HIGH First character maker in a Sonic game? Sweet!

LOW The level design, story, and gameplay are shockingly underwhelming.

WTF Avatars can wear a hat that says “Gamer”.

Sonic Forces has many interesting gameplay ideas and a dynamic character creation feature in this visually stylish package, but is constantly held back by a lack of creative level design, a lack of polish in its controls, and a story that fails to engage.

Shockingly, Dr. Eggman has defeated and imprisoned Sonic with his new mysteriously masked jackal comrade, Infinite, who bends reality using the Phantom Ruby. Now, with Eggman’s tyranny throwing the world into an apocalyptic state, a resistance team of Sonic’s friends must rescue our hero and save the world, with help from a Classic Sonic from another dimension and a rookie soldier — the Custom Avatar.

While this seems like a more mature premise than Sonic usually offers, the storytelling jarringly flip-flops between upbeat and serious, with tone-killing one-liners making things even worse. This incoherence shows that the story doesn’t know how to make players feel about the characters and story.

Additionally, many potentially interesting and dramatic plot points feel underdeveloped, and Infinite, the new enemy, lacks character development and any interesting use of his powers – are they real or just an illusion? It seems like even the writers don’t know the answer. In terms of play, Sonic Forces combines mechanics from previous entries – Modern Sonic’s fast-paced 3D “boost formula” and Classic Sonic’s 2D side-scrolling with the addition of Sonic Mania’s Drop Dash.

All of these elements are easy to pick up, and it can be entertaining to speed through stages while destroying hordes of enemies. Unfortunately, it all feels too simplistic too soon, making the gameplay loop feel repetitive.

Offering some variety, the Custom Avatar character wields “wispons” — weapons containing the superpowered aliens from Sonic Colors, which have various special attacks and powers. Occasionally, the Custom Avatar even teams up with Sonic in tag team stages.

Creating a character is a cute novelty with hundreds of pieces of clothing to be unlocked and seven species options, each with their own benefits (the bird species has a double jump, and so forth). Each Wispon has its own strengths and weaknesses, as well. A favorite was gaining insane speed from the Drill Wispon after mashing the trigger button.

Unfortunately, no matter what character the player chooses, the controls feel noticeably stiff, the running buildup too quick, and the jump too floaty – it all feels rushed and lacks the momentum and fluidity that made the classic 2D games rewarding to master. The stages, while linear, have some interesting obstacles – things like platforms that zoom forward when landing on them. A few even have alternate pathways, encouraging replayability with different Wispons that can aid in saving time or rewarding players with
hidden Red Star Rings.

But yet, it’s another mixed bag!

Most levels are much too short and don’t space out obstacles well. Excessive automated sequences remove player control and agency, and the potential of 3D gameplay is undercut in favor of basic, blocky 2D sections. Despite having 30 main stages, the the experience feel short-lived and repetitive. A smaller number of longer, more developed stages with fully fleshed-out mechanics would be a vast improvement. Visually, Sonic Forces again lurches one way, and then the other. The graphics and art style blend both cartoony and realistic, and the slick animations are a feast for the eyes while embodying Sonic’s cool, fast, and stylish qualities.

On the other hand, the animation during cutscenes gives characters wooden expressions and static movement, which is off-putting and immediately disengaged me from any potential drama. There’s also been a decent effort made to convey the world’s apocalyptic state through its original levels, with giant Death Egg Robots tearing up the city in Sunset Heights and flames burning around Luminous Forest. I wish the whole adventure was as original as these bits though, instead of otherwise mostly reusing past levels to pander for nostalgia — if Green Hill Zone is absolutely required as a level, it could have at least been altered to fit with the rest of the world in turmoil.

Overall, Sonic Forces’ potential for interesting storytelling, gameplay and level design are undercut by a lack of length, depth, and polish. Younger or casual players may enjoy Forces’ simplicity, but die-hard Sonic fans are better off playing Sonic Generations or Mania instead.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

— Thomas Greeney

Disclosures: This game is developed by Sonic Team and Hardlight Studios and published
by Sega. It is currently available on PS4, XBO, Switch and PC. This copy was purchased as a
paid download and reviewed on PC. Approximately 4 hours of play were
devoted to the single-player mode and the game was completed. An extra 3 hours were spent
on the side content, from a total of 7 hours of gameplay to review the title. There are no
multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence.
According to the site: Sonic Forces is an adventure platformer in which players help Sonic
and his friend defeat Dr. Eggman and his evil plans. As players speed through different
landscapes, they collect items (e.g., gold rings), avoid hazards, and use spin attacks to defeat
robotic foes and bosses. Players can also use a created character to fire grappling hooks and
other cartoony weapons (e.g., fire blasters, electric whip) to defeat enemies. During some boss encounters, players can perform close-up finishing blows that knock opponents out in dramatic fashion.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: Sonic Forces offers subtitles for cutscenes and
gameplay, and there are hints players can read. Text cannot be resized or altered. Other visual
elements will guide players through levels like button prompts and markers to indicate
enemies. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, Sonic Forces offers fully remappable controls.

The post Sonic Forces Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Effective worldbuilding. Engaging dialogue. Endearing art style.

LOW  Overused levels. Erratic difficulty.

WTF Did the badger lady kill the previous owner of the smithy or what?

Willow Guard is an unconventional hack-and-slash/deck-building/visual novel hybrid from the minds of MiTale, a Finnish publisher and developer that prides itself on its “passion for interactive storytelling and serious games” — and its latest work definitely reflects that passion. Fans of stories centered around knights-errant and anthropomorphic woodland creatures (Redwall anyone?) will delight in the charming aesthetics and darker undertones of the narrative.

