, the puzzles are very easy, and honestly are probably aimed at an audience significantly younger than myself. Maybe you’ll need to move Skye in a circle to turn a wheel, or sing at different shapes in the right order to unlock a door. It doesn’t take too long for things to pick up a little though, and I got stumped a couple of times trying to guide a bucket along rails to water flowers. All the tasks you’re assigned are similarly quaint, and generally require you to dash at some switches or pull some objects about.

What’s interesting about Skye Tales is how these puzzles are laid out. You don’t just go from one room to another and try to figure out how to progress, each level of the game is actually a sizable open world to explore. From the word go you’re let loose to go flying in any direction, and each floating island you arrive at will usually have some sort of puzzle to figure out that will help you progress or give you a shiny collectable to add to your collection.

You’ll want these collectible pine cones and acorns too, because you can trade them for snazzy new outfits at the clothes shop. Flying around as a dragon is fine, but flying around as a Scottish dragon with a tartan hat or a dragon covered in sprinkles and cakes is obviously even better.

Although most of the puzzles you’ll be presented with in Skye Tales are pretty much pressure free, there are some exceptions to this rule. One of these you’ll find immediately is a target blasting mini game, which tasks you with knocking over enough skittles within the time limit to beat the high score (which took me an embarrassing number of attempts to do). Don’t expect too many of these more hectic moments, but they’re a nice change of pace when they do come along.

For me though the best part of Skye Tales is the exploration. Although the puzzles are the main event here on the island of Brinn, there are plenty of other charming interactive elements to play with on each stage. Zooming along a massive piano to play music just never stops being fun, and swirling through the sky into bubbles to pop them as a machine pumps them out just feels very playful. The world feels like a massive toy box, and I could sit and play all day.

You’re rewarded for being playful too. Each of the game’s four levels has a big list of things to do if you want to see everything, ranging from the main objectives to playing with all the instruments or making sure flags are unfurled. If you rushed to complete the main puzzles the game would probably be over in a couple of hours, but there’s so much more to do outside of that in the big floating stages.

There are some great accessibility options in the game that should be highlighted as well. The lack of difficulty already helps with some of these potential hurdles, but there are also a selection of visual filters on offer and the option to add extra hints and prompts if needed. It’s really nice to see a smaller title (and one aimed at a younger audience no less) including as many people as possible.

I really enjoyed hanging out in the colourful world of Skye Tales, but if I had to find something to complain about it would be how simple a lot of the puzzles are. It’s hard to be too unimpressed by that given it’s definitely aimed more at children than salty old reviewers, but don’t expect to have your brain tested too much.

Skye Tales is a charming and playful puzzle game that I honestly couldn’t put down once I started. The pure joy of flying through the world and playing with all the interactive elements is infectious, and the puzzles, while simple, are a lot of fun to solve. Younger gamers might get a bit more mileage out of it than grumpy grownups, but even they might be quite taken by the adventures of the friendly dragon.

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The story told in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a faithful one, and when it isn’t hampered by its various issues, I found it interesting how he was able to escape the belly of the beast under the Dark Tower of Sauron to being captured by the elves in Mirkwood. While it’s a constant battle not being put off by the voice actor’s portrayal of Gollum, the acting is strong by all characters. Andy Serkis did such an incredible job in the movies that anyone else is going to have a tough time playing him, and while not based on the films, it was impossible not to wish Serkis was at the helm of the character’s journey.

While that’s more a personal issue with not hearing Serkis, the voice acting is still strong. The constant bickering between Gollum and Sméagol is great, and knowing what we know from the books, Daedalic has been faithful in the source material, managing to tell a strong story featuring potentially the most interesting character in all of Tolkien’s work. It was also cool to see other facets of The Lord of the Rings feature throughout, whether involving particular elves or creatures within the darkness. There’s always a neat reference for the player to enjoy, and I shan’t ruin them for you here.

As Gollum, you’ll climb up huge structures, sneak past those who seek to capture and kill you, command companions, solve the odd puzzle, and more. Moving is sometimes loose and unresponsive, and the animations of certain actions feel off. When climbing, certain areas aren’t visible, and you only know to jump because an option to do so appears in the corner of your screen. While the stealth sections can be fun, I found enemies were just too dumb for their own good. Trying to lure out an orc by throwing a stone right at its feet didn’t illicit a response, and neither did throwing one at a huge metal pot.

When you have to command someone to move, you only get select positions to move them to, and it feels like an arbitrary addition to the gameplay. The controls lack polish and fluidity, and whatever I was doing, I could never put my full trust in the systems at my disposal. There are constant checkpoints so overshooting a jump or falling from too greater height can allow you to jump back in sharpish, so there is a way to mitigate some frustrations. There were times when I enjoyed certain moments of gameplay, especially when trying to climb up high into the Dark Tower and follow my trusty bird to steal some keys.

Sometimes I started floating on something I was trying to jump over and was unable to get off until it was too late, and crawling through small spaces was awkward. The whole concept of constantly battling between the two personalities of Gollum and Sméagol offered some clever breaks in gameplay as you can choose certain responses to those you have to talk to, and I like how you see his familiar traits of sneakiness and guile play into the story. You have to try and convince the other of the right course of action, but again, this could have just taken place organically.

The visuals are another problem at the heart of The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. From the rough animations to texture popping, it doesn’t take advantage of the PlayStation 5 at all, whether in Performance or Quality mode. I had moments where Gollum was speaking yet his mouth didn’t move; cutscenes break suddenly into gameplay moments far too abruptly (although this has been sorted somewhat via a patch), and the same two aspects interchange randomly. There were sound issues, too. I had dialogue just stop halfway through a sentence, and characters talking over each other. The loading screens came out of nowhere and suddenly ended a cutscene without seamlessly transitioning.

I really wanted to love The Lord of the Rings: Gollum. While the story is its strongest feature, the technical issues hound almost every facet of it. From the visual glitches to a lack of polish in its gameplay, it’s hard to recommend this to those looking forward to venturing into Middle-Earth once more. While I’m sure future patches will fix some of the issues, I don’t think it’ll become a title that will stand up against some of the other great Lord of the Rings games we’ve seen over time, and as a lifelong Tolkien fan, I’m upset this wasn’t the game I wanted it to be.

