Timothy Nunes's Reviews
EA Sports College Football 2025 is the return of college football that sports gaming fans have been waiting for. There's enough here to keep the avid and dedicated fans around for a good while, with Dynasty Mode and Road to Glory taking center stage. Control over dynasty players, playing defense, and not fully showing what controls are bring down the experience quite a bit, especially in the beginning hours. EA Sports College Football 25 is not for everyone, but fans will get enough out of it to keep the franchise coming back around each year, hopefully with improvements.
Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn mixes up the action-RPG formula a little bit, allowing you to control and risk your currency to earn more. Combine that with a flashy, engaging combat system with a thoughtful difficulty adjustment system, and you have a recipe for a good time. Exploration tends to drag down the experience, with many side paths running far too long for what you find in them. Parrying also lacks the kind of refinement necessary to truly make combat shine. Aside from these balancing issues, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is still a solid Soulsborne affair worth checking out.
Scholar's Mate puts you in a cramped scenario filled with pursuit and hard escape room puzzles to solve. While this sounds good, this game may not be for everyone, Pacing can feel uneven, and the constant pursuit can be aggravating when trying to solve multiple puzzles. Still, there's something fun here for horror fans and puzzle lovers, especially since the game only asks for $12.99.
V Rising may not be your cup of tea, but it offers an intriguing combination of building mechanics and gameplay systems that truly reach their high potential when playing with other players. Without others, though, be prepared for a long, solitary grind to reach a portion of that potential.
Fans of the shooter genre will find a good time with Phantom Fury. While not perfect, slipping a bit with map design and pacing among some other smaller things, Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison's latest outing still hits more than it misses.
Morbid: Lords of Ire brings a couple unique things to the Soulsborne genre, like how to upgrade weapons and a simplified but enjoyable combat experience. While progression on all fronts lacks the polish needed to strengthen its case, Soulsborne fans should give it a try, especially at $30.
Fans of 2064: Read Only Memories already have this game purchased. For everyone else, Read Only Memories: Neurodiver is a fantastic slice of pixelated cyberpunk world building, characters, and storyline. Some control choices don't translate as well to controller as they could, but that doesn't stand in the way of the good time that Neurodiver offers.
2K comes out swinging with TopSpin 2K25, with this being the return to the popular tennis franchise. Presentation and gameplay meet the 2K Sports' standards that fans of the games come to expect, and TopSpin fans can feel comforted in the fact that the game still feels like it should. Controls ask you for more precision and discipline than the previous entries did, but this makes for a more satisfying experience once you nail down the control scheme. Some visual oddities, a rare gameplay simulation, and the lack of depth in setting customization ask you to forgive a few things along the way. Nonetheless, the experience far outshines any competition and leaves the door wide open for future success with a formidable foundation the franchise can firmly stand on.
Outcast: A New Beginning may not have a gameplay loop that interests everyone, considering its repetitious nature and somewhat dated shooting mechanics. With that said, the world and how you interact with it is enough for the right audience to dig into.
Reveil tells a great story through its dialogue and settings, but it misses the mark when it comes to horror. It may not scare you, but it still proves quite compelling.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth takes the foundations of Remake and expands on them, adding more control to combat, more places to explore, and more ways to dig deeper into the world and the story it tells. Whether in Graphics or Performance Mode, the quality of the experience remains the same: top tier presentation with exceptional gameplay. Rebirth is an early shoe-in for Game of the Year.
Cannibal Abduction provides two games that use good ideas to unfortunate effect. There is some fun to be had here, but the target audience is too specific to merit a recommendation. If you know you'll like it, you will. Otherwise, wait until a deep sale.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 3 is not a perfect game, marred by its pacing, spontaneous voiceovers, and heavy-handed use of anime tropes along the way. That aside, the additions of game speed increase on top of more strategic options in combat and intriguing characters make this entry of the franchise a rewarding one, presenting wonderful payoffs for those invested in the journey. Even still, newcomers receive enough organic context and subtext along the way to still feel fulfilled as the journey progresses. Few RPG franchises, especially ones this lengthy, can provide a starting point in the middle of the series, and Cold Steel 3 finds a way.
You can't go wrong with a game that channels the heart and soul of PS1 horror, and Alisa does just that. Certain oddities of the genre piggyback on the experience, but fans won't be deterred by that. The humor mixed with dread and unease make Alisa a great game to explore, even with its limitations and minor issues.
Trinity Fusion approaches the rogue-lite genre with accessibility in mind. While enemy variety is small, boss fights soon grow trivial, and it doesn't offer the same complex options as other entries, the true enjoyment comes in the combat itself. With ways to make this enjoyable gameplay easier or harder, this is the perfect game for newcomers and aficionados to try.
Laika Aged Through Blood takes some time to get used to but offers a unique combination of gameplay styles. Still, it's not without growing pains, like button combinations not being as intuitive or the pace taking some misteps. There's still some cool ideas here in terms of gameplay and narrative that should be checked out even if you're only a little curious.
Very little stands in the way of what makes Little Goody Two Shoes special. Apart from some pacing issues in important parts of the game, this RPG Maker title channels psychological horror wonderfully. Don't let the cutesy presentation fool you: There's something sinister laying in wait underneath it all, and it's a joy to play.
Crymachina has several good ideas that it begins to explore. However, the kind of output needed to make those ideas flourish did not happen. Instead, this is a gorgeous-looking game that leans too heavily in the wrong directions, leaving its more intriguing elements as accessories instead of features. There's a decent game here that plays well, but its middle-of-the-pack execution in a sea of action RPGs doesn't do the game any favors.
Caligula Effect 2 tries to mix up the RPG formula with combat previews and expanded social elements. However, much of those ideas get buried under their over complicated presentation and execution. There is something new here that RPG fans may be curious about, but not many others will take a chance on it.
Vlad Circus Descend Into Madness makes the puzzle genre worth playing through. It may not streamline anything the genre offers, but it does keep you motivated to move forward, thanks to its simplistic visual style and thoughtful writing.