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 The buildup to the second boss fight.

LOW The actual second boss fight.

WTF “Little guys for big jobs” is a profoundly weird way to describe bullets.

There’s nothing slick about Blood West.  It’s a slow, lumbering thing – an exercise in patience, demanding to be taken on its own terms. 

My first forays into this stealth focused, first-person shooter were mired in frustration, while my seemingly interminable failures put the main character’s immortality to the test.  However, once I was willing to abandon my preconceived heuristics and fully lean into Blood West’s loop, I loved every second of it.

Recently resurrected by a talking cow skull of dubious origins, the player takes control of an unnamed, undead gunslinger tasked with defeating a great evil corrupting the land.  Structured as small open-worlds, players will explore haunted canyons, swamps, and mountain ranges across the American old west.  Light RPG elements allow for some character customization, but make no mistake, spirits, mutants, and gaggles of gun-toting birdmen offer stiff resistance to incautious players, and maintaining a low profile is crucial.

Impulse and quick reflexes find no purchase in Blood West – every action must be carefully considered, with a solid contingency plan in place should things go awry.  Stand-up fights netted poor results for this spooky cowpoke, and each encounter turned into a tactical calculus.

Take the simple act of equipping weapons – players are only able to swap between two at a time, one large and one small.  Is it more prudent to take the bow, able to stealthily dispatch weaker enemies from afar?  Or is it better to knife them in the back, relying on the close quarters fury of a double-barreled shotgun should that colossal wendigo stomping in the background take notice?  These questions become existential as health is fleeting, and death is severely punished on the plains of Blood West.

Each defeat (and subsequent resurrection) results in a “soul flaw” — a semi-permanent status effect that negatively impacts a core stat such as health, stamina, or sneaking ability.  These compound with each death, worsening up to three times. While they can eventually be remedied, these flaws do nothing to make the hostile world of Blood West any easier.

While Blood West is punishing when approached as a typical first-person shooter, it is immensely rewarding as a tactical stealth experience.  Its open-ended structure offers players abundant freedom in tackling objectives, and most areas can be approached from any direction.  I came to organize my play into discreet sorties, probing further into the wilderness and systematically clearing areas of enemies before returning to base camp to trade treasure with the merchant and heal up.  Defeated enemies stay dead until the player rests or resurrects, and I began to feel a measure of control over my environment when I realized I could stay alive much longer with the most important tactic of all – knowing when to cut bait. 

Eventually, I came to realize the majority of my deaths in Blood West were a result of my own hubris – deciding to take a snap headshot without properly scouting the area, accidentally alerting a horde of monsters in the process, or pressing into uncharted territory despite a depleted health bar.  Individual enemies are generally not difficult on their own, and most can be outrun should they become overwhelming.  That’s not to say that every death is the player’s fault, but I rarely felt Blood West was unfair and often found my own stubbornness and inattention to be the source of any frustration.

Careful attention is not only important for combat but also exploration.  Whether it’s a moored steamboat off the beaten track or a lonely cabin on a hilltop, there is sure to be loot worth finding.  As I began to explore the more far-flung corners of the map, I found powerful, unique items that literally changed the way I approached Blood West – a rifle that heals forty health with every headshot, or a trinket that offered a twenty percent boost to health, stamina, and experience points.  Some of these items shaped my play for hours to come, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I might not have rolled credits in Blood West without them.

There is one area where Blood West falls short, however – the boss fights.  Each act is structured around tracking and exterminating an evil entity, and the narrative revolves around the buildup to these encounters.  Unfortunately, these battles are uniformly disappointing and rely on mechanics that stray from Blood West’s strengths.  Whether it’s dexterity-based dodging or battles of attrition, gone is the emphasis on thoughtful, strategic play that forms Blood West’s foundation.  While certainly a letdown, these criticisms amount to little more than quibbles in the wake of all that Blood West does right.

Blood West won’t be for everyone, but those willing to go along with its demanding play and deliberate pacing will find an engaging experience that celebrates the player’s wits as much as reflexes.  I won’t soon forget the feeling of being low on ammo, even lower on health and deep behind enemy lines, knowing I should turn back, but forging ahead anyway, intoxicated by what treasure could be around the next corner – because more than likely, it’s worth it.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Buy Blood West: PS5 – Xbox – PC

Disclosures: This game is developed by Hyperstrange and published by New Blood Interactive LLC. It is currently available on PC, PS5, and XBX/S.  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 primary campaign was completed, but the DLC campaign was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco, Violence. This game is definitely not aimed at children.  While the visuals are generally low fidelity and rendered in a cartoony, non-realistic fashion, there is plenty of blood and gore.  Enemies can be killed with various firearms, knives, and swords.  When killed, enemies will spray blood out and can be partially dismembered with certain weapons.  Alcohol and tobacco can be consumed as power-ups.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game only offers subtitles in certain instances.  Primary dialogue between characters is fully subtitled, but the player’s character makes many comments throughout gameplay that are not subtitled at all. While this game offers two options for text size, this only applies to certain menus and did not impact the text in subtitled dialogue. This game relies heavily on stealth, and when playing without sound I found it more difficult to remain unseen and, consequently, died more frequently due to enemy noises that are not represented visually. The missing in-game subtitles combined with the lack of visual indicators for key contextual noises means this game is not fully accessible.

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

The post Blood West Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

2003’s Manhunt is a brutal, gritty title that occupies a strange place in Rockstar’s catalog as something that should be considered the company’s best work, yet it remains overshadowed by their own mega-hit franchises. This bleak, uncompromising meditation on the nature of voyeurism questioned the player’s participation in horrific bloodshed, and has since become something of a cult title — and PIGFACE is certainly one of its descendants.