The player controls a battle-hardened badger-man named Ghweros who, not unlike Geralt in The Witcher, belongs to an ancient order known as the Willowguards. They’re oathbound to protect the willow groves surrounding each settlement, yet they’re often derided by the townspeople. Ghweros has been sent forth into the world of Tersa to determine what’s been causing a sudden uptick in monster activity and put a stop to it.

The first stop is Woikos, a remote lumber town that appears ordinary but, as the player will learn from their forays into its mysterious ruins, was of particular importance to the Willowguards of antiquity. No spoilers here but the story is strong enough to be a visual novel with well-written dialogue and each area being peppered with tantalizing bits of lore just waiting to be pieced together.

Having spent years as a thankless mercenary, Ghweros has a gruff demeanor, but the player can make different choices to alter his personality. These then affect his relationships, or “Affinity” with others via different responses (empathetic, rigid, neurotic etc.) just as one would in games like the recent Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

These types correspond to opportunities like observing details or interacting with objects in static environments that are essentially point-and-click areas. Choosing certain actions — such as investigating a sinister presence in tall grass — increased my neurotic Affinity enough to grant me access to an otherwise inaccessible area. An event that affected my empathetic Affinity was triggered by clicking on a point near the foundation of a roadhouse as Ghweros took a moment to appreciate the effort and care put into its construction and maintenance.

While all of these elements get us off to a good start, it’s unfortunate that Willow Guard‘s combat isn’t up to the same standard.

Starting with the good, I appreciate the developer’s choice to switch from charming hand-drawn animation during story sequences to nostalgic 16-bit in the combat, which offers relatively straightforward mechanics with a few interesting deviations in formula. As I got more familiar with the gameplay loop, it was satisfying to clear room after room, getting more powerful as I went along.

Once past the visuals, I was soon dismayed by the awkward controls, unbalanced difficulty spikes and lack of variety in terms of level design.

Playing Willow Guard never felt natural, even after changing the key bindings. Also, basic attacks and visual cues for enemy attacks did not reflect their actual areas-of-effect or hitboxes, so I had to memorize where their attacks actually landed after learning that information the hard way.

Repetition is also a concern. The rooms and areas where combat takes place lack variety, and rather than being procedurally-generated as in some of my favorite roguelites, they’re just arranged in a different order. Also, some quests had me retreading the exact same ground as I’d already done, just with harder enemies. Exchanging loot for materials to upgrade gear and create new cards did help between quests, but the difficulty spikes were sometimes extreme, particularly by the time I reached the late-game areas.

This endgame zone instantly reminded me of classic Zelda dungeons thanks to its puzzles, enemies and challenges. However, I was disappointed to find that some puzzles were embarrassingly easy or non-existent — a room with spikes that would only trigger if I stepped on them hardly constitutes a mental challenge, as I was able to simply follow the path and arrive in the next room totally unscathed.

Other rooms were more tedious than challenging. One had a brief window during which enemies could be attacked, but after that they couldn’t be damaged unless they were hit by sentries that fired at me. I would have to dodge out of the way as the sentries launched their attacks. Then I had to wait for it to happen again, and again, until all of the enemies were finally destroyed and I could pull the lever to open the door to the next room.

In terms of production there were a handful of issues, including the fact that Willow Guard would sometimes freeze mid-dialogue, such as when I asked Ajati, the badger-woman blacksmith about the shop’s previous owner. The dialogue boxes dropped out completely and I had to quit the game. When I returned and tried asking the question again, the same thing happened.

I suppose I may never find out what happened to the former smithy owner, but putting that unintentional cliffhanger aside, my overall feeling is that the developers of Willow Guard largely accomplished what they set out to do — it just ended up a bit lacking in the execution.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Buy Willow Guard – PC

Disclosures: This game was developed and published by MiTale. The game is currently available on PC. It was obtained via publisher and reviewed for PC. Approximately 8.5 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is not rated by the ESRB but most likely, it would be rated T for fantasy violence, blood and gore. The player wields a sword and is able to cast an array of spells while many of their foes splatter pixelated blood and gore upon death.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game features exclusively text-based dialogue and no audio cues that impact the gameplay in any significant way, making it fully accessible.

Remappable controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Willow Guard Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Scratches the itch for a modernized 2-D Sonic, plus new combat mechanics.

LOW The story and hub sequences drag, uninspired early-game boss design.

WTF Why can’t the player advance the story dialogue themselves?

Freedom Planet 2 is a ’90s style 2D platformer with strong Sonic the Hedgehog influence.

I haven’t played the original, but it doesn’t seem necessary for the plot. The Freedom Planet series is set in a world inhabited by various demi-humans. The primary antagonist here is Merga, a water dragon who seeks revenge on the earth dragons for committing genocide against her species. For much of the campaign, the player is fighting on the side of the earth dragon kingdom – but it can feel a bit uncomfortable considering that’s the side that perpetrated genocide. (FP2 does eventually interrogate earth dragon history, but I wished it got there more quickly.)

Speaking of the writing, there are a lot of story scenes in Freedom Planet 2. While I appreciate that the makers are invested in its world and lore, I didn’t love the script. Many of the plot points related to water dragons were rather dark, and the writers didn’t seem comfortable handling such weighty issues. In many cases, a serious character beat would be introduced, then swiftly deflated by a jokey comment or comedic plot point. These tonal shifts lessen the impact of the story, and it especially plagued me because FP2 is fully voice-acted and the player can’t speed up dialogue.