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The bulk of Railway Empire 2 takes place in the campaign, where you’ll get to experience the rise of the locomotive across the world. It provides an extensive tutorial where you’re given a ton of guidance for how the fundamentals work. Sometimes when games are this detailed, you can be overwhelmed by what to do and how to manage your empire. While there is a lot you’ll have to learn, the campaign doesn’t rush you, and you always have plenty of time to do what needs to be done. There’s also a ‘Tips and Tricks’ menu that offers all kinds of details to help you along the way.

The main goal of Railway Empire 2 is to build railway lines to transport goods like wheat, meat, and cloth across the continent as cost effectively and efficiently as possible. You start by building two railway stations, tracks to join them, assigning railway routes, building gridirons to allow an effective flow of travel, and issue trains to get the job done. Maintenance and supply towers need to be build along the tracks, and making sure your lines don’t have lots of tunnels or bridges is the best way to save money. You’re always weighing up cost with efficiency, and this makes what you do one of the most engaging elements.

It’s been made easier to lay down tracks in Railway Empire 2 which is vitally important as its the basis of everything you do. Railway stations can have up to eight lines, meaning you can connect them to various mills and yards that produce key resources, along with joining up cities across the globe. You’re given constant guidance as to how much a line will cost so as not to dip into your budget too much, however, as you progress, you can take out bonds and pay it back, buy out the competition, and thrive in a multitude of ways to make sure your funds are always topped up. You can also expand your stations to include a wealth of options to improve both productivity and appeal.

Making sure you have hotels at stations allow passengers and mail to change trains. Warehouses help to keep more stock of valuable materials so they don’t impact supply runs. Productivity needs to be at an optimal level for your cities to grow, and as your population grows and you complete the various tasks throughout the campaign, you’ll be given the ability to research new trains, buildings, and more via Innovation Points. I’m describing it at its most basic level, but the attention to detail and level of crafting in how you go about thriving in the locomotive world is fantastic. You can even hire saboteurs to damage rival train companies, and while this doesn’t have to be done, it offers yet another way to approach how you build your empire.

Railway Empire 2 doesn’t have the greatest of visuals, but there’s so much detail. From high above the map, you can see a the country and its various cities and supply points, but when zooming in, you can see people going about their lives, intricacies in the designs of train stations and the trains themselves, and more. I loved using the camera view of the trains to go from one place to the next, pulling the horn and relaxing as we picked up our next shipment of corn. It was a nice break from the dealings of my company, but those business decisions were equally as exciting. Hiring employees, trading, buying properties – I enjoyed it all.

Outside of the campaign, there’re a ton of scenarios for you to dive into, along with a free play mode that allows you to set your own parameters. Gaming Minds Studios has given players a ton of options for how to play, and whatever mode you favour, building your empire is both exhilarating and engaging. Some players might be put off by the wealth of options, but take your time to learn its intricacies and there’s hours of gameplay to enjoy. Making mistakes is part of the process, and after a few small stumbles, I was able to make the most out of Railway Empire 2.

The post Railway Empire 2 review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

It casts you as a space marine of the Ultramarines chapter sent on a mission to investigate corrupt Adeptus Mechanicus on the forgeworld of Graia. After your dropship crash-lands on the Chaos-infested planet, your mission is fairly simple: kill the ever-loving shit out of every xeno, heretic, and slathering Chaos beast that so much as looks at you funny. Actually, scratch “funny”. Hell, scratch “looks at you”, too. Just kill them all. If there’s time, maybe gather that intel for the Inquisitors while you’re there.

Armed with a chainsword on the left trigger and a selection of weapons from the titular Boltgun to a powerful plasma rifle, and equipped with a spread of devastating grenades, your only real mission is to get out alive while making sure everything even slightly non-human looking has a really bad day.

I’ve been getting genuinely fatigued with the constant wave of “old school boomer shooters” that think the best way to take Doom’s crown is to dress up like Doom, break into Doom’s dressing room, and hope no one notices the new “king” is looking a bit anaemic and not walking right. Boltgun doesn’t do this. Boltgun takes the crown right off original Doom’s head and promises to return it in a few days, thanks.

Whatever alchemy Auroch Digital have worked here, it’s potent. Boltgun feels frantic and exciting, violent and cathartic, but so straightforward that it never feels like work. There are no gimmicks, no attempts to innovate on a tried and tested formula, and yet somehow it doesn’t feel trite. The 360-degree shooting has a modern bent, with auto-aim locking to leaping, jumping targets and making your life easier. But beyond that, everything is so superbly old school.

You can alter the graphics if you like to be less pixelated and much smoother, but it has no effect on the gameplay. Either way there’s an impressive level of detail in the environments, and the enemy design is great. It’s easy to tell exactly what you’re shooting at in just a glance. Of course, this being a Warhammer 40K game there are skulls everywhere; in the decor, on your guns. I feel like furry dice in this universe would just be little dangling skulls.

Strafing and dodging bullets, grenades, fireballs, and acid spit is the order of the day. If anything, there are moments when it becomes a little too frantic. Surprisingly, the default difficulty is Easy (though there’s also an accessibility mode that lets you turn off death), and I had to up it to Medium early on because it felt a bit too much of a cake-walk.

Boss fights in Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun are presented without too much fanfare. You’ll suddenly run into an enemy with an usually long health bar, often with a few extra skulls on it, natch, and after you kill them they often become regular enemies in the following stages. Most levels will have you “purge” an area, and the screen will go a shade of red and you’ll be required to obliterate everything until the screen goes back to normal. This is where the game ramps up in difficulty for a few minutes, and you can’t hoover up health and Contempt (that’s Armor, to you and me) as fast as you lose it.

Often during these sections you’ll be given one of several power-ups such as a one-hit-kill buff that lasts 30 seconds or a damage boost to your boltgun. It’s not quite the same as the berserk mode in Doom as you can still get flattened if you stand still too long. This is the big issue though: it’s very easy to get turned around due to vast sections of each level looking the same, and you’ll backtrack a lot through very similar environments.

More than once I started to feel just a little motion-sick charging around the missions looking for a colour-coded key or corresponding door, and although the missions are fairly linear, it’s not always easy to tell which direction you should be heading in. You have a servo-skull floating around with you that will often tell you if you’re going the right way, or if there’s a pick-up or secret nearby, but who’s got time to read when they’re dodging nurglings and pink horrors all over the shop? One day boomer shooters will come up with a different progression system to coloured key cards, but today is not that day.

