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.

HIGH Fantastic combat system that is both modern and an homage to classic RPGs.

LOW Sluggish pacing in the middle chapters.

WTF “How about a hundred smacks on the ass?”

About a month ago I started seeing buzz online for Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter.

The Trails/Legend of Heroes series, despite its vast library, is one I knew very little about, but this remake of the first in the series seemed to check a lot of personal boxes — realtime combat that transitions into turn-based, a captivating art style, and a high fantasy setting harkening back to classic JRPGs. So, I booted up the free demo, and by the end of its generous eight-hour playtime, I was completely hooked and thirsty for more. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a beautiful RPG with top-notch combat, memorable characters, and also serves as a perfect entry point into the long-running Trails series.

1st Chapter follows the story of sixteen-year-old Estelle and her adopted brother Joshua as they aim to become top notch Bracers — people who help protect the citizens of Liberl from monsters, thieves, and any threats to the kingdom. Over the course of their journey, they will travel across the kingdom to aid as many people as possible while balancing each other out perfectly — Estelle is captivatingly optimistic and reactionary, while Joshua is more reserved and calculated. As they blossom into powerful bracers, so do their feelings for one and other.

The story Falcom weaves is a complex one commencing with Estelle and Joshua’s hunt for their missing father, which eventually matures into a struggle for military power, treason from within the government, and other powerful forces at work behind the scenes. When firing on all cylinders, Trails is captivating and engrossing, simultaneously balancing the intimate and personal story of two kids trying to find their dad, and the larger, more sophisticated political drama. However, I found myself disengaged in the middle chapters because the focus shifted off both these potent storylines, and more into side characters that are ultimately important to the overall plot, though they feel gratuitous during their runtimes. 

Besides the sluggish middle section, another issue is that each chapter tends to focus on two characters that will join in battle with Estelle and Joshua, but their residence in the party is short-lived as they always depart at the end of each chapter, leaving Estelle and Joshua effectively starting from scratch. Each of these side characters are memorable — from over-the-top traveling musician Olivier, to the mysteriously powerful swordsman Agate, the cast is top notch. However, it felt like just as soon as I got to know the characters on a deeper level, they would set off on their own journey.

That said, all of the intermittent party members reappear in an epically-bombastic final act that ties everyone’s stories together quite well, but the thickness of the middle chapters does lessen the overall experience. Also puzzling was that some of these itinerant characters have voice acting while Estelle and Joshua do not, which did occasionally pull me out of the immersion. 

What does remain engaging throughout 1st Chapter’s runtime is the phenomenal combat system. When approaching wandering enemies, players can enter into a basic, but effective real-time battle complete with normal attacks, dodges, and a special meter that charges over time. Once the enemy’s stun meter is full, the player will have a huge advantage when they enter into turn-based combat, which they can slickly switch into with the press of a button.

In the turn-based combat, characters will have a range of options at their disposal, with different resources for each. The key to successful battles is knowing how to balance spells and abilities, and also knowing how to correctly position party members. For example, some buffs and healing spells are only effective when party members are positioned near each other, but certain enemies might abuse this proximity with powerful AOE attacks. Understanding both party strengths and enemy attack patterns is crucial. 

In addition to a traditional level-up system and equipment management, Trails adds a deeper level of preparation to combat with the orbment system. Each playable character has the ability to equip an elemental quart into a total of six slots. Depending on the element of the quartz and its proximity to other quartz, the character can obtain varying spells to use in battle. For example, equipping a water-based HP quartz will give the character healing spells, while a water-based mind quartz will give the character an offensive aqua attack. As the adventure progresses, players will obtain more powerful quartz to create incredibly powerful offensive and defensive spells. The level of customization here is high, and finding the correct quartz for each character is enticing. (There’s is also an auto-equip for those who want to enjoy battles without too much experimentation.) 

The world of Liberl is one brimming with history — it’s filled with collectable books that outline how the kingdom came to be, and mysterious towers hint at the many wars and struggles the country has endured. Trails does a great job at making the land feel lived-in and real, though I do wish the environments were a little more varied when exploring. The sun is always shining brightly over the samey-looking rolling meadows, with the occasional cave or forest thrown in.

Overall, I truly enjoyed my time with Estelle, Joshua, and their many companions in their quest to become senior bracers. Falcom does a commendable job creating a world and story that feels real for the majority of its runtime, despite a few occasional stumbles. As a newcomer to the series, the combat system captivated me from the first battle and never let me go. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter feels like a classic JRPG I might have grown up playing, yet produced in a modern and nuanced way at the same time. Thanks to the obvious pride and care put into this remake, consider me the newest fan of the Trails series. 

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Nihon Falcom & Nihon Falcom Corporation and published by GungHo Online Entertainment America, Inc. It is currently available on Switch/Switch 2, XBX/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 39 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood, Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol and Tobacco. The official description reads: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is rated T for Teen by the ESRB with Blood, Fantasy Violence, Language, Suggestive Themes, and Use of Alcohol and Tobacco. This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the roles of adopted siblings searching for their missing father. From a third-person perspective, players explore a kingdom, interact with characters, complete missions, and engage in battle with human and fantastical enemies (e.g., plants, robots, soldiers). Players use swords, staffs, guns, and magic spells to attack enemies. Players can use special moves that depict brief cutscenes of the attacks. Combat is highlighted by colorful light effects and impact sounds. Still-images sometimes depict bloodstains near bodies and on characters’ faces/clothing. One female character is designed with a somewhat revealing outfit (e.g., deep cleavage) and breast-jiggling effects; some camera angles focus on her chest. Story elements also allude to a romantic relationship between adopted siblings (e.g., struggling with their feelings, kissing). One scene depicts two characters under the influence of alcohol (e.g., flushed faces, slurred speech), with accompanying dialogue (e.g., “Come and drink with your big sister. You drink or I bring the whole place down”; “Wow, I really drank. Feels like it’s been forever since I last got to cut loose.”) One character is seen smoking a cigarette, and a side mission involves finding stolen cigarettes. The words “sh*t” and “a*sholes” appear in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There is no colorblind mode.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, though they are not resizable. Audio cues are not needed for progression, making the game fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: Yes, the game’s controls are remappable.

