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

LOW Frustrating barriers to entry. Misleading clues.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rating: 7 out of 10

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

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

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

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

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

Remappable controls: The controls cannot be remapped.

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

HIGH Classic compulsive Monster Train cardplay, crunchier than ever.

LOW Higher learning curve than the first. Some unclear interactions.

WTF Which one of you sickos put all these waifus in the train???

Though lots of strong roguelite deckbuilders have followed in the wake of Slay the Spire, Monster Train is the only one to have staked out a space equal to Mega Crit’s genre-establishing release. It managed to do this by being, emphatically, its own thing, accomplished by taking a mere handful of mechanical waypoints from Spire and then building out an entirely original vision on top of that framework. This is, in some narrower, less foundational way, the process by which we saw FPS titles like Duke Nukem 3D and Blood carve out separate, full identities away from the “DOOM clone” designation.

Monster Train was fresh, it felt new within a new genre. People cottoned to it, unsurprisingly, so it’s no surprise that it got a sequel. But, it is unusual because Monster Train 2 is the first sequel to a major roguelite deckbuilder we’ve seen. In fact, the larger roguelite space is light on sequels overall. It’s a genre in which the exemplars generally live forever (or near enough to it in gaming terms) growing not so much older as denser, either through official content infusions or the ministrations of dedicated communities.

In other words, whether or not Shiny Shoe realized it, they were blazing new trails for the roguelite deckbuilder genre and setting precedent for what to expect from the sequel to a foundational text.

As a sequel, Monster Train 2 is classical in its approach, focused on refinement and amplification. Many elements are carried over more or less unchanged, and there was a moment when I nearly became disappointed — almost underwhelmed — with it. But the more I played, the more I could appreciate the judicious improvements, creative expansions, and, most importantly, the enormous generosity of content. When it came fully into focus after a few hours, Monster Train 2 impressed the hell out of me.

Remember, much is the same. Monster Train 2 takes place on a four-tiered train. The lower three levels are where cards — monsters, spells, and a few new things — can be played, while the uppermost fourth level houses the Pyre Heart, the train’s energy source. Each round enemies will enter from the lowest level, and any existing enemies in the train move up one level. Any goons that get to the Heart will attack it until they’re killed, but if they reduce the Heart’s HP to zero, it’s game over.

(Please, I beg, do not make me explain the story of Monster Train 1 or 2. I know there are people out there who care about this series’ goofball lore about a war between the spangled, melodramatic cartoon characters of this particular heaven and hell, but I’m definitely not one of them. There’s a train, there are monsters in it, and really, isn’t that enough?)

It certainly starts in a familiar way but the most important refinement here is the fancy new Deployment Phase.

Before the first turn, players are given all unit cards marked with a blue banner, and can place as many of them as they have energy for. Then the first standard turn occurs. This may seem insignificant to someone who hasn’t played Monster Train 1, but it’s a seismic shift. It cleans up one of the most ambiguous mechanics in the original — draw priority — making it much more legible, and much more strategic. Arranging the Deployment Phase units is a delicious tactical aperitif before hefty main course of locomotive card battling.

Monster Train 2 also delivers five brand new clans to play with. In Monster Train 1, the clans were unlocked in order of complexity. That’s true here too, but the introductory clans start with more complicated, oblique elements than were on offer with the first title’s Hellhorned and Awoken. All five clans have unique keywords, and two of them have a bespoke, overarching mechanic separate from the words on the cards.

In other words, things start out dense, and get denser as the player goes along. This is not a criticism, but I think Monster Train 2 is targeted at people who have played the first one a decent amount. Despite the bright, googly art style, this is a mechanically crunchy game afroth with calculations and considerations that are easier to grok with some Monster Train-ing under the belt already.

The upside to this is that the weirder, twistier, more offbeat strategies of these clans are wonderful puzzles for all the Train mavens out there. I’m partial to the Underlegion, an army of myconids with a unique “Troop” keyword that allows for massive stacks of little fungoid footmen to overwhelm opponents. The Pyreborn, a race of classic red dragons, lean into one of my favorite traditional draconic characteristics — greed for gold. Their spells and units play with the economy in unique ways.

Other existing elements have been tastefully embroidered. There isn’t just a single, standard Pyre Heart, for example — more than ten different Hearts can be unlocked through play, each with different stats and traits. There are equipment and room cards now too. Equipment works just like you’d think, and the most complicated new clan, the Lazarus League, plays with these cards in some wild ways. Rooms provide a powerful effect on one entire train floor, and there are also some new units with baked-in abilities, activated manually, with attendant cooldowns between uses.

All of this adds up to a sequel built directly and unabashedly on top of the original, but in such a way as to feel fresh, compelling, and surprising all over again. Every hour I spent with it, some new idea, mechanic, mode or flourish unfurled itself. I don’t have space to go into the alternate game modes, covenant ranks, or other surprises (and wouldn’t if I could) but take my word for it — this title is absolutely stuffed with things to play with.

Monster Train 2 is more Monster Train — but it’s more in the most considered, intelligent possible way. Highly recommended.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Shiny Shoe and published by Big Fan Games. It is available on PC, PS5, Switch and XBX/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 27 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was completed (at the basic level, with many covenant levels and unlocks left to get). There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E 10+ and contains Alcohol References, Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood and Mild Language. The core gameplay features a lot of monsters fighting each other, but it’s mostly bloodless. The monsters themselves are, for the most part, pretty tame in their designs — although a few of the later clans’ creatures can be gory and/or creepy in ways that might be upsetting to younger players. In terms of bad language, sometimes the game says “Hell yeah,” but that seems to be about it.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present, including a preset deuteranopia mode as well as the option to customize the colorblind settings.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has subtitles for the (very few) voiced sequences. Most of the dialogue in the game is text only. The subtitles cannot be resized, but the UI can be set to a “Large” configuration.

Remappable Controls: The game offers fully remappable controls for Mouse and Keyboard, but not for gamepad. The gamepad controls function much like they do in other deckbuilders — the A button confirms, B button goes back, the X button ends the turn. The left stick moves between cards in the hand and units on the field when necessary. The only unusual element of the gamepad controls relative to other deckbuilders is that the right analog stick allows for moving between the different floors of the train.

