HIGH The art style has its moments.

LOW The gamefeel, the puzzles, the teeth-grittingly slow pace…

WTF The two Andy Warhols in Artia (which is two too many)

The Plucky Squire has indie smash hit swagger. The concept? Main character Jot is a Link-like storybook hero who can alter his book’s world and even venture into the ‘real world’ outside of its pages. It immediately looks like a winner thanks to a charming art style, and the mechanical ideas shown from the earliest trailers pricked up the ears of huge swathes of the market.

Sadly – and it brings me no pleasure to say this – The Plucky Squire is bad. So bad, in fact, that I’m in the ludicrous position of admitting that this bright, cheery title was the worst thing I’ve played this year, and that I gave up before I finished it.

I sensed trouble within minutes of starting — or, I should say, within minutes of being given some meaningful control, because The Plucky Squire is obsessively chatty from the start, and it remains so throughout. Everything about the way Jot controls, both in the Zelda-esque 2D, top-down world of the storybook and the Mario-ish 3D real world, feels wrong. His sword swing is sluggish, he moves slowly, and his roll has a noticeably staccato rhythm to it. Playing Squire at anything less than 60fps further compounds these issues.

Zelda is not strictly about combat, but even in the ‘86 original Zelda, Link’s sword thrust was well-tuned and intuitive. Jot’s is not, and because many screens involve killing enemies, it’s not possible to ignore how skewed the gamefeel is. Enemy HP is too high as well, and everything takes too long to kill. There’s a half-baked upgrade system, but I felt forced to beeline for the damage upgrades to help speed things up. It’s just not good.

The other half of the Zelda equation is made up of puzzles, and Plucky Squire infuses its brainteasers with a text-based word-swapping element. Because Jot lives in a storybook, his adventures appear on the page as sentences. Certain words in these sentences can be picked up and shuffled around, and these changes alter the storybook page to suit the new sentence. The book may describe a lily pad as “small,” and it is indeed unable to hold his weight, but if Jot finds the word “big” somewhere else, he can pop it into that sentence to make the pad big enough to jump to.

Nice concept, flavorless execution. I don’t expect or want the puzzles in Plucky Squire to be brain-burning monstrosities, but what’s on offer in Squire will drop someone’s cranial temperature to absolute zero. It’s evident within seconds what’s required, there’s no room for unforeseen solutions, and it’s always just a matter of executing the sequence – and a sequence is often hampered by stodgy combat and incessant, play-stopping quips from the characters.

It also bothers me in particular that slotting in the wrong word doesn’t cause its own changes. Every valid sentence construction should enact its rule, with no exceptions. With the lily pad, if I put the word “stone” in instead of “big,” it should rightfully turn to stone. Instead, the sentence simply rejects it rather than altering the scene accordingly.

Then there are the 3D sections. While Jot’s moveset is unchanged, there’s more of an emphasis on platforming — platforming which is mediocre at best, stultifying at its (frequent) worst. The one-off concepts continue in 3D too, and I can’t help but kvetch about the fact that the first “out of the book” sequence has an instant fail stealth section that would’ve been tacky and outdated 15 years ago.

All of Squire’s good ideas stop at the flash of concept, and never generate the warmth that comes from meaningful mechanical exploration. Look at the slew of minigames it offers – these are meant to be cute riffs and homages to other games, but they’re flawed.

For example, the Punch-Out-style boxing episode for the first boss is terrible. Like all of his other actions, Jot’s punches and dodges just aren’t up to the standards of Little Mac’s. Furthermore, Plucky Squire is too anxious that players might not catch on to this simple fight and explains exactly how to beat it before it starts. Another early sequence that switches to a turn-based JRPG battle drags on well after the joke has been appreciated, forcing the player to sink into its fundamental mediocrity. Fortunately, the minigames can be skipped – I just wish other elements could be passed over as well…

It’s not even a matter of style over substance in Plucky Squire, because the art style, while striking and technically competent, is hollow and derivative — it lands somewhere between a twee Adventure Time with the numbers filed off and the DIY art label on a middling craft farmhouse ale. It’s sort of unique for a game to look like this, but so much art elsewhere looks exactly like this. There’s no surprising fire, no distinguishing eccentricity… no sense of character that wasn’t spooned out of a can.