The post Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Great atmosphere, engaging story. Memorable companions.

LOW Frequent bugs and glitches. Crashes to desktop. Basic features don’t work.

WTF My Druid has a dinosaur as an animal companion!

In 2003, I was looking for a Dungeons and Dragons experience for my PC. 

I was interested in trying something like World of Warcraft, but hesitant about the subscription model and didn’t want to turn it into a part-time job.  I discovered Neverwinter Nights, determined it was exactly what I was looking for, and then happily spent dozens of hours playing through its campaign and the user-made modules. 

It’s fair to say I’ve always been a fan of the series, and I own multiple copies of both titles.  As such, I was overjoyed to review the latest remaster from Aspyr, Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition to see how this seminal role-playing experience held up in 2025…  Spoiler: not well.

Near the city of Neverwinter on the Sword Coast of Faerun, evil forces have conquered and despoiled the lands.  As the adopted child of an adventurer in a backwater town, the player learns of their role as the Shard-Bearer — possessor of an artifact the Shadow King requires to complete his dastardly agenda.  Setting forth alone, the player must gather allies to thwart the Shadow King.  Will the Shard-Bearer be a savior, or a more powerful evil to blight the land?  Only the player can decide..

Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition is an isometric, third-person role-playing game where the player selects or creates a character from one of the many races and classes available, ranging from a Half-Elven Rogue to a Dwarven Cleric of Tyr.  The player directly controls the character’s movement and then uses a hybrid menu system for combat where battles are strategic and turn-based. 

For instance, the player may click on a target or select one using the Enhanced Edition‘s newly implemented controller inputs to select the next action which will take place on the next turn.  There’s also a pause feature which allows more refined control over the character (or party) where the player can select several turns’ worth of actions to take place sequentially. 

Outside of combat, the player faces a multitude of dialogue choices, both large (should I aid the village in its time of need?) and small (should I demand a few more gold as a reward for my actions?).  There is no right or wrong answer, only what feels appropriate to the player.  It’s important to note that all choices feel important and have a lasting effect on the party members and any other characters the player meets along the way. 

Speaking of which, a cast of memorable faces are ready to travel with the player — some favorties included a Dwarven Fighter looking to become a monk, a Tiefling who steals whatever isn’t nailed down, and a cranky human sorceress with an inflated ego — but also with the fireballs to back it up. 

Party member interactions are a highlight of Neverwinter Nights 2, and learning more about them by gaining their confidence is always a treat.  Characters gain experience via combat and exploration, and can readily purchase or craft gear.  Progression is steady, and it’s generally easy to earn the coin needed for upgrades. 

While things get off to a roaring start and this version has a great base to work from, Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition squanders the goodwill its writing and mechanics earn almost immediately. 

While the improved graphics make character models sharper and slightly more detailed, they still look tremendously dated. Worse, bugs are glitches are rampant.  Ten minutes after starting the game, my character got stuck in place and I had to try numerous fixes to continue on my way. Hardly an isolated occurrence, this ‘stickiness’ happens frequently during exploration and required me to quickly select a new character or click on a faraway destination to remedy. 

During combat, my character frequently teleported outside of any room I was in.  Also during combat, clicking an action doesn’t always work, even if the appropriate icon appears in the combat menu. 

Also, players need to spend a good deal of time micro-managing their party to get them to behave usefully in battle — dysfunctional behaviors like running around in circles, refusing to follow the main character into a room, or launching spells from nowhere near a fight. Even basic things like sound effects don’t work properly.  The clash of steel against armor or shield is notably missing from all battles, and I also suffered several crashes to desktop, causing me to repeat lengthy sections.

I will give the save system specifically a mixed review.  Neverwinter Nights 2 allows me to save whenever and wherever I want, which longtime readers will know is something I harp on constantly — so I approve.  However, when trying to load a saved game, I’m asked if I want to save first.  The first time this happened, I had just suffered a total party kill, requiring me to load an earlier save.  Not paying attention, I accidentally saved this graceless defeat over my good save I was trying to get back into! Why on earth would anyone want to save right after they’d been killed? 

Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition could have been something truly special to share with modern-day players.  This classic does a great job of worldbuilding and gives a player true stakes, a sense of progression, and a realistic party of companions to interact with. Sadly, the rife bugs and glitches along with a general sense of being unfinished make it impossible to recommend, especially as there seem to be no patches incoming. 

It’s tremendously disappointing, and hopefully either Aspyr can do something about it in the future, or ardent fans will come to rescue and save this title from a fate worse than death.