Boltgun is a frantic old-school shooter that puts all its emphasis on cathartic fun. As such, the mindless violence can sometimes come into direct conflict with the not-so-intuitive level design, and it’s easy to get turned around and lost during hectic gunfights. Add this to the forced backtracking and key-finding, and the dopamine can take a serious knock now and then. Although, there’s something to be said for the sheer sense of weight and power you exude. Your marine feels like an 8-foot armour-clad man-tank and who could really ask for more.

Despite that, though, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be. It sets out its stall early and rarely deviates from the plan, but what could be considered just another also-ran Doom-alike is saved by awesome shooting and a healthy regard for squibbing Chaos Terminators. Is it new and fresh? Not really, but it’s great fun all the same.

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It being a roguelite, this is the function by which you’ll return to life each time. With every new incarnation, Rene must travel the streets of Paris, choosing which faction to side with. There’s the Church, the Tribe, the Prince, and the Rebels, which seem to be the narrative choice anyway. Most of your primary allies are part of the Rebels, such as Ana and Maximillien.

Combat is slick and fast-paced, arming you initially with only a basic attack and a dodge which you can turn into an evasive roll with a long press. But you unlock more and more skills using Liberté’s fairly unique deckbuilding system. Each Deck can contain up to 40 cards, including dupes. To begin with you have a Ranged, Melee, and Rogue (stealth) deck, but you’ll very quickly be customising your own. As you venture out on behalf of Lady Bliss, seeking answers to question after question, you can choose a different Deck with each run.

You can build them however you like, but you can only take up to two of any card. These are both active and passive skills which will auto-assign to one of your buttons. The selection is impressive, with over 100 to find or craft throughout. From a single powerful pistol shot to summoning a lightning storm or healing your wounds, the variety is astounding. There are also items such as bombs, poison flasks, and food that conveys various benefits, sometimes for the duration of the run. In order to play a card, you will need Mana, a resource gained primarily from “burning” unwanted cards, though this can force some tough decisions when you’re low on Mana and desperate.

Combat feels a lot like, say, Diablo, as you mix and match these skills to gain distance, deal damage, or stay alive. Instead of a timer, skills require a certain number of hits on any enemy to recharge. It’s a fantastic system that promotes active play instead of just hanging back while you wait for a cooldown and it’s something I’m sure we’ll see in more games going forward. The only real downside to combat is that, now and then, I found my character would pause, or a button command wouldn’t register and I’d suffer damage. This is a major issue later as healing items are quite hard to come by.

As you progress you will unlock new skins for Rene. There are three, and while they all play differently at a basic level (Ana for example uses dual pistols instead of a melee weapon), you will switch back to Rene for character interactions and you’ll always talk in Rene’s voice. It’s a bit weird, to be honest, but often you won’t survive long enough to fret.

The Bliss gets worse and worse as you play. This bizarre corruption gets into people and animals, and can produce deranged zombies or monsters. Periodically you’ll come upon a statue of Lady Bliss, and you can choose to enter her domain to battle the monsters she produces or unleash the Bliss upon the city, causing your enemies to get stronger but boosting Rene’s connection to the magic. Entering the Bliss will put you against high-level enemies and takes serious resolve to get through.

Each time you complete an Act you’ll receive a Bliss Curse and it’s only here that I felt the difficulty skewing against me. These Curses can make your run an actual nightmare, adding damage effects to enemies, causing them to come back as zombies or flesh-eating maggot swarms. These Curses stack up to an insane degree, and they just don’t feel balanced by the cards in your deck.

Perhaps the biggest issue with Liberté is the lack of variety in locations, particularly early on. Even advancing through Acts sees you return to the same streets of Paris over and over. It mixes up bosses, events, objectives, enemies, and which vendors you come across, but for a solid three hours I played the same stretch of Parisian street, the same cathedral, the same Bliss gardens, and it really did start to grate. As a result, it’s probably a game best played in shorter sessions. You can always opt to play local multiplayer, too, if you like. This makes it feel considerably more arcadey, though the overall thrust of the gameplay doesn’t change. If anything, the screen just gets much busier and spotting your character among the enemies and attack effects can be a challenge.

Like Hades, the story in Liberté continues as you play. You will often visit the same areas and talk to characters, revealing more of the story. And each run will give you multiple chances to choose between the four factions to earn Favour and complete challenges. Favour is used to unlock crafting materials to forge new cards from blueprints, or unlock new skins and cards. Everything you unlock persists through incarnations, and so there’s always a sense of progression and you can continue earning Favour and unlocking items and cards even after the campaign story is done.

Liberté feels unique. Deckbuilding and isometric combat may be nothing new, but this combines the two wonderfully well. The story is intriguing, the characters are well written (if not always well acted), and the combat is fast, smooth, and rewarding. It does occasionally glitch and certainly needs more variety in locations throughout, but besides that Liberté is an exciting, fresh adventure in a compelling world and deserves to put developer Superstatic well and truly on the map.

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After having a tutorial nightmare in a dingy demon world, our heroine protagonist wakes up in a hospital room. Once you’ve read a couple of notes stuck to the wall it becomes rather apparent that this is some sort of insane asylum, and that various psychiatrists have been investigating you specifically. Like most people locked up you’d rather be free, and the only way to figure out the root of why you’re here is by investigating your nightmares. I didn’t love the idea of the asylum from a mental health representation standpoint, complete with screaming in the corridors and scribbles on the walls, but it does provide a sort of safe house when you’re not in your nightmares.

The nightmares are essentially randomised stages of a DOOM or Quake style FPS, full of sinister demons and weapons to blast them with. There isn’t a whole lot to explain about how this works (you just point at baddies and shoot) but the controls and pacing just feels glorious. This is exactly the speed I want in an FPS, so you should expect to be doing a lot of twitchy shooting.

The weapons you’ll use in the nightmares aren’t just your standard guns though. The staples are all there (pistols, grenade launchers, the very best of shotguns) but there are also guns that shoot beehives, books that fire stones from between the pages, and even a sword and shield for some melee action. You never know what you’re going to get when you drop into a level, and can only keep a single murder tool with you at the end of a level so expect to try out a lot of different combinations.