Set in a post-industrial wasteland, PIGFACE places players in the role of a woman with a bomb in her head. Faceless handlers have assigned her to murder members of a drug-dealing gang across a handful of locations, and what little characterization the game offers has those same handlers shocked by how little pushback they receive from their living weapon – almost as if she’s as much down for all the murder as the people playing the game. The gameplay is as basic as the graphics – this looks like a Quake-era experience and feels like gritty, vicious shooters of that time, back when most titles were developed by a handful of people and when it was easier to smuggle bizarre and extreme content into even major titles.

After choosing a mission, the player picks their loadout from a decent arsenal – but in a twist that feels strange for an FPS (and may have been inherited from Manhunt) the player can only bring a single ranged weapon. This creates a bit of awkwardness, as the player is asked to decide on a playstyle before they have a sense of what the level is like, and pre-mission the briefings are not particularly voluminous. So, there’s often nothing to do but guess whether a sniper rifle or a shotgun is better for any given area, and if that doesn’t pan out, they can hope to snag a more appropriate weapon off of a dead body somewhere along the way.

The strange part is that for a game seemingly built around experimentation and taking chances, the developers punish players harshly for mistakes. Any time they fail a mission, a steep financial penalty is incurred. While guns only have to be bought once and ammo is free, healing syringes cost money, ensuring that if a player fails a particularly difficult level more than a couple of times, they’ll be forced to try again with even fewer resources, and consequently, less chance of success.

Enemy AI is also a little on the spare side at this point. I’m sure it’s a difficult to balance and all of the enemies can be best described as drug-addled wastrels, but they were remarkably unobservant and unresponsive whenever violence kicked off — enemies will watch a guard’s head get blown off with a sniper rifle, shrug, and then get right back to their patrol seconds later. Setting off explosives or blasting away with a machine gun might attract reinforcements, or it might not – enemies were largely unpredictable in an ‘is the AI broken and not responding to triggers?‘ kind of way.

Still, there’s plenty to be optimistic about here. The violence is every bit as brutal and upsetting as one would hope given PIGFACE’s obvious inspiration. There are huge blood spatters with every shot, and enemies scramble around and scream as they’re injured, making the whole thing feel doubly unpleasant.

This unpleasantness also permeates every bit of the world. Every room is full of trash and dirty needles. The player is asked to shut down drug factories, and all they find are a few drums and jars crudely linked together with hoses and tape. This game is about the absolute lowest-tier of criminal being executed by an assassin who lives in a dingy one-room apartment next to a set of elevated train tracks. It’s a celebration of the grindhouse aesthetic and seemingly pointless violence – although as the story gets developed in later updates, that might well change.

PIGFACE is in a rough Early Access state at the moment, with inconsistent enemies and no real narrative to speak of. I don’t expect the graphics to get any better – the low-end look is the point — and it’s a clear throwback to a rougher, more brutal past. Anyone lamenting that we never got a Manhunt 3 will find a lot to love here.

Assuming gameplay is rebalanced and more levels are added – I beat all five in just under an hour – this is extremely promising. Hopefully the devs manage to turn it into a more complete experience, as games this heartlessly brutal are few and far between.

Or maybe this kind of game being rare is a good thing? I’ll let history be the judge.

The post PIGFACE Preview appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Robust roots meet new ideas!

LOW The artificial Intelligence is not so intelligent!

WTF The phrase “balance is key” comes to mind.

There was a time when strategic games were the new live service — back in the golden age of real-time strategy titles made by Westwood and Blizzard. Those days are long gone and those great names are either trademarks of another company or forgotten in the mists of time, but what if we could get another great like Command & Conquer the way they used to be made? The answer is Slipgate Ironworks’ Tempest Rising.

Tempest Rising is a love letter to those days of old, and the devs aren’t shy about it. Play is set in an alternate version of the Cold War during which the Cuban Missile Crisis, but instead of disaster being averted, the result is an all-out nuclear war.

Almost three decades later in a world covered in nuclear radiation, an ivy-like flower blooms across the globe feeding off the fallout. This flora called Tempest, and becomes a great energy source. Thus begins a new war between the Global Defense Forces (GDF) and the Tempest Dynasty for the control of Tempest.

As mentioned, Tempest Rising is clearly inspired by things like Command & Conquer, especially Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. The devs use both pre-rendered and in-game cutscenes as narrative devices akin to the live-action counterparts in the C&C franchise. but it tries to add to that formula by allowing players to ask questions during mission briefings and gather info about the history and the world.

The core gameplay loop is like many classic RTS titles. Players should harvest Tempest and expend it to build an army and complete objectives. The two playable factions each come with different units, but they don’t have dedicated buildings, special weapons, or upgrades like modern titles. Each side has eleven campaign missions that provide different scenarios, such as hit-and-run tactics, seizing control of an enemy base, and using stealth and special units. This variety in design is great, as it prevents repetition and often forces the player to switch up their tactics.

There are four different unit types in each faction — infantry, specialists, ground vehicles, and airborne units. The GDF troops were my favorite due to their flexibility and engagement options. Multiple GDF troops such as the Drone Operator infantry and Drone Control Unit aircraft are equipped with drones that can heavily hit ground and air vehicles. On the other side of the battlefield, Dynasty forces are more focused on high-risk/high-reward tactics in which units use the raw power of Tempest to gain a damage boost at the cost of their health.