The post Monster Train 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The blunderbuss!

LOW The second act.

WTF Who knew a 17^th century shotgun could be such a versatile tool?

I came to Sacre Bleu with little foreknowledge of musketeers.  Having now spent several swashbuckling hours beneath one of their plumed hats, I can safely say I have overlooked the deadliest fighting force in human history.  From standard swords and pistols to the more esoteric blunderbuss that doubles as a rocket propulsion system, the destructive capacity of these frisky Frenchmen cannot be overstated.  Dubious historical accuracy aside, Sacre Bleu is an excellent demonstration of the alchemical potential between flexible mechanics and (mostly) tight design.

Ostensibly a 2D action-platformer, Sacre Bleu tasks players with battling through castles, kitchens and sewers to escape the clutches of a corrupt Cardinal and his army of mercenaries.  However, the cartoony, side-scrolling trappings hide Sacre Bleu’s more tactical nature. 

Due in large part to its heavy reliance on slow motion, combat in Sacre Bleu has a unique flow.  Any time players aim one of their weapons, the action slows down, allowing ample time to plan an assault.  Building on this foundation is the blunderbuss.  Though counterintuitive, this rifle does not deal direct damage.  Instead, firing blasts of air that can launch the player skyward and move objects, this weapon becomes a tool to set up elaborate attacks with the more bespoke weapons, such as the pistol and grenades.

There is a staccato rhythm to these fights.  Snapping in and out of slow motion, bursts from the blunderbuss propel the musketeer across the battlefield lining up headshots, deflecting arrows and lobbing grenades along the way.  Measured consideration and chaotic heroism form an exhilarating union as moments of careful planning are punctuated by explosions and corpses.

Sacre Bleu reinforces this cadence in its platforming.  Many of the stages are made up of spike-filled mazes requiring quick, mid-air turns, and it is here that the blunderbuss truly takes center stage.  Whether it’s launching me up to hard-to-reach ledges, providing a quick boost to outrun spinning blades, or simply knocking obstacles out of the way, I felt as though I was constantly finding new uses for it.  With up to three bursts before touching down, freezing time mid-air to adjust the musketeer’s trajectory is a breeze.  While intimidating in appearance, even the most complex sequences rely more on keen observation and planning than pinpoint precision.

Unfortunately, these stellar mechanics are let down by Sacre Bleu’s inconsistent camera. The perspective was often either too close or too far away. It just never seemed to be where I wanted, and I found it difficult to track my character during some of the trickier platforming segments. There were also times when my character outpaced the camera, and I’d sprint headlong into a wall of spikes I couldn’t yet see.

Compounding these issues is Sacre Bleu’s underbaked middle third.  With a greater emphasis on puzzles, many of these sections require the player to stand in specific spots while using the blunderbuss to manipulate the environment.  While a nice change of pace, these segments can be overly fiddly.  Though not a deal breaker, knowing exactly what I needed to do, but being unable to execute because my character isn’t in quite the right spot is never a great feeling.

Ultimately, what I admire most about Sacre Bleu is its focus.  The developers came up with a novel core mechanic in the blunderbuss and explored its full potential.  While not every element is executed to perfection, there is nothing wasted, and Sacre Bleu never overstays its welcome.  With a little tighter fit and finish, Sacre Bleu would be unimpeachable, instead it will have to settle for just being pretty darned good.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Buy Sacre Bleu – PC – Switch

Disclosures: This game is developed by Hildring Studio Inc and published by Noodlecake Studios.It is currently available on PC and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch. Approximately 6 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 T and contains Blood, Crude Humor, and Violence.  While this game contains pervasive violence, it’s presented in cartoony, unrealistic fashion.  Additionally, the camera is generally pulled far enough back that the action appears small on the screen. Enemies can be killed with pistols, swords, grenades and arrows. There is a small amount of blood occasionally, and enemies cry out when killed. There is no profanity.

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. There is no recorded dialogue in this game, and all conversations are represented in on-screen text boxes.  All visual cues are accompanied by on-screen indicators. About half of my playtime was without sound and I did not experience any issues or difficulties. This game is fully accessible.

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

The post Sacre Bleu Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Intermittently brilliant physics puzzling. Beautiful music.

LOW Frustrating interface. Timed levels. The camera.

WTF The Undo “feature” is a war crime

Full disclosure — I am shamefully, abysmally bad at World of Goo 2.

I love physics games, I love building games, and I love puzzle games, but I labored over ever single level in Goo 2, and never connected with it. This innocuous little cutie raked my ass viciously across the coals for more than 10 hours. It turned my brain into flan, made me feel like my hands were flippers. I looked at my monitor like a stranger. My cat watched me in profound disdain as I hemorrhaged all honor and dignity. I am not a Goo Gamer.

Please bear that in mind as I kvetch at length about this game I don’t like very much.

World of Goo 2 is, of course, the long longed-for sequel to the 2008 classic, a true first wave indie success, but one that, unlike some of its peers, never became on ongoing franchise and did not spawn any real imitators. World of Goo didn’t establish a genre, and didn’t create a puzzle genus unto itself. There are plenty of titles out there with Goo DNA, but there has never been anything exactly like it – until World of Goo 2.

In each level, the goal is to usher a number of goo balls into a pipe. That pipe is always in some out-of-the way place, ensconced behind walls, or concealed behind chicanes lined with spikes or spinning gears that’ll pulverize the player’s fragile, viscous wards. Goo balls can stick to each other with strands of goo to form lattice-like structures, and the idea is that they must be built up in such a way that enough unused goo balls can crawl up the structure and reach the pipe. World of Goo 2 is an experience somewhere between a physics sandbox and a physics puzzle, with a soupçon of frustration-core elements from games like Getting Over It or Jump King.