Even when you find weapons of the same type, they’ll usually end up having different modifiers to vary things up even more too. Some weapons have a percent chance to stun, some might leech health, and others will send enemies flying away from you. It feels great when you find a rare weapon with all the best buffs to beat back the demon horde, at least until you lose it forever.

I know Roguelike elements can be a bit of a deal breaker for some people, but Nightmare Reaper doesn’t go overboard with them. Failing a level just kicks you back to the hospital instead of ending the run, and you’ll also gather currency to permanently power up your protagonist. The systems just aren’t overly punishing, and you feel like you’re always getting stronger as you go.

I need to talk more about the upgrade system though, because it is wild. When you load up the upgrade menu you’re greeted by something that looks suspiciously like the Super Mario Bros 3 world map, and if you have enough money you can play one of the 2d platforming levels that will upgrade a stat. The platforming is very basic (you can do a single jump and nothing else) but it’s a fun change of pace that I really wasn’t expecting in a retro FPS.

I wasn’t sure how much I’d appreciate the old school DOOM aesthetic of Nightmare Reaper, but they really captured those pixely monsters and sinister stylings. The best visual moment is when you die, because your character just stares at her bloody hands until they revert to normal and she wakes up in her room. It’s just a nice touch, and thematically it really works.

I’ve got a lot of good things to say about Nightmare Reaper, but it has a fair amount of issues too. Perhaps the biggest of these is how dark so many of the early environments are. Even with the brightness on the Switch turned up to full there were rooms where I couldn’t see where I was going, which obviously isn’t ideal.

There are some issues with the balance of the game too, especially when you spawn into a level. On an early stage I only had a knife to keep myself alive, and the first room had an enemy that was way too tough to take down with a flimsy butter knife and I died immediately. There are also some rooms with traps that just decimate you with hundreds of flaming orbs until you can deactivate them, and they aren’t fun to deal with and usually end in disaster.

Nightmare Reaper is a great FPS Roguelike, with fast paced gameplay and a whole host of weird and wonderful weapons. The environments can be a little dark and the balance is lacking, but it’s hard to get too upset about it when you’re throwing ninja stars at zombies.

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At the start of the game your custom character wakes up in the ruins of some sort of forgotten civilisation, with no memory of how they got there. As you can imagine they would rather be back home, and get to work trying to find their way out of this labyrinth of monsters. Before long they meet up with a selection of other lost custom characters, and you’ll have a party of four trying to escape this place. There’s not a whole lot more to it, so get ready to wander through some ruins and fight some bats, birds, and demons.

The combat in Monster Menu will feel more than a little familiar if you’ve ever played a tactics game before. When it’s a character’s turn they can move a set amount of squares towards an enemy, and then attack with their weapon or one of their skills. All the usual tactics rules apply, spears can hit enemies two squares away, bows can be fired from afar but are a little less damaging, and if you can’t get close enough to a baddie then you can just defend for a turn instead. I guess if it isn’t broke there’s no reason to fix it, but don’t come into this game expecting anything revolutionary.

As well as being able to use their equipped weapon, each character also has a selection of abilities they can use in a fight. The chef has the incredibly important ability to heal, the mage has a variety of elemental attacks to use, and the warrior type classes have weapon skills to unleash. By using these skills enough you’ll slowly level up your skill in these specialisations, and unlock even better and more powerful abilities. Again nothing revolutionary, but a tried and tested system that is satisfying enough.

The real thing that sets Monster Menu apart from other games though is everything food related. You see food doesn’t just heal you in this game, it provides semi-permanent stat boosts and more importantly is needed to keep your calorie and thirst meters topped up. Every action you take in this game will slightly drain these important meters which are crucial for survival, and certain special abilities (like healing) will use up a hefty chunk of them.

You’ll need to loot every shiny patch of grass and defeated enemy for ingredients if you want to survive for more than a couple of days, then between floors you can do some cooking. Everything you cook has four things it can affect: HP, calories, hydration and happiness. A salad is great for a character who is more thirsty than hungry, whereas a big ole kebab is packed with calories and will make anyone smile. In a pinch though you can also make much sadder meals, like a bowl of hay and rocks that’ll boost your calories a little but make you miserable and actually lower your stats. Sometimes though this is the only way to survive, especially when all of your other ingredients have started to rot in your rucksack.

Eventually the hunger, thirst and scary monsters will overwhelm the party, and they’ll collapse and wake up at the beginning of the game. That’s right, Monster Menu is sort of a Roguelike, but not a whole lot actually resets when you die. Any equipment you find stays equipped to your characters, any abilities your character has learned can still be used, and any recipes or crafting instructions you find also stick around. The only thing that resets are your character’s levels, but in every other way they’ll be stronger.

The Roguelike element that doesn’t really feel very present in Monster Menu though is the randomness. I guess the chests, enemies, and layout of each floor you explore is random, but they all feel so similar that it never really feels like you’re exploring a whole new world. The real focus here is surviving combat and keeping all your meters topped up, but environments that are worth a second glance would certainly have been welcome.

I have one other gripe with Monster Menu, which is just plain annoying. As you explore the different floors of the dungeon your team of colourful characters will blurt out one liners about what’s going on. Anytime a chest, enemy or gathering spot gets near the party they’ll remark “there’s something near”, and this repeats constantly. It’s utterly infuriating, and meant I played most of the game with the volume turned entirely off.

Monster Menu: The Scavenger’s Cookbook blends tactics and calories to create a very thoughtful RPG. Having to manage your meters is difficult, but very satisfying when you pull it off. It has a couple of issues like repetitive voice lines and slightly bland environments, but that core tactics gameplay is still a hell of a lot of fun.

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The premise of LEGO 2K Drive’s main campaign is pretty simple: take part in various competitions with the goal of conquering each area’s Grand Brick Arena tournament. You’ll participate in these races to earn a checkered flag, and when you’ve got enough, it’s time for the big one. Each race sees you try and defeat a rival with a somewhat humorous name and story, and while the act of racing is great thanks to the fine handling, your opponents tend to stay at your throats until the finish line.