Almost every unit on both sides comes with a secondary power. Some units can be garrisoned by the infantry and become a moving fortress, while others can turn invisible or become a mobile artillery station. This is where Tempest Rising combines the unit variety and class-based combat with more modern intuitive functions mostly seen in current strategy and tactics titles.

This structure as described is solid, but there is a downside — there’s a significant lack of balance, and that is no small issue when it comes to a RTS title.

The GDF forces have the upper hand when it comes to combat capabilities. They have multiple S-tier ground and air units that can engage with both airborne and ground targets, while the Dynasty troops are mostly focused on one target type each. The GDF’s Trebuchet tanks can also turn into artillery stations and effectively deal with ground targets from long distances, but there are no long-range troops among Dynasty ground units. The drones used by the GDF can be destroyed, but as long as the mothership/operator is alive, the drones will be respawned — essentially, this provides the GDF with an immortal army. Though Dynasty troops can be trained faster and is much more flexible when it comes to gathering Tempest, that fails to cope with GDF endgame tactics and scenarios.

Unit AI is also problematic when it comes to automatically dealing with a mix of enemy troops. When issuing an “Attack Move” to a group of different units, they engage with enemy troops based on distance, not priority. This leads to scenarios where anti-infantry troops focus fire on a tank in front of them, while enemy infantry is cutting them down while remaining unharmed because they’re places a few feet further away than the tank.

Tempest Rising is what I would call a neo-classic RTS — and it’s something we need and hunger for in the modern gaming landscape. The story, gameplay mechanics, and strategic diversity of engagement scenarios make it one of the best RTS titles of the past few years, yet, the lack of balance and problematic AI behaviors prevent it from becoming a perfect experience for avid RTS fans. However, with such a promising debut, I’m excited to see more from this developer in the form of DLC and stand-alone titles the future. 

8.5/10

Buy Tempest Rising: PC

Disclosures: This game is published by 3D Realms and Knights Peak and developed by Slipgate Ironworks. It is available on PC. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 23 hours were spent in single-player and the game was completed. There game has multiplayer mode.

Parents: The game is not rated by the ESRB but there are scenes of violence, warfare and human conflicts, as well as running human soldiers over with military vehicles.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present in the options menu.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles and visual options available in the game, all of which can be adjusted. There were no audio cues of note. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Tempest Rising Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Linking seamlessly flamboyant chains of acrobatics and death.

LOW No rapid-fire option for automatic sword swings can wear on the thumb.

WTF Super Express to Hell!

Ninja Gaiden‘s been on vacation for a while at this point. Well, break time’s over, bastards — The Game Kitchen, developers of the highly regarded Blasphemous series, have decided to cook up a delicious new entry in this legendary IP.

Despite Ninja Gaiden typically being known for its bloodsplatteringly vicious 3D combat entries, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound instead hearkens back to the classic NES trilogy with a modernized take on the 2D ninja platforming that got the ball rolling in the first place.

After a short playable prologue, Ragebound’s new protagonist Kenji Mozu scoots through a quick obstacle and tutorial course introducing the most important mechanics and subsequently gets Izuna Dropped on his head by the legendary Ryu Hayabusa as a reward for completing his trial.

Things suddenly kick off in a serious way, Ryu has to leave for America in a hurry, and series veterans will undoubtedly be pleased to hear that the Hayabusa Ninja Village continues its longstanding tradition of being razed to the ground by demons every other week.

Before long, Kenji joins forces with Kumori, a Black Spider Ninja Clan operative with a penchant for hurling razor sharp kunai into the faces of anyone she deems unpleasant. The catch is that they have to literally fuse into a single body to survive, so while Kenji emerges from this joining as the dominant character, Kumori aids him as a powerful spectral sidekick capable of hurling projectiles and using ninpo magic to annihilate any fiends standing in their way.

I found these two new protagonists to be great, playing off one another as mismatched partners facing impossible odds — one full of zeal and righteousness, the other cynical and pragmatic. They may be original characters, but players familiar with the franchise are likely to recognize certain parallels in their design and combat style right away. Kenji is basically a greener, brasher approximation of Ryu Hayabusa and Kumori carries herself as an infinitely cooler version of Ayane from the Dead or Alive series.

As someone who may or may not be dead, Kumori is also able to step into the Demon Realm whenever Kenji comes across demon statues dotted throughout the stages. These tend to be where the toughest platforming challenges take place, but even though Kumori has to complete her tasks on a strict timer before being recalled, she won’t die if she takes too much damage or drops down a pit which allows for as many retries as the player needs to succeed.

Combat is slick, speedy and satisfying thanks to perfectly responsive controls. Kenji can kill many enemies with a single sword slash, cut through incoming projectiles, or kickflip off nearly every enemy or attack in the game using a technique known as the Guillotine Boost — and it isn’t just an optional extra thrown in to spice things up. Players will be required to frequently make use of it to cross yawning chasms filled with airborne baddies or to bounce their way towards secret areas and items tucked just out of reach.

The other major new addition is the ability to Hypercharge Kenji and Kumori’s attacks by killing specific enemies in sequence or sacrificing a little health, allowing them to slice through most enemies’ defenses to dispatch them in one murderously powerful blow. It’s exceptionally useful, and in order to fully leverage it, players will have to think quickly about the optimal approach to many situations.