Rating: 3.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Aspyr Media. It is currently available on XBX/S, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 24 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. While there are multiplayer modes which offer features such as the ability to turn PVP on and off, I was not able to join any sessions. Player sessions are password protected, and I did not know anyone currently playing the game.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood, Mild Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence. The official description reads: This is a role-playing game in which players can create characters to engage in popular D&D campaigns set in the Forgotten Realms. From a third-person perspective, players explore fantasy locations while interacting with characters, performing quests/missions, and battling enemies. Players use swords, arrows, and magic spells to kill various enemies (e.g., ogres, bandits, animals, elves, dwarves). Combat is highlighted by cries of pain, small explosions, and large splatters of blood. A handful of walls/floors are also stained with blood. Female characters are sometimes depicted wearing low-cut tops that reveal large amounts of cleavage; players can develop relationships with others, sometimes resulting in suggestive dialogue (e.g., “I thought perhaps we could get some sleep. Together”; “I have no intention of letting you sleep.”). Tavern sequences depict drunk characters slurring and hiccupping; background characters also drink alcohol. Players’ character can consume ale, wine, and spirits, resulting in status/skill effects. The word “bastard” appears in the game.

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. All gameplay critical sound effects have a visual component.  However, characters casting spells, attacking, or making non-gameplay critical utterances do not have accompanying subtitles.

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

The post Dungeons & Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The animation is way better than it has a right to be.

LOW The story barely evolves and remains one-note from start to finish.

WTF Some of the fauna encountered expire horrifically during battle.

Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson is a 2D JRPG deckbuilder with rhythm action elements. Players take control of Rob, a talented but unknown musician from a remote area who harbors big dreams of trekking across the world and smashing his way to victory at the upcoming Battle of the Bands hosted by musical megacorp SMR.

However, whispers abound regarding this tournament. Could it be that SMR are instead up to nefarious schemes, rigging these battles so that only the most malleable and easily-bought contestants make it through to the end, winning a tournament that’s little more than a hollow scam to exploit musicians for corporate greed?

Well, yes. It pretty much says as much right from the start. Anyone expecting wild plot twists is going to leave disappointed, so expect musical assassins and goons to be deployed en masse to prevent Rob from winning the competition fairly.

See, music isn’t just a pleasant or occasionally irritating distraction in this world — it’s how people survive. Out in the forests and grasslands, acoustically empowered foes lie in wait to annihilate Rob via the medium of turn-based battles, and it’s here that the rhythm-based battle system comes into play.

Starting out with his trusty six string guitar, Rob can assemble a deck of commands that are randomly drawn from a pool. Three in a row can be set in motion to attack and debuff opponents, or heal and strengthen Rob’s defenses, with timing based QTE’s assigned to each action. Hitting these QTEs accurately can influence battle by enhancing damage dealt, or mitigating damage taken.

Rob will find three additional instruments to unleash havoc with, each of which has its own battle theme when in use. The Bass Guitar is a heavy hitter, the Synthesizer features a warlock style approach of slamming out buffs and debuffs, and the Eight String causes damage to Rob in order to power up its attacks. Each instrument also has passive qualities, with the Synthesizer triggering equipped mods if enough frequency is gained during the turn, for example.

Sound complicated? It can be if desired, though the extremely mild difficulty means that learning the nuances of the battle system isn’t necessary. QTE checks can also be disabled, which I did as I found they weren’t adding anything to the experience — with the Guitar Hero-style “Crescendo” super attacks being the one exception. After building enough meter and initiating the Crescendo (or having a boss encounter do the same to Rob) a musical highway of notes appears alongside a cool animation. It’s a neat touch.

The graphics are… interesting. I don’t think the style is anything to write home about, but the animation is almost unnecessarily lavish. Every attack has a different animation associated, including found or purchasable ones that can be cut into the deck. Cutscenes and Crescendo sequences have clearly had a lot of effort put into them, and it’s downright weird to see a fairly generic graphic style have an almost overwhelming amount of care put into the animation. It might even be a negative in some ways — with no way to skip many of these animations, they slow battles down more than necessary.

Exploration is pretty typical stuff. Each town has a few shops and NPCs, and Rob will occasionally encounter simple puzzles such as shoving boxes, copying environmental patterns or ensuring switches are hit in sequence. There’s a decent diversity of environments, but it’s notable that none of the characters Rob meets along the way are even remotely interesting or fleshed out. It harms the sense of discovery when all that’s waiting in the next outpost are more inconsequential background faces chucking out the odd music pun.

Fretless is remarkably frictionless, but not necessarily in a good way. Standard enemies pose little threat, but still take a while to whittle down with no way to skip attack animations or immediately stomp underpowered adversaries. I killed most bosses on my first attempt, with one of only two deaths in the entire game occurring because I killed myself attempting to learn the Eight String Guitar — which, as mentioned earlier, sacrifices Rob’s health to strengthen its attacks and can kill players who aren’t being judicious with its use.

Bizarrely, the final stretch of the adventure devolves into a monumentally non-thrilling stealth sequence where being spotted by roaming guards results in being evicted from the premises and starting over. On the one hand it’s simple to stay hidden, as their field of vision is projected around them in plain sight. On the other, it’s an absolutely terrible sequence that took far too long to get through, not helped by the fact that I spent ages looking for an exit, only to find that the camera perspective made said exit look like a solid wall.

It’s unfortunate that I find myself having to put the boot in this hard to what’s obviously a passion project from an indie developer, but my emotional state playing Fretless oscillated between boredom, irritation and occasionally finding it all mildly pleasant. Perhaps it will hit differently for someone who’s into the music scene or deckbuilders, but as a JRPG fan who’s partial to a good rhythm action game, it hit a bit of a bum note for me.