Fortunately, the action in Freedom Planet 2 is better than the writing. The graphics are bright, charming, and generally appealing in a 16-bit Sega Genesis sort of way. The characters are visually distinct, and their sprites move in ways that reflect their personalities.

Most of the stages are designed similar to those seen in Sonic the Hedgehog – players run on a 2D plane and can take different routes through each stage while running at a fast pace.

There’s just something viscerally enjoyable about zooming through the world, and there are a lot of stages. A handful were a bit long, but overall, the running and platforming were joys.  I especially appreciated that FP2 improved on traditionally irritating designs, such as water levels, by adding gravity bubbles and speed-boosting paths.

In addition to the speedy platforming, there’s also some light puzzle solving. For example, some stages require certain conditions be met, such as turning on power in multiple rooms to proceed. In a more frustrating case, the player must hit balls into sockets to open doors, which required luck (or brute force repetition) if the player didn’t know about one of its intricacies.

There’s also some variety in how the player progresses, depending on the character selected. There are four characters total, and each can only be selected at the start of a run because they all have their own customized path. Lilac the dragon feels like the ‘default’ heroic character and has the fastest running speed and an invincible dash that can be used when she has a full power meter. In contrast, Milla the hound is slower, but can charge projectile attacks and fly.

That the characters each feel distinctive and affect the feel of play so much is impressive and adds replayability. Choosing Lilac makes FP2 feel like a Sonic clone, while playing as Milla provides more flexible offensive options, lending it a vibe closer to something like Mega Man X. However, regardless of who’s chosen, all characters have a dodge button that makes them temporarily invincible, which is a great idea that offsets issues with enemy attacks feeling like cheap shots.

Speaking of which, as much as I enjoyed the stages, I found several of the bosses frustrating. I completed the game with Lilac, who sometimes felt ill-suited to handle these encounters since she does not have a lock-on for her dash, and it can only be used when her gauge is full. This combination could be frustrating because it was not only hard to hit mobile bosses, but after missing a shot, I often found myself standing in corners and dodging attacks for several seconds while my dash gauge refilled. I found that other characters didn’t have the same problems, as some had more range with their basic attacks and didn’t have to rely as much on a power gauge.

On the standard setting, Freedom Planet 2 will be a fair challenge for someone familiar with these kinds of platformers. However, an unusually tough boss forced me to engage with the item system, which allows the player to slot in two power-ups and a potion, effectively serving as a way to mitigate difficulty.

These item slots offer boosts like a higher max HP or adding damage-over-time to one’s attacks. The potion slot can allow the player to boost or augment stats, such as increasing attack or restoring HP by hitting enemies. If the player wants to further decrease challenge, menu-based accessibility settings can be adjusted.

Overall, Freedom Planet 2 is an excellent (though imperfect) love letter to Japanese ’90s style platformers, and anyone who enjoys either old-school design or platforming in general will find it worthwhile thanks to solid mechanics, plenty of content and strong replayability via the different characters available. Maybe skip the story, but don’t miss it.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

– Heather Rees

Disclosures: This game is developed by GalaxyTrail and published by GalaxyTrail. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S/PS4/PS5/Switch/PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 15 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Teen, and contains Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes. Some of the plot points of the story are mature in nature (mentioning of child abduction, genocide), but the handling seems appropriate for a teenage audience. The characters mainly attack robots, and occasionally each other but the violence is not graphic. 

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. The game is playable with no sound and visual cues are primarily used to indicate attacks or important things on the screen. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Freedom Planet 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to Goodbye, Volcano High on the So Videogames podcast, episode 353: Wendy’s Chicken Sandwich 8.5/10

BRAD: The only thing I really have for housekeeping is I want to do a circle back. I’m trying to get into this habit of bringing something to the show, talking about it, but then I haven’t finished it. Right. But if I feel like it’s good enough to finish, I want to come back and do a score and I’m going to do that today. I did it. I think I’ve been doing it on the shows that you’re not here, but this is you’re finally here back so you can hear me doing it. Now I want to circle back to Goodbye Volcano High, which I played last episode and talked about that in depth. You can go back and hear the details there, but just for a brief recap, in case you didn’t hear that episode or for Carlos who wasn’t here, uh, goodbye. Volcano High is a visual novel slash animated film. It’s basically like this really high quality, super slick cartoon that you watch, but you also make choices, narrative choices. And you also do like some music, minigames and a few other minigames. [00:25:00] But large part, it’s, you know, I feel like it’s kind of fair to say it’s visual novel. But like it’s so slick. The graphics are fucking amazing. The animation is really amazing. The voice work is fantastic. Every voice in this game is just like tops. And I found out after the fact that it was Sarah Elmaleh who did the voice direction and she did a spectacular job. She understands voice directing 100%, and I couldn’t have been happier with the voices. Basically, the story is that you play a well, you play Fang, who I believe is an Archaeopteryx. I think every character in this game is a anthropomorphic dinosaur.

CARLOS: Oh, that’s what it is. Because I knew there was some sort of animal person.