It’s important to note that Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound isn’t a metroidvania or a roguelike — it’s a traditional stage-based action-platformer in the vein of the original NES titles. Nearly every stage looks fantastic in a chunky pixel art manner, with plenty of detail and great animation throughout as players follow Kenji and Kumori’s journey through burning temples, mountain pathways, across the tops of high-speed trains and more. I only disliked the design of one stage, a sickly and unpleasant biolab which simply didn’t hold up to the quality of the others.

Also of note is the amount of variations throughout each stage to help spice gameplay up. Whether fleeing from a demon who somehow learned how to operate a bulldozer, speeding across the countryside on a motorbike or having to take cover from powerful explosions in the background of an unfinished construction yard, there are plenty of neat setpieces to help keep things interesting.

The journey may not always be an easy one, but I absolutely loved it. It’s just… Goddamn, my thumb really hurts now.

Given that Kenji and Kumori have fixed stats, players can’t simply level up by killing minions to overcome challenges through brute force. That said, there are numerous Golden Scarabs and Crystal Skulls tucked away in each stage which can be used to purchase items from a shop between stages. Obtaining new projectiles and super arts, and equipping up to two talismans that help or hamper their chances of succeeding in each level can make a real difference.

Positive effects can include healing on chain kills and obtaining Hypercharge attacks from linking multiple Guillotine Boosts together, whereas negative ones may involve not healing at checkpoints or restarting the entire stage upon death in exchange for higher completion ranks at the end. Every stage has a rank associated with it, and challenges can range from trivialities such as deflecting a few projectiles to more challenging ones such as beating Ryu Hayabusa in a duel fresh out of the tutorial.

Make no mistake, Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound can be a tricky game, even on the Normal difficulty setting. However, it also allows players to make the experience as easy or as hard as they like, whether through unlockable weapons and talismans or by using an in-game accessibility menu that can slow down overall speed, reduce taken damage or even make players invincible to pretty much anything other than falling off the map — so while it’s a tough game by default, pretty much anyone should be able to succeed through tweaking various settings. There’s also no antiquated ‘lives’ system looming overhead, and plenty of checkpoints to quickly return to.

In fact, about the only real complaint I have about Ragebound is that there’s no rapid-fire option in the menus for repeated sword slashes. Some of these bosses can take a real pounding, so after a few deaths and hammering away at the melee button like a madman each time, my thumb started to feel somewhat abused. It’s not typically a concern while making headway through each stage, but some bosses have massive health pools to be whittled down, leading to serious physical fatigue.

Aside from that one issue, it’s hard to fault anything about Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. It’s damn near perfect, and offers an immensely satisfying experience with plenty of replayability — it’s so good, in fact, that after completing it for the first time, I sat down and immediately completed it again on Hard Mode.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by The Game Kitchen and published by DotEmu. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S/PS4/PS5/Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed twice with all achievements earned. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Violence. The official description reads: This is a 2D action-platformer based on levels and characters from the Ninja Gaiden universe. Players control small ninjas as they battle enemies (e.g., human commandos, ninjas, demons) in fast-paced combat. Players use swords, thrown weapons, and magic skills to kill enemies. Combat is highlighted by impact sounds, cries of pain, and blood-splatter effects. Some attacks allow players to dismember or behead enemies, and a handful of boss creatures are depicted with exposed organs and/or skinless, flesh/sinewy bodies. Some female enemies are designed with revealing outfits (e.g., low-cut tops, a lot of cleavage). The word “a*s” appears in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. All dialogue is delivered through text. The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized, though seemingly not enlarged. This game is fully accessible.

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

The post Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Finally unleashing the full-power Mech Mode.

LOW Spending 45 minutes trying to beat a single platforming sequence.

WTF Are those seriously Dig-Dug enemies?

Might as well rip the band-aid off right away — yes, this is the Pac-Man Metroidvania.

It’s about a gamer who gets pulled into a strange Namco-themed dimension and has their soul dropped into a swordfighting robot. It seems that Puck, the ravenous yellow sphere, needed someone to help her activate a giant machine for reasons that are way too convoluted to get into here, so the player got dragged into an insane sci-fi struggle because it seemed like they had… decent reflexes?

After that absurd opening, things get even stranger, as Puck and her player sidekick explore bizarre, shattered landscapes crammed full of biomechanical horrors. The player can fight back using fairly standard 2D side-scrolling combat. There are slash combos, dodges, parries, and an array of power moves that the player can obtain by killing bosses scattered around the world.

Well, killing and eating them, technically.

In Shadow Labyrinth‘s most potentially-upsetting detail, simply killing enemies isn’t sufficient to obtain new abilities and crafting resources. Once the player has slashed an enemy into submission, they have to remember to call Puck out so that she can lunge forward and chomp her way through the enemy corpse, gathering the items the player will need to craft upgrades. Luckily, boss devouring is an automatic process, although the form Puck takes in order to unlock new abilities is as horrifying as any of the twisted foes the player will encounter.

While Shadow Labyrinth can be appreciated for its tight, easy-to-learn combat, what it should be applauded for is the innovative take it has on classic Pac-Man gameplay.

Scattered throughout the map are special electrified floors. If the swordfighter steps onto them they’re instantly transformed into Pac-Man, complete with automatic movement and wakka-wakka sound effects. However, it’s more complex than Pac-Man ever was, because Puck has access to a jump move that allows her to vault from one electrified floor to the next. This one addition allows the developers to include maddeningly complex sequences that require pixel-perfect precision in order to vault through gauntlets of energy fencing and spinning buzzsaws.