The story of this storybook also grates. One the characters is a wizard named Moonbeard who wears cool shades and is also a DJ. There’s a mountain with a candy-colored heavy metal theme called Trarrg, and a swamp full of actor-snails that speak in bad couplets. It’s all so cringe-inducing, and frankly, trying way too hard. 

Cheeriness laid on thick can work, but Plucky Squire is so flat in its optimism that it comes across as dopey. There’s nary a shade of melancholy or maturity here, which is essential to great children’s stories. However, even if I liked the story – which I didn’t – it incessantly interrupts the gameplay.

One mandatory quest involves bringing pigs — sorry, I mean “Rubboinks” — back to their pen. After each one is dropped off, the jovial farmer stops Jot to let him know that, hey, he just dropped off a Rubboink! When dealing with the aforementioned snails, Jot must gather two different volumes of a book, one on each side of the screen, all with running commentary from the surrounding snails. When the sequence is over there’s an unskippable, joyless “skit” scene where the snail actors do their little play.

The storybook conceit itself also intrudes. Every time Jot leaves a screen, the book has to zoom out, flip the page, and zoom back in before he can move again — and some of these screens consist of a path with nothing on it that takes two seconds to traverse. Even outside of the storybook there are many long pans over the level, including ones that zoom in on keys, just in case anyone was worried about having to find it themselves. My enthusiasm was already sputtering out, but the fact that I couldn’t even move through Squire’s world at anything but a glacial pace is what ultimately killed it for me. Goodbye, Moonbeard. Don’t let the hard drive hit you on the way out.

I wish All Possible Futures luck in their future ventures, but here, in today’s hyper-crowded indie scene, there are dozens and dozens of games that deserve to be plucked up ahead of this Squire.

4.5 out of 10

— Ben Schwartz

Disclosures: This game is developed by All Possible Futures and published by Devolver Digital. It is available on PC, PS5, XBO/X/S and Switch. This copy of the game was obtainedvia publisher. Approximately 8 hours of play were devoted to the game, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E and contains Fantasy Violence. The ESRB rating summary is as follows: This is an action-adventure game in which players follow the story of a squire who explores 2D and 3D realms while trying to save his friends. Players traverse platform environments, solve puzzles, and fight whimsical enemies (e.g., goblins, birds, badgers). Players use a small sword to strike cartoony enemies that disappear into puffs of smoke when defeated. One mini-game depicts an exaggerated boxing match, with characters punching and dodging to defeat each other; action is highlighted by impact sounds, brief cries of pain, and screen-shaking effects.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles cannot be altered or resized. There are no audio cues needed for gameplay. This title is fully accessible.

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

The post The Plucky Squire Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Looks gorgeous, but at the cost of 60fps on console.

LOW A torturously unexciting puzzle gauntlet midway through the campaign.

WTF Key story beats presented like the holographic recordings from Tacoma.

In developing the original Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Ninja Theory famously consulted with mental health experts in creating a sympathetic portrayal of a character with psychosis. I’m not someone who experiences visions or hears voices, but I’ve had my own struggles with mental health, and I saw parallels between this Pict warrior’s acceptance of who she is and my own. Like so much great art, Hellblade had a specific and intended meaning, but could also be appreciated on broader levels.

As such, it gives me no pleasure to report that Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II made me feel very little on any level. Whatever their faults, I would never accuse Ninja Theory’s past titles of lacking a clear sense of direction, but I suppose it makes sense that their first sequel would be the one to break that streak. Every multi-part narrative, given enough time, eventually reaches the point where things just happen for the sake of having more story. With Hellblade, we’ve reached that point by episode two.