BRAD: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody is an anthropomorphic dinosaur, and this takes place back in prehistoric times, although it’s kind of a weird mix because they got shoes and there’s like iPods and, you know, like, they’re like kind of like human society ish, but they’re still dinosaur people. Anyway, they fang is in high school and the rest of her friends are in high school. It’s a fantastic coming-of-age story about where you are now, what your next phase of life is going to be, and when you sometimes grow apart from friends. Maybe you’ve been really close all through junior high or high school or whatever, but as you get close to that cusp of going out in the real world, you see that maybe not everybody is on the same track. Maybe some things that you’ve shared in the past, maybe you still share them, still friends. But like, you know, one person’s path is not the path for everyone. I mean, I don’t know about you, Carlos, but I remember going through that exact same thing when I was in high school where my best friend at the time started getting into some stuff that I wasn’t really too into. But, you know, we were still friends and everything. But then when we started talking about what we were going to do after high school, I mean, his ideas were very different from my ideas. I mean, I think he was going to enlist in the Navy, and I was like, I’m super not doing that. And so that may have been the right choice for him. It wasn’t the right choice for me, but we were still friends, but we just ended up being on different paths, right? Did you ever have that experience yourself?

CARLOS: I’m trying to think about that. Um, and by the way, this kind of brings up a note and it’s interesting. It’s kind of my first question before you even go into your final review of it. But like we have talked about games like this before and how it’s hard for us to connect to them. Yeah, because those moments are so far removed from our lives. Totally. Totally. Yeah. And so I’m just wondering how you found the connection there, because for me, it’s really hard to get into a game where I’m thinking about those choices that I made so long ago.

BRAD: Well, you know, that’s a good point because we have said that many times, and I don’t generally like teenage protagonists because I feel like they keep hitting the same tropes over and over and they don’t really do like much of an examination. Like, for example, like, you know, whenever you get like a teen protag and a jRPG or something, I’m just like, Oh, like, okay, whatever. Like it’s like the same, the same notes over and over. And it’s funny because speaking of openings and starfield and how, you know, people say it’s starfield, like it’s got you got to put 12 hours in before it gets good. Like in this game. Goodbye Volcano High. I think I played like the first opening scene, which is maybe like three minutes, four minutes I was in, dude. I’m like, Oh yes, I’m in. Like, this is. This has got me. So you don’t need 12 fucking hours to get somebody into your fucking game. You just need a good start to your game.

CARLOS:And another game I’ll talk about today also has that same kind of thing. So yeah, you can just get, you can get hooked right away.

BRAD: Yeah, you can. And so and I will be perfectly honest, dude, when I started this, I was like, okay, teenagers. I don’t know. I’m like this old crusty ass senior citizen. I don’t know if I can reconnect, but man, they totally got me, dude. I think the voices are great and that helps. The performances are very strong. I think also we don’t normally spend a lot of time on this particular aspect, right? Like when you’re on the cusp of breaking away. And I think that’s kind of what got me.

CARLOS: That’s the difference. Okay.

BRAD: Yeah. Like the difference of like I we are still friends, but we are no longer so close or we are making different choices and our choices, the thing that is right for me that is not right for you is what’s kind of driving us apart. And do you bridge that or do you not bridge that? So I think that was something that really resonated with me because you don’t even have to be a high schooler to have that. I mean, I can think of many friends, Um, you know, after I got out of high school in my adult life where it’s like, you know, we were friends and then all of a sudden they make a choice that I feel like I can’t get on board with or vice versa. And then maybe we’re still friends, but like, we’re not the same because of something that happened or, you know, they chose a different path or a different job or they moved or whatever, something like that. So, so that I think was kind of a really key part. But I think the other part was that and I don’t think this is a spoiler, I think they they think they talk about this in the trailer. It’s even in the opening logo. So I don’t feel like this is a spoiler.

BRAD: But, you know, the current theory about what happened to the dinosaurs is giant meteor. Right? Like wiped them out because of like, I don’t know, big, big meteor hit the earth dust cloud killed all life, etcetera, etcetera. So that’s in this game. Like as after the first couple moments, you realize there’s a giant fucking meteor heading for Earth and all these dinosaur people, they know about it and they’re like, It’s coming. And then to see how they deal with that really [00:30:00] connected me really strongly. I mean, in large part because of. Right. I mean, it’s funny because my I let my son play this, my 14 year old son, I’m like, I think you’d really like this because you’re like in the age bracket. Plus you’re going through some of this stuff, play this, let me know what you think. And he, like, he plays the game. Right after this first session, he comes up to me. He’s like, Dad, what the fuck? I’m like, What? He’s like, There’s a giant fucking meteor coming to hit Earth and like, this is not even believable. People aren’t even doing anything. I’m like, Oh, really? You think that’s not believable? What are people doing about Covid? And he’s like, uh.

CARLOS: All right. Yeah.

BRAD: So not only Covid, but also the ecological thing that we’re going through now, where Earth is literally boiling us to death and we’re fucking around. We’re just fucking around. We’re still boiling, we’re digging for oil and we’re burning gas and we’re not changing. We’re doing the wrong things.

CARLOS: But I was just going to say just not to tangent, but like in Seattle today, it’s going to be 80 and it’s like, no, no, no, no, no. And then like, oh, tomorrow I bring this up because again, people aren’t talking about it like, What the hell? It’s right in front of our faces. Tomorrow it’s going to go down to 71 or something and be like, Oh, kind of like fall weather again then. Then literally two days later, 80 again, and then like three days later, 88. Are you fucking kidding me? What is wrong? That’s like, what?

BRAD: What evidence do we need? Dude, what were We are. We are. Yes, we are living. It’s. We’re. We are neck deep in all these signs, all these scientists that are like, screaming at us, being like, oh, my God, the polar ice caps are melting. The the the global temperatures are rising. We’re seeing green. I fucking I just watched the news report yesterday. So Greece, they got three years worth of rain in two days. And now the government agrees to saying, well, you know, I think that maybe we’re going to have permanent lakes where we used to have dry land. That’s fucked up, dude. Like. So anyway, not that we need. I mean, this is all very serious.