There are even special dedicated Pac-Man levels that the player can defeat in order to unlock resources. Each one is a clever take on classic Pac-Man gameplay, with the player trying to collect enough pellets to switch over to ghost-eating mode while zipping through mazes that gradually fall apart as pieces of the world transform into weapons to be used against the ghosts. It’s to Shadow Labyrinth‘s credit that they included a minigame so creative in the ways it uses assumed familiarity with Pac-Man that it easily could have been sold as a stand-alone product.

While the gameplay is stellar and art design are truly exceptional, Shadow Labyrinth does have one major drawback, and it’s that it’s — and please excuse the wordplay — a little too labyrinthine.

The map is simply enormous. It takes forever to get from one place to the next, and fast-travel nodes are few and far between. It wouldn’t be so bad if the levels were absolutely packed with interesting features and monsters to fight, but that’s just not the case — every single one one of the areas has at least a few sections that force the player to simply wander for minutes on end to get to another checkpoint.

What’s worse is the sheer number of movement abilities the player needs to unlock in order to make their way around this enormous map. While it’s relatively common that metroidvanias ask the player to get a couple of movement upgrades to see everything, Shadow Labyrinth sets the number absurdly high. There are multiple jumps, air dashes, a grappling hook, a giant laser, and more. The map isn’t much help in keeping track of all the locations players will need to revisit, either — the player can unlock markers for it, but there are just four colors, and close to a dozen obstacle types.

It took me over sixty hours to do everything, and it’s not exaggerating to say that nearly half of that time was spent scouring the map for places to use a new ability I’d unlocked in the hopes of finding a path forward.

Shadow Labyrinth is also punishingly difficult at times — not just the devious and brutal bosses, either. Ithas some of the trickiest platforming I’ve seen in ages.

At a certain point it became clear that I could progress no further until I obtained the ability to double-jump. The only place I’d failed to search was a winding tunnel made of instant-death spikes that could only be navigated by zipping from one grapple-point to the next, with the slightest mis-angled shot or split-second hesitation erasing all progress. I’d hesitated in exploring based on the assumption that it was the kind of late-game location I was supposed to conquer after getting all of the movement abilities, but no, this ridiculously complex and demanding exercise in free-fall platforming was the barrier keeping me from the double-jump. This truly is a situation where only the most dedicated players need apply.

Shadow Labyrinth is equal parts magnificent and frustrating.

The action is stellar, the setting — largely made up of deep-cut references to Namco’s arcade history — is uniquely fascinating, and the retro Pac-Man gameplay is perhaps the best the franchise has ever offered. At the same time, it makes exploration such a chore that I swore off finishing it and stepped away from it more than a few times. I always came back, though, which goes to show just what an incredible job the developers have done here.

Even when I hated what I was doing, it was always a pleasure to engage with, and there aren’t a lot of games I can say the same about.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Bandai Namco. It is currently available on PC/SW/PS5/XBS. Copies of the game were purchased on Steam obtained and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 60 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode. The game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Fantasy Violence. It’s fantastical and stylized action, and it’s safe for just about anyone to play. I’m serious about how scary Puck eating enemies is, though. It’s absolutely brutal, and deserves a warning if younger teens are interested in checking the game out.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All information is delivered via text on screen. I played most of the game without audio, and encountered no issues. This experience is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game’s controls are not remappable.

The post Shadow Labyrinth Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Interesting blend of survival horror, visual novel, deduction and detective work.

LOW Frustrating barriers to entry. Misleading clues.

WTF Why put out piano note clues for the player if nothing happens?

Dead of Darkness is an outstanding title that it manages to take many ingredients from different genres, put them all in a blender and cook up something palatable in a way that no other game has. I expect that it will be received as hearty and balanced among Survival Horror fans, though it may prove to be an acquired taste for others.

DoD borrows genre tropes both in terms of gameplay and narrative elements from genre-defining classics like Resident Evil, employs pixel art likely inspired by 16-bit era games like Chrono Trigger, and even offers visual novel-style animated dialogue mixed with cluefinding, reminiscent of games like Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.

Right from the start, the tone is unabashedly Gothic as the adventure opens with a visual of the setting, Velvet Island in the year 1985. The player is given a brief exposition — there have been disappearances and odd activities on the Graham estate, along with whispers that the occult was involved. The player’s character (PC) has been hired as a PI to get to the bottom of whatever explanation there might be.

I was impressed by the well-written dialogue during the first exchange between my gruff PC and the cryptic servants. Petty family drama was evident.

As I explored the lonely estate, I couldn’t help but think of the first Resident Evil which was similarly set in a creepy old mansion filled with zombies and a host of other abominations — but I never finished it because I couldn’t stand the abominable fixed camera. As such, I was grateful for the developers’ decision to opt for a top-down perspective, rather than the fixed camera angles that were synonymous with early survival horror titles. That perspective kept me from diving into the genre for years!

The birds-eye-view angle allows the player to see incoming threats from different parts of the mansion although, being a horror game, enemies will sometimes appear suddenly without warning through windows or doors which were set up to make me jump on a few occasions.

Also, being specifically a Survival Horror game, the player must be careful about when and where they choose to use their ammo and other supplies, as resources are (naturally) limited and there’s no telling when another box or drawer stocked with supplies might pop up; even the PC’s knife has limited durability.

In the early game, enemies are mercifully slow but can do some serious damage. They also take a serious beating before they drop — at least 6-8 bullets on a regular zombie — so the player would be wise to give them a wide berth whenever possible. But sometimes, the player really has no choice other than to shoot and try to manage their ammo well.