Can a game be clever, but not smart? Some World of Goo 2 levels have an easy brilliance, where the solution is (sometimes literally) dangling right overhead, but only reachable through some particular, convoluted path, an accordion-stack of micro-puzzles folded lasagnalike onto itself. The solution/thought process is made up of several steps — how do I get over this gap, to reach those balloon goo balls, to float up to that outcropping, so I can wake up those absorbent goo balls, so I can drain that goo lake, so it can go into this goo cannon and flow down this hill and wake up another group of goo balls, so I can finally build a lattice and usher enough slime into the pipe?

These levels provide a pungent satisfaction that, befitting World of Goo 2’s chimerical genre-straddling, doesn’t feel exactly like the pleasure of solving a pure puzzle or building a bridge in a sandbox game, nor passing a section of the junk mountain in Getting Over It. If the design could maintain itself in this narrow and relatively unexplored ludological zone, I think I would be in love with it unreservedly, even if I could never be good at it. Unfortunately, the reality of World of Goo 2 is messier than that. The interface is a series of small annoyances that ramify into a big problem.

Players’ direct interaction with World of Goo 2 mostly boils down to clicking and moving goo balls. Not a problem in theory, but in practice, unpleasant friction gets kicked up at every turn.

Exhibit A: Goo balls not part of a structure crawl over it constantly — it is so easy to accidentally click on the wrong goo ball during a time-sensitive moment, when the difference between a wobbling tower staying upright or collapsing on itself and necessitating an undo comes down to two or three crucial seconds.

Which brings me to Exhibit B: the Undo.

World of Goo 2’s undo system may be the single most frustrating, backwards, misguided, cackhanded implementation of something that has long been solved I’ve ever seen. In lieu of the time-tested undo button, little fireflies float around and have to be clicked on to undo plays. These fireflies are minute, and they zip around like a flitting insect, almost as if they’re purposefully evading the click.

There is no excuse I can accept for making a key element of any puzzle-adjacent experience so unnecessarily obnoxious. I don’t care if it’s lore-friendly, I don’t care if it’s cute, I don’t care if it’s funny — this choice alone accounted for at least 40% of my frustration with World of Goo 2. Even in 2008, it would be questionable at the most absolute generous interpretation. In 2025, it’s a joy-devouring mega-gaffe.

There are smaller issues too. Not every level is a winner. There is a degree of openness to solutions, but not as much as it might seem. The camera is zoomed in way too close, and can’t be adjusted to a satisfactory distance — a bantamweight problem, especially on the more convoluted levels where a path through challenges has to be plotted out in advance. There are levels with very strict time limits, and I hated these (Thankfully there is the option to skip any level at any time).

In so many ways, World of Goo 2 is an honorable enterprise. The art is great. The theming is enjoyable, if not as deep as it sometimes seems like it thinks it is. There’s a melancholy goofiness to the World of Goo world that I like, and I love anything with its aesthetic roots in the glory days of the Flash- and browser-based gaming frontiers of the aughts. The music is absolutely beautiful. This is a mechanics-forward game, so I’ve routed most of ink to the highs and lows therein, but know that the audio-visual side of World of Goo 2 is an unqualified success.

World of Goo 2 as whole, I guess, could be classified as a broken success. I struggled with it, both because of my own ineptitude, but more crucially because of its quite serious design flaws. It doesn’t deserve to be hated, or ignored, but I don’t want to play it anymore. I’m goo-d, thanks.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by 2D Boy and Tomorrow Corporation. It is available on Android, iOS, PC, PS5, and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 15 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was not completed (because I am horrible at it). There are no multiplayer modes in the PC version, but the Switch port does have multiplayer options.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Mild Suggestive Themes and Mild Violence. The official description reads: This is a physics-based puzzle game in which players use balls of goo to create wobbly structures towards a pipe. A story mode allows players to follow a detective investigating a missing persons case. One sequence depicts a character dying after getting shot. The game contains some suggestive material: a red-light district sign reading “XXX”; a character shaking their buttocks; a man feeling a character’s thigh; innuendo such as “He’s a…gentleman of the night” and “two hot bullets in a revolver…romantically permeated”).

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has subtitles for the spoken dialogue sequences. The subtitles cannot be resized. Almost all key information is conveyed visually as well as audibly, but certain levels have timed elements that are easier to monitor with sound than by sight-checking them.

Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable. Keyboard+mouse and touch screen are supported. In fact, the entire game can be played with just the mouse, which is used for picking up and plopping down the goo balls, panning around the screen, and (very sadly), undoing actions. WASD can also be used for screen panning, but the mouse is still necessary, and still the central control implement.

The post World Of Goo 2 Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The platforming is only slightly tedious now!

LOW The final fight with Darth Maul is still basically impossible.

WTF Someone at Lucasfilm Games keeps approving these things.

Star Wars: Episode One: Jedi Power Battles is the latest Star Wars game remaster from Aspyr Studios, and I have to say that even after all of my trepidation over their last few remasters that this is somehow worse than I expected. Mad props, I did not see that coming.

Jedi Power Battles is a 2.5D brawler which sees up to two players fighting random enemies as Jedi across linear stages. The scenarios include familiar locales taken from The Phantom Menace and mostly involve fighting droids, but sometimes bandits or mercenaries. There are also two barely functional vehicle sequences — one in a tank that can be hopped out of to explore on foot, the other on a STAP hovercraft driven in the worst 3D Galaga clone to bear the Star Wars license.

Of the playable leads, anyone wanting to retain their sanity will play the campaign as Adi Gallia, who easily has the most combat utility due to speed and stun ability. Qui-Gon is too slow, Obi-Wan is bland, while Mace, Ki Adi, and Plo Koon are just different, worse versions of Adi. Why are all these extra Jedi who barely appeared in the movie here? Because reasons, as there’s barely any story to speak of — this is only about beating up enemies to score points.

The player can acquire temporary power-ups, such as making their saber the size of Staten Island so it can actually hit an enemy before they’re nose to nose. There’s also a random box that grants players a one-use item only useful to Plo Koon or Adi Gallia. Why? Because everyone else gets a grenade, yet Plo and Adi both turn into invincible balls of death for a few seconds, damaging every enemy just by running into them.