Even when you’ve stuck to every corner with precision, made full use of your boosts, and blown opponents sky high with your power-ups, it sometimes feels like it’s for naught. You don’t feel rewarded for out-driving opponents as you would in other kart racers, and sometimes you can lose first position at the last hurdle through no fault of your own. Despite this issue, I loved the racing itself. While you can harness the ability to drift, there’s also a quick turn option that helps navigate some of the tighter corners.

Normal turning is sluggish, so making use of both drifting and sharp turning is vital. One of the coolest features of LEGO 2K Drive is the ability to seamlessly transition between off-road, open road, and boats. Whether exploring the world or in a race, your vehicle will automatically change depending on the terrain. Flying off a hillside and landing into the water below doesn’t mean you’ll crash and have to start over. Instead, you’ll transition to another vehicle and just keep on racing. You can also make use of a speed boost which is really handy, with the gauge built up faster by crashing into things.

While competitive racing is the main draw, there’s still lots to do while exploring. It feels as though Visual Concepts have taken a page out of Forza Horizon‘s book, as there are various challenges littered across the map. They’re quick to enter and provide a slew of challenges, such as beating a certain time or getting the most air following a jump, all rewarding you with XP to level up or cash. There are side quests that can be undertaken to unlock various customisable stuff, along with new cars and other rewards.

Tons of collectibles are scattered across the world as well, giving you plenty to do once the story is over. LEGO 2K Drive also has minigames to participate in, from saving villagers from zombie cowboys that eat up your vehicles to blowing up aliens, and there’s even a Squid Game-inspired red light green light challenge. There’s a lot of content here, and if you love how it feels to drive, then all this content will provide loads of optional stuff to do while trying to become the best racer around.

One of the best features of LEGO 2K Drive is the ability to fully build a car of your own from scratch. Brick-by-brick, you’re free to build cars you unlock or ones from your own imagination, and it’s a great feature that rewards you for creativity. Racing around in your own invention is pretty cool, and it’s one element that has been missing from a lot of TT Games’ LEGO entries. You can build various loadouts of cars and boats from unlocked vehicles or creations, and all have different stats, allowing you to select various loadouts depending on where your focus is.

LEGO 2K Drive is for everyone. While it definitely feels like it’s aimed more at kids, there’s a satisfying gameplay loop for older players as well. The creative side of it will definitely appeal to lifelong LEGO fans, especially when you get to read various manuals to help build pre-existing creations, and the wealth of side content is impressive. The handling is tight, but the more competitive aspects such as power-ups and one-upping the opposition could still do with a little work. It’s a solid starting point if it’s to be a franchise for the future, and even though the humour isn’t as witty as other LEGO games, I still raised a smile every now and again.

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The heart-warming and emotional tale of Tin Hearts follows an inventor called Albert Butterworth. Set in Victorian times, it follows his life as an inventor along with both his wife and young daughter. Although it starts off relatively sweet and happy, the fantastic score (composed by the talented Matthew Chastney) has a sense of foreboding filled with bittersweet and melancholic melodies. At a point in the story, you start to see where Albert’s journey is heading, and without spoiling anything, I’d suggest you grab the tissues.

Tin Hearts’ story is compelling and poignant, helped by the wonderful music, but it is the creativity in its puzzles that provide a lot of its charm. Each stage takes part in a particular place, be it your daughter’s bedroom, the garden, or basement, and new ideas are introduced throughout. You guide a select number of toy soldiers from the box they begin in and to a doorway somewhere in the room. The soldiers cannot deviate alone, so you must place toy blocks in their path to change their direction.

Later in the story, you can take charge of a sole toy soldier and move them around freely to help you get to the doorway at the end, but you’ll need to create a safe space for the other soldiers who are moving around on their own. You’ll be able to use toy canons to shoot down airships or ladders; fly across large areas thanks to pinwheels and fans; bounce on toy drums; and move toy trains that have blocks and drums attached to them, adding to the variety and complexity of the levels. Further gadgets and contraptions become available, too, but I won’t spoil them here, however, get ready to harness that electricity!

There’re different ways to reach your goal, along with secrets and achievements that allow you to replay in order to find them all. Some of the levels are designed across huge spaces, but it’s rarely frustrating thanks to the help you’re given along the way. You’ll unlock the ability to pause, which is a great tool as it’ll show you the soldier’s future path, letting you plan ahead and see where they’ll end up moving to within reason. Forgetting to pause or losing track of your soldier’s movements may happen, but you can rewind back and start from wherever you want.

This help doesn’t make Tin Hearts easy at all. Levels are still a challenge, especially later down the line, but they’re a gift that let you enjoy the story without getting annoyed by the difficulty of the puzzles. As you progress, you’ll unlock memories of Albert’s story, letting you view moments that happened in the room you’re in, or hear letters that have been sent by people that play a role in your family’s fate. I know I’ve mentioned the music already, but it’s such a beautifully written soundtrack, constantly supporting the emotional weight of the story.

As Albert is known as a fantastic inventor, so too should Rogue Sun be for their puzzles. There’re always new ideas added, whether in a new gadget being given to you, or fancy new ways to solve a puzzle. My only issue is that some of the viewpoints are awkward, and moving or aiming the canon and pinwheels can be tricky and slow. Despite this, Tin Hearts manages to become such a pleasant game, and the need to complete a puzzle to get to the next story beat becomes a constant goal. I fell in love with it instantly, and I never wanted it to end, despite shedding a tear or two.

Tin Hearts is inventive in its puzzle designs, and the visuals are brimming with colour and creativity. The music is excellent, and it constantly gets better the more it goes on. I rarely struggled yet was always challenged with each new stage, and despite some awkward camera angles and controls, I never wanted to put the controller down. Story will always be paramount in my ideal game, and Rogue Sun has delivered one that hits all the right notes, telling a moving tale of love and family.

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Tears of the Kingdom treats the player with intelligence. As a sequel to Breath of the Wild, things are the same, but also very different. The sky islands above that have appeared just as Hyrule Castle has ascended are brand new, but the ground at your feet feels original again. Areas have changed, and crucially, people know who you are.

Take the Gerudo Desert area, South West of the map. Remember in Breath of the Wild how you had to dress up so you wouldn’t be seen as a Voe (Man) to be allowed in. Remember also how you helped the people of Gerudo, and were given access to the area? Initially you might be tricked into thinking this was to be repeated, until you finagle your way into the inner sanctum using one of the many new tricks Link has (Ascend, in this case), and then they realise who you are, and allow you entry. Hyrule has been existing while you were away, and it feels all the better for it.