Rating: 4 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ritual Studios and published by Playdigious Originals. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 8 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game has not been rated by the ESRB.  It’s fine for kids, I’d think, with its upbeat approach to nearly everything that’s going on and cartoonish villainy from the bad guys. However, watching the skin melt clean off (potentially artificial) wildlife to reveal a skeleton as they die seems massively at odds with its usual vibe, even if there’s no blood involved.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game’s story is told entirely in text, so subtitles aren’t needed. While music is a big part of the game, I don’t recall anything from the rhythm based gameplay that didn’t also have a visual cue that would suffice.

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

The post Fretless: The Wrath Of Riffson Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Excellent worldbuilding. Engaging combat. Fantastic art direction.

LOW Frequent crashes and freezes, slow loading screens. Sparse, unpopulated areas.

WTF The way Vrann says “faces” sounds an awful lot like “feces.”

From the moment I stepped foot into my first dungeon, I was fully immersed in Questline’s Tainted Grail — a dark fantasy take on what can best be described as a “Scrollslike” due to its Elder Scrolls-adjacent gameplay with lore that borrows concepts, places and characters from the Arthurian mythos.

The adventure begins on the Island Asylum. It’s a vast, cavernous compound run by Red Priests who treat their inmates much as inquisitors would heretics, subjecting them to the rack and other means of torture as well as experimenting on them with an otherworldly force known as the Wyrdness.

Once the player finishes creating their character from a disappointingly short list of customizable features, a guard will approach the cell and ask them a series of questions to determine how they landed themselves in the dungeon. The player’s class is based on how they choose to respond. For instance, responding with “I was hunting” granted me the Ranger class, deadly with a bow and arrow.

After the player has been freed from their cell by a mysterious NPC, they’re free to explore the linear but dynamic dungeon where they’re presented with many opportunities to lockpick or crawl through tunnels. Along the way, they’ll encounter cells containing inmates afflicted by the Red Death (a plague with mysterious origins) who share some juicy lore bits with the player. There are also back rooms where they can beat down Red Priests and acquire loot before finally escaping and boarding a ship bound for the shores of Avalon.

This process of effectively rolling a character followed by the trope of escaping from a dungeon and setting out on the main quest will be familiar to longtime CRPG players. The similarities between Tainted Grail and The Elder Scrolls series in particular are countless, but more significant are the similarities in gameplay, worldbuilding and level design — and arguably, it improves on all three.

The gameplay is largely the same (first-person ARPG with the option to toggle third-person on and off) but the movement in Tainted Grail is surprisingly fluid and responsive, even on mouse and keyboard. The inclusion of mechanics like parrying and dodging, as well as a wide variety of interesting spells and powerful weapons — all equipped with light, heavy and charged attacks — make combat equally challenging and rewarding.

Things like upgrading weapons, using skill and ability points to buff the player’s build and gaining passive XP (the player can boost their agility level just by running) all manifest in a similar way to Scrolls but there are enough differences to function as quality-of-life updates to the formula established by Bethesda.

Being able to chop wood, dig for treasure, fish, mine for ore, forage for mushrooms, cook various dishes and brew potions (as one can also do in Scrolls) makes the resource-gathering aspect of Tainted Grail a bit more lifelike, although the places where one can handcraft weapons and armor or chop wood on chopping blocks were a little too rare.

The open world aspect of Grail was also a significant strength, as I felt like I could look at practically any distant point on the horizon and eventually be able to make my way to it. There always seemed to be a new path to explore, whether tucked away in a forest, in a cavern, or hiding in plain sight. If I got frustrated with an area, I could easily fast-travel somewhere else.

The level of creativity that’s gone into the art direction is remarkable, from the Giger-esque Archspires to vast highlands that rival the verdant beauty of Scotland. Speaking of which, it’s apparent that much of Grail is influenced by ancient Celtic culture — hence the presence of druids.

The druids were easily my favorite NPCs because of their many idiosyncrasies, such as one named Therrov who dabbled in alchemy but consistently botched his potions with one particularly humorous result: I had my PC imbibe one of his potions which caused his speaking voice to sound like a chicken until the effect finally wore off.

I felt rewarded by their change in demeanor as they went from being hostile to warm and appreciative once I helped their comrade in a quest, and I also admired their fierce loyalty to each other (mostly) in the face of total annihilation, as they were hounded by both the Red Priests and a certain Knight of the Round Table. Some of their lines of dialogue doubled as compelling lore dumps and heart-wrenching soliloquies about genocide, thanks to Grail‘s excellent writing and exceptional voice acting.

Though it was satisfying to continue to meet NPCs, explore the world and fill the map in, there was a point at which I felt Grail start to lose its magic — and partly, it was due to technical issues.

The concept art featured in the loading screens is gorgeous and horrific in equal measure, but one can only look at it for so long before the length of the load time erodes any enjoyment of the piece — and Grail‘s loading times are long. I would watch the clock as seconds turned to minutes, the pause in gameplay long enough to make me want to check my phone, and even after looking at emails and such, the game would still be loading.

Worse, nearly every time I tried to boot Tainted Grail up, it would either crash or take a lifetime to verify the integrity of its files. On a recent attempt, I had to download the latest patch (which took only a minute or two to install) but then had to wait for almost a half an hour for the integrity of the files to be verified before it finally started… and then immediately crashed.

The developers are clearly trying to address many of these issues by fixing bugs and adding slight changes and modifications, but the patches never seemed to do quite enough. Even after downloading the latest patch, I would run into weird glitches such as the afterimage of my short sword cutting in and out after sheathing it to enter dialogue. There’s also often stuttering in higher-density areas and sometimes combat will cause the game to freeze, which is especially frustrating during a boss fight.