Players can also find bonus points they’ll need for a scoring system that’s tied to progression in the least intuitive way possible. See, it’s not about spending points on the upgrades, but hitting certain thresholds to then get access to stat boosts, and every character levels up individually, so that means grinding the campaign missions for each of them. In theory this adds replay value.

The combat is pedestrian button mashing, with a combo system struggling to register single button combos, let alone more complex strings. I’m not asking for Bayonetta-tier smoothness from a game first released on the original PlayStation, but even for the ’90s, this was bad input buffering. As an example of the poor inputs, it’s not possible to jump and hit the attack button, but there is a dedicated jump attack button. Yes, an entire face button that could’ve been used for dodging, parrying, or literally anything else is utilized to perform an attack that should’ve been the first combo any player would typically try. Players can also block, yet while blocking it’s impossible to do anything else, so it’s just delaying the inevitable.

There’s also platforming that will eat up most of a player’s limited lives. At least this is a more arcade-style experience with bonus lives that can be acquired, but that doesn’t mean it’s still not irritating.

If that wasn’t bad enough, how about getting ringed out by a boss into the foreground of the level! The combat never grows more complex, B1 battle droids can shrug off a lightsaber like it’s a hairbrush, and worse still, this remaster somehow manages to have tons of graphical oversights like huge gaps in level environments without any assets or adjustments made to account for a wider aspect ratio than standard definition 4:3. It’s also easy to see objects rendering (or not rendering) in ways they aren’t supposed to. These aren’t elaborate 3D models — even just extending the environmental textures a couple of inches would’ve done the minimum required here.

While these issues were left unattended, the remaster team put time towards converting a bunch of random enemies into “new playable characters” for various modes.

It’s also particularly impressive that someone went to the effort of re-rendering the cinematics to change Adi’s saber from an orange-red to blue. Placing a priority on whether a saber color matches a different canon’s rules than the storyline is more important than fixing Qui-Gon’s eyes, which are still untextured, soulless black orbs for half of the intro cinematic. To quote anti-sand propagandist Anakin Skywalker, that’s “absolutely wizard.”

It’s kind of perfect though, because this is such a lifeless, soulless cash-in of a remaster. Even by the standards Lucasfilm Games is evidently quite comfortable with, this is bad, and I refuse to believe that this is the best Aspyr can do. Their Tomb Raider remaster demonstrated they are capable of more. I don’t know if Lucasfilm isn’t giving them enough time or resources, but this is simply unacceptable. 

Between this disaster, the Switch port of Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords’ lack of promised restored content, Republic Commando’s still-unpatched camera bug on Switch, Battlefront Classic Collection being an unmitigated disaster on almost every front and Bounty Hunter’s questionably redesigned gameplay, we can’t keep accepting that half-baked, unfinished remasters are the best that can be done. 

It’s not even like Jedi Power Battles is the most beloved game from its era. Why release it in this state, and an even better question is, why release it at all? If there were at least new graphics, or if they bundled the GameBoy version as a bonus extra, I could at least rate it a little higher, but no. This is not the droid that anyone is looking for.

Final Score: 2.5 out of 10 

Buy Star Wars: Episode One: Jedi Power Battles – PC – PS – XB

Disclosures: This game is developed by Aspyr and published by Lucasfilm Games. It is currently available on PC, PS5, XBS/X, and Switch. This copy of Jedi Power Battles was provided by the publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 5 hours were dedicated to the single-player campaign and bonus modes, and it was not completed.

Parents: This game is Rated T by the ESRB, for containing Violence. If your child can watch Star Wars, they can play this. Not that they should, but that’s a matter of it being a pain to play — impatient kids in particular are likely to get very frustrated. There’s nothing gory, no expletives (fictional or otherwise) and the graphics are so low detail it’s hard to view any elements as anything more than rudimentary computer graphics.

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are multiple visual prompts doubling for audio prompts. There are no subtitles options, but also next to no spoken dialogue, with visual context prompts compensating for this. I would say that it’s not fully accessible.

Remappable controls: No, this game does not offer remappable controls. Playes can only swap between Modern and Classic bindings, which just alters which face buttons do what and whether a bumper or trigger is used for Force powers.

The post Star Wars: Episode One: Jedi Power Battles Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH A wonderful aesthetic and gameplay loop. 

LOW Weird holdovers from its mobile origins.

WTF Why the hell did this game open with a plane crash?

Hello Kitty Island Adventure was originally released in 2023 for Apple Arcade, the exclusive subscription service offering games for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV — it’s the tech giant’s own version of Microsoft’s GamePass. Based on Sanrio’s most popular character, Hello Kitty, the title combined elements of life simulators such as the ever-popular Animal Crossing and standard adventure-platforming games. After little over a year of mobile exclusivity, HKIA finally has a console release with the Nintendo Switch. 

Players start by creating their avatar, choosing between a limited selection of face, clothing, and color options, with more to be unlocked later. I created a brown dog in a green shirt, and then the story began.

The player’s avatar starts on an airplane with Hello Kitty and her friends, all of whom are on their way to a mysterious island where they intend to open up shops or find spots to relax. All is good until the plane is about to crash and everyone on board is forced to jump out, only to land on their destination.

The game is played from an isometric point of view and the island can be fully explored. Players are tasked with completing quests given to them by an array of characters, with an interesting and surprisingly addictive gameplay loop. 

Quests are varied and involve different tasks, such as exploring the island, finding new tools, and trying to reach higher friendship levels with the population. For example, an early mission tasked me with looking for folks who were scattered across a section of the island after the crash. It was there I met with a few familiar faces — My Melody (a pink and white rabbit who opened up a furniture store) and Badtz-Maru, a penguin who has a comic book shop on the docks. 

Talking to them introduces players to the concept of leveling up their friendship, which is achieved by completing quests with specific characters or giving them gifts. The latter part of that process is one of the most prevalent aspects of play, as players can give NPCs items from their inventories. Everyone on the island has interests such as sweets or items for crafting. For example, Hello Kitty loves and will accept pineapples from the player. 