It’s difficult to pinpoint where exactly Hellblade II goes wrong when, on its surface, it treads closely to the original formula. One might expect Ninja Theory’s first major release under the Microsoft banner to be their most bloated, but initially it almost feels praiseworthy for what it doesn’t do. There’s no open world, no resource gathering or crafting, no skill tree that adds an extra 3% damage to Senua’s strong attacks, and no upgradable bracer that increases her parry window by a fraction of a millisecond.

In a climate where seemingly every major release is a months-long commitment, there’s something refreshing about a triple-A videogame that can be completed in a weekend and doesn’t force its players to learn a hundred new systems. If the mission statement with the original Hellblade was to offer big-budget production values at a modest scale and for a modest price, the sequel at least upholds the tradition of not wasting too much of our time.

However, while Hellblade II avoids many of the most frustrating tropes of modern gaming, it struggles to fill that space with anything else of substance. It can’t be overstated how much of Hellblade II is spent simply traipsing along linear paths with literally nothing to do but stare at the pretty scenery and wait for Senua to reach the next cutscene. My instinct is to say that an experience this beautiful and empty tends to arrive at the start of a console’s life cycle, when there’s new tech to show off and not much else to play, but that’s being unfair to forgettable launch titles. At least the action in Ryse: Son of Rome heated up more than once an hour.

The original Hellblade was admittedly light on mechanics, but it was story-first fare that trapped us in Senua’s version of hell and made us question what was real, going so far as to gaslight players into believing that their save files were at risk. It was a mean, oppressive, and grueling experience. It played with audience expectations up until the very end, when it beautifully tied the experience together with an empathetic message about accepting loss and living with — even embracing! — what can’t be changed.

Hellblade II, in stark constrast, has no edge and no sense of purpose. With Senua’s psychosis now mostly under control — the voices and visions are still there, but nowhere near as overwhelming — she’s forced to wander the “real” world, engaging in bland heroics and preaching messages of love and acceptance across a desolate landscape of pillaging and plundering. My most charitable reading of Hellblade II is that it reworks the sinister imagery of its predecessor into what feels like a morality tale for children — light versus darkness, love versus hate. I’m sure there are people out there who aren’t yet convinced that empathizing with one’s enemies is a more productive solution than enslaving them, but I doubt Ninja Theory will be the ones to change their minds.

I would go further, though, and argue that Hellblade II actively harms the franchise’s standing as a well-researched and sympathetic portrayal of mental health. The original lucidly visualized the invisible demons that people with mental health struggles deal with on a daily basis. Although it ultimately taught us to see Senua’s psychosis as a feature rather than a bug, it didn’t mince words about how self-destructive the mind can be, and how torturous such an existence often is.

That’s why Hellblade II largely lacking any sense of danger has repercussions beyond the game simply being boring. It portrays Senua as a singularly gifted force of good, but that’s rarely reinforced in any of the things that we’re actually doing as players. Without spoilers, there’s an excruciatingly long sequence midway through the campaign in which Senua is searching for something ancient and forbidden that can only be unearthed by “proving” herself. These trials are hyped up to be The Ultimate Test, and the ground is littered with the corpses of those who’ve failed.

Once there, it turns out that The Ultimate Test is just a series of rudimentary puzzles that largely involve flicking switches in the correct order. Putting aside the arbitrary nature of these puzzles — the rune-hunting exercises in the original Hellblade weren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but at least they served a thematic purpose! — they’re just insultingly easy. Even someone with no intuition for this sort of thing could bumble through using simple trial-and-error, yet Ninja Theory treats completion of this task like a show of worthiness on par with lifting Thor’s hammer. It’s infantilizing to both the player and to Senua herself, who’s seen by everyone in this world as some sort of mystical fairy child for essentially completing a dungeon from a junior-level Zelda clone.

