It’s the cookie jar. I want to play and praise MultiVersus for everything it does right. But everything it does poorly, or even wrong in a sense, has me wanting to slap my own wrist. MultiVersus has even managed to bungle those aspects of the games-as-a-service model that players have largely come to accept. There has been some course-correcting since launch, but the fact that was even necessary only shows how some forces behind these kinds of games are always ready to push the boundaries on monetization. It feels wrong, ethically, to participate in, and especially to recommend this game to others. But at the same time, it’s so good! Not even in the skinner box kind of way; MultiVersus is a legitimately well-made and lovingly constructed platform fighter that celebrates cartoons and movies I enjoy in effective, gameplay-centric ways. Rick and Morty are there too, I guess.
Respawn’s Fallen Order sequel is a big, bombastic blockbuster but doesn’t forget what made the first one special
It isn’t the game it could be, or the game I see in my head when I think of its concept. But it’s an earnest, goofy, breezy, little multiplayer brawler I can enjoy with my wrestling fan friends without trying to make sure everyone understands the controls over on the simulation side.
I'm ragging on JackQuest a lot here, but to put it plainly, JackQuest doesn't make a great case for itself. It feels like an earnest project inspired by the titans before it, but it doesn't have nearly the same juice behind it.
I was really hopeful in the lead up to Jump Force, because I love most of these characters, and the set dressing for the concept is often very cool. The visual style was even something I thought I was getting used to as the character reveals rolled in. But once the game was in my hands, reality struck me like a Detroit Smash and what I had before me was a mess. Jump Force is ugly, janky, confusing, and far too simple. It does what other games have already done before, but with far less confidence or success. It tries to hide its misgivings behind cool special moves and motion blur, but fails at that too. It's a total swing and miss, but hopefully just a bump in the road for Shonen Jump games in the long run.
YIIK: A Postmodern RPG is plenty ambitious, with designs to be both as quirky as the charm-filled RPGs of the 90s, and serious with substantive, heady sci-fi concepts. It calls itself “postmodern” after all, evoking the likes of Vonnegut, Pynchon, or Burroughs. While I was on board at the title screen, it didn't take long for the disappointment to set in. There's an unearned self-confidence in the writing that is hampered by stilted dialogue and shallow characters, and the exact opposite in the gameplay, where YIIK feels afraid to actually be a 90s-style RPG. It's obtuse and poorly balanced, making each encounter a frustrating exercise in attrition. YIIK has big ideas but they rest on top of a shoddy foundation, one that crumbles the more you try to stay on top of it. I'd rather just play EarthBound again.
Ender Lilies was a home run with a compelling story, unique mechanics and a well-formed balance between challenge and progress. Redemption Reapers isn’t really more ambitious, but far more clumsy, managing to contradict itself so sharply it cleaves itself in half.
It’s too edgy and incomprehensible to be a good story, too blurry and noisy to look nice despite all the clear effort, and the combat system ultimately adds up to grinding and making your basic numbers go up. It’s a style over substance kind of situation, but without the style to actually pull that off.
Underwhelming content offerings and bizarrely imbalanced CPU players make single player a no-go. And without the variance or roster of its peers, multiplayer can’t carry all that weight.
There are bits and pieces that are cool or interesting, and others that are either duds or just too awkward to pass off as decent storytelling.
I don’t think it’s a total swing and a miss like Super Neptunia RPG was, but that may have made the experience more disappointing considering all the parts I liked.
Overall I’m coming away from Bleeding Edge pretty disappointed.
Despite its brazen disregard for social appearances, Our World is Ended lacks drive and confidence needed to help a weird story come together in the end.
If you're the kind of person who, in the current year of your video game lord 2018 still likes to chuckle at “Engrish” memes and has at least one Sharknado flick in your collection on purpose, boy do I have the game for you. Nippon Marathon is all about the bit, building the gameplay experience, seemingly, all around a tongue in cheek version of Japanese culture. There is a wacky, multiplayer racing game in there, but it feels more like a side effect of a notepad full of gags than a gaming experience that can entertain a group of friends long enough to make them briefly forget about Super Smash Bros., nor does the single-player experience do much after you understand what's happening in front of you. Perhaps the subjectivity of humor is the pass/fail condition for Nippon Marathon, but in a space full of wacky, physics-based multiplayer games, this one feels like it's too confused about what it is and who it's for to stand out.
With that, we're back where we started. VROOM KABOOM has big ideas, but I don't think it's a matter of execution. I think these ideas are just disparate enough that it makes putting them together naturally problematic. It's sort of like the opposite of peanut butter and chocolate. Putting a gun on a car is a pretty good idea, but trying to drive three cars while managing a card deck, paying attention to what the opponent is doing, and accomplishing objectives is just too much. I would happily play a Mad Max-inspired tower defense, or a competitive, on-rails car combat game, but both at the same time is not a great fit.
It feels like there were some very specific ideas the creators of Graven wanted to communicate. But while those ideas sometimes weave together with the game’s dark fantasy, old-school shooter style to form some immaculate vibes, that’s about as deep as it gets. The game seems confused about whether or not it wants to be an awesome action game, a thoughtful explorative puzzler, or some kind of mutant Soulslike gimmick. It sputters across the finish line not really achieving anything but a cool look, undermined constantly by boredom. It’s a shame, because Graven has a hell of a vibe. But there’s simply too much bonkin’ and not enough bangin’.
It helps that you can see what you're doing when you're driving around a desert.
It’s a massive swing and a big miss, with enough force to crack the sound barrier while the ball stays in the catcher’s mitt. It’s neither a cynical corporate cringe like Sharknado, nor is it a low-budget dud you’d expect to see a crew of robot puppets heckle. It’s weird, loud and uncanny. Frankly I’m surprised Christopher Walken didn’t show up.
Bayonetta 3 makes me question its existence at every turn. For as much fun as it can be in a classic Platinum Games character action sense, there’s so much bs you have to wade through to get there.
So that’s Monark, a game that really doesn’t do much for me. But at the same time it’s a fascinating game that wants to do things a little differently. You won’t play another JRPG operating like Monark anytime soon. Monark doesn’t hit the mark but it shows us there are folks in the industry taking these swings, even in historied spaces like JRPGs. And there’s a demo, so I sincerely reccommend giving that a whirl and seeing what you think.