Review by Matt S. PixelJunk Monsters was the best tower defence game ever developed. It was challenging (like the genre demands), but also beautiful, with a great sense of character and place. Distinctive and interesting thanks to its islander aesthetics, it wasn’t a game that was trying to tell a…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Imagine how you must have felt to be a Street Fighter fan and purchase Ultra Street Fighter 2: The Final Challenge when it launched last year on Nintendo Switch. In that game package you get a single version of Street Fighter 2, some unnecessary HD sprites,…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. Shio is perhaps the most fatalistic entry in the well-populated subgenre of punishingly difficult platformers. It’s a game which isn’t interested in celebrating the player’s achievement or relishing in the player’s chagrin. Instead, it propagates a quiet melancholy aesthetic in its design – dwelling upon the…
Read MoreReview by Harvard L. Yoku’s Island Express is a game which I could describe as “peak Metroidvania”, or maybe even “aggressively Metroidvania”. I feel a bit guilty making that joke since two-man team Villa Gorilla are developers with a lot of heart, and after a 5-year development cycle for Yoku…
Read MoreReview by Brad L. The second Legacy Collection contains Mega Man games 7 to 10. Of course, this is two less games than the first collection. However, the games were released on later hardware and contained more elements than the original six so there is still plenty to do in…
Read MoreReview by Brad L. Capcom have, in the past, seemingly ignored the rabid Mega Man fanbase, new releases, becoming stingy with the new games, cancelled others, and a reluctance to showcase the mascot in anything outside of minor nods to the games in other series. Recently though, we have seen…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Birthdays The Beginning was a delightful game for a number of reasons. Firstly, it had incredibly gorgeous art, with each of the game’s creatures being based on clay sculptures by one of Japan’s masters of the form. Secondly, it was so remarkably well intentioned; the game’s…
Read MoreReview by Trent P. Having released on the Nintendo 3DS eShop and mobile platforms, the Fairune series didn’t exactly wow players the first time around. In his review of the original, Matt criticised the simplistic linear experience, and we didn’t even look at the second. But the second is worthwhile,…
Read MoreReview by Matt S. Dark Souls: Remastered really, really needed to release at the same time on the Nintendo Switch. That’s where the novelty of the re-release was: for the first time we were going to be able to play Dark Souls on a handheld. That was a really exciting…
Read MoreReview by Ginny W. There’s a certain appeal to brutality from both an aesthetic and a mechanical perspective. Unforgiving yet pristine landscapes feature heavily in video games, like I Am Setsuna and Horizon: Zero Dawn. It’s not solely because of their deadly beauty. It’s more likely because of the psychological…
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