In fact, the tools you are given in Tears of the Kingdom may be some of the most unique and clever in a game I’ve ever seen. You will find puzzle after puzzle, but all are solvable. It’s a case of remembering what you have access to. Why can’t you get up higher? Why? Oh, wait, you can, you just ascend through the ceiling, or build a hot air balloon, or makeshift plane out of wood and fans that are lying around. Or maybe you build a bridge, or climbing frame, or rocket powered hoverboard, or… it just never ends, constantly surprising you, while you also surprise yourself with your own ingenuity.

What’s so clever about Tears of the Kingdom is that the toolset gives you multiple ways to solve puzzles, dungeons, and shrines, without ever feeling like it’s banging you over the head with a solution. Sure, some Shrines feel a bit like tutorials for how to build things, but there were countless times I solved a puzzle and felt like it definitely wasn’t the “right way”, but it worked nonetheless.

This is an experience that truly feels like an adventure, and a unique one for you. You can explore whatever you want, whenever you want. There are seemingly endless possibilities and routes to travel, but often you will find yourself preparing, and not just like in Breath of the Wild, where you’d need the right gear or potion to get somewhere hot or cold. No, you’ll have to prepare for an expedition somewhere, and the prep is part of the fun. There’s just more to Hyrule this time around, in large part thanks to geography (which we’ll come to), but also massively thanks to the new Zonai tech that makes up a large part of the game.

The Zonai were the ancient civilisation that lived in the sky, and they mined rocks to find special rocks that can be turned into useful technology. This tech can actually be pocketed, and is made up of so many different things. Fans, flame emitters, mirrors, steering wheels, bombs, jump pads: the list just goes on, and on, and they are all usable with the new Ultrahand ability, meaning you can stick them to each other, and everything else, to make your own Banjo & Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts or Mad Max style vehicles. These things run on batteries (another new mechanics, and another thing like Stamina and Health that you can upgrade), and I found myself creating boats or planes to traverse vast distances, whether in Hyrule or the skies above, and because you can even take disposable batteries with you, since they are also Zonai tech, you just feel as free as a bird.

It’s worth noting that Tears of the Kingdom is vast. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game on this scale, yet nothing feels pointless. Thanks to the already large Hyrule map, and the added sky islands above, there are so many mysteries to uncover, it’s almost ridiculous. But that actually isn’t all of it. There are also “The Depths” to discover, which are a gloom-coated region under Hyrule that has even more secrets, items, and surprises to discover. Entire quest lines, optional (but important) powers, and an entire mechanic you could otherwise miss are hidden in The Depths. It’s… remarkable how much there is to take in here.

If you are damaged in the depths, you temporarily lose hearts, and have to replenish them by going to the light above, or finding a plant that expands the map and replenishes your gloom-damage. There are boss-battles everywhere, and I was over 35 hours into the game before I discovered a, frankly, game-changing section in The Depths. I know how ridiculous that sounds, but there are even chests hidden underground that have items that, I think, have implications for the wider Zelda lore.

What of the complaints aimed at Breath of the Wild, though? Weapon degradation returns, but the new Fuse ability means you are picking up everything, and turning it into something stronger. Korok seeds are everywhere again, and you’ll soon have more inventory space than you know what to do with. Combat feels largely the same as before, and the new powers are intuitively controlled, and you can even use motion if you prefer. The frame rate could be better, but I find it hard to complain about this in an adventure as grand and rich as Tears of the Kingdom.

I think there’s a slight nod been made to those who missed the traditional style of dungeons, too, and while they are expanded versions of the Breath of the Wild style, they are lengthy, ability based sections that culminate in a set piece boss fight, of which every one is entertaining and spectacular. One dungeon required me to explore a smaller, cave-like section, which opened up the access to a sky-style dungeon, before leaving me to complete a proper dungeon-dungeon. It took well over an hour, and nearer two, to get through that entire section, and it felt superb.

There is just so much mystery and exploration on offer here. Even forty hours in I was discovering items that I just didn’t know what to do with. There are vehicles I’ve yet to design, and caves I haven’t yet spelunked. It doesn’t feel like five years since Breath of the Wild, but Tears of the Kingdom feels fresh, exciting, and a proper adventure in a way I can’t remember many games feeling like, and a few frame rate issues can’t dampen the enthusiasm I have for it.

I am almost envious of anyone playing this one fresh, because I had so many moments my head was in my hand in sheer astonishment. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of Kingdom might just end up being one of the best games ever made, with unparalleled exploration that offers freedom and creativity on a scale never before seen.

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The competition was stripped of its world championship status in 1977 because of the sheer number of deaths, and now racers participate because they want to, not because it is a part of winning a title. As high as these risks are, and as punishing as the courses can be, people still participate. Whether it’s down to the thrill of the race, bragging rights, or pure unadulterated passion for the sport, RaceWard has encapsulated this world renowned TT in all its glory, laid bare for players to see. From the moment you’re let loose on the island, the dangers present themselves, and the adrenaline is what kept me so enamoured by it.

Handling in TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 is superb, but the learning curve takes time to master. It feels like you’re handling something both delicate and powerful, and managing the high speeds on the longer stretches with sharp turns amid dense woodlands and busy streets is no easy task. Bikes are weighty, and every turn requires precision and careful consideration so as not to cause an unnecessary crash. The animations of when you do clip something, or miscalculate manoeuvring and fly into the scenery are brutal, highlight just how fragile it can feel when racing.

When you do start to become familiar with the handling and the layouts of the courses, it’s very rewarding. It took a good few hours to balance the speed and power of the bikes, but when you’re going so fast aware of the dangers, yet are still managing to stay on your wheels, it’s one of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve had in a racing game. Sometimes it can be a little too sensitive, especially when riding over the edge of a muddy embankment or some gravel, causing you to almost lose control and even fall off, but it will start to click. Learning the nuances of the courses and the different bikes is thoroughly enjoyable.

TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 gives you a ton of freedom to explore the island when not racing, allowing you to get familiar with every road, straight, and chicane. While the visuals aren’t as impressive as other racers, there’s been a lot of detail put in to recreating the Isle of Man. Truth be told, you don’t have a lot of time to enjoy the scenery anyway, given you’re so focused on trying not to fall off your bike. As you do explore the open roads and participate in various time trials and races, the sound design is fantastic, especially with how the DualSense has been used on PlayStation 5.

