October2023
Review Gordian Quest - An Engaging Deckbuilder, But A Poor Switch Port
Knot the best port
Gordian Quest, like many games of its ilk, is bogged down by dense, cumbersome menus and volumes of small text. But unlike a lot of other games in the strategy and deckbuilding genre, it's much easier to wrap your mind around and isn't mired in frustratingly long tutorials and steep learning curves. Weaving tabletop inspirations...
April2023
Review Afterimage - An Attractive, Sprawling Metroidvania That Struggles On Switch
Don't walk away, Renee
There’s nothing quite like a good Metroidvania. Dense labyrinths to traverse, many kinds of demons/undead/monsters to slay, new equipment to find, hazards to leap, and, most importantly, abilities to acquire that allow you to explore even more. We’ve gotten quite a few stellar genre entries in the last decade, but now we...
October2022
Chomping at the bit
The craze now coined as “bronyism” — a heavily documented My Little Pony fandom that took root in 2010 — turned out to be more about inclusion than it did the show (Friendship is Magic) itself. Despite our attempts to get into it based on recommendations, we found its adult appeal largely overvalued. It acted as a conduit...
August2021
Review Super Animal Royale (Switch) - Fortnite X Animal Crossing + Skunk Gas = What's Not To Like?
Mortal wombat
Super Animal Royale is an animal-based, free-to-play, 2D, top-down, 64-player, crossplay battle royale with premium cosmetics. That’s a lot of concepts piled up on top of each other – and it shows how our gaming vocabulary has expanded over the last decade or so. There are notions here that you would have had to explain in detail...
Review Rustler (Switch) - GTA Goes To The Ren Faire And Makes A Medieval Mess
Medieval times
Editor’s note: Having been informed of a launch day patch (not made known to us prior to publication of this review) that improves various performance and stability issues on Switch, a reviewer's note has been added to the end of the text below. Jutsu Games' Rustler attempts to take us back to the chaotic top-down craziness of...
July2021
Review Cris Tales (Switch) - A Gorgeous Indie JRPG That Does Just Enough To Stand Out
The time is now
Time travel has long been a concept that JRPGs have loved playing with. Titles like Chrono Trigger and Radiant Historia oriented their stories around time-hopping misadventures, while games like Bravely Default and Grandia have found fresh and interesting ways to involve time manipulation in the flow of combat. Cris Tales—the...
September2020
Mini Review Ary And The Secret Of Seasons - A Cut-Price Zelda With A Unique Mechanic
Not to be confused with Ori
Jumping into Ary and the Secret of Seasons – an action-adventure title – we’re immediately reminded of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. We’re introduced to our heroine Ary, who, by playing with her toy figures, recounts an ancient story of an evil mage vanquished by a legendary warrior. Before too long, Ary is...
August2020
Review Skully - More Than Bare-Bones, But Ugly As Sin On Switch
Rolling blunder
When it was originally announced, it was clear that Skully had the potential to be one of the top five greatest ‘reanimated rolling skull puzzle platformer’ games ever made. Sure enough, it manages to accomplish that (purely by existing, to be fair), but that’s not to say it isn’t without severe issues that will greatly...
November2019
Not a Jaeger bomb in sight
Override: Mech City Brawl is a game that will let you fulfil those desires of being a pilot in a Pacific Rim movie without the need to meld your mind with someone else’s. There’s something truly satisfying about crushing houses and skyscrapers as you fling grotesque monstrosities around San Francisco, or accidentally...
October2019
Review Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince - This Magical Series Is Back On Track
More than just a dream
It’s been rather fascinating to follow the development of the Trine series since its debut in 2009. The initial title was lauded for its fantastic puzzle design and aesthetics, which were honed and improved even further by the sequel that launched two years later. Things took a turn for the worse, however, when Frozenbyte...