CARLOS: It is very serious. Let me just finish that that tangent by saying, everybody go check out the movie. Don’t look up.

BRAD: Please go check out that movie. Yes.

CARLOS: Because that is exactly what we’re talking.

BRAD: Exactly. So so that’s I think what kind of got me right is because not only is it the divergence of path, not only is it the outstanding performances, the script, super organic, it feels like everybody in this is just like a person. I mean, they’re dinosaurs. Yeah, whatever. But put that aside. It just feels like people talking in a very realistic way. And I was I was easily getting sucked into it because I was like, Oh, those are the jokes I would kind of make. Or like I had a friend who talked like that or yeah, you know, like you can it feels real, right? But also the sense of impending fucking global disaster. And what does that mean for you on a day to day basis? Because these characters often say, Hey man, there’s like a big meteor coming. What am I supposed to do? And they’re like, Well, what can we do? Yeah. You know, in our particular case, there is stuff we can do. So that’s a whole different question. But the idea of like one individual person stopping one individual person stopping global warming or stopping fascism, right? One individual person feels kind of helpless. But if you get together with people, you’ve got some power. You get together with your local government or something, you’ve got more power. So that concept of like, how do you live your life on a day to day basis, minute to minute, hour to hour when you know, this giant fucking mack truck is going to come and smack the shit out of you? Yeah. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it, right? So that was very fascinating to me and I just really loved how they handled that. So even though on the surface, this doesn’t seem like something that either you or I would connect with, I was in from from the get go and it held my attention like all the way through, dude. Like, I was just I was I was glued to it.

CARLOS: You said enough things that that differentiate it from the kind of things that we can’t connect to. You know what I mean? Yeah, there’s like a multiple things going on there. So. Yeah, so it’s.

BRAD: It’s really good. Really good.

CARLOS: What’s this? You’re going to score this one? Yeah, I got to.

BRAD: Score this one. I feel like I just. I had a wonderful time all the way through. I really appreciated, I mean, number one, like the production quality, I can’t even describe to you how good it is. This could be easily like a TV show that you would watch, like some high quality cartoon that you’d watch on TV. Like it looks great, it moves great, sound is great. Everything is great. The art direction is great and the musical numbers are wonderful. I’m not usually a guy that gets swept away in the moment, but I was really feeling this. and music and I felt like it went really well with the game and the moments and everything. And when it got to the end, I feel like they. I feel like they fucking pulled it off. I feel like they got to the end. And I was like, okay. I feel like that was a good ending, you know? And that’s, I mean, real talk, dude. I was like, How the fuck are they going to end this? Like, is the meteor going to crash? Are they going to have happy ever after? Like, what’s going to happen? And I’m not going to spoil it, but like whatever ending they got to, I was like, Yeah, man, I felt that.

CARLOS: So, all right, what are you what are we giving it?

BRAD: All in all, this is pretty spectacular shit. Oh, one more thing. Also, I got to just say, this is an example of what video games can do, because I’m sure some people are going to be like, Well, you couldn’t this there was no platforming, there was no attack combo. There was, Oh, it’s not a game. It’s just a thing. Yeah. Okay, fine. Whatever. It’s an experience that you could only have in the video game medium, right? Like you got experience. Be there, be alongside these characters. You make your choices, you’re in it in a way that you wouldn’t be in, in a TV show or [00:35:00] a book or an audiobook or whatever This is. This is something video games can do, and I think this is a wonderful example of it. So I just really want to highlight that it doesn’t matter that, you know, you didn’t have an inventory or that there were no guns or anything. Like it’s just it is what it is. It’s just a video game experience. And I give this this experience altogether. Goodbye Volcano High. I give it a solid nine.

CARLOS: Whoa! Nine.

BRAD: Very good. Nine, solid nine.

CARLOS: And we don’t do scores much, so. That’s a pretty big deal. I was going to say also when you mentioned that conversation stuff, which I love in games like this, when they get it organically, like you said, super organically, it’s Night in the Woods, one of my favorite games.

BRAD: If you like Night in the Woods, you would like this game.

CARLOS: Yeah, because I’m going to. I’m going to download it because yeah, I just love that kind of like quiet little simple throwaway conversations that feel real, you know?

BRAD: That’s exactly that’s what this game is. From front to back, dude.

CARLOS: Oh, there you go. Okay, I’ll download it.

BRAD: All right. I had a wonderful time with Goodbye, Volcano High. It’s an amazing experience that could only be had in the medium of videogames. Absolutely Solid nine. There you go.

So Videogames Official Score: 9 out of 10

Developer: KO-OP

Publisher: KO-OP

Code Source: Publisher

Platform Reviewed: PS5

ESRB Rating: T – Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Subtitles: There are subtitles for most of the conversations in the game, although there are no lyrics onscreen when Fang is performing songs. There are options to change colors and other aspects of the subtitles in the menu, but I was not able to get the options to work during my playthrough. In its current state, this game is not fully accessible.

Controls: The controls cannot be remapped. There is no control diagram. The player selects choices with the analog stick and confirms/cancels with the face buttons. During music segments, the player will be holding the analog stick in a direction to ‘capture’ nodes, they will press face buttons in time to a beat, and they will flick both analog sticks in a particular direction to match some notes.

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HIGH The air of hopelessness.

LOW Some technically-poor transitions between scenes.