The gift-giving option is an easy way to raise friendships but comes at a cost, as players can only gift things three times per day. I suspect this was a holdover from its roots as a mobile game and to prevent players from jumping a bunch of levels by simply unloading multiple gifts at once. Thankfully, there are other ways to level up friendships (such as completing quests) so this method being nerfed isn’t an issue. Reaching certain friendship levels nets rewards such as customization items, new items, and even brand-new quests. 

Completing tasks on the island is enjoyable, and I liked how each one led to some discoveries or new thing to try. For example, one quest had me exploring the island for yellow gear that opened a gate. One piece was across a huge body of water, so I had to complete a quick favor for My Melody, whose expertise in her furniture store allowed her to fix a bridge which then enabled me to cross the water.

There is an abundance of things to do, and as someone who isn’t big into life simulator games because of their lack of direction and goals, I appreciate Island Adventure’s more focused approach to progression. Completing quests nets the player tons of rewards, like customization options, crafting recipes for new items, and even furniture for the player’s home, and these were a great motivator. 

Another aspect I loved is the focus on platforming and adventure gameplay. There’s a jump button that makes moving around the island easier, and some areas require light platforming and a few simple puzzles to solve, similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s shrines. There’s nothing deep about the platforming elements and it won’t dethrone Mario, but it does add variety to Hello Kitty‘s open-ended island to explore and the seemingly inexhaustible supply of things to unlock.

Presentation-wise, HKIA is a winner with a bright and colorful aesthetic throughout. The island is full of charm, and the biomes looking great. I also appreciated that the character models are expressive, with the dialogue matching their personalities. My only knock is against the few moments of slowdown that happen when walking around the island, though long loading times can be an issue as well. None of it is anything major to disrupt my enjoyment, but the issues are still a little annoying nonetheless. 

I’m a huge fan of licensed games and I was definitely in need of a calm experience. Hello Kitty Island Adventure fit the bill and ended up being a good time, as it kept me engaged with a satisfying gameplay loop and cute looks. As the weather outside remains frightful, taking a trip to this tropical paradise and meeting a few new friends is a great choice. 

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is published and developed by Sunblink. It is available on PC, PS4/5, iOS and Switch. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on Switch. Approximately 10 hours were spent in single-player and the game was not completed. There is multiplayer.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E. According to the site: This is an adventure game in which players help Hello Kitty and friends restore a mysterious island. Players explore the island, interact with friends, complete quests, and engage in various activities (e.g., cooking, fishing, gardening).

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

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles and visual cues such as button prompts and a minimap. These elements cannot be resized but the game is fully accessible without sound. 

Remappable Controls: The controls cannot be remapped. There is no control diagram. B is to jump, X is to use an item, A is to speak or interact with NPCs and Y is to give gifts. The bumpers and triggers are used to navigate menus and open up quest lists.

The post Hello Kitty Island Adventure Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Rich, flexible mechanics. A boatload of meaningful content.

LOW Some unavoidable clunky menu shuffling.

WTF A pot full of human backs?

What a pleasure it is to see a new Shiren the Wanderer release — and what a pleasure it is to report that it’s an absolute stunner.

Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island first released in 2024 on the Nintendo Switch — a console I haven’t touched since 2023, so I didn’t know a new Shiren had dropped until this new PC release came across my desk. However, I’ve been a Shiren aficionado since getting the DS remake of the Super Famicom original in 2008. As a younger, happier, and less capable man, I beat my head against Table Mountain on and off for years before finally clearing it, in what is still one of my most cherished gaming memories from that period.

I’d wager most people know the Mystery Dungeon series through the Pokemon spin-offs, but the core franchise is a venerable series, as august in its way as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest — both of which have factored into the Mystery Dungeon lineage themselves. In the grand tradition of major Japanese role-playing games, the Mystery Dungeon family tree is a complicated one. Suffice it to say that Shiren himself is the series’ first original character, and the titles in which he appears represent the choicest, purest Mystery Dungeon experiences, Pikachus, Chocobos and Tornekos be damned.

In Serpentcoil, as in all Shiren titles, the wanderer and his talking ferret companion Koppa (don’t worry about it) drift into a new locale and find themselves embroiled in a major local disaster. In this case, it’s a mysterious maiden trapped inside the belly of a monster called Jakaku, who resides on the 31st floor of Mt. Jatou. These 31 floors comprise the first — but nowhere near the last — of the Mystery Dungeons players are tasked with conquering.

The Mystery Dungeon games are full-blooded, overhead perspective, turn-based roguelikes, and I use “roguelike” very pointedly here, as it’s a term that has been criminally misused by games writing over the last 20 years and can mean virtually anything at this point. With that noted, this is the real deal – a console-oriented answer to the beautiful complexities of the true roguelikes such as Nethack, ADOM, or Dungeon Crawl.

These titles and others like them are long-lived PC masterworks, renowned for marvelous complexity and correspondingly intimidating interfaces. Really, prior to Mystery Dungeon, the genre was perceived as too arcane and baroque to be successfully implemented on anything whose sole input device is a controller. Then in 1993, with Torneko’s Big Adventure, Spike Chunsoft figured out how to square this ornery circle, and the Mystery Dungeon series was born.

They did this by a design trick so brilliant and so clear-eyed it seems effortless in retrospect — hardly even noticeable if the player isn’t paying attention, but it must have taken some serious cogitation on behalf of the Spike Chunsoft crew to execute. They took all of the complexities roguelikes were known for, removed them from control-side inputs, and put them into the interactions between the various game elements — player character, monsters, items, terrain. Thus they could keep the inputs manageable within the reduced capabilities of a controller, while still delivering all the surprise and depth that made the great roguelikes great.

These multifarious, surprising reactions have been expanded and polished to a joyous apex in Serpentcoil Island, and their ruleset is crisp, clean, and flexible. Every single monster, item, and piece of gear has one unique ability, and these individual peculiarities interact in ways that punish sloppy play just as much as they reward creative thinking.

For instance, if Shiren finds a grass but has not identified it, he can use an Identify scroll to determine whether it will heal him, poison him, or make him blind for a few turns. If an Identify scroll isn’t handy, he can throw the grass at a monster, forcing whatever the grass’s effect is onto the creature. But if that unidentified grass happens to be a Strength Grass, well, now Shiren has a monster with boosted power barreling towards him.