The throttle roars through the controller’s speaker, and the vibrations when speeding across the terrain can be felt in the palm of your hands, helping to immerse you in the thrills of competition. Every gear change feels like a pounding heartbeat, and the power of the bikes connect deeply with you as you’re playing. It’s yet another step in making you aware of both the excitement and the dangers of the TT, while showcasing the improvements made on the previous entry in the series. A fair amount of work has gone into making players aware of the competition and giving them enough to do in the process.

As you make your way across the island, there’re various icons that represent something for you to do. You can participate in either the Supersport or Superbike 2022 Season, and once you’ve decided if you want to race with a lighter or more powerful bike, you’re free to participate in a variety of challenges. Face-Offs see you race against a single component; Time Attacks give you the opportunity to beat a set time; Temporary Challenges don’t last forever, but give you another opportunity to set your best time; and Custom Events created by you or others can be undertaken as well. On top of these are the unofficial qualifiers and race events that make up your season until you’re ready to go for the iconic race itself.

The island is also filled with Discovery Points that provide background to the Isle of Man TT and its famous location as well, celebrating the rich history of the event. There’s plenty to do in TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3, and you’re rewarded for you victories and achievements, allowing to upgrade your bike’s components such as the chassis, suspension, and engine, increase or decrease the amount of fuel in the tank, and more. Having a better bike means a higher chance of success, and the reward loop is as satisfying as it gets.

TT Isle of Man: Ride on the Edge 3 is both brutal and thrilling, highlighting the dangers of the races you’ll find on the island whilst giving you one hell of a racing experience. It is difficult to begin with, and even after getting familiar with the gameplay, it still has frustrating moments, such as spending over 20 minutes in a Time Attack only to fail to beat the time. You’re putting in a lot of time into certain events because of the distance they cover, however, practice leads to success, and as you start to get better, there are few racers out there that make you feel as good as this.

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After being thawed out of a block of ice found on an old ship, an Indonesian pirate finds herself in modern day London with no idea why she’s here and no way to communicate with the locals. What she does know is that there are some real bad dudes after her, and after causing a ruckus at a buffet trying to fill her belly the police aren’t her biggest fans either. Fortunately for this pirate of the past she has a run in with a kind young barmaid called Mia, who soon gets to work trying to help her out.

Mia works at a pirate themed bar known as The Smuggler’s Den, which isn’t exactly the classiest establishment. After being coerced into unclogging the massive turd in the toilet, she finds a certain pirate hidden among the bins out back. Because she’s a caring individual (and because I refuse to help the police even in a video game) Mia hides her in the bar, feeds her, and eventually tries to learn more about her despite the language issues. It doesn’t take long for the duo to become close, and as long as you make the right decisions they may even end up changing each other’s lives for the better.

There’s only one aspect of the game you have any control over, and that’s when you’re choosing between two options of what Mia will do next. Mia and the Dragon Princess has plenty of branching narrative paths to explore, with all sorts of antics to uncover. Whether you’re deciding whether to be polite or snarky to a co-worker or figuring out how to confront a thug with a weapon, your actions will have serious consequences.

More often than not the situation at The Smuggler’s Den means that violence is just around the corner, which means you’ll be treated to one of the fantastic fight scenes that this FMV treat has to offer. I was blown away by how well put together these action packed sequences were, with a mix of impressive combat feats and silly moments that reminded me of some of my favourite Jackie Chan family comedies. It’s just not something you see very often in the FMV genre, and is a serious breath of fresh air.

One of my favourite aspects of Mia and the Dragon Princess is how willing it is to kill off characters. I was fairly successful in my first playthrough and didn’t realise quite how brutal the game is willing to be with all your favourite characters, but my second run was an absolute bloodbath.

These characters are a joyous mix of campy humans, from the barman who mixes cocktails with semen based names to the tour guide who is paid by the owner of The Smuggler’s Den to exaggerate the historical significance of the establishment. The performances are as ridiculous as you’d expect from an FMV game like this, and with a script that includes phrases like “bruised banana ballsack” and “fire escapes are for fannies” it’s a perfect fit.

By checking out certain scenes, you’ll unlock parts of an audio tour that’s narrated by the tour guide from the game. This is accessed from the main menu; it’s a nice and thematic bonus, and means you can find out a little more about some of the mysteries you’ll uncover on your journey.

There’s not a whole lot of negative aspects to talk about in Mia and the Dragon Princess. The game is very short (with a single playthrough taking around 30-40 minutes) and the basic multiple choices mean it isn’t a particularly involving experience. Just don’t expect to be playing this game for long or to have to use your brain a whole lot.

Mia and the Dragon Princess is a wonderful FMV action adventure, with ridiculous characters, exciting fight scenes and genuinely funny writing. It isn’t the longest of games and doesn’t have particularly engaging gameplay, but for a fun frolic into the world of FMV games you could do a hell of a lot worse than spending an evening with Mia and her mysterious buddy.

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Yes you read that right, Omega Strikers is a 3 on 3 game of air hockey, but with a vast selection of different heroes with abilities that change the game. Some just hit the core (which is essentially the puck) really hard or from a distance, others require a bit more planning to use. One character can throw down a blockade that the puck bounces off for the ultimate defence, another places her slime buddies on the field that automatically blast the core toward the enemy goal. It takes a while to learn the different character’s abilities, but once you do this game is magic.

To ensure the matches aren’t over before they start, each goal is blocked at the start each round. To open the enemy goal so you can score the big one, you’ll need to first hit a couple of targets near the goal. These targets differ depending on the pitch you’re playing on; one stage might just have two blocks you need to hit in front of the goal, another might want you to hit some triangles to either side which could lead to some wild bouncing you can use to your advantage.

After the short tutorial gets you used to your first and simplest character, you’ll probably jump into quickplay for a battle online. This basic three on three contest is perfect for beginners, with the first team that scores five goals winning the match. One especially nice aspect of quickplay is that if nobody scores for two minutes then the speed of the core is ramped up massively, making the games nice and quick (which is perfect for trying out new characters).