Besides combat, Dead of Darkness carries on the Survival Horror tradition with a host of puzzles, but additionally invites players to use their powers of deduction with help from clues they collect in the form of diary entries, letters, and more, all to locate necessary items or to find a hidden path forward — a neat way to set it apart from its influences and contemporaries, allowing the player to feel like a detective as they begin to unravel the mysteries hidden throughout the mansion.

Aiding this process is color coding on the map. Gray represented rooms that had yet to be explored, green for rooms that had been cleared, red for rooms that had unsolved puzzles or unclaimed items, and a variety of colored doors representing rooms that were either accessible or locked/blocked/required a certain kind of key or item for entry. Unfortunately, while this system seems great in theory, it wasn’t quite up to snuff.

I don’t expect games to hold my hand, but I do want a certain amount of clarity about where I need to go, and it was frustrating to so often be at a loss as to how or where to acquire whatever was needed to progress.

Sometimes, I would seemingly have what I needed, such as piano notes for the grand piano located in the bar, but when I had my PC play the notes, it didn’t work. Similarly, I would find a lockpick, suggesting that I return to a locked door, only to find that I couldn’t actually use it to help me access any of the rooms. At one point I needed tongs to grab a necessary item from a fireplace, but I had no idea where to find them.

Eventually, this series of disappointments caused me to lose motivation as well as my patience, and it was discouraging enough to make me put the game down and not return. It’s a shame, too — I can see how much passion and attention to detail went into the development of Dead of Darkness between the gameplay, writing and aesthetics, but the sheer frustration of its puzzle aspects needs more time and attention.

The true horrors on this estate aren’t the undead… they’re the puzzles.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Buy Dead of Darkness — PC — SW — PS — XB

Disclosures: This game was developed and published by Retrofiction Games. The game is currently available on PC, XBX/S, PS4/5 and Switch. It was obtained via publisher and reviewed for Switch. Approximately 4 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is rated M for Blood and Gore, Strong Language and Violence. The player will be attacked by monsters and attack monsters themselves, causing them to bleed and there are many corpses scattered throughout the estate in various states of decay and sometimes nothing more than a mess of blood and gore. The protagonist also has a tendency to curse but nothing offensive or out of the ordinary for a Survival Horror game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

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

Remappable controls: The controls cannot be remapped.

The post Dead Of Darkness Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH It’s Tail Time.

LOW It’s Tail Time.

WTF It’s Tail Time.

When I asked to review the remastered Gex Trilogy, I knew it would be a massive undertaking, the likes of which no one has seen before — and it is not possible to overstate how sarcastic I am being here.

Debuting back in 1994, Gex is a ‘beloved’ character mascot that the big bosses at Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix wheeled out for four years despite owning the IP for nearly two decades overall, and neither studio doing much of anything with it in all that time. 

After playing through this trilogy, it’s not surprising why.

Gex is not a compelling character, and the titles where he is featured are equally uninteresting. It’s clear that he was meant to compete with the plethora of 3D platforming mascots that came out in the late ’90s, such as Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot. However, comparing Gex to the brighter stars of the time is like pitting a toddler against a bulldozer. 

Gex’s whole personality is that he’s an anthropomorphic gecko obsessed with television. It’s a shoddy connection at best, but his whole mission across the three games is that he must tackle various villains in the Media Dimension, where he gets sucked into a TV and plays through levels based on TV show tropes and genres.

This is also, for better or worse, where he gets his humor. Gex is not the typical naive protagonist, working to save his home world from an evil threat. Instead, he behaves like a friend of a friend that you don’t really hang out with.

He’s jaded. He makes half-jokes that never land about movie stars that are no longer on the silver screen. Perhaps the most annoying part of the entire character is that every other sentence is either “It’s Tail Time” or “That’s what I call getting some tail.” The tail ‘jokes’, if one could even call them that, never stopped. It was agonizing. Maybe it was funny at one point, but I don’t think that point exists in the present day.

For this review, I played through portions of the original Gex (1995) and Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko (1999), and played through all of Gex: Enter the Gecko (1998).

The 1995 title is a fairly standard 2D platformer. The action, as is the level design and visuals. However, it’s difficult to focus on those when Gex’s story is devoid of purpose — his mission lacks a driving force to keep him going other than the fact that he’s just stuck in the Media Dimension.

It’s common with all the Gex games, but the main villain of all three titles, Rez, shows up at the beginning of each adventure, only to disappear until the very end. Therefore, none of the enemies seem connected with the overall plot, and are just there to be dealt with. There are TV remotes to collect in each level, but it never felt like I was progressing to an ending of any kind. 

The 3D platformers weren’t much better. Enter the Gecko (1998) was the title I spent the most time with, and it felt devoid of any life or spirit.

The same can be said for Gex 3: Deep Cover Gecko (1999). A part of the reason for this was the overall TV-theming — when a title like Gex chooses to use TV as the through-line between every world and also chooses to license no recognizable properties, it feels generic. I played through a bland, yet borderline racist ninja level. I played through a generic Jurassic Park-esque dinosaur level. Even the “Circuit” levels, which seemed like something straight out of Tron, were just not memorable. 

Story and bad character design aside, the 3D games are serviceable in terms of mechanics. The 3D platforming is solid, and the setpieces are interesting enough. Frankly, it’s remarkable that the Limited Run team could bring these games back from the ’90s and make them playable today in the 2020s. 

At the end of the day, I think the main lesson to take away from the Gex Trilogy is that just because a title has a serviceable design foundation and decent gameplay mechanics, it doesn’t mean that’s enough. If the experience relies on a mascot character to stand out from the pack and that character is annoying as all hell, it’s doomed from the start.