As expected with Ninja Theory, presentation is not the problem here. They’re industry leaders when it comes to performance capture — working with Andy Serkis will do that for ya — and the way its animations seamlessly transition in and out of cutscenes is remarkable, even given how much we’ve been spoiled by modern tech. Hellblade II‘s announcement predates COVID-19 lockdowns, and while its long development cycle doesn’t feel evident in the scope of its story, it’s at least evident in the visuals and the level of polish.

On another positive note, the combat is still enjoyable. It’s simple and easy to grasp, and the camerawork, effects and sound design sell the power of every sword swing. It worked in the original as one of Ninja Theory’s tools of oppression and claustrophobia. Here, I just appreciated the jolt of energy in an experience where I was often pausing every few minutes to get up and pace around the room in order to stay awake. Sadly, while the fleeting combat segments are the only time Hellblade II builds any momentum, it’s never sustained for long. The climactic moments, for all of their flash and pomp, feel gamey and artificial, like the multiple instances in which Senua must run from cover to cover to avoid insta-death. That kind of thing would be a lot easier to forgive if I were engaged in the story, but alas.

Until now, I’ve liked each new Ninja Theory game more than the last, and I can never deny the craft on display. Given that this is their first major release since the Microsoft acquisition, I credit Hellblade II for not feeling compromised by corporate interests, but that only makes it more baffling that it lacks any real vision that I was able to discern. It’s not an offensively bad experience, and yet I can only offer one of the most damning criticisms imaginable — I have no idea why it was made.

Rating: 4.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ninja Theory and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is currently available on XBX/S and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on both XBX and PC. Approximately eight 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, Intense Violence and Strong Language. Not for kids! This is a spooky, sinister game full of impalements, dismemberments, and human sacrifice.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and resized. Considerable attention was paid to make Hellblade II more accessible in this department than its predecessor. I don’t recall any sequences in which hearing audio cues is an outright necessity, and the game includes a number of accessibility options such as closed captioning, menu narration and speaker direction. I believe this game is fully accessible.

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

The post Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Recently, CD Projekt Red has been keen on revisiting their finished titles. After its launch, Cyberpunk 2077 has been recieveing iterative work and starting meet the expectations set prior to launch.

Similarly, the publisher has released a free update for the title that put them on the global map – The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

With this update I went back to the Xbox One X (XBO-X) version and compared it to the Xbox Series X (XSX) upgrades. I did not have an Xbox Series S, so I was not able to see some of the updates there. Please be aware this is not a review of The Witcher 3 – I’m only discussing the upgrades. For a full look at the game as whole, you can find our initial coverage here, a second opinion here, and reviews of the DLC content, Hearts of Stone as well as Blood and Wine.

Now, the next-gen upgrade.

Basic improvements are immediately apparent when booting up the title, as the load times are massively improved from getting to the main menu and into game, though one still has to wade through the obligatory legal screens. In the last generation of consoles, there was narration over the loading screens that informed the user of their progress. These moments of narration barely have time to finish on Xbox Series X before entering play, which is a relief as those loads could be beefy.  

The Quick Resume feature is a blessing too. Going back to the XBO-X and loading up my save to play for 15-20 minutes felt like I was wasting my time, as this is a game that takes a while to get going and dipping in and out for a single mission is not how it begs to be experienced. On the XSX version there was a brief load and a save data sync, and then I was right back where I left off. It’s a strange thing to be praising, but that speed allowed me to collect a few herbs, kill a couple of monsters and track down an errant side quest without feeling like there was a huge obligation to dump hours in because getting through the loading time was such a commitment. The knowledge that I could more quickly get in and out had me going back more regularly.

Now for the more obvious upgrades – the visual fidelity.