WTF Pretty much everything, but that would be spoiling it…

Backbone is one of the most fascinating videogames I’ve played in a long time, and it’s not even because I was in the shoes of an anthropomorphic raccoon in a dystopian 20th-century Vancouver. In fact, while praise for the distinct art style, smooth animation and gorgeous pixel art is well-deserved, it all takes a backseat to the game’s fascinating ideas.

Backbone is described as a “post-noir detective-adventure RPG” in which this take on the classical point-and-click genre is enhanced with stealth sections, exploration and long dialogue sequences that include choices. Aside from the forgettable stealth, all of these elements offer significant contributions and support its cornerstone — a phenomenal narrative.

We play as Howard Lotor. He’s a private investigator, but not in the Sherlock Holmes sense — he’s actually quite mediocre and confined to investigating wife beaters, cheaters, and criminal kids. He often fails at his job and later, we learn that his failings are associated with his status as a raccoon — this is emblematic of the central theme of the game, social Darwinism.

All the citizens of Backbone‘s Vancouver are anthropomorphic animals like Howard, but some are more equal than others. The city is confined within a great wall which is constructed with neighborhoods that represent levels of hierarchy. At the bottom are hardworking raccoons, foxes, dogs, cats, rabbits and the like, while on top of the system are heavier and stronger animals such as bears, lions, and most particularly, apes. It is obvious what the hierarchy of apes resembles in the real world.

Howard’s weakness as a detective and his social inferiority intelligently intertwine when he stumbles upon a shady conspiracy network between the city’s ape rulers, drug manufacturers and leading scientists. Shocked and disgusted by their malevolence towards the lower classes/species of society, Howard dedicates himself to investigating further with the help of a clever fox who’s a political writer.

Like many dystopian narratives, Backbone is not ultimately a success story. Howard is not the hero of the oppressed, and his struggles and general powerlessness invite an existentialist layer to the narrative where he constantly wonders whether his life has any purpose at all. It is, in a sense, the polar opposite of the traditional videogame narrative. Rather than gradual empowerment, Backbone shows Howard’s increasing decay as a person, both mentally and physically.

Yet, within the heaviness of themes and events presented in the plot, there resides sparkles of goodness in Howard’s few exchanges with nature. We can see Howard become one with the trees surrounding him or see him feeding pigeons in the streets. When his mind temporarily escapes from his societal constrains, we come closest to viewing Howard at peace with himself.

Backbone’s narrative and character work are thrilling, complex, and thought-provoking, and the writing deserves all the praise it can get. That said, there is some feeling of the pacing being slightly off, since the final acts feel like they follow too quickly after the introductory ones. Whether it’s due to a lack of time or inspiration, the story could’ve done with at least two more chapters of narrative substance during the middle stretch.

Any other issues I might raise with Backbone are mostly trivial. With its inspired script that accentuates themes of dystopia and desperation, this detective story delivers one of the most inspiring narrative-driven titles I’ve played in some time.

Disclosures: This game is developed by EggNut and published by Raw Fury. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: Backbone currently has no ESRB rating. According to PEGI, this game is rated 16+ and contains Strong Language and Use of Alcohol/Tobacco/Drugs. I would add that violence and bloody murder are also implied, and the dialogue contains references to cutting people into pieces.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. This game can be fully experienced without sound, without any hindrance. In my view, it’s fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

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HIGH Battling a giant floof while wearing power armor.

LOW There’s no excuse for melee combat this awkward.

WTF The giant monster that wears teddy bear-themed pajamas.

The action-RPG can be a difficult nut to crack. Combat needs to feel fluid and visceral so that it doesn’t seem like fights are won by stat checks instead of skill, but at the same time, character builds need to feel different enough for players to get the sense that they’re crafting their own personal take on the world. Biomutant, which takes players on a journey through a post-apocalyptic landscape packed with… adorable fur monsters… does its best at finding a balance between those poles, but ends up struggling as much as it succeeds.

Biomutant is set on a future version of Earth, long after humans have fled the planet and left behind enough toxic waste to mutate the remaining wildlife into bipedal martial artists. The plot kicks off with a battle between the main character — a one-eyed ronin designed prior to the campaign — and “The Meat-Eater”, a giant wolf famous for being the only non-vegetarian left in the world. Once each has gone their separate ways, the ronin runs into an old friend who explains that giant monsters are feasting on the roots of the enormous tree which is filtering poison out of the water and soil. Unless they’re stopped, the world is going to go through a second, more final apocalypse.

It’s not difficult to pinpoint Biomutant’s greatest strength since the creature design here is stellar. There are seemingly endless variations on each type of monster that the ronin can come up against — from tiny balls of fur and teeth to enormous behemoths, each new type that appears is a delightful surprise. In addition, there are a half-dozen factions of humanoid enemies, each with its own style of armor and weaponry, ensuring that the player will constantly come up against new foes for the length of the campaign. The only problem I had here was that some of them were so cute that I hesitated to kill them off.

Biomutant‘s map is also a marvel. Learning the key lesson (see: ELEX) that a world should be both easy to traverse and constantly providing strange new sights, Biomutant’s areas are some of the best post-apocalyptic landscapes I’ve ever seen. From green fields to icy tundra, and from sun-flecked beaches to blackened plains, each new biome offers distinct environmental features and unique threats, not to mention dozens of locations to investigate. One of my main criteria when judging open-world titles is to see how much time I spend exploring the world before getting around to pursuing the main questline. Biomutant’s world is so intriguing and dense that I was level 20 before I checked in on the giant world-eaters threatening creation.