All this leads me to say that I think that Tainted Grail could have benefited from more time in development even though it had already been a couple of years since the demo dropped. Though it often stumbles over the technical weight of its own creative ambition, Tainted Grail has the makings of a phenomenal RPG — but readers just might want to hold off until that weight has been lifted.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon — PC

Disclosures: This game was developed by Questline and published by Awaken Realms. This game is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBS/X. It was obtained via the publisher and reviewed for PC. Approximately 10 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is not yet rated but it’s a dark fantasy RPG so one can expect a high level of graphic violence and gore, foul language and disturbing imagery.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has subtitles for dialogue but no visual cues to warn the player of incoming attacks from the side or from behind, which makes it not fully accessible.

Remappable controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Tainted Grail 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 Creative, thought-provoking worldbuilding that I will not soon forget. 

LOW A music-based game that forces players to dodge off beat still feels counter-intuitive. 

WTF Videogamedunkey is in this?? 

When I first started writing for GameCritics, one of the first titles I had the pleasure of reviewing was a strange looking title called Everhood. 

In my time with it, I was flabbergasted by Everhood’s commitment to storytelling, larger than life philosophical themes, and moral ambiguity — all of which have stuck with me. Four years later, when I saw Everhood was receiving a sequel, I jumped at the chance to see what else developers Jordi Roca and Chris Nordgren had up their sleeves. I’m happy to say, Everhood II takes all the successful elements of its predecessor, dials them up to eleven, and creates a superb experience that oozes with personality, comedy, and mystery. 

Everhood II takes its protagonist into a realm past death, riddled with danger and mind-bending realities. The player will befriend an enigmatic raven who encourages them to defeat an entity known as the Mind Dragon in order to escape this perilous dimension. Along the way, the player will travel across space and time, meet zany characters, and make critical decisions that will impact not just their story, but the entire cosmos. 

Though all of this sounds far-fetched, one of Everhood II’s greatest strengths is its cryptic, yet thought-provoking worldbuilding. Each of the realities the protagonist will visit feel lived-in, and are filled with memorable characters. From a battlefield decimated by the war between fruits and vegetables, to a digital circuit board riddled with viruses, exploring each setting without knowing who was truly friend or foe always kept me engaged.  

The main hook at the start is fighting against the initially-overpowered Mind Dragon, and upon the player’s defeat, traveling back to previously-visited worlds that will allow the protagonist to get stronger and more prepared for an inevitable rematch. However, each time a world is revisited, it changes drastically. Whether it’s the passage of 1000 years, or a town that once celebrated you as a hero but has now come to see you as the enemy, the choices made in-game will greatly affect the setting of the next environment, and perhaps the overall arc of the story itself, highly encouraging multiple playthroughs!  

Music-based combat as a concept remains mostly unchanged from the first Everhood. The player is on a five-note grid, and will have to dodge, absorb, and reflect incoming notes from their enemy. Though I found the musical tracks in the first installment to be mildly underwhelming, Everhood 2’s soundtrack is filled with psychedelic tunes that get the blood pumping with synth-based choruses when they’re not perfectly reflecting the personality of the opposing foe. 

However, the main issue I had with the first Everhood‘s battle system remains unchanged here in the sequel. Though the opponent is hurling notes in time with the music, it’s the player’s responsibility to dodge these notes when they arrive, and they’re usually off beat. There were times where I felt it was difficult to fully resonate with the music because I intuitively wanted to press buttons in time with the tunes, but succumbing to this urge would lead to my untimely death.  

Also, for an experience so entangled in its philosophical themes, music isn’t central to the plot, so it begs the question of why this combat system was picked in the first place. 

Apart from my modest frustrations with the combat system and a few too many time-shattering events to keep track of by the time I made it to the endgame, Everhood II is a triumphant follow-up to an already strong title. I will not soon forget the chaotic worlds visited, the eccentric friends made along the way, and the thought-provoking questions raised by my travels through the spirals of time. 

Rating: 8.5 out of 10 

Disclosures: This game is developed by Jordi Roca and Chris Nordgren and published by Foreign Gnomes. It is currently available on Switch and PC. Copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. 

Parents: This game was rated E+10 by the ESRB, and it contains Fantasy violence and mild blood. Themes of death, conflict, morality, and philosophy are intricately woven into the game’s core. I wouldn’t recommend the title to anyone younger than their early teens. 

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes, but there is an image sensitivity mode for those who might be sensitive to flashing lights or bright colors. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game is fully subtitled. Though the speed of the text can be changed, the size cannot. The game is music-based, and though one could get away with playing it without sound, that lack of audio input adds another level of difficulty to the combat.

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

The post Everhood 2 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.

The post Labyrinth Of The Demon King Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 on the So Videogames podcast, Episode 438. For the original coverage of the game, please listen to Episode 436 and Episode 437.

Final circle back is for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I talked about it last episode. Really liked it a lot. I ended up finishing the campaign between then and now. Took me ultimately about between 25 to 28 hours. And full disclosure, I just mainlined once I kind of got the grasp of the game. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is really a very interesting game on many levels, and I’m kind of toying with the idea of giving it a full review here, but I’m not sure.