Personally, I thought that a lot of the non-metal texture upgrades were nice, but not groundbreaking. Things like horsehair and burnished leather are improved from the slightly flatter-looking XBO-X textures, but aren’t enough to merit a replay. The armor fares worse, as the shiny effect feels like a little too much given how grimy the rest of The Witcher 3 is, and it’s distracting. That said, some of the work done on the level of detail at long distances and the lighting are great. On XBO-X, The Witcher 3 looked impressive as I would crest a hill and look down into a valley littered with houses and trees, but on the XSX the draw distance takes it to the next level thanks to more incidental detail in everything and beautiful lighting – the sunset and sunrise are breathtaking, and the effect in small chalets adds a warmth to the surroundings as if bathed in a deep amber hue. In the bigger city, the effect is even more noticeable with rays coming down through buildings and enriching the pageantry and pomp.  

The character models have all received a bit of an upgrade, though some more than others. Geralt is now more heavily detailed and the supporting cast are all improved, but it doesn’t hide some of the more robotic NPCs who have dialogue. NPC modeling has apparently not gotten much attention, though I’m not sure it would make sense considering how many NPCs there are in a game this big.

Other than that, there’s not much more to say – the mechanics and storytelling seem untouched. If someone bounced off The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt previously, this update won’t pull them in and for fans who’ve exhausted the content available and want a fresh reason to dive back in, this won’t be enough. However, for those already wanting to return to the world of The Witcher or for those who haven’t yet been, this is the perfect time.

The post The Witcher 3: Next-Gen Update appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH It’s Crysis on a handheld!

LOW It’s Crysis on a handheld.

WTF Why would they release the Switch port before the more powerful consoles?

In 2007, Crysis was released and quickly became a lofty technical benchmark to test even the beefiest of PCs. Noteworthy for visuals and required specs, it birthed the popular catchphrase “But can it run Crysis?” signaling to weak rigs that this was not the game for them. Now, over 13 years since its release, Nintendo’s plucky handheld can run this former behemoth.

Crysis is a science-fiction shooter that revolves around an ancient alien structure buried inside a mountain in the fictional Lingshan Islands. Players control Nomad, the callsign for soldier Jake Dunn, and don his high-powered nanosuit while wielding dozens of weapons. There’s not much more to say, as the story and characters are secondary to everything else. I gave Nomad the nickname “Minor Chief”, as he felt like the most generic FPS protagonist ever.

Of course, the real stars of Crysis are the visuals. The environments are full of detail – gorgeous lighting hits the beaches, and faces on characters look fairly great even after all this time. Seeing the way the environment reacts to Nomad’s destruction is still impressive as trees and buildings get mowed down by gunfire. Sure, the destructible environments look a bit rough and take forever to fully dismantle (buildings disappear layer by layer instead of just falling apart) but the visual fidelity is still a sight to behold on my humble Switch Lite, even if the framerate can dip significantly during intense firefights.

While Crysis still looks great, graphics aren’t everything – I was not a big fan of the gameplay.

Taking place in an open-world sandbox, Nomad has the option to approach missions in different ways thanks to his nanosuit. He’s able to cloak himself and take out enemies quietly without being noticed, or he can switch on a stronger shield mode to take less damage from gunfire. In fact, Crytek’s ‘try what you want’ approach to design feels like the blueprint for many recent open-world action-adventure games.

Unfortunately, while the exploration is fine, the gunplay leaves a lot to be desired and part of this lies with the platform. The Switch Lite’s triggers aren’t great for shooters and the sticks are problematic as well. Both movement and aiming feels stiff, even with the sensitivity turned all the way up.

Making this bad situation worse, the enemies in Crysis are bullet sponges on any difficulty level past Easy. Emptying a full clip into a soldier only to watch him keep coming and eventually kill me sucks, and due to the hardiness of the opposition, the combat felt like a slog at points.

This Switch version was my first time playing Crysis. I think as a piece of gaming history, and it’s interesting to see what the standards for visuals and design were back in 2007. That said, it feels dated and the campaign struggled to keep my attention due to the weak storytelling, problematic controls and drawn-out firefights. Still, for those who are interested in visiting (or revisiting) this landmark title, this Switch port might be their best bet.