While Biomutant may look fantastic and has one of my favorite open-world maps, it stumbles badly right out of the gate when it comes to the story.

The developers have made the strange choice to not voice the game’s characters — the ronin and all the people they meet speak gibberish, and a narrator explains what’s going on in the conversation, which has the effect of distancing players from the characters and their concerns. Other than the ronin (still ticked off about the time his parents were killed by the Meat-Eater) I didn’t make a connection with any other characters. In a larger sense, it feels like Biomutant has a premise more than it has a story. A threat is established and the player has to defeat it, but the details of that threat don’t resonate because the lack of detailed characterizations makes it feel like there aren’t any stakes.

Another large problem is the combat, which is balanced terribly. Well, that’s not entirely accurate — the gunplay and magic powers work fine, but the melee is mess. The developers are obviously going for weighty, impactful fights full of dodges, perfect parries, and brutal counters, but they don’t let players lock on to enemies. Instead, players get a ‘soft-lock’ on whoever the game decides that they’re attacking. It’s needlessly awkward, and made more so by the fact that it’s strangely difficult to stagger an opponent. Enemies barely react to being hit, making it tough to open them up for combos — especially frustrating with giant humanoids and large beasts who can attack continuously without any clear way to interrupt them.

Biomutant‘s combat would be a complete wash if it weren’t for the fact that every type of gun works great, and they all come with infinite ammo. As a third-person shooter that focuses on close-range gunplay and flashy dodges, it’s quite good– but as a brawler, Biomutant is inexcusably bad. If players had to rely solely on melee combat, it would be nearly unplayable.

Biomutant’s saving grace is how willing it is to get weird and different with its gameplay. There are puzzles to solve, walls to climb, ancient fallout shelters to plunder, and more — behind every corner, there was something new to uncover.

The game is also unusually helpful when it comes to sidequests. Once players know about a type of quest, such as repairing an old radar dish or watching a filmstrip, all of the information on how to complete that quest turns up in their journal. Then, the moment that quest is finished, the next iteration of it pops up on the map, taking all of the frustrating searching out of the process. This makes things considerably easier to complete than a traditional open-world RPG, but it feels right for Biomutant –– the developers are obviously proud of the world they’ve built, and want to minimize obstacles that would keep players from seeing all of it.

It’s rare that I’ll forgive lackluster story or mediocre combat, but the unbelievably positive energy in its other aspects creates such a winning atmosphere that I find it hard to hold its failures against it. Yes, Biomutant‘s story could be a lot better, but it’s also an adventure where an otter in a wetsuit builds the player a jetski so they can cruise to an archipelago and battle mutants around the rusty remains of ancient shipwrecks. I wish the fighting was more thoughtfully designed, but then again, a lemur taught me how to use a submarine so I could fight a giant turtle in an underwater city.

What Biomutant lacks in polish, it makes up for in audacity, and I appreciate that.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Experiment 101 and published by THQ Nordic. It is currently available on PC, XBO/S/X and PS4/5. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. The game has no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game was rated T by the ESRB, and it features Alcohol Reference, Blood, Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, and Use of Tobacco. For a game about murderous beasts stalking a post-apocalyptic world, Biomutant is fairly wholesome. Yes, people talk about drinking and smoking, and there’s quite a bit of blood and tragedy in the game, but by and large, even younger teens should be fine playing it without any trouble.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played the majority of the game without audio and encountered zero difficulties. All dialogue is subtitled and all vital information is provided visually. Subtitles can be resized. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, the controls are not remappable.

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HIGH The voice acting.

LOW Instant fails.

WTF Drugs. It’s always drugs.

For those coming to this review with no idea of what Blacksad: Under the Skin is about and simply clicked on it due to seeing a funny-looking cat in a trenchcoat, have no worries — you’ve come to it much the same way I did.

Blacksad is based on a comic of the same name set in an alternate version of 1950s New York populated by anthropomorphic animals. Despite my ignorance, the game (an original story based in the same universe) makes a compelling argument for its existence, and also for investigating its inspiration.

This game is a 3D third-person adventure. The player takes control of John Blacksad and is required to find clues, talk to people, make decisions and complete Quick Time Events. There are also key events when John has enough clues to enter a ‘deduction phase’ that allows him to line up two (or more) pieces of evidence and come to a conclusion that advances the plot. For example, Blacksad knows that a certain person is single. However, he observes that they had two glasses of wine at their table, and there’s a woman that refers them in an overly-familiar fashion. The logic then suggests that they were potentially intimate.

The story involves Blacksad being hired by a friend to investigate the suicide of a boxing gym owner. His star pupil vanished a few weeks before a big fight, and there are suspicious loan sharks lurking around. Things develop from there, twisting and turning while drawing in more characters, but it’s never trite and feels totally in line with the ’50s hard-boiled detective films it is clearly inspired by.

The English voice acting is superb, especially the central performance by Barry Johnson who conveys Blacksad’s world-weariness with aplomb. There are a few dud lines in the script, but he sells them. Sharon Mann (playing the deceased’s daughter) and Akil Wingate (playing Blacksad’s sidekick) also stand out.

Unfortunately, Blacksad as a game is flat-footed (yes, I am doing puns now) in significant, ways.

One huge issue is the pace. Blacksad is content to throw the player into instant-fail scenarios that happen during timed flashbacks — I assume they’re meant to ramp up tension, but failing them multiple times just leads to irritation. These situations pop up too often and cause moments of unwelcome friction.