Out of all of the nearly-forgotten games to bring forward into the 2020s, I’m not sure why Limited Run chose Gex — it’s such an absurdist concept that I have to laugh at it now, but while playing Gex in the moment, I despised it. 

Rating: 3 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Crystal Dynamics and published by Limited Run Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 11 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is rated T by the ESRB for Blood, Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language and Sexual Themes. Gex will make crude, sometimes sexual jokes like “Don’t drink the punch at Jerry Garcia’s,” and “I’m lost in Dick Dale’s colon.” The extent of the crude language is a statement like “Damn this pesky gravity to hell!” when Gex falls into a pit. The combat is fairly cartoony but there are a few sections with animated blood such as in the ninja levels.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Dear & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no subtitles for dialogue. This game is not accessible.

Remappable Controls: The game’s controls are fully remappable.

The post Gex Trilogy Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The level design.

LOW In the sewers again, eh?

WTF Shouldn’t it be easier to hit enemies when aiming down the sights, not harder?

Nothing good ever happens in an underground science lab — whether it’s zombifying viruses, inter-dimensional hell portals, or just plain corporate greed run amok, these clandestine facilities inevitably court disaster.  As a retro-styled first-person shooter, Kvark is the latest title to explore the consequences of subterranean scholarship.

Set in Czechoslovakia during the late ’80s, Kvark tells the tale of an energy company attempting to branch into the weapons industry.  By experimenting on their employees with a mysterious substance called Anethium, the corporation manages to prove the above hypothesis.  Awakening in a cell on the bottom floor of the facility in the aftermath of a disaster, the player must fight their way to the safety of the surface.

A slow, exploration-based shooter, Kvark is clearly inspired by the original Half-Life, and models much of its structure and play after that seminal 1998 release.  While the similarities in theme and setting are obvious, the most interesting resonance is in the structure of the levels themselves.

Many stages are constructed in a circular manner, causing areas to often be revisited from new perspectives.  This design thesis is clearly established in the opening stage — shortly after exiting their cell into the multi-level prison, players will walk through a hallway with a barred, moss-covered window near the ceiling.  A room is visible through the bars with barrels and boxes piled high.  Several minutes (and many winding corridors) later I noticed that same barred window — this time near the floor — and realized I was looking back into the first hallway from the other side. 

This structural bookending, described as The Preacher Loop by GameCritics’ own Sparky Clarkson, defines the space by removing abstraction and reiterating its logical construction.  Through recognizable landmarks and showing the same spaces from new vantage points, the player becomes keenly aware of their progress and orientation within the environment.  As Sparky points out in his article, this design technique is a major factor in why Half-Life’s Black Mesa facility feels grounded and cohesive, and the effect is similar in Kvark.

Unfortunately, this thoughtful design is let down by Kvark’s inconsistent aesthetic direction.  The opening two thirds of Kvark take place in anonymous industrial spaces, sewers, and tunnels.  Occasionally, the player will pop into offices and labs which feature a more noteworthy brutalist aesthetic with stark, chunky concrete architecture and wood paneling.  These segments offer more visual interest and complement the recursive structure with more striking spaces.  However, it seemed as though every time I entered one of these areas, Kvark was quick to direct me back into the mines and tunnels, losing much of its spark in the process.

Compounding this issue are the repetitive mechanics.  Armed with the typical assortment of shotguns, rifles, and machine guns, the player must battle through an army of robots, mutants, and evil scientists.  While the play is functional, there’s little that sets it apart — the majority of encounters consist of enemies blindly charging after the player until they are eventually gunned down.  Though there is an undeniable thrill in this and the over-the-top gore is a constant source of amusement, there are few surprises, and I quickly tired of the monotony.

To be fair, the final third of Kvark is a marked improvement, and finally delivers on the promise of the clever level design.  Gone are the claustrophobic passages and burrows, when my character finally emerges on the surface. 

These sections feature much wider spaces with a broader selection of enemies, and the encounters become more dynamic. Objectives are telegraphed by distant, concrete edifices barely visible through the fog.  Airborne enemies pepper the player from above, their ground-based counterparts lobbing grenades as mutant rats charge out of the underbrush. In these late stages, Kvark finally comes into its own.

In the end, Kvark shows an enormous amount of promise.  However, its disparate elements coalesce too late in the runtime and are ultimately overshadowed by the uninspired combat and indistinct aesthetic direction.  That being said, there is a sense of momentum in the final stages of Kvark, and if the developers can focus on that quality and carry it forward, I have high hopes for their subsequent releases.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Buy KVARK – PS – XB – Switch – PC

Disclosures: This game is developed by Latest Pass and published by Perun Creative. It is currently available on PS4/5, XBO/X/S, Switch, and PC.  This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 20 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 and Gore, Use of Tobacco, Violence. This game is a first-person shooter where humans, zombies, rats and robots are killed with guns.  The visuals are presented in a blocky, low fidelity format, and are not photo-realistic.  When enemies are shot blood sprays out and stains the wall.  They can be decapitated, dismembered, and will occasionally explode into chunks of gore when killed. This is all presented in an over-the-top, unrealistic fashion but is still fairly graphic.  Cigarette butts can be picked up from ashtrays and smoked.  Normally this lowers the players health, but a perk can be obtained that heals the player when smoking cigarettes. There is no profanity or sexual content.

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. During gameplay, none of the enemy sounds are captioned or subtitled, and while there is no dialogue with the enemies, I did find that I was more susceptible to ambushes and attacks from behind when playing without sound. As such, this game is not fully accessible.