Disclosures: This game is published by Crytek and developed by Crytek and Saber Interactive. This version is available on Nintendo Switch. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on Switch. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to single-player and was not completed. There is no multiplayer.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is M for Blood, Strong Language and Violence. The official description reads as follows: This is a first-person shooter in which players assume the role of a special forces operative (Nomad) attempting a rescue mission on an island. As players traverse jungle environments, they engage in combat missions against military forces and extraterrestrials. Players use machine guns, grenade launchers, and alien weaponry (e.g., freeze rays) to kill enemy forces in frenetic combat. Battles are accompanied by large explosions, gunfire, and screams of pain. Large blood-splatter effects occur when enemies are shot, sometimes staining the environment and screen. The words “f**k” and “sh*t” are heard in the game.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are not present in the options menu.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played this game on mute in handheld mode and had a few issues occurring during combat. The Switch Lite’s smaller screen made it much harder to make out visual cues, especially on the minimap, and not being able to hear enemies puts players at a severe disadvantage. I would say this game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: No, the controls are not remappable, although the y-axis can be changed.

The post Crysis Remastered (Switch) Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Those visuals. I mean, damn.

LOW The roulette level.

WTF The idea of playing this without the dash invulnerability power-up.

I’m fairly certain that StudioMDHR knew how they wanted Cuphead to look before they knew how they wanted it to play. As an homage to the rubber hose cartoons of the 1930s, I’ll be astonished if Cuphead doesn’t wind up being the most visually striking release this year. But, when it came time for the developers to pair this dazzling exterior with an actual game, the best they could come up with was a wholly unoriginal run-and-gun starring a character without a weapon.

The one bountiful idea that StudioMDHR did have was to crank the difficulty way up and cement Cuphead’s place as the new trial-by-fire amongst hardcore types. Were I a cynic, I’d note that selling the game on its challenge factor would make it immune to criticism in the eyes of many, who would just assume that anyone who doesn’t enjoy Cuphead simply sucks at it.

So before we continue, let’s just get this out of the way — yes, I have finished Cuphead on Regular difficulty. I’m sure that won’t stop the diehards from accusing me of playing it “wrong” because, I don’t know, the game under-incentivizes mastering the parry move until a sudden late-game boss required that I use it, but here we are.

Cuphead’s difficulty is, in fact, not my main criticism of it. The game is tough, often frustrating, and downright infuriating during a specific endgame battle that takes things too far. But overall, my problem with Cuphead is that it’s such an empty challenge, putting players through hell with nothing learned and nothing gained. It’s a run-and-gun without the variety of a Contra, without the energy of a Gunstar Heroes, and without the catharsis of a Metal Slug. If so much attention hadn’t been poured into the game’s visuals, I’d wonder why Cuphead even exists, and what StudioMDHR hoped to offer the genre.

Although there are a few linear action-platformer levels sprinkled throughout, Cuphead’s campaign consists almost entirely of boss battles. While they look extraordinary, they all follow the same general principles — players must study where projectiles come from, where it’s safe to stand, how enemies will move, and at any given time Cuphead may give the player three or four different threats to manage simultaneously. So, while a pirate is shooting at Cuphead, his ship is spitting cannonballs, a chest overhead is trying to smash him, and a squid in the background is raining globs of ink down on the arena.

…In other words, it’s a bullet hell game, and that’s a design philosophy I’m rarely impressed by. It’s such a simple, inelegant means of boosting a game’s difficulty, and the messy juggling acts that are Cuphead’s bosses never feel as satisfying to defeat as, say, a single intelligent opponent on equal footing. The battles in Cuphead typically span four or five phases and often feature endlessly-respawning trash mobs. Both of those design choices would be lambasted in any other title, so why it’s okay for this game to revolve almost entirely around such encounters is beyond me.

