Does beauty alone justify a game? Can the novelty of swimming through majestic oceans teeming with life overcome an otherwise fairly by-the-numbers experience that never quite achieves the creative heights it so earnestly aspires to? I suppose that's down to the player, but as much as I wanted to love Abzû, the end result fell just short of brilliance. It's worth playing for the incredible presentation, but don't expect something profoundly new here.
This may be an entry in a highly specialized and generally unfriendly genre, but you'll be hard-pressed to find a better example of the type. Heartless, demanding, infuriating, yet seemingly boundless in the depth of its content and mechanics, the latest Shiren the Wanderer adventure wraps taxing game design in just-one-more replay appeal. Think of it as the Wolverine of console roguelikes: It's the best there is at what it does, and what it does isn't very nice.
Adventures of Mana kind of feels like watching a colorized version of It's a Wonderful Life — an entertaining work either way, but not actually improved by its "improvements."
Despite some combat balancing issues and some occasionally too-linear design, 7th Dragon III offers a top-class portable role-playing experience. Thankfully, you don't need to be familiar with the unlocalized earlier games in the series to grasp the story, and its wealth of customization options make for a fairly breezy RPG experience... at least until you get to those brutal True Dragon fights, anyway.
Planet Robobot does nothing to advance the state of the video game art, or even to reinvent the Kirby series. And that's fine. Sometimes you just need a straightforward, energetic, and above all fun game, and it's here where HAL delivers. Centered around a brilliant upgrade mechanic, bursting with lively graphics, and featuring dozens of thoughtfully designed stages, Kirby's latest is one of the most entertaining chapters to date of a long and storied franchise.
SEGA 3D Classics Collection a great effort in the annals of archiving game history, but it doesn't exist in a vacuum, and anyone who's already dropped $40-50 on the bulk of the games on this cart may not be so keen to spend another $30 on three titles of wildly varying quality. Still, Maze Walker may not be much fun, but it's never looked this nice. Of course, if you haven't already picked up these games individually, there's no question — this is a must-have compilation.
Not a game for everyone, but one that's better than you'd probably think.
While it's certainly nice to see Nintendo continuing to support the 3DS well into its dotage, the system's late-life Zeldas mostly serve to make me pine for whatever Nintendo has coming up next for its handheld hardware line. Hyrule Warriors could probably work quite well on a portable... just not this particular portable.
Despite the proliferation of games broadly inspired by Super Metroid in recent years, Shadow Complex remains quite distinct thanks to its integration of Gears of War-style cover shooting and loopy political plot. Playing it again evokes memories of similar games that have since followed, such as Castlevania: Mirror of Fate and Strider, none of which have done the 2.5D metroidvania thing nearly as well as Chair did back in 2009. The one letdown here is the questionable quality of the port, which sputters and skips much more than you'd expect for a last-gen game revamped for Xbox One.
Despite being built on the skeleton of previous Far Cry games — its map is literally an overlay of Far Cry 4's! — Primal manages to stand apart from other open-world sandbox action games through the sheer novelty of its primitive setting. Although the emphasis on bow hunting and woolly mammoths can give a bit of a Skyrim vibe, that quickly fades as you gain full mastery over the protagonist's ability to summon a variety of deadly beasts into combat. The writing fails to make its primitive heroes anything more than one-note lunks, but the primordial nature of the game world complements the action and ultimately makes up for the underwhelming story.
It's pretty rare to find a retro-style action game that manages to pose a challenge without being unreasonable about it. Ninja Senki pulls it off thanks to sharp level design and incredibly tight controls (water-skipping excepted). Sure, the game lacks the variety and depth of its inspiration, but when you need a break from Mega Man, you could do much worse than this sharp platformer.
Despite being built on the skeleton of previous Far Cry games — its map is literally an overlay of Far Cry 4's! — Primal manages to stand apart from other open-world sandbox action games through the sheer novelty of its primitive setting. Although the emphasis on bow hunting and woolly mammoths can give a bit of a Skyrim vibe, that quickly fades as you gain full mastery over the protagonist's ability to summon a variety of deadly beasts into combat. The writing fails to make its primitive heroes anything more than one-note lunks, but the primordial nature of the game world complements the action and ultimately makes up for the underwhelming story.
I can't believe how much I'm not enjoying Final Fantasy Explorers.
I love the fact that Gravity Rush exists. How rare is it these days to see a major publisher produce something so wholly original, so defiantly non-commercial? The game has its shortcomings, it's true, but they're the sort of things that sequels are made to iron out. While I'd prefer this remaster have taken a crack at shoring up the game's weaknesses, the technical improvements it brings more than justify its existence. If you've never played Gravity Rush, you need to play this remake... and if you have played it, this version offers an improved enough experience to justify a second visit to Hekseville.
I still have a ways to go before I'm ready to weigh in on this RPG, but my impressions so far suggest a game that may not be precisely essential but should nevertheless prove enjoyable enough to most RPG fans to warrant a play... even if you found Gates to Infinity as lacking as I did.
In a way, Rise of the Tomb Raider lives up to its name: You can see the classic Tomb Raider elements rising up through the clichés of modern-day third-person action games. The two facets of Rise's design never quite learn to live in harmony, but at least the elements that feel unique to the Lara Croft franchise appear far more prominent than in the 2013 game. There's far too much predictable, uninspired gunplay, but despite its mandatory nature it still comprises only a tiny portion of the overall game experience. Tomb Raider hasn't quite found its voice in modern gaming... but it's getting there.
LEGO Dimensions feels like the bare minimum required to qualify as a video game in this day and age—it's a shallow, repetitive experience that leans heavily on the appeal of LEGO toys and a dozen very expensive licenses... which probably explains why the $99 starter set only gives you access to a fraction of the total game content. There's nothing necessarily wrong with the toy expansion concept, but Dimensions' only advantage over its better-designed (and less expensive) competitors is the appeal of its license. Between its high cost, lowbrow design, and kid-addicting façade, Dimensions feels downright predatory. But the fanservice is great!
This fantastic sequence also underscores the reason this review isn't complete yet. Although I have an excellent grasp of both the strengths and weaknesses of Rise at this point, I need to see if that explosive, fiery battle is a sign of great things to come. TR13 became more and more bogged down with asinine GTEs and clichéd scripted action sequences as you approached the end, and Rise could very well end up going in that direction as well. I hope it doesn't, though. Tomb Raider may have been built on a foundation of borrowing ideas from other games and developers, but the series has long since established itself, and Rise proves it: It's great when it's brave enough to be itself, and not so great when it's trying to be some other game.
Disney Infinity suffers from some very short-term flaws (that interface, ugh!) and long-term challenges (the price of the game adds up quickly). If you're willing to grapple with those issues, however, you'll find an excellent, expansive, and remarkably well-crafted action game brimming with variety. Dabbling in nearly every genre imaginable in addition to its baseline sandbox mode, Infinity 3.0 has appeal for players both young and old—that is, whether you grew up with Luke Skywalker or just cut your teeth on Anakin and Ahsoka.
The resulting creation is the best Skylanders game to date, and a strong competitor to all those upstarts. Even the new Skylander characters, who initially seem a bit over-designed, grow on you after a few hours of play. If you're going to invest a ridiculous amount of cash into games that link up with collectible figurines, you could do a lot worse than Superchargers.