Let me talk about it for a minute. We’ll see how I feel, I guess. But I mean overall. Okay. So let me just kind of nutshell, like I covered it pretty in depth last episode, I believe, or the one before, but recently. And anyway, now that I’ve kind of gotten into it, like I think there’s so many really cool things about it, I think the art design is great. I love the character designs, I love the vibe like their suits and the way they look like real people. And I think that a lot of the graphics are just really, really nice. The art style is definitely its own thing and it has its own style, and one of the things I was most impressed with in the campaign was how much they got across with just a look, a raised eyebrow when Gustav looks over and raises an eyebrow when he’s talking to someone. Or sometimes at camp, like two characters will kind of like look at each other and, you know, maybe a couple words will pass between them. But really, like, it’s just like a tilt of a head or the corner of a mouth raising up a little bit. I think they do a lot of really, really notable, um, expression work in this game that I think a lot of other games could take some notes from. So I think that’s pretty outstanding.

The music. I mean, probably the best soundtrack that we’re going to hear this year. And I really don’t think that I’m overstating the case there. I don’t think that’s hyperbole at all. I feel like every track is phenomenal. The overall composition for the entire piece as a game is phenomenal. I very rarely notice music, but this music, like, jumped up and slapped me in the face and said, you will pay attention to me. And I’m like, yes, yes, I absolutely will. Uh, all the different like themes and and moments that were supported and underscored by the song. The soundtrack is just like, you know, very rarely. If you listen to this show for any length of time, you know that I very rarely talk about music because I just, I don’t know, it just doesn’t factor in that much for me very often. But in this game, I think the music is an absolute triumph. Like just just off the hook. Amazing. In terms of the story not going to spoil anything here. This is not a spoiler cast and I okay, so I’ve got issues with some parts of it. I don’t think that it was 100% executed flawlessly as it could have been. I felt like there was a couple for me anyway, a couple beats where I felt like, okay, maybe that was a misstep, or maybe they could have sped something up over here, or they could have taken time over here.

Um, but talking about the main story itself, I know other people have described it like this, but wow, what a wild swing for the fences. And to be perfectly frank, I think it succeeds. I wasn’t sure where it was going. I was very curious to find out. And, and and the overall experience, I do want to say that the story is what carried me forward. I absolutely wanted to see how this was going to turn out. I was so curious to see what the writers had come up with. And they, they they surprised me, man. They really surprised me. It was nuanced. I think it was delicate. I think it was surprising. I think it was a really, really fine piece of writing. Overall. It showed restraint in some areas. It showed boldness in other areas. Again, not going to spoil anything, but I will say it is absolutely worth seeing to the end. And I don’t think that’s true of all RPG games. It wasn’t just a matter of what quests got finished and did the good guys win the end? It was absolutely about what is even happening and what is going on with these characters. And I was just so, so curious. And I do feel like ultimately the payoff was there. I do feel like it succeeded in that way. And it was really, really something else. Um, so yes, I think the story is a win. Absolutely not perfect. I think there’s a couple things I would change, but but a win.

And I think it’s also notable. Kind of like what they did with the facial expressions. I think there’s a lot of lessons to be taken from this story. I think it shows that we can reach for higher heights than perhaps writers have recently. I think that players are on board to be a little bit more challenged in some ways. I think that the writing really goes above and beyond, and I do want to celebrate it for that. So I think that’s incredible. Um, okay. As for the rest of it, I think that in terms of production and the gameplay, I think that’s where the game kind of, I hesitate to say it like it falls down for me, but I think perhaps, maybe that’s where I don’t click with it as strongly as I did with the other aspects. Um, I think that, I mean, number one UI is not great. The UI could be better. I think the tutorials are not great. Tutorials could be a lot better, especially for some of the systems, which I think are pretty intricate. Uh, some of the characters especially like CL like I just never fully understood her powers. And there’s a couple other aspects that I felt like really could have been tightened up a little bit. Um, I do think that the lack of a map genuinely hurts the game. I think the mini maps in each level are.

The lack of mini map is a big detriment, because I got confused and turned around all the time, constantly got lost. I can’t even count the number of times I thought I was moving forward, only to find myself back at the entry point of the map to realize I had simply retraced my steps and didn’t even know it until I got there. And I’m like, okay, that happened way too many times. And so these maps, I think are a problem. I think they need a mini map. I think also you need a quest list. I don’t think a quest list would be wrong. I think, um, being able, being able to put markers or just being able to like organize the world a little bit more, I think would have really helped. I know the team seems like they were kind of going for something outside the norm, and I think they did that in all the ways that really count. But I think taking away these kind of concessions to the player and quality of life things, that is not someplace that you need to push the boundaries. I think I think making the game easier to play for people who are busy, who have kids, who have spouses, who have jobs, who may have to be away from the game a couple days before they come back. I mean, those things are there for a reason. We’ve developed those things over time for reasons, and I don’t think it was great for them to, like, take that stuff away.

I will also say that. So I guess I’m of two minds when it comes to the main campaign. You can mainline the campaign, which is what I did. If you just go from hotspot to hotspot, boom, boom, boom all the way through. The difficulty is pretty easy and pretty straightforward, and I think I appreciated that. And I liked the ability to just go do the main story and be done, which is what I did. But that said, I would have liked more of an off ramp into some of the side activities. There’s actually quite a bit of side content which I did not engage in for a couple of reasons. Number one, I could never remember where it was after I decided I wasn’t going to do it at the time, I couldn’t come back to it. I just I didn’t have a notebook and a pen with me. I didn’t remember where things were and so I very often just forgot and I didn’t want to waste my time looking around. I don’t think that it’s easy to get around from place to place. I think fast travel at a certain point would have been fine. You do eventually get a flight ability, which helps, but it’s not the same thing as fast travel, especially when you’re trying to remember. Where was that one thing that I saw six hours ago? Was it here or was it here? Was it here I can’t remember, and being able to fast travel would have sped that up a little bit, just for practicality’s sake.