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

The post Kvark Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The Tower of No Interval.

LOW The final encounter.

WTF Not sure a broken sword is the weapon of choice entering a Demon King’s maze.

Presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio with grainy polygonal art, Labyrinth of the Demon King is a near-perfect evocation of dark corners last seen since the mid-90’s.  Played from the first-person perspective, players will hack, slash and puzzle their way through dungeons and towers as a samurai on a quest to avenge their fallen lord by slaying the titular monarch.

Caked in muddy earth tones, monsters shiver through hazy, pixelated halls.  The occasional flash of red viscera gives depth to their dismembered, barely human figures as they limp and stumble after the player.  Their howls cut through fuzzy rain-patter, creating a world that is threatening and immediate despite its ostensible lack of visual fidelity.

A dungeon crawler with a dash of survival horror, the Labyrinth of the Demon King is not a happy place, and respite is all but non-existent.  As I slowly progressed through the foreboding castle, I found my senses more important than a steady sword hand.  A foot peeking out from a corner, or a shuffling in the darkness can tip off observant players to an imminent bushwhack.  While combat is generally fair and balanced, being caught unawares by a group of enemies will quickly exhaust even the most robust health bar.

When it comes to crossing blades with the labyrinth’s demonic denizens, combat is a rhythmic affair.  A slow-motion dance of thrusts and ripostes, even the quickest weapons feel heavy and sluggish.  Frantic, panicked swings, while instinctive given the macabre trappings, will result in rapid defeat as the samurai’s stamina is easily depleted.  Victory, then, becomes a matter of patience rather than reflex. 

Most attacks can be parried, and with long wind ups, enemy blows are effectively telegraphed.  A surprisingly accommodating parry window kept most of my frustration at bay — even when I hit the block button too quickly, I often had time to reset and try again before the monster’s claws made contact.  That’s not to say navigating the Labyrinth of the Demon King is easy, but so long as I didn’t panic, I generally felt well equipped to handle whatever the sinister overlord could dish out. 

For those moments where I overreached my ability, I was pleased to find the Demon King’s rebukes to be lenient.  Falling in battle means resurrecting at the last shrine players rested at.  Enemies respawn, and any resources expended in the fight are forfeit, but beyond that all progress is retained.  That being said, the final battle didn’t feel quite as well tuned as the rest of the fights.  With a more diverse moveset and stronger emphasis on reaction time, the climactic encounter is suitably dramatic. However, with a dozen or so retries, my eventual triumph wasn’t without some exasperation.

Light RPG elements further balance the scales with character progression tied to two primary attributes — strength and stamina.  Weapons can also be improved to stand up to the hardier members of the Demon King’s army, and while the selection of armaments is probably too wide given Labyrinth of the Demon King’s brevity, I’m not one to complain about too many choices.

Martial prowess alone is not sufficient for navigating the Labyrinth of the Demon King, though, and careful exploration plays a large part in the player’s survival. 

As the title implies, each of the main areas is a complex interweaving of rooms, halls and courtyards — losing one’s way is an inevitability.  While maps can be found for each floor, these handy aids are imperfect — passages that appear clear on the map are, in fact, obstructed while hidden paths and outdoor areas go unmarked altogether.  This setup results in a keen straddling of discovery and handholding.  Players are forced to learn levels by landmark, making mental notes of unlocked shortcuts with the map acting as a flawed safety net.

Forgoing punitive mechanics, Labyrinth of the Demon King builds tension through atmosphere and narrative.  While the overarching tale of revenge is standard fare, I found the flavor text throughout the world to be quite affecting.  One highlight is a note describing, in detail, the grisly consequences of defiling a Buddhist altar.  Shortly after finding this note, I encountered a character in possession of a key I needed to progress.  They agreed to help, but only after I desecrated the very altar I had been warned about.  I won’t spoil the outcome, but the author of that note could not be accused of understatement.  This kind of foreshadowing is found throughout Labyrinth of the Demon King and adds dreadful depth to its nasty, grimy styling.

Ultimately, Labyrinth of the Demon King is a canny mixture of aggressive posturing and subtly accessible mechanics.  I was surprised at how tense my experience was, despite the relative ease with which I traversed its halls.  Labyrinth of the Demon King manages to capture the abrasive essence of titles like Shadow Tower and Silent Hill but in a compact, easily digestible package.  The developer’s ability to achieve this balance is commendable and, as the samurai sits drinking matcha tea in the labyrinth’s one refuge, I am filled with a familiar warmth.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy Labyrinth of the Demon King – PC – PS – XB – SW

Disclosures: This game is developed by J.R. Hudepohl and published by Top Hat Studios. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, XBO/X/S, and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 8 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 and Gore, Suggestive Themes, and Violence. This is a horror game and most enemies are monsters or disfigured humans.  The player attacks enemies with weapons such as swords, clubs and guns. Enemies bleed when struck, staining walls and floors and can be dismembered.  Certain enemies require the player to stomp on their head repeatedly to kill them. Disturbing and creepy imagery is found throughout this game. Beyond the violence, there are references to sexual abuse in text notes found in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is no vocalized dialogue in this game, and all character interactions are shown in text boxes. This text cannot be resized. This game makes use of audio to signal enemy presence, often when that enemy is not visible on screen.  One particularly dangerous enemy often spawns behind the player or outside of their field of view and is signaled through a specific auditory jingle.  None of these audio signals have accompanying visual cues, and I found myself taking damage more often when playing without sound. This game is not fully accessible.

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

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