Every encounter cries out for analysis and strategy, and once the player is subsumed into its magisterial rhythm, Serpentcoil becomes an endless fountain of deeply engaging adventure. Roguelikes have a deserved reputation for difficulty, but once the basics sink in, Serpentcoil seems less like a ballbuster and more like a permissive, ever-changing delight.

Defeating Jakaku and “finishing” the main quest is just the beginning. Once that’s done, Serpentcoil unfurls a luxurious, multifaceted, sandbox-style postgame. All sorts of extra dungeons are made available, many with unique themes and modifiers, all asking the player to stretch their understanding of the games flexile mechanics to the utmost in order to make it through. I particularly enjoyed the Inference Dungeon which is full of unidentified items – many cursed or dangerous – and demands creativity and wise risk-taking to make it through.

As much as I want to continue fawning over the mechanics, attention needs be given to the audiovisual aspect. The OST is full of lush, traditional Japanese instrumentation, but it’s also catchy as hell – a surprising standout element in the package. And while I’m sad that Spike Chunsoft abandoned the decadent pixel art of Tower of Fortune, I ended up won over by the cheery, shiny polygonal graphics here. Everything is cute and plasticky, with the tactile quality of modern board game components, and a tasteful glaze of Wii-era fidelity and charm. I dig it.

It is customary when talking about Shiren to share at least one story from one’s own experience, so…

I was in one of the postgame dungeons themed around sacred gear, swords and shields laden with multiple bonuses and runes. I had found a Synthesis Pot, into which I could put several weapons and combine their upgrade bonuses and special effect runes. I had just finished cooking up a real masterpiece of a weapon and excitedly threw it against the wall to break it open and retrieve the mighty blade — but forgot I had stepped on a Far-Throwing Trap on the same floor, which means that anything I threw was not stopped by walls. So, the pot containing my masterwork supersword flew right off the map, out of the game and my life forever.

Shiren! Damn, what a game.

Serpentcoil Island is easily, easily one of the best things I played 2024. In a just world, it would be on a lot of others’ lists as well.

Rating: 9 out of 10

— Ben Schwartz

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Spike Chunsoft. It is currently available on PC and Switch. This copy was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode and the game was “completed” (with dozens of hours of postgame content still ahead of me). There are light indirect multiplayer elements interwoven into the main single-player experience.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E 10+ and contains Fantasy Violence, Comic Mischief, and Use of Alcohol. From the ESRB: “This is an adventure role-playing game in which players assume the role of a wanderer searching for island treasure. From a ¾-overhead perspective, players explore towns, interact with characters, and fight their way through dungeons. Players use swords and arrows to defeat fantastical enemies (e.g., elemental ninjas, spearfish) in turn-based combat. Battles are highlighted by impact sounds, light effects, and dwindling health bars; enemies generally disappear when defeated. During battles, players can consume sweet potatoes, resulting in flatulence cloud effects and accompanying text (e.g., ‘Makes you fart, sending all beings in the room running.’). One sequence depicts a drunk character (e.g., hiccupping, swaying) that is referred to as ‘a lousy lush.’”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There is no spoken dialogue in this game, everything is conveyed through text. The text size cannot be altered. There are no relevant audio cues. This game is fully accessible.

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

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HIGH Superb atmosphere and aesthetic — it creeped me out!

LOW Some of the spotlight placements felt unavoidable.

WTF What is it with survival horror games trying to make us put our hands in toilets?

Lately, there have been a ton of survival horror titles experimenting with old-school formulas. Some have adopted aesthetics reminiscent of past eras, while others try to nail down older gameplay themes. Fear the Spotlight attempts both, and succeeds wonderfully.

Fear the Spotlight is a survival horror experience where players control high schoolers Vivian and Amy, who get caught up in alternate worlds after a séance gone wrong. Each character will navigate the world while looking for items needed to progress to the next area. At the same time, they’ll dig into a unique story in each chapter (two total) related to either the school itself or Amy’s past.

As I traveled throughout the high school and other areas, navigating these places felt both familiar and strange. For example, a gym decorated for an anti-bullying fair suddenly felt very hostile as it was abandoned, and some objects had been strewn across the room. This was symbolic of the reasons events like these are held, as discovered in many of the notes in the school — they’re a hollow attempt by officials to evade the responsibility of taking care of students properly.

Graphically, I loved the filters that let Spotlight feel like an undiscovered VHS tape playing on an old CRT television — it definitely feels like a forgotten gem from the PS1 era. However, for those who don’t care for it, the filter can be reduced or turned completely off, ideal for players who want greater visual clarity.

The titular spotlights are indeed things to be feared, and one of the worst is the roaming Spotlight Head — a walking monstrosity both of man and stage light. It excels in dialing up the horror and keeping encounters tense. As neither character has weapons, I had to evade Spotlight Head and hide from the other moving, sentient spotlights that would appear from ceilings to patrol the area. This meant taking refuge under tables or behind walls and objects — such as trashcans — and, importantly, being wary of open spaces where I could be caught.

Each time I did get caught, Vivian or Amy would lose health, and they can only take a couple of hits before hitting a game over. Each character can restore health with healing items, but these items were always in short supply. This scarcity increased the tension and made me feel extremely vulnerable. Don’t fret, though — Spotlight features a pretty generous save system, so players generally won’t lose much progress.

While there’s no combat, there are puzzles, and they can be tricky to solve, but never obtuse — most can be figured out with a bit of thought and some clues, such as finding a diary entry or an item to help decipher something. The developers aren’t interested in bringing the proceedings to a halt with brain-busters, so the pace is good overall and there’s never much backtracking. It’s a fairly short experience, but this is not a bad thing. Each chapter lasts exactly as long as it needs to, and they’re both about the length of a classic horror film — Spotlight never overstays its welcome.

As for the story itself, it’s fantastic. Each of the two chapters focuses on different traumas, either those that occurred in the school many years ago, or in Amy’s messy home life. Each excelled in creepiness and dread. For Vivian, it was the dread of navigating a high school hellscape, alone and scared. In Amy’s case, it was exploring a long forgotten former home, punctuated with sour memories and trauma.