You know, I think also there weren’t very many pointers towards the side content. I know that there are companion quests, but I didn’t see any during my playthrough. I don’t know whether I just didn’t talk to people enough or whatever, but like a little more flagging, like I think would have helped. I know that they are kind of leaning into the exploration, but between the lack of a map and the lack of, um, the larger overworld map and the lack of fast travel and the lack of a quest list, I wasn’t really incentivized to do a lot of that searching for things. It felt like kind of a waste of time to just blindly go after things, and I just didn’t care for that. And I will also say that a lot of the side content was much, much, much, much, much harder than the main content, which I guess is fine, but I think having some of it be just easier and more approachable would be great. I felt like every time I tried to go off the beaten track, I got kicked in the face and that was a big problem. It really discouraged me from doing the other stuff. Um, so I think that was an issue.

I will also say that this game to me feels like it’s two halves on the one half. You have the story of the expeditioners and the cool narrative and the events of what happened. And then the other half is the combat system, and I feel like the game really hinges very heavily on the combat system, where I think anybody can probably make their way through it without too much trouble, as long as you’ve, you know, played a video game before. Um, but I think it, it is very specifically designed to appeal to people who like to tweak with the, um, the little bits and bobs, like the pick toes and the luminas and the, um, the different statuses and stuff like that. So like when I, when I beat the game, I think the highest damage I was ever doing at one time was probably something like 22 or 23,000, like for one hit, right? But I was talking to people, uh, some people over in the, uh, gaming the discord, and I’ve seen some people on YouTube and other people, I mean, I’ve seen some people like, hit like in the millions and it’s like, okay, that’s a cool thing that is optional and you don’t need to do it. But I feel like you have to kind of like to fiddle with those things a little bit. And if you don’t like to fiddle with equipping this, pick toe with this other thing that causes a status and then, you know, like you’ve got to really kind of like fiddle with all these little tiny settings.

And if you like it, I think it’s probably a, a tweakers Paradise. But if you don’t like it, I think the rest of the game is very harsh to you and does not make it easy to engage with the rest of the content. If you don’t get on board with what the developers want you to do. I think there’s a kind of rigidity there that I found a little bit off putting in terms of the mechanics. So so I felt like I really did lean into half of the game, but not the other half. I did kind of the bare minimum. I just wasn’t really that interested in trying to do all the tweaks and the Lumina tweaks and the weapon tweaks and stuff, like it just wasn’t that fun to me. Um, although I will. I mean, I can’t argue with the results. I mean, I’ve seen people do absolutely like crushing attacks that I thought were very cool, but I just didn’t get there. It didn’t click with me. Um, naturally, it just wasn’t something that that dragged me in. So I felt like I didn’t see as much as a game as I would have liked to, just because I didn’t feel very welcome, and I didn’t feel like the game was very open towards people who might be of a different persuasion, people who might be interested in other things.

And that kind of leads me to the other aspect of where this game can sometimes feel empty. If you don’t like the tweaking of the combat, like you’re going to be doing mostly combat, there weren’t a lot of side activities that you could engage in that would that would kind of expect in other RPGs of the type, like there was no village building. I mean, I guess there were character side quests, but I didn’t find those. I guess they were later, or maybe I just didn’t find them or I didn’t know where they were. Um, you know, there weren’t, like, all these other kind of, like, different types of activities for people who may want to engage in, like a broader, more well-rounded experience. Um, which isn’t to say that all RPGs need to be the same, but it kind of felt like it kind of felt like a lot of the stuff was gated out if you weren’t exactly in line with the developers, which it’s kind of frustrating. It’s kind of frustrating. I feel like this is such great content that it could have been opened up. It could have been rounded off a little bit. You could still have your incredibly difficult challenges, but I think more people could have been welcomed into the fold. And ultimately, you know, a more balanced experience could have been had. I mean, clearly that’s not what the developers are after.

And people are free to make whatever game they want to make, blah, blah, blah, I get it. For my taste, the game, overall, was a little bit too bifurcated for me — there was a big division between story and gameplay. But with that said, I did have a good time and have a lot of respect for what the story was going for. Nothing about it is perfect, but the developer is trying new things and bringing a lot of fresh blood and new energy new to the table, and I have the greatest respect for that.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is absolutely, without doubt, a notable title, and probably going to be one of the ten best of the year, even though I do have some issues with it. Overall, it’s something to be studied and learned from, and it’s got a lot to teach the rest of the industry. So fuck, I just talked for a million years. I should give it a review. Okay. So what? What score am I going to give it? I’m thinking I’m thinking, oh boy, I’m really I’m really divided here. I really am leaning towards 8.5 because I feel like the places where it’s strong, it’s extremely strong. But I will say that some of the drawbacks to me were pretty serious drawbacks, and they did hamper my enjoyment of the title overall. And they kind of reflected, um, maybe like some, some choices. I think that could have been a little bit more. Well considered.