I’ll say that Cuphead controls perfectly, but these are the same mechanics we’ve mastered a thousand times over in similar games. And so, with nothing new to add beyond the parry move that I mentioned earlier, Cuphead’s entire path to mastery is in familiarizing oneself with enemy attack patterns. This means that every new battle engaged is a clean wipe of accumulated skills, that Cuphead has no difficulty curve, and that its bosses could have been arranged in any order. This thing has the pacing of Mario Party.

It sure does look magnificent, though! Cuphead is borderline-indistinguishable from the old-timey cartoons that inspired it, and while the visuals have rightly received ample attention since the project was announced, the soundtrack is just as perfect, full of barroom pianos, barbershop quartets and big band arrangements that feel totally authentic to the era. Yet, it’s all utterly ill-befitting of a game that requires far too much concentration to pause and appreciate what the art team has accomplished. Imagine Cuphead’s audiovisual force in, say, something turn-based. It’d be perfect.

I mentioned that there’s one particularly egregious difficulty spike. It occurs near the end of the game, in which players clear a casino-themed level by rolling a die, moving across a roulette table, and fighting a new enemy for each space. It’s basically a boss rush with zero checkpoints, where all of the bosses are new. One of the spaces near the end of the board sends Cuphead back to the beginning, and I’d love to hear the developers’ justification for such a blatant waste of players’ time.

But aside from that, and the various nitpicks I’ve accumulated from spending so much time on each level (like foreground objects making it more difficult to see projectiles), Cuphead’s difficulty doesn’t sink it. There’s a decent supply of upgrades that give Cuphead new attacks or passive abilities — making him invulnerable during a dodge-dash, for example, is a total game-changer that allows players to bypass more complicated maneuvers.

Failing all else, nearly every level in Cuphead can be played on a lower difficulty. StudioMDHR didn’t just lazily shrink enemy health meters and call it a day — bosses actually use fewer attacks, and the battles sometimes consist of fewer phases. Players still only have three hit points and dying still sends them back to the beginning so Cuphead is never a cakewalk, but this mode makes it a bit less overwhelming. Admittedly, those who stick to the lower difficulty won’t unlock the campaign’s final area, but that’s the worst part of the game, so whatever. Like I said, difficulty isn’t Cuphead’s central problem.

That said, playing Cuphead on the easier difficulty reveals that the game’s challenge level is the only trick up its sleeve. Take that away, and all we’re left with is an uninspired and monotonous run-and-gun that just happens to be the most visually-striking release of 2017. Yes, Cuphead’s presentation is magnificent — it’s just a shame that StudioMDHR couldn’t come up with an interesting game to pair with it. Rating: 6 out of 10

Technical note: Do not buy Cuphead from the Windows Store. This version stops auto-saving if the player alt-tabs out, and I lost quite a bit of progress before I got to the bottom of this issue. This did not affect my score since it appears to be a problem with the platform rather than the game itself, but it’s worth noting.

Disclosures: This game is developed by StudioMDHR Entertainment. It is currently available on Xbox One and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 15 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 30 minutes of play were spent in co-op.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated Everyone and contains Mild Cartoon Violence and Alcohol and Tobacco References. Well, hey, the cartoons that Cuphead pays homage to were made before people knew how unhealthy smoking was.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Dialogue is text-only. Sound cues often helped alert me to enemy attacks, but the game is playable without them.

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

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

The post Cuphead Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

It doesn’t end there, though – let’s take a look a the great detailing on it-

The rust marks above the lock, the dirty footprint on the kickplate. They’re both gorgeously drawn and add a lot of verisimilitude to the world. Then that verisimilitude is stripped back out when we get a look at the door on the other side of the room.

Yup, it’s the exact same door in every detail.

That’s thing about spending dozens of hours building a fake door for a video game is that when you’re done with it, you never want to spend another second building fake videogame doors. This is the result.

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