Both settings are twisted, and they created a sense of anxiety that hit home for me in a lot of meaningful ways. I had a similar experience to Amy, moving around from house to house as a kid. The sense of the familiar and comfortable suddenly becoming alien and hostile, not knowing where any friendly faces or voices could be, was too real a feeling and thanks to this, Spotlight nails its sense of dread.

While what I’ve described is a fantastic horror experience, I do have a couple of small nitpicks with Spotlight, however. One was that in a couple of instances, spotlights activated quite suddenly, giving me very little time to react. As such, I would frequently take damage that felt unfair. This was a pesky annoyance in only a couple of areas, so thankfully such occurrences were limited.

There were also times when the visuals would get ‘fuzzy’ after taking damage. This could make it difficult to see some things when examining them closely, especially if the TV Filter in the options is set to max (which it is by default). This can make it tough to read notes that contain clues to puzzles, so it may have been better for the devs to set the default filter lower for the sake of readability.

Fear the Spotlight is a brilliant take on survival and psychological horror, instilling a real sense of vulnerability and dread in me — the developers took good lessons from classic titles and made something unique and fascinating. Players who love classic and retro-style survival horror absolutely must check this one out.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Cozy Game Pals and published by Blumhouse Games. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, XBO/S/X and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PS5. Approximately 5 hours was devoted to the game, and it was completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of T rating for Violence. There is no official description provided by the ESRB. However, the game has a monster that will violently toss the player if discovered. There are also themes of bullying found in discovered notes. Finally, the story focuses around unraveling the past of a major tragedy that killed a number of students prior to the events of the game. There is also evidence to suggest one of the characters was a pedophile who filmed and killed innocent students.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game offers subtitles. Subtitles can be resized. However, closed captioning for environmental and sound effects are not present. This game is not fully accessible.

Remarkable Controls: Yes, this game’s controls are remappable.

The post Fear the Spotlight Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Prosecutor’s Gambit had some great twists and turns…

LOW …but the first entry definitely didn’t have as many.

WTF Wow! The second title’s initial case sure feels timely!

Fans of the Ace Attorney series have been asking for ports of the back catalog, and Capcom has been listening. This time, the Investigations subseries is being given its time in the sun.

While the Ace Attorney titles typically focus on defense attorneys in courtroom-focused legal battles, the Investigations Collection puts players in the shoes — and the cravat — of Miles Edgeworth, one of series protagonist Phoenix Wright’s main prosecutorial rivals. Instead of going in front of a court of law, this 2D adventure title had me investigating crime scenes myself, gathering evidence, cross-examining witnesses, and figuring out how disparate pieces of complex puzzles fit together.

What’s great about this collection is that it has both games in the Investigations subseries — Miles Edgeworth and Prosecutor’s Gambit, the latter of which was never released outside of Japan. This makes this collection a must-have for fans of the Ace Attorney series. It also provides a unique perspective not often seen in the series, that of a prosecutor and a crime scene investigator.

This new formula makes for an interesting break from the rest of the series, which most often focuses on the courtroom. This time around, it was refreshing to be the one bringing a case to the court, rather than simply working with defendants. Each scenario also features new types of areas to explore outside the usual courtrooms, such as the inside of an airplane or even Miles’ office, which was very appreciated.

Each of the two titles in this collection has five scenarios, each consisting of (typically) three acts and an overarching plot that ties each investigation together. What’s nice about this collection is the ability to select not just which episode to start with, but also which chapter. This gives players the ability to jump in during a favorite scene without having to play the entire game or episode. There’s also a generous checkpoint system that allows one to reload without losing too much progress — great if someone bungles a clue or botches an examination.

As the entry that US players haven’t seen before, the second half of the collection expands the narrative of the first by providing additional background to Miles’s motives as a prosecutor, which make him more relatable. Also, since it’s set only a couple of weeks after the first title, it builds to create a bigger story for the attorney.

The gameplay is wonderful, as it allowed me to get into the head of a crime scene investigator. There were lots of things to look at in each area, such as items found in safes, objects hidden under chairs, and the like. Some clues, however, may not be relevant or — worse — red herrings to throw one off. Ace Attorney as a whole is a logic game of putting together individual pieces of a puzzle in order to bring the right people to justice.

For those looking for a more relaxed experience, a “story mode” is available and will automatically progress through each chapter, including answering questions and presenting the evidence for players. This comes with the trade-off that specific achievements are disabled. For newer players, this may be the preferred way to play, as cases can get fairly complex — even the first episodes of each title had some head scratchers.

Longtime fans will notice that the new hand-drawn art looks fantastic. Each character is rendered with an exceptional amount of care, often highly detailed. (There’s also an option for an old-school pixelated look, for anyone nostalgic for the Nintendo DS, where the series debuted.) Thanks to this high-quality work, these versions do look and feel like definitive versions.

I’d be remiss not to provide some objections to this collection, however. I found that Prosecutor’s Gambit was the stronger of the two in this collection because the pace of delivering information to players was much slower — an important aspect that the first didn’t nail. For example, the first case in Miles Edgeworth reveals who the murderer is during the first scene of the first case. It felt like I was reading a book’s last chapter, then going back to read the rest, and it’s not my preferred way to engage with crime content. Other cases which made me work to find out the truth were more enjoyable due to the thrill of the chase, false leads and finally nabbing the culprit. It’s the more exhilarating approach, if you ask me.

Another issue is that there are some confusing leaps in logic at times. During testimony phases, there were often obvious openings to make an accusation or to present a piece of evidence, but the game wanted something else to be said or done first. In one example, I was able to match a specific piece of evidence to an accused person, but the game wanted me to go through a different prescribed step first before it would allow me to move on, even though my hunch was correct.

Despite some small issues, the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection will be a wonderful experience for any Ace Attorney fan. It shines a much-needed light on the prosecutorial side of the courtroom, and leads players through the questions that have to be answered before a case can be brought to trial. Miles Edgeworth is also strong, holding his own as both a protagonist and Phoenix Wright’s rival, and I’d love to see him get a starring role more often!