Fuck it. Fuck. Okay, I’m gonna go with an official. Okay. 8.0. I got to do it 8.0. It’s really great. I think it’s notable. I think it’s going to be a landmark. Touchstone title for years to come. But I just have too many reservations about it to, like, embrace it fully. Wholeheartedly. Uh, yes. Eight.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 – PC – XB – PS

Disclosures: This game is developed by Sandfall Interactive and published by Kepler Interactive. It is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBX. This copy of the game was obtained via Game Pass and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 28 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, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, and Violence. The official description reads: This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the roles of expeditioners attempting to break a cycle of death. From a third-person perspective, players explore an open-world environment, interact with characters, and battle human and fantastical enemies in turn-based combat. Players select physical attacks (e.g., swords, guns), elemental attacks (e.g., lightning, fire), and skills from a menu to defeat enemies. Bloodstains can be seen on the ground in several environments. Cutscenes also depict instances of violence and blood/gore: characters stabbed; a character decapitated, with their headless body depicted in the background; characters shot; characters with large amounts of blood on their faces/clothes. In one area, players can stop in front of a brothel and hear sexual moaning sounds. Players are also able to advance character relationships, with innuendo in text (e.g., “Away from the others…[They] became a bit more than friends”; “They spend one final night together. It is truly passionate. [They] live something unforgettable”). The word “f**k” appears in the game.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Almost all dialogue is subtitled. (I found a very few minor instances of dialogue in the world that were not subtitled.) Text can be resized. Names and colors can be added to the text. While parrying often relies on visual cues, some of the animations are quite tricky and some are easier to perform by listening for the audio cues, rather than relying on the visuals.

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

The post SVG REVIEW Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Pulling off key battles and weighty decisions.

LOW The spiral of failure.

WTF Everything bad happens to this kingdom.

The sequel to 2020’s Yes, Your Grace, Yes, Your Grace 2: Snowfall continues the where the first left off. The original was going to be a hard act to follow, but I was pleased to find that while the fundamentals remain largely the same, additions to the gameplay and narrative continue its saga forward in the right way.

As the game begins, Snowfall asks players which choices they made in the first installment. It had been so long since I played the original that I had to just guess at what I had done. For new players, it’s recommended — almost essential — to play the first installment before picking up Snowfall. 

Despite the fact Snowfall clearly wants players to have been through the earlier content, the beginning chapters introduced reintroduced the gameplay mechanics. The player takes up the crown to make decisions that will govern and protect their kingdom and family, and most of these choices come in the form of the petitioners who ask for help.

In this 2D, pixel-art narrative-driven title, the player will be often be seated in their throne room and approached by people who need things.

For most of these requests and tasks, the ruler has agents who can be sent out to help. However, there are a limited number of these agents, and each has limited stamina that can be allocated to act in a week. Also, some agents are better at some tasks than others. For example, if bandits have stolen something, I would assign an agent who has a bonus to combat, and if I had a relevant item on-hand, I could choose it for better results. Giving a sword which gives awards a combat bonus would increase an agent’s success rate, and sometimes additional bonuses. 

Most of the time I felt like my resources were stretched thin, and trying to help as many petitioners as possible can be quite risky, as it might mean leaving the kingdom without options if something unexpected comes up. Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that the Ruler’s influence gauge is high so that it can be used to ask for taxes. This allows the player to receive money or move supplies to other areas of the kingdom.

As Snowfall progressed, the balancing act between influence and resources only got harder, and by chapter three. I was forced to be extremely careful, or else one bad call would lock me into a spiral of failure — being short of money led to an uncompleted request, and that failure meant I didn’t have enough money to pay agents and buy supplies, and falling short with those prevented me from getting enough influence to get resources, and so on.

Although I was glad that my choices had consequences, my initial failures felt like they came from a misunderstanding of the mechanics. For example, I didn’t understand new uses for items and how essential they were to completing quests.

Likewise, the complexities of taxing my citizens, managing my agents, and completing objectives got far more complicated than they did the first Yes, Your Grace. The devs attempted to explain these in tutorial pop-ups as they were presented, but I was caught off-guard by the degree of planning needed. Sometimes the balance of gold needed in reserve for requests while also spending some on completing objectives left me with what felt like a razor-thin margin. Challenge and consequences can be good things, but I would have liked a little more leeway, or at least a bit more warmup before Snowfall‘s difficulty ramped up.

Like the gameplay, Snowfall‘s story does not pull its punches.

The original Yes, Your Grace had players in the role of King Eryk, but Snowfall focuses on his wife, Queen Aurelea. I found this shift to be a refreshing change, and it increased the sense of peril thanks to Eryk being incapacitated and the family in peril and driven out of normal circumstances. It all feels desperate, making the work of managing things quite intense.

Snowfall’s story proceeds at a breakneck pace thanks to constant interactions with characters, petitioners, agents and side quests. With all the twists and choices at play, it’s hard to say much about it without spoilers. I can say that the constant high stakes for both my royal family and the citizens’ wellbeing kept me engaged throughout — I might even invest time into a second run just to maximize my choices and see the best ending.

While the core decision-making content of Yes, Your Grace: Snowfall remains close to the original’s, the mechanics are a bit deeper and the narrative is strong and moves its world compellingly forward. This title is the definition of “worthy successor”, and certainly one of my favorite indies of the year so far.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy Yes, Your Grace: Snowfall – PC

Disclosures: This game is developed by Brave at Night and published by No More Robots. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC (with a good portion played on the Steamdeck). Approximately 15.3 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is currently unrated by the ESRB. Please note, there are depictions of poison, drug, and alcohol use, along with depictions of violence, such as slashing with a sword or a character being burned at the stake. Most of these are simply animated pixels (not gratuitous) and some more graphic scenes simply fade to black.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. They cannot be resized or altered. There are no audio cues needed for gameplay, and all dialogue comes via text, there are no voiced lines. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. There is no controller diagram. Controls use the left thumb stick or d-pad to move left and right across environments, and face buttons on a controller to interact with people or objects. Otherwise, it’s navigating menus and dialogue choices with a mixture of the thumb stick or shoulder buttons to select.

The post Yes, Your Grace 2: Snowfall Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.