The range of heroes you can play as in Omega Strikers is just wonderful, with all sorts of unusual powers and strategies to use against the enemy team. Some characters fire projectiles to strike the core from a distance, some can cast buffs to boost the rest of the team, and one can even turn invisible and reappear to get a surprise shot off for a cheeky goal. Hell, if all this goal scoring isn’t for you, you can even play as a hero that can deal massive damage to the other team and eliminate them from the game for a while.

Once you’ve found the right hero for you, you need to decide if you’d rather play up front or as the goalie. I expected to be all about those goals, but with the right character defending against the enemy offense is a blast. Some characters are better in certain roles than others, but you’ll soon get the hang of that and be ready to start playing Competitive.

It’s only when playing this ranked mode that you’ll get to see all of what Omega Strikers has to offer. The MOBA elements become apparent rather quickly, when you get to vote to ban a character for the other team. Alongside this significant addition are the power ups you get to pick from between sets. A selection of eight are available to choose from for all players, but the order they’re chosen is based on who has been playing best. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and the other players will have left a power up you want, but choosing from the dregs can be pretty disappointing so you’d better play well.

The range of buffs on offer are often pretty game changing. You might get an extra use of one of your abilities without having to wait for a recharge, or perhaps you’ll move faster if you can avoid being hit. By the time you’ve selected a few of these power ups you’ll be unstoppable, and will often need to adjust your play style accordingly.

If all this sounds appealing then you’re in luck, because you don’t need to spend a penny to get started with Omega Strikers. The majority of my time playing the game was as an entirely new user who hadn’t dropped any cash on the game, and I thought the starting heroes and amount of time it takes to unlock the others was really fair. You’ll never have the coolest cosmetics if you don’t pay, but Omega Strikers is more than playable for free.

The only issue that the free to play nature of Omega Strikers brings is a currency one. Especially when starting out the menus full of different types of moolah are beyond confusing, and I never really knew what the different rewards I was getting for completing daily and weekly quests actually were. I still found the menus to be a mess even after hours of play too, and often gave up trying to find my rank or character affinity levels after a few minutes of flicking through nonsense.

This complexity does mean that there are plenty of hooks to keep you playing regularly though. The aforementioned daily and weekly quests are well worth completing (and mean you’ll keep coming back for more) and there’s also a Battle Pass to level up full of cool outfits, emotes and player titles to unlock.

If Odyssey Interactive continue to update Omega Strikers long term then competitive air hockey could keep me coming back for years. New heroes and maps would absolutely shake up the meta and freshen things up if done right, and I’m hopeful that this could be a multiplayer game with a long life and happy ending.

Omega Strikers is a fantastic and innovative multiplayer game, which is easy to jump into but has plenty to master. Learning how to best use different characters is seriously compelling, and those progression hooks kept me coming back for more every single day. With a bit of luck and regular updating, this could be the multiplayer success story we’ve needed in 2023.

The post Omega Strikers review appeared first on GodisaGeek.com.

When you start up Super Dungeon Maker for the first time you’re flung immediately into an oddly familiar top down dungeon with nothing but a sword to keep you alive. By wandering around you’ll soon find block puzzles, locked doors and the keys that open them, and unless you find the golden egg that serves as an exit then you’ll be trapped in here forever.

Once you beat this first dungeon, you’re greeted with a bright colourful overworld full of characters to interact with. There’s not a whole lot to do here though really, just a few dungeons to jump into and two main buildings where you’ll spend most of your time with the game. One of these is for finding dungeons online to play, and the other is for making your own dungeons.

The creation tools for the game are actually really easy to use, and in no time you’ll get used to attaching rooms to each other and placing nasty enemies and devious puzzles inside them. There’s a handy tutorial dungeon that teaches you the ropes too, where you have to switch to the creation mode to spawn keys for locked doors and delete walls to make your way to the exit. Super Dungeon Maker very much takes cues from the Super Mario Maker games, by giving you a bunch of familiar and easy to use elements to play with and just letting you go wild.

There is a slight issue when comparing this to other games with creation tools though, and that’s the level of thought that has to go into a single Zelda style dungeon compared to making a platforming level. Anyone can place a few platforms and test out how they work by jumping between them, but creating puzzles and working out where to place keys and items so players can make it to the goal is an entirely different skill set. This level of creativity is absolutely lost on me, and I just struggled to make anything worthwhile.

If you too are entirely useless at making levels, there are at least plenty of dungeons to play that others have made. There are various menus to flip through when looking for dungeons, organising them by popular dungeons or top rated dungeons. There’s no option to just play random levels though, so expect to be browsing screens of levels and trying to pick one to play a lot.

As a way to create Zelda style dungeons and play other people’s creations, Super Dungeon Maker is undoubtedly a good package. It does have some significant issues holding it back though. Perhaps the most important of these issue is that your movement just feels a tad sluggish. The little chicken protagonist moves the tiniest bit slower than they need to, but it’s enough to make the game feel less satisfying to play.

Another problem Super Dungeon Maker has is a lack of its own identity. Pretty much every item, puzzle element and enemy has been directly lifted from the Zelda games, and it makes the game feel very cheap. Even games like Mario Maker added new elements that didn’t exist in the games that they’re based on. When I entered my first boss room and realised I was fighting the big worm from Link’s Awakening it was impossible to stop my eyes from rolling.

Although it functions well as a way to create your own dungeons, it’s a shame that the dungeons are the only things you can make using this creation. My love of Zelda dungeons is well documented at this point, but they aren’t the only enjoyable part of the games that Super Dungeon Maker is clearly paying homage to. Being able to make larger worlds to explore or characters to interact with would’ve admittedly been a huge undertaking, but their absence is felt in the game.

I should also mention that Super Dungeon Maker has some performance issues on Switch. If you enter a room with too many enemies or moving parts the framerate will take a noticeable hit, and anyone who’s played a Super Mario Maker game before knows that creators love to do this.

Super Dungeon Maker lets you make and play all the Zelda inspired dungeons you could ever dream of, but has a few issues that hold it back from greatness. The fact everything is lifted almost exactly from Zelda games just feels a little cheap, and the control issues and a framerate that struggles in busy rooms aren’t ideal either. If you’re really into creating levels in games though these issues probably won’t be a deal-breaker, and I look forward to jumping into your dungeons.

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