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Capcom Co., Ltd. It is currently available on PC, PS4/5, XBO/S/X, and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher, and reviewed on PS5. Approximately 7 hours was devoted to the game, and it was not completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of T rating for Blood, Mild Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, and Mild Violence. The official rating states: “This is a collection of two mystery-text adventure games in which players help a prosecutor solve a series of murders. As players investigate crime scenes in detail, cutscenes briefly depict characters shot (off-camera) or held at gunpoint. Murder victims are depicted with bloodstained clothing and gunshot/knife wounds; some corpses are sometimes shown lying in pools of blood. One female character is depicted wearing a low-cut top that reveals deep cleavage. The word ‘bastard’ appears in the game.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game offers subtitles. (See examples above.) Subtitles cannot be resized. Since the text cannot be resized, and this title relies so heavily on reading, this may hinder a player who needs bigger text.

Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. There is no controller diagram. The game uses simplie one-button controls, as most of the experience revolves around dialogue. X is used to progress dialogue, L1 is used in specific sections to access clues and some profiles about the case, R1 is used to access information about evidence and actors in the case, Square is used to review the dialogue history, Triangle is used in some cases to deduce what clues meant, or to pin an accusation on a suspect.

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HIGH Easy-to-learn mechanics and beautiful pixel art.

LOW Progression isn’t interesting.

WTF Nobunaga being a heart in a trenchcoat.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com!

It feels like I hear about a new roguelike deckbuilder every day. It’s a popular genre in the indie sphere, which means finding quality titles among the mountain of releases can be daunting. Shogun Showdown, developed by Roboatino, is the next one to come down the pike and eager to stand above the rest.

Shogun Showdown is a 2D pixel-based, turn-based roguelike deckbuilder, with the ultimate goal of stopping an evil Shogun and the dark ritual they’re trying to complete.

Players move back and forth and attack using cards in their customizable deck to defeat waves of enemies and bosses. As players defeat foes, they’ll earn money to purchase upgrades and items like health potions, shield potions, or damage-causing items like poison vials that affect all enemies on the field. 

Attacks can come from either the left or the right, so players must be aware of incoming foes — it’s important to be aware of distances, direction and what attack they’re performing. Some cards offer strikes, like a sword swing or an arrow shot, but some are more focused on movement — with the right card, the character can dash across all open tiles, or use a grapple hook to pull the nearest enemy toward them.

All actions take a single turn — things like moving one space, turning around, priming an attack (more on this later) or executing an attack, and enemies will act at the same time. Luckily, players can see what enemies plan to do before they do it, so taking that information and planning appropriate actions is key. 

So as a concept, this all sounds great and I expected to love Shogun Showdown, but it just didn’t hit like I thought it would. The entire experience feels slow, and it largely has to do with how attacks work.

In a design that’s pretty different from most games of this type, Shogun Showdown asks players to prepare attacks before executing them. It’s the “priming an attack” that I mentioned a minute ago. This means that every attack ultimately takes two turns to happen in most cases, and that’s assuming the enemy is already in range and the player is facing the proper direction. If not, that takes even more time. To be fair, players can prepare multiple attacks to be used at once, but this still made the action slow to a crawl, even for a turn-based game. 

Another issue is that progression just didn’t feel satisfying.

As a roguelike, each run is unique but there’s an overall, persistent level of progression in the systems. One type is to upgrade shops with additional item slots so there are more choices each time the player visits. There are different kinds of shops and they all must be upgraded separately, even though it seems like they all stock the same few items.

Another kind of progression here is unlocking new cards for future runs. While some of the options feel unique, like the grapple hook that pulls enemies or the crossbow that takes a turn to reload, many of the additional choices amount to slightly different movements or effects that feel similar to cards I already have in my inventory. There just wasn’t enough to keep things feeling interesting and fresh on later runs. I didn’t have a lot to look forward to, and had little reason to deviate from earlier strategies that were proven successful.

My last hope was that unlocked characters would offer different strategies to keep me interested, but the ones I gained access to didn’t feel different enough, even though they are different. The Wanderer can switch places with the opponent, the Ronin can push an enemy across open tiles, and the Jujitsuka can throw an enemy from behind her into an enemy in front of her. Each one also starts with different cards, but they don’t have cards unique to them. Ultimately, there wasn’t much reward in finally getting someone new to play, only to find that each new face played similarly to the last.

It’s also worth noting that after defeating the Shogun once, additional difficulties unlock that give enemies more health and limit the resources earned in battle. However, this didn’t really make play feel different or more difficult — it just made it even slower.

On the plus side, I do have to note that the pixel art is well crafted. Each arena has a lot of visual depth to it, so each fight feels like a duel right out of a samurai movie and every scene was picturesque, whether I was clashing with enemies on a dock over a still lake in a moonlit harbor, or in a mountain temple where spilled blood mixed with falling snow. And, atmosphere aside, I do want to call out that all of Shogun Showdown‘s UI including cards, character models, cooldowns and health trackers, are all easily readable at a glance. Kudos for that.

While I appreciate that Shogun Showdown distills the roguelike experience down to its essence, the overall speed of play is too slow thanks to preparing attacks and dealing with facing during fights, and this pacing is a big problem for a roguelike since they’re built on frequent runs and repeat plays. Even so, there’s a lot to like here for fans of the theme, or for roguelike players wanting something a little different.

I’m guessing Shogun Showdown will be someone’s favorite roguelike this year, it just won’t be my favorite. 

For me: Shogun Showdown gets 7.5 pixelated blood flicks out of 10.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Roboatino and published by Goblinz Publishing and Gamera Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 7 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the multiple runs were completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Violence. Players will control a warrior and attack enemies with swords, arrows, kunai, and other weapons. There is pixelated blood when enemies or the player are killed. Some enemies will explode into fire, which can hit both the player and enemies.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles, but they are not resizable. Audio serves aesthetic purposes and is not needed for gameplay. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable controls: Controls are completely remappable.

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