Also frustrating is that Blacksad’s deductions must be completed correctly before things can proceed. Of course it makes sense that a detective would need to figure things out to move a case along, but I never felt smart when I matched every clue with every other clue until I brute-forced a solution from seemingly-unrelated hints. In other instances I knew what an answer was but had to wait for an arbitrary event to happen before I’d be able to combine the necessary clues.

Blacksad‘s technical performance is bad with jittering scenes that cause some QTEs to be missed, or sometimes the QTEs don’t appear at all. Worse yet, I also experienced hard crashes and technical hangs that stopped my progress.

It’s unfortunate that Blacksad: Under the Skin fell prey to these foibles because it offers a story worth seeing to the end, even if a lack of optimization gets in the way. With a little more technical polish, these great characters in a great setting will be able to shine.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Pendulo Studios and published by Microids. It is currently available on PS4, PC, Mac, Switch, and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBO-X. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, and Strong Language. This is another game that earns its M rating — throats get slit, a father and daughter are burnt alive, there is talk of sex trafficking with mentions of underage kids being forced into sex work, and a fair amount of swearing too.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played the game for about 2 hours without sound and did not encounter any puzzles or moments that would not be playable without sound (except for when there are bugs). Text cannot be resized.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

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HIGH The cartoon art style gives its characters personality.

LOW Too much effort in some places, not enough in others.

WTF I guess I’m rescuing a princess again?

Sometimes I have moments where I start playing a game and it grips me from the outset — things just click and everything moves forward at an exhilarating pace. Then there are games like Shiness that seem to fight me at every moment despite my best efforts to derive enjoyment from them.

Shiness is a colorful RPG that mixes 3D exploration with the sort of real-time combat that seeks to emulate the combo and parry systems of a game like Devil May Cry. The story centers around a little furry Waki (one of the races in the game) called Chado and his other Waki buddy, Poky. The pair crash-land their airship on the way to a mythical place called the Land of Life. Not long after, they bump into a human Princess, her grumpy bodyguard, and a mysterious rogue that seems to be hunting the regent.

The broad strokes of the story are utterly forgettable — in fact, I had to make an effort to not plagiarize one of my other reviews in the description of these characters. There’s a bunch of evildoing going on, the Princess falls into peril, it’s down to the rest of the crew to rescue her… Anyone can see where this goes. The fact that the main plot is so generic is surprising considering that that there are interesting subplots. One involves undead spirits stuck in a loop of eating the poison that killed them decades before, and another is a back-and-forth between the main characters and a dishonorable bunch of mercenaries. This good writing is trampled under the heavy-handed main plot, and I especially appreciated the subtle hints at racial tension between the Wakis, Shelks and Humans with the use of made-up language and insults.

The 3D characters are heavily lined, giving each of them a cartoon look that recreates the visuals from the webcomic that it’s based on. The animations match the upbeat style, with Chado and Poky being particularly emotive. Unfortunately, the world that surrounds them is hit and miss.

Shiness starts off strong in a verdant jungle with multiple means of traversal — jumping across a broken bridge is viable but risky, as opposed to using Chado’s ability to place rocks on pressure sensitive pads, which is the safe (but boring) way to open a door. About halfway through the adventure there’s a large plain to explore — it’s a joy to cross as the wide-open space allows for unfettered exploration while taking on roaming mobs as (and when) I felt like it. Being able to find hidden items in hard-to-reach or unexplored areas or taking on mini-storylines with bounties both breathe life into the world that Shiness is trying to create. They also helped me feel like I was actually in the world, rather than ticking off boxes on the way to the next cutscene.

Less successful are the interiors that litter the game. The collision for the awkward platforming is frequently off, and the camera in cramped spaces often gets obscured, or clips through Chado and his team for a view of their insides.

The camera angles become even more infuriating every time they hinder the real-time combat. Well-intentioned as a break from standard turn-based fare, the groundwork for interesting fights is laid by a comprehensive list of upgradable offensive and defensive moves. However, the controls feel unresponsive given the speed and the ferocity of encounters, and enemies can too easily counter most tactics. This leads to button mashing that’s frequently punctuated by a tree or wall getting in the way.

A lot of work clearly went into these systems (proven by the myriad of menus hidden within the pause function) but, if anything, I feel like more work was needed to refine the fights and to create a better flow between adventuring, fighting and exploring. Doing side missions and finding secrets is all well and good, but the combat that punctuates these detours feels exhausting and it became hard for me to stomach it.

Also noting is that the game spikes in difficulty near the end. I must not have been paying enough attention to leveling up all the abilities because my playthrough came to an abrupt standstill when I got to a section where my team was supposed to repel an enemy invasion. The challenge required that I run back and forth between two cannons while infinitely-spawning enemies appear. It seemed to also be time-based, and at an indeterminate point I get an automatic game-over message. My last save is just before this scene, and there’s nowhere for me to go to grind and improve my stats. So, to anyone that reads this review and is determined to play this game, be warned.

There are lots of little things in this title that are genuinely good — the subplots add a depth to the world, the art style is buoyant — but there’s far too much that feels like it hasn’t been fully thought out. Shiness is a curious experiment that never quite hits the mark, which is a shame given the effort that has clearly gone into it. Rating: 4 out of 10

— AJ Small

Disclosures: This game is developed by Enigami and published by Focus Home Interactive. It is currently available on Xbox One, PC and PS4. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Xbox One. Approximately 16 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Teen and contains Violence. None of the violence is explicit but there are some darker themes involving poisoning and patricide that might be disturbing for younger children.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All information is text based and there is no reliance on audio cues to